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

32 WHAT’S INACALENDAR?
c. Importance of a recognized authority
The secessionist adherence to an unconformable calendar constitutes an
especially acute danger for a community deprived of political sovereignty,
as the Jewish people was at the height of the Second Temple period and
after the Roman conquest of Judah in 70 C.E. Due to the lack of coercive
instruments for safeguarding national unity, and of effective punitive
measures for dealing with recalcitrants, internal cohesion hinged on the
voluntary submission of all members of the community to the decisions
of the religious authorities. The prerogative of the Sanhedrin, the High
Court, to determine the dates of the annual sacred seasons, which in fact
meant regulating all facets of communal life, was justifiably considered an
indispensable instrument of self-government, and the acceptance of the
common calendar was seen as a sine qua non requirement of membership
in the community.
On these issues revolves the discord in the early second century C.E.
between two Tannaim of the second generation, Rabban Gamaliel, the
president of the Sanhedrin and the renowned Rabbi Joshua (m. Ros . ] Has . ]
2:8–9). Although astronomical computation of the moon’s orbit was
already known in their days (see ibid. and cf. b. Ros . ] Has . ] 25a), 19 the
annual rotation of the holy seasons was officially determined on the basis
of the actual sighting of the new moon. Rabban Gamaliel had proclaimed
the beginning of the month, evidently the first month of the year (tis ]re 4),
and eo ipso the commencement of the annual cycle of the festivals, on the
evidence of two men who affirmed that they had espied the new moon.
Using a pungent simile, R. Dosa ben Horkinas, another prominent sage,
declared these men false witnesses since his observations proved that the
moon was still full: “How can one say (today) of a woman that she has
given birth, and on the next day she is still visibly pregnant.” R. Joshua
also invalidated these men’s claim and presumably demanded that the
proclamation of the new moon, and the onset of the new cultic year, be
deferred. However, Rabban Gamaliel stood by his decision, evidently
apprehensive of the danger lest his colleagues’ dissenting opinion could
and Calendar Reform of Jeroboam I,” in King Cult and Calendar in Ancient Israel
(Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 113–39.
19. The discovery of an astronomical measuring instrument at Qumran proves that
computations pertaining to the revolution of the sun were equally known. See
Matthias Albani and Uwe Glessmer, “Un instrument de mesures astronomiques à
Qumrân,” RB 104 (1997): 88–115 (ET: “An Astronomical Measuring Instrument
from Qumran,” 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), 407–42.