that only the Teacher and his followers observed it, but not theWicked Priest.
This possessive does not mean, however, that theWicked Priest reckoned and
observed the Day of Atonement on another day.^34
(b) Even if theWicked Priest reckoned the Day of Atonement on another
day, this does not necessarily mean that theWicked Priest and the Teacher of
Righteousness used fundamentally different calendars. They could both have
been using, for example, the same lunar calendar based on sightings of the new
moon, but on this occasion happened to have sighted the new moon on
different days. As we have seen in previous chapters, this was very common
in the ancient world among lunar calendar users.^35
(c)Even if the Teacher did reckon a fundamentally different, 364-day
calendar, this would still not be the main polemic in this passage. The central
issue is theWicked Priest’s persecution of the Teacher. There is no indication
in this passage that had the Priest not made his vexatious appearance on the
Day of Atonement, the difference of calendars—if indeed there was one—
would have beenin itselfthe object of a polemical dispute.
We are thus left, in conclusion, with very little evidence to support the common
view that the calendar was a polemical issue in Qumran sectarian sources. The
only text where, in an unambiguous way, the 364-day calendar is polemically
contrasted to the lunar calendar is Jub. 6: 31–8, from a work usually dated to the
mid-second centuryBCE. A dozen copies of this work are attested in the Qumran
scrolls, which may be taken as an indication of its importance within the
Qumran community. But the relationship of this work to other, sectarian
Qumran sources remains debatable; the extent to which the Qumran commu-
nity would have espoused the calendar polemics of Jubilees is therefore perhaps
unclear.^36 This important text will be examined separately below.
(^34) As assumed by Talmon loc. cit., and used as a cornerstone to his argument; followed also by
Nitsan loc. cit. If theWicked Priest represents, as is commonly interpreted, the Jerusalem High
Priest, then on the Day of Atonement one might have expected him to attend the Temple and
conduct the sacrificial ritual of the day, and not to be attacking his foes elsewhere; however, the
historical implausibility of this narrative does not matter much if we regard the Pesher as a
polemical and edifying tale, rather than as a factual and‘true’historical account (on whether
pesherand other Qumran texts should be read as‘historical’narratives, see Grossman 2002).
(^35) A discrepancy between similar lunar calendars could also have been due to the intercala-
tion of a 13th month at different times. A similar (though unrelated) story that is frequently
quoted in this context, and that clearly inspired the traditional interpretation of the Habakkuk
Pesher(e.g. Talmon loc. cit., Vermes 1997: 79, Grossman 2002) is found in the Mishnah (mRH
2: 9): two rabbis disagreed as to whether the new moon had been seen, and consequently, as
to when the Day of Atonement should be observed; R. Yehoshua was forced to submit to
R. Gamaliel, and to publicly desecrate the day that he had reckoned as the fast. This story
illustrates the way disagreements could arise even within the same calendrical tradition (this
point was missed by Talmon and his successors, who were inspired however by this story to
interpret the HabakkukPesherpassage as a disagreement over the date of the Day of
Atonement).
(^36) J. M. Baumgarten (1987) argues that the book of Jubilees stands far apart from Qumran
literature precisely because of its explicit calendar polemics. The strong anti-lunar stance of
Sectarianism andHeresy 371