more inconsistently, the number of 364 days appears at the end of verse 74: 10,
where 360 days are otherwise assumed. These inconsistencies have been
explained as the result of two distinct stages in the redaction of this work,
with 360 days in the earlier stage, and the addition of the four days in the
latter.^97 In its present form, 1 Enoch clearly assumes the 364-day year as
normative.
The 364-day calendar then dominates the book of Jubilees, a work with a
similar history of transmission; its original composition is dated slightly later,
to the mid-second centuryBCE.^98 It seems to use the book of Enoch as a source
(Jub. 4: 17–24), but describes its calendar in rather different terms; moreover,
the purpose of the 364-day calendar, in this work, is not astronomical but
largely to date biblical events and religious festivals. Jubilees is thefirst source
to point out that the 364-day year consists of exactly 52 weeks, which it groups
into four seasons of 13 weeks each (6: 28–32). This means, by implication, that
the New Year and the festivals always occur on the same day of the week.^99
The 364-day year is also divided into twelve months; thefirst day of the 1st,
4th, 7th, and 10th months are called‘days of remembrance’or‘days of
appointed times’,^100 and begin each of the four parts or seasons of the year
(6: 23, 29). These days presumably correspond to the four additional days
which are called‘31st’in 1 Enoch, except that here they are unambiguously
placed at the beginning of the months.^101
The 364-day calendar is also prominent in the literature from Qumran (the
‘Dead Sea Scrolls’), which can be securely dated to the second centuryBCE—
first centuryCE. Although there is no single‘Qumran calendar’—a variety of
schemes are represented in the sources, each with their own level of detail and
complexity—the 364-day year tends to be their single, common denominator.
This year-length and calendar is assumed in many non-calendrical sources as
well as in a number of purely calendrical texts dating from the late second–late
first centuriesBCE, which lay out this calendar and derivative cycles in excep-
tional detail.^102 In these sources, the 364-day calendar is rarely presented in its
(^97) Ben-Dov (2008) 34–7, 126, with further references. Less likely is the suggestion of E. Isaac
(Charlesworth 1983–5: i. 54 note u) that 74: 10–16 (which implies the 360-day year) is the‘later
fragmentary intrusion’.
(^98) Schürer (1973–87) iii. 308–18, 256, VanderKam (1998), Ben-Dov (2008). This work has
only been preserved in full in its Ethiopic version; Hebrew fragments, presumably of the original
text, have been found at Qumran, but not of the passages relevant here. 99
According to Qumran calendar texts, the New Year is always on aWednesday; all months
in the year begin either onWednesday, Friday, or Sunday (the latter for all the 31-day months),
and most festivals occur or begin on aWednesday.
(^100) According to O. S.Wintermute’s translation in Charlesworth (1983–5) ii. 68.
(^101) See above, n. 96. For further details on the calendars of 1 Enoch and Jubilees, see
VanderKam (1998) 17–33, Glessmer (1999) 235–8, Ravid (2003), Ben-Dov (2008).
(^102) The main texts are 4Q319–37, in Talmon, Ben-Dov, and Glessmer (2001) (with tabula-
tions on pp. 4, 17–28). See also VanderKam (1998) 74–90, Glessmer (1999), Stern (2010b).
TheRise of the Fixed Calendars 195