D-3 The “Day of the Lord” in Jubilees 3:9: A Textual Analysis in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Buller Room 250

According to the book of Jubilees, on the eighth day of the creation of the world, God commanded Adam not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. This eighth day is identified as the “day of the Lord”(Jub 3:9). While there is no doubt among the scholars that the eighth day (Sunday) was considered the “day of the Lord” among the Christians, the available evidences only go back to the second century A.D. Since the book of Jubilees was written in the second century B.C., that is, before the birth of Christianity, Jub 3:9 has the earliest occurrence of the phrase “day of the Lord.” Consequently, it represents a challenge to those who still held that the reference to the “day of the Lord” as Sunday comes very late into Christianity. However, a comparison of the Greek, Hebrew, and Ethiopic version of the book of Jubilees suggests that the phrase “the day of the Lord” in the Greek version is a Christian gloss rather than part of the original text.