Freethought & Rationalism Archive

andrewcriddle · 04-09-2005, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amaleq13

Hell no.

I was offering what seemed to me to be the basis for Andrew's "minority". A complaint that "Israel" isn't properly keeping track of time seems to suggest that the complainant's calendar wasn't being kept by most folks.

I don't understand, however, how he identifies which specific calendar this alleged majority was following (ie 354 days).

Jubilees which was an authoritative text among the DSS people is supporting a 364 day year against opponents who support a 354 day year based on the moon

Quote:

Jubilees VI 'There will be those who make careful observations of the moon (it upsets the seasons and comes in from year to year ten days too soon). Thus the years will come to them all wrong they will make the day of testimony of no consequence and an ordinary day a feast day and they will mix up all the days the holy with the ordinary and the ordinary with the holy and go wrong about the months and sabbaths and feasts and jubilees. ....for after your death your sons will upset through not making the year three hundred and sixty four days only and so they will go wrong about the new moons and seasons and sabbaths and festivals'

(354 days is 10 less than 364)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle · 04-09-2005, 02:12 PM

I've been trying to find evidence apart from the DSS as to which calendar was used for festivals in the 2nd century BCE.

There isn't much

However Ecclesiasticus AKA Ben Sira (Palestine c 180 BCE) appears to assune a lunar based calendar for festivals.

Ecclesiasticus 43:7 'From the moon comes the sign for feast days a light that wanes when it has reached the full'.

There are references in Aristobolus and Ezekiel the Tragedian (probably both Alexandria late 2nd century BCE) to Passover occurring at full moon.

How strong this evidence is I'm not sure. Ecclesiasticus may be the most important.

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13 · 04-09-2005, 02:38 PM

Thanks for yet another clarification, Andrew. I will now return to lurking.

spin · 04-09-2005, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jub 6:34b-38

And all the children of Israel will forget and will not find the path of the years, and will forget the new moons, and seasons, and sabbaths 35 and they will go wrong as to all the order of the years. For I know and from henceforth will I declare it unto thee, and it is not of my own devising; for the book (lies) written before me, and on the heavenly tablets the division of days is ordained, lest they forget the feasts of the covenant 36 and walk according to the feasts of the Gentiles after their error and after their ignorance. For there will be those who will assuredly make observations of the moon -how (it) disturbs the 37 seasons and comes in from year to year ten days too soon. For this reason the years will come upon them when they will disturb (the order), and make an abominable (day) the day of testimony, and an unclean day a feast day, and they will confound all the days, the holy with the unclean, and the unclean day with the holy; for they will go wrong as to the months and sabbaths and feasts and 38 jubilees. For this reason I command and testify to thee that thou mayst testify to them; for after thy death thy children will disturb (them), so that they will not make the year three hundred and sixty-four days only, and for this reason they will go wrong as to the new moons and seasons and sabbaths and festivals, and they will eat all kinds of blood with all kinds of flesh.

If one looks immediately before the passage that Andrew cites you'll find a discussion, "lest they forget the feasts of the covenant and walk according to the feasts of the Gentiles after their error and after their ignorance". This is the context for "those who will assuredly make observations of the moon", ie those who follow the calendar of the gentiles, obviously the Babylonian lunar calendar enforced by the Seleucids.

The calendar of Jewish festivals is ostensibly an agricultural, therefore a solar calendar. Pesach, Shabuot and Sukkot depend on the solar year, and to stress the unrelatedness of Shabuot to the moon, it is 49 days, ie seven weeks, after Sukkot, the festival of the weeks, when you brought your first fruits to the temple. Sukkot, "tabernacles" , when you figuratively went out into huts for harvesting. And Pesach was originally about lambing. These festivals have nothing to do with lunar cycles, but strictly with the sun's yearly journey, which guided agriculture and pastoralism.

spin

Anat · 04-09-2005, 05:37 PM

Minor correction, spin: Shavuot is 7 weeks after Pessach, not Sukkoth.

Correspondence with the agricultural cycle can be achieved also with a Lunar calendar with leap months, as is done with the current Hebrew calendar. You get pomegranates and tangerines for your sukkah (OK, they didn't have tangerines then, but they did have etrogim), fresh fruit for Shavuot's first fruit celebrations. There is also the advantage of having maximal moonlight for pilgrims on Pessach and Sukkoth. This made me wonder if ever Shavuot was celebrated in mid-Siwan but later moved to earlier that month when the festivals became associated with the exodus story.

What calendar was in use in Ugarit and other Levant cultures?

spin · 04-09-2005, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anat

Minor correction, spin: Shavuot is 7 weeks after Pessach, not Sukkoth.

Gkk. How did that happen? Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anat

Correspondence with the agricultural cycle can be achieved also with a Lunar calendar with leap months, as is done with the current Hebrew calendar.

