Reconsidering Jubilees: Prophecy and Exemplarity
Hindy Najman
What is at stake in how we characterize the book of Jubilees? Perhaps most
importantly, we must be aware that the current generic labels for the book of
Jubilees all stake some claim about canon in the second century.^1 The impli
cations extend to seminal Qumran documents as well.
l. See recent discussion of genre distinctions by C. A. Newsom, "Spying Out the
Land: A Report from Genology," in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients: Essays Offered to
Honor Michael V. Fox on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. R. L. Troxel, K. G.
Friebel, and D. R. Magary (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 437-60. On rewritten Bi
ble as a genre, see P. S. Alexander, "Retelling the Old Testament," in It Is Written: Scripture
Citing Scripture; Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, SSF, ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M.
Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 99-121. For a history of scholar
ship on the issue, see M. J. Bernstein, '"Rewritten Bible': A Generic Category Which Has
Outlived Its Usefulness?" Text 22 (2005): 169-96. See also G. J. Brooke, "Rewritten Bible," in
EDSS, 777-80; S. D. Fraade, "Rewritten Bible and Rabbinic Midrash as Commentary," in
Current Trends in the Study of Midrash, ed. C. Bakhos (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 59-78;
B. Halpern-Amaru, Rewriting the Bible: Land and Covenant in Postbiblical Jewish Literature
(Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity, 1994); D. J. Harrington, "The Bible Rewritten (Narratives)," in
Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters, ed. R. A. Kraft and G. W. E. Nickelsburg (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1986), 239-47; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, "The Bible Rewritten and Expanded," in
Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. M. Stone (Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1984), 89-156; E. Tov, "Biblical Texts as Reworked in Some Qumran Manuscripts
with Special Attention to 4QRP and 4QparaGen-Exod," in The Community of the Renewed
I thank J. Collins, P. Franks, F. Garcia Martinez, E. Tigchelaar, R. A. Kraft, E. Mroczek, and
B. G. Wright III for their helpful conversations and generous comments. — HN