Benjamin G. Wright III
II. "Therefore It Is Commanded in the Heavenly Tablets"
(Jubilees 3:31)
In thinking about the relationship between Jubilees and Jewish wisdom, I
have found the work of Hindy Najman productive. She begins her article
"Interpretation as Primordial Writing: Jubilees and Its Authority Con
ferring Strategies" with the following observation: "Writings from the Sec
ond Temple period consistently invoked the Torah of Moses as authorita
tive sacred writing. Although the tradition was shared, attempts to make
Scripture relevant and accessible generated diverse views about how to in
terpret and apply this authoritative writing. As a result distinctive inter
pretations and practices emerged. It became essential that writers justify
their interpretations."^9 Jubilees, along with several other second temple
works, pursued a strategy that created "an authorizing link to the already
accepted Torah of Moses."^10 Jubilees' author presents the work as revela
tion given to Moses from the heavenly tablets, from which also the Torah
of Moses derived. Thus, Jubilees combines claims to the authority of its in
terpretations with its self-presentation as sacred writing whose ultimate
origins lie in the same place as the Torah of Moses — the heavenly tablets
from which the angel of the presence dictates to Moses. For Najman, Jubi
lees' author develops four primary strategies for conferring authority on
his work. Two of these are of interest here: (1) "Jubilees repeatedly claims
that it reproduces material that had been written down long before on the
'heavenly tablets,' a great corpus of divine teachings kept in heaven"; and
(2) "The entire content of the book of Jubilees was dictated by the angel of
the presence at God's own command. Hence it is itself the product of di
vine revelation."^11
Although scholars often make much of genre in second temple liter
ature, I am struck by the way different kinds of texts resort to similar
mechanisms for resolving common difficulties. For my purposes, I want to
look at how Ben Sira approaches the problem of authorizing his interpre
tations of Torah, since I think his solution compares with that of Jubilees.
Even though he regards the Torah of Moses as sacred and authoritative,
- Hindy Najman, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing: Jubilees and Its Authority
Conferring Strategies," /S/30 (1999): 379-410 (here 379). - Najman, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing," 379. See also, Najman, Seconding
Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism, JSJSup 77 (Leiden and
Boston: Brill, 2003). - Najman, "Interpretation as Primordial Writing," 380.