The Book of Jubilees and Early Jewish Mysticismcept sectarian provenance of Jubilees,^34 the two examples just noted serve to
highlight the distance between Jubilees and the yahad on precisely the point
most crucial to sectarian identity, the definition of the people of Israel.
Jubilees' insistence that all Jews are the earthly counterparts of the an
gels brings into relief an important difference between Jubilees and the other
texts of the early Jewish mystical tradition in the function of the heavenly
temple. There is no necessary tension between heavenly temple and earthly,
as can be seen in texts of the ancient Near East or the first temple period; in
deed, the heavenly temple understood as prototype of the earthly serves to
guarantee the status of the earthly temple. Yet the idea of a heavenly temple
is not prominent in literature of the first temple. In the period of the second
temple, however, the idea becomes more prominent and the heavenly temple
takes on a different role. Those dissatisfied with the Jerusalem temple saw
the heavenly temple in its perfection as a reproach to those responsible for
the corruption of the earthly. I do not believe that the heavenly temple of the
Book of the Watchers reflects rejection of the Jerusalem temple; indeed, it is
striking that the Book of the Watchers does not present the heavenly priest
hood as perfect in order to rebuke its earthly counterpart. Rather, it projects
the failings of some Jerusalem priests onto the angelic priesthood — but it is
important to note that in heaven as on earth not all priests have gone
astray.^35 The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, in contrast, was used by a com
munity that rejected the temple in Jerusalem; the recitation of its detailed
depiction of the heavenly temple and its elaborate liturgy must have served
at least in a very limited way as a substitute for the rejected temple. The heav
enly temple of the hekhalot texts seems unrelated to criticism of the earthly
temple, but since the texts were written centuries after the disappearance of
the earthly temple, this is not surprising.
In contrast, Jubilees, written at a time when many of the pious were
deeply dissatisfied with the Jerusalem temple, uses the heavenly temple nei
ther as a substitute for a rejected temple on earth nor as the ideal against
which to measure the earthly institution and the behavior of its priests. One
aspect of Jubilees' insistence that many of the laws of the Torah were in force
even before the Torah itself was given to Israel is its picture of the observance
of the Sabbath and the Feast of Weeks in heaven before they were observed
- Shemesh, "4Q265," where he considers the implications for sectarian authorship
of the time that would have had to elapse for Jubilees to achieve its authoritative status. - Himmelfarb, A Kingdom of Priests, 19-21. Nor do 1 believe that the Book of the
Watchers rejects or ignores the Torah of Moses (39-41).