JUBILEES, BOOK OF, an apocryphal Work, much used in the ancient church. The original Hebrew and the Greek translation were lost, but an Ethiopic version has been discovered in Abyssinia. It is nailed the jubilees, because it divides the biblical history of which it treats, from the creation of the world to the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, into 50 jubilees of 49 years each, comprising 2,450 years, describing carefully every event according to the jubilee—Sabbatie year, or year in which it 'happened. It was designed as a commentary on the books of Genesis and Exodus, arranging minutely the chronology of the biblical history, solving difficulties found in the narratives of those books, giving more fully what was only hinted at in the sacred history, and expatiatlhg upon the various religious observances. The author of the book is unknown, but many circumstances indicate that he was a Jew. All critics agree that it was written in Hebrew, translated into Greek, and that the Ethiopic was mace from the Greek. Dill
man gave a German translation from the Ethiopic, through which it has become known to Europeans. He divided the work into 50 chapters. Its exact (late is not known, but -critics have fixed it either in the first c. before Christ or about the birth of Christ. It is considered important to the interpretation of the Bible, and to the history of Jewish •Iikelief before the Christian era. The Greek version was made at a early period of the Christian era,•was soon lost in the western church, but existed !ong after in the eastern.. From the 11th or 12th c. it entirely disappeared. In 1844 Dr. Krapff found in the. Abyssinian church an Ethiopic translation of the Greek, a manuscript copy.of whiCh. was presented to the Tubingen university. It in considered as canonical by the Abys sinian church.