Texts in Conversation
Isaiah describes a future with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, where old things are forgotten. Jubilees echoes this, looking ahead to the renewal of creation, yet retroactively using that language in the context of the early Israelites.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 65:17
Hebrew Bible
16 Whoever pronounces a blessing in the earth will do so in the name of the faithful God; whoever makes an oath in the earth will do so in the name of the faithful God. For past problems will be forgotten; I will no longer think about them. 17 For look, I am ready to create new heavens and a new earth! The former ones will not be remembered; no one will think about them anymore. 18 But be happy and rejoice forever moreover what I am about to create! For look, I am ready to create Jerusalem to be a source of joy, and her people to be a source of happiness.
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 1:29
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
29 And the angel of the presence who went ahead of the camp of Israel took the tablets of the divisions of the years — from the time of the creation — of the Torah and of the testimony of the weeks of the jubilees, according to the individual years, according to all the number of the jubilees [according to the individual years], from [the time of the first creation until] the new creation when the heavens and the earth shall be renewed and all their creation according to the powers of heaven, and according to all the creation of the earth, until the sanctuary of the Lord shall be made in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, and all the heavenly lights be renewed for healing and for peace and for blessing for all the chosen people of Israel, and that it may be this way from that day and to all the days of the earth.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... until the time of the new creation, an apocalyptic future time such as that described in Isaiah 65:17 and 66:24, when the heavens, the earth, and all their creatures will be renewed like the powers of the sky: the sun and moon and the planets, which all undergo cyclical renewal. (This would accord well with the Temple Scroll wherein God appears to say that on some future “day of creation” or “day of blessing,” He will “[re]create My sanctuary to establish it for Myself forever.”) Moses was thus given to record only part of what these tablets contained ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 28.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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