By Nathan Lawrence, HoshanaRabbah.org 

Like a Giant Puzzle

A puzzle is a pretty picture that someone took or painted and then cut up into a hundred or a thousand pieces and challenges someone else to reassemble. When all the pieces are assembled, a beautiful scene emerges. Sometimes, however, a piece just doesn’t fit. No matter how hard you try, you cannot cram it into that spot. Yes, you can force jam it in there, and even add some touch-up to help it to match, but it’s still not quite right, and when the puzzle is “completed” the whole picture will be off. This is exactly the case with Bible teachers who are promoting the so-called Enoch-Zadok 364-day year calendar. No matter they cram pieces of the argument together and paint them to match, the picture is still off.

Are you an earnest Bible-Truth seeker who is tired of being lied to in the mainstream Christian church? You know that the gospel message is true. You know and love Yeshua, your Lord and Savior. Now you want to love him in a fuller and more blessed way by making YHVH’s Torah a part of your life. This includes celebrating the Sabbath and biblical feasts. But how? More importantly, when? Enter calendar confusion! 

More than six decades ago when I started in this Hebraic, Torah-walk, there was one calendar, then 40 years later a second one came on the scene that was closer to the truth than the first one. Now there are numerous ones all claiming to be biblically accurate including the one that is the subject of this study. Perhaps what follows will help you to unravel the Gordian knot of confusion that surrounds the subject of the biblical calendar, so that we can back to just loving Yeshua by keeping his commandments including the biblical feasts. If this is your desire, then please read on.

The Enoch-Zadok Calendar Explained

The Enoch calendar is based on a 364-day year (not 3651/4 days) and is first mentioned in the ancient pseudepigraphal book of First Enoch. This calendar purportedly originated with Enoch, the great grandfather of Noah. This is in spite of the fact First Enoch was written in the third or second century bc, some 2,000 years after the time of the biblical Enoch, who died prior to Noah’s flood. This calendar is appealing to a growing number of pro-Torah Christians who are digging into the Hebraic roots of their faith and endeavoring to keep YHVH’s sabbaths, including the weekly Sabbath and biblical feasts, in accordance with the Creator’s Torah-instructions. Since the Enoch calendar purports to be of ancient derivation, some people assume that it may well be the Bible’s original calendar, hence, the one we should use today to determine when to celebrate the feasts.

 But how did we get from Enoch until today? And is there a biblical basis for the Enoch calendar? These are excellent questions that will be discussed and hopefully answered below. In the mean time, let’s give an overview of a few of the claims that the advocates of this calendar make.

The claim is made that, since the Enoch calendar supposedly dates to the time of Enoch, it must be the calendar that Moses and the Israelites used back in the Book of Exodus. Whereas the Levitical priests were the keepers and teachers of YHVH’s Torah-law, it is correctly assumed that they would have known when to observe the biblical feasts and thus should have the final say in this matter. At the end of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, YHVH made an everlasting covenant with Phinehas (or Pinchas), the grandson of Aaron the high priest (the brother of Moses), that to his descendants would be given the priesthood forever (Num 25:12–13), and with that charge came, presumably, the knowledge of the correct biblical calendar. 

Moving forward several hundred years to the time of King David, Zadok, a descendent of Phinehas, was the high priest whose progeny carried the mantle of the covenantal promise YHVH made to Phinehas along with again, presumably, the knowledge of the true biblical calendar. 

We hear nothing more about Zadok or his descendents until Ezekiel mentions the descendents of Zadok in regards to his famous but enigmatic temple prophecy (Ezekiel chapters 40–48). In this prophecy, YHVH makes the sons of Zadok the officiants in the temple because of their faithfulness to him and his commandments (Ezek 40:46; 43:19ff; 44:15f; 48:11), and it is their role to interpret the Torah-law in matters of controversy including calendrical issues (q.v., Deut 17:8–11). Because Ezekiel states that the Zadokites had been faithful to YHVH’s law, they were given this glorious charge. However, there is much debate among Bible scholars concerning whether Ezekiel’s temple is literal or allegorical. Moreover, was it fulfilled in the building of the Second Temple, or is it an allegory referring to Yeshua and the church, or is it a literal temple yet to be built? The prevailing view is that this is a millennial temple—called the Fourth Temple—that is yet to be built. One thing is certain. The Second Temple that was built in the fifth century bc and was destroyed in ad 70 never fit the description of Ezekiel’s temple, and thus Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning the sons of Zadok is for a future time. 

Despite the fact that Ezekiel’s temple is yet to be built, and the Zadokite priesthood as officiants in that temple is for a future era, the proponents of the Zadok calendar still cite Ezekiel 44:15 and 23–24 as proof for their calendar. Ezekiel states that the sons of Zadok will teach YHVH’s people the difference between the holy and unholy, between the unclean and the clean. They will also act as judges in controversies regarding YHVH’s appointed times and Sabbaths (q.v., Deut 17:8–11). This, the claim is made, was fulfilled by the Zadokite priests of the monastery at Khirbet Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea in Israel beginning in the late second century bc and lasting for about 175 years afterwards. After that, the inhabitants of Qumran disappear from the pages of history until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.

