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By Root 2217 0

presents itself as a revelation given to Moses and rehearses all the history of Genesis down to the time of Moses, as a kind of Midrash. It has left its mark at Qumran and in many other documents like The Genesis Apocryphon and The Temple Scroll. It is a rehashing of the story, with new motifs added, including some apocalyptic ones like the division of all history into Jubilee periods of 49 years, but it is not an apocalyptic book in and of itself. The earliest copy of the text was found at Qumran in Hebrew but it is widely known elsewhere in Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Ethiopic. It is not known for sure whether the book was written at Qumran or just happened to be found in their library. In that book, right after the death of Abraham, there is an interesting report about the end of time:

And he lived three jubilees and four weeks of years, one hundred and seventy-five years. And he completed the days of his life, being old and full of days. For the days of the lives of the ancients were nineteen jubilees. And after the Flood they began to be less than nineteen jubilees and to grow old quickly and to shorten the days of their lives due to much suffering and through the evil of their ways-except Abraham. For Abraham was perfect in all of his actions with the LORD and was pleasing through righteousness all of the days of his life. And behold, he did not complete four jubilees in his life until he grew old in the presence of evil (and) his days were full.

And all of the generations which will arise henceforth and until the day of the great judgment will grow old quickly before they complete two jubilees, and their knowledge will forsake them because of their old age. And all of their knowledge will be removed. And in those days if a man will live a jubilee and a half, they will say about him. “He prolonged his life, but the majority of his days were suffering and anxiety and affliction. And there was no peace, because plague (came) upon plague, and wound upon wound, and affliction upon affliction, and evil report upon evil report, and sickness upon sickness, and every evil judgment of this sort one with another: sickness, and downfall, and sleet, and hail, and frost, and fever, and chills, and stupor, and famine, and death, and sword, and captivity, and all plagues, and suffering. (Jub. 23:8-15)

But after all that, things will begin to reverse themselves:

And in those days, children will begin to search the law,

and to search the commandments

and to return to the way of righteousness.

And the days will begin to increase and grow longer

among those sons of men, generation by generation,

and year by year, until

their days approach a thousand years,

and to a great number of years than days.

And there (will be) no old men and none who is full of days.

Because all of them will be infants and children.

And all of their days they will be complete

and live in peace and rejoicing

and there will be no Satan and no evil (one) who will destroy, because all of their days will be days of blessing and healing.

(Jub. 23:26-29)

In the end of time, they shall regain those fabulous ages of the primeval heroes. Jubilees 23:30-31 even speaks of the healing of God’s “servants” and “righteous ones.” They will “rise up” and drive out their enemies, obviously on this earth. They will see and give great praise and rejoice forever and ever with joy. This much is clearly a national restoration.

This is as Isaiah 65:20-22 predicts but carried to more extreme limits. It is almost as if they will return to the garden of Eden. But it does give history a certain kind of symmetry. It also does something very much more interesting with regard to the issue of afterlife. It says that the apocalyptic end will approximate the incredibly long lives of the ancient heroes, an eschatology fit for the Samaritans, as they base their entire religious future on the first five books of Moses. But it is not a Samaritan vision because it valorizes Jerusalem. Rather it is an exegetical exercise about how to read the beginning of the Bible as the key to the