the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

50 WHAT’S INACALENDAR?
It should be noted that there is no mention whatsoever of the Mazzoth
Feast which begins on the fourth service day of Maoziah (line 2), the waving
of the (Omer on the first service day of mis ]ma4r Jeda(iah on Sunday the
twenty-sixth of the month (line 3). Furthermore, if the proposed restoration
is correct only the Day of Atonement is identified by a calendrical
date, the tenth of the seventh month (line 8), in addition to the day on
which it falls in the service week of Joiarib.
c. 4Q239 a preserves remains of a schedule which may have originally
contained a list of all festivals in every year of a six-year cycle, but in
actual fact only the names of the rotating watches in whose week of service
the Passah falls are preserved:
[The first year, its festivals, on the third (day)in] the week of [Ma(oziah the
Passah; the seco]nd (year), its fe[stivals, on the third (day) in S%e(orim the
Passah; the th]ird (year), its festivals, on the third (day) [in the week of Abiah
the Pass]ah; the fourth (year), its festivals, on the third (day) of [Jakim the
Pass]ah; the fifth (year), its festivals, [on the third (day) of [Immer the Passah;
the sixth (year), its festivals]
d. Equation tables of one or two phases of the moon’s monthly revolution
in a six-year cycle, identified by days in the week of service of the
pertinent watch of priests, and concordant dates in the solar year (4Q320
frag. 1 cols. 1–2). In 4Q321 a the first phase is defined only by date, and
therefore was designated {x}, the second is defined by date and the otherwise
unknown technical term dôqâ or dûqo/ah. Most scholars derive the
term from duq/dyq, signifying “exactitude” (Baumgarten, 49 Milik, 50
VanderKam, 51 Wise 52 et al.) whereas I suggested to connect it with dqq
“to be thin.” 53 4Q321 1.1–2 illustrates this schema:
49. Joseph M. Baumgarten, “The Calendar,” 101–44.
50. Jozef T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judea (trans. J. Strugnell;
London: SCM, 1959), 152 n5.
51. James C. VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1998), 85.
52. Michael O. Wise, “Observations on New Calendrical Texts from Qumran,”
Thunder in Gemini. JSPSup 15 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1994); idem, “Second
Thoughts on qwd and the Qumran Synchronistic Calendar,” in Pursuing the Text:
Studies in Honor of B. Z. Wacholder on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday. JSOTSup 184
(ed. J. C. Reeves and J. Kampen; Sheffield: Academic Press, 1994), 98–120.
53. Shemaryahu Talmon and Israel Knohl, “A Calendrical Scroll from a Qumran
Cave: mis ]ma¯rôt B 4Q321,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells. Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and
Near Eastern Ritual Law and Literature in Honor of J. Milgrom (ed. D. P. Wright, D. N.
Freedman, and A. Hurwitz; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 267–301;
Shemaryahu Talmon, “Calendrical Documents and Mishmarot,” 13–14, 35–36.