CHAPTER ONE

THE 364-DAY CALENDAR IN THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK (= 1 ENOCH 72–82)

AND THE BOOK OF JUBILEES

A number of ancient societies governed their lives according to a lunar or lunar-solar calendar. Both
types were typically based on the first sighting of the moon’s thin young crescent after sunset. There
were some exceptions, however. In ancient Egypt lunar months began not with the first sighting of the
new crescent but with the first day the moon’s old crescent disappeared and could not be seen at dawn.
In fact the primary calendar in Egypt was not lunar but a schematic calendar of 365 days (twelve 30-day
months for 360 calendar days plus five epogmenal days).1 Scholarship is currently divided as to whether
the ancient Egyptians prior to the Persian conquest in 525 BCE ever maintained a full fledged lunar
calendar alongside their schematic civil calendar as opposed to a system of lunar reckoning where the
phases of the moon were tracked but were always expressed by civil dates in the 365-day civil calendar.
The weight of the evidence at present seems to favor the latter conclusion. Thus, as an alternative to
“lunar calendar” I have adopted the term lunar time-keeping system2 (lunar computus) to describe the
role of lunations as a secondary system of time-measurement subordinate to a schematic solar calendar.

Table 1. The structure of the 364-day calendar

Months i, iv, vii, x Months ii, v, viii, xi Months iii, vi, ix, xii
S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Another exception was the ancient Hebrews. Judging from discoveries made in the Dead Sea desert,
their calendar was not lunar either, at least not until the Hellenistic period. It was rather a schematic
solar calendar of 364 days. Like the Egyptian example already mentioned, the phases of the moon were
tracked but only expressed according to civil dates in the schematic calendar. There was neither a lunar
nor a lunar-solar “calendar” alongside the 364-day calendar. The structure of the schematic calendar as
shown in Table 1 above was carefully elucidated by A. Jaubert in 1953 and 1965.3 Jaubert was

1
The civil calendar year in ancient Egypt was 360 numbered calendar days. The five epogmenal days were not
numbered but were given their own distinctive appellations. See O. Neugebauer, “Origins of the Egyptian Calendar,”
JNES 1 (1942): 396–403.
2
The term was introduced by the Flemish scholar Leo Depuydt as a substitute for “Egyptian lunar calendar.”
See also its usage in Juán A. Belmonte, “The Egyptian Calendar: Keeping Ma’at on Earth,” in J. A. Belmonte and M.
Shaltout (eds.), In Search of Cosmic Order: Selected Essays on Egyptian Archaeostronomy (SCA Press: Cairo, 2009): 75–132;
idem, “Some Open Questions on the Egyptian Calendar: An Astronomer’s View,” Trabajos de Egiptología 2 (2003): 7–56.
This study is in agreement with Belmonte that no lunar “calendar” existed in Egypt alongside the civil calendar
prior to the Persian era, a situation that parallels the lunar data in the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72–84) and the
Qumran corpus.
3
A. Jaubert, “Le calendrier des Jubilés et de la secte de Qumran: Ses origines bibliques,” VT 3 (1953): 250–264;
idem., “Le calendrier des Jubilés et les jours liturgiques de la semaine,” VT 7 (1957): 35–61. All of Jaubert’s research is
conveniently collected in English in The Date of the Last Supper, translated by Isaac Rafferty (New York: Society of St.
Paul, 1965).

10
extraordinarily accurate at a time when the Dead Sea scrolls found at Qumran which discuss this
calendar were not yet published. The month pattern is 30, 30, and 31 days for each quarter of the year
(explicit in scroll 6Q17). The calendar never consists of more than twelve ordinal months all of which last
thirty days except for months iii, vi, ix, and xii which last thirty-one days. Because the year is fifty-two
weeks long and divisible by seven the days of the seven-day week fall conveniently on the same calendar
dates every year.
Some scholars have expressed doubt that this calendar was ever put into practical use since no
system of intercalation has yet been clarified in the sources which describe the calendar.4 The problem is
a fairly simple one to grasp. If left uncorrected a 364-day “septenary calendar”5 which is shorter than the
tropical year by ca. 1.24 days will run ahead of the tropical year this many days after one year, 2.48 days
after two years, 3.72 days after three years, 4.96 days after four years, and so on. When 294 years have
elapsed the biblical feasts will have cycled through all of the seasons of the tropical year and return to
roughly the same point (294 1.2422 = 365.2068). The passover holiday in the spring, for example, will
shift backwards through winter, autumn, summer, and return to spring in 294 years—a scenario that is
unacceptable for the Hebrew calendar. The solution is equally simple. To keep this drifting from

4
The subject has been much canvassed but a consensus has not yet crystalized in scholarship. For the more
popular modes of intercalation that have been proposed, see E. R. Leach, “A Possible Method of Intercalation for the
Calendar of the Book of Jubilees,” VT 7 (1957): 392–97; J. Baumgarten, “The Calendar of the Book of Jubilees and the
Bible,” Studies in Qumran Law (Leiden, 1977): 101–14; J. C. VanderKam, “The Origin, Character, and Early History of
the 364-Day Calendar: A Reassessment of Jaubert’s Hypotheses,” CBQ 41 (1979): 390–411; idem., “Calendrical Texts
and the Origins of the Dead Sea Scroll Community,” in M. Wise, N. Golb, J. Collins, and D. Pardee (eds.) Methods of
Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722 (New
York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994): 377–79; U. Glessmer, “Der 364-Tage-Kalender und die Sabbatstruktrur
seiner Schaltungen in ihrer Bedeutung für den Kult”, in D. R. Daniels, U. Glessmer and M. Rösel (eds.), Ernten, was
man sät: Fetschrift Klaus Koch zu seinem 65. Geburstag (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991): 379–98; idem.,
“The Otot-Texts (4Q319) and the Problem of Intercalations in the Context of the 364-Day Calendar,” in H.-J. Fabry, A.
Lange, and H. Lichtenberger (eds.) Qumranstudien: Voträge un Beiträge der Teilnehmer des Qumranseminars auf dem
internationalen Treffen der Society of Biblical Literature, Münster, 25.–26. Juli 1993, Schriften des Institutum Judaicum
Delitzschianum 4 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996): 150–54; R. T. Beckwith, “The Modern Attempt to
Reconcile the Qumran Calendar with the True Solar Year”, Revue de Qumran 7 (1992): 379–96; idem. Calendar and
Chronology, Jewish and Christian: Biblical, Intertestamental and Patristic Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1996): 126–40; and M.
Albani, “Zur Rekonstruktion eines Verdrängten Konzepts: Der 364-Tage-Kalender in der gegenwärtigen Forschung,”
in M. Albani et al (eds.), Studies in the Book of Jubilees (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997): 103–110; J. Ben-Dov, “The 364-
Day Year in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish Pseudepigrapha,” in Menahem Kister (ed.), The Qumran Scrolls and Their
World (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2009): 435–476 (in Hebrew). Reprinted in English in J. M. Steele (ed.), Calendars
and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010). For the critical edition
of the calendrical texts from Qumran, see S. Talmon, J. Ben-Dov, and U. Glessmer, Qumran Cave 4 XVI: Calendrical
Texts, Discoveries in the Judaen Desert 21 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001). The editors of DJD 21 propose one week was
added every seven years and one additional week every twenty-eight years (pp. 6–8) but note Ben-Dov’s discussion
of calendrical text ‘Otot’ (Signs) 4Q319, columns IV–VI, on pages 210–11 where the mode of intercalation proposed
by co-editor Glessmer on the basis of this document is disputed.
5
For clarity “septenary calendar” will define a strictly 364-day year and “septenary-solar calendar” the
proposed intercalated version. The different nomenclature seems appropriate in light of the unwillingness in some
circles to describe the 364-day calendar as a solar calendar. See, for example, B. Z. Wacholder and S. Wacholder,
“Patterns of Biblical Dates and Qumran’s Calendar: The Fallacy of Jaubert’s Hypothesis,” HUCA 66 (1995): 5, n. 15. The
co-authors denied this characterization because the 364-day calendar is not exactly 365.24 days. Liora Ravid, “The
Book of Jubilees and Its Calendar: A Reexamination,” DSD 10 (2003): 375, echoed this chorus and claimed Jaubert’s
description of the 364-day calendar as solar is “scientifically fallacious.” Neither the Egyptian, the Julian, nor the
Gregorian calendars are 365.24 days and yet no reputable scientist or astronomer has ever disputed these calendars
being solar. All of the above systems attempt to mimic the same natural phenomena, the length of the tropical year,
but with varying degrees of success. Even the Gregorian calendar which replaced the Julian calendar will eventually
brake down and require modification.

11
happening 364 days (fifty-two weeks) needs to be added to the calendar in the course of 294 years. That
is, in 294 solar years there are 107,380.56 revolutions of the sun given that the mean average solar year is
365.24 days (294 365.24 = 107,380.56). When 364 days are added to a 364-day calendar in 294 years the
number of days is 107,380 and the calendar keeps pace with the sun’s movement.6
Since the solution is simple it is somewhat strange that the sources appear to avoid talking about it.
Or do they? The repeated claim that no source describes an intercalation method for the 364-day
calendar is not entirely accurate.7 As will be seen in the sections below, embedded in both the Hebraic
pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch8 (3rd century BCE) and the Book of Jubilees (2nd century BCE) is a
method whereby weeks are added to one of the twelve ordinal months, but these weeks are not counted
as days of the month into which they were inserted. 1 Enoch is the earliest text to make explicit
reference to a 364-day calendar year.

