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Calendar and Dates in Jubilees’ Garden of Eden Story
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 August 2021
Abstract
Calendar dates in Jubilees’ Garden of Eden story have led some to question the nature of the book’s presupposed calendar and others to conclude that the passage is redacted. Close reading of the text shows that the passage was carefully constructed and the work of one author who took pains not to jeopardize the calendar promoted elsewhere in the book. Confusion arises when scholars subordinate the calendar to the book’s chronological system; they should be kept distinct. The author uses the recurrence of calendar dates to connect events to each other typologically and to an underlying narrative pattern, which, like the calendar, is founded on the annual cycle of agricultural labor.
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- © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the President and Fellows of Harvard College
References
1 See Annie Jaubert, “Le calendrier des Jubilés et de la secte de Qumrân. Ses origines bibliques,” VT 3 (1953) 250–54; cf. D. Barthélemy, “Notes en marge de publications récentes sur les manuscrits de Qumrân,”RB 59 (1952) 199–203.
2 James C. VanderKam, Jubilees 1: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 1–21 (ed. Sidney White Crawford; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018) 44–47; on the Qumran calendar texts, see idem, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (London: Routledge, 1998) 71–90.
3 Unless otherwise indicated, translations are from The Book of Jubilees (trans. James C. VanderKam; CSCO 511; Leuven: Peeters, 1989); the text is found in The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text (ed. James C. VanderKam; CSCO 510; Leuven: Peeters, 1989).
4 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 222–23.
5 John T. Rook, “A Twenty-Eight-Day Month Tradition in the Book of Jubilees,” VT 31 (1980) 83–87.
6 Abraham Epstein, “Le Livre des Jubilés, Philon, et le Midrasch Tadsché [part 2],” REJ 22 (1891) 7–14.
7 Jaubert, “Le calendrier,” 251–52.
8 Rook, “Twenty-Eight-Day Month,” 85.
9 Ibid., 86. Julian Morgenstern argued that the intercalary days added to each quarter to bring the total days to ninety-one are the memorial days from Jub. 6:23–28, the first day of the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth months, rather than the thirty-first day of the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth months as Jaubert argued and as subsequently confirmed by the Qumran calendars. Julian Morgenstern, “The Calendar of the Book of Jubilees, Its Origin and Character,” VT 5 (1955) 34–76, at 36–37.
10 Rook, “Twenty-Eight-Day Month,” 85–86.
11 Ibid., 87.
12 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 223.
13 Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Some Problems of the Jubilees Calendar in Current Research,” VT 32 (1982) 484–89, at 488.
14 In his response to Rook, VanderKam says that “if they [the forty-day count] began on I/6, the day of Adam’s creation—which means that the first of the 40 days would have been completed on I/7—then the numbers fit perfectly with Jaubert’s hypothesis that the first month has 30 days.” James C. VanderKam, “A Twenty-Eight-Day Month Tradition in the Book of Jubilees?” VT 32 (1982) 504–6, at 505. See also the table of the first forty-seven days of creation in Cana Werman, The Book of Jubilees: Introduction, Translation, and Interpretation (Jerusalem: Yisḥaq Ben Zvi, 2015) 192–93 (Hebrew). I will occasionally refer to Werman’s (modern) Hebrew translation.
15 Michael Segal, The Book of “Jubilees”: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology, and Theology (Supplements to JSJ 117; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 57.
16 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 224.
17 Email to author, 7 February 2019.
18 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 210.
19 Segal, Book of “Jubilees,” 52.
20 J. T. A. G. M. van Ruiten, Primeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1-11 in the Book of Jubilees (Supplements to JSJ 66; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 72–73.
21 Werman, Book of Jubilees, 191–92.
22 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 222. Cf. van Ruiten, Primeval History, 90.
23 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 216.
24 The chi in 3:12b also makes use of an inverted parallelism that could easily have transferred from the original Hebrew: qeddest ye’eti westa kwellu medr wa-kwellu ʽeḍ za-tekul westētā qeddus.” Werman’s translation is: שודק וב עטינה ץע לוכו ץראה לוכב אוה שודק.
25 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 228.
26 I have adapted VanderKam’s translation of these verses to show the parallels more clearly.
27 In particular, the syntactic parallelism created by the prepositions would not have been present in the Greek translation but were likely added by the Ethiopian translator to enhance the original semantic parallelism.
28 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985) 62–63. For the application of poetic parallelism to narrative, see idem, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981) 97.
29 I have adapted VanderKam’s translation to better show the parallels.
30 This is missing in her reconstruction but included in the table she uses to justify it; Werman, Book of Jubilees, 191.
