Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only surviving manuscripts of Jubilees were four complete Ge'ez texts dating to the 15th and 16th centuries, and several fragmentary quotations in Greek, mainly found in a work by Epiphanius, but also in others by Justin Martyr, Origen, Diodorus of Tarsus, Isidore of Alexandria, Isidore of Seville, Eutychius of Alexandria, John Malalas, George Syncellus, and Cedrenus. There is also a preserved fragment of a Latin translation of the Greek that contains about a quarter of the whole work. The Ethiopic texts, now numbering twenty-seven, are the primary basis for translations into English. Passages in the texts of Jubilees that are directly parallel to verses in Genesis do not directly reproduce either of the two surviving manuscript traditions; consequently, the lost Hebrew original is thought to have used an otherwise unrecorded text for Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus, one that was independent of either the Masoretic text or the Hebrew text that was the basis for the Septuagint. As the variation among parallel manuscript traditions that are exhibited by the Septuagint compared with the Masoretic text and which are embodied in the further variants among the Dead Sea Scrolls have demonstrated, even canonical Hebrew texts did not possess any single 'authorized' manuscript tradition, in the first centuries BC.
A further fragment in Syriac in the British Museum, titled Names of the wives of the patriarchs according to the Hebrew books called Jubilees suggests that there once existed a Syriac translation. How much is missing can be guessed from the Stichometry of Nicephorus, where 4300 stichoi or lines are attributed to The Book of Jubilees.
Between 1947 and 1956, approximately 15 Jubilees scrolls were found in five caves at Qumran, all written in Hebrew. The large quantity of manuscripts (more than for any biblical books except for Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Exodus, and Genesis, in descending order) indicates that Jubilees was widely used at Qumran. A comparison of the Qumran texts with the Ethiopic version, performed by James VanderKam, found that the Ethiopic was in most respects an accurate and literalistic translation.
The oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts of Jubilees can be assigned on the basis of the handwriting to c.100 BC, meaning that the book must have originated prior to this date. For the upper limit, James Vanderkam agrees with Robert Henry Charles in seeing in Jubilees cryptic references to the events described in 1 Maccabees, meaning that Jubilees could not have been written before the events of 1 Maccabees, and probably after 164 BC, as the author seems to be aware of the "Book of Dreams", an apocalyptic work composed after that year. General reference works such as the Oxford Annotated Bible and the Mercer Bible Dictionary therefore agree that the work can most probably be dated to 160–150 BC.
Charles proposed that the author was a Pharisee and that Jubilees was the product of the midrash which had already been at work in the Old Testament Chronicles. After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pharisaic hypothesis of the origin of the document has been almost completely abandoned. Jubilees also lacks Sadducaic and Essenic concern for cultic and ritual purity (concentrating on moral purity). Its hero Jacob is not a priest; it goes so far as to put Jacob into contact with his dead grandfather. The majority of scholars therefore locate Jubilees in the context of Jewish apocalypticism.
The Ethiopian Tewahedo Church accepts the account given in the book itself, of having been given to Moses atop Mt. Sinai.
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Date: 2011-03-31 02:27 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilees
Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only surviving manuscripts of Jubilees were four complete Ge'ez texts dating to the 15th and 16th centuries, and several fragmentary quotations in Greek, mainly found in a work by Epiphanius, but also in others by Justin Martyr, Origen, Diodorus of Tarsus, Isidore of Alexandria, Isidore of Seville, Eutychius of Alexandria, John Malalas, George Syncellus, and Cedrenus. There is also a preserved fragment of a Latin translation of the Greek that contains about a quarter of the whole work. The Ethiopic texts, now numbering twenty-seven, are the primary basis for translations into English. Passages in the texts of Jubilees that are directly parallel to verses in Genesis do not directly reproduce either of the two surviving manuscript traditions; consequently, the lost Hebrew original is thought to have used an otherwise unrecorded text for Genesis and the early chapters of Exodus, one that was independent of either the Masoretic text or the Hebrew text that was the basis for the Septuagint. As the variation among parallel manuscript traditions that are exhibited by the Septuagint compared with the Masoretic text and which are embodied in the further variants among the Dead Sea Scrolls have demonstrated, even canonical Hebrew texts did not possess any single 'authorized' manuscript tradition, in the first centuries BC.
A further fragment in Syriac in the British Museum, titled Names of the wives of the patriarchs according to the Hebrew books called Jubilees suggests that there once existed a Syriac translation. How much is missing can be guessed from the Stichometry of Nicephorus, where 4300 stichoi or lines are attributed to The Book of Jubilees.
Between 1947 and 1956, approximately 15 Jubilees scrolls were found in five caves at Qumran, all written in Hebrew. The large quantity of manuscripts (more than for any biblical books except for Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Exodus, and Genesis, in descending order) indicates that Jubilees was widely used at Qumran. A comparison of the Qumran texts with the Ethiopic version, performed by James VanderKam, found that the Ethiopic was in most respects an accurate and literalistic translation.
The oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts of Jubilees can be assigned on the basis of the handwriting to c.100 BC, meaning that the book must have originated prior to this date. For the upper limit, James Vanderkam agrees with Robert Henry Charles in seeing in Jubilees cryptic references to the events described in 1 Maccabees, meaning that Jubilees could not have been written before the events of 1 Maccabees, and probably after 164 BC, as the author seems to be aware of the "Book of Dreams", an apocalyptic work composed after that year. General reference works such as the Oxford Annotated Bible and the Mercer Bible Dictionary therefore agree that the work can most probably be dated to 160–150 BC.
Charles proposed that the author was a Pharisee and that Jubilees was the product of the midrash which had already been at work in the Old Testament Chronicles. After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pharisaic hypothesis of the origin of the document has been almost completely abandoned. Jubilees also lacks Sadducaic and Essenic concern for cultic and ritual purity (concentrating on moral purity). Its hero Jacob is not a priest; it goes so far as to put Jacob into contact with his dead grandfather. The majority of scholars therefore locate Jubilees in the context of Jewish apocalypticism.
The Ethiopian Tewahedo Church accepts the account given in the book itself, of having been given to Moses atop Mt. Sinai.