Biblical Calendars

Holidays today are often established by legislation, and calendars are published on paper and smart phones. But how were holidays chosen and taught in biblical Israel? And what might these holidays have to do with the creation narrative?

In this book, Michael LeFebvre considers the calendars of the Pentateuch with their basis in the heavenly lights and the land's agricultural cadences. He argues that dates were added to Old Testament narratives not as journalistic details but to teach sacred rhythms of labor and worship. LeFebvre then applies this insight to the creation week, finding that the days of creation also serve a liturgical purpose and not a scientific one.

The Liturgy of Creation restores emphasis on the religious function of the creation week as a guide for Sabbath worship. Scholars, students, and church members alike will appreciate LeFebvre's careful scholarship and pastoral sensibilities.

From The Liturgy of Creation by Michael LeFebvre. Copyright (c) 2019 by Michael LeFebvre. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, www.ivpress.com. (https://www.ivpress.com/the-liturgy-of-creation.)

In Christian literature, Jesus’ crucifixion is commonly (and for good reason) assigned to a Friday, and Jesus’ resurrection to a Sunday.  Jesus would, therefore, have spent (at most) three days and two nights in the grave.  Yet, in Matt. 12.39-41, Jesus describes himself as ‘a greater than Jonah’, and says he will spend “three days and three nights” in the heart of the earth.  That fact has prompted students of Scripture to make some unusual moves, e.g., to (re)date the crucifixion to a Thursday, or to treat Jesus’ reference to “the heart of the earth” as a reference to a location other than the grave.  But neither of these moves are (in my view) necessary, nor are they desirable.  Scripture does not speak in its own language, much less employ modern-day conventions.  Instead, it follows the conventions of its own time, which allow a three-day-and-two-night period to be referred to as “three days and three nights”.

This paper explores the flood chronology in 4Q252 (4QCommentary on Genesis A) and re-examines 4Q254a (4QCommentary on Genesis D) in the light of the Septuagint and Ancient Near East Texts. Particular attention is paid to the omission of the raven in the calendar of deluge in 4Q252

It is demonstrated that the Greco-Roman zodiac sundials that flourished in Greece and Italy from about the early second century BCE to the second century CE were related to the zodiac calendar in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208-4Q209).
Mediterraneann Archaeology and Archeometry 14.3 (2014): 68-81

The paper suggests that The Book of Esther contains astronomical and chronological information associated with the reign of Artaxerxes II. It further investigates a play on dates concerning an intercalary 12 th Hebrew month and the eve of Passover, and possible mathematical references to Ancient Near Eastern and Jewish calendars.

The article focuses on the author's research on the chronographical background of the Zodiac Mosaic Calendar in Synagogue at Hammath-Tiberias. He researched to find the origin of mosaic decoration, the twelve zodiac sign, the four seasons, and Helios, which was found in synagogues in two parts of Palestine, Galilee and Judah. The chronograph of the mosaic art was extensively debated. The author further studied the history of Palestine Jews in the 4th century. Most of the work was done during the period of Hillel II.
The author concludes that the mosaic from the Stratum IIa synagogue with the Zodiac Calendar was executed in the time of Hillel II, who said to have died around 365 CE. He proposes the new date of the execution of the Zodiac Mosaic from Hammat-Tiberia (Stratum IIa) after the earthquake in 363, that is, in 364 or 365.

The only Priestly pre-Exodus narrative to be framed in explicitly chronological terms is the Flood account. Here, in light of a recently published Akkadian text from Ugarit (RS 94.2953) and Berossus’ version of the Flood story, I suggest that in this unique case P may be based on earlier models that were in possession of a precise temporal framework.

