The Many Forms of Jubilees: A Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence from Qumran and the Lines of Transmission of the Parts and Whole of Jubilees

The diverse collection of material related to Jubilees found at Qumran suggests that the work did not have a single textual or literary form in the late Second Temple period. Fragments of manuscripts of a variety of sizes and styles are preserved at Qumran, and from this cluster of Jubilees related manuscripts there are several parallels that can be seen to the later lines of transmission. One line of transmission is a coherent book that narrates the events from creation to the Exodus, mostly known through the Ethiopic Jubilees manuscripts. Other lines of transmission, however, do not include the whole book, but only select passages. This paper is an initial attempt to formulate a theory of these different lines of the transmission into the various contexts in which they are found today, and further explain the abundance of smaller manuscripts continuing text from Jubilees found at Qumran.