Lawrence H. Schiffman
to God's instruction to write the story of creation and the account of the
Sabbath, presumably in the expanded version. Then the narrative proceeds
as if it were the text that the angel commanded Moses to write, with occa
sional insertion of comments by the angel. The angel's dictation to Moses re
appears throughout to emphasize central commandments.
We therefore have the following process of revelation claimed for the
book: (1) God revealed it to Moses at Sinai; (2) God commanded Moses to
write it in a book; (3) God accomplished this by ordering the Angel of Pres
ence to dictate the book to Moses from the tablets; (4) the angel dictated the
book. Jubilees strongly argues that the revelation came through Moses, who
serves as an intermediary between God and Israel. However, the text goes
even further. In accord with some Hellenistic approaches,^28 the text inserts
another intermediary between God and Moses, apparently to avoid anthro
pomorphism. Hence, revelation here goes from God to the Angel of Pres
ence, then to Moses and to Israel. All revelation takes place at Sinai, includ
ing what is in the canonical book and what is added, but here immediacy is
the name of the game. Further, the author seems to distinguish the canonical
Torah from his additional material, although this depends on how you inter
pret the difficult terms torah, te'udah, and mitzvah (Jub 2:22-24).^29
This complex revelatory dynamic must be sharply contrasted with the
Temple Scroll. In the Temple Scroll, the guiding principle of the author was
to recast the sections of the Torah where Moses appears into divine first-
person discourse.^30 This is especially clear in the way Moses has been elimi
nated even from Deuteronomy, where he appears as the speaker/author in
the canonical version. The author of the Temple Scroll wants to solve the
question of why, if Deuteronomy is divine revelation, it appears as a direct
speech of Moses. He solves the problem by eliminating its immediacy
wholesale. God speaks directly to Israel. Only once does the author err and
refer to "your brother," as if he were speaking to Moses and referring to
Aaron (nQTa 44:5). The theological implication of the removal of Moses is
clear. The author/redactor views his text's scriptural interpretation and law
as a direct revelation of God to the children of Israel at Sinai with no inter-
- See R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (Jerusalem: Makor,
1961/62), 8 to verse 27. - These terms are found in the Hebrew text of 4Q216 VIII 13-17 (Milik and
VanderKam, in DJD 13:19-20). - Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 1:71-73; B. A. Levine, "The Temple Scroll: Aspects of Its
Historical Provenance and Literary Character," BASOR 232 (1978): 5-23, and Yadin's response
in The Temple Scroll, 1:406-7.