“And the sun and the stars and the moon9 bring in all the years exactly, so that they do not
advance or delay their position by a single day unto eternity; but complete the years with perfect
justice in 364 days.” (1 Enoch 74:12; cf. 72:33; 75:2–3; 82:6, 11–20)

It is to be noted that 1 Enoch 82:6 describes the calendar as “a year of three hundred and sixty-four
days.”10 The wording is significant for revealing the author’s understanding that 364 is an arbitrary value
not reflective of physical reality. The implication of 1 Enoch 82:6 was also recognized long ago by Charles
who wrote: “Though well aware of a solar year of 365 3 days, he [i.e. the author of 1 Enoch] reckons it as
consisting of 364 days.”11 It is the value the calendar maker believed was ordained for man by the Creator
and it is the same in the Book of Jubilees. The Hebrews are commanded to observe a year “according to
the number of 364 days” (Jub 6:32), clearly implying the writer was aware that a different value exists in
nature. As it is counter intuitive to believe these authors knew the correct length of the tropical year to
be 365 3 days, but 364 in their opinion was not in conflict with this, some method of adjustment and
harmonization must have been employed regardless that one is never openly discussed.

6
No calendar is perfect. The septenary-solar calendar is still drifting but at a snail’s pace—at the rate of 1.2 days
every 294 years. It would take several thousands of years for this calendar to shift completely out of one season and
into another.
7
Cf. J. Ben-Dov and S. Saulnier, “Qumran Calendars: A Survey of Scholarship 1980–2007,” Currents in Biblical
Research 7 (2008): 124–168, and also S. Stern, “The ‘Sectarian’ Calendar at Qumran,” in S. Stern (ed.), Sects and
Sectarianism in Jewish History, IJS Studies in Judaica 12 (Leiden: Brill, 2011): 39–62. Stern has taken this skepticism to
an extreme with a radical position that the 364-day calendar was never actually used, at any time, not even at
Qumran. The ‘mainstream’ Jewish lunar calendar was the calendar used at Qumran, a view he later abandoned in his
monograph Calendars in Antiquity. Empires, States and Societies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012): 368, n. 24. Stern
still contends in this work (pp. 193–203 and 359–379) that the 364-day calendar was only a theoretical exercise and
never used. Albiet for different reasons, I agree with the assessment on page 375 that the calendar was not a
polemical issue and played no significant role in the Qumran community’s formation and identity as was argued in
older literature.
8
The only complete version is preserved in Ge‘ez, the classical language of Ethiopia, cf. J. C. VanderKam,
Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (London: Routledge, 1998): 17; and G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C.
VanderKam, 1 Enoch. A New Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). Unless otherwise noted, citations of 1
Enoch and Jubilees follow the translations of R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London, 1902);
idem., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Volume 2 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1913): 1–82,
163–281.
9
The Ethiopic MSS read “moon.” The author is evidently revealing his awareness of a cycle.
10
Similar wording occurs in 4QMMT Halakhic Lettera, 4Q394 frgs. 3–7 i 2-3; cf. Charles 1913: 247, n. 6.
11
Charles 1913: 238, n. 8.

12
 Table 2. The twelve portals
Eastern portals

6th portal 5th portal 4th portal 3rd portal 2nd portal 1st portal

60°–66° 66°–77° 77°–90°

22 Jun–May 23 22 May–Apr 23 22 Apr–Mar 24

60°–63° 63°–72° 72°–87° 87°–101° 101°–113° 113°–118°

23 Jun–Jul 22 23 Jul–Aug 21 22 Aug–Sep 21 22 Sep–Oct 21 22 Oct–Nov 20 21 Nov–Dec 21

91°–104° 104°–114° 114°–118°

22 Mar–Feb 20 19 Feb–Jan 21 20 Jan–Dec 22

Western portals

1st portal 2nd portal 3rd portal 4th portal 5th portal 6th portal

269°–282° 282°–263° 263°–299°

24 Mar–Apr 22 23 Apr–May 22 23 May–Jun 22

241°–246° 246°–257° 257°–271° 271°–286° 286°–296° 296°–299°

21 Dec–Nov 21 20 Nov–Oct 22 21 Oct–Sep 22 21 Sep–Aug 22 21 Aug–Jul 23 22 Jul–Jun 23

241°–245° 245°–255° 255°–268°

22 Dec–Jan 20 21 Jan–Feb 19 20 Feb–Mar 22

The first day of the calendar year in 1 Enoch 72:1–37 begins the morning after the spring equinox.12
The ancient calendar maker uses a 2:1 ratio to measure the hours of daylight and darkness in a set of
“parts” for unit fractions that always equal eighteen (1/18 = 80 min. = 1 hr.). For example, the last day of
the calendar year on Tuesday xii/31 has a “nine parts” of daylight and a “nine parts” of darkness and day
and night are of equal length (1 Enoch 72:31–33). With day and night divided into eighteen parts the
implied latitude of the author in the northern hemisphere13 would make his date for the spring equinox
fall around March 23 Gregorian and so we will use March 24 as the first day of his ideal 364-day year.

12
Not the day of the spring equinox, as stated incorrectly in J. Ben-Dov and W. Horowitz, “The Babylonian Lunar
Three in Calendrical Scrolls from Qumran,” ZA 95 (2005): 109.
13
The coordinates of modern Jerusalem, 31°45’N, 35°14’E, are assumed. Latitude 49° was suggested by Charles
1913: 238, n. 8, which seems excessive. The specific dates for equinoxes are different for different latitudes. There is
also atmospheric refraction which can make the upper edge of the sun’s disk appear as if it is visible on the
observer’s horizon at sunrise and sunset when the geometric center of the sun’s disk is too far below the horizon at
the moment of first and last sunlight, respectively. In cases of poor visibility conditions, an ancient observer might
compensate by giving a date to the equinoxes that is a few days before or after their true astronomical dates.

13
 We learn there are “twelve portals” in the east and in the west through which the luminaries proceed
by entering and exiting each day: “twelve portals in the heaven, at the ends of the earth, out of which go
forth the sun, moon, and stars” (1 Enoch 75:6; cf. 72:3–4). There are six eastern portals from which the
luminaries rise and six western portals corresponding to the regions where the luminaries set. Because of
the apparent north-south motion of the sun, shown by its position at sunrise, and our orbital tilt, the sun
is seen to migrate north and south of east along the horizon for 1° of angular distance on the ecliptic
each sunrise and sunset. The portals may therefore be defined as coordinate directions parallel to the
topological features of an observer’s local horizon.
Table 2 shows the substantive contents of the text expressed in graphic form and the conversion to
Gregorian dates. The sun’s apparent path on the ecliptic at points when it intersects the horizon during
the year is plotted accordingly. In the table due north is 0° and azimuth increases eastward to 90° (= east),
180° (= south), 270° (= west), and back to 0° (= 360°). The sun begins its journey by rising in the “great
portal,” the fourth eastern portal, on March 24 and then moves north of east from 90° to 77° in thirty
days (24 Mar–Apr 22). The thirtieth day in the fourth portal has “ten parts” of daylight and “eight parts”
of night. The sun enters the fifth portal and moves from 77° to 66° in thirty days (23 Apr–May 22). The
thirtieth day in the fifth portal has “eleven parts” of daylight and “seven parts” of night. The sun enters
the sixth portal and moves from 66° to 60° in thirty-one days (23 May–Jun 22). The first quarter of the
year is completed on the thirty-first day in the sixth portal which is the day of the summer solstice for
“twelve parts” of daylight and “six parts” of night.
In the second quarter of the year the coordinates for the fourth, fifth, and sixth portals change
slightly. The sun reverses its course and returns south through the sixth portal and moves from 60° to
63° in thirty days (23 Jun–Jul 22) and daylight decreases to “eleven parts” and night increases to “seven
parts” on the 30th day. The sun moves through the fifth portal and reaches 72° in thirty days (23 Jul–Aug
21) and daylight decreases to “ten parts” and night increases to “eight parts.” The sun’s journey back
through the fourth portal, from 72° to 87°, takes thirty-one days (22 Aug–Sep 21) and day and night have
“nine parts” for the autumn equinox on the thirty-first day on September 21. This concludes the second
quarter. The third quarter begins in the east at sunrise on September 22 when the sun is at 87°. The first
trip through the third portal lasts thirty days (22 Sep–Oct 21) and when the sun reaches 101° on the
thirtieth day, daylight decreases to “eight parts” and night increases to “ten parts.” The sun enters the
second portal on October 22 for thirty days (22 Oct–Nov 20) and daylight decreases to “seven parts” and
night increases to “eleven parts” on the thirtieth day when the sun is at 113° on November 20. The first
portal is entered on November 17 for thirty-one days (21 Nov–Dec 21) and daylight decreases to “six
parts” and night increases to “twelve parts” on the thirty-first day for the winter solstice when the sun
reaches the end of the portal at 118° on December 21. This concludes the third quarter.
The coordinates for the third, second, and first portals change in the fourth quarter as the sun
reverses its motion. The sun returns north through the first portal for thirty days (22 Dec–Jan 20) and
daylight increases to “seven parts” and night decreases to “eleven parts” on the thirtieth day when the
sun reaches 114° on January 20. The trip back through the second portal takes thirty days (21 Jan–Feb 19)
and daylight increases to “eight parts” and night decreases to “ten parts” on the thirtieth day when the
sun reaches 104° on February 19. Finally, the year concludes when the sun re-enters the third portal on
February 20 for thirty-one days (20 Feb–Mar 22) and daylight and night become equal at “nine parts”
each on the thirty-first day when the sun reaches 91° for the day of the vernal equinox. Thus the distance
from the summer solstice on Tuesday iii/31 (June 22) at the northern end of the horizon and the winter
solstice on Tuesday ix/31 (December 21) at the southern end is 182 days and the sun appears to move
back and forth along a nearly 60° arc between these two points every six months.

