חלומות בספר היובלים ובמגילות מדבר יהודה

The thousand fragments of Holy Scriptures that were found in the eleven caves of Qumran between 1947 and 1956 include a significant number of unknown dreams that were ascribed to biblical heroes. The dreams that were ascribed to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Rivka, Jacob, Levi, Judah and Amram reflect a ‘counter-memory’ on issues that were under dispute during the second and first centuries BCE. The dreams are concerned with divine revelations or with angelic messages that relate sacred knowledge on the historical destiny of the ‘holy seed’, in relation to holy time, holy place, holy ritual, sacred scriptures, holy priesthood, and sacred memory associated with priests and angels. Dreams are considered, in this literature written in a time of great dispute on the priestly leadership of the Temple in the Hasmonaean period, as an indisputable source of knowledge on all the major sacred priestly issues mentioned above. The Book of Jubilees has a considerable number of new dreams that are designed to shape ancient memory anew in a time of a major political change. The book is concerned with holy time, as reflected in a sacred solar calendar that was revealed in a dream to Enoch son of Jared; with a holy place, Mount Zion, the place of the future Temple that was revealed in a dream to Noah and revealed by an angel to Moses, the grandson of Levi; and with the initiation of the priestly service that was revealed in a dream to Levi, the founder of the priesthood according to this priestly tradition.