The Book of Jubilees — passes the test for inspired scripture
Authorship:
— written by Moses — Jubilees Prologue: “This is the history of the division of the days of the law and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of their (year) weeks, of their jubilees throughout all the years of the world, as the Lord spake to Moses on Mount Sinai when he went up to receive the tables of the law and of the commandment, according to the voice of God as he said unto him, ‘Go up to the top of the Mount.’”
Jubilees 1: 4, 5 “And Moses was on the Mount forty days and forty nights, and God taught him the earlier and the later history of the division of all the days of the law and of the testimony. 5 And He said: “Incline thine heart to every word which I shall speak to thee on this Mount, and write them in a book in order that their generations may see…”
— Jubilees is Torah (since it was written by Moses) —
Testimony of scripture:
— Moses wrote it with help from angels — Acts 7:53 “you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” [KJ: “delivered by the disposition of angels.”] (Luke is the writer here.)
— Genesis 48:22 “Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow.”
Here Moses refers to the war with the Amorites found in Jubilees 34: 5-8 “And they announced this to Jacob saying: “Behold, the kings of the Amorites have surrounded thy sons, and plundered their herds.” And he arose from his house, he and his three sons and all the servants of his father, and his own servants, and he went against them with six thousand men, who carried swords. And he slew them in the pastures of Shechem and pursued those who fled, and he slew them with the edge of the sword… v.8 And he prevailed over them, and imposed tribute on them that they should pay him tribute…”
— Jesus held Jubilees to be Torah: John 5:46-47
“For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
— He was speaking to the Pharisees who did believe Moses (the 5 books of the Torah) so Jesus must have been referring to the one book of Torah that they didn’t believe.
— In the Qumran library (which was the library of the Sons of Zadok and John, the Baptist, (the exiled Temple Priests) Jubilees was “one of the best documented texts” and was stored in jars along with Genesis. It was considered a continuation of Genesis.
— Gabriele Boccaccini (in Enoch and Qumran Origins) wrote: “With 14 or 15 attested copies, the Book of Jubilees is undoubtedly one of the best documented texts of the Qumran library moreover. It is cited as an authoritative source in a sectarian work, the Damascus Document (CD16:2-4), and seems to have been equally important to the Qumran community.”
— The Damascus Document (also found in Qumran) says,[4Q266, fr. 8 i, 6-9]
“(For the Lord made) a Covenant with you in all Israel; therefore a man shall bind himself by oath to return to the law of Moses, for in it all things are strictly defined. As for the exact determination of their times to which Israel turns a blind eye, behold it is strictly defined in the book of the divisions of the times into their jubilees and weeks.“
This document is not scripture nor inspired but is historical. It references the Book of Jubilees, [also titled The Book of the Divisions of the Times into their Jubilees and Weeks], as defining all things and states that Israel has turned a blind eye to this.
— The Damascus Document quotes Jubilees 23:2 — “No man over the age of 60 shall hold office as Judge of the Congregation for ‘because man sinned his days have been shortened and In the heat of his anger against the inhabitants of the earth God ordained that their understanding should depart even before their days are completed.’ Jubilees 23:2”
— This constitutes a “second witness” for Genesis 6:3 “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
— The Pharisees did not believe this sixth book of the Torah, which wrote of Jesus: Jubilees 16:26 “and he (Abraham) blessed his Creator who had created him in his generation, for he had created him according to his good pleasure; for He knew and perceived that from him would arise the plant of rghteousness for the eternal generations, and from him a holy seed, so that it should become like Him who made all things.”
— This constitutes a “second witness” for John 1:1,2 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” [Notice how exact the wording is in John and Jubilees. John did not reveal a new doctrine here. He quoted Jubilees, which was well known to the Israelites, the prophets, the disciples, and the apostles.]
