tradition, in which the 360-day year (in MUL.APIN and other sources) is
strictly astronomical and intended only as a theoretical, schematic simplifica-
tion of the Babylonian calendar to provide an approximate time frame for
annually recurring astronomical events (see Chapter 2 n. 56). But in the book
of Jubilees and in Qumran calendrical sources, the 364-day calendar is used to
determine the dates of festivals and the whole liturgical year; Jub. 6: 31– 8
explicitly states that observance of this calendar is essential for the festivals to
be celebrated on the right days. The notion that afixed, schematic calendar—
with a completely changeless year-length and structure—could determine the
dates of festivals represents a significant departure from Babylonian tradition,
where the calendar in religious life was alwaysflexible and lunar. This is an
important argument against Babylonian origins. The practical, liturgical func-
tion that is ascribed in these sources to thefixed, 364-day calendar draws us
away from Mesopotamian culture, and leads us instead in the direction of
Egypt.
The 364-day year and the Egyptian civil calendarThe possibility that the 364-day calendar was designed under Egyptian influ-
ence has not received sufficient consideration.^114 Not only was its year-length
of 365 days the closest, of all ancient calendars, to the 364-day year, but as has
been stressed more than once, the Egyptian calendar was unique in the ancient
world in beingfixed, changeless, and abstract (i.e. independent of empirical
phenomena), whilst serving as an official, public, and religious calendar. These
features, of which the uniqueness cannot be understated, were also character-
istic of the Judaean 364-day calendar: afixed and abstract calendar scheme,
designed for practical religious use. If an external source is to be sought for the
364-day calendar, it is thus most likely to have been Egypt. Notwithstanding
the evident exposure of the book of Enoch to Babylonian astronomical
influence, its 364-day calendar—especially as developed and applied for reli-
gious purposes in the slightly later book of Jubilees and in Qumran sources—
seems to have been inspired by Egyptian calendrical tradition.
(^114) The suggestion wasfirst made by Milik (1959) 110–11, although he assumed—perhaps out
of deference to Jaubert’s theory—that the Egyptian calendar was borrowed‘through the Phoe-
nicians at the beginning of the Israelite monarchy’, and later modified to a 364-day year after the
Exile of 586BCE; why specificially through the Phoenicians in thefirst stage, and why a
modification after the Exile in the next stage, is not explained. A. I. Baumgarten (1997) 85– 6
similarly suggests that the 364-day calendar was the Egyptian calendar minus one day; see also
Ravid (2003) 390, but with little elaboration on this theory. Eshel (2005) 108–10 seems to have
been thefirst to suggest that the calendar resulted from Egyptian influence during the Ptolemaic
period, as I myself shall argue below.
200 Calendars in Antiquity