The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

28 WHAT’S INACALENDAR?
adhered. The theological-cultic dissent ultimately hardened into a
“socioreligious schism.” The yah[ad’s observance of the “holy seasons”—of
Sabbaths and festivals—according to an unconformable time-schema, 9
effected an unbridgeable parting of the ways, which culminated in the
establishment of their community as a socioreligious corpus separatum. 10
CALENDAR AND SOCIETAL COHESION
I propose to put in relief the signal importance of a shared ephemeris for
the coordination of communal life by quoting once again Emile
Durkheim’s appreciation of a common calendar as a pivotal factor of
socialization, which “expresses the rhythm of the collective activities
while at the same time its function is to assure their regularity.” 11 In the
application of the societal significance of calendar for clearly circumscribed
political and/or religious entities, we must pay attention to an
additional aspect: while a common calendar is an indispensable instrument
for securing internal unity of a given body politic or a religious
community, calendrical dissent of a section of a societal entity palpably
manifests schismatic intentions.
Some well-known historical instances will suffice to illustrate the
adherence to an unconformable calendar as a symbolic and, at the same
time, exceedingly tangible medium of segregation aimed at the achievement
of political and/or religious independence.
Faith communities tend to adopt a particular and exclusive time
schema that serves them, on the one hand, as a centripetal means for
achieving internal cohesion and, on the other hand, for serving as a
boundary marker setting them off against outsiders. Thus, Judaism,
Christianity and Islam each continue to adhere to a separate calendar,
which they espoused from early on. Nascent Christianity interpreted the
singular mission of Jesus as signifying the onset of a new creation, and
9. Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Covenanters’ Calendar of Holy Seasons According
to the List of King David’s Compositions in the Psalms Scroll from Cave 11
(11QPs a XXVII),” in Fifty Years of Dead Sea Scrolls Research Studies in Memory of Jacob Licht
(ed. G. Brin and B. Nitzan; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2002), 204–19 (Hebrew).
10. Shemaryahu Talmon, “Calendar Controversy in Ancient Judaism: The Case of
the ‘Community of the Renewed Covenant,’” in The Provo International Conference on the
Dead Sea Scrolls, Technological Innovations, New Texts and Reformulated Issues (ed. D. W.
Parry and E. Ulrich; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 379–95.
11. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (trans. J. S. Swain;
London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Macmillan, 1915), 11.