The Eschatology Of The Book Of Jubilees

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In spite of some scholars’ inclination to include the book of Jubilees as another witness to “Enochic Judaism,” the relationship of Jubilees to the apocalyptic writings and events surrounding the Maccabean revolt has never been adequately clarified. This book builds on scholarship on genre to establish a clear pattern among the ways Jubilees resembles and differs from other apocalypses. Jubilees matches the apocalypses of its day in overall structure and literary morphology. Jubilees also uses the literary genre to raise the issues typical of the apocalypses—including revelation, angels and demons, judgment, and eschatology—but rejects what the apocalypses typically say about those issues, subverting reader expectations with a corrected view. In addition to the main argument concerning Jubilees, this volume’s survey of what is fundamentally apocalyptic about apocalyptic literature advances the understanding of early Jewish apocalyptic literature and, in turn, of later apocalypses and comparable perspectives, including those of Paul and the Qumran sectarians.

The Book of Jubilees, an ancient text which details the history of the division of the Laws of Moses, is presented here complete. The text discusses the laws revealed to Moses and treats his character as a second creator of the world. Each chapter covers a range of history spanning 49 years, with Moses life story and other principal events told over a course of 2,410 years. Perhaps most importantly from a theological perspective, the book discusses the angels and how these entities formed a vital component of the Earth's creation. Enoch was taught by fallen angels; through them, he discovered writing and history. We also hear that early man was formed from a mating of Earthly humans and fallen angels, but that these hybrids were killed during the Great Flood. The status of the Book of Jubilees was not properly ascertained until the 20th century, with the famous discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Prior to this, the only manuscripts of Jubilees that were available date to the 15th/16th centuries in what is today Ethiopia, which left scholars unsure of its true origins. Modern scholars agree that the text dates to approximately 150 BC. Today, the text is mostly held as canonical in Ethiopia, while the Protestant and Catholic churches consider the work pseudepigrapha. Robert Henry Charles, the translator of this edition, was an Irish theologian and scholar who translated a range of Old Testament apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. Highly respected, he contributed entries pertaining to his field to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and spent his later years as the archdeacon of Westminster, London.

The Book of Jubilees, a Jewish retelling of Genesis and the first half of Exodus, was an important work for the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This Guide, following the format of this successful series, gives an introduction to Jubilees that covers its dating, its textual history and its purpose; a survey of its theological teachings and themes; and a section-by-section commentary that includes a comparison of its divergences from Genesis and the meaning and emphasis of each section. This volume, by the leading authority on Jubilees, provides the very best introduction for the student and scholar to one of the most important texts of Early Judaism.

The first part of this book is an extensive verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Jubilees. Kugel's stated aim is "to understand what the text is saying and why it is saying it," and in particular to explore the numerous bits of biblical interpretation found in Jubilees and their connection to other exegetical writings of the Second Temple period. Subsequent chapters focus on the possibility that Jubilees had more than one author, as well as on the book’s specific relationship to four other Second Temple texts: the Genesis Apocryphon, the Aramaic Levi Document, 4Q225 Pseudo-Jubilees, and the writings of Philo of Alexandria.

In Apocalyptic Thinking leading experts critically engage with John Collins’ seminal study The Apocalyptic Imagination and advance the debate on ancient Jewish apocalyptic with articles on current topics with a special focus on the Dead Sea Scrolls.