The Perspective from Mt. Sinai: The Book of Jubilees and Exodus

Examining the treatment of Exodus narrative and law in the Book of Jubilees, Betsy Halpern-Amaru explores how the retrospective design of the angel narration shapes the exegesis.

Although termed ""the little Genesis"" the Book of Jubilees is significantly engaged with Exodus. It reworks key Exodus narratives, develops modules of Exodus law, and highlights Exodus motifs. The approach of this study is a literary one that treats Jubilees as a unitary text that may reflect the work of a single author or of a final editor. The analysis draws particular attention to manipulations of temporal and textual perspective that transform Exodus narratives, facilitate the hermeneutical elaborations of Exodus law, and effect cohesion in the revelation that is the Book of Jubilees.