Tradition and Innovation in the Calendar of Jubileesmonths. However, due to the additional data discussed above, it may be ar
gued with Ravid that Jubilees does not recognize the existence of a 31-day
month. In a paraphrase of 1 En 75:1-2, one may claim that in Jubilees the 4
additional days are counted in the reckoning of the year, but they stand out
side the reckoning of months.4,6 The cardinal days stand, according to 29:16,
"between the seasons of the months," in a transitory position, but never
within the count of months.
Boccaccini emphasized that an ideal 360-day year stood in the back
ground of the calendar tradition, and that in some earlier texts the year was
thought to consist not of 364 days but rather of 360 + 4 days.^47 The problem
atic figures in 5:27 prove, according to Boccaccini, that Jubilees adheres to a
year of 360 + 4 days, with the additional days not counted in the continuous
reckoning, the very practice opposed in 1 En 75:3 and 82:6. However, since
the septenary definition of the year in Jub 6:30-31 is so fundamental for that
book's ideology, it is hard to conceive of the number 364 as a secondary syn
thesis of 360 + 4 days. Thus, although both Ravid and Boccaccini stress the
tension between ideal 30-day months and the 364DY, the models suggested
by Ravid seem to account better for the data in Jubilees.
IV. Sun and Moon
In a programmatic sermon on the calendar, Jub 6:36 solemnly declares that
"There will be people who carefully observe the moon with lunar observa
tions because it is corrupt (with respect to) the seasons and is early from
year to year by ten days." This verse conveys a sharp opposition to lunar ob
servations, probably also lunar calculations, in the calendar reckoning. An
impressive piece of rhetoric, this statement was applied in research to the in
terpretation not only of Jubilees but also of the entire 364DCT, and was con
sidered the ultimate proof that the 364DY is a solar year, and that it stands in
- See Boccaccini, "The Solar Calendars," 317-18. Curiously enough, a thirty-one-day
month is hardly attested in calendrical material. The only clear attestations appear in 1 En - The rosters of month-lengths in 4Q320 3 ii— 4 i and 6Q17 are unfortunately broken in the
crucial points. In 3Q321II 5-6 the reconstruction of day 31 is unavoidable, since on that day a
"second dwq" occurs (S. Talmon, DJD 21, p. 71). However, this reconstruction involves an in
verted order of the number, since usually in 4Q321 the units precede the tens. Even the refer
ence to a thirty-one-day month in 4Q252 I 20 is not entirely certain, since the crucial word
w'hd is absent. - Boccaccini, "The Solar Calendars," 318-20.