Flavius Josephus and the Book of Jubilees. A question of source
Twentieth-century scholars have noted a number of points of similarity between The Book of Jubilees and Josephus's Jewish Antiquities. In particular, attention has been drawn to certain enhancing details that appear in each author's interpretive rewriting of the Genesis narrative. A system...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Print Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
College
2001
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In: |
Hebrew Union College annual / Jewish Institute of Religion
Year: 2001, Volume: 72, Pages: 15-44 |
IxTheo Classification: | HD Early Judaism |
Further subjects: | B
Josephus, Flavius (37-100)
B Book of Jubilees |
Summary: | Twentieth-century scholars have noted a number of points of similarity between The Book of Jubilees and Josephus's Jewish Antiquities. In particular, attention has been drawn to certain enhancing details that appear in each author's interpretive rewriting of the Genesis narrative. A systematic exploration of the exegetical methods and strategies employed in The Book of Jubilees and in Jewish Antiquities, Book I, demonstrates that the affinities in exegesis extend well beyond the nineteen previously acknowledged examples. Of forty-eight instances of parallel exegesis found in the two works, twenty-eight appear in no other known, extant work from the Second Temple period. The parallels include sixteen examples of exegesis responding to perceived problems within the biblical text ("pure exegesis") and thirty-two examples of exegesis deriving from a perspective external to the biblical text ("applied exegesis"). Nine of the affinities in pure exegesis and nineteen of those characterized as applied exegesis are exclusive to these two texts. There is no explicit reference to Jubilees in the Josephan corpus; but the quantity and quality of the similarities in exegesis supports the reasonable conjecture that Josephus was familiar with The Book of Jubilees. |
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ISSN: | 0360-9049 |
Contains: | In: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College annual / Jewish Institute of Religion
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