Ancient Jewish Calendars: A Response

My discussion of the calendar as it appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the pseudepigraphic literature was not intended in any way to be a contribution to the history of science, nor should it be read nor considered in this context. The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism was intended to be a contribution to the history of the marginal voices of the deposed and the ousted, as well as an addition to the history of the bitter dispute about the idea of the sacred, especially as it pertains to the sources of divine authority and human hegemony. I did not propose in any way to attempt or to prove the veracity of any given calendar or to correct false perceptions inherent in any calculation regarding the laws of nature. I did strive to illuminate the depth of the argument between two opposing principles in the perception of time and to clarify the identity of the opposing factions.

I attempted to explain the profound divisions found in the dispute that broke out between two factions in the last two centuries before the Common Era and the subsequent development of this interaction, involving yet a third group, in the last century BCE and the first two centuries CE. Members of the first group were identified as the kokohanim benei Sadoq or the Zadokite priesthood, which was composed of Zadokite priests and their lay supporters, who adhered to the existing sacred biblical order and saw themselves as the proponents of freedom, truth, justice, and knowledge as inspired by divine revelation, Holy Scriptures, and the angelic calendar. The members of the second group were identified as the kohanim benei Ḥašmona⊃i, the Hasmoneans or Maccabeans, who represented a new political-military-priestly authority and were considered by the former group to have transgressed the restrictions of the biblical priestly tradition and usurped the high priesthood after their nomination by the Seleucid rulers (1 Macc. 10:18-21, 14:39).

According to the Bible and the book of Ben Sira, the first group officiated in the Jerusalem Temple from the time of David and Solomon in the tenth century BCE until the second century BCE. The latter group officiated in the Jerusalem Temple from 152 to 37 BCE. The ousted Zadokite priesthood perceived the Hasmonean usurpers as evil transgressors, led by an evil priest known as the kohen reša⊃. The Zadokite priests, who described themselves as "priests of righteousness" and "Sons of Light," believed that time is divine. Time and its divisions were revealed from heaven and established the foundation of the angelic and priestly ritual order in heaven and earth as a holy, eternally symmetrical, and cyclical pattern reflecting a heavenly scheme of 364 days, divided symmetrically into four seasons of 91 days and into 52 weeks of seven days or into 52 "sabbaths" divided fourfold into 13 parallel sabbaths in each quarter. In this calendar, every year starts on a Wednesday (1/1 being the vernal equinox), as does every quarter. Each of the four seasons lasts for 91 days, starting on a Wednesday that is respectively the summer solstice (1/4), the autumnal equinox (1/7), and the winter solstice (1/10), according to the biblical priestly tradition that the luminaries were created on Wednesday. The first month of this biblical calendar is Nisan, the "month of the spring" (Leviticus 12). Thus the first day of any year would be always Wednesday, the first of Nisan, and the subsequent quarters would always begin on Wednesday 1 Tamuz, Wednesday 1 Tishrei, and Wednesday 1 Tevet. The first and second months of each quarter have 30 days; every third month has 31 days and ends on a Tuesday. This predetermined division-which assigned a fixed day and date to every day of the year-was perceived as being commanded by God (Jubilees 6:23-32), transmitted to man by the angels (1 Enoch 72-82), and maintained and guarded by the 24 priestly watches (1 Chronicles 24), according to the religious ideology of the Zadokite priesthood (Scrolls of Priestly Watches).

In the wake of...