Additionally, not letting facts and historical realities stand in their way, the proponents of the Enoch calendar, now referred to as “the Enoch-Zadok calendar” (or simply “the Zadok calendar”), have somehow parlayed the faithful priests mentioned in Ezekiel’s future temple prophecy into the priests living at the time of the Maccabees in the second century bc. This is where the Dead Sea Scrolls (or dss) and the Qumran community enter the picture. The dss were discovered in 1947. The original group of dss scholars from that era who, based on the evidence available to them at that time, firmly believed that a group of righteous priests had been excommunicated, if you will, from the Jerusalem temple when a group of supposedly illegitimate Maccabean priests took charge thereof in the second century bc. The legitimate (Zadokite) priests fled Jerusalem and established a monastery at Qumran near where the dss were discovered. It is believed that they were largely the writers of the dss of which the Book of 1 Enoch is a part of this larger corpus. Since the The Book of Enoch promotes the Enoch calendar, and since, it is believed, that these scrolls dictated the lifestyle practices and theology of the Qumran sectaries, and since, it is assumed, these priests were the literal, biological descendents of Zadok and Phinehas the high priests, and since YHVH said through Ezekiel that the sons of Zadok had been faithful to guard and obey his laws, it is assumed that the Zadok calendar is the true biblical calendar for us to follow today in order accurately keep YHVH’s feasts. Hopefully you followed that line of reasoning, since it is essential to understanding the pro-Zadok calendar argument. 

There is more, but this is the essence of the pro-Zadok calendar argument. The proponents rely solely on extra-biblical books including those of the dss to prove the validity of the Zadok calendar. Then, almost as an after thought, they reach back into the Bible, which contains not even the slightest allusion to the Zadok calendar, and attempt to “prove” their point by twisting Scriptures, a technique that the anti-Torah and “the law is nailed to the cross” and “done away with” mainstream Christian church has mastered over the centuries to the detriment of Bible truth resulting in the deception of myriads of people who now longer believe in the validity of YHVH’s Torah-law. Old habits die hard!

In what follows, we will critically analyze several of the key elements undergirding the Zadok calendar theory to see if these square with the empirical evidence, and then we will leave it up to you to decide where the truth lies.

The Traditional Model of the 1940s Regarding the Qumran Community and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Since the Zadok calendar is revealed in the intertestamental Book of Enoch, a book that is found among the dss, let us first discuss the earliest and traditional view put forth by the first discoverers and translator of the dss from 1947. This view promotes the idea that there is a strong correlation between the Jewish settlement at Khirbet Qumran (or Qumran for short) and the scrolls located in eleven nearby caves. This model is summarized by Geza Vermes (one of the early translators of the scrolls into English from 1962 to 1996) as follows:

[F]rom that place [i.e., Qumran], members of an ancient Jewish religious community, whose centre it was, hurried out one day and in every secrecy climbed the nearby cliffs in order to hide away in eleven caves their precious scrolls. No one came back to retrieve them, and they remained undisturbed for almost 2,000 years. (The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, p. 1)

This early model which connected the Qumran community with the dss also proposed a link between the sect of the Essenes and Qumran sects (ibid., p. 3). Vermes then goes on to make the further connection between the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the dss and the Qumran sect.

The principal novelty provided by the manuscripts consists of cryptic allusions to the historical origins of the Community, launched by a priest called the Teacher of Righteousness, who was persecuted by a Jewish ruler, designated as the Wicked Priest. The Teacher and his followers were compelled to withdraw into the desert, where they awaited the impending manifestation of God’s triumph over evil and darkness in the end days, which had already begun. (ibid.)

Vermes then explains what he called the “Maccabaean theory.” He states that the consensus among the earliest dss scholars quickly formed around this theory in 1952 and 1953.

The so-called Maccabean theory, placing the conflict between the Teacher of Righteousness and the politico-religious Jewish leadership of the day in the time of the Maccabaean high priest or high priest Jonathan and/or Simon, was first formulated in my 1953 doctoral dissertation, published in 1953, and was soon to be adopted by such leading specialists as J. T. Milik, F. M. Cross and R. de Vaux. (ibid., p. 4)

Please note that the theories upon which the present Zadok calendar proponents base many of their arguments were put forth by the earliest dss translators who did not, at that time, have all of the dss documents before them,which were only available to later scholars (e.g., Wise, Abeg and Cook who published their translation of the dss in 1996 and 2005) more than 50 years later! The release and translation of the dss has been a painstakingly slow process involving numerous scholars, academic institutions, several countries along with economic and political interests over the past 70 some years. The translation of subsequent dss documents since the 1950s has refined, and in some cases, radically changed some of the theories of the earlier age—a point that Wise et al make in their introductory remarks in their dss translation (A New Translation—The Dead Sea Scrolls). Thus, many scholars who have analyzed and translated more recent scrolls are now questioning the original 1950s theoretic model that purported to link the Qumran sects with the dss and the Teacher of Righteousness. What follows are quotes from various scholars who are now questioning the older views including the Maccabean theory. Why is this important to know? Because the older (out of date) view forms the premise for those teachers who are currently promoting the Zadok calendar. With this in mind, let’s now go on as we put the pieces of the puzzle together. Let’s discover if the original view that links the dss and the Teacher of Righteousness to the Qumran sect still hold true in light of the new discoveries. The validity of the Zadok calendar stands or falls on this understanding. 