— According to Acts 7:30, Moses lived in Midian 40 years [“Now when 40 years had passed,…” ] but this is never explained in the 5 books of the Torah. It is, however, found in the 6th book of the Torah: Jubilees 48:1-2 “And in the sixth year of the third week of the forty-ninth jubilee thou didst depart and dwell in the land of Midian, five weeks and one year. And thou didst return into Egypt in the second week in the second year in the fiftieth jubilee. And thou thyself knowest what He spake unto thee on Mt. Sinai.” [That’s 42 years until Moses saw the burning bush on Mt. Sinai.]
— A direct quote by Jesus of Jubilees is found in John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
Jubilees 32:25 “And Jacob said, ‘Lord, how can I remember all that I have read and seen?’ And he said unto him: ‘I will bring all things to thy remembrance.’”
— Paul applied a doctrine from Jubilees in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that is not found in the rest of the Old Testament: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Jubilees 5:12 “And he made for all his works a new and righteous nature, so that they should not sin in their whole nature for ever, but should be all righteous each in his kind alway.”
— In Galatians 2:15, Paul again quoted Jubilees: “We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles.” (KJ)
Jubilees 23:23 “And He will wake up against them the sinners of the Gentiles…”
— John 17:12 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3 refer to the “son of perdition”, a phrase not found in the Old Testament. But it is found in Jubilees 10:3 “And hast save me and my sons from the waters of the flood, And hast not caused me to perish as Thou didst the sons of perdition.”
— “The friend of God” — used in James 2:23 and in Jubilees 19:9 (referring to Abraham.)
— The concept found in 2 Peter 3:8 “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” is confirmed in Jubilees 4:30 “And he (Adam) lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concerning the tree of knowledge: ‘On the day that ye eat thereof ye shall die.’ For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it.”
Testimony of Logic:
— Dating of Scrolls — It is argued that the Book of Jubilees was written during the Second Temple period, or around 150 B.C. due to the dating of the parchments. However, we know that the Temple Priests copied and re-copied all scripture as they began to deteriorate. Based on the dating of the parchments, we would also have to conclude that other scriptures found in the Dead Sea Scroll caves were written during the Second Temple period. This would include the books of Moses, the prophets, Psalms, etc. But we know they weren’t written that late.
— Burial of Joseph’s bones — In Jubilees 46:9 … and the children of Israel brought forth all the bones of the children of Jacob save the bones of Joseph, and they buried them in the field in the double cave in the mountain.
If Jubilees had been written during the period of the Second Temple, the author would most likely have recorded that Joseph’s bones were buried in Canaan by Joshua after the exodus.
— Place Names — Jubilees 8:13 And it extendeth till it reacheth Kârâsô: this is in the bosom of the tongue which looketh towards the south.
This is an ancient Indus society (Khirasara) that had existed from 2600 B.C. to 2200 B.C. It was not known in the Second Temple Period but was rediscovered in 1976.
Jubilees 8:12 …and it extendeth towards the west till it reacheth the sea of Mâ’ûk — that (sea) into which everything which is not destroyed descendeth.
This is the South Atlantic using the name of Ham’s wife which was lost to history by the Second Temple period. Other examples of place names mentioned in Jubilees that had been lost by the Second Temple period are: ‘Atêl (Indian Ocean), Fara (Alaska), Pharnak (Saudi Arabia).
— Calendar — Jubilees explains a solar calendar. The Pharisees follow a lunar calendar and would have written it into Jubilees had they written the book.
— Talmud — If Jubilees had been written during the Second Temple Period by Pharisees, it would agree more with their interpretation and expansion of the law — the Talmud. But it does not.
— Removed from Canon — If Jubilees had been written by Pharisees, they wouldn’t have removed it from their canon of scriptures.
— Name of God — If Jubilees had been written by Pharisees, they wouldn’t have spelled out God’s name nor used “Lord” in place of YHWH.
— Well known by early Christian writers — while not a proof that Jubilees is inspired scripture, it is evidence that the work was widely read and quoted. [Epiphanius, Justin Martyr, Origen, Diodorus of Tarsus, Isodore of Alexandria, Isodore of Seville, Eutychius of Alexandria, John Malalas, George Syncellus, George Kedrinos.