Rewriting Authoritative Traditions in Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah and Jubilees

Although comparative studies of Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah and Jubilees are relatively few, the fact is that all three texts consciously interact with earlier, authoritative writings or contemporaneous writings that came to be known as authoritative, especially in the legal realm. Written near the midpoint of the Second Temple period, these three texts express a level of halakhic concern as they regularly invoke legal precedent, and at times they put forward instruction that appears sui generis. That is, the instruction expressed appears nowhere in any contemporaneous code of Israelite law or custom. Such rewriting of authoritative traditions often prompts an analysis of the text along political lines, although there are other factors that deserve consideration. One goal of this study is to adduce additional frameworks within which to consider inventive legal writing as one de-centers the political reading of these texts and focuses on other literary features. A related goal is to align examples of authorizing discourse that are common to Chronicles, Esra-Nehemiah and Jubilees and subject them to comparative analysis without rushing to judgment on questions of literary dependence. A third goal is to begin to delineate a hermeneutics of rewriting in the Second Temple period informed by groupings of texts that are aligned in terms of their legal language and contextually as well; in Neh 8 and Jub. 15–16 the accounts of Sukkot provide an intriguing comparison between experiences of human joy that authorise the respective narratives.