Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 42:168 (Oct 1885)
Article: The Book Of Jubilees
Author: George H. Schodde

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The Book Of Jubilees

Professor George H. Schodde

Introductory Notes

One of the most marked features of theological research in our day and decade is the intense interest which characterizes the work in biblical theology, technically so called, and in this department no auxiliary branch has been more productive of good results than has been that discipline called History of New Testament Times, or the study of the times of Christ as to their religious, moral, and social features. The aim of such study is to reproduce, as far as possible, the exact picture of Christ’s earthly career in the midst of all the agencies which influenced him and upon which he exerted his influence; in other words, to understand Christ’s words and works with their true historical background and surroundings. It is a line of investigation that has produced, indirectly, such masterpieces as Weber’s System der altsynagogalen palästinischcn Theologie (Leipzig, 1880), and, directly, such as Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, as also the two Neu-Testamentliche Zeitgeschichten, of Schürer and Hausrath, as well as many other works, smaller in dimensions and more closely circumscribed in scope, while the spirit and method of this research is felt in every fibre of the leading exegetical and historical works on biblical subjects. The object of all this study is to produce an accurate and truly historical picture of Christ and Christianity.

In the pursuit of this aim the Book of Jubilees has a not unimportant mission. This importance lies in the fact

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that it, if carefully studied, will furnish valuable contributions toward the understanding of that problem which lies back and behind all the work and teachings of both Christ and his disciples, as also of the writings of the latter, namely, the doctrines, beliefs, and spirit of New Testament Judaism. Christ came unto his own, and his own received him not (John 1:11), because Israel had departed from the revelations of God. Instead of a justification by faith, as is taught throughout the whole Old Testament, the cotemporaries of our Lord taught a justification by the law, a legal righteousness. The central principle of Jewish orthodoxy was the nomistic principle, that obedience to the law in all its real and imagined ramifications must be the basis of acceptance before God. Thus there was an impassable gulf fixed between the theological system of the Jews and that of Christ and his disciples. The latter was a further development from Old Testament premises; the former was a radical departure from all pre-Christian revelation. This woful heterodox}-, which constituted the backbone and marrow of the accepted theo...