Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1-11 in the Book of Jubilees (review)

T H E J E W I S H QUA R T E R LY RE V I E W, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Winter 2004) 164–166 J. T. A. G. M. VAN RUITEN. Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1–11 in the Book of Jubilees. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 66. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2000. Pp. xiv Ⳮ 408. In Primaeval History Interpreted van Ruiten has written perhaps the most complete, detailed textual study of a major section in the Book of Jubilees. He describes his goal as follows: ‘‘The aim of this study is to investigate the way Genesis 1:1–11:19 was rewritten in the Book of Jubilees. In order to achieve this goal, I compare Genesis 1:1–11:19 and Jubilees 2:1–10:36 with each other.’’ (p. 5) The comparison is based upon a minute, wordby -word juxtaposition of the two texts, with all of the kinds of changes identified and analyzed. For his work van Ruiten has divided the material into seven larger sections in which Genesis and Jubilees parallel each other in one way or another: creation story, the garden of Eden, from the garden to the flood, the story of the flood, the aftermath of the flood, from the vineyard to the division of the earth, and the division of the earth. Those seven sections consititute the seven chapters in the book. In each of them he first offers an overall comparison (the macrostructure), followed by an analysis of Jubilees’ rewriting in more detail (the microstructure). He sets the two texts (broken down into smaller units) in English translation in parallel columns and indicates by different typefaces the various kinds of relations between them. ‘‘In the synoptic overview, I try to give a classification of the similarities and dissimilarities between Genesis 1:1–11:19 and Jubilees 2:1–10:36. I put in SMALL CAPS the elements of Genesis which do not occur in Jubilees, and vice versa, i.e., the OMISSIONS and ADDITIONS. In ‘normal script’ are the elements that correspond in both texts, i.e., the verbatim quotations of one or more words of the source text in Jubilees. I put in italics all variations between Genesis and Jubilees other than addition or omission. The verbatim quotations and the modifications of them can occur in the same word order or sentence-order in Jubilees as in Genesis. However, sometimes there is a rearrangement of words and sentences. I underline those elements’’ (p. 6). Compiling these sections must have been a word-processing nightmare, but the result is a readily accessible, visual representation of the sundry relations between the two texts. To the synoptic section van Ruiten adds discussions of the dissimilarities. ‘‘For all instances, I attempt to unravel the various threads of author exegetical techniques, traditional elements, aggadic or halakhic from bibli- VAN RUITEN, PRIMAEVAL HISTORY—VANDERKAM 165 cal and non-biblical sources which have exerted influence on the Book of Jubilees, and some of the characteristics of the group the author belongs to’’ (p. 6). He operates with a full awareness of textual problems in both Jubilees and Genesis and is careful to allow that differences between the MT and Jubilees could be due to the latter’s use of a differently worded Hebrew Genesis. To his seven chapters, parts of which he had published elsewhere, he adds a short concluding section in which he summarizes the kinds of changes he has noticed and writes about the reasons for them. ‘‘To sum up, it can be said that the rewriting of Genesis in the Book of Jubilees can be seen in terms of the principle that the author of Jubilees omits those elements of Genesis that he considers redundant, adds what he thinks he is missing in the biblical text, and varies and rearranges what he thinks he has to’’ (p. 374). Naturally, ‘‘what he thinks he has to’’ is ambiguous, but van Ruiten examines each case in itself as he works through the text. The book also includes a bibliography and indexes of authors and ancient sources. Primaeval History Interpreted will be a most helpful resource for...