Qumran calendrical texts

There are about twenty different texts from Qumran which deal with a 364-day solar calendar.[1] They are mainly very fragmentary, so the calendar is not completely understood. However, it is significantly different from the Babylonian lunar calendar which evolved into the 354-day Hebrew calendar as known today. The scrolls calendar divided the year into four quarters and recorded the feast days of the community. Feasts were fixed to the solar year and so occurred on different days from those indicated in the Babylonian-based calendar. Many of the texts are rosters of weekly shifts or courses of temple service for the twenty-four priestly families, known as Mishmarot.[2] The calendar is foreseen in the early sections of the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, texts also found in large numbers at Qumran.

Structure

The year is made up of twelve months, grouped in quarters. Each quarter contains two months of 30-days and one of 31-days, i.e. 91 days or 13 weeks, each quarter.[3] The following table shows a quarter of the year. (The day names are provided only to facilitate of understanding. Other than the weekly Sabbath, the other days were merely numbered in the calendrical texts.)

 Months 1, 4, 7, 10   Months 2, 5, 8, 11   Months 3, 6, 9, 12 
Wed 1 8152229 6132027 4111825
Thurs 2 9162330 7142128 5121926
Fri 3101724 1 8152229 6132027
Sat 4111825 2 9162330 7142128
Sun 5121926 3101724 1 8152229
Mon 6132027 4111825 2 9162330
Tues 7142128 5121926 310172431

The year and each of its quarters starts on the same day, the fourth day of the week (Wednesday to us). This was the day when the sun was created in Genesis 1:14-18.

However, the calendar as we know it is 364 days long, making it one and a quarter days short of a true year. This means, if it were put into practice, it would quickly become out of sync with reality. Because of this, Lawrence Schiffman has stated the view that "this calendar was never really put to the test except perhaps for a short period".[4] Uwe Glessmer has proposed on the basis of 4Q319 ("Otot") that the calendar was in fact intercalated, a week being added every seven years to keep it in sync with the solar year.[5] Roger Beckwith suggested that the discrepancy between the calendar and the true year, though noticed, may not have been of concern to the community that used the calendar.[6]

The calendrical documents 4Q320 and 4Q321 from the Dead Sea Scrolls outlining the 364-day solar calendar, six-year cycle of priestly courses, and 354-day lunar year cycles may be found here.[7] In addition, an abbreviated Jubilee calendar from 4Q319 along with the priestly course serving on 1 Abib (the first day of the year) each year may be found here.[8]

Mishmarot

The Mishmarot are texts which outline the weekly courses of the twenty-four priestly families who perform duties in the temple. The order of families follows that found in 1 Chronicles 24:7-18.[9] Repeating the twenty-four over a period of six years completes a full cycle and the following year once again starts with the first of the priestly families.[10]

Here are a few entries in 4Q325 ("Mishmarot D"):

The beginning of the se[cond] month is [on the si]xth [day] of the course of Jedaiah. On the second of the month is the Sabbath of the course of Harim....[11]

As the years are traversed, Sabbaths and feast days are usually noted. For example (from 4Q326):

[.. on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month] is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. On the fou[rth day of the week is a holy assembly. On the twenty-fifth of the month is] a Sabbath. On the twenty-sixth of the month is the B[arley] Festival....[12]

The texts are quite fragmentary, but because so much of the material is formulaic, restoration is relatively easy.

One of these texts, the extremely fragmentary Mishmarot C (4Q322-324b), also contains a number of historical allusions, mentioning the names "Yohanan" (perhaps John Hyrcanus) and Shelamzion (Salome Alexandra). Illusive snippets of text read "Shelamzion entered..." and "Hyrcanus rebelled..." (presumably Hyrcanus II who rebelled against his brother Aristobulus II). Another fragment twice mentions "Amelios killed..." Aemilius Scaurus (one of Pompey's lieutenants in Judea in 63 BCE).[13]

Other texts

Among the calendrical works is 4Q317, which lists the phases of the moon with respect to the 364-day calendar, 4Q318 ("Brontologion"), which contains a section which used thunder (Grk: brontos) at varies times to predict the future, and 4Q319 (Otot or "signs"), which analyzes certain events over a period of 294 years, i.e. six Jubilees.[14]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Talmon, 2000, p.108.
  2. ↑ Talmon, 2000, p.110.
  3. ↑ Talmon, 2000, p.109.
  4. ↑ Schiffman, 1994, p.304.
  5. ↑ Glessmer, cited in VanderKam, 1998, p.82.
  6. ↑ Beckwith cited in Stern, 2000, p.180.
  7. ↑ Vermes, 1997, Mishmarot A - 4Q320, pp.336-348
  8. ↑ Vermes, 1997, Calendric Signs (Otot) - 4Q319, pp.352-356
  9. ↑ VanderKam, 1998, p.73.
  10. ↑ Wise et al., 1996, p.300.
  11. ↑ Wise et al., 1996, p.317.
  12. ↑ Wise et al., 1996, p.318.
  13. ↑ Wise et al., 1996, p.314-316.
  14. ↑ Wise et al., 1996, p.301-309.

Bibliography

External links