They who control time control the Jewish people

Power of 7: Could an ancient political feud explain Qumran sect’s faulty 364-day calendar?

New theory offers a solution to one of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ longest-running puzzles, arguing the out-of-sync calendar was used for ideological reasons — until it felt safe to abandon it

For scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the mystery of the 364-day version of the solar calendar discussed extensively in the scrolls found in Qumran has remained an unsolved puzzle for decades. Was this flawed model of timekeeping, which lost 1.25 days every year, actually used in practice, or was it just a theoretical model?

New research published by Prof. Eshbal Ratzon of the Department of Jewish Philosophy and the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University suggests a new approach: The calendar, which sat at the crux of a bitter dispute between the Qumran sect and the rabbinic Pharisee community some 2,100 years ago, was indeed used in Qumran, but was later abandoned when it drifted too far from the seasonal flow and political relations allowed for a smooth transition.

The history of the strange calendar has to be understood in the context of the acrimony between the mainstream Pharisees and the Essenes and Sadducee movements at the time, Ratzon told The Times of Israel in a phone discussion. Her paper was recently published in the Tarbiz Quarterly for Jewish Studies.

“There were several halachic disputes between the two sides at that time, including issues related to purity in the Temple, but most likely, they were all built around political and personal rivalries,” Ratzon said. “Many arguments can be resolved when there are good intentions, but in this case, they clearly wanted to split, and these issues were framed as the cause for separation.”

By the time the Qumran sect, which many scholars associate with the Essene community, settled in caves in the desert near the Dead Sea, astronomers in Egypt and other civilizations had already established that the solar year was at least 365 days, even if they didn’t yet add a day every four years to account for the extra six hours in the Earth’s annual journey around the sun.

(Israelites tracked their lifecycles according to the lunar calendar, in which 12 months equate to about 354 days and nine hours, but scholars had already developed a 19-year cycle of leap years to ensure that seasonal holidays remained broadly on time.)

But a 364-day year fit better into what Qumran elders may have seen as a perfect divine order, Ratzon said. That number divided evenly into seven, and would thus allow every date to fall on the same day of the week every year. The first day of Passover, for example, would always fall on a Wednesday, simplifying scheduling challenges (and possibly shedding light on a Talmudic discussion about whether the counting of the Omer begins on Sunday or on the second day of the holiday).

The problem with following a 364-day calendar, of course, is that it is a bit off from reality, and that 1.25-day divergence from reality adds up over time. Those following it would lose a month every 24 years, and after enough time, the spring festival would be held in the winter, or even in the fall. This posed a fundamental problem for an agricultural community whose lifecycle was defined by first fruits and harvest seasons.

But the 364-year cycle is discussed frequently in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which serve as some of the most important documents in existence for understanding Jewish life in Israel in the third through first centuries BCE.

The Book of Jubilees, a central work in the Qumran library, fiercely attacks the prevailing lunar calendar, presenting the 364-day calendar as the original calendar received by Moses on Mount Sinai, Ratzon noted. Another document calculates how the calendar restores dates to their proper season every 294 years — clearly indicating that the system didn’t have leap years built in.

Making sense of the problem

Until now, scholars have put forth two central theories as to how the 364-day calendar was employed in practice.

In the 1950s, Hebrew University professor Shemaryahu Talmon argued that the sect’s acceptance of the calendar was a radical and intentional rejection of the timetable accepted by the Jerusalem Temple elite. Controlling the calendar gave the community’s leaders immense political and theological power, and effectively barred their followers from worshiping at the Temple with their rabbinic brethren.

A dramatic story found in the Pesher Habakkuk scroll may illustrate the intensity of this rift. According to the text, found only in the Qumran scrolls, a “wicked priest” in the Temple’s Rabbinic leadership tried to exile an early leader of the Qumran sect for trying to observe Yom Kippur on a completely different date than was traditionally observed.

According to Talmon’s view, this tale would serve as a precedent for the dramatic split between the sects that would follow in the coming centuries, Ratzon said.

Another scholar of the Hebrew calendar, University College London professor Sacha Stern, developed a different theory. Given the long-term untenability of the 364-day calendar, along with a lack of discussion of the calendar outside the Qumran scrolls, Stern suggests that the 364-day year served purely as a theoretical framework. According to this approach, this faulty calendar served as a philosophical ideal, but was never actually used.

“I think this approach contradicts the evidence, though,” Ratzon said. “If that was the case, why would the priest in the story have been persecuted?”

Ratzon, instead, offers a third approach. In her view, the 364-day calendar was actively used by the community in Qumran — until it became clear that it couldn’t be anymore.

In her view, the calendar was probably first used when the residents of Qumran fled there in the mid-second century BCE. However, by the time Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus (c.130 BCE-76 BCE) was firmly in power some 50 years later, the calendar had drifted by several months, and its flaws could no longer be ignored.

Jannaeus, a violent leader whose reign was defined by constant conflict, embraced an approach to Jewish law that opposed that of the rabbinic Pharisees and aligned with the Qumran sect’s beliefs. That warmed diplomatic relations between the sides, as illustrated in a Qumran hymn found that praises Jannaeus, Ratzon said.

“We have evidence that there was some sort of rapprochement at that time, which would have created a setting that allowed them to stop using their calendar and get closer to the Jerusalemite leadership,” she said. “It’s also possible that the first Qumran leaders, who were driven by their personal rivalry with the Pharisees, would have just recently passed away. So they could have quietly gone back to using the lunar calendar at that time.”

From then on, the Qumran sect would have retained its calendar only as a theoretical concept that might eventually be used again in the End of Days, Ratzon speculated. There is no archaeological mention of any debate about the calendar, or the religious dissonance that the community may have experienced after its abandonment, following that period, she noted.

“There is no scroll that admits that there was a problem, and we don’t hear about it in later sources like Josephus or Philo, or the rabbinical writings,” Ratzon said. “But I believe we can see two different approaches to the issue emerge in later writings.”

According to Ratzon’s later research, which she plans to publish in a future paper, two different approaches to the calendar seem to have evolved in the period after the 364-day calendar was abandoned. In one, a lunar calendar resembling the biblical one is used, along with the Jewish holidays described in it. (Later holidays Purim and Hanukkah are not included.) In the other, a solar calendar is employed, with the addition of several new festivals.

“After the seven-week count from Passover to the wheat harvest festival, you see another seven-week count to the beginning of the grape harvest, and then another seven weeks to the beginning of olive oil season,” she said.

Ratzon said that her research has given her some perspective on current conflicts.

“If I were to connect this story to modern times, I would say that one thing we can learn from this story is that for every disagreement, we can decide whether we want to seek a peaceful solution or create nasty divisions,” Ratzon said. “It all depends on our choice.”