History Forum / General / Ancient History / October 2003

Dear David,

Ouch! I thought this was a newsgroup, not a public pillory. As my work
is being accepted by some scholars I respect, I feel no need to
justify myself to merely negative thinking, but I will post a response
that may clarify some of the issues of the 364-day Jewish calendar for
readers not familiar with the issues.

Briefly, the modern Jewish calendar is about 2,500 years old, and is
in effect the Babylonian calendar adapted by Babylonian branches of
Judaism. Apart from this, somewhat unrealistic 'solar' calendars of
364 days were found in works of the inter-testamental period
(400BC-70AD), which is roughly in line with what scholars call the
Second Temple Period (500BC- 70AD). These works, 1st Enoch and the
Book of Jubilees, show an unrealistic 364-day year and treat it as if
it were preferable to the 365-day+ year. For this reason, many critics
treated the 364-day calendar with derision. Of course, most of them
had been brought up either in the Jewish luni-solar calendar of
Babylon (a ca. 354-day year with interspersed additions of a lunar
month every 2/3 years to bring the moon into line with the sun) or in
the Western solar calendar tradition of 365-day years with (roughly)
an extra day every four years). It was assumed that the 364-day
calendar was a joke...until they started turning up in the Dead Sea
Scrolls. It was fascinating too that the 364-day calendar was not, in
the Scrolls, just a theological shibboleth, as in other
inter-testamental literature. The scheme appeared in parallel with
other calendars of the luni-soalr and solar type in a triple
'ready-reckoner' style. The conclusion was inescapable from 1947
onwards that, despite being apparently unrealistic the 364-day
calendar had been used by some in the Second Temple Period,
synchronised with other, real calendars.

For clarification I should say that my work does not overrate the
Qumranic material: I suggest it is probably an inferior reflection of
a lost tradition, which was the result of Babylonian influence upon a
culture that had solar and lunar aspects and held them in fruitful
tension. Basically, the Temple ran on a solar day and seven-day week,
probably within a solar-dominated concept, while the successive (and
mainly Mesopotamian) Empires that dominated the Jews were luni-solar.
Until 46 BC Rome was luni-solar, until Julius Caesar introduced his
own Egyptian-inspired scheme, the forerunner of the one we use in most
of the world today. Underlying calendar divisions eventually became
conflicts, as they represented different kinds of Judaism. Generally,
these were two camps: they were either conservatively theological
solarists, who looked to the past, or pragmatic luni-solarists who
favoured complying with certain aspects of the Eastern Empires. The
Babylonian calendar eventually triumphed, while the more solarist
Qumranic traditions were finally buried. This is why they vanished so
completely, until 1947, when some Bedouins discovered the first
scrolls.

In all of Europe and the West, the solar calendar of Julius Caesar
became the calendar of Rome and its Christian successors. First, the
Julian calendar held sway, from about 46 BC; then came its AD 1583
update, the Gregorian calendar, which not only vanquished the old
lunar calendars of Britain, for example (which since then have become
associated with pagan revisionism, as seen in the history of
Halloween). The solar calendar's easily-read simplicity, and its
independence of religious control (which could not be said of the
Jewish and Islamic traditions) made each Western citizen or subject
increasingly the determiner of his (and eventually her) own time and
of future planning: it led to this secular democracy in which the
calendar's history of early control, and its influence over group
mythology and epic literature became strange, because forgotten by the
majority. The Orthodox Church retains the Julian calendar, but Russia
adopted the Gregorian in 1917: it is simply a more accurate calendar.
Later, in a scientific age, suspicious of all spirituality, even to
deign to talk about something so self-evidently transparent as the
calendar on the wall could seem barmy. In fact, to understand all
history and literature, you have to understand the calendar, because
so much mythology, religious practice and literary imagery, it seems -
from Homer, through the Bible to Chaucer and Shakespeare, - drew its
inspiration from the world of earth-observed astronomy and the order
that ensured survival in a seasonal world, however those seasons were
constructed in a given environment. Egypt's were different from
Israel, and Israel's from Europe, but shared realities made for
transferable imagery.

In what scholars call the Second Temple period' (ca. 520BC-70AD) the
calendar was the only means of surviving within the socio-religious
group that acknowledged and protected you. Babylon imposed its
cultural norms, including its calendars, and even their Persian
successors adopted their luni-solar scheme. Israel did too, perforce,
but to what extent in their old solarist religious life is debatable.
Later, a calendar was as a flag for a cause. The wise subject of such
empires either accepted one scheme, or found a way to synchronise
different ones. In my view, the latter is what happened in Israel
after the Exiles returned.  The priests, oppressed by foreign rule,
constructed patriarchal genealogies in the manner of the king-lists of
Mesopotamia, which held fantastic ages for mythic kings (such as
40,000 years, which rather puts Methuselah's maximum of 969 years in
the shade).  As mere imitations of things known, the lists of
patriarchs and excessive ages was likely to cause mere contempt.
Feeling superior, the Babylonians and their successors would not
examine the lists too closely. They would appear to be inferior copies
of an ancient art form in which Babylonian supremacy was all too
obvious. However, to the cognoscenti of the Jewish priests, it was an
adaptation of Babylonian ideas for Hebrew religious purposes. The
schemes are in fact covert calendars which blend solar years,
luni-solar years of the usual order of about 354 days and 384 days in
a leap year, and ergonomic (work-rota) years of 364 days, which gave a
regular number of weeks. The mathematics in Genesis 11:10-26 is exact,
and to an astounding degree of synchronism, given the epoch it appears
in.

