Q&A: Ancient Hebrew Calendar
Ancient Hebrew Calendar
Question
If I accept Professor Rachel Elior’s claims that the people of Israel followed a different calendar from the one used today, as written in the Book of Enoch (she argues that this was the calendar used by the priests of the house of Zadok when they led the people, and that the Hasmoneans abolished that calendar and changed it to fit the Seleucids), if the Rabbi is familiar with these claims. If this is true, is it supposed to affect our lives today? Could it be that we are not fasting on Yom Kippur and observing the other holidays properly? The claim that “you shall proclaim them in their appointed times” even if done intentionally cannot hold when it comes to keeping the Sabbath on the wrong day
Answer
I’m not familiar with her claims, but these areas are so speculative, so agenda-driven, and so eager for headlines, that I wouldn’t build on them. But I didn’t understand why the calendar would change anything regarding the Sabbath.
Discussion on Answer
Klikko,
The peer review of Rachel Elior’s doctrine and research method is a strong sign that this is someone who, as the Rabbi said, is pursuing agendas.
Professor Meir Bar-Ilan:
https://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/articles/publications/publications0084.html
Rahamim Sar-Shalom:
https://www.daat.ac.il/he-il/hagim/luach_ivri/sarshalom-haluach.htm
Two examples that criticize both her claims and, in part, her research method.
And lastly, although not directly connected to the calendar issue (it is mentioned there briefly), this too offers sharp criticism of Rachel Elior’s mode of research:
Bezalel Bar-Kochva:
יש ללחוץ כדי לגשת אל %D7%91%D7%A8-%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%91%D7%90-%D7%AA%D7%93%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A1.pdf
The Qumran calendar would not affect Sabbath observance, but it would affect the other holidays.
If you're interested, here are videos that prove that the Qumran calendar really is the original biblical calendar: