המינוח המיוחד של לוחות השמים בספר היובלים

A century ago Robert H. Charles claimed that the author of the Book of Jubilees wrote the history of all that was to occur in the future, as well as the laws that apply to the Israelites, upon the Heavenly Tablets and his opinion has been accepted ever since. This article treats the term 'Heavenly Tablets' from grammatical and structural perspec-tives. We wish to show that this term does not stand alone, but is always accompanied by a variety of grammatical combinations, creating a language of their own. Some examples are given: (1) 'For this reason it has been ordained and written on the heavenly tablets that they should celebrate the festival of weeks [...]' (6,17); (2) For this reason it has been written on the heavenly tablets: 'Cursed is the person who beats his companion maliciously [...]' (4, 5); (3) 'Now you command the Israelites to observe this day so that they may sanctify it [...]' (2, 26); (4) 'Now you command the Israelites not to eat any blood [...] This law has no temporal limits because it is forever [...]' (6, 13-14). Our conclusion is that the Book of Jubilees was written in fact in 'two languages' - the rich language in which the author rewrote narratives in Genesis, and the repetitive, laconic Ian-guage he used for writing the laws and commandments in the Heavenly Tablets. The author of the Book of Jubilees used the term 'Heavenly Tablets' 29 times. Additionally, we have 13 cases where only the related grammatical combinations to the Heavenly Tablets term appear - without mention of the Heavenly Tablets (for example: 30,5; 49, 22; 6,13-14). The fact that we can identify the grammatical combinations in these cases is a proof that they belong to the divine codex of laws. In all the laws written in Heavenly Tablets, some of those special combinations are evident. We can therefore claim that in the Tablets there are 42 laws and testaments which are flagged by a grammatical indicator. An examination of the gram-matical combinations demonstrates that the author's intention was to give the Tablets the nature of a law book, with a single juridicial character. Furthermore, an examination of the subjects contained in the Tablets shows that they can be divided into two categories. In one we have the laws which apply to the Israelites, and these are written, without exception, in a grammaticaly commanding form. In the other category we have 'testaments' in which the author reveals something that was known only to God and his angels during the act of creation, such as the fact that the year is divided to 52 sabbaths (6, 29-32), that Abraham and Sarah would have a son called Isaac (16, 3), and that Abraham was described as 'loving God' (19, 9).