Pseudepigrapha Studies

Jubilees     Eschatological miscalculations in the Book of Jubilees

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

20 October 2011

           The Book of Jubilees is not part of the canon of God and rightly so. Without a long elaboration about the Book of Jubilees, we can only say that it appears by tradition to have been written around 150 BCE. It is a book knowledgeable of the concept of Jubilees in the biblical literature, like Leviticus 25, but it attempts to reconstruct and set a date for the coming of the Messiah and the beginning of a new era at the eschaton.

           Textcritically the Book is also complex. We will not touch on this sensitive but important issue. The issue is whether the concepts of the Book originated before the Christian period or during the Christian period. For now we shelve this question but it needs to be addressed.

           Eupolemos, a Jewish writer was part of a Jewish delegation in 161 BCE, after the Epiphanes events (mentioned in I and II Maccabees). Josephus criticizes Demetrius, Philo and Eupolemus "for their ignorance of Hebrew. This is evidently the oldest criticism of the dependence on the Septuagint text" (Ben Zion Wacholder, Eupolemus a study of Judaeo-Greek literature [Jerusalem: Hebrew Union College -Jewish Institute of Religion, 1974], 3). Eupolemus was dependent upon the works of Herodotus, Hecataeus of Abdera, Ctesius of Cnidus, Manetho the high priest of Heliopolis in 280 BCE, and a Phoenician Greek history (Wacholder 1974: 13). About the content of Eupolemus' works Wacholder said: "The imagination was given free rein in the haggadic portions. In general it would seem that Eupolemus mastery of Jewish lore differed little from that of the authors of the book of Jubilees, of the Genesis Apocryphon, or of the Biblical Antiquities falsely attributed to Philo" (ibid). Eupolemus wrote a history of the Bible but it was "essentially a 'new history'" (ibid, 246). "The additions to the Jewish historical traditions served to fuse biblical with Hellenistic historiography" (Wacholder 1974: 246). Eupolemus used "the Mosaic Books, Kings and Chronicles and the works of Herodotus and Ctesias to create a new history responsive to the needs of a generation that witnessed the war between the Hasideans and the Hellenizers" (Wacholder 1974: 246). He harmonized the Temple and the Tabernacle (Wacholder 1974: 249).

           It is at this point that we are equipped to enter into a discussion of the Book of Jubilees and its eschatology. Eupolemus was a can of worms when it comes to exact historiography of the Jews and no less the book of Jubilees as we will soon find out. These works could not be part of the Word of God since the Word of God corresponds to reality of history and is not build of fables and legends or approximations.

           The book of Jubilees chapter 50 is important for an understanding the eschatological dating of the Messiah. Chronomessianic texts are really Daniel 9:24-27 and the Book of Jubilees chapter 50.

           A book on Jubilees in Scripture and outside of scripture appeared by a Catholic scholar, John Sietze Bergsma, The Jubilee From Leviticus to Qumran. A History of Interpretation. VTSup 115. Leiden: Brill, 2007. There are no separate headings for two very important aspects to be investigated in the Book of Jubilees: the year-day principle and historicism as a prophetic interpretation tool. It is understandable since the catholic scholarship, just like much of modern Protestantism [after the disappointment of historicism's result in 1844] employs preterism as interpretation tool for prophecy.

           In favor of Historicism are certain realities that come from the text of the Book of Jubilees.

1. "For the author of Jubilees, the sabbath, which fell regularly on the seventh day of every week, was particularly important" (James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol. 2 [New York: Doubleday, 1985], 39).

2. "The author of Jubilees is an outspoken opponent of the lunar month, which alternated in length between months of twenty-nine and thirty days, because it resulted in a year of 354 days, ten days too few . . . . Therefore the calendar was divided into twelve non-lunar months of thirty days each for a total of 360 days."

3. The year-day principle was important for the author of Jubilees. The proof for the year-day principle is seen in Jubilees 50:4 where it states: "From the days of Adam until now, there are 49 jubilees, 1 week (of years, added by Wacholder), and 2 years (2410 also added by Wacholder), and there still are 40 years to know the commandments of God when they will cross into the land of Canaan, crossing the Jordan to the West" (Ben Zion Wacholder, "The Date of the Eschaton in the Book of Jubilees: A Commentary on Jub. 49:22-50:5, CD 1:1-10, and 16:2-3," Hebrew Union College Annual Volume 56 [1985]: 87-101). Notice that 49 jubilees are calculated as 49 x 49 = 2401. Then added to that is a week (wesabuah). At this point Wacholder correctly perceive that it should not be days but years and thus interpreted 1 day = 1 year thus 7 days = 7 years.

4. The interpretation tool that the author of the Book of Jubilees is using is historicism. He calculates his periods with the help of the expression of jubilees or 49 year eras, but in order to fit the number of jubilees in, he is using a history book which chronology is not the same as the biblical chronology. This is the bad part of the book of Jubilees. Let us look at one example of the misuse of extra-biblical chronology to explain concepts from the Bible. In Jubilees 50:4 it reads: "From the days of Adam until, now, there are 49 jubilees, 1 week (of years) and 2 years (2410) and there still are 40 years to know the commandments of God when they will cross into the land of Canaan, crossing the Jordan to the west".