Did the Qumran Sectarians Write the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The original model assumed that because the dss were found in proximity to the monastery at Qumran, the sectarians must have been their authors and librarians. That is to say, the dss were the sectarians’ writings that revealed how they lived and what they believed. Thus, since the Book of Enoch along with several other intertestamental writings lend credence to the Zadok calendar theory, it is assumed that this must have been the calendar of Qumran. But as we go on, the evidence reveals that this older view is overly broad and cannot be taken carte-blanche and at face value in light of new evidence to the contrary.

Not only were hundreds of different scribes responsible for the [Dead Sea Scrolls] texts, but very few seemed to have written more than one scroll. Only about a dozen “repeats” have at been identified. Needless to say, this situation does not square very well with the theory-now-fact that Qumran scribes produced the scrolls at the site…The logical inference is that most of the scrolls come from elsewhere. Indeed once that much has been conceded, the burden shifts and it becomes necessary to prove that any scrolls were written in Qumran. (A New Translation—The Dead Sea Scrolls, by Wise et al, p. 23)

At most, then, about fifty people inhabited the [Qumran] site, only those who could fit within its walls. (ibid., p. 24)

In the interest of honesty, it would be disingenuous of me to fail to mention the close proximity to Qumran of several of the caves, thus leading the early dss archeologists and translators to assume an intimate connection between the two. As Vermes writes,

With negligible exceptions, scholarly opinion recognized already in the 1950s that the Scrolls found in the caves and the nearby settlement were related. To take an obvious example, Cave 4 with its 575 (or perhaps 555) documents lies literally with a stone’s throw from the buildings. (Vermes, p. 14).

Vermes’ statement is slightly hyperbolic. Unless one has the throwing arm of baseball pitcher, Caves 4 and 5, according to Google maps, are some 600 feet from the nearest Qumran building plus several hundred feet above the valley floor on the face of a cliff. So yes, although the community was located near at least two of the 11 caves (others of which are located miles away), it is not a leisurely stroll from Qumran’s nearest building to the nearest cave unless you have some rock climbing experience. Despite the close proximity of two caves to Qumran, archeological evidence suggests that they may not have been frequently visited by the members of the sect. 

Aerial photography has likewise revealed no paths linking the caves where the scrolls were discovered to the site of Qumran. The movement back and forth that would have produced a path evidently did not occur. Thus the caves could not have functioned as separate libraries or repositories to which sectarians would repair for reading and reflection (p. 24).…On can no longer reasonably argue for a strong connection between the site and the scrolls, though the two may have a weak connection; that is, though the site may have been used by the sect, it cannot have been their main location. (Wise et al, p. 25)

Another theory is on the table as to the origins of the dss. Perhaps they were placed in their caves just prior to the Romans’ attacks on Jerusalem in ad 66-67 and again in ad 70, which is more than 100 years after the founding of the Qumran community. As Vermes notes, but refuses to agree with,

More recently Norman Golb of Chicago [professor of Jewish history in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago] has launched a forceful attack on the common opinion [the Qumran sect is was the source of the dss]. His objections, reiterated in a series of papers, culminated in 1995 in a hefty tome. The target of his criticism is the provenance of the scrolls found at Qumran. According to him, the manuscripts originated in a Jerusalem library (or libraries), the contents of which were concealed in desert caves when the capital was besieged in 67 and 70 ce. (Vermes, p. 19; see also The Dead Seas Scrolls and the First Christians by Robert Eisenman, p. xxiv).

So here is yet another opinion from another scholar. What is the take-away here? The traditional, original view or model proposed by the dss scholars of the early 1950s has since been questioned by several scholars who have access to additional dss manuscripts. Therefore, the Zadokite calendar proponents’ nicely packaged view that the dss, the Qumran Community, the Book of Enoch, the Teacher of Righteousness and the sons of Zadok are all inextricably linked is now being called into question. Stay tuned. We have only just begun to unwrap this package.

Were the Qumran Sect and the Jerusalem Priests Really at Odds With Each Other?

A fundamental element undergirding the theory that the Enoch calendar was the true calendar of the Second Temple era is that the Sadducees, who were the temple priests at the time, illegitimately held that role. Because of their supposed opposition to the Sadducees, the Qumran sect, who, it is believed, claimed to be the biological descendants of Zadok and thus were the legitimate heirs of the priesthood, left Jerusalem and founded the Qumran community out of revolt. This is the view that the earliest dss scholars from the 1950s promoted. However, upon closer examination and now with more information available to them, several of the world’s leading dss scholars no longer support this theory.