The 364-day calendar I found in Genesis 11 is also known in the
literature of the centuries preceding Jesus, including the Dead Sea
Scrolls, but in apparently simplistic form. In finding the key to
understanding the political situation in the Second Temple period
(roughly, the two centuries before Jesus to 70 AD) I cite the Zadokite
hypothesis of Qumran's origins by Larry Schiffman, who sees the
origins of Qumran in groups sympathetic to the old priesthood of the
Zadokites. The old priesthood declined and came under pressure,
including pressure on iys solar calendar tradition. I suggest that the
old Zadokite priests were replaced by the Hasmonean priests, probably
about the middle of the second century BC. These incomers espoused the
luni-solar calendar, while the old tradition (which had long been
secret in its structural details) fled into the desert with admiring
imitators of the old (Biblical) priesthood. These latter then tried to
continue the secret calendar traditions hidden in Genesis.  However,
they had their own agendas of an extremist nature so that they did not
exactly follow what the priests had done, but 'improved' it around a
theology of 364 days as a year of perfect length. I find solid
evidence in Genesis 11 for the original scheme they imitated so
nearly. The calendar tradition of 364 days was originally a work-rota
for priests in the Temple, meant to be synchronised within the
(Babylonian-style) luni-solar scheme, which as subjects of the
successive Empires of Mesopotamia they could hardly ignore. The old
scheme however actually had a realistic solar year, over a six year
period; hence it is called a 'synchronistic' calendar.

Why six years? It took six years for the 24 priestly families (see 1st
Chron 24: 1-19) to complete the cycle, so that the first family
started again at the first week of the year. This scheme gave a solar
year missing only a few hours at the six-year stafe. However, I
perceive in Genesis 11;10-26 a longer cycle, also, of 84 years, which
perfected the synchronism astronomically. When the Zadokite priestly
tradition was displaced by the march of politico-religious history,
and Hasmoneans usurped the Temple and adpted a luni-solar scheme, the
imperfect devotees of Zadokism took to the desert, at least in part,
where some made calendars that were less solar-exact than the original
tradition had been, but intended to be functional. These schemes
rejected the solar year of 365.25 days as a main base, and became
fancifully representative of an ideal world in which a defective,
controlling 364 days was God's 'true year', only blighted by 'sin' -
expressed in the current solar year of 365.25 days. Astronomy was
perverted by sincere, wishful thinking into portraying skewed
synchronistic ideals, which history would judge as wanting. From a
Jewish point of view, too, the solar calendar had become the flagship
of their enemies, the Romans. For these, and other, reasons, the solar
calendar was doomed. Jewish survivors of the Roman wars of 66-70AD
regrouped and, being Pharisees who were descended, theologically, from
the Babylonian wing of Judaism, and thus favouring the now-predominant
luni-solar scheme) they felt the best way to reunite Judaism was
around that one calendar: it is therefore this calendar, with its
Babylonian month names like Nisan and Adar, which now controls
religious life in Judaism.

The Mishmarot (4Q320-330) or calendar schemes of Qumran show
synchronistic models that had once been more scientically accurate,
but which history moved on from. I do not say this to belittle the
Qumranian achievement, least of all to do the same disservice to the
old Zadokite tradition I perceive in the Bible, because all the
schemes are fascinating in their own right. I stress the role of
history just to indicate that their science reflected their
theological bias, and once the reasons for that were removed, or some
new factors emerged, they changed. Thus, the removal of the Temple and
the espousal by the Romans of an Egypt-inspired solar calendar were
just such new contexts. However, the original synchronistic scheme,
which is a covert calendar hidden in Genesis 11:10-26 is a superior
calendar scheme worthy of note: it has 84 years of 365.25 days,
arranged in an exact number of weeks (since the priestly families
changed duties weekly) and it demonstrates a breath-taking
approximation to 1,039 lunar months, by just over a day. It is a quite
fantastic achievement by any standards. However, I apologise for the
complexity and (in laymen's terms) difficult of readability of my
book, which was designed to withstand critical skepticism. It had to
argue and to prove every jot and tittle, lest it be accused of
skimming over the evidence. It is my hope that I may write a layman's
version, some day, but that will be after my work has been thoroughly
tested by the scholars. I want the finshed eork to be as accurate as
possible.

In the meantime,I must say that you did not do much of service by
quoting Prof Jim VanderKam's Foreword to my book as if it were a
complete substitute. While I hold my breath in admiration for Jim
VanderKam's summative abilities, I am sure he would agree that it
would be better (though a considerable commitment of time and effort)
to read the book itself. I wonder, too, if you thought of asking
permission to quote his summary of my book? I think the way you have
presented me, in such bald terms, invites ridicule, because it
deceives the ignorant into thinking I am an easy target because Jim's
summary is compact.

Finally, I don't know Barbara Thiering's work, but although I
appreciate her positive response, I don't think either of us would be
happy to be bracketed together, as we are different people doing
different things. If anyone wishes to contact me regarding any issue,
email me. I'm willing to discuss anything.

However, lest I be thought churlish, despite my disappointment at the
tone of the first posting on this thread, I am sure that you mean well
and am not disposed to be over-critical. Thank you for drawing
attention to my work. I am sorry if the above is very rushed; I hope
it is clear and helpful to readers.

The Genesis Calendar: The Synchronistic Tradition in Genesis 1-11
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, April 2001. See
http://www.amazon com or see the publisher's website, which has a
range of extracts from scholarly reviews.

Thank you,

Dr Bruce Gardner
______________

'Don't worry about people stealing your ideas...if your ideas are any
good you will have to ram them down people's throats.' [Howard Aiken]