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

208 THE QUMRAN CONCEPT OF TIME
the 364-day calendar. 16 In addition, the War Scroll attests to twenty-six
priestly “courses” (twrm#m; 1QM 2.1–2) reflecting a 364-day calendar,
rather than the twenty-four of the 354-day lunar calendar. 17 On the basis
of this evidence one is able to establish that the 364-day calendar was followed
by the members of the community.
The 364-day calendar has several interesting features. The number 364
is a multiple of 7, the number of days in a week; that is, 364 divided by 7
equals exactly 52, the number of weeks in a year. Therefore, any particular
date of the year would fall on the same day of the week every year.
Thus, for example, the first day of the year always fell on the same day of
the week. The followers of this calendar reckoned the first day of every
year on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday), the day according to
Genesis when God created the celestial lights as the calendrical markers:
And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate
the day from the night; and let them 18 be for signs and for appointed
times (Mydw(mlw) and for days and years, and let there be lights in the firmament
of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And
God made two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over
(tl#mml) the day and the lesser light to have dominion over (tl#mml)
the night,—and the stars. And God set them in the firmament of the heavens
to give light upon the earth and to have dominion (l#mlw) over the
day and the night and to separate between the light and the darkness. And
16. Introducing each Sabbath Song is a formula, which associates the Song with a specific
Sabbath of the first quarter of the year as well as the day of the month on which that
Sabbath would fall. Formulae for Songs 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 12 are at least partially extant
(see J. H. Charlesworth and C. A. Newsom, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek Texts with English Translations. Vol. 4B, Angelic Liturgy: Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (PTS-
DSSP 4B; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999).
17. Scholars previously understood this passage as referring to twenty-six priestly families,
adding two to the twenty-four courses mentioned in 1 Chr 24:1–18 and 25:9–31
(Paul Winter, “Twenty-six Priestly Courses,” VT 6 [1956]: 215–17; Shemaryahu
Talmon, “The Calendar Reckoning of the Sect from the Judaean Desert,” in Aspects of the
Dead Sea Scrolls [ed. C. Rabin and Y. Yadin; ScrHier 4; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1958; 2d ed.
1965], [1958; 2d ed. 1965], 162–99; repr., rev. ed. as “The Calendar of the Covenanters
of the Judean Desert,” in The World of Qumran From Within: Collected Studies [Jerusalem:
Magnes; Leiden: Brill, 1989], 147–85; Yigael Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light
Against the Sons of Darkness [trans. B. and Ch. Rabin; Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1962], 202–6). The evidence of the Mis ]marot texts from Qumran, however, coordinated
the twenty-four priestly families with the twenty-six courses of the 364-day calendar (e.g.,
4Q321; for its publication and discussion see Shemaryahu Talmon and Israel Knohl, “A
Calendrical Scroll from a Qumran Cave: Mis ]marot B a , 4Q321,” in Pomegranates and Golden
Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob
Milgrom [ed. D. P. Wright, D. N. Freedman, and A. Hurvitz; Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 1995], 267–301, esp. 295–96 and n44).
18. Notice the plural.