Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

James C. VanderKam

Jubilees was translated from Greek into Latin (one partially preserved

copy).

Jubilees was translated from Greek into Ethiopic (nearly thirty copies).

I. Hebrew
The earliest mention of a Hebrew form of the book of Jubilees is found in CD
16:2-4, an identification that I maintain despite Devorah Dimant's recent re­
jection of it.^2 The text, after mentioning the Torah of Moses in which every­
thing is precisely defined (plpTTB), refers the reader to another work for "the
interpretation of their times for the blindness of Israel regarding all these
things" and cites a title for it: DrmiVntmi Qn^aV^1? DTlJffi mp'pna nSO.
In it too the matter in question receives precise definition (pTpTTQ). The
reading of CD 16:2-4 is now documented in part by 4Q270 6 ii 17 and 4Q2714
ii 5.^3 A very similar wording of a title is found in three places at and near the
beginning of Jubilees.
Prologue: "These are the words regarding the divisions of the times of
the law and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of the weeks
of their jubilees"^4
1:4 "He related to him the divisions of all the times — both of the law
and of the testimony"

4Q2161.11: [nj-iin^5? D'npn] mpVnia

1:26 "... the divisions of time which are in the law and which are in the

testimony and in the weeks of their jubilees" (4Q216 4 4 preserves a

couple of letters from the expression; cf. also 4Q217 frg. 2 1)

The caves from Qumran have yielded a goodly number of copies of Ju­

bilees, all written in Hebrew, and coming from a range of dates. These are

the securely identified copies, their contents, and their suggested paleo-

graphical dates.

2. D. Dimant, "Two 'Scientific' Fictions: The So-called Book of Noah and the Alleged
   Quotation of Jubilees in CD 16:3-4," in Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, and the Septua-
   gint Presented to Eugene Ulrich, ed. P. Flint, E. Tov, and J. VanderKam, VTSup 101 (Leiden:
   Brill, 2006), 242-48.


3. J. Baumgarten, Qumran Cave4.XIII: The Damascus Document (4Q266-2Z1), DJD 18
   (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 156, 178.


4. Translations of Jubilees are from my The Book of Jubilees, 2 vols., CSCO 510-11,
   Scriptores Aethiopici 87-88 (Louvain: Peeters, 1989), vol. 2.