14
 Distinguishing the fourth portal from the rest, and apparently the reason it is called the “great
portal” aside from the fact that it is the largest of all the portals and takes up the most real estate on the
horizon with 18° in the east and 17° in the west, are its twelve window-openings. There are windows to
the “right” (north of the first portal) and to the “left” (south of the sixth portal) of the twelve portals but
within the fourth portal are the twelve windows that issue flames whenever “they are opened in their
season” (1 Enoch 72:7–8). Although not nearly as detailed as one would like, this remark evidently refers
to a seasonal meteor shower, one that appears to radiate from within a constellation at some unspecified
point in the year. The author of the Astronomical Book does not give this particular asterism a name but
associates twelve outlets with it.14
It is the sun’s motion that defines the limits of each portal and the 58 degrees they collectively
occupy on the eastern and on the western horizons, but the moon will often rise and set outside these
boundaries. Hence it is assumed that whenever the moon rises in the south and its azimuth at moonrise
is greater than 118° it is rising in the first portal but this can also be described as the “sixth portal.” When
the moon rises in the north and its azimuth at moonrise is less than 60° it rises in the sixth or “first
portal.” Similarly, whenever the moon sets in the west and its azimuth at moonset is greater than 299° it
sets in the sixth or “first portal,” and when it sets in the south and its azimuth at moonset is less than
241° it sets in the first or “sixth portal.” Neugebauer has suggested the windows to the right and left of
the twelve portals are for the stars.15 They are here taken to be secondary portals for the moon but with
flexible and not rigid nomenclature.16
With this overview we may begin setting the record straight about the 364-day calendar. Only a
special kind of year is being described in such great detail in 1 Enoch 72:1–37. This is evident from a
number of statements made in the Astronomical Book, not the least of which being that the twelve
portals are defined by an observer’s local horizon. That the author understood the motion of the sun
relative to the stars is also clear from his mention of the revolving circumpolar stars directly overhead
and north of the twelve portals (1 Enoch 76:9). These stars are visible throughout the night and never
disappear below the horizon by setting in any of the portals. Since the author knew the correct length of
the tropical year he knew the equinoxes and solstices at precise times in four of these portals (the first,
third, fourth, and the sixth) never leave their “stations.” They are fixed (Gregorian) dates determined by
the sun’s position on the horizon at sunrise as the year progresses (1 Enoch 72:3).
What changes annually is the day of the seven-day week on which the four cardinal points of the year
fall. If the equinox of March 23 falls on a Tuesday, the third day in the seven-day week, and the last day of
the septenary-solar calendar year, the calendar still ends on a Tuesday 364 days later but also one day
earlier than the equinox on March 23. Although equinoxes and solstices don’t move they will not fall on
Tuesday iii/31, Tuesday vi/31, Tuesday ix/31, and Tuesday xii/31 year after year and it does not matter if
the septenary calendar is adjusted by the periodic insertion of extra weeks or not. We are therefore
dealing with an ideal equinoctial year in the Astronomical Book, one that can only happen again after
many centuries have passed. The author of 1 Enoch was fully aware of the mechanics and this is made

14
Identifying this constellation would provide an origin and latitude for this and other details reported in the
Astronomical Book in much the same way details in the Babylonian compendium Mul-Apin date observations
reported in that source to an epoch as far back as 1000 BCE, cf. H. Hunger & D. Pingree, Mul.Apin, An Astronomical
Compendium in Cuneiform (Verlag Ferdinand Berger & Sohne: Horn, Austria, 1989); or 1370 BCE ±100 years according
to the calculations of B. E. Schaefer, “The Latitude and Epoch for the Origin of the Astronomical Lore in MUL.APIN,”
American Astronomical Society Meeting 210, id.42.05; idem, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 39 (2007): 157.
15
See O. Neugebauer, “The ‘Astronomical’ Chapters of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (72–82),” in M. Black, The Book
of Enoch or 1 Enoch (Leiden: Brill, 1985): 393.
16
The stars rise and set in the same portals as the sun but they are called portals and windows in 1 Enoch 35–36.

15
clear from his discussion of lunar phenomena in 1 Enoch 73–79. Space does not permit a full treatment of
the system of lunar reckoning in the Astronomical Book. Below is a brief sketch of how a fixed
intercalation mechanism for the 364-day calendar can be extrapolated from this material.

§ I.2 Enochian lunar theory

In 1 Enoch 73 we learn the first principles of Enochian lunar theory within the Astronomical Book.
Owing to variants in the Ethiopic manuscript tradition and a default assumption among scholars that
lunar months begin with the sighting of the first thin crescent, there are have been different views
shared by scholars regarding the system in the Astronomical Book. Since the author begins his discussion
of the moon by describing a full moon, it is our view that lunar months in the Astronomical Book begin
when a full moon rises in the east and shines into the morning of the thirtieth lunar day.

“when her light is uniform (i.e. full) it amounts to the seventh part of the light of the sun. And
thus she rises. And her first phase in the east comes forth on the thirtieth morning: and on that
day she was visible, and constitutes for you the first phase of the moon on the thirtieth day
together with the sun in the portal where the sun rises.” (1 Enoch 73:4–5)

“Day” for the ancient Hebrews began in the morning.17 The day in ancient Egypt also commenced in
the morning (specifically dawn). According to the above text, when a full moon, which is first seen rising
in the east at sunset, shines throughout the night and is still visible in the “morning” (ṣǝbāḥ) that
morning is the beginning of a new lunar month. LD 1 (= lunar day 1) is thus when the moon “was
visible”18 and then set for the first time after sunrise, i.e. the first moonset after sunrise.19 Lunar visibility
is measured from that point by the gradual waning of the moon until the last day of visibility just before
sunrise on one morning, while on the following morning the moon is invisible at conjunction (first
invisibility). The full moon in the above text evidently rose in the east on the evening of the twenty-
ninth lunar day and shone into the morning of a thirtieth lunar day.20 That morning, i.e. LD 30 (= lunar
day 30), is “for you” the moon’s first phase (rǝ’ǝsa warḵa). In other words, every lunar month has a
thirtieth lunar day but sometimes this will be changed to LD 1 if the full moon is still visible in the west
after sunrise for the first time. The previous month now becomes a hollow month of twenty-nine days.21
A lunar month of thirty days is a month that ends with a full moon but moonset is before sunrise. That
opposition is the end of one lunar month and the beginning of another, according to the reckoning of 1
Enoch, is also alluded to in 1 Enoch 41:7.

17
Certain ritual acts began in the evening but these are distinct from calendar days in the biblical sources, cf.
Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, trans. by John McHugh (London, 1961): 180–83. For more detail
and previous discussion, see R. T. Beckwith, “The Day, its Divisions and its Limits, in Biblical Thought,” The
Evangelical Quarterly XLIII (1971): 218–227.
18
Not “becomes” visible as in Charles 1913: 239.
19
In the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries the time between moonrise and sunset when moonset occurs for the
first time after sunrise, called NA, is one of the six time intervals of the so-called Lunar Six, a term coined by A.
Sachs, “A Classification of the Babylonian Astronomical Tablets of the Seleucid Period,” JCS 2 (1948): 271–290. The
earliest surviving diary dates to –651 (i.e. 652 BCE).
20
Beckwith 1996: 117, n. 34, correcting Charles 1913: 239, n. 4, and A. Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch uebersetzt und
erklärt (Leipzig: F.C.W. Vogel, 1853): 227, both of whom wrongly assumed “morning” refers to the thirtieth day of an
unspecified solar month.
21
Nearly the same in Mesopotamia where the last day of every month started its thirtieth day. It was only the
sighting of an evening crescent which converted LD 30 to LD 1, and the change had to be made official by the decree
of the king or an official of his administration.