I argue that the scribe within the Holiness School who was the author, or at least the final redactor, of the Creation account of Gen ch. 1, the genealogy of Gen ch. 5, and the Priestly (P) Flood narrative, whom I call H_Chron, encoded in the chronology of the P Flood narrative the replacement of an “old” calendar with 30-day months, years of 360, 390, or 405 days, and mean year length 365.25 days, which I call 360H, by a “new” week-based calendar with 30- and 31-day months, years of 364 or 371 days, and mean year length  365.24 days, which I call 364H, both calendars being of his own design. The encoded calendar replacement reflects, as a calendrical allegory, H_Chron's program (or dream) of enacting the 364H calendar in Persian Judah in place of the lunisolar calendar, in order to favor the replacement of the observation of the full-moon holiday with that of the weekly Sabbath. The 364H calendar - in which the year and each quarter begin on Sunday, in line with Gen ch. 1 - is kept in sync with the seasons by intercalating an extra week in two independent cycles of 7 years (sabbatical year) and 25 years (mid-Jubilee and Jubilee years), resulting in an intercalation cycle of 7 · 25 =  175 years (same as Abraham's lifespan), with the last year having only one extra week. The P Flood narrative assumes that the old calendar has been used by the descendants of Seth since Creation up to, and including, the year of the Flood (1656 AM & Noah's 600th year), and that the enactment of the new calendar at the beginning of Noah's 601st year, consistently with H_Chron's view of the Flood as a new creation, required a 10-day date advancement, just as the enactment of the Gregorian calendar did in 1582. Collaterally, the 360H calendar provides the key to understanding the 1290 and 1335 days of Dan 12:11-12.

Myšlenky „lunární soboty“ představují nový prvek v současných teologických diskuzích ohledně biblického dne odpočinku. Přes určitou přitažlivost svého poselství a jistý druh „logiky“ v argumentaci se však po bližším prozkoumání jeví tato „ztracená pravda“ velmi problematicky. Hlavními protiargumenty jsou především biblické texty, které vyvracejí premisu, že Bohem „určené časy“ ( מוֹעדֲיִם ) jsou vždy spojeny s fázemi
měsíce. Ještě problematičtější je pak ignorování klíčové pasáže o stvoření, která jednoznačně určuje sobotu nezávisle na měsíci. K tomu se, v druhé řadě argumentů, přidává i problematický hermeneutický přístup Jonathana D. Browna, který k tomuto učení nedochází primárně na základě studia Písma, ale začne je v Bibli objevovat teprve v důsledku údajného „prorockého zjevení“.

The Hebrew Calendar, used today the world over, is based on astronomical, religious and cultural considerations. Of those cultural aspects are the 4 Postponements, dealing primarily with the Fall Holydays. This paper will specifically discuss the development of the Postponements and will posit they are a result of hundreds of years of gradual change, beginning in the late 4 th century CE with partial completion in the 8-11th c CE.

I have previously presented the hypothesis [1] that the scribe within the Holiness School who was the author, or at least the final redactor, of the Creation account of Gen ch. 1, the genealogy of Gen ch. 5, and the Priestly (P) Flood narrative, whom I call H_Chron, encoded in the chronology of the P Flood narrative the replacement of an “old” calendar with 30-day months and years of 360, 390, or 405 days, which I call 360H, by a “new” week-based calendar with 30- and 31-day months and years of 364 or 371 days, which I call 364H, both calendars being of his own design. The encoded calendar replacement reflects, as a calendrical allegory, H_Chron's program (or dream) of enacting the 364H calendar in Persian Judah in place of the lunisolar calendar, in order to favor the replacement of the observation of the full-moon holiday, named from the Accadian word sapattu [2] [3], with that of the weekly Sabbath. The objective of the present short paper is to point out a byproduct of that hypothesis, namely that the 360H calendar is the key to understanding the 1290 and 1335 days of Dan 12:11-12.

This an online essay  in the Dead Sea Scrolls section of the website The Bible and Interpretation (https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/).
It includes a proposed calendrical reconstruction of 4Q208-4Q209 based on data from surviving fragments. This is an extension of the chapter on the Aramaic Astronomical Book of Enoch from Qumran  in the author's monograph, Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception (Leiden: Brill, 2014)
(Originally uploaded July 2015; PDF. revised December 2017, uploaded 2018; uploaded again in October 2021 because the URL changed)
https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/search/node?keys=astronomical+artefact