My LORD’s BibleA Jubilees Timeline: From Creation to Sinai in Fifty Jubilees
Genesis gives genealogies and ages. Jubilees turns them into a calendar, with every birth, death and flood dated to a numbered jubilee of forty-nine years, and the whole story running to exactly fifty.
How Jubilees counts time
The Book of Jubilees opens by calling itself “the history of the division of the days of the law and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of their (year) weeks, of their Jubilees throughout all the years of the world.” Its unit is the jubilee: seven “weeks” of seven years, or forty-nine years. Inside each jubilee a date is given as a week and a year, such as “the first year of the fifth week of the forty-fourth jubilee.” The counting starts at creation, and the angel who dictates the book to Moses says that he took the tables of the divisions of the years from the time of the creation.
The angel takes up the tables of the years, counted from creation:
Jubilees 1:29
Read in full chapter →29And the angel of the presence who went before the camp of Israel took the tables of the divisions of the years -from the time of the creation- of the law 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 day of the [new] creation when the heavens and the earth shall be renewed and all their creation according to the powers of the 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 luminaries be renewed for healing and for peace and for blessing for all the elect of Israel, and that thus it may be from that day and unto all the days of the earth.
See also: 2 Peter 3:13
The scheme rests on a year of 364 days, which Jubilees insists on and warns that later generations will get wrong, so that they “go wrong as to the new moons and seasons and sabbaths and festivals.” A year of 364 days is exactly fifty-two weeks, so every festival falls on the same day of the week every year.
The year Jubilees commands Israel to keep:
Jubilees 6:32
Read in full chapter →32And command thou the children of Israel that they observe the years according to this reckoning- three hundred and sixty-four days, and (these) will constitute a complete year, and they will not disturb its time from its days and from its feasts; for everything will fall out in them according to their testimony, and they will not leave out any day nor disturb any feasts.
The timeline, in order
The table gives the main dated events as the text itself places them. “Jubilee” numbers are counted from creation, so the first jubilee is the first forty-nine years of the world.
| Jubilee | Event | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Adam and his wife work the garden of Eden for seven years | Jubilees 3:15 |
| 3rd | Cain slays Abel | Jubilees 4:2 |
| 11th | Enoch is born to Jared | Jubilees 4:16 |
| 19th (close) | Adam dies, and Cain is killed in the same year | Jubilees 4:29, 4:31 |
| 27th | Noah builds the ark | Jubilees 5:22 |
| 33rd (beginning) | The earth is divided among Shem, Ham and Japheth | Jubilees 8:10 |
| 34th | The peoples are dispersed from the land of Shinar | Jubilees 10:27 |
| 39th | Terah takes his wife | Jubilees 11:14 |
| 42nd | Abraham dwells at Hebron; Sarah dies at 127 | Jubilees 19:1, 19:2, 19:7 |
| 44th | Abraham dies; Jacob goes to Haran | Jubilees 22:1, 27:19 |
| 45th | Famine; Israel goes down into Egypt, and dies there | Jubilees 42:1, 45:1, 45:13 |
| 46th | Joseph dies | Jubilees 46:8 |
| 48th | Moses is born | Jubilees 47:1 |
| 49th | Moses goes to Midian | Jubilees 48:1 |
| 50th | Moses returns to Egypt | Jubilees 48:1 |
Why the lifespans shrink
Jubilees counts lifespans in jubilees, and the numbers fall as the story goes on. The forefathers before the Flood lived about nineteen jubilees, but Abraham, Jubilees says, did not complete four, because of the growing wickedness of the world, and later generations will age and die faster still.
On the decline of human lifespans after the Flood:
Jubilees 23:9
Read in full chapter →9For the days of the forefathers, of their life, were nineteen jubilees; and after the Flood they began to grow less than nineteen jubilees, and to decrease in jubilees, and to grow old quickly, and to be full of their days by reason of manifold tribulation and the wickedness of their ways, with the exception of Abraham.
Where it all adds up: fifty jubilees
The book closes by summing the whole account. The angel tells Moses that there are forty-nine jubilees from the days of Adam until that day, plus a week and two years, and that forty years remain before Israel crosses into the land.
The book's own total:
Jubilees 50:4
Read in full chapter →4Wherefore I have ordained for thee the year-weeks and the years and the jubilees: there are forty-nine jubilees from the days of Adam until this day, and one week and two years: and there are yet forty years to come (lit. 'distant') for learning the commandments of the Lord, until they pass over into the land of Canaan, crossing the Jordan to the west.
The arithmetic is simple: forty-nine jubilees of forty-nine years is 2,401 years, plus a week and two years, which is nine more, gives 2,410. Add the forty years still to come and the sum is 2,450, which is exactly fifty jubilees of forty-nine years. History from creation to Israel's entry into the land is meant to be one great jubilee cycle, with Canaan as its fiftieth-jubilee rest. That reading is ours, not stated in so many words, but it follows from the figures the angel gives.
How this fits with Genesis
Jubilees follows Genesis story for story and adds numbers, names for the wives of the patriarchs, and angelic commentary. Its dating scheme is its own, and the English reader can follow it chapter by chapter. For the book's origin and why only the Ethiopian Orthodox church kept it, see the overview article, and for how it differs from 1 Enoch, see the article on Enoch.
Common questions
- How long is a jubilee in the Book of Jubilees?
- Forty-nine years: seven “weeks” of seven years each. The book's own “fiftieth jubilee” is the end of its whole scheme, when Israel enters the land.
- How many jubilees pass between Adam and Moses?
- Jubilees counts forty-nine jubilees, plus a week and two years, from Adam to the time Moses receives the revelation, with forty more years to Israel's entry into the land. Together that is fifty jubilees, or 2,450 years.
- Does Jubilees use a 364-day year?
- Yes. It commands a year of 364 days, or exactly fifty-two weeks, and says later generations will lose the correct reckoning.