16
 There is a clear and unmistakable preference for the sun over the moon in 1 Enoch 41:6 in the
determination of time measurement but the moon plays a vital role within the Astronomical Book. The
author’s purported aim was showing how the motion of all the heavenly luminaries harmonize within
the context of the divine 364-day year. Indeed, one way of obtaining the correct value of the tropical year
is through careful observation of the synodic month and the lunar year. In the light of this fact it comes
as no surprise that the Astronomical Book actually provides more details about the moon than it does the
calendar of 364 days. Direct observation of the moon that is implicit in ancient lunar calendars quickly
produces knowledge that the lunar year varies between 354 and 355 days and that twelve lunations will
sometimes be ten or eleven days shorter than the tropical year of 365.24 days. This is due to the mean
length of the synodic month lasting 29.53059 days.22 A lunar year is thus 354.36708 days on average and
reckoned either as 354 or 355 days because calendar months and years have a whole number of days. It is
inconceivable that the author of the Astronomical Book took pains to measure the change in the amount
of hours of daylight and evening between equinoxes and solstices, at his latitude, but could be ignorant,
after such a tedious exercise, of the lunar phenomena which reveals the length of the tropical year.
Assuming the Astronomical Book in the form we have it now was last redacted in the 3rd century
BCE, evidence for the lunar year values 354 and 355 was literally all around an author in this part of the
world at this time. The correct length of the mean synodic month was known in neighboring Egypt no
later than the 3rd or 2nd century BCE according to P. Carlsberg 9 (dated 144 CE).23 Egyptians realized 304
of their civil months in twenty-five of their civil years of 365 days (365 25 = 9125) is almost the same
number of days in 309 lunations (309 29.53059 = 9124.95231). This is basically the lunar equivalent of
the Egyptian civil year. Astronomers in Egypt could theoretically have used it to predict lunar dates
twenty-five years in advance or in retrospect because the lunar dates will repeat on the same dates in the
Egyptian civil calendar every twenty-five years during a 500-year period. After 500 years the error of
0.04769 days has accumulated to the point that the synchronicity shifts out of one alignment and into a
new one by about one day, and after 1000 years by two days, and so on.
This same basic principle was utilized in the Greek octaeteris system, later modified as the Metonic
Cycle by the astronomer Meton of Athens in 432 BCE. A period of forty-nine lunar years plus eighteen
intercalary months is 606 mean lunar months (606 29.53059 = 17895.53754). The resulting value is just
shy of the 17896.76 days in forty-nine tropical years.
Last but not least of course is Babylonia. Centuries before intercalation of the standard
Mesopotamian lunar-solar calendar became fixed during the 4th century BCE in the Achaemenid period
it was realized that seven intercalary lunar months added to the lunar calendar over the course of
nineteen years is 6939.68865 days and 235 lunar months: 19 354.36708 = 6732.97452 / 7 29.53059 =
206.71413 / 6732.97452 + 206.71413 = 6939.68865. This is the same number of days in nineteen tropical

22
The the average time interval between two conjunctions or oppositions of the moon and the sun, i.e. the
synodic month, oscillates between 29.26 days, the shortest possible synodic month, and 29.80 days, the longest
possible synodic month. For a full discussion of the moon, lunar visibility phenomena, and lunar month lengths, the
discussion by R. A. Parker, The Calendars of Ancient Egypt. SAOC 26 (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago, 1950): 1–9, is still valuable.
23
O. Neugebauer, The Exact Sciences in Antiquity (Princeton, 1952): 85; and Parker 1950: 9, 50. For our present
purposes it does not matter whether L. Depuydt, Civil Calendar and Lunar Calendar in Ancient Egypt (Leuven: Peeters,
1997): 152, is correct and P. Carlsberg 9 was more of a game and never actually used to fix the lunar dates for
religious feasts in ancient Egypt. It is enough that Egyptians knew the correct length of the synodic month and its
relationship to a strictly 365-day calendar year, something Depuydt does not dispute.

17
years: 19 365.24 = 6939.56.24 The Babylonian 19-year cycle is essentially a lunar-solar equivalent of the
tropical year but more accurate than the Greek Metonic Cycle.25
The knowledge of the true length of the tropical year implicit within each of the above cycles is part
and parcel with the knowledge of the length of the synodic month and the deficiencies a lunar year may
have with respect to the tropical year of 365.24 days, i.e. ten days when the lunar year is 355 days and
eleven when the lunar year is 354 days. It is highly unlikely that any calendar maker at this period in the
ancient near east, however extreme his conservatism may have been, could actually believe the lunar
year to be a fixed alternating pattern of “hollow” 29-day and “regular” 30-day months, and thus an
unalterable period of 354 days. Neither 354 or 355 are ever mentioned in the Astronomical Book
whenever the moon is discussed. Both values are implied, however, by the calculations in 1 Enoch 72. As
with the case of the lunar cycles in Egypt and in Babylonia, it will be argued that the lunar calculations of
the Astronomical Book provide the principles for determining what the septenary-solar equivalent of the
tropical year is. The base calculations in the Astronomical Book cannot be used to prove the 364-day
calendar was never intended to be intercalated, as has been argued in the past.
Having described how the beginning of lunar months are reckoned we now move on to 1 Enoch 74
which introduces a set of lunar calculations that continue to puzzle researchers. Yet the simplicity and
redundancy of the Enochian lunar theory in 1 Enoch 74:1–17 argue for the primitivity of a tradition
emphasized in a repetitive way that the lunar year is often ten days shorter than the tropical year of
365.24 days and that when this happens the lunar year is 355 days long. It soon becomes clear from the
author’s math that he is describing a unique septenary-solar year, one that does not and cannot happen
annually but only once or twice within a great cycle that is intimately related to the moon’s motion.

“And if five years are added together the sun has an overplus of thirty days, and all the days
which accrue to it for one of those five years, when they are full, amount to 364 days. And the
overplus of the sun and of the stars amounts to six days: in five years six days every year come to
thirty days: and the moon falls behind the sun and stars to the number of thirty days.” (1 Enoch
74:10–12)

This excess of thirty days that the “sun” has over the moon in a span of five years presupposes that a
strictly lunar year is being set alongside and compared with a lunar-solar one. When 364 is multiplied by
five (364 5 = 1820) and 354 is multiplied by five (354 5 = 1770) the difference is fifty not thirty days.
However, five Enochian lunar years evidently contain sixty-one lunations and this is where the
superficial similarity to the Greek octaeteris ends. There is no basis for a text-critical assumption that 1
Enoch 73 borrows directly from the octaeteris and no proof the passage in the form we have it now is a
later Hellenistic redaction and that the hypothetical original only discussed a triennial lunar cycle.26 In
the octaeteris system intercalary lunar months are added in the third, fifth, and eighth years of an 8-year
cycle. 1 Enoch 73:10–12 does not allow for this, as there are only sixty-one months in five Enochian years
and not sixty-two. Hence the excess is only thirty days after a span of five years (354 5 + 30 = 1800). The
value “30” is simply the one lunation that a strictly lunar year falls behind a lunar-solar year in the

24
R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.–A.D. 75 (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown
University Press, 1956): 1.
25
Less accurate because Meton counted 235 lunations as an interger number of 6940 days which exceeds 235
lunations by almost a third of a day, and nineteen tropical years by four tenths of a day.
26
For the opposite view, see Ben-Dov 2008: 125–129. Ancient societies that used a lunar calendar in different
parts of the world should inevitably reach similar conclusions independently, from observation and sheer physics,
and without break throughs always originating from outside influences; for more on this and the octaeteris in
greater detail, see M. P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning (Lund, 1920): i, 363–366.

18
course of five years at the average rate of six days per year. In effect, the author of the Astronomical Book
knows that a strictly septenary year and a lunar year are moving faster than the tropical year.

“In three years there are 1092 days, and in five years 1820 days, so that in eight years there are
2912 days. For the moon alone the days amount in three years to 1062 days, and in five years she
falls fifty days behind: And in five years there are 1770 days, so that for the moon the days in
eight years amount to 2832 days. [For in eight years she falls behind to the amount of eighty
days], all the days she falls behind in eight years are eighty.” (1 Enoch 72:12–17)

I would argue that the comparisons being made here in the above text are between unadjusted
septenary years and unadjusted lunar years. If the septenary calendar is never adjusted it accrues 1092 in
three years, 1820 days in five years and 2912 days in eight years. If the lunar year is strictly lunar it can
accrue 1062 days in three years and 1770 days in five years. We do not simply learn in these computations
that a septenary year of 364 days is ten days longer than a lunar year. Nor is it the case of a writer
handing down in these computations a prehistoric crudeness, preserved by him without alteration or
refinement as if against his own better judgment. His attachment to an archaic stage of astronomical
knowledge should be put in a proper context.27 The received tradition could not possibly have been
devoid of empirical observations of the moon and the lunar calculations in 1 Enoch 72 are hardly
attempting to state the obvious, repeatedly, that the difference between 364 and 354 is ten.28

Table 3. Calendaric implications of Enochian lunar theory

septenary lunar lunar-solar septenary-solar
Years Totals Mos. Totals Mos. Totals Aver. Totals Aver.
1. 364 354 12 354 12 371
2. 364 354 24 354 24 364
3. 364 1092 354 36 1062 354 36 1062 354 364 1099 366.66
4. 364 354 48 384 49 364
5. 364 1820 354 60 1770 354 61 1800 360 364 1827 365.4
6. 364 354 72 384 74 364
7. 364 354 84 354 86 364
8. 364 2912 354 96 2832 384 99 2922 365.25 371 2926 365.75

Delving deeper, the number ten becomes significant in the Astronomical Book for three reasons.
First, the reader is evidently supposed to take away from these calculations the basic principle of thirty-
six lunations in three septenary years, sixty-one in five septenary years, and ninety-nine in eight
septenary years. The latter is the same number of days in eight tropical years (8 365.25 = 2922). There
are no intercalary lunar months in the Enochian lunar time-keeping system. Lunations are counted for
the number of days they accrue over time, not the number of years. When the implied lunar-solar years
are averaged in cumulative fashion as in Table 3 it becomes evident that the author not only understood

27
Neither the Pseudepigrapha nor the Qumanic sources that discuss the moon’s motion support the opinion of
Ben-Dov and Horowitz 2005: 104–120 that there was a dependence on Mesopotamian influences to the exclusion of
Egypt, Greece, or Persia. The idea that the so-called ‘intercalation schemes’ of Mul-Apin (II ii 10–12) are echoed in
the Astronomical Book and the Qumran calendrical texts is impossible to approve. Intercalary lunar months in
Mesopotamia have distinctive identifying nomenclature never attested in these Judaic sources.
28
Neugebauer’s negative appraisal of the arithemtic section in 1 Enoch 74:10–17 is a “confused nonsense” added
to the original text is not adduced by text-critical methods and is not very impressive. The calendar maker’s math is
cryptic but not confused or nonsensical.

