Book of jubilees kjv

Months, 8 of 30 days and 4 of 31 days, and an ecclesiastical year of 13 months of 28 days each, so as to make all festivals, except the Day of Atonement, fall on Sunday, and make the Feast of Weeks fall on the 15th of Siwan (Book of Jubilees, i. 1, 26; vi. 22 et seq., 38; xlix. 14; see Epstein in "R. E J." xxii. 10 et seq.; Charles, "The Book of Jubilees," pp. 55 et seq.). His leading idea seems to be that the divine plan of the Messianic kingdom rests upon the exact calculation of the week, the common year, and the "Jubilee" year (i.e., the last year of a cycle of 7 X 7, or 49 years), each being based upon the sacred number seven, and the entire history of Israel and the world being divided into "jubilee" periods (see vi. 35; comp. Lev. xxvi. 34-43 and Targ. Yer. ad loc.; 'Ar. 10b; Seder 'Olam R. xi.; Assumptio Mosis, i. 2; "Samaritan Chronicle," in "Journal Asiatique," 1869, pp. 421 et seq.). As in the Book of Enoch (xlvii. 3, lxxxi. 1, ciii. 2) and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Levi, 5; Asher, ii. 5), every event, every statute of the Law, and every custom is, for the author, written down on the tablets of heaven (Jubilees, iii. 10, 31; vi. 17; xxiii. 32; xxviii. 6; xxx. 9; et al.); thus social custom and human destiny are alike determined by God's decree. Josephus, "Ant." xiii. 5, § 9, calls this Ἑμαρμένη.Character and Object.The Book of Jubilees, presenting itself as "the history of the division of the days of the Law, of the events of the years, the year-weeks, and the jubilees of the world" (i. 1, 26, 29; l. 13), claims to be a revelation of God to Moses, given through the Angel of the Presence (i. 27-29 [probably Michael]) in addition to the written Law received by Moses on Mount Sinai (Ex. xxiv. 12); and, while the written Law was to be imparted to all, this was to be the "Cabala," the secret tradition entrusted only to the saints of each generation, to Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, and Shem (ch. vii. 38, x. 14, xxi. 10), then to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Levi, and finally to the priests and scribes of the latter times (ch. xii. 27, xxi. 10, xxv. 7, xxxix. 6, xlv. 16).Obviously, the chief object of the work is to exalt the Law (and Hasidæan practise) as divinely ordained and fixed from eternity, to extol the institutions of the Sabbath and circumcision as heavenly signs distinguishing Israel from the rest of the nations, and, finally, to draw the sharpest possible lines of demarcation between Israel and the Gentiles—in striking contrast to the practise of the Hellenist party. As does the Book of Chronicles regarding the kings of Judah, the Book of Jubilees omits every Biblical narrative which suggests any blemish in the Patriarchs (see Charles, l.c. Introduction, p. xlviii.), and transfers to

JUBILEES, BOOK OF (Τὰ Ἰωβηλαῖα; known also as Little Genesis [ᾙ Κλεινὴ Γένεσις = "Bereshit Zuṭa"]; Apocalypse of Moses; Life of Adam): By: Crawford Howell Toy, Kaufmann Kohler Table of Contents Chronological System of Jubilees.Character and Object.The Twenty-two Works of Creation.The Noachian Laws.Hebrew the Language of Heaven.The Festive Seasons of the Year.Feast of Weeks.Tabernacles and Atonement.The Date of the Book. Midrashic commentary on the Book of Genesis and on part of the Book of Exodus, in the form of an apocalypse, containing the views, legends, and religious practises of the most rigid Pharisaic (or Hasidæan) school of the time of John Hyrcanus, in whose reign it was written, between 135 and 105 B.C. Originally composed in Hebrew, the book was translated into Greek (in which form it was known to the Church Fathers down to the sixth century), and from Greek into Latin and Ethiopic. The Latin version, published first by Ceriani (in "Monumenta Sacra et Profana," Fasc. I., 1861), later by Rönsch ("Das Buch der Jubiläen Unter Beifügung der Lateinischen Fragmente," 1874), is incomplete. The Ethiopic version was published by Dillmann in 1859; it was translated into German by him in Ewald's "Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft," 1850-51, and then by Littmann in Kautzsch's "Apocryphen und Pseudepigraphen," ii. 1900; the Ethiopic text was published in revised form by Charles in 1895, and was translated by him into English in the "Jewish Quarterly Review," 1893-95; in 1902 it appeared separately in an edition rendered valuable by extensive notes. Epstein is inclined to believe ("R. E. J." xxi. 80 et seq., xxii. 1 et seq.) that though the work was scarcely known in Talmudic times, many haggadot peculiar to the Book of Jubilees found their echo in Midrash Tadshe and Pirḳe R. Eli'ezer. Possibly Jellinek is nearer the truth in claiming an Essene origin for the book ("B. H." iii. 9 et seq.); whereas Beer ("Das Buch der Jubiläen und Sein Verhältniss zu den Midraschim," 1856; "Noch ein Wort über das Buch der Jubiläen," 1857), with arguments that are extensive and erudite but not convincing, ascribes it to a Samaritan author. Singer ("Das Buch der Jubiläen oder die Leptogenesis," 1898), following a few suggestions of Rönsch, endeavors to prove that the book was written by a Judæo-Christian, a contemporary of Paul, for the purpose of discrediting the latter's doctrine of the abrogation of the Law. Charles, however, in the notes to his translation, has established beyond doubt the origin and character of the work, and, therefore, his views are, in the main, here followed.Chronological System of Jubilees.The author of the Book of Jubilees rewrote the history of the Protoplasts, of the Patriarchs, and of the Exodus with the view of inculcating certain principles that found no acceptance afterward in the rabbinical schools; foremost among these are the rules concerning the regulation of the calendar and the festivals. In place of the intercalated calendar, which he condemns in the strongest terms, he proposes a solar calendar consisting of a civil year of 12

At times, alterations of the Biblical history, as in the narrative of the war with the Shechemites (ch. xxx.) and the attachment of the death-penalty to infringements of Sabbatical laws, conform to the halakah of the austere Ḥasidim, and are explicable only upon the assumption that they emanated not from the late rabbinical schools, but from the leaders of the ancient Pharisees or Scribes.Especially noteworthy in this connection is the reservation of the lofty position of high priest and ruler to the tribe of Levi, in reward for its destruction of Shechem (ch. xxx. 14-17, xxxii. 1-3). The Levites are represented as the keepers of the sacred books, and of the secret lore entrusted to them by the saints from of yore (ch. xlv. 16; comp. x. 4). This indicates that the priests and Levites still included among themselves, as in the days of the author of the Book of Chronicles, the men of learning, the masters of the schools, and that these positions were not filled by men from among the people, as was the case in the time of Shammai and Hillel. Nor is the fact to be overlooked that the calendric system proposed by the author of the Book of Jubilees (comp. Enoch, lxxii.-lxxxii.) suggests a time when the calendar and the entire religious life of the Jews was as yet in an unsettled condition, and not fixed by rabbinical authorities.Bibliography: Charles, The Book of Jubilees, London, 1902 (where the entire literature is given); Littmann, Das Buch der Jubiläen, in Kautzsch, Apokryphen; Schürer, Gesch. 3d ed., iii. 274.T. K.