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- Title
THE 364-DAY "QUMRAN" CALENDAR AND THE BIBLICAL SEVENTH-DAY SABBATH: A HYPOTHESIS SUGGESTING THEIR SIMULTANEOUS INSTITUTIONALIZATION BY NEHEMIAH.
- Authors
Feldman, Ron H.
- Abstract
This paper considers together two scholarly controversies that have hitherto been considered separately, and suggests a crossover point. The first concerns the 364-day calendar whose pattern resonates throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls, and whose pre-Qumranic origins have been debated since the 1950's. The second concerns the origin of the perpetual seventhday Sabbath observance (which I will refer to as the "weekly Sabbath"), a debate which dates back to the nineteenth century. The paper proposes that a 364-day calendar similar to those best known from the Qumran Mishmarot texts was put into use in the Jerusalem Temple during the Persian Period, quite possibly as part of the sabbatarian reforms implemented by Nehemiah, and that this was key to the successful institutionalization of the weekly Sabbath. It may even be the case that the 364-day year was a catalyst for the conception of the perpetual weekly Sabbath, rather than vice-versa as is almost universally assumed.
- Subjects
WEST Bank; JERUSALEM; CALENDAR; JEWISH calendar; DEAD Sea scrolls; SABBATH; NEHEMIAH (Governor of Judah); COUNTERARGUMENTS; BIBLE; TEMPLE of Jerusalem (Jerusalem); QUMRAN Site (West Bank); HISTORY
- Publication
Henoch, 2009, Vol 31, Issue 2, p342
- ISSN
0393-6805
- Publication type
Article