Purity and Impurity in the Book of Jubilees

Abstract

The book of Jubilees contains a considerable number of laws. The content of these laws presents a puzzle: Why is there no reference to matters of ritual impurity, the sole exception being impurity of a woman after giving birth? Strangely, Jubilees, a rewrite of the book of Genesis, seems not to accept the laws of purity and impurity so prominent in the Torah. In an attempt to explain this apparent lacuna, this article discusses several questions, including: What does Jubilees consider as ritually impure? How, in the view of the book, could Jews, having become impure, purify themselves in the absence of suitable instructions? It is shown that the author of Jubilees was hostile to the High Priest and the contemporary leadership of the Temple. In addition, a significant difference between the author of Jubilees' conception of purity and impurity and that of the Qumran sect is detected. This leads to the question of why the sectarians considered Jubilees as a canonical work, despite its neglect of the laws of purity and impurity.