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Document Details : Title: Some Questions with regard to a Supposed Interpolator in the Book of Jubilees Focused on the Festival of Weeks (Jub. 6:1-22) Author(s): VAN RUITEN, Jacques T.A.G.M. Journal: Revue de Qumran Volume: 26 Issue: 4 Date: numéro 104, 2014 Pages: 539-553 DOI: 10.2143/RQ.26.4.3178209 Abstract : This contribution brings forward some questions with regard to Kugel’s hypothesis about a supposed interpolator who would have inserted several additions in a nearly finished text of the book of Jubilees. Without denying the fact that there are tensions within the text of the book, the question remains whether these all disappear when the passages of the supposed interpolator are removed. Kugel asserts that a deterministic worldview is characteristic of the supposed interpolator. However, the rest of the text also often shows this deterministic worldview. The unique relationship between God and Israel is incorporated in the order of the creation. Most important is the relativizing of the Sinaitic covenant. The first celebration of a certain festival does not point to the fact that they themselves invented these festivals out of the blue, but to the fact that Israel was already ordered to celebrate these festivals before the Sinaitic covenant. The patriarchs celebrated them on earth in accordance with what was written on the heavenly tablets, and in accordance with how they had already been celebrated in heaven from the time of the creation. In contrast to what Kugel asserts, the strong parallelism between Jub. 14 and Jub. 15 makes clear that Abraham celebrates not two different festivals but just one, the very same Festival of Weeks, in which he renews the covenant in the middle of the third month. |
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