31 The Ethiopic Old Testament was originally translated from Greek. The stages for translation thus are the same as for Jubilees: from Hebrew into Greek, then into Ethiopic. See James C. VanderKam, Textual and Historical Studies in the Text of Jubilees (HSM 14; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977) 108 n. 8. For the Ethiopic text, I am using Augustus Dillmann, Octateuchus Aethiopicus (Leipzig: Vogel, 1853); for the LXX, Septuaginta (ed. Alfred Rahlfs; rev. ed. Robert Hanhart; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006).
32 Bruce K. Waltke and Michael O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990) 196.
33 Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 750.
34 Segal, Book of “Jubilees,” 55.
35 Van Ruiten, Primeval History, 72.
36 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 224; Werman, Book of Jubilees, 192–94.
37 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 223. Syncellus quotes Jubilees but probably knew it only through anthologies of earlier chronographers; see William Adler, Time Immemorial: Archaic History and Its Sources in Christian Chronography from Julius Africanus to George Syncellus (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 26: Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1989) 85 and 167.
38 Betsy Halpern Amaru, “Calendar Dates in the Book of Jubilees,” in The Embroidered Bible: Studies in the Biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Honour of Michael E. Stone (ed. Lorenzo DiTommaso, Matthias Henze, and William Adler; SVTP 26; Leiden: Brill, 2018) 473–93, at 473.
39 Ibid., 474.
40 Ibid., 485–87, quotation at 485.
41 The creation of the garden is not dated calendrically, as Halpern Amaru asserts, but only according to the day of creation week. Taking the numbered days of creation week as dates on the annual calendar is a frequently made category error; ibid., 486; cf. Jub. 2:7.
42 Baumgarten, “Some Problems,” 488.
43 Segal, Book of “Jubilees,” 55.
44 Baumgarten relies on his idea of the Jahrzeit, in which the first and last day of the year fall on the same date, so that the date of Adam’s entry precedes the date of the sin by one day. Most scholars take 2/16 as the final day of the seven years so entry and sin fall on the same date, 2/17.
45 Segal, Book of “Jubilees,” 56.
46 James L. Kugel, A Walk through “Jubilees”: Studies in the “Book of Jubilees” and the World of its Creation (Supplement to JSJ 156; Leiden: Brill, 2012) 40.
47 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 224; VanderKam’s emphasis.
48 Segal oddly connects the entry into the garden with punishment: “By dating the entry into Eden to the same date as the beginning of the flood, Jub. 3:17 appears to link the first sin in history with the most severe punishment in history.” Segal thus tacitly acknowledges that the author intended to date Adam’s entry to 2/17; Book of “Jubilees,” 56.
49 Van Ruiten, Primeval History, 85–86.
50 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 232, citing Menachem Kister, “Syncellus and the Sources of ‘Jubilees’ 3: A Note on M. Segal’s Article,” Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls 1 (2003) 127–33, at 131 (Hebrew); Werman, Book of Jubilees, 189–90.
51 VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 296.
52 Halpern Amaru, “Calendar Dates,” 483.
53 Jan van Goudoever, Biblical Calendars (2nd rev. ed.; Leiden: Brill, 1961) 70.
54 See, e.g., ibid., 66–68.
55 James C. VanderKam, “The Aqedah, Jubilees, and PseudoJubilees,” in The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (ed. Craig A. Evans and Shemaryahu Talmon; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 241–61, at 245–46; cf. idem, Jubilees 1, 578–80; Leroy Andrew Huizenga, “The Battle for Isaac: Exploring the Composition and Function of the Aqedah in the Book of Jubilees,” JSP 13 (2002) 33–59, at 44–46; Betsy Halpern-Amaru, “A Note on Isaac as First-Born in Jubilees and Only Son in 4Q225,” DSD 13 (2006) 127–33, at 133; Cana Werman, “Narrative in the Service of Halakha: Abraham, Prince Mastema, and the Paschal Offering in Jubilees,” in Law and Narrative in the Bible and in Neighboring Cultures (ed. Klaus-Peter Adam et al.; FAT 2/54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012) 225–42.
56 Michel Testuz, Les idées religieuses du Livre des Jubilés (Geneva: Libraire E. Droz; Paris: Librairie Minard, 1960) 152.
57 Henri Hubert, Essay on Time: A Brief Study on the Representation of Time in Religion and Magic (first published as “Ėtude sommaire de la representation du temps dans la religion et la magie,” in Annuaire de l’Ėcole Pratique des Hautes Ėtudes, Section des Sciences Religieuses [1905] 1–39; trans. Robert Parkin and Jacqueline Redding; Oxford: Durkheim Press, 1999) 71; Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 177–79. For the description of such a time-constituting process in a pig-herding society, see idem, “Ritual, Time, and Eternity,” Zygon 27 (1992) 5–30, at 17.
58 Mikhail Bakhtin, “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics,” in idem, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin (trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holmquist; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981) 82–258, at 206.
59 Ibid., 207.
60 Ibid., 146.
61 Alex P. Jassen, “A New Suggestion for the Reconstruction of 4Q370 1 i 2 and the Blessing of the Most High (Elyon) in Second Temple Judaism,” DSD 17 (2010) 88–113, at 107–8.