19
the mean length of the tropical year must be 365 3 days,29 but also that 360 and 364 are incorrect values
for the tropical year. The value 364 is preferred because it is the only value that allows the year to be
divisible by seven, and therefore, in the author’s worldview, 364 is the divinely revealed value and
ordained for man’s use.
The second reason it may seems as though the author places a redundant and unnecessary emphasis
on the lunar year being ten days shorter than the septenary year of 364 days is because he knew, and he
assumed his readers in general knew, a lunar year can be 355 days long. That is, he was aware of the true
length of the tropical year and how twelve lunations varies from being eleven days shorter (354) or ten
days shorter (355). This point is of crucial significance. For it is often claimed that because the lunar-solar
equivalent of a strictly septenary calendar in three years is thirty-seven lunations for 1092 days, that
proponents of the septenary system were satisfied with a “schematic lunar calendar” adjusted in this
manner every three years. This is untenable. The value 1092 is not the same number of days in three
tropical years (1095.7266 days) and it will not consistently reflect thirty-seven lunations (1092.631 days)
unless there are times when one of the lunar years in the cycle lasts 355 days (354 + 355 + 354 + 30 = 1093)
as seen from our example in Table 3.
Any ancient observer aware of the mean length of the synodic month would know immediately that a
repetitive lunar cycle fixed at 1092 days does not work. Even a six-year lunar cycle, if the period is
consistently 2184 days, does not work. It would only have taken a maximum of twelve years, much less
than the lifetime of one man, to figure out that it does not work. In twelve years, if two six-year lunar
periods only contain 2184 days each (2184 + 2184 = 4368) they fall behind real lunar phenomena by an
unacceptable 2 1 days every twelve years: 148 lunations will never be less than 4370 1 days (148
29.53059 = 4370.52732). The value 2184 is also not the lunar-solar equivalent of the tropical year in six
years (6 365.2422 = 2191.4532). The lunar period is one week too short. A lunar cycle greater than three
and greater than six years is therefore required.
Third, clearly the goal behind these cryptic calculations in the Astronomical Book is not that readers
may obtain the lunar-solar equivalent of the septenary calendar in eight years. The goal is for readers to
determine the septenary-solar equivalent of the tropical year in eight years. If not corrected a strictly
septenary calendar runs ahead of the tropical year by ten days in eight years (1.24 8 = 9.92). The author
of the Astronomical Book understood this. His septenary value of 2912 days in eight years and his lunar
value of 2832 in eight years are exactly ten days short of three “regular” lunar months by design to
encode that ten more days are required to obtain the septenary-solar equivalent of the tropical year
(2912 + 10 = 2922). This is definitely by a design because three lunations is not always three regular
months totaling ninety days. One, two, or three hollow months of twenty-nine days will make three
lunations last eighty-seven days (29 + 29 + 29 = 87), eighty-eight days (29 + 30 + 29 = 88), or eighty-nine
days (30 + 30 + 29 = 89). Put another way, the calendar maker in the Astronomical Book discusses the
value 364 explicitly and purposefully omits any mention of the value that is closest to reality. The two
lengths of a lunar year are also not stated explicitly. The writer indirectly refers to them mathematically
by the lunar-solar equivalent of the tropical year. This encryption in turn permits three basic rules to be
deduced for adjusting the 364-day calendar in 294 years according to the moon’s motion.
Since the lunar-solar equivalent of the tropical year in eight years is ninety-nine lunations, the 364-
day calendar falls behind the lunar-solar year and the tropical year by ten days and must be augmented

29
The writer’s averaging was not by the decimal system but by unit fractions. He presumably would have taken
354 as the smallest unit for the lunar year and then the maximum number of days in excess over eight years which
is ninety days. Divide this by eight and his result was eleven with “parts four” and “half a part” remaining: 354 days
+ 11 days + 3 + 1 = 365 days, 360 min.

20
with a minimum of fourteen days (2912 + 14 = 2926 ÷ 8 = 365.75). The septenary calendar can only be
adjusted by the insertion of units of seven days or the seven-day symmetry of the year collapses, but the
insertion of just one week in eight years also falls short of producing a septenary-solar equivalent of the
tropical year (2912 + 7 = 2919 ÷ 8 = 364.875). It follows that fourteen days must be added in eight years.
From this we derive calendrical rule #1 that one week needs to be inserted into the septenary-solar
calendar at 7-year intervals and this produces leap years of 371 days. The septenary significance of “eight
years” in 1 Enoch 72:12–17 is now accounted for. In a 7-year cycle year eight is always the first year of a
new cycle. The years 2–7 in Table 3 are strictly septenary years that cannot be adjusted. Not only is it safe
to assume this is how the author of the Astronomical Book attempted to convey the intercalation method
to outsiders without discussing it explicitly, it is also the beginning of determining the number of
intercalary weeks to be inserted at fixed intervals over spans of time greater than eight years.
After units of seven years the next unit in the septenary system of counting is 7 7 = 49 years.
According to the Enochian organization of data in Table 3 the nearest lunar-solar equivalent of the
tropical year in forty-nine years is 606 lunations. If there are ninety-nine lunations every eight years
there will be 594 lunations in forty-eight years and twelve more in the forty-ninth year. This period will
always contain 594 + 12 = 606 29.53059 = 17,895.53754 days and a mean average year of 365.215 days.
Therefore, however many days the 364-day calendar accrues over the course of forty-nine years, if that
value does not average out to be 365 and a fraction in the same way the Enochian lunar-solar calendar
does in forty-nine years it is incorrect. The Enochian calculations prove it to be incorrect and from this
we obtain calendrical rule #2 that there are leap years lasting 378 days. The septenary calendar of 364
days is not merely 49 364 = 17836 days in forty-nine years but a minimum of 17892 days and a mean
average year of 365.1428 days. To reach 17892 days in forty-nine years requires six leap years of 371 days
and one leap year of 378 days. But the drift must still be compensated by 49-year periods greater than
17,892 days in order to render a septenary calendar a ‘septenary-solar calendar’.
After units of forty-nine years the next unit in the septenary system of counting is 6 49 = 294 years,
the largest figure attested in the Dead Sea scrolls 4Q319 IV–VI and 4Q259. Both documents are part of one
of the versions of the Community Rule 4QSe.30 Because we can establish that eight Enochian years contain
ninety-nine lunations and forty-nine years contain 606 lunations, the seven-based septenary system
prominent in Enochian calendrical thought demands, since there are six 49-year periods in 294 years,
that there be 6 606 = 3636 lunations in 294 years. Armed with the common knowledge that the mean
synodic month is slightly longer than 29.5 days this inevitably leads to the conclusion, after
computations for just one period of 294 years, that 3,636 lunations is roughly seven days less than 107,380
days. The figure 3,636 is the actual number of lunations in 294 tropical years (29.53059 3636 =
107,373.22524) and the value 107,373 is one that could easily be determined from the known lengths of
the tropical year and the mean synodic month. Hence rule #3 of the 364-day calendar according to
Enochian principles is that the septenary-solar calendar has two leap years of 392 days in order that the
system may accrue 107,380 days in 294 years. Both 107,373 and 107,380 are values which produce an
average that is nearly equivalent to the tropical year, but 107,380 is evenly divided by 364 and 107,373 is
not. In all, there will be four periods of 17,892 days and two periods of 17,906 days and six alternating
jubilee cycles for 17,906 + 17,892 + 17,892 + 17,906 + 17,892 + 17,892 = 107,380 days.
Rule #3 is not mere guess work or number crunching. It is supported by 1 Enoch 78:10 where the
author writes about a year containing a 28-day month. A 28-day synodic lunar month is an astronomical

30
Cf. F. García Martínez, “Calendarios en Qumran (I),” Estudios Biblicos 54 (1996): 339–341; and DJD 21: 210–211,
but note the misprint of “Two-hundred and forty-nine years” on p. 201.

