Gabriele Boccaccinithe sectarian documents of Qumran. The latter look clearly more "Mosaic"
than Enochic, even though "there is no doubt that the Enochic writings
helped shape the worldview of that sect" (*33).
Since its scholarly revival in the mid-nineteenth century when August
Dillmann published the first modern translation in German and the first
critical edition of the Ethiopic text (Dillmann 1851,1859), the emphasis given
to its Mosaic or Enochic elements led scholars to assign Jubilees either to the
Pharisees (Ronsch 1871; Charles 1899) or to the Essenes (Jellinek 1855) or to
Enoch circles (Albeck 1930). The discovery and publication, in the mid-
nineteenth century, of the Hebrew fragments at Qumran settled the ques
tion of the original language of the document and made much more likely
the association of Jubilees with the Essenes and their calendar (Jaubert 1953,
1957), but did not solve the mystery of the origin of the document. The un
derstanding was that Jubilees testified to an early stage in the history of the
Essene movement (Testuz i960) and represented an early example of rewrit
ten Bible (Vermes 1961).
The contemporary study of Jubilees began in the late 1970s with the
studies of James VanderKam, who, while confirming the association of the
document with the Essenes, began exploring its relation with the Enoch lit
erature (VanderKam 1977, 1978). The contribution of the Groningen Hy
pothesis and the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis further complicated the pic
ture as they challenged the identification between Qumran and the rest of
the Essene movement and suggested a closer relation of Jubilees with non-
Qumran Essenes (Boccaccini 2005). If Enochic Judaism was "the parent of
the Essene movement and the grandparent of the Qumran Community,"
then the presectarian book of Jubilees should be seen as evidence of the
transition between Enoch and Qumran.
At Camaldoli 2007 at least four tendencies emerged. Some claimed
that Jubilees was a direct product of Enochic Judaism with some Mosaic in
fluence — Mosaic features were simply subordinated to Enoch ideology.
Some suggested that Jubilees was a conscious synthesis of Enochic and Mo
saic tradition, yet remaining autonomous from both. Some asserted that Ju
bilees was essentially a Mosaic text with some Enochic influence — in the
confrontation it was Moses who prevailed. Finally, some questioned the very
existence of a gulf between Enochic and Mosaic traditions as competing
forms of Judaism at the time of Jubilees.
In the best tradition of the Enoch Seminars, no attempt was made to
reach any agreement or compromise; the goal was to let any voice be heard
and carefully considered in an open forum context. Hence, readers should
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