[T]he idea that the Qumran group—Essenes or some other persuasion—originated in the second century bce out of opposition to the Hasmonean takeover of the high priesthood is crumbling. The newly released scrolls off this notion no support. In both old scrolls and new there are indeed many references to the corruption of Israel’s rulers—to their rapacity, to their greed, to their complicity in the profanation of holy sites—but not a single passage objects to the high priest’s line of descent [emphasis in the original] (p. 26).…Not only is there no evidence that the Dead Sea group objected to the Hasmonean pontificate as such, the newly available texts actually show the opposite: they held the Hasmoneans in high regard. One such writing is the so-called In Praise of King Jonathan (text 114), technically referred to as 4Q448… In Praise of King Jonathan undermines the idea that the Teacher and his followers were on principle opposed to the Hasmoneans. Not only were they not opposed to them, they supported on of the most ill-famed of the family, for Alexander, as noted was described by historian Josephus as an extraordinary villain (Wise et al, p. 27).

[The previous belief among scholars regarding the Qumran sect] was to distance the scroll writers geographically and ideologically from the Judean mainstream: they were insular monastic dropouts. But the new model suggested here brings the group back into the flow of history (ibid., p. 28).…Certain scholars, most notably Schiffman of New York University, early recognized that the positions of the “we” group sometimes bore a striking resemblance to the laws of the Sadducees described in rabbinic literature—so much so that Schiffman now leaps to redefine the Qumran sect as being itself Sadducees.…The evidence suggests, then, that the scrolls group resembled the Sadducees in some ways and the Essenes in others. Yet there are major obstacles to identifying the group straightforwardly as one or the other. (ibid., p. 29)

The following quote is disruptively revelatory to the advocates of the Zadok calendar in its ramifications. 

The Hasmonean family, although of priestly stock, did not belong to the descendants of David’s high priest Zadok, for whom alone many Jews thought the high priest could come. (Wise et al, p. 20)

What we can deduce from these previous quotations? It is this. Even more claims that the Zadok calendar proponents make to support their theory are erroneous. That the Qumran sect was opposed to the Sadducean priesthood because they were not descended from Zadok is false. Not only that, it appears that the Qumran sect may have even been allies of or at least sympathetic to the Sadducean priesthood. If this is true, then the case is without merit that the Qumran sect opposed the Sadducees because they were not biological Zadokites and, thus, possessed the wrong calendar. In fact, as we will see below, it is now questionable whether the Qumran sect even adhered to the 364-day Zadok calendar. As we will soon discover, the Teacher of Righteousness promoted this calendar, but it may be a leap of faith to connect him with the Qumran sect, since the latter cannot be conclusively connected to the dss in which the Teacher’s writings are contained. 

No member of the Maccabee family can be identified in any way with the “Wicked Priest” and/or “the Spouter of Lies”, or for that matter any other pejorative title in the Qumran literature, not even the infamous Alexander Jannaeus who is very probably referred to, albeit retrospectively, in the Nahum pesher (an expression like “the Furious Young Lion” in not necessarily pejorative). On the contrary, the Qumran Community flourished during his reign and probably even under his tutelage as a training ground for young priests (and others) adept at pseudepigraphic and apocalyptic literature and opposed the Pharasaic “gathering of traditions.” (Eisenman, p. 104)

Were the Inhabitants of Qumran Actually Sadducees?

According to new evidence found in the dss, not only were the disciples of the Teacher not opposed to the ruling priestly elites in Jerusalem (i.e., the Sadducees), but they may have been allies of or even a sub-sect of the Sadducees. This flies in the face of the proponents of the Zadok calendar, who claim that the Qumran sect was opposed to, alienated from, and had been expelled from the priesthood because they were of the lineage of Zadok, had the correct interpretation of the Torah-law including, and possessed the true calendar, and thus were the legitimate priests, and the Sadducees were none of the above. 

[New evidence suggests that] the Teacher of Righteousness began his ministry late in the second or early in the first century b.c.e., perhaps during the reign of Alexander. After the Pharisees came to power under Salome, they persecuted the Teacher’s group, which was sympathetic to the Sadducean establishment, eventually hounding the Teacher and his group in exile…All of the verifiable historical references within the scrolls, and the apparent attitudes of the scroll writers to those references, fit this model exceedingly well. (Wise et al, p. 32)

The Dead Sea Scrolls taken as a whole give evidence of a diverse movement…This movement was clearly favorable to the priests, inclined to support those rulers who submitted to priestly direction, and as violently averse to Pharisaism. (Wise et al, p. 33)

Wise and his colleagues are not the only scholars who suspect that the Qumran sectaries were in some way affiliated with the temple priests or Sadducees in Jerusalem. According to Eisenman,

Our hypothesis is that the “Zadokite” monastery at Qumran is “Sadduceean”, but not Sadduceean according to the portraits in Josephus and the New Testament, which relate to a later period. (Eisenman, p. 49)

The monastery at Qumran was probably the extreme expression of Sadduceeism. (ibid., p. 51)

Eisenman goes on to note that this hypothesis was not a new one, but that earlier scholars such as North, Goosens, Wernberg-Meoller, Trinquet and Albright had proposed this idea as well (ibid.) He even shows that the term Sadducee likely derived from the Hebrew words tsadik and tsedekah, and that the Sadducees not only were also “sons of tzedok/sadok/tzedekah” (that is, sons of righteousness)—note how word-plays abound here (Eisenman, pp. 15–22)!—but that some Sadducees likely received their training at Qumran. Eisenman suggest that Qumran may have actually been a training center for the Jerusalem priests from the time of the Maccabees onward (ibid., pp. 64–65). This idea is a far cry from the older, 1950s scholarly view that the priests of Qumran not only were at odds with those in Jerusalem, but were actually run out of Jerusalem by the their priestly competitors. Were the Qumran monastery an actual adjunct learning and training center for the Jerusalem-based Sadduceean priests, this may explain the presence of the dss in nearby caves. These caves would have acted as a safe hiding place for these valuable scrolls, and their long term preservation would have been assured in the arid climate of the Dead Sea and, at the same time, they were readily accessible to the priestly students at Qumran.

The “Zadokite movement,” (not to be confused with any biological descendents of high priest of Zadok), it appears, were the guardians of some form of pietistic Torah-righteousness. This zealous fervor for righteousness, as Eisenman attempts to prove, was not confined only to the sectaries at Qumran. It also included the early pietistic Sadducees who also referred to themselves as “Sons of Zadok” or “Zadokites.” After all, it is likely that the name Sadducee, as noted earlier, actually derives from zadok. The Zadokite movement involving the pietistic Sadducees and the inhabitants of Qumran actually had its nascence in the time of the Maccabees (Eisenman, pp. 60, 74, 75). Thus the “Zadokite movement” was a Pietistic Sadducee Movement (ibid., pp. 56, 60) and was likely broader and more inclusive in scope than the Zadok calendar proponents are admitting. 

This then begs the nagging question, who was the “Man of the Lie” as opposed to “Teacher of Righteousness”, “the Children of Light”/“Sons of Zadok” to which the Damascus Document (4Q266–272) makes reference? Likely the former is a pejorative reference to the Pharisees, the arch-rivals and enemies of the Sadducees (Eisenman, p. 56; Wise et al, p. 33), who later on were political puppets of Herod (Eisenman, p. 53). They were the liberals of their day when it came to interpreting the Torah-law, and who were wont to incorporated multiple layers extra-biblical traditions into their religious system thus making YHVH’s Torah of none effect as Yeshua himself accused them of doing (Mark 7:9–13 cp. Matt 23:1–36). If that were not bad enough, the Pharisees were also Roman and collaborators responsible, at times, for the slaughter of Sadducees who, along with their colleagues the Zealots, were opposed to Roman rule (Eisenman, pp. 57, 64–66, 69).

Was Biological Descent From Zadok Even an Issue?

By way of quick review, it was the opinion of the earliest dss scholars and translators that the priest of the Qumran community were forced out of Jerusalem after the Maccabean revolt when an illegitimate cadre of priests took control of the Second Temple. These scholars maintain that the Qumran priests were the true priests descended from Zadok the high priest and thus the heirs of the priesthood, that the Teacher of Righteousness as mentioned in the Damascus Document (4Q266–272) was the leader of the sect, and that the sect members were the authors and/or caretakers of the dss. This has been the traditional view of the earliest dss scholars from the 1950s, and it is the same view that undergirds the arguments of the current Zadok calendar proponents. The only problem is that this is like a chain with weak links. If one link breaks, the whole chain falls apart. This is because a new group of scholars is now questioning this previous theory. Why? Because many pieces of this puzzle in the original theory just do not fit. The evidence is lacking to give definitive, and unconditional, head-nodding approval to the 1950s view!

A major link in Zadok calendar chain, as noted above, is that the Qumran sect was comprised of disaffected biological Zadokite priests, who had the true biblical calendar. The problem is that there is no conclusive evidence that the Qumran community actually descended from Zadok the priest other than the testimony found in the dss, which may or may not have even applied to the priests of Qumran. As Robert Eisenman shows in his book, the claims that the sectarians came were the biological offspring of Zadok, in light of the examination of more recently translated dss manuscripts, cannot be substantiated. That is to say, when the dss refer to “the Zadokites,” this could just as easily be taken to mean that they were righteous (based on the Hebrew word zadiq, which derives from the word zadak) as opposed to being actual descendants of Zadok the priest (Robert Eisenman, pp. 15–26).

[I]t claimed that the Maccabee family…“usurped” the high priesthood from an earlier, purer line known as the “Zadokite”. These ideas have on the whole dominated Dead Sea Scroll research, but hey are variance with the evidence found at Qumran itself including material from the Book of Enoch, Daniel, and the Testament of Levi. (Eisenman, p. 11)

Thus, the whole theory that the biological Zadok priesthood from Pinchas (or Phinehas) to Zadok the priest continued on down to the Qumran sectarians were expelled from officiating in the temple during the time of the Maccabees falls flat and is unprovable. Again, this was a theory referred to as “the Standard Model proposed in the late 1940s and early 1950s by the original discoverers and translators of the dss (e.g., Roland deVauz, Józef Tadeusz, Milik, Eliezer Sukenik et al; Wise et al, pp. 16–21; also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scroll). Since then, with the discovery and the ongoing translation of all of the scrolls, that view has been called into serious question by modern scholars (ibid.; Wise, Abegget al, pp. 14–43).

Did the Qumran Sect In Reality Follow the Enoch–Zadok Calendar? 

In the introductory notes to Dead Sea Scrolls, there is contradictory information as to whether the Qumran sect actually adhered to the Enoch-Zadok calendar. On the one hand, the authors write,

The doctrine that God had commanded Israel to follow a 364-day solar calendar instead of a 354-day lunar calendar was a key tenet of the Qumran group. This peculiar calendar unifies the scrolls more than any other single sectarian element. (Wise et al, p. 25)

On the other hand, these same scholars inform us that: 

Among the writings [the sicarii] left behind was a copy of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. This work also appears among the Dead Sea Scrolls, in fully nine copies. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Song the present connection is that it adheres to the 364-day calendar…that had been so important to the Teacher’s followers more than a century earlier. This calendar was integral to what made the work so attractive to the sicarii, for it was an antiestablishment, conservative symbol as much in their own time as in the Teacher’s. Indeed, for all the importance of the calendar scrolls, the only group of ancient Jews that followed it to whom the ancient sources give a name is the scicarii, the last defenders of Masada. (Wise et al, pp. 34–35)

Therefore, it appears that the claims made by the proponents of the Zadok calendar that the Qumran inhabitants adhered to a 364-day year calendar is somewhat dubious. Let us not forget, as already noted above, that there is only speculative but no empirical (i.e., archeological, historical are written) evidence that the Qumran sect was even connected to the caves in which the dss were discovered or to the writings contained on these scrolls. They may have been, but to what degree and how, modern scholars are keeping the question open. It is true that the Teacher of Righteousness promoted this calendar, yet we are not told who the Teacher’s followers were who adhered to the Enoch calendar. They may have been the Qumran sectarians, and/or there may have been other groups that followed him. The dss are certain on two things, however. First, the Teacher was a promoter of the 364-day Enoch calendar. Second, only a group of religious zealots known as the scicarii are recorded as adhering to this calendar. The scicarii—a group of patriotic zealots—were the last inhabitants of Masada and were so named for the sica, which was a short dagger they used to assassinate collaborators with Rome. 

Moreover, whether the sect at Qumran adhered to the Teacher’s endorsed calendar Enoch calendar is impossible know given the lack of evidence linking the two. In fact, in Cave 4, one of the closest caves to Qumran itself “over dozen manuscripts contain sectarian calendars, yet not one mainstream calendar figures among the 575 (or 555) compositions in that cave!” (Vermes, p. 21). So did the Qumran sect even follow the so-called Zadok calendar that was championed by the Teacher? If not, this may be further proof that nothing written or claimed by the Teacher even applied to the Qumran sectarians.

What is even more confounding to those promoting the Zadok calendar theory is that dss, in fact, mention more than one calendar and the 364-day solar calendar actually takes the moon into consideration. Let’s explore this.

Confusion About How the Enoch-Zadok Calendar Was Calculated

One of the dss documents entitled “The People Who Err” (4Q306) provides some interesting details about the Zadok calendar. It mentions five different ways in which astronomical cycles were plotted in reference calendrical calculations when determining the Zadok calendar (Wise et al, pp. 383–384). The dss are not clear about which method was used. More calendar confusion?

It is true that dss document 4Q306 promotes a calendar consisting of a 364 day year—primarily a solar calendar (Wise et al, p. 381), but the movements of the moon were also taken into consideration (ibid.) contrary to the claims made by some Zadok calendar proponents. It is also true that, although there is no concrete record within the scrolls of a thirteenth month being added or intercalated into the 12 month calendar in order to reconcile the difference between the sun’s solar cycle and the moon’s shorter lunar cycle (ibid., pp. 381–382), one of the five cycles used to plot calendrical calculations did, in fact, add a thirty-day “leap month” (or a thirteenth month called an intercalation) every three years (ibid., pp. 383–384, 4Q306). Moreover, the Book of Enoch also notes the “lunar drift that would arise without intercalation of [the dss] calendar” (ibid., p. 382). Despite this, the evidence from the dss document entitled “The Calendar of the Heavenly Signs” (4Q319) suggests that, in reality and to some degree, one of the calendrical calculations was a de facto solar-lunar one. This is because another dss document entitled “Synchronistic Calendars” (4Q320–321a) contained an algorithms that apparently reconciled the lunar cycle with the cycle of the sun (Wise et al, p. 389). Thus, from several dss documents, we find that the authors had an interest in the moon and its phases (e.g., “The Phases of the Moon” [4Q317], “The People Who Err” [4Q306], “The Calendar of the Heavenly Signs” [4Q319], “Synchronistic Calendars” [4Q320–321a]). From these documents we learn that, although the sun was the main factor for determining the Zadok calendar, the moon was also taken into consideration, again contrary to what the Zadok calendar advocates would have us believe. In fact, dss scholars are still debating how much of a factor the visible moon played in the dss calendar (ibid. pp. 382–383). Again, some current Zadok calendar proponents totally reject all reliance on the moon for calendrical purposes. They go far as to state that looking to the moon is of pagan origination, is a form of “moon worship”, and claim that the Qumran community did not consider the moon in any of their calendar calculation. A careful examination of the dss documents mentioned above totally disprove these claims. It most be added here, and a twist of hypocritical irony that if looking to the moon for calendrical purposes, then what is to be said of the Zadok calendar proponents who look to the sun for the same purposes?

Obviously, if these dss documents were written by the “Zadokite” priests of Qumran, a supposition that is  still in question (ibid., pp. 23–25), then which calendarical calculation did they actually use when determining their calendar? These are important questions that proponents of the Zadok calendar need to answer. If the Qumran community adhered to the teachings in the scrolls, then (a) either they were not in unity as to which calendrical calculation they used of the five, or (b) during some 200 plus year history of Qumran, the “Zadokites” at times may have used five different methods of calendar calculations. Which method was supposedly used by Enoch and Noah? Neither the Book of Enoch nor the dss documents tell us. If the Zadok calendar is one that YHVH chose to determine when to keep the biblical feasts, then why are we left with more questions than answers? Which method of calculation do the modern Zadok calendar proponents use today? They do not us answers, or they do, what evidence from either the Book of Enoch or the dss substantiate their claims? It seems that we are left in a state of confusion over this matter, and YHVH is not the Author of confusion (1 Cor 14:33) as to when  to celebrate his divine appointment feasts when he promises to meet with his people!

Conclusion

The purpose of this study has been to examine the veracity of the claims of the so-called Enoch-Zadok calendar. The proponents of this calendar claim that theirs is the true biblical calendar, and then look to extra-biblical sources to verify those claims. They claim that the Enoch-Zadok calendar originated with Enoch in the pre-flood world and then look to the apocryphal, intertestamental Book of Enoch written by someone 2,000 years later for their proof. They claim that the Dead Sea Scrolls and the priests of Qumran were the only ones who had the true biblical calendar, yet they can neither prove this from the Bible nor from the scrolls themselves nor other contemporary historical records. Then, as I show elsewhere, they contrive supposedly biblical-based arguments making false claims against a calendar that is totally provable via sola Scriptura (the Bible only),while attempting to show that this same calendar, somehow and incredulously so, is a false, of pagan origination. It is now up to you, dear reader, to decide how or if the puzzle pieces fit together and whether the picture lines up with the Bible or not. By YHVH’s grace, perhaps this article has helped you in your search for the Truth!

Bibliography

Eisenman, Robert. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians. Edison, NJ: 1996, 2006.

Michael Wise, Martin Abegg Jr. and Edward Cook. A New Translation—The Dead Sea Scrolls, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996, 2005.

Vermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Penguin Books, 1962, rev. 2004. 

Free Resources About the Biblical Calendar

• The Biblical Calendar Demystified at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/cal_demyst.pdf.
• The Biblical Calendar and the New Moon at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/new_moons.pdf.
• The New Moon—Visible or Conjunction? at https://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/vis_moon.pdf.
• Find more informative articles by Nathan Lawrence on the biblical calendar at https://hoshanarabbah.org/blog/?s=Biblical+Calendar&submit=Search.
• For more informative articles and video teachings about the Enoch-Zadok Calendar, go to https://hoshanarabbah.org/blog/?s=Zadok+Calendar&submit=Search.

Appendix

Background Information About the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Solar Calendar

The following information on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (dss) as it relates to the historical context of the day is from a video lecture by James Tabor (professor emeritus of biblical history at University of North Carolina in Charlotte) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2UwFwSH1RM. In this video, he answers several questions and addresses various issues relating to the dss, the Qumran community and the calendar. The following comments assume that the Qumran community is linked to the dss—a view that is no longer held by some of the world’s leading dss scholars.

• Who wrote the dss? Forty percent of the dss contain the Hebrew Scriptures; 30 percent contain apocryphal or pseudepigayphal books like Enoch and Jubilees, so 70 percent were not even written by the dss community. The remaining 30 percent of the dss are what is called the Sectarian Scrolls written by various Jewish sects.
• What are dates of the dss? The traditional view is that they were written in the time of the Maccabees or early Hasmoneans. Tabor believes it to be later—closer to 75 bc and later.
• The Sectarian Scrolls are very apocalyptic, but also contain messianic, new covenant prophecies (as per Jer 31:31) as expounded by their true Teacher of Righteousness who is a prophet like Moses who will inaugurate the new covenant and who will restore the true faith in the last days.
• The dss (especially the Damascus Document and the War Scroll) promote of religious exclusivism and assumes that all other Jewish religious sects were going to hell. They emphasized the wrath, damnation and fire of Elohim that will fall on all others, including their fellow Jews, who they viewed as “the sons of darkness.” (N.L.—Whether this was the belief system of the Qumran community or not is not discernible from the dss texts themselves.)
• Their community charter, proposed by the dss entitled “The Community Rule,” was the most important scroll that describes their mission and who they are. It promoted the belief its adherents were fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3 as the ones crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of Messiah. This was 100 years before John the Baptist came on the scene with the same message. (N.L.—Again, whether this was the belief system of the Qumran community or not is not discernible from the dss texts themselves.)
• Some dss promote view the temple in Jerusalem as an empty shell and devoid of the presence of Elohim and as being corrupt.
• Some dss teach that the Jews are using the wrong calendar, and have the wrong interpretation on how to keep the Torah.
• Josephus’ description of the Essenes, while sharing some similar characteristics with the Qumran community, does not even get close to describing them, so these two groups cannot be viewed as being analogous. The same is true with Philo’s and Pliny the Elder’s description of the Essenes.
• There are amazing parallels between the views of some of the dss and the later “Jesus Movement” and the teachings and mission of John the Baptist. 
• In Romans 3:2 Paul tells us that to the Jews were given the oracles (i.e., the Bible), not to the Levites of Qumran or any other Levites. The Levites were the teachers of Torah, not the transmitters of the written Bible down to our time. Therefore, the Bible that we possess is the true and accurate Bible with its completed canon.
• Here is some more historical information on the dss and the Qumran community from James Tabor as it relates to calendar issues. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vliePIpVec:
• The calendar is the most important functional aspect to a biblical based religious system. It is one thing to have beliefs, creeds or theologies, but apart from that, a calendar either brings people together at religious gathering, or it separates people.
• During second temple Judaism, there were two competing calendars: the Pharasaic solar-lunar calendar and the dss or Book of Jubilees solar (basically) calendar. Both took their interpretation from Genesis 1:14. The latter looked (primarily) to the moon and secondarily to the sun to determine the timing of the moedim (seasons, appointed times or divine appointments, i.e., biblical festivals) on the calendar, while the latter looked (primarily) to the sun.
• Exodus 12:2 just says “new” (Heb. chadosh), not “new moon.” Thus the solar calendar proponents take this verse to mean that “this is the first month of “the new/news [as in new things relating to the turning of the year or a new 30 day period]” (not new moon, since the moon is not specifically mentioned here). Thus, in their opinion, the moon is not tied here to the biblical calendar. (N.L. This, I add, is in spite of the fact that the Hebrew word chodesh is understood by all major Hebrew lexicons to mean “new moon” and is translated as such some 10 times in our major English Bible translations.)
• In the late Second Temple era, we find many sectarian groups who were willing to break off from normative Judaism and follow a different calendar.
• The solar calendar was 12 months of 30 days equaling 360 days plus an added four days at the end of each seasonal quarter to form a year of 364 days. Thus, on this calendar, there were four months of 31 days to catch you up to the 364-day year. No one knows what was done about the lost 1.25 days each year (the difference between the dss’s 364-day solar year and the actual 365.25 day solar year). Some scholars suggest that they didn’t even know that each year was getting shorter by 1.25 days. Since this was an apocalyptic group, they figured the world was coming to an end in their lifetime, so it didn’t really matter that in thirty years their calendar would be a month too early, since the apocalypse was coming and they wouldn’t be around by then anyway. Moreover, each year the weather was getting a little colder as the calendar fell behind by 1.25 days, and this may have been evidence in their minds that the world was coming apart and coming to an end as Scripture prophesied would occur in the end of days (i.e., “the heavens will roll back like a scroll”, Isa 34:4).
• This solar calendar is convenient since it is predictable. A certain date on this calendar (e.g., your birth date, an anniversary, a holiday, a feast day, a new month, etc.) always falls on the same day each year, and on the same day of the week forever and ever. This makes people feel good since it conveys a sense of order and stability and predictability in the cosmos. There is more needing to go out and look for barley or the new moon. Of course, they don’t address the fact that their year is sliding backwards each year by 1.25 days. Nevertheless, the solar based calendar has harmony. It is just a matter of counting to 12 again and again, and thus there is order, regularity and predictability. Moreover, Wednesday, the fourth day of creation (and the first day of each new month) when the sun was created seems to put people in sync with the creation story and with Adam and Eve. This was an extremely satisfying thought to the solar calendar adherents. But does it really line up with the Scriptures?
• The dss writers in their Damascus Document believed that they were the true remnant and that all of the rest of Israel had gone astray and that only they had the divine truth of YHVH. 
• A major flaw of the dss calendar is that, at that time, you could neither see nor determine the exact timing of the vernal equinox, upon which the solar calendar relies, so one needed a cheat sheet to tell you when the calendar started. It’s like the rabbinic calendar of today. The mathematical calculations are complicated, so one needs a cheat sheet to tell you when YHVH’s moedim or appointed times occur. Such a cheat sheet actually exists in the dss which was lost to history for nearly 2,000 years until 1947.
• So, unlike the Qumran solar calendar, the Bible promotes a calendar with only two rules to have to remember. It is so simple that even a child can understand it. The biblical calendar also wonderfully ensures that the lunar year of 354 days and solar year of 365.25 days stays in sync with each other. These two rules are as follows: Look for the visible crescent new moon which tells you when the new month starts, and then to determine which month is the first month of the new year, look for the abib (ripe) barley. If the barley is not abib or ripe in time for Passover week, then add another month. It’s that simple. For an agrarian-based society like ancient Israel, this would have been a simple and easy to follow and understand procedure.