calendar, the 364-day calendar was distinctively abstract and schematic. This
justifies the inclusion of this topic within the chapter subheading‘Ptolemaic
Empire’, rather than placing it under a separate subheading of its own, as
I shall argue that the formation of thisfixed calendar in this period was related
to the spread of the Egyptian calendar under Ptolemaic rule.
The earliest attestation of this calendar is probably in chapters 72–82 of the
Ethiopic book of Enoch (or 1 Enoch), a section referred to sometimes as the
‘Astronomical Book of Enoch’; originally a separate work, it is the earliest
Jewish text describing how a calendar is reckoned.^94 It was most probably
composed by Jews in Judaea, originally in Aramaic, in the late third century
BCE. Only fragments of the Aramaic version have survived; we are therefore
dependent almost entirely on the Ethiopic translation, which cannot predate
the Christianization of Ethiopia in the fourth centuryCE, and whosefidelity to
the Aramaic original is a matter of debate.^95
1 Enoch (ch. 72) presents a solar year of 364 days, divided into twelve
months of 30 days except for the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th months that have
31 days‘on account of the (sun’s) sign’(72: 13, 19). This obscure phrase has
been taken to refer to the four cardinal points of the solar year (i.e. the solstices
and equinoxes), which would account for the four additional days (the 31st
day of each of these four months). Later in the book (82: 4, 11–20), the four
additional days are described as‘leaders’of the year and of its four seasons,
which lends some support to this interpretation.^96
Although in 1 Enoch the 364-day year is presented mainly as an astronom-
ical scheme, it seems also to be favoured as a calendar for people to use (but for
what purpose exactly is not specified). It is contrasted with a 360-day calendar
(the same, but omitting the four additional days), which some (or all?) people
are criticized for using (75: 1–2, 82: 4–6). But in a passage on the relationship
between the solar year and a schematic lunar year of 354 days resulting from
an alternation of 29- and 30-day months, 1 Enoch assumes inconsistently a
360-day year (hence a difference of 6 days per annum, or 30 days infive years:
74: 10–11) and then a 364-day year (50 days infive years: 74: 12–14). Even
(^94) Milik (1976), VanderKam (1998), Ben-Dov (2008); see also Schürer (1973–87) iii.
250 – 68. English translations of 1 Enoch and Jubilees are in Charlesworth (1983–5),i.5–89,
ii. 35 95 – 142.
The Aramaic fragments from Qumran werefirst published by Milik (1976), who argued
that the Ethiopic version was an abridgment of the Aramaic original. It is generally accepted that
the Ethiopic translation was not made directly from the Aramaic original, but rather from a
Greek intermediary version. It should also be noted that the earliest of the Qumran fragments,
4QEnastra(= 4Q208), cannot be directly related to any passage of the Ethiopic Enoch, which
makes the relationship between these sources all the more uncertain. See Ben-Dov (2008) 69–77,
11696 – 18. On the dating, see discussion below, n. 115.
This assumes, however, that equinoxes and solstices, which represent astronomical posi-
tions of the sun, were also conceptualized as the beginning of the four seasons; but there is no
explicit statement in 1 Enoch to confirm this. The position of the four additional days, according
to these passages, is ambiguous: see Ben-Dov (2008) 38–40.
194 Calendars in Antiquity