Calendar polemics in Qumran sectarian sourcesWe now turn to the question of whether the calendar was treated at Qumran
as a polemical issue. The radical differences between the 364-day calendar,
favoured in Qumran sources, and the Jewish lunar calendar, apparently
dominant elsewhere, have led scholars to read calendar polemics into a
number of so-called‘sectarian’Qumran texts (in particular the Damascus
Document, the Community Rule, and the Habakkuk Pesher). They con-
structed in this way the impression that the calendar and how it was reckoned
formed an important part of the community’s sectarian identity. On close
inspection, however, it emerges that most of these readings—if not all—are
over-interpretations or even misinterpretations. This tendentious reading of
Qumran texts has been determined by the assumption that the calendar was a
sectarian issue—an assumption that will be criticized below.
Thus in the Damascus Document, God is said to have revealed to the
‘remnant of Israel’the Sabbaths and festivals in which the rest of Israel had
gone astray (CD 3: 13–15), and to enjoin the observance of the Sabbath in its
detail and the festivals and day of fast as according to thefindings of the
members of the new covenant (CD 6: 18–19). These passages, clearly polemi-
cal, are commonly interpreted as referring to the observance of festivals and
day of fast on their correctdates, i.e. according to the 364-day calendar.^25
However, calendar and dates are not explicitly mentioned here; it is just as
likely that these passages are polemicizing about the correctform of observance
of the festivals in terms of prohibitions, liturgy, and acts of worship. Another
passage of the Damascus Document (CD 16: 2–4, = 4Q270 fr. 6, 2: 17, 4Q271
fr. 4, 2: 5) is often interpreted as prescribing the observance of the calendar
which is‘strictly defined in the book of Jubilees’, i.e. the 364-day year.^26 And
yet, the passage is only referring to the book of Jubilees for the determination
of the‘periods of the blindness of Israel’—i.e. certain periods (past or future)
of Israel’s history; this passage is about long-term chronology, not the annual
calendar.^27 A fragmentary, polemical passage in the HoseaPesher(4Q166 2:
16) which seems to condemn those who follow the‘festivals of the nations’has
been interpreted as a reference to the observance of (Jewish) festivals on the
wrong dates.^28 This interpretation is based on a similar phrase in Jub. 6: 35, to
(^25) Talmon (1958) = (1989) 151, Vermes (1997) 78, VanderKam (1998) 48.
(^26) Talmon (1958) = (1989) 161, Vermes (1997) 41, VanderKam (1998) 47–8, followed by
Stern (2001) 12.
(^27) So correctly J. M. Baumgarten (1996) 156–7, 178–9. The full passage translates as follows:
‘and as to the determination of all these periods of blindness of Israel, behold, it is strictly defined
in the book ofTheDivisions of Times into Jubilees andWeeks’.
(^28) Bernstein (1991), and more briefly Vermes (1997) 78. But for a critique of this interpreta-
tion, see A. I. Baumgarten (1997) 85–6 n. 17. For detailed analysis of all these passages, see Stern
(2011).
Sectarianism andHeresy 369