In the context of Ptolemaic Judaea, the mechanism through which the Egyp-
tian calendar may have exerted its influence would have been more complex
than in Libya Cyrenaica and Cyprus, because in Judaea the Egyptian civil
calendar was never used as an official calendar. This is probably because
Ptolemaic rule lasted in Judaea only fromc.301 to 200BCE, when the Ptolemies
were still using a Macedonian lunar calendar (see Chapter 3); moreover, the
inhabitants of Judaea would have been more comfortable with the Ptolemaic
Macedonian calendar, as the same calendar (or at least the same set of month-
names) was in use in the neighbouring Seleucid Empire. This may explain why
third-century letters and documents from Judaean officials to the Ptolemaic
court are all dated according to the Macedonian calendar.^116 In this context,
Jewish exposure to the Egyptian civil calendar could only have been subtle.
Egyptian rule certainly meant a greater exposure to the Egyptian civil calendar
(as to other aspects of Egyptian culture) than in any other period; but at the
same time, the Jews were under no pressure to adopt it. This is perhaps what
gave them the freedom to create their own, Judaizedfixed calendar with a 364-
day year.
The extent to which the 364-day calendar was used in practice is a conten-
tious issue, but at the best of times, it would appear to have been followed only
by a minority of Judaean Jews.^117 Jub. 6: 31–8 prescribes this calendar in no
uncertain terms, but its polemical tone suggests at the same time that most
people followed instead a lunar calendar.^118 The marginality of the 364-day
calendar may have been due to its incompatibility with the official calendars in
use in Judaea, which in the Hellenistic period and until the arrival of the
Romans (in thefirst centuryCE) were consistently lunar (see Chapters 5 and 6).
Dead Sea Scrolls in general, see Doudna 1999: 463–4). The current scholarly consensus remains,
however, with a late-3rd-c. dating for the composition of the Astronomical Enoch; even if this
work is post-Ptolemaic, the concept and design of thefixed, 364-day calendar could still be
attributed to exposure to the Egyptian calendar during the Ptolemaic period.
(^116) Two letters of Toubias, a Jewish aristocrat in Transjordan, to King Ptolemy’s minister
Apollonius are dated to the Macedonian month Xandikos (257BCE); Toubias’agent’s deed of sale
to Zenon (himself an agent of Apollonius) is also dated to Xandikos (259BCE); and a letter of
Alexander, local official in Judaea or Idumea, is dated Peritios embolimos (258BCE): Tcherikover
and Fuks (1957 117 – 64) i. 118–30 (nos. 4, 5, 1, and 6 respectively).
For evidence of the widespread use of lunar calendars among the Jews in this period, see
Stern (2001) 18–46. According to Jaubert (above, n. 105), Milik (1959) 110–11, and VanderKam
(1981), (1998) 113–16, followed by others (e.g. Eshel 2005: 108–10), the 364-day year served as
the dominant, official calendar in Judaea and the Jerusalem Temple until its replacement by the
lunar calendar under Seleucid influence in the early 160sBCE, under Antiochus IV, the proof-text
for this being Dan. 7: 25). But this is convincingly refuted by Davies (1983, esp. 82–3), on the
basis of evidence of much earlier use of Babylonian month-names in Judaea, already in the
Persian period (e.g. Zech. 1: 7, 7: 1, Ezra 6: 15, Neh. 6: 15), and of lack of positive evidence that
any other calendar was used in Judaea in the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. The exclusive use of
biblical, numbered months in some late Hebrew biblical works (Haggai and Daniel) does not
necessarily imply a non-lunar, 364-day calendar. 118
Davies (1983), Stern (2001) 11, and further discussion below, Ch. 7. 1.
202 Calendars in Antiquity