21
impossibility.31 The detailed discussion of the moon and its waxing and waning periods in the
Astronomical Book precludes any notion that the author thought a 28-day lunar month was even
remotely possible.32 The only alternative is that the reference is to an intercalary period of four weeks
inserted into one of the twelve nameless ordinal months of the septenary-solar year. These leap days are
virtually invisible. They interrupt one of the twelve solar months in progress but they are not counted as
calendar days of that month. In effect, the author of the Astronomical Book has indicated by encryption
three types of leap years that last as long as 371, 378, or a maximum of 392 days, but only 364 days are
counted in the calendar’s twelve ordinal months.
Once the values 107,380 and 107,373 are obtained for the septenary-solar and lunar-solar calendar in
294 years, respectively, it is but one small step to compute how long it would take for these two cycles to
be at variance with each other so that lunations repeat on the same solar dates, and thus reveal a
predictable cycle. In a 294-year period of 107,380 days lunar phases will be shifting backwards in the
septenary-solar calendar six, seven, or eight days with the passing of each period. After thirteen
successive periods (3,822 years) the lunar dates fall back into the same alignments with the solar dates
for an entire 294-year period and the great cycle starts all over again.
Returning now to the first day of a lunar month according to 1 Enoch 73:4–5, if LD 1, which is the first
full moon to set in the west after sunrise, falls on Wednesday i/1 in the 364-day calendar it will not do so
again until thirteen 294-year periods have elapsed. It is therefore my conviction that ascertaining the
lunar equivalent of the septenary calendar was the objective if not the primary goal of the authors of
Qumran scrolls 4Q319, 4Q320, and 4Q321–321a. Since the authors of these texts were not using the moon
to regulate any of the biblical festivals, and no ritual or any religious significance of any kind was
attached to lunar phases (cf. 4Q317), determining the value of a great cycle is the most likely reason for
the interest in tracing and coordinating lunar phases within a 364-day calendar system.
All of this underscores that the 364-day year the author of the Astronomical Book is describing is an
exceptional occurrence. The reason March 23 is missing from Table 2 is because it will not always fall on
the third day of the seven-day week, i.e. Tuesday. This cannot happen year after year and the author
knew this because he knew the tropical year is 365 3 days and that equinoxes and solstices do not leave
their stations in the portals. The twelve portals are fixed points and so are the four cardinal points of the
tropical year within them. The number of specific correlations made by the author between the lunar
year and the septenary-solar calendar by placing them side by side, not to mention the equinoxes and
solstices falling on precise septenary dates, simply cannot happen year after year. For equinoxes it only
happens once or twice in a cycle of 294 years, but when we factor in the lunar phases and the days of the
seven-day week the cycle is even much greater than 294 years. It is for the interested reader to compute
what the cycle is for LD 1 to fall on a Wednesday and for this to be the day after the spring equinox. The
author keeps this information to himself but points his readers in the right direction.

31
For the impossibility of a 28-day synodic month, see A. J. Spalinger, “Ancient Egyptian Calendars: How Many
Were There?,” JARCE 39 (2002): 247; B. E. Schaefer, “The Length of the Lunar Month,” Archaeoastronomy 17,
supplement to Journal for the History of Astronomy 23 (1992): 32; and also J. M. Steele, “The Length of the Month in
Mesopotamian Calendars of the First Millennium BC,” in J. M. Steele (ed.), Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in
the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Oxbow, 2007): 133–148.
32
The well-known Callippus cycle (330 BCE) of seventy-six years and 940 lunations makes the 940th lunation a
lunar month of twenty-eight days (939 29.53059 = 27729.224 + 28 = 27757.224). Callipus rounded this to an interger
number of 27,758 days and created a cycle with the same number of days accrued in seventy-six tropical years (76
365.24 = 27,758.24). Charles 1913: 224, n. 9, assumed the mention of a 28-day month proved knowledge of the
Callippus cycle on the part of the author of 1 Enoch. However, the number seventy-six has no significance in the
septenary counting system and there is no trace of a 76-year cycle in the Astronomical Book.

22
 In short, from such considerations and several archaic conventions reflected in the Astronomical
Book, it seems likely that the 3rd century text was not written during the span of its contents, but drew
extensively on much earlier observations and computations for the data it reports. It may be compared
to the later ‘goal-year texts’ Mesopotamian astronomers used to predict the motions of the planets, but
unlike those later texts the author of the Astronomical Book was not interested in finding repeating
cycles of ominous planetary synodic phenomena. Whatever records of the past available to the author
were used to find the cycles of the sun and the moon in the context of an arbitrary 364-day calendar. The
great interest in those times when the sun and moon enter or exit specific points on the observer’s
eastern and western horizon, a very selective data set, is out of touch with the ancient observational
astronomy of Mesopotamia.33 Yet such concern is not out of place in the Astronomical Book if much of its
information was derived from records compiled prior to the 5th century BCE and before these would be
at great odds with the mathematical astronomy and the consistent quality of Babylonian astronomical
diaries, tablets for lunar visibility intervals, and goal-year texts of the 5th century and later.
The author of 1 Enoch also does not concern himself at all with eclipses, neither lunar or solar, nor
with any of the many celestial events observed and recorded in ancient Mesopotamian sources. There is
zero interest in planetary synodic phenomena, conjunctions of planets with planets, moon with planets,
moon with constellations, planets with constellations, and no interest in the lunar visibility intervals
now called Lunar Three, Lunar Four or Lunar Six (with the exception of one interval of Lunar Six called
NA). The author has his focus almost entirely fixated on the horizon at rising and setting times for the
sun and the moon.
Lastly, if the prototype on which the 3rd century text of the Astronomical Book was based was not
conceived until the Persian or Greek periods, the reference to a 28-day month would be incompetent in a
Levantine context and invite a ridicule that does not square with the popularity 1 Enoch was able to
attain. The core of the Astronomical Book is thus a body of ancient astronomical knowledge based on
primitive arithmetical principles set down in writing prior to the late 5th century BCE. This was before
the introduction of the Babylonian mathematical astronomy and the rules governing it in the Levant
during the late Persian and Hellenistic periods. With Neugebauer “there is no visible trace of the
sophisticated Babylonian astronomy of the Persian or Seleucid-Parthian period” in 1 Enoch. The book
does not polemicize against the Babylonian lunar-solar calendar because the treatise appeared before the
latter began to eclipse the septenary-solar calendar to become the standard calendar of Judea during the
Persian, Greek, and Seleucid empires. On the other hand, the Book of Jubilees to which we now turn,
because it was composed in the 2nd century BCE, it does polemicize against the lunar-solar calendar. For
by this time the Babylonian lunar-solar calendar had become the single greatest threat to the survival of
the traditional 364-day Hebrew calendar in normative Judaism.

§ I.3 Intercalation encrypted in the Book of Jubilees

As stated in the previous section, 1 Enoch does offer clues as to how a 364-day calendar is to be
adjusted, but the calendar maker does not discuss the intercalation procedure candidly. He does so
enigmatically. The same is true in the Book of Jubilees which commands that a 364-year calendar be
observed by the ancient Hebrews: “And you, command the people of Ya’ōh-shar-al that they observe the

33
See A. Sachs, “Babylonian Observational Astronomy,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 276
(1974), 43–50. Cf. P. S. Alexander, “Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science,” in C. Hempel, A.
Lange and H. Lichtenberger (eds.), The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought (Leuven:
Peeters, 2002): 223–243.

23
years according to the number of 364 days.” (Jub 6:32; cf. verses 23–38). One writer who came very close
to realizing the intercalation method I propose is J. T. Rook.34 His analysis in 1981 began by observing that
the serpent story in the Genesis narrative is not connected chronologically to the creation story, whereas
it is in the Book Jubilees. In Genesis no time indicator is given for the creation of man and his subsequent
entrance into the garden of Adan (Eden). When the woman is “built” from a piece of the man’s anatomy
the story appears to already be set within the garden of Adan. This is not the case in the Book of Jubilees
which supplies precise dates:

“In the first week was Adam created, and the rib, his wife. In the second week He showed her to
him: and for this reason the commandment was given to keep in their defilement, for a male
seven days, and for a female twice seven days” (Jub 3:8-9).

According to this text, Adam and Ḥōh (Eve) were created on the same day, the sixth day of the seven-
day week, but the two did not meet one another until the following week and this, so the author believed,
is the source of the purity laws given by Moses in Lev 12:1-5. That Adam and Ḥōh were both created the
same day is stated earlier in Jub 2:14-15, but Jub 3:9 goes on to state that Adam remained in the land of his
creation for forty days before he was put into the garden and that his wife remained eighty days in the
land of her creation before she was admitted into the garden to join Adam. Once again, the figures reflect
the data in Lev 12:1-5 which deals with the length of time a woman is ritually impure after childbirth,
forty days if the newborn is a male child and eighty days if newborn is female. The author of the Book of
Jubilees believed these laws were derived from the periods of time Adam and Ḥōh had to wait before
meeting each other and before they were permitted to enter the garden. He then adds the following
curious datum:

“And after the completion of the seven years, which he had completed there, seven years exactly
(teneqquqa), and in the second month, on the seventeenth day (of the month), the serpent came
and approached the woman” (Jub 3:17).

