By Nathan Lawrence at HoshabaRabbah.org
The winds are blowing once again in the pro-Torah, Hebraic movement, and the weather vane has changed directions. It has moved away from the truth of the Bible and is pointing in some other direction. This new wind of doctrine is causing confusion and strife within the Body of Messiah. This esoteric doctrine is the latest in the endless cavalcade of curious teachings that have paraded past us in the past thirty years. I refer to these as “the flavor of the month, ” and it is a club with many members, who often jump from one novel religious teaching to the next seemingly on a monthly basis. The current doctrine that we will now examine under the lens of Scripture is the so-called Enoch or Zadok calendar.
Oy vey! There’s another new calendar on the Messianic scene, you might be asking yourself? Yep! I hear some of you asking, “Why can’t we just let everyone choose his or her own calendar, decide which days to celebrate the biblical feast on, all go our merry and let the matter drop? Live and let live, as the saying goes.” On the surface, this seems like the charitable approach “to maintain shalom in our ranks.” But is this really the right answer? While some differences of opinion may seem minor like how to pronounce YHVH, the Hebrew name for Elohim, other differences have more serious consequences that will cause major division and strife. The biblical calendar is one example. How is this? In ancient times and according to the Torah, celebrating the biblical feasts including the weekly Sabbath was a unifying factor in the spiritual and cultural landscape of the nation of Israel. YHVH’s sabbaths—weekly and annual—brought people together in a common place for a common purpose, namely, to praise, worship and celebrate YHVH, the God of Israel, and to learn his ways and to be encouraged and spiritually revived in serving and obeying him. If everyone was on a different calendar, how could this occur? Instead of being unified, YHVH’s people would be divided and scattered. Division and strife is not work of the Holy Spirit!
The Zadok calendar, like its predecessors—the lunar Sabbath, plural marriage or polygamy, the boker Sabbath, the flat earth, the vernal equinox calendar, aspects of rabbinic Judaism and mystical Judaism to name a few not to mention the many unbiblical teachings that are rife in the mainstream Christian church—is leading many people away from the simple truth of the Bible and into all sorts of esoteric and extra-biblical teachings. In this case, people are largely using such extra-biblical writings as the pseudepigraphal book of Enoch and Jubilees along with the Dead Sea Scrolls (or DSS for short) and not the Bible as the primary source of information to prove the Zadok calendar. This is troubling in itself for those of us who take the sola Scriptura approach and believe that the Bible and the Bible alone must be the determiner of Truth. Looking to extra-biblical sources is not verboten if these confirms Scripture, but should they be used as the primary source of Truth. No. Never! However, this is this has become the modes operandi of the promoters of the Zadok calendar theory, as I have discussed and proven in exhaustive and well-documented detail in my previous videos and articles on this issue.
But those who are still not sure, I want to confirm, with the receipts, so to speak, the claims that I am making about this interesting new calendar. Perhaps this article will clear away some confusion and help to separate the wheat and chaff. 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 pseudapigraphal 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 calendric 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.
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 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.
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.
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 Prophet Malachi Excoriates a Corrupt Priesthood
The writings of the prophet Malachi are perhaps the greatest refutation of the Zadok calender theory that is currently catching the attention of many people. To embrace the Zadok calendar, one literally has to jettison the Book of Malachi from the canon of Scripture. What do I mean? Let’s explore this issue and discover an important historical fact that rips the foundation out from under the Zadok calendar theory.
First we need to explore the historical and contextual background of this last book of the Hebrew Scriptures. or Old Testament (ot). The Book of Malachi was written between ca. 432 to 460 BC. According to Jewish tradition and some biblical scholars, Malachi meaning “my messenger,” may actually be a pseudonym for its author who may have been Ezra the scribe, a descendent of Zadok the high priest (Ezra 7:1–5), and he author of the biblical book named for him. Ezra was also in charge of constructing the Second Temple. Whenever Malachi was written and whoever the author was, the book’s timing is shortly after the rebuilding of the temple.
By way of a quick historical overview, the Jewish exiles had just returned from Babylon circa 516 BC. Among them were members of the tribes of Judah and Levi according to documentation in the both the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Nehemiah mentions a priest by the name of Zadok who helped with the rebuilding to the temple, but whether he was a descendent of Zadok the high priest from the time of David or not, we cannot tell.
The Second Temple was built in the time of Ezra the priest and Haggai the prophet only a few years after the return of the Jewish exiles. Its construction began in about 516 BC when its foundation was laid. A few years later, the temple was completed with the priest serving therein under the oversight of Ezra the scribe and priest and Nehemiah the governor.
