This may have been to ensure that the biblical seventh month, in which major
festivals were celebrated, should always correspond to the month of Tishrei (if
an intercalary Elul had been inserted, Tishrei would have become the eighth
month: Stern 2001: 165–6). It is also possible that intercalations in Judaea
deviated sometimes from the Babylonian calendar because they were now
governed, in accordance with biblical law, by the requirement that Passover in
thefirst month be celebrated in the agricultural season of
)
aviv, the ripeness of
the crops—a requirement which might have conflicted sometimes with the
Babylonian practice of beginning the year after the vernal equinox.^67
Finally, some post-Seleucid discrepancies from the Seleucid Macedonian
and Babylonian calendars may have resulted from purely calendrical consid-
erations. If, as discussed above, the Macedonian year generally began in the
autumn, preference may have been given in post-Seleucid states for intercala-
tions at the end of the year in the autumn, unlike the Babylonian calendar
(which the Seleucids followed) where most intercalations were made in the
spring.^68
The new equation of Macedonian and Babylonian month-namesAs we have seen, a single excessive intercalation in the Parthian kingdom in or
before the mid-first centuryBCEhad the effect of shifting by one month the
Seleucid equation between Macedonian and Babylonian month-names. Thus
Babylonian month I (Nisan), previously equated with (or translated as)
Artemisios, became Xandikos, month VI (Elul), previously Hyperberetaios,
became Gorpiaios, month VII (Tishrei), previously Dios, became Hyperber-
etaios, and month XII (Adar), previously Xandikos, became Dystros (see
second Elul, which according to this saying, had never been followed by the Jews since the days of
Ezra in the Persian period (Wacholder andWeisberg 1971: 238). However, the medieval
interpretation of this Talmudic saying, that the month of Elul had never been full (i.e. of 30
days), seems to me more plausible: Stern (2001) 165–6.
(^67) Exodus 12: 2 , 13: 4, 23: 15, 34: 18; Deut.16: 1; see Stern (2001) 52–3. But whilst this is
historically possible, there is actually no evidence that on this account the Jewishfirst month
occurred sometimes one month earlier (paceBickerman 1968: 25–6, whose statement is only
based on the much later rabbinic calendar): on the contrary, as we have seen above, there is
evidence that in some years at least, the Judaean calendar remained in line with the Babylonian
calendar. See discussion in Stern (2001) 30–1, 61–2, with a further suggestion that in the
Herodian and early Roman periods the intercalation of a second Adar may have sometimes
been used to postpone Passover by one month and thus enable pilgrims to reach Jerusalem on
time for the festival; this may have had the indirect (and unintended) effect of realigning the
Judaean calendar with the Babylonian.
(^68) This would account, e.g., for the six-month interval between the Pontic and Babylonian
intercalations in 88 and 87BCErespectively (see above, near n. 40). Chris Bennett (pers. comm.)
suggests that this may also have led to post-Seleucid Macedonian adaptations of the Babylonian
19-year cycle with a permanent one-month discrepancy from the Babylonian calendar.
Fragmentation: Babylonian and Julian Calendars 255