Book of Jubilees

The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish religious work composed during the 2nd century before the common count that retells Genesis and the beginning of Exodus, presenting biblical history through periods of 49 years known as jubilees.

It expands the stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, emphasizing divine laws, covenantal identity, ritual purity, and the observance of a 364-day solar calendar. The text presents many religious commandments as having existed before the revelation at Mount Sinai.

Hebrew fragments discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate its circulation in Second Temple Judaism. Although excluded from the rabbinic Jewish canon, it preserves important early Jewish interpretations of biblical history.