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

38 WHAT’S INACALENDAR?
THE COVENANTERS’ CALENDAR
The proliferation of calendrical works and calendar-related statements
attests to the dependence of the yah[ad’s messianic-millenarian expectations
upon a foreordained sequence of “divine(ly established) periods” in
history, (qis[ê )el, 1QpHab 7:12–13), “eternal periods,” qis[e 6 nes[ah[ or
qis[e 6(o4la4mim (1QH 1.24–25; 1QM 1.8–9), and so forth, which are expected
to culminate in a future “cut off period” and the onset of the fervently
awaited establishment of the new (age) qe 4s[ neh[ra4s[a4h wa(as 8ôt h[ada4sa (1QS
4.25). The Covenanters’ adherence to the unconformable solar calendar
of 364 days soon emerged as a major factor that precipitated their final
separation from mainstream Judaism.
The controversy revolved on several basic issues:
a. The difference of ten days between the Jewish 354-day lunar year
and the yah[ad’s 364-day solar year caused the Covenanters to abstain
from participation in the temple cult, because according to their timetable
the sacrifices were offered there on profane days (cf. Jub. 6:32–38),
and therefore were sacrilegious:
All those who have been brought into the Covenant shall not enter the
sanctuary to kindle his alter in vain (Mal 1:10)…(but rather are) to distinguish
between the impure and the pure and make known (the difference)
between the holy and the profane; and to observe the Sabbath in its exact
detail, and the festivals and the day of fasting (viz., the Day of Atonement)
according to the findings (or instruction) of those who entered into the
(re)new(ed) covenant in the land of Damascus. (CD 6.11–19)
The abstention from the sacrificial service in the temple created a situation
in the Covenanters’ cultic life, comparable to the circumstances that
shaped the cultic life of “normative” Judaism in the wake of the destruction
of the temple. In both instances the discontinuance of the sacrificial
cult was conducive to the emergence of institutionalized devotional
prayer to fill the void, 29 although neither community despaired of the
hope of a future restitution of the sacrificial cult (see below).
b. In the Jewish lunar calendar the day is reckoned from one appearance
of the moon to the other, viz., from sundown to sundown. In contrast,
29. Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Emergence of Institutionalized Prayer in Israel in
the Light of Qumran Literature,” in Qumrân: Sa Piété, sa Théologie et son Milieu (ed. M.
Delcor; BETL 46; Paris: Duculot, 1978), 265–84; repr., in The World of Qumran From
Within (Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: Brill, 1989), 200–43; Maurice Baillet, “Textes
Liturgiques,” in Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (ed. M. Baillet; DJD 7; Oxford:
Clarendon, 1982); Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (trans. J. Chipman;
STDJ 12; Leiden: Brill, 1994).