Egyptian calendar, a wandering calendar may not have been so alien to its
users. A few scholars have noted, furthermore, that the grand 294-year cycle in
theOtottext (4Q319), which synchronizes the six-year calendar cycle with the
49-year jubilees, corresponds also approximately to the period of time needed
for the 364-day year to come full circle in relation to the seasons (because 294
1 ¼days amount to 367½ days, slightly in excess of a full solar/seasonal year;
this means that by the end of this grand cycle, the festivals would have
returned to their right seasons). But to attribute such an implicit meaning to
theOtottext—which would imply in turn recognition, on the part of its
authors, that the 364-day calendar was meant to revolve through the seasons
of the year—is somewhat far-fetched.^19 Alternatively, some scholars have
argued that a calendar falling behind the seasons may have been justified by
a passage in 1 Enoch (80: 2–8), which reads that in the days of sinners the
years shall be shortened so that rain and vegetation will come‘late’. This
passage recognizes a discrepancy between the calendar and the seasons, but
instead of attributing it to a fault in the calendar, it blames the seasons (or
rather human sin that caused the seasons to come late). This explanation, it
has been argued, would have justified the observance of a wandering 364-day
calendar.^20 However, there is no direct evidence to support this theory; this
Enoch passage does not explicitly refer to the 364-day calendar, and may in
fact be referring to the 360-day year, a calendar which Enoch attributes
elsewhere to possibly the same‘sinners’(82: 4). A wandering calendar would
have represented a radical departure from the normal observance of biblical
agricultural festivals in their right seasons; it cannot be attributed to the
Qumran community, or to any other community that favoured the 364-day
calendar, without more explicit evidence.
In this light, serious consideration must be given to the possibility that the
364-day calendar was never used in practice nor even intended for this
purpose: it was only designed as a theoretical model or imagined ideal. In 1
Enoch, where it isfirst attested, the 364-day calendar is certainly presented as a
theoretical, astronomical calendar: its context is a description of the courses of
the sun and moon, and the calendar is not suggested for any other possible use
(such as the dating of festivals).^21 Although the dates of festivals become
prominent in Qumran calendar texts, they may still have been intended as
(^19) See discussion in Glessmer (1999) 264.
(^20) This theory is favoured by Beckwith (1970) 392–5 andWacholder andWacholder (1995)
28 – 9 and 36–7. See Stern (2001) 15–16.
(^21) Note also that its astronomical models tend to be simplified and schematized—similarly to
the Babylonian compendium MUL.APIN, from which much of its information is derived (see
Ch. 4. 2)—rather than accurate representations of empirical reality. On Enoch’s calendar as
theoretical or ideal, see Milik (1976) 14 and 277, Stern (2000b), (2001) 7, 14–16.
Sectarianism andHeresy 367