Aww no, it can't. The festivals would lag behind up to twenty days with regard to the season. You can't allow that with regard to harvesting. So they catch up every three years, but that doesn't help a farmer. I'd be certain that despite the use of the Babylonian calendar in the city late in the 2nd temple, the rural areas would still have used a rough solar calendar, judging the first day of the year by whatever astronomical means necessary, the rising of some star or whatever, then 15 days to Pesach, then 49 days from the day after Pesach to Shabuot to be certain. Those 49 days tells you it wasn't a matter of the moon; it was a rule of thumb to get them to the right time of the year to harvest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anat

What calendar was in use in Ugarit and other Levant cultures?

From the little I've seen they used systems from Luwian or Hurrian traditions (ie from further north).

spin

Anat · 04-09-2005, 11:44 PM

Is it possible to plan the harvest for a specific day based on a (solar) calendar date alone? Some years the rains start early, some years they start late. Other climate factors vary from one year to the next. Thus crops will be ready for harvest at different times. The calendar date can serve as a rough indicator as to when to plan the harvest, but the actual optimal time will vary, and one would have to go out to the fields and decide how to proceed. For such a rough indicator any calendar where deviation from solar gets corrected ever so often should do.

andrewcriddle · 04-10-2005, 05:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Aww no, it can't. The festivals would lag behind up to twenty days with regard to the season. You can't allow that with regard to harvesting. So they catch up every three years, but that doesn't help a farmer.

FWIW a 364 day year with occasional intercalations (eg a 35 day extra month every 28 years) can cause even worse problems on the farm.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle · 04-10-2005, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

Hi Andrew.

We can set aside the Qumran discussion, yes. I'm not qualified to offer much on the content of the scrolls, but there is another important issue, and that is their volume.

We must consider the kind of wealth that is represented by the quantity of scrolls found and ask ourselves what entities could have commanded that kind of wealth.

Nobody is arguing for an on-site scribal center or something silly like that. It is a remote deposit. There is good reason to believe the deposit is also not the full extent, as so much time has passed and probably not every item was deposited in the first place.

So what organization would have this kind of means?

I agree that most of the dead sea scrolls are a remote deposit. (IMHO some of the scrolls eg the scrolls in cave 1 are possibly the contents of a local library of some sort.)

This sort of argument is IMO strongest against the idea that the scrolls were produced by an otherwise unknown group.

That still leaves the Sadducees (ie the leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem) the Pharisees and the Essenes.

Since IIUC nobody is arguing that the scrolls are Pharisaic that leaves the Sadducees and the Essenes.

There are problems with relating the scrolls either to what we know from other sources about the Sadducees or to what we know from other sources about the Essenes.

Andrew Criddle

spin · 04-10-2005, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

FWIW a 364 day year with occasional intercalations (eg a 35 day extra month every 28 years) can cause even worse problems on the farm.

Week intercalations every seven years of course are another matter.

spin

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04-09-2005, 02:12 PM	#22
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	I've been trying to find evidence apart from the DSS as to which calendar was used for festivals in the 2nd century BCE. There isn't much However Ecclesiasticus AKA Ben Sira (Palestine c 180 BCE) appears to assune a lunar based calendar for festivals. Ecclesiasticus 43:7 'From the moon comes the sign for feast days a light that wanes when it has reached the full'. There are references in Aristobolus and Ezekiel the Tragedian (probably both Alexandria late 2nd century BCE) to Passover occurring at full moon. How strong this evidence is I'm not sure. Ecclesiasticus may be the most important. Andrew Criddle

04-09-2005, 02:38 PM	#23
Amaleq13 Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Eagle River, Alaska Posts: 7,816	Thanks for yet another clarification, Andrew. I will now return to lurking.

04-09-2005, 05:37 PM	#25
Anat Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: home Posts: 3,715	Minor correction, spin: Shavuot is 7 weeks after Pessach, not Sukkoth. Correspondence with the agricultural cycle can be achieved also with a Lunar calendar with leap months, as is done with the current Hebrew calendar. You get pomegranates and tangerines for your sukkah (OK, they didn't have tangerines then, but they did have etrogim), fresh fruit for Shavuot's first fruit celebrations. There is also the advantage of having maximal moonlight for pilgrims on Pessach and Sukkoth. This made me wonder if ever Shavuot was celebrated in mid-Siwan but later moved to earlier that month when the festivals became associated with the exodus story. What calendar was in use in Ugarit and other Levant cultures?

04-09-2005, 11:44 PM	#27
Anat Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: home Posts: 3,715	Is it possible to plan the harvest for a specific day based on a (solar) calendar date alone? Some years the rains start early, some years they start late. Other climate factors vary from one year to the next. Thus crops will be ready for harvest at different times. The calendar date can serve as a rough indicator as to when to plan the harvest, but the actual optimal time will vary, and one would have to go out to the fields and decide how to proceed. For such a rough indicator any calendar where deviation from solar gets corrected ever so often should do.

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