Rook pointed out that taken literally this verse proves Adam became clean and was admitted into the
garden on Wednesday ii/18. Hence the forty days of his impurity ran from Tuesday ii/17 back to the day
of his creation on Friday i/6 (inclusive). This was interpreted by Rook to mean that the first month of the
calendar of 364 days only contained twenty-eight days, which we know is incorrect. Calendrically
speaking, Adam and his wife were created on Friday i/3 and not i/6 as Rook maintained. The seven-based
septenary calendar commences on Wednesday which is the fourth day of the seven-day week. This too
was something Jaubert contended before she was proven correct by the publication of the scrolls.
Second, since the period of exactly seven years (7 364 = 2548 days) ends with Ḥōh being approached by
the serpent in the garden on ii/17 the period must begin the day she joined Adam in the garden after
completing her eighty days of uncleanness. Rook mistakenly reasoned that the period of seven years in
the garden relates to Adam alone because he interpreted Jub 3:1 to mean Ḥōh was not created until the
second week. It is, however, quite unreasonable to assume the author of Jubilees believed God’s work of
creation extended beyond the hallowed seventh day when he ceased all creative activity. Rather, as
stated in Jub 3:8-9, the woman was created after the man on the sixth day but she was not introduced to
him until the following week. We must therefore commence both periods of forty and eighty days at the
same point in the calendar, i.e. the creation of Adam and Ḥōh on Friday i/3.

34
J. T. Rook, “A Twenty-Eight-Day Month Tradition in the Book of Jubilees,” VT 31 (1981): 83–87; and see J. C.
VanderKam, “A Twenty-Eight-Day Month Tradition in the Book of Jubilees?,” VT 32 (1982): 504–506.

24
 One will immediately observe that when we begin the count on Friday i/3 there are not eighty
inclusive days from Sunday ii/24 back to the creation of Adam and Ḥōh. There are twenty-eight days
missing. The only possible solution to this problem is that a period of twenty-eight days has been tucked
away into month i as numberless days of that month (see Table 5). This makes the period from Friday i/3
to Sunday ii/24 last the required eighty days. But for the total to reach 2548 on Sunday ii/17, the day the
serpent approached Ḥōh, a remaining seven days are evidently inserted into the same month at the end
of the seven-year period (see Table 7). That is, Adam finished his forty days of impurity on Tuesday, day
20, of the intercalary period and entered the garden the next day on Wednesday. Ḥōh completed her
eighty days of impurity on Sunday ii/24 and joined Adam in the garden on Monday ii/25. When we count
exactly 2548 inclusive days from ii/25 we arrive at Sunday ii/17. Hence, in this calendaric tradition, the
first month of the first year of creation has been augmented by twenty-eight epogmenal days and the
first month of the eighth year of creation by seven epogmenal days.
The pattern emerging from this brief exercise is unmistakable. The seemingly nonsensical dates in
the Book of Jubilees and the numerical data separated by a period of exactly seven septenary years
apparently are the calendar maker’s way of transmitting a fixed intercalation procedure without having
to divulge it outright. Intercalations to the 364-day calendar involve the periodic insertion of weeks.
These augmentations take place in the first year of a 49-year cycle which is a jubilee year, or 50th year of
an old 49-year cycle (cf. Lev 25:8–10), and the first year of every seven-year cycle.
Within a jubilee cycle of forty-nine years leap years occur at fixed intervals, i.e. years 1, 8, 15, 22, 29,
36, and 43 but the seven six-year periods 2–7, 9–14, 16–21, 23–28, 30–35, 37–42, and 44–49 are years during
which no adjustments are made to the calendar (see Table 4). The years 2–7 are implicit in the
Astronomical Book, and the full spectrum of six-year periods in 294 years appears to be the basis for the
six-year priestly rosters at Qumran. The jubilee year is not only reckoned as the first year of a 49-year
cycle, it is also a year which receives special emphasis according to a symmetrical and mathematical
relationship. Whereas normal leap years receive one week, leap years that are also 50th year jubilees
receive two or four intercalary weeks. When the periods repeat and six jubilee cycles have run their
course the required 364 extra days have been added to the calendar in 294 years.
Because the figure 294 is the largest figure cited in the scrolls at Qumran it is reasonable to assume
that both the problem with the 364-day system and the solution were understood by advocates of this
calendar despite no document recovered thus far from Khirbet Qumran ever discussing either the
problem or its solution. One should not be surprised at this silence in the Qumran corpus. At a time when
the 364-day calendar was coming under fire by competing gentile systems, any outright discussion of its
inner workings was tantamount to an admission that the calendar is not an ideal self-regulating system.
Instead of full disclosure what we find are clues and the figure 294 in 4Q259 is an overt tip-off. It is also
overt in Jub 4:21 where the figure is given as the exact duration Ḥanōḵ (Enoch) spent in the heavens
walking among “the gods” (h’lhym) in Gen 5:22, i.e. conversing with angelic beings about the septenary
calendar, its workings, and the mechanics of celestial time measurement.
In the following Tables 4–9 it is assumed that supplemental weeks are inserted the day after
Wednesday i/22 for reasons that will be clarified in § I.4. Table 4 incorporates data from scroll 4Q319
Otot. In this table “Release year” is the seventh year sabbath; S is the “sign” on the fourth day of the
priestly week of Shakan-Ya’ōh on Wednesday i/1; G is the “sign” on the fourth day of Gamōl on
Wednesday i/1; Y is the “sign” on the fourth day of Yašba’ab on Wednesday i/1; and M is the “sign” on
the fourth day of Mayaman on Wednesday i/1. We shall examine this arrangement and the meaning of
“signs” in more detail in the following chapter.

25
 Table 4. Leap years in six jubilee cycles (= 294 years) and 4Q319
Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Cycle 3 Cycle 4 Cycle 5 Cycle 6
1 Leap years A and C 392 S 378 378 392 G 378 378
2 364 364 364 G 364 364 364 S
3 364 364 G 364 364 364 S 364
4 364 G 364 364 364 S 364 364
5 364 364 364 S 364 364 364 G
6 364 364 S 364 364 364 G 364
7 Release year 364 S 364 364 364 G 364 364
8 Leap year B 371 371 371 G 371 371 371 S
9 364 364 G 364 364 364 S 364
10 364 G 364 364 364 S 364 364
11 364 364 364 S 364 364 364 G
12 364 364 S 364 364 364 G 364
13 364 S 364 364 364 G 364 364
14 Release year 364 364 364 G 364 364 364 S
15 Leap year B 371 371 G 371 371 371 S 371
16 364 G 364 364 364 S 364 364
17 364 364 364 S 364 364 364 G
18 364 364 S 364 364 364 G 364
19 364 S 364 364 364 G 364 364
20 364 364 364 G 364 364 364 S
21 Release year 364 364 G 364 364 364 S 364
22 Leap year B 371 G 371 371 371 S 371 371
23 364 364 364 S 364 364 364 G
24 364 364 S 364 364 364 G 364
25 364 S 364 364 364 G 364 364
26 364 364 364 G 364 364 364 S
27 364 364 G 364 364 364 S 364
28 Release year 364 G 364 364 364 S 364 364
29 Leap year B 371 371 371 S 371 371 371 G
30 364 364 S 364 364 364 G 364
31 364 S 364 364 364 G 364 364
32 364 364 364 G 364 364 364 S
33 364 364 G 364 364 364 S 364
34 364 G 364 364 364 S 364 364
35 Release year 364 364 364 S 364 364 364 G
36 Leap year B 371 371 S 371 371 371 G 371
37 364 S 364 364 364 G 364 364
38 364 364 364 G 364 364 364 S
39 364 364 G 364 364 364 S 364
40 364 G 364 364 364 S 364 364
41 364 364 364 S 364 364 364 G
42 Release year 364 364 S 364 364 364 G 364
43 Leap year B 371 S 371 371 371 G 371 371
44 364 364 364 G 364 364 364 S
45 364 364 G 364 364 364 S 364
46 364 G 364 364 364 S 364 364
47 364 364 364 S 364 Y 364 364 G
48 364 364 S 364 364 364 G 364
49 Release year 364 S 364 364 364 G 364 364 M
17906 17892 17892 17906 17892 17892
Totals
35798 53690 71596 89488 107380
Solar years (365.24) 17896.76 35793.52 53690.28 71587.04 89483.8 107380.56
Difference -9.24 -4.48 0.28 -8.96 -4.2 0.56

26
 Table 5. A leap year of 392 days (= Leap year A)∗
Month i Month ii Month iii
S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 1 2 3 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30

Month iv Month v Month vi

S M
T W T F S S M T W T
F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month vii Month viii Month ix

S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month x Month xi Month xii

S M
T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

In the calendar maker’s worldview the world began with the creation of light on Sunday. Thus the first year of
∗

creation lasted 395 days if the first three days of the creation week are counted. The calendar commences with the
ocular observation of the luminaries in the firmament on the fourth day (Wednesday). Although the first solar
month received twenty-eight epogmenal days only twelve ordinal months and 364 days are numbered in the
calendar. The epogmenal day 20 is the day Adam finished his forty days of impurity and Sunday ii/24 is the day Ḥōh
finished her eighty days of impurity, with both periods commencing on Friday i/3.

27
 Table 6. A non-leap year of 364 days∗
Month i Month ii Month iii
S M T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month iv Month v Month vi

S M
T W T F S S M T W T
F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month vii Month viii Month ix

S M
T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month x Month xi Month xii

S M
T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

∗
A leap year is always followed by six strictly septenary years totalling 2184 days. There are seven such periods
in every 49-year cycle: years 2–7, 9–14, 16–21, 23–28, 30–35, 37–42, and 44–49. The remaining seven years 1, 8, 15, 22,
29, 36, and 43 are the leap years in each cycle.

