Jubilee Calendar Rescued From the Flood Narrative

Abstