The Chronologies of the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Book of Jubileesthe apocalyptic section is the story of Abraham's death and burial in the
double cave of Machpelah (Jub 23:7), which was the only foothold the patri
archs had in the Promised Land (Gen 23:17-20).^20 Not only Sarah but also
Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah were buried there (Gen
49:29-32; 50:13). Although Jub 23 obviously presupposes the story of Abra
ham's purchase of the cave in Gen 23, the author evidently does not want to
emphasize that Abraham bought it from the Hittites, since that would un
dermine his thesis that the land belonged to Israel as an inheritance that was
subject to the law of jubilee on a grand scale. Jub 23 anticipates the time
when the Lord will expel his enemies from the land (v. 30), the ones who had
caused such chaos in Israel and sin against Jacob (v. 23). This is evidently a
thinly veiled allusion to conditions in the author's own time.
If the author of Jubilees believes that the original entrance into the
land corresponds chronologically to the eschatological entrance into the
land, then the timing of the first event at the jubilee of jubilees (2450 A.M.)
very likely corresponds to a fixed date in the future from the author's own
time.^21 We know from the Sin-Exile-Return pattern in chaps. 1 and 23 that
the author of Jubilees reckons with a period of exile, although its length is
nowhere explicitly given in the book. It could have been a known quantity
traditionally, such as the 70 "weeks" = 490 years = 10 jubilees in Dan 9:24.
Hence, by using a combination of evidence from the book itself (par
ticularly periodicity and symmetry) and from other sabbatical chronologies
(especially the Apocalypse of Weeks), I have attempted to deduce when the
author of Jubilees thought the restoration would begin. The Apocalypse of
Weeks mentions that at the conclusion of the sixth week (2940 A.M.) the
temple will be destroyed, and "the whole race of the chosen root will be dis
persed" (1 En 93:8). It seems quite possible that Jubilees accepts this date for
the exile, for when we postulate, in accordance with established tradition,
that the exile was to last 490 years, something very interesting occurs: 3430
A.M. is the beginning of the restoration (as in the Apocalypse of Weeks) and
the exact mirror of the jubilee of jubilees in 2450 A.M. across the axis of sym
metry (the exile in 2940 A.M.).
In other words, for Jubilees the period from the original entrance into- Even though the author of Jubilees regards the land as Israel's inherited right be
cause of the assignment of the land to Shem, he still thinks of it as the "promised land." Cf.
Jub 1:7, which refers to "the land which I promised by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." - If the original entrance into the land was to occur forty years after the revelation
to Moses on Mount Sinai, does the author of Jubilees assume that the eschatological restora
tion to the land was to occur forty years from the time of writing?