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

SHEMARYAHU TALMON 37
Temple period came into full view. Approximately 20–25% of the documents
found at Qumran presuppose the 1 Enoch/Jubilees 364-day solar
ephemeris: fragments of over twenty calendrical works (4Q320–330,
335–337; 6Q17), 26 the tail piece of a calendar preserved in one fragment
of Miqs[at Ma(as 8e ha-Torah (4QMMT [= 4Q394]); 27 a detailed exposition
of a register of “holy seasons” in the Temple Scroll (11Q19–20); calendarrelated
references in major yah[ad works—Rule of the Community (1QS);
Damascus Document (CD); Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab); the Psalms Scroll from
Cave 11 (11Q5); Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (also called Angelic Liturgy—
4Q400-407; 11Q17; Mas1k), 28 Phases of the Moon (4Q317) and other writings,
and furthermore fragments of eleven copies of Enoch in Aramaic,
and twelve copies of Jubilees in Hebrew.
The author of the Damascus Document (16.1–4) declares the Book of
Jubilees to be as authoritative in matters calendrical as the Law of Moses
is in matters of legal and cultic import:
Therefore, a man (who joins the community) shall take upon himself (by
oath), to return to the Law of Moses for in it all is (exactly) defined
And the exposition of their periods (in history) of Israel’s blindness in
all these matters, behold it is exactly defined in the Book of the Division of
the Periods according to their jubilees (viz., periods of fifty years) and their
weeks (viz., periods of seven years).
The combination of the “Book of the Division of the Periods” with the
“Law of Moses” appears to echo the prologue of the Book of Jubilees:
These are the words regarding the division of the times of the law and of
the testimony, of the events of the years, of the weeks of their jubilees
throughout all the years of eternity as he related (them) to Moses on
Mount Sinai when he went up to receive the stone tables.
26. See Shemaryahu Talmon, “Calendrical Documents and Mishmarot,” in Qumran
Cave 4.XVI: Calendrical Texts (ed. S. Talmon, J. Ben-Dov, and U. Glessmer, DJD 21;
Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), 1–166.
27. See Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqsat Ma(as 8e ha-Torah
(DJD 10. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 7–9, 44–5; reedition in Shemaryahu Talmon,
“Calendrical Documents and Mishmarot,” 157–66.
28. See Carol A. Newsom and Yigael Yadin, “Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Mas-
ShirShabb),” in Masada VI, The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965, Final Reports (ed. S.
Talmon; Jerusalem: IEJ, 1999), 120–32.