[1] Heb. _deror_. The same word (_duraru_) is used in the Code of
Hammurabi in the similar enactment that wife, son or daughter sold
into slavery for debt are to be restored to _liberty_ in the fourth
year (§ 117).
JUBILEES, BOOK OF, an apocryphal work of the Old Testament. The Book of
Jubilees is the most advanced pre-Christian representative of the
Midrashic tendency, which had already been at work in the Old Testament
Chronicles. As the chronicler had rewritten the history of Israel and
Judah from the standpoint of the Priests' Code, so our author re-edited
from the Pharisaic standpoint of his time the history of the world from
the creation to the publication of the Law on Sinai. His work
constitutes the oldest commentary in the world on Genesis and part of
Exodus, an enlarged Targum on these books, in which difficulties in the
biblical narration are solved, gaps supplied, dogmatically offensive
elements removed and the genuine spirit of later Judaism infused into
the primitive history of the world.
_Titles of the Book._--The book is variously entitled. First, it is
known as [Greek: ta Iôbêlaia, hoi Iôbêlaioi], Heb. [Hebrew: haiuvalim].
This name is admirably adapted to our book, as it divides into jubilee
periods of forty-nine years each the history of the world from the
creation to the legislation on Sinai. Secondly, it is frequently
designated "The Little Genesis," [Greek: hê leptê Genesis] or [Greek: hê
Mikrogenesis], Heb. [Hebrew: bereshit zutta]. This title may have arisen
from its dealing more fully with details and minutiae than the biblical
work. For the other names by which it is referred to, such as _The
Apocalypse of Moses_, _The Testament of Moses_, _The Book of Adam's
Daughters_ and the _Life of Adam_, the reader may consult Charles's _The
Book of Jubilees_, pp. xvii.-xx.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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