Jubilees: A Commentary in Two Volumes

Jubilees--so called because of its concern with marking forty-nine-year periods (or jubilees) in Israel's history--is an ancient rewriting of Genesis and the first part of Exodus from the point of view of an anonymous second-century BCE Jewish author. Its distinctive perspective--as well as its apparent popularity at Qumran--make it particularly important for any reconstruction of early Judaism. James C. VanderKam, the world's foremost authority on Jubilees, offers a new translation based on his own critical editions of all the available textual evidence, including the Hebrew fragments preserved at Qumran (which he first published in Discoveries in the Judean Desert, vol. 13), as well as the first full running commentary on the book in the English language. Jubilees approaches the book as a rewriting of scripture but also as a literary work in its own right. The commentary explains the text and the teachings of the author with comprehensive coverage of the modern scholarship devoted to them. The introduction sets the book in its second-century BCE context, traces its sources in the Bible and in other early Jewish texts, and describes its influence on Jewish and Christian writers.

James C. VanderKam is John A. O'Brien Professor of Hebrew Scriptures at the University of Notre Dame. He has edited thirteen volumes in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert and is a member of the editorial committee for the remaining unpublished Dead Sea scrolls. He is one of the two editors in chief of the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2000) and author of the prize-winning The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (1994), From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (2000), An Introduction to Early Judaism (2001), The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2002), and From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Fortress, 2004). Prof. VanderKam is the former editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature.