Part 1
At Qumran in 1947, there were apocalyptic scrolls found, and among them the Books of Jubilees and the Second Mikdash writings of Enoch I which discuss the calendar and dating system by which these people lived. Scholars had been attentive of the Apocryphal Calendar before this find, but interest was renewed with the discovery of these scrolls by which the Qumran sect lived. It is based on 364 days per year. The year is divided into four periods (to correspond to the four seasons of the year), of 13 weeks or 91 days in each period. There are 12 months in each year or a total of 52 weeks. By using this exact measure and beginning the year on the Wednesday just after the vernal equinox, the holy days fall exactly on the same day, in the same month, every year.
This calendar warrants extensive study, as there are now numerous proofs it was the calendar used by Abraham, King Solomon, King David, and High Priest Zadok in the First Holy Mikdash. A different calendar was used in the Second Commonwealth, but that Mikdash had no Presence, no Ark of the Covenant, and no means for its apostate priesthood to communicate directly with Hashem. In fact, it is recorded that 300 high priests during the second Mikdash period, died when they went into the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. Something, perhaps many things, were wrong with the Second Mikdash.
THE SADDUCEES
The name Sadducee is derived from that of Zadok, the high priest of the Jerusalem Mikdash in the time of Solomon. But what proof have we that these Zaddikim were, in fact the rightful priesthood, expelled from the Mikdash by an apostate sect? What proof have they offered to us that their laws and customs bear the mark of authenticity?
Proof of the Zaddikim's authenticity lies in the evidence that they were the keepers of the true implements of the Mikdash from the First Temple (Mikdash). Since the time of King Solomon, virtually without interruption up until the time of the Hasmonean Revolt, the Zadokite Priests had been in control of the Jerusalem Mikdash. They trace their ancestry back to the high priest Zadok, who officiated in King Solomon's Mikdash. It was members of this group who were to become known as Sadducees to the Pharisees. In other words, the Sadducees were the priestly aristocracy, The prophet Ezekiel (Ezek. 44:9-16) assigned the priestly duties exclusively to this family.
In fact, according to the T'nach, only the sons of Zadok (the Zaddikim or Sadducees) will have the right to make sacrifices in the New Mikdash; see Ezek. 40:46. This means that the Dynasty of Zadok, the First High Priest in the Mikdash, will be restored. These items would include such items as the Mikdash incense, the anointing oil of the priesthood, the ashes of the Red Heifer, and the Ark of the Covenant.
Josephus, himself a priest of the Pharisees who had no knowledge of the Oral Law being given on Mt. Sinai, relates that the Sadducees reflected the traditions of the Fathers, which seems to have been the forerunner of the Oral Law, and was also observed as law by the Pharisees. It follows then that at the time of the First Holy Mikdash, it was not taught that the Oral Law was given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. On the contrary, a smaller body of law was, at that time, referred to as TRADITION. Both groups adhered to this tradition. To justify and venerate their own rulings, the Pharisees began to call their own legislation the very Word of G-d. In this way they set themselves above their vanquished foe, the Sadducees, and rewrote history. The truth, however, has come back to bite them in the form of the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Sadducees.
"It is clear from the Scrolls and certain apocryphal works like the books of Jubilees and Enoch, long known but now recognized as having emanated from Essene circles, that the sectarians observed their religious festivals according to a solar-based calendar, whereas the official Temple cultus [during the Second Temple Era] was regulated according to lunar observations. It has been shown that, in fact, the Essene system was the more ancient and traditional, traceable in literature to the time of the Exile at least, and, as with so much of Essene thinking, having its roots in the very heart of the old agricultural life of ancient Israel. The official adoption of a 'new-fangled' lunar reckoning may have been no older than the later Maccabean leadership, when it seemed more important to integrate Judaism closer into the Hellenistic world... If some form of dual-calendar compromise had ever been tried, the Hellenistic lunar arrangement being followed for diplomatic and commercial purposes, and the traditional solar reckoning being maintained for cultic use, it did not apparently satisfy the purist inclinations of the Essenes" (Allegro, Myth, p. 34).
Originally, Israel reckoned time and set festivals according to the ancient solar calendar the Sumerians or Babylonians used only for astronomical purposes. This calendar was very similar to the solar calendar used by the Egyptians during Israel's 430 year captivity there. Since the Karaites and Falashas did not follow the direction of the Pharisaic school during and after the Babylonian Captivity; they retained the solar "Jubilee" Calendar. The lunar calendar originally was useful only to the Babylonians for purposes of the Babylonian Mystery-Religion. By observation of the dates in the T'nach that the ancient patriarchs labored and began journeys you may arrive at what calendar they used. Only if they were keeping the Jubilee calendar did the dates they began journeys fall on all days of the week but Shabbat. All those who observe the Rabbinic lunar calendar celebrate the High Holy Days at the wrong time.
In fact, during the Babylonian captivity after the first Commonwealth the Jewish people abandoned not only the Hebrew Calendar and customs - but also the Hebrew Alphabet. What we today consider the Hebrew Alphabet, Customs, and Calendar - is in truth Babylonian, and Assyrian (in the case of the modern alphabet, the Ksav Ashuris: Munk, p. 233). The modern Hebrew script is called Ksav Ashuris because it is of Assyrian origin ("Sanhedrin", 21b- 22a). The Torah was first written in Ksav Ivri (Ancient Hebrew Script). It was from this ancient script the Greeks derived their alphabet. Rabbinic Judaism abandoned it to the Samaritans (calling them the Cuthites) supposedly because it was "mundane" and "ungainly" ("Sanhedrin", 21b). Even the Torah's command to wear tassels (tzit-tzit) with a thread of blue is by and large ignored today. Only a few orthodox Jews have begun again to wear the tekhelet.
But regarding the calendar, the Torah teaches the sun is to govern "their appointed days" and the moon, the season. The days are determined by the travel of the sun's annual circuit through the 6 gates of the eastern horizon.
Originally then, it seems observation of the New Moon was not for the purpose of determining the calendar.
Even the Mishna ("Tosefta Nazir") acknowledges the existence of the solar year and sets its length at 364 days. Jehuda the Persian, in the 9th Century CE, wrote that the Jews "had always reckoned by solar months (Sachau, p. 69).
Re-printed from Qumran.com
