Boid on the Book of Jubilees

I (and some others) think that what we have as the book of Jubilees is a Samaritan text superficially adapted for the use of the Hasmonaean dynasty. I can’t recommend that you use the Samaritan origin as a datum, because very little of the proof has been published. It would be legitimate to say that some evidence has been put forward, and to say what the consequences would be if the hypothesis were proven.

Here are some brief indications. (a) First, the harshly exclusivist tone certainly suits Hasmonaean policy, but is not determinative. At the date of composition of Jubilees, between 150 and 125 B.C., the Samaritans had the same preoccupations. This does not mean we can identify the Samaritan group or movement responsible for the book. Our sources are adequate for the first c. A.D., but before that much is still unclear. Remember that this was a period when Jews and therefore presumably Samaritans were using at least four different recensions of the Torah, with variant editions of each recension. There must have been lines of thought now undocumented. (b) The strongest general proof of a Samaritan origin is that once you account for the general tone, the evidence for the book being written by a Jew is reduced to a mention of the words “Jerusalem” and “Zion” at I:29, and a mention of “Zion” at VIII: 19. In both cases, the expression better fits a statement about Mt. Gerizim. What is said in the first passage is “till the new creation …. when the Sanctuary of God is created at Jerusalem etc.”. While it is true that this surprising verse could be an isolated witness to an otherwise unknown Jewish expectation, it does correspond closely to known Samaritan emphasis on the return or re-creation of the Tabernacle, in one variety of expectation or another. What is said in the second passage about the relative positions of Eden, Sinai, and Zion can only partly be explained by the guess that what is meant is that Sinai and Zion or on the same longitude. There is no satisfactory way of explaining the statement that Zion is lined up with Eden. It requires two guesses at least. The first is that the author located Eden at a place on the map. The second is that it was on the same latitude as Zion. Contrast with this the simple explanation that what is meant is the well documented line of thought that Eden is above Mt. Gerizim but on the level of the Moon (to use Hermetic terminology), and that on one level of existence the four great rivers from Eden flow out from under Mt. Gerizim. (Admittedly, this second statement has been applied to the location of the Jerusalem temple, but it remains true that the first won’t fit). (c) There are other passages that sound Samaritan. You doubtless know the statement in Genesis that Jacob buried the terafim, household images of deities used as legal proof of the right to inherit, and in this case of Leah and Rachel to inherit from their parents, near Shechem; and that Jewish polemic turned the statement that Jacob buried them into the implication that the Samaritans dug them up and worshipped them. What Jacob did was simply to dispose of the equivalent of obsolete legal documents. Jubilees makes clear that Jacob smashed the terafim and ground them to powder before burying them. (d) The location of Bethel is specified as being near a known mountain or between two mountains. Either way this means on the Balata Meadow, in accordance with Sakta’s opinion and the evidence of the sanctuary described at secondhand by Epiphanius. I can’t be more specific because I’m waiting to have access to the fragments of the Latin version, which will not be for another fortnight, so all I have is translations of the critical words, useful but not precise enough. [Explanation. The book was composed in Hebrew. Fragments of the Hebrew survive. It was translated into Greek. Fragments of the Greek survive. The Greek was translated into Ethiopic and Latin and probably Syriac. The Ethiopic survives in full because the Ethiopian Church still follows the early Christian Canon of the O.T., which includes Enoch and Jubilees. Extensive fragments of the Latin survive. In the verse in question, XXVII: 10, the critical phrase is in the Latin but not in the Ethiopic. I need to see exactly what preposition the Latin uses, and whether the mountain is defined by the demonstrative adjective which at this period was turning into the definite article]. (e) The structure of the book of Jubilees, a history and eschatology recited to Moses and by Moses just before his death in the form of an explanation of the implications of Deuteronomy XXXII, is a long version of the structure of the first piece of liturgy edited in the monograph mentioned earlier, A Pair of Ancient Samaritan Eschatologies. Admittedly, the Ascension of Moses or Testament of Moses, which is intermediate in length between the two, has a similar structure; but the Testament of Moses has Samaritan traits as well. (f) Samaritan eschatology always connects to Deuteronomy XXXII.