Based on the writings of Nehemiah in his book, it can be assumed that the Jews including the priests started out to obey YHVH’s Torah-law to one degree or another. We read that when the Torah was read to them during fall feasts of the seventh month that they confessed their sins and repented (Nehemiah chapters 8 and 9). They then renewed their covenant with YHVH Elohim and promised to obey his commandments (chapter 9) including observing the Sabbath and biblical feasts and putting away their foreign (pagan) wives. However, this spiritual revival was short-lived. Only a short while later some wealthy Jews, including the priests, were charging usury to their fellow Israelites (Neh 5:1–12) in violation of the Torah. Moreover, some priests were still married to non-Levite wives thus defiling the priesthood and were subsequently barred from serving in temple (Neh 7:63–65). According to Nehemiah, up to that time none of the priests had been keeping the law.
In Nehemiah chapter 13, we read that despite starting out well-intentioned to obey YHVH, their Jewish kinsmen were not supporting the Levites as the Torah mandated, many people were still profaning the Sabbath through buying and selling, some Jews were still sinning by marrying foreign (pagan) wives, and the priesthood had become defiled in violation of their covenant with YHVH (Neh 13:29).
Within a short time after the building of the temple and after a brief spiritual revival, the priesthood had become defiled and pagan.
Remember them, O my Elohim, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites. Thus I cleansed them of everything pagan. I also assigned duties to the priests and the Levites, each to his service. (Neh 13:29–30)
Neither our kings nor our princes, our priests nor our fathers, have kept Your law, nor heeded Your commandments and Your testimonies, with which You testified against them. (Neh 9:34)
So the Malachi penned his prophecy from 15 to 56 years after the Jewish exiles had returned to the land of Israel. By this time, the priesthood had largely become lax spiritually if not apostate to one degree or another. This is where the proponent of the Zadok calendar enter into the discussion. Supposedly there was a cadre of faithful priests who were biological descendents of the righteous Zadok. At least this is what the promoters of the Zadok calendar would have us believe. Is so, neither Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai nor Malachi mention anything about the sons of Zadok no any faithful remnant of priests. Therefore, the Bible offers no evidence that the Zadokite priest remained faithful to YHVH and his Torah. To say they did is to add to the word of Elohim.
The last we hear of the sons of Zadok in the Tanakh or ot is in Ezekiel’s futuristic prophecy concerning his visionary temple which, if this prophecy is to be taken literally as opposed to allegorically, has yet to be built. In this “third temple” and likely millennial temple, the descendants of Zadok the high priest are the officiants (Ezek 40:46; 43:19; 44:15ff). Despite the faithfulness of the Zadokite priests, Ezekiel implies that not all of the descendents of this righteous priest have been sanctified or remained faithful to YHVH (Ezek 48:11). Moreover, the Second Temple in no way fits the description of Ezekiel’s temple, so this is not a fulfillment of the prophecy.
By way of review, by Malachi’s time the Second Temple had been built, the Levitical priesthood cleansed and reestablished, the Torah was being taught, and presumably the Jewish nation, to one degree or another, was following Torah, although Nehemiah records that he had to take some stringent measures to enforce some of the basic laws of Torah such as keeping the Sabbath, not marrying foreign wives and charging usury to one’s fellow Jews.
Thus the Book of Malachi was written only a few years latter and is a stinging rebuke against the entire Jewish population in the land of Israel. First he rebukes the people for their lukewarm laxness in obeying the Torah and in failing to properly worship and honor YHVH (Mal 1:1–14). Then Malachi goes on to rebuke the Levitical priests in chapter two (Mal 2:1–9). Let’s review in detail Malachi’s stinging rebuke of the priesthood.
1 “And now, O priests, this commandment is for you.
2 If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to My name,” says YHVH of hosts, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart.
3 “Behold, I will rebuke your descendants and spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your solemn feasts; And one will take you away with it.
4 Then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant with Levi may continue,” Says YHVH of hosts.
5 “My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear Me; So he feared Me and was reverent before My name.
6 The law of truth was in his mouth, and injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity.
7 “For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of YHVH of hosts.
8 But you have departed from the way; you have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says YHVH of hosts.
9 “Therefore I also have made you contemptible and base before all the people, because you have not kept My ways but have shown partiality in the law.” (Mal 2:1–9)
Here is a more detailed analysis of what we have just read.
Verses 2–3, I will send a curse upon you. YHVH pronounces a curse upon the priests and their descendents. Why? What have they been doing that is so repugnant and egregious to YHVH and is blatantly contra-Torah?
