Dear Friends,

Just as we enjoy reading and interpreting the Bible today, the communities that sanctified it did so throughout history. I would now like to start a series of discussions about different forms of interpretation of the Bible, choosing key points, exegetes and interpretations for our discussions. Today I will begin with a representative of one ancient form of interpretation, that is – the re-telling of a biblical narrative. Re-telling both enables and requires the writer to introduce interpretations, new materials and expansions of the base-text. The book I have chosen to discuss is the Book of Jubilees, which was probably written during the second century BCE.

The Book of Jubilees contains a re-telling of the narrative of the Book of Genesis and part of the Book of Exodus. According to the book, it contains the message of a specific angel, called the Angel of Presence, מַלְאַך הַפָּנִים, “Mal’ax HaPanim”, who revealed the content of the heavenly tablets to Moses when he was at Mount Sinai, thus explaining the events that had occurred up to that point as well as God’s laws.

 
The book was written in Hebrew, and then translated into Greek. From the Greek it was translated into Latin and Geez (Ancient Ethiopic), and it exists today in its complete form only in Geez, since it became part of the Bible of the Ethiopian Church. It is one of the books of the Pseudepigrapha – extra-biblical books that were sanctified by certain Christian communities, but not by the Jewish tradition or by the main-stream Septuagint-based Christian tradition.
 

An example of Geez writing – a portion of the Book of Genesis in Geez

The re-telling of the formative narrative which is the basis for the formation of the Israelite people and their religious community, served the author as a chance to give his own ten cents about different issues. It enabled him to clarify different points which he may have thought were not properly understood by some readers of the Bible. For example, when Jacob steals Isaac’s blessing from Esau, we hear that Esau says to himself (literally: in his own heart), that he wishes for his father’s days to end, so that he will be able to take revenge on his brother (Genesis 27:41). Immediately after this, Rebecca is already sending Jacob off to Mesopotamia, because she has learned of Esau’s plans (vv. 42-43). How did Rebecca know? While the reader of the Book of Genesis might make an educated guess as to how she found out, the Book of Jubilees leaves no place for doubt: Rebecca had a revelation and that is how she found out (Jubilees 27:1). In addition, the author suggests more details about the origins of the dispute between the sons of Esau and Jacob (a dispute which was ever-present at the time the Book of Jubilees was written): while Esau had in fact forgiven Jacob for what had happened, as we learn from Genesis 33, his sons did not accept the fact that Jacob received the birthright of the firstborn and set out to fight the sons of Jacob (Jubilees 38).
 

One of the most important principals that the author of the Book of Jubilees introduces is that the Patriarchs obeyed all the laws of the Torah. While the Bible does not specify this, and one might assume that those who lived before the laws were given on Mount Sinai had no way of knowing and obeying them, the author of the Book of Jubilees repeatedly stresses that the Patriarchs did in fact know and obey these laws. For example, they celebrated the different festivals.
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the book is revealed by its name’ the Book of Jubilees or, in Hebrew, סֵפֶר הַיּוֹבְלִים, “Sefer HaYovlim”. The word Jubilee, יוֹבֵל, “Yovel”, means (in this context) 49 years. The book organizes all the described events chronologically, with a unique chronological system which divides the years into periods of 49 years, each of which is divided into seven seven-year time periods. Every event is dated precisely according to the Jubilee, the שָׁבוּעַ, “shavua”, literally “week” but in this case denoting the group of seven years to which it belongs, and the specific year among those seven during which it took place. Thus, at the beginning of Jubilees 17 we learn that Isaac was weaned in the forty first Jubilee, in the fifth “shavua”, in the first year.

As I mentioned, the Book of Jubilees was originally written in Hebrew. Fifteen fragments of this book were preserved in Hebrew among the Qumran scrolls. The Qumran community was at dispute with mainstream Judaism over many matters, one of which was the calendar they followed. While mainstream Judaism (at that time) followed a lunar calendar, the Qumran calendar was based on a 364 day solar year. The Book of Jubilees also follows a 364 day solar year, and this shows the close affinity between this composition and the Qumran community. However, there are also a number of ideological and interpretational differences between the two, and these must be taken into consideration as well.
 

Picture of a Qumran fragment

Have a great week!

Naama Baumgarten - Sharon
The Biblical Hebrew Online Team