The Book of Jubilees and the Temple ScrollZadokite/Sadducean variety into the patriarchal narratives. In this sense, the
text often follows legal views similar to those of the Temple Scroll, an issue to
which we will return below.
The Theory of Revelation
Both Jubilees and the Temple Scroll have in common the general fact that
they are essentially divine pseudepigraphy.^25 Both books provide an oppor
tunity for the author to put his views into the mouth of God, effectively in
serting them into his rewrite of the divine revelation embodied in the origi
nal Torah. Both authors claim that the content of the new, expanded Torah
text represents a true sense of the meaning of God's initial revelation.^26
Here, however, the similarity ends. Each author develops a unique theory of
revelation in order to sanctify and canonize his own added "Torah."
Jubilees contains an introductory chapter that seeks to solve a well-
known problem in biblical exegesis, the fact that Genesis and the first part of
Exodus are composed as a story that is not framed with indications of divine
or Mosaic authority.^27 The rest of the canonical Torah is regularly labeled as
God's words to Moses or Moses' own words (Deuteronomy). Often com
mands appear as first-person divine speech. However, the patriarchal and
Exodus narratives are exceptions. Hence, Jubilees includes a prologue de
claring that God revealed the Genesis stories, here in their expanded form, to
Moses on Sinai. Even if one argues that the prologue is not original, this is
the clear implication of the entire first chapter. In this chapter Moses is bid
den to write all God's revelation into a book (w. 1-7 and 26). Clearly, this in
cludes a rewritten Genesis-Exodus narrative. Then the "Angel of the Pres
ence" is commanded by God to dictate to Moses from the heavenly tablets
what appears to be the author's expanded Genesis-Exodus. Then the angel
takes this text and, in the beginning of chap. 2, commands Moses according
- L. H. Schiffman, "The Temple Scroll and the Halakhic Pseudepigrapha of the Sec
ond Temple Period," and M. J. Bernstein, "Pseudepigraphy in the Qumran Scrolls: Catego
ries and Functions," both in Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigra
pha in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. E. G. Chazon and M. Stone, with A. Pinnick, STDJ
31 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 121-31 and 1-26, respectively. - J. C. VanderKam, "The Angel of the Presence in the Book of Jubilees," DSD 7
(2000): 378-93. - Cf. M. Nahmanides, Perush ha-Ramban 'al ha-Torah, ed. C. B. Chavel (Jerusalem:
Mossad Harav Kook, 1958/59), 1:1-3.