Verse 3, The refuse [KJV, dung] of your solemn feasts [Heb. chag]. Here YHVH is condemning and calling their feasts (literally the feasts of Unleavened Bread, Weeks and Tabernacles) dung or manure. Malachi doesn’t explain what the priests were doing on these feasts, how they were observing them or when, but whatever they were doing, it was contrary to YHVH’s Torah-word.
Verses 4–5, My covenant with Levi. At the golden calf event, YHVH separated and blessed Levi for remaining faithful to him (Exod 32:29). Later on, YHVH made a covenant with Phinehas (or Pinchas) that to his descendents would belong “an everlasting priesthood” (Num 25:11–13).
Verse 6, The law of truth was in his mouth…He walked with Me. The truth is a biblical metaphor for YHVH Torah–law (Ps 119:142, 151).
Verse 7, And people should seek the Torah-law from his mouth. YHVH commissioned the Levitical priests including through the descendants of Phinehas via Zadok the high priest to be the teachers of YHVH’s Torah-law.
Verse 8, But you have departed from the way [Heb. derek]. The Hebrew word derek is another biblical metaphor for the Torah (e.g., Ps 119:1; Prov 6:23).
Verse 8, You have caused many to stumble [literally, to stumble, flatter, fail greatly] at the Torah-law. This is a powerful indictment against the priests of Malachi’s day. Not only were they not teaching YHVH’s Torah-law, but they had become false teachers teaching error for truth.
Verse 8, You have corrupted [to decay or ruin] the covenant of Levi. The Levitical priests had violated the covenant YHVH made with Phinehas.
Verse 9, I also made you contemptible [despised or disdained] and base before all the people. Because of their sins, the priesthood had lost the respect of the people.
Verse 9, Because you have not kept My ways [Heb. derek]. They were no longer walking in Torah.
Verse 9, But have been partial in the law. The priests were showing favoritism and lacking impartiality when applying the law in judicial matters..
In his condemnation of the priesthood, YHVH speaking through Malachi makes no exceptions here. All of the priests had gone astray, had departed from YHVH’s Torah-law, and had not kept their covenantal agreements with their Creator. He carte blanche rebukes the entire priesthood with no exceptions. There are no exclusions here. The Zadok priest are not mentioned here. If Malachi and Ezra are the same person, as Jewish tradition believes, then Ezra, a biological descendant of Zadok himself, would likely have commended his genealogical kinsman for their faithfulness to YHVH. But Malachi is silent on the issue, and there is no mention of any faithful remnant of priests who had adhered strictly and faithfully to YHVH’s Torah. So we cannot assume that there was. Had there been one, don’t you think that he would have lifted them us as an exemplar for the errant priests to follow? Again, if there was such a group, neither he nor extra-biblical historical sources mention this.
After rebuking the Levites, Malachi goes on to rebuke the whole tribe of Judah for their unfaithfulness to YHVH (Mal 2:10–17). The whole nation of Israel was spiritually sick from head to toe!
We now come to the capstone of Malachi’s allegations against a systemically unfaithful and corrupt priesthood and YHVH’s solution to the problem. In chapter three, Malachi gives one of the most notable ot messianic prophecies. He predicts how the Messenger of the covenant (i.e., Yeshua the Messiah) will come as a refiners fire to purify the sons of Levi who are spiritually filthy and need a good scrubbing with the lye soap of the Truth of YHVH’s Torah-Word.
Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says YHVH of hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to YHVH an offering in righteousness. (Mal 3:1–3)
From the time of Malachi to the establishment of the Qumran community (founded between 134 to 104 BC) was around 400 years. If the priesthood as a whole from that time period had turned back to Elohim and the Torah, then where is the biblical proof of this spiritual revival? The Sadducees, who reputedly carried the priestly mantle and officiated in the temple themselves claimed either to be descendents of Zadok or to be walking in righteousness. After all, most likely the name Sadducee is a derivative of the Hebrew word tsaddıyq meaning “righteous”. But despite the religious label, it is hardly a secret what Yeshua thought of them and their competing colleagues the Scribes and Pharisees. He had little or nothing good to say of them. Was there a remnant of priests among the Sadducees who had remained faithful to YHVH? Assuredly yes. There was at least one. He was Zechariah the father of John the Baptist. However, some proponents of the Zadok calendar strongly assert that the so-called Zadok priests of Qumran were the only priests who had remained totally faithful to the Torah including preserving the true biblical calendar from the time of Moses up to the time of Yeshua. This claim is made without any biblical evidence. At the same time, they overlook the fact that Zechariah was ministering in the temple under the auspices of the Sadducees. Not only that, he was so well-respected that he was allowed to offer incense on the altar before the veil in front of the holy of holies. As sectarian as the Sadducees were, had Zechariah been observing the biblical feasts on a different calendar—such as the Zadok calendar—it is hard to believe that the Sadducees would have allowed him the high honor of such a ministerial duty. Moreover, the Gospels record that Zechariah was a righteous man—an implicit admission that he was celebrating the biblical feasts on the true biblical calendar.
