Michael Segal
In recent decades some scholars have identified a few short passages in
Jubilees that stand in tension with or even contradict other verses in Jubilees.
These passages relate either to chronological details (Devorah Dimant — re
garding 4:21) or halakic positions (Menahem Kister — regarding chaps. 7
and 32; Liora Ravid — regarding 50:6-13).^5 While their discussions were lim
ited to individual passages, both Dimant and Kister suggested that these dis
crepancies are the result of the combination of traditions from different
sources in the compositional process of Jubilees. The contradictions be
tween them can thus be traced to their different provenance. In my recently
published book, I have proposed and attempted to demonstrate that Jubilees
is indeed the product of a process of literary development, but based upon a
very different model than that previously suggested by Wiesenberg or Dav
enport.^6 In this paper I will attempt to briefly summarize my arguments and
theory presented in that analysis.^7
I. Chronological and Halakic Redaction
The two most prominent characteristics of Jubilees are: (1) the chronological
framework by which all events in the patriarchal period are dated, and
(2) the addition of legal passages to the rewritten narratives throughout the
book. While there are other notable features, such as a developed angelology
and the possible priestly provenance of the book, these latter areas are not
unique to Jubilees. The two former characteristics are the two primary as
pects emphasized in Jubilees' self-designation throughout chap. 1, "the Book
of the Divisions of the Time of the Torah and the Te'udah!'s
- D. Dimant, "The Biography of Enoch and the Books of Enoch," VT33 (1983): 14-29
(here 21, esp. n. 17); M. Kister, "Some Aspects of Qumranic Halakhah," in The Madrid
Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid,
18-21 March, 1991, ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner, 2 vols., STDJ 11 (Leiden:
Brill, 1992), 571-88; L. Ravid, "The Relationship of the Sabbath Laws in Jubilees 50:6-13 to the
Rest of the Book" (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 69 (2000): 161-66. - M. Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology, and Theology
(Leiden: Brill, 2007). - Each of the examples mentioned here, and summarized in a few paragraphs, is
given much more extensive treatment in that study. - It is beyond the scope of this discussion to analyze the meaning of the term
te'udah; in Segal, The Book of Jubilees, chap. 14, 1 suggest that this term should be understood
as "covenant." Whether or not this interpretation is accepted, the legal context of the term
"Torah" is undisputed.