The Temple Mount as the Navel of the World

Jubilees 8:19

Mid-2nd Century BCE

About This Entry

Jubilees, like the Babylonian Talmud, evinces a concern with sacred geography. It expresses a theology in which the center and holiest part of the world is the holy of holies in the Temple.

He knew that the Garden of Eden is the holy of holies and is the residence of the Lord; [that] Mount Sinai is in the middle of the desert; and [that] Mount Zion is in the middle of the navel of the earth. The three of them—the one facing the other1—were created as holy [places].

Translated by James C. VanderKam.
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Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation.

[That is, each one of the three facing another.—Ed.]

Credits

Jubilees 8:19, trans. James C. VanderKam, in James C. VanderKam, Jubilees: A Commentary in Two Volumes, vol. 1, ed. Sidnie White Crawford, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2018), p. 358. Used with permission of 1517 Media.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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Jubilees, like the Babylonian Talmud, evinces a concern with sacred geography. It expresses a theology in which the center and holiest part of the world is the holy of holies in the Temple.

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