Calendrical Documents

The Calendrical Documents

[Fragments setting out the calendar of the community: a year of three hundred and sixty-four days.]

The year is three hundred and sixty-four days: four seasons, each of ninety-one days; and each season, thirteen weeks. So the year is fifty-two weeks complete, and every day of the year falls always on the same day of the week, year after year, and the appointed feasts do not wander.

The first day of the year is the fourth day of the week, for on the fourth day the lights of heaven were set in their places. The seasons begin on the fourth day; and the feasts are reckoned from them: the Passover in the first month; the Waving of the Sheaf, and from it the count of weeks to the Feast of Weeks; the Day of Remembrance and the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Booths in the seventh month; and the feasts of new wine and of new oil and of the wood offering, each in its appointed time.

And the priestly courses serve in their order, each course entering upon its sabbath; so the rotation of the courses and the turning of the year run together, and the service of the temple is never confused. [Line damaged]

[Tables of the weeks and the festivals follow in the fragments, much of them broken.]