_Textual Affinities._--A minute study of the text shows that it attests an independent form of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch. Thus it agrees at times with the Samaritan, or Septuagint, or Syriac, or Vulgate, or even with Onkelos against all the rest. To be more exact, our book represents some form of the Hebrew text of the Pentateuch midway between the forms presupposed by the Septuagint and the Syriac; for it agrees more frequently with the Septuagint, or with combinations into which the Septuagint enters, than with any other single authority, or with any combination excluding the Septuagint. Next to the Septuagint it agrees most often with the Syriac or with combinations into which the Syriac enters. On the other hand, its independence of the Septuagint is shown in a large number of passages, where it has the support of the Samaritan and Massoretic, or of these with various combinations of the Syriac Vulgate and Onkelos. From these and other considerations we may conclude that the textual evidence points to the composition of our book at some period between 250 B.C. and A.D. 100, and at a time nearer the earlier date than the later. _Date._--The book was written between 135 B.C. and the year of Hyrcanus's breach with the Pharisees. This conclusion is drawn from the following facts:--(1) The book was written during the pontificate of the Maccabean family, and not earlier than 135 B.C. For in xxxii. 1 Levi is called a "priest of the Most High God." Now the only high priests who bore this title were the Maccabean, who appear to have assumed it as reviving the order of Melchizedek when they displaced the Zadokite order of Aaron. Jewish tradition ascribes the assumption of this title to John Hyrcanus. It was retained by his successors down to Hyrcanus II. (2) It was written before 96 B.C. or some years earlier in the reign of John Hyrcanus; for since our author is of the strictest sect a Pharisee and at the same time an upholder of the Maccabean pontificate, Jubilees cannot have been written after 96 when the Pharisees and Alexander Jannaeus came to open strife. Nay more, it cannot have been written after the open breach between Hyrcanus and the Pharisees, when the former joined the Sadducean party. The above conclusions are confirmed by a large mass of other evidence postulating the same date. We may, however, observe that our book points to the period already past--of stress and persecution that preceded the recovery of national independence under the Maccabees, and presupposes as its historical background the most flourishing period of the Maccabean hegemony.