           Let us provide the realism of biblical chronology. This is a very simple matter of common sense that needs no education. If the Book of Jubilees is unfamiliar with very clear expressions in the Bible about chronology, it is because it prefers to be differing. It used probably the chronology of Manetho or other others who tried to align with outside systems of reckoning. If we calculate realistically the date of the Exodus it is 1450 BCE and two years later was the commandments given in 1448 BCE. If we calculate 2410 years prior to that it will be in the time of Adam but not be anno mundi or at Creation. Dr. Daegeuk Nam has calculated the years between Creation and the Flood and those years are 1656. My own calculations of the Flood year from biblical records are presenting the date 2523 BCE. The interesting thing is that although we have Adam and the Exodus in correct positions, we cannot account for the text of the Book of Jubilees reading "until now" (ad hayom hazzeh, Jubilees 50:4). What does this expression mean? To stretch it to the days of Eupolemus and the role of the Moreh Tsedeq will even worsen the situation then Adam would be even later. The reason we suggest the time of Eupolemus or the possible origin date of the Book of Jubilees, is because another source that relied on the Book of Jubilees, the Damascus Document or CD 1:1-10 which states that there are 390 years to the time of the sprouting of the new plant, which is in realism 586 BCE - 390 = 196 BCE. However, this is our calculation and not necessarily the calculation of author of the Book of Jubilees. The same source is saying that between the entry into Canaan and the destruction of the First temple is 2000 years. This is a complete extra-biblical calculation. 1410-586 = 824 years is the biblical calculation. If the author is playing around with the entry of Abraham into Canaan in 2154 BCE according to realistic biblical counting, then 154 BCE is the date of the destruction of the "temple". It will have to be sybolic of something else than the temple of Solomon. Epiphanes has consecrated the temple in 167-164 BCE but this is 10 years later. If one considers the realistic 1410 BCE entry into Canaan as the kick-off date, then 1410 - 2000 years will bring us to 590 CE. This year in ecclessiastical history is important for historicists since a realistic historicistic interpretation of Daniel 7:25 has to bring the abomination of desolation since 538 CE to follow for 1260 years, also using the year-day principle. But, that this was the intent of the author of CD, is not to be proven and never was. There is the aspect of the structure of the systematic theology of the Book of Jubilees on eschatology. Commandments will be explained to be important, a Jordan crossing experience, a 40 year Torah instruction period by the Moreh Tsadek and the arrival then of the Messiah to inaugurate the new age, set up a new sanctuary and bringing the Sabbath for eternity in the way seen in Hebrew 4 which states that there is remaining a Sabbath for the people of God. It is based on the promise of God in Levicitus 25:1-2 where God said He will give a Sabbath after their entry into a land that He will give. There will be according to the Book of Jubilees a Sabbath reform movement before the Advent of the Messiah. Torah instruction will take place.

           This frame of thinking in the Book of Jubilees, is extrapolated or constructed together from Old Testament texts like the Elijah Message in Maleachi 3-4. Isaiah 61 is important and Christians are well aware of the inauguration of a new age with Christ as explained by Paul in Galatians 4:4, "the fullness of time".

           It appears that there were two calculation systems for the Advent of the Messiah. The one is the Hellenistic document, the Book of Jubilees, constructed with a fusion agenda to blend the Bible and Greek literature to appease not the Jews but the Greeks. The dates of the chronology are wrong and thus the calculations created a fever without a goal or specific date.

           The other calculation system is the one in Daniel 9:24-27 which is the exact one since it is the Word of God. From 457 BCE, the year to reconstruct, until 490 years (with a year-day principle just like the Book of Jubilees) the date came to 34 CE when Stephen was stoned. In the middle of the last week, thus 31 CE the Messiah would die and He started His ministry in 27 BCE at the beginning of the last week (seven years back from 34 CE). He came to the Jordan since the spirit of the symbolic Elijah person, John the Baptist was baptizing at the Jordan. He was preaching a Torah message of salvation. Law and grace was his message with an eye looking out for the Messiah to appear. The men from the East who came in 4 BCE to look for a prince being born did exactly the same calculations from the Word of God in Daniel 9:24-27 and that is why they were so correct, in my view. 

What the Book of Jubilees did wrong was to compromise truth. What it did right is to have a prophetic year of 360 days, of course it adjusted it practically to 364 days with one day between each season but not within the month. What it did right also is to work with a year-day principle for prophetic interpretation. It was also correct to work with historicism as model for prophetic interpretation but it was wrong to compromise biblical chronology for Hellenistic or other extra-biblical chronologies.

The Word of God are those books which harmonize and confirm the Canon, if not, they do not belong there