Gabriele Boccacciniwas. Jackson is correct when he maintains that recognizing the "nonsectar-
ian" or "presectarian" character of Jubilees does not mean to state that the
document was normative, widespread, common to all Jewish groups of the
time, or representative of the common Jewish heritage in second temple Ju
daism.^38 On the other hand, the popularity of Jubilees, far beyond the many
copies found at Qumran and vicinity, does prove that its legacy survived in
influential circles of second temple Judaism, not only in sectarian cliques.
Born to be a normative text, Jubilees did not gain universal recognition.
Used in sectarian milieus, Jubilees was not restricted to them. The alternative
is not between being "normative" and being "sectarian." Jubilees was nei
ther; it lived the glorious career of a "partisan" text.
Since the beginning of modern research on Jubilees, scholars have
tried to identify the "party" that produced and transmitted Jubilees. The
priestly character of the text made some of the earlier interpreters, such as
Rudolf Leszynsky and George Herbert Box, look at Jubilees as a Sadducean
text.^39 But the obvious priestly character of Jubilees does not necessarily in
dicate continuity with the Zadokite tradition, while the emphasis on the so
lar calendar and the particularities of Jubilees' halakah shows that the docu
ment was at odds with the ruling authorities of the Jerusalem temple.
As we have seen, Florentino Garcia Martinez (who wrote his article in
the early 1980s) stressed the similarities between the function of the heavenly
tablets in Jubilees and that of the oral Torah in rabbinic literature (Aboth 1:1)
and of the "teachings of the fathers" of the Pharisees (Josephus, Ant 13.297).
There was in fact a long tradition connecting Jubilees with the Pharisees, a
tradition that started with August Dillmann, the father of modern research
on the document, and was consolidated by the two most distinguished inter
preters and translators of Jubilees of the early twentieth century, Francois
Martin and Robert Henry Charles.^40 The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls
made it apparent that the written tradition of Jubilees contained halakah
that in no way was compatible with that of the Pharisees.^41 But for some
- Jackson, Enochic Judaism, 2-13.
- R. Leszynsky, Die Sadduzaer (Berlin: Mayer & Miiller, 1912), 179-236; G. H. Box,
"Introduction to the Book of Jubilees," in R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or the Little
Genesis (London: SPCK, 1917), vii-xxxiii. - Charles, APOT, 2:1-82; F. Martin, "Le Livre des Jubiles. But et procedes de l'auteur.
Ses doctrines," RB 8 (1911): 321-44, 502-33; A. Dillmann and H. Ronsch, Das Buch der Jubilaen
(Leipzig: Fues, 1874). - E. Rivkin, "The Book of Jubilees: An Anti-Pharisaic Pseudepigraph," Erlsr 16
(1982): 193-98-