disagreements of this kind did not necessarily entail sectarianism, nor did they
necessarily lead to social division and schisms. The Qumran calendar was
clearlydifferentfrom other Jewish calendars, but whether this difference was
or should be interpreted as‘sectarian’and as the cause of a sectarian schism
remains entirely to be demonstrated.
In the next section, I shallfirst digress by asking whether the 364-day
calendar was ever used at Qumran in practice; for if it was not, but only
represented a theoretical model, it is unlikely to have had thesocialeffect of
drawing away the Qumran community from the rest of Judaean society and
turning it into a‘sect’. I shall then question whether there is any evidence, in
Qumran literature or in other Jewish sources, that the calendar—364-day
versus lunar—was treated as a polemical or a sectarian issue.^10
Was the 364-day calendar observed in practice?Our starting point, in answer to this question, must be the fact—not suffi-
ciently noted—that the 364-day calendar is completely unattested in docu-
ments and inscriptions from Qumran or anywhere else in the whole of the
ancient period. This contrasts with the frequent attestation of the lunar,
Babylonian-type calendar in documents and inscriptions from Judaea (and
it is also assumed in Josephus’histories). It is therefore impossible to confirm
on the basis of documentary or epigraphic evidence whether the 364-day
calendar was ever used in practice by anyone.^11
There are grounds to argue, in fact, that the calendar texts at Qumran were
theoretical and not intended for practical use. As we shall now see, the cycles
which these texts present are mathematicallyflawless, but they do not suc-
cessfully track either solar, or lunar, or any other astronomical or other
empirical reality. Their abstract, possibly idealistic characteristics raise the
question of whether these calendars could have been applied in any way to
real life, and hence, on the social plane, whether they could have been
implicated in any way in the formation of a sectarian community.
The idealistic nature of Qumran calendars is apparent, to begin with, from
their synchronization with the priestly courses (or‘watches’: in Hebrew,
mishmarot) in calendar texts 4Q320, 321, and 321a. The priestly courses
(^10) A different version of the argument that follows appears in Stern (2010b), and more in
detail in Stern (2011).
(^11) For epigraphic and documentary evidence of the lunar calendar, see Stern (2001). Unfor-
tunately, none of the documents discovered at Qumran (including the famousyah:adostracon)
are dated by the month and day, which makes it impossible to establish which calendar was
assumed. The discovery of a numbered month (as opposed to a Babylonian named one) in a
document from Qumran could be treated as reasonable evidence of use of the 364-day Qumran
calendar.
Sectarianism andHeresy 363