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zachariah, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. (Luke 1:5–6)
Therefore, Zechariah, who functioned as a member of the Sadduceean priesthood, and the DSS and people who followed the scrolls that promoted the so-called Zadok 364-day calendar were each on different calendars and thus different dates for celebrating the biblical feasts. They could not have both have been right. Since Scripture calls Zechariah righteous, then we have to believe the Bible over the Zadok-calendar that the DSS promoted.
Summary and Conclusion
We are compelled, again and in the interest of promoting truth, to emphasize the fact that there is no mention anywhere in the Bible or intertestamental, extra-biblical sources of a remnant of so-called Zadokite priests, who had remained completely faithful to YHVH and his Torah including a supposedly true Zadok calendar. Yeshua and the apostolic writers certainly don’t mention it. To say such a body of priests existed during this time, until we have historical documentation proving otherwise, is to believe in pure fantasy. To say that this supposed body of priests were thrust out of the priesthood and the temple service in Jerusalem in the time of the Maccabees (in the middle of the second century BC), and that they became the priests of the Qumran community is adding another layer of mythology and wishful thinking to the previous ones. It is adding to the Scriptures, and defies the historical record, and most notably defies the truth of Scripture. Yet this is what the proponents of the Zadok calendar are doing without a shred of evidence to support their claims. They are taking a few scriptures out of context, ignoring other scriptures that refute their position, inventing history and then pawning it all off as fact. In the process they are deceptively subverting legions of people whose ears are being tickled by their egregiously false and blatantly unbiblical and heretical teachings. In the process, they are sowing seeds of discord among the brethren by promoting false calendars thus preventing YHVH’s people from coming together and uniting around his annual sabbaths or feasts. This is sowing confusion within the body of Messiah and is serving the agendas of the devil who comes as an angel of light to steal, kill and destroy. YHVH is clear! Sowing discord among brethren is one the seven deadly sins that YHVH hates and calls an abomination (Prov 6:19).
Here are several other reasons why I reject the so-called Enoch or Zadok calendar:
- Here are some other notable points that call into question if not prove the invalidness of the Qumran community as being a sect of righteous Torah-obedient priests. First, there is no conclusive historical, archeological, geological or written evidence they even wrote the DSS. Scholars are divided on this point. This was the original assumption of the first archeologists that discovered the scrolls. Their only evidence to support this view as the physical proximity of Qumran to the caves that housed the scrolls; therefore, it was assumed, without evidence, that the sectarians wrote the scrolls, or at least were the guardians of them. However, more recently this view has fallen in disfavor among scholars due to the lack of empirical evidence supporting it.
- Next, event though the Zadok calendar proponents’ claim that inhabitants of Qumran were genealogical descendents of Zadok, this cannot be proven in any way biblically or historically. Anyone can claim anything. The Pope claims to be a direct spiritual descendant of Peter. Moreover, there are many churches that claim to be purveyors of the true apostolic faith. To support their claims, they call themselves by such biblical names as Church of God, Church of Christ, Nazarenes, Children of God, the Way, Disciple of Christ, Church Jesus Christ and et al. Yet they all have different beliefs. A none of them practice the Torah as Yeshua and his disciples did. Thus a label means little or nothing. Thus when the inhabitants of the Qumran community ascribed to themselves the label “the sons of Zadok [Heb. tsâdôq]” this may have meant nothing more than that they claimed to be “sons of righteousness [(Heb. word tsedawkaw of which tsâdôq is a cognate]” (i.e., righteous priests) and not the literal, biological descendants of Zadok the priest.
- Finally, history records that the Qumran community met an inglorious end during the first Jewish revolt at the hands of the Romans somewhere between AD 66 and 70 when the Jerusalem temple was destroyed. If they were deemed righteous in the eyes of YHVH, then what happened to them and where are their true descendants today? Why did YHVH allow them to be stamped out and lost to history along with the Dead Sea Scrolls that supposedly contain the more detailed information on the Zadok calendar until their discovery 1,900 years later in middle of the 20th century? Does it make sense that YHVH would keep hidden from his people for so long the exact times on which he wants his people to keep the feasts that he commanded?
