John C. Endres, S.J.
cance of the very strict interpretations of certain halakoth most likely con
cerns issues that establish more secure foundations for Jewish identity.
Among the chief concerns today are the solar calendar, religious festivals (es
pecially Shavuoth), comparison of legal concerns here with other Jewish
groups or sects, including the writer of the Temple Scroll. In recent decades
considerable attention has focused on the apparent practice of rewriting
biblical texts, bringing new interpretations to the familiar and sacred story
of the people Israel. The world of the spirits, especially evil spirits, receives
much more attention in Jubilees than in several other Jewish works consid
ered contemporaneous with this book.
Although second temple and Qumran studies evince great interest in
messianic tendencies, including eschatology, in the various documents, the
eschatology of Jubilees has not been among the most studied items in re
search on Jubilees.^1 Often the discussion of Jubilees focuses on messianism,^2
or on the study of the one apocalypse in Jub 23. Gene Davenport's disserta
tion and subsequent monograph was devoted to this issue, i.e., Eschatology
of the Book of Jubilees;^3 but because his interpretation of eschatological pas
sages was tied to a redactional theory and a schema of historical develop
ment of the text that did not meet widespread reception, the issue of escha
tology, which motivated his study, has not received the kind of attention and
impact it deserves.
Scholars have long noted connections between this book, however, and
various tendencies and beliefs in the Qumran scrolls, which are frequently
linked with an array of eschatological tendencies. This congruence of theo
logical tendencies also must be considered along with the intriguing fact that
fourteen (or fifteen) manuscripts of Jubilees were discovered at Qumran.^4
I. Defining Eschatology
Varying definitions of eschatology render this discussion complex, since
agreement on its constituent elements and interpretation is seldom attained.
- J. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), comments: "To be sure, eschatology is not a
dominant concern in Jubilees, as it is in some of the Enoch literature" (132). - For example, J. Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel: From Its Beginning to the
Completion of the Mishnah, trans. W. F. Stinespring (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 302-9. - G. L. Davenport, The Eschatology of the Book of Jubilees, SPB (Leiden: Brill, 1971).
- VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 16.