community to the next (Stern 2001, Stern and Mancuso 2007). This variety
was a reflection of the dispersion and general lack of cohesiveness of Jews in
the ancient world, together with the practical difficulties of communicating an
identical calendar to widespread, far-flung communities. Nevertheless, it
may be assumed that Jewish calendars were similar in their broad features.
As in all post-Seleucid lunar calendars, the Jewish months (usually called by
Babylonian month-names) counted either 29 or 30 days, and began atfirst
visibility of the new moon. This is well attested in rabbinic literature (particu-
larly Mishnah,RoshHa-Shanah, third centuryCE: Stern 2001: 157–60), but
also in non-rabbinic sources from thefirst and second centuriesCEand from a
variety of provenances, suggesting that the Jewish month was based on local,
empirical sightings of the new moon.^110
As in all post-Seleucid lunar calendars, moreover, the year could be inter-
calated with a thirteenth month, though not necessarily following a regular
pattern such as the Babylonian 19-year cycle of intercalations. In a Jewish
context, the main purpose of intercalation would have been to ensure the
occurrence of Passover in the right season. A‘rule of the equinox’, whereby
Passover (i.e. 14 Nisan) could not occur before the vernal equinox, is attrib-
uted to Aristobulus of Alexandria (mid-second centuryBCE), although it was
perhaps not followed in practice by Jews in this period (ibid. 50–3). Evidence
from thefirst centuriesBCE–CEsuggests that Jewish months occurred some-
times later than the rule of the equinox would have demanded, but in line with
the months of the Babylonian calendar.^111 Later in Antiquity, from the fourth
century onwards, Jewish months seem generally to have moved ahead, with
Passover often before the equinox and, therefore, the Jewish Nisan often
occurring one month earlier than it would have done in thefirst century.
However, practice still varied widely.^112
(^110) Mainly in Philo,Special Laws, but sporadically also in other sources: ibid. 116–24. For an
alternative interpretation of the dating of Cestius’assault on Jerusalem in 66CE(ibid. 121–2) see
now Burgess (1999) 105, although on balance I prefer my own.
(^111) This can be inferred mainly from a passage in Josephus (Antiquities18. 5. 3) relating to
Passover in Jerusalem in 37CE, and from a Jewish inscription from Berenike (Cyrenaica) which
I would date to 41BCE(Stern 2001: 55–61). In the Babylonian calendar, thebeginningof Nisan
(not to be confused with the 14th) was always after the equinox (see Ch. 2). Note, however, that
correspondence with Babylonian months in these sporadic cases does not prove that the Jews
always intercalated at the same time as the Babylonians, or that they followed their (or any other)
fixed cycle. By then, indeed, there is no reason to expect the Jewish calendar to have maintained
any dependence on the Babylonian (see discussion ibid. 61 112 – 5).
Christian sources from the late 3rd c. onwards generally assume that the Jews in their
period in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and also elsewhere celebrated Passover often before the
equinox, although the way this was done varied considerably from one community to the next
(ibid. 66–87). Jewish sources confirming variety of practice include early rabbinic traditions
(especially intSanh.2, from the 3rd c.CE), the marriage contract of Antinoopolis (417CE), and
the late antique funerary inscriptions from Zoar (ibid. 70, 87–98). See now alsoSEG46 (1996)
no. 1656, a 3rd-c. inscription from Hierapolis (Phrygia), which refers to the festival of Unleav-
ened Bread in the seventh month; if this is taken as a precise statement, it would imply that in
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