28
 Table 7. A leap year of 371 days (= Leap year B)∗
Month i Month ii Month iii
S M T W T F S S M T W T
F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 1 2 3 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
4 5 6 7 23 24 25 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31
26 27 28 29 30

Month iv Month v Month vi

S M T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month vii Month viii Month ix

S M T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month x Month xi Month xii

S M T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

∗
In the Book of Jubilees the beginning of the eighth year of creation, the first year of a new seven-year cycle,
received seven epogmenal days resulting in a leap year of 371 days. Only 364 days are reckoned in the calendar
despite the addition of these supplemental days. Sunday ii/17 is the day the author has Ḥōh being approached by
the serpent and the period is exactly seven years (7 364 = 2548 days) from the day she joined Adam in the garden
on Monday ii/25. Leap year B is the most common leap year occuring thirty-six times in every 294-year period.

29
 Table 8. A leap year of 378 days (= Leap year C)∗
Month i Month ii Month iii
S M T W T F S S M T W T
F S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 1 2 3 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31
11 12 13 14 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30

Month iv Month v Month vi

S M T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month vii Month viii Month ix

S M T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

Month x Month xi Month xii

S M T W T F S S M T W TF S S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 15 16 17 18 19 20 21
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 29 30 31

As noted in Table 5, leap year A of 392 days happens only twice in a 294-year period—in the first years of cycle
∗

1 and 4. Leap year C for 378 days occurs four times as the first year of cycles 2-3 and 5-6. Leap years A and C are both
the first and the ‘50th year’ of every 49-year cycle.

30
 § I.4 The change from month i to month vii for epogmenal days
As we have already noted, it is evident that the authors of both the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch and
the Book of Jubilees were aware that a calendar year of 364 days requires adjustment. Because the figure
294 is the largest figure cited in the scrolls at Qumran it is also within reason to assume that both the
problem with the 364-day calendar and its solution were understood by the advocates of this system
despite no document recovered thus far from Khirbet Qumran ever discussing either the problem or its
solution in a candid fashion. One should not be surprised at this silence in the sources and in the Qumran
corpus. At a time when the 364-day calendar was coming under siege by competing systems, any outright
discussion of its inner workings was tantamount to an admission that the calendar is not an ideal self-
regulating system. Instead of full disclosure what we find are clues and the figure 294 in 4Q259 is an overt
tip-off. It is also overt in Jub 4:21 where the figure is given as the exact duration Ḥanōḵ (aka Enoch) spent
in the heavens walking among “the gods” (h’lhym) in Gen 5:22, i.e. conversing with angelic beings about
the septenary calendar, its workings, and the mechanics of celestial time measurement. The calendar
makers and proponents of the system believed in this tradition and there can be little doubt that adding
fifty-two weeks to the 364-day calendar in the course of 294 years is as old as the calendar tradition itself.
In addition to the three types of leap years we have been able to extrapolate from the sources, the
author of Jubilees implies that epogmenal days were not always inserted into month i. He recognizes a
tradition of calendation change where epogmenal days were shifted from month i and inserted into
month vii instead. This change takes place during the life of the Patriarch Ya’ōh-ghakab (aka Jacob). In
Jubilees ch. 32 one reads how Ya’ōh-ghakab arrived at Baythal (Bethel) on the date of vii/1 and built an
altar. Early in the morning of vii/14 he rose up and set aside a tenth of all his livestock. On vii/15 he
began to offer them as sacrificial offerings on the altar for seven consecutive days. His son Lōay (aka Levi)
officiated as priest. The number of daily victims reveal a fantastic number of livestock in Ya’ōh-ghakab’s
possession and cannot be taken literally: fourteen oxen; twenty-eight rams; forty-nine sheep; seven
lambs; and twenty-one kids of goats. In seven days Ya’ōh-ghakab sacrificed ninety-eight of his 980 oxen;
196 of his 1,960 rams; 343 of his 3,430 sheep; forty-nine of his 490 lambs; and 147 of his 1,470 kids of goats.
It is to be noted how all of these numbers are divisible by seven and are clearly symbolic. After the
seven days of the feast were fulfilled Jub 32:16 states that on the following night, vii/22, Ya’ōh-ghakab
determined to build a sancturary around the altar but God ordered him not to do so (32:17–26). The
implication is that Ya’ōh-ghakab did nothing on vii/22. What follows may be considered evidence that
the author of Jubilees assumed that epogmenal days inserted into month i after Wednesday i/22 in the
time of Adam were inserted after Wednesday vii/22 after the time of Ya’ōh-ghakab:

“And he [Ya’ōh-ghakab] celebrated there yet another day, and he sacrificed thereon according to
all that he sacrificed on the former days, and called its name ‘Addition,’ (tosāk) for this day was
added (tawas-sakat), and the former days he called ‘The Feast.’ And thus it was manifested that it
should be, and it is written on the heavenly tables: wherefore it was revealed to him that he
should celebrate it, and add it to the seven days of the feast. And its name was called ‘Addition,’
because that it was recorded amongst the days of the feast days, according to the number of the
days of the year.” (Jub 32:27–29)

The difficulty Charles (1902: 196) and subsequent scholars have had with this passage is due mainly to
the belief that in the vorlage behind the Ethiopic tosāk (and the Latin rententatio) stood the Hebrew ’ṣrt.
Yet the Hebrew word does not adequately communicate the sense of addition or retention. The eighth
day of the feast of tabernacles (vii/22) is called the ’ṣrt, “solemn assembly,” in the biblical sources.
However, the ‘Addition’ in Jub 32:27 is the day following vii/22 and has no day number. The date of vii/23

31
is not mentioned until after the ‘Addition’ the following evening when Rebecca’s nurse Deborah died
(32:29). Mentioning her and the date of her death is seemingly trivial and useless information without
any biblical support. Like the impurity days of Adam and Ḥōh and the approach of the serpent seven
years later to the day, these dated events in the life of Ya’ōh-ghakab are evidently conjured up by the
author of Jubilees that they may be used to encrypt and transmit details about how the 364-day calendar
is put into practical use. The death of Rebecca’s nurse is a fabrication so that vii/23 is made special and
set apart. The reason given as to why vii/23 is a solemn day has no connection to the feast. It can
therefore be seen that the ‘Addition’ is really a period between the end of the eighth day on vii/22 and
vii/23. Jub 32:29 clarifies that it is not to be counted among the numbered days of the year which the
author has already told us in ch. 6 can never exceed 364 calendar days.
Furthermore, the author’s extra day, what he calls the ‘Addition,’ is actually an epogmenal week or
weeks. He may collectively refer to it as the day after vii/22, “yet another day,” but this only reminds the
reader that the solar year is really 365.24 days and that the author knows this and also the solution for
keeping the 364-day calendar from wandering through the seasons of the tropical year. That what he
really means by ‘Addition’ is not limited to just one day is also evident from the fantastic number of
victims he says Ya’ōh-ghakab sacrificed. All that Ya’ōh-ghakab offered during the seven days of the feast
he offered again on the ‘Addition’ (32:7). It is, of course, unrealistic for Ya’ōh-ghakab to have sacrifced in
twelve hours the same number of animals (more than 833) he had to spread out over the course of seven
days, and the author was fully aware of this. The entire nation of Ya’ōh-shar-al (aka Israel) is only
required to offer a total of seventy victims during the seven days of the feast of tabernacles and only one
bull on vii/22 (Num 29:12–34). The reader is to understand that the numbers attributed to pious Ya’ōh-
ghakab are not to be taken literally. They are not only ficticious but intentionally inflated far beyond
what is prescribed for the feast of tabernacles according to Lev 23:34–36; 39–44, and Num 29:12–40. The
contradiction and gross exaggeration are clues that serve the reader and nudge him to the conclusion
that the ‘Addition’ is not just one day but a span of not less than seven days.
Since it is impossible to adjust a septenary calendar except by units of seven days the author of
Jubilees has once again implicitly revealed how the calendar actually works. Before Ya’ōh-ghakab he
assumes leap days were added to month i in the spring. From the time of Ya’ōh-ghakab onward he
believes they were transferred from the first month and added to month vii in the fall season. The new
information provided by the details of the story of Ya’ōh-ghakab’s alleged celebration of the feast of
tabernacles is that leap days are inserted between Wednesday vii/22 and Thursday vii/23.
Returning to the words tosāk and rententatio, it seems clear that the Ethiopic and Latin translations
have nothing to do with the “solemn assemby” (’ṣrt) on vii/22. Rather, the words “addition” and
“retention” most likely render a single Hebrew word which could be understood either way and with a
fifty percent chance that two translators in two different langauges would pick the same etymology.
Although not derived from the same root, the verb bṣr carries the meaning of “addition,” “gather,”
“fortify,” as well as “restrain,” “withhold,” and “cut off.” These meanings adequately convey the function
of an epogmenal week in a septenary system that only recognizes 364 calendar days. The epogmenal
period is an addition to the feast of vii/15 because it is appended to the end of it after vii/22, but the day
numbering of the month is not increased. Rather, the month is suspended, or “cut off,” at this point and
held back until the ‘Addition’ is finished. During leap years, vii/23 is basically postponed by one week,
two weeks, or by a maximum of four weeks.
The author of Jubilees already has Abram institute the feast of tabernacles in Jub 16:20–31, a drastic
antedating of the holiday’s origin but one that helps prepare the stage for the reform of the calendar
when intercalation is believed to have shifted from the spring month i to the fall month vii.

32