Lawrence H. Schiffman
passage makes clear, contrary to some scholars,^36 that the Temple Scroll is
not presenting a vision for the End of Days but, rather, for the temple and
Jewish law for the present. This is indeed a common element, as Jubilees
also is calling for full and correct observance of the law in the present
premessianic age. In this respect, both texts call for radical change in Israel's
present life in the here and now. Nonetheless, on balance, we find incongru
ity, since the ultimate redemption of the End of Days is not taken up at all
in the Temple Scroll.
Calendar
Chapter 6 of Jubilees is essentially a polemic against the luni-solar calendar
known from rabbinic Judaism.^37 It advocates the 364-day calendar of solar
months and solar years that we generally term the "Qumran calendar." The
author of Jubilees sees the lunar cycle as confusing the holidays and making
them come out on the wrong days. He refers to Enoch (Jub 4:17-18), indicat
ing that he based his calendar on the Enoch booklets that circulated at his
time. Jubilees designates the 31st days of months 3, 6, 9, and 12 as Days of Re
membrance. The calendar was designed so that Shavuoth always fell on a
Sunday.
The view put forward here, according to which the Temple Scroll and
the book of Jubilees share the same sectarian calendar, even if some of the
festivals are not the same as you will see below, cannot be conclusively
proven from the Temple Scroll alone. In putting forward this view, scholars
have been guided by a calendrical fragment from Cave 4 that provided a date
for the Oil Festival (6/2),^38 which was only explicable assuming the Temple
Scroll to share the calendar of Jubilees and Enoch. A full review of this evi
dence and its ramifications, as well as the scholarly debate about it, has been
presented by James VanderKam, and there is no need to review the argu-
G. J. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in Its Jewish Context, JSOTSup 29 (Sheffield:
JSOT Press, 1985), 178-97.
- Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran, 21-30: M. O. Wise, "The Eschatological Vision
of the Temple Scroll," JNES 49 (1990): 155-72. - J. M. Baumgarten, "The Calendars of the Book of Jubilees and the Temple Scroll,"
VT37 (1987): 71-78; J. C. VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time, Lit
erature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 27-33. - J. M. Baumgarten, "4QHalakaha 5, the Law of iadash, and the Pentacontad Calen
dar," in Studies in Qumran Law (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 131-42; also JJS 27 (1976): 36-46.