The Perspective from Mt. Sinai: The Book of Jubilees and Exodus by Betsy Halpern-Amaru (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Perspective from Mt. Sinai: The Book of Jubilees and Exodus by Betsy Halpern-Amaru Zachary I. Levine Betsy Halpern-Amaru. The Perspective from Mt. Sinai: The Book of Jubilees and Exodus. Journal of Ancient Judaism Supplements 21. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015. 192 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009418000557 The bulk of Jubilees most immediately retells the narrative history of Genesis, and much of the scholarship on Jubilees has focused on the re-presentation of that material. Halpern-Amaru's topic—the exegesis and rewriting of Exodus narrative and law in Jubilees—is one that has been underresearched, and therefore a worthy endeavor from the outset. Her concentration on Exodus material provides a narrow set of case studies that imbue this book with a tight structure and focus. The case studies themselves cover a wide range of issues for the study of Jubilees. Above all, they show how the handling of material from both Genesis and Exodus are part of a coherent literary effort sustained across Jubilees as a unity. The first chapter treats the exegesis, rearrangement, and reworking of Exodus 19, 24, and 34 in the Prologue and Jubilees 1, unpacking both the literary/exegetical decisions behind the construction of Jubilees's text and how they serve to further construct the Mt. Sinai setting that "remains the constant present time throughout the angel narration" of Jubilees 2–50 (19). Chapters 2–5 focus on the representation of the "Egyptian epoch" (Exodus 1–15) in the narrative of Jubilees 46–49, each proving a different way in which Jubilees presents the "Genesis-Exodus past as a single continuous story" (21). Chapter 2 shows how the reworking of Exodus 1 in Jubilees 46—mainly, the "exegetically-rooted" "created epoch" of Amram at Hebron—fits into a larger scheme of periodization that encompasses the reworked material from Genesis in earlier chapters. (An intriguing segue explores the influence of 4Q Visions of Amram on Jubilees.) Chapter 3 shows how "scriptural material is manipulated" to create a "biography" [End Page 445] of Moses matching the same "ideal leader typology" developed in Jubilees's construction of "the personal histories of the antediluvian notables and the founding fathers of Israel" (49). Moses's biography echoes these earlier Genesis-era accounts, down to such details as the "danger-from-birds motif" signaling "the specter of Mastema's agency" (55). Discussion of divine, demonic, and human agency continues into chapter 4, which highlights how the representation of the plagues and liberation in Egypt "discloses the [divine] events 'behind the scenes'" of the Exodus text and Moses's personal human experience. Whereas Michael Segal "treats all passages that attribute the same activity to Mastema and to God as evidence of two stages of composition," Halpern-Amaru shows how Moses, Mastema, and the angels all "collaborate" and "contribute to the advancement" of God's providential redemption of the people (72, 79). Halpern-Amaru's implicit point—that the text's nuanced depictions of agency have been mistakenly labeled conceptually inconsistent—is an important one. For this reason, one would have expected engagement with Segal's source criticism beyond the footnotes. Similar assumptions regarding the mutual exclusivity of divine and human (and demonic) "agency" also fuel prevailing source-critical treatments of, for example, the Damascus Document (and, it may be noted, seem to characterize recent treatments of repentance in Jubilees in works by David Lambert and Ari Mermelstein). Had Halpern-Amaru been more direct with this point (or revisited it in a conclusion), its broader significance for the study of Jubilees and Second Temple literature would have been obvious. Chapter 5 looks at the narrative celebration of Pesaḥ/Maṣṣot and the effort to clarify and distinguish the eternal and one-time (Egypt-specific) nature of the holiday(s). Chapters 6 and 7 focus on Jubilees's reworking of Exodus legislation for Passover and the Sabbath, respectively. With these succinct but scrupulous treatments of legislation and "allusive exegesis," Halpern-Amaru conveys a fundamental truth about Jubilees, which I would paraphrase as follows: Jubilees not only reflects biblical exegesis (prior to composition), it demands its own serious exegesis and is meant to be studied. "[T]he wordiness, repetition and opacity...