andrewcriddle

Hi Spin

Is the following roughly what you are suggesting ?

Period a/ Sometime in the early 2nd century BCE.
Temple of Jerusalem uses lunar 354 day year for calculating festivals, this is more or less accepted by most Jews, with acquiescence going far beyond outright apostates like Menelaus. Religious conservatives/zealots are committed to a 364 day year and resist the 354 day year as a persecuted minority. Jubilees derives from around this period as does the Community Document (CD).

Period b/ From say the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the middle 1st century BCE.
Temple of Jerusalem using 364 day year favoured by conservatives/zealots. who are currently dominant. Much of the distinctive dead sea scrolls material comes from this period including the various fragmentary calendars from cave 4.

Period c/ late 1st century BCE onwards.
Jerusalem temple now using 354 day year again. Given that most of the dead sea scrolls were originally authored before this period it is not clear now this group responded, however the lunar information in the calendars of Period b/ suggests that they would have been able to tolerate the change.

If this is what you are suggesting it seems unnecessarily complicated but am I misunderstanding you ?

Andrew Criddle

spin

No. What makes you think that the temple used a 354-day calendar this early? The Astronomical Book is earlier than the 2nd c. BCE and shows that the 364-day calendar was the favoured version in preference to the 360-day calendar. Jubilees reflects the same current as the AB but is much later.

My chronology is

• 360-day calendar down to 3rd century
  5 months in Noah's flood is 150 days.
• 364-day improved calendar down to at least 63 BCE
  AB adds 4 days, Jubilees continues, mishmarot show temple before DSS deposit.
• 354-day calendar with the Pharisaic ascendency.

The temple rosters (mishmarot) are very strong evidence. They make no sense in a hypothetically anti-temple sect.


spin

andrewcriddle

Hi Spin

Thanks for your clarification

My problem is that Jubilees (which IIUC we both hold to be a 2nd century BCE text) seems clearly to be written in support of a 364 day calendar in opposition to the 354 day calendar. The context appears to be one in which the 354 day calendar has (from the point of view of the author of Jubilees) worryingly high support.

(If one sees the main motive for writing Jubilees as a desperate attempt to defend the 364 day year against supporters of the 354 day year then the level of support for the 354 day year was presumably very high indeed.)

And the Community Document (CD) bases itself on Jubilees as providing a basis which must mean that the position advocated by Jubilees is currently a minority one.

MMT the (Halakhic Letter) probably makes the calendar a source of dispute between the author and his opponents with the author supporting a 364 day year.

IIUC we agree that all of these date from well before the period of the 'Pharisaic Ascendancy' after say 63 BCE.

Hence there does seem to have been a 2nd century period (whether late or early 2nd century is not clear) in which advocacy of the 364 day year is a minority position compared to the 354 day year.

If so then either this position was temporary during acute hellenization in the early 2nd century BCE with the 364 day year then restored until a century later (which seems unlikely), or the 354 day was permanently established in the 2nd century BCE with 1st and late 2nd century BCE texts which advocate the 364 day year doing so as an avowedly sectarian position.

Andrew Criddle

(I probably won't be able to reply again till Monday)

spin

The Seleucids had enforced the use of the 354-day calendar as the civil calendar and attempted to enforce it for cultic purposes as well. The priest who returned after him regained the temple and it was business there as usual. However, the civil use of the calendar continued, hence the Pharisees who were not temple aligned picked up its use.

I would say more that it was making sure people didn't get confused by the civil usage, so that people didn't understand the cultus.

You could hardly call the calendar the main motive for its writing. The calendar is assumed as a fact and I remember only one effort to deal with the errors that the 354-day calendar would cause, ie people will go astray regarding feasts.

Perhaps the distinction between the civil and cultic calendars, one used in daily life for legal and commercial activities, the other for correct times of feasts, is not so clear?

People often don't understand how Easter is decided, but the church certainly knows.

MMT is about maintaining purity and not mixing pure with impure. Where is there opportunity in the text to deal with conflicts over the calendar?

Why minority position?

If the temple priesthood sets the cultus, then maybe we are dealing with a minority. So? They are the ones in control of the cultus and we are dealing with the cultic calendar.

If the above comments of mine are clear, do you need a comment here?

And in an earlier post I mentioned that the mishmarot are a clear indicator: they are priestly rosters for active service in the temple, guided by the 364-day calendar.


spin

andrewcriddle

Just time for a quick reply here

MMT (4Q394 3-7i) unfortunately frgmentary
..]ded to it. And the year is complete: three hundred and si[xty-four] days.

(In some reconstructions of MMT there is a 364 day year calendar at the beginning but this is heavily disputed)

Andrew Criddle

Amaleq13

Isn't an opposition to a majority suggested by the reference to "Israel" turning a blind eye to the correct calendar?

spin

It is partially because of what you cite that people have thought there was a calendar prefixing the regulations in this copy of MMT.

You'll note that after a vacat the text continues, "These are some of our regulations..." and there follows the regulations and their disputation. The material about the 364-day calendar occurs prior to the regulations and their disputations.


spin

spin

It could be so, if that's a viable paring down of the rhetoric. It could be hyperbole thought.

My main interest is in the priestly context of the scrolls and ultimately the priesthood was a small section of the population. But then the aristocracy was always a small section of the population and still held the vast bulk of the power. I don't really see the relevance of the minority majority rhetoric in the ancient world, especially when dealing with "official" cultus which was always in the hands of few. Would you want to dispute any of this?


spin

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).

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?