Jubilees 4:30

Pseudepigrapha

29 And at the close of the nineteenth jubilee, in the seventh week in the sixth year [930 A.M.] thereof, Adam died, and all his sons buried him in the land of his creation, and he was the first to be buried in the earth. 30 And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concerning the tree of knowledge: 'On the day that ye eat thereof ye shall die.' For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it.

Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho 81

Patristic

Now we have understood that the expression used among these words, 'According to the days of the tree [of life] shall be the days of my people; the works of their toil shall abound' obscurely predicts a thousand years. For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, 'The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,' is connected with this subject. And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place. Just as our Lord also said, 'They shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but shall be equal to the angels, the children of the God of the resurrection.'

 Notes and References

"... This verse addresses an exegetical problem in Genesis 2:17. According to that verse, God commanded the man not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and threatened him “for on the day you eat from it you shall surely die.” Soon after, the snake promised the man and the woman that they would not die if they ate from the fruits of the Garden, and accused God of deception ... Jubilees 4:30 solves this problem by a reinterpretation of the word “day” in Genesis 2:17, “for on the day you eat from it you shall surely die,” not as 24 hours, but rather as a 1000-year period. The first man, who died at the age of 930 (Genesis 5:5), therefore did indeed die on the same “day” on which he ate, during the same 1000-year period. The identification of “one day” with “1000 years” is based upon Ps 90:4, which equates the two “in the eyes of God” ..."

Segal, Michael The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (pp. 310-311) Brill, 2007

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