How Jubilees Rewrites Genesis

The passage from Jubilees, beside its biblical counterpart, illustrates several aspects of the book—how it expands the biblical text (the “rewritten Bible”), uses the jubilee (seven times seven) years as a measurement of time and traces later festivals to the time of the ancestors. It also enlarges on the lives of patriarchs such as Abram. The Jubilees text is based on the Ethiopic version as corrected on the basis of fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Rainbow in the clouds

Genesis 9:8–17

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”