62 Oded Borowski, Daily Life in Biblical Times (ABS 5; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003) 28.
63 It is not clear whether chronologically, in the story, this celebration of Booths comes before or after Isaac’s birth. What is clear is that it follows Isaac’s birth in the narrative. The author uses a plotting device, a flash-forward to the birth or flashback to Booths, to ensure that Booths will be a celebration of both Isaac’s conception and his birth. See VanderKam, Jubilees 1, 537–38.
64 Commenting on Abraham’s celebration of Firstfruits in ch. 15, Werman says that Abraham is portrayed as a landowner rather than the nomad of Genesis (Book of Jubilees, 293). VanderKam counters that Jubilees follows Genesis in portraying Abraham as a herder and not a farmer (Jubilees 1, 511 n. 4). The issue here is not the portrayal of Abraham but the author’s narrative typology and intended audience.
65 See the summary of proposed theories in Tamara Prosic, “Annual Festivals in the Hebrew Bible I: Theoretical and Methodological Concerns,” RC 4 (2010) 717–26, at 717–19.
66 Tamara Prosic, “Annual Festivals in the Hebrew Bible II: Perspective from Ritual Studies,” RC 4 (2010) 727–36, at 729. In a work that came to my attention only during the final revision of this article, Michael LeFebvre argues that the Pentateuch gives dates to events in order to align Israelite history “with the agrarian cadences of labor and celebration in Canaan.” If so, Jubilees is not innovating but following precedent; Michael LeFebvre, The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019) 80. I wish to thank Dr. Terry Clark of the SIU College of Business for this reference.
67 Prosic, “Annual Festivals II,” 732.
68 During the rainy season, Abram studies his fathers’ books in preparation for his departure from Haran for the promised land; Jub. 12:27.
69 See Rappaport, Ritual and Religion, 181–82.
70 VanderKam says 7/1 “would fall in the time of the later harvest but not too distant from the start of the rainy season” (Jubilees 1, 452). Where seasons start in a calendar is a matter of convention; the author of Jubilees fixes the beginning of the rainy season to 7/1.
71 Rappaport, “Ritual, Time, and Eternity,” 12; cf. idem, Ritual and Religion, 181.
72 James C. VanderKam, Jubilees 2: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 22–50 (ed. Sidney White Crawford; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018) 801. VanderKam believes the error in the date lends credence to his correction of a chronological problem in the birth dates of the patriarchs in ch. 28. Adjusting the date of Jacob’s flight does not solve the chronological problem, however, as VanderKam acknowledges (Jubilees 2, 802; cf. ibid., 791–95, for his discussion of the chronology of the patriarchs’ births). Werman says “there is no explanation for the date” of 1/21 and suggests, without evidence, that the original date was 1/26, the day of the waving of the Omer in the Jubilees calendar (Book of “Jubilees,” 402).
73 In only one manuscript; VanderKam, Jubilees 2, 797; Book of Jubilees (trans. VanderKam) 160. In another place VanderKam argues that the author would not have had Jacob and family arrive in Gilead on the seventh day of Unleavened Bread, on which travel is forbidden in Lev 23:8 (The Book of Jubilees [Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001] 65). It must be, however, that the proscription on travel on the seventh day applies to later celebrations of the festival in the promised land: in Jubilees, even Israel completes its flight from Egypt on the seventh day of Unleavened Bread (Jub. 49:23; cf. Vanderkam, Jubilees 2, 1189–90). Such a concern would, however, explain the variant date of 1/22.
74 Van Goudoever, Biblical Calendars, 67–68.
75 Interestingly, VanderKam thinks that the date of 3/15 is correct because of its symbolic significance (Jubilees 2, 801 n. 15).
76 Within a cycle, however, the processes are nonrecurrent, which allows the cycle to represent linear time; see Rappaport, “Ritual, Time, and Eternity,” 13–15.
77 Bakhtin, “Forms of Time,” 210.
78 Ibid., 230.
79 Annie Jaubert, The Date of the Last Supper: The Biblical Calendar and Christian Liturgy (trans. Isaac Rafferty; New York: Alba House, 1965).
80 Ernest Wiesenberg, “The Jubilee of Jubilees,” RQ 3 (1961) 3–40, at 4.
81 VanderKam, “Studies in the Chronology of the Book of Jubilees,” in idem, From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (Boston: Brill, 2000) 522–44, at 522.
82 But see now Halpern Amaru, “Calendar Dates.” For an extensive, annotated bibliography of recent scholarship on the calendar, see Jonathan Ben-Dov and Stéphane Saulnier, “Qumran Calendars: A Survey of Scholarship 1980–2007,” CurBR 7 (2008) 124–68. For earlier works, see ch. 5 in VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and bibliography there.
83 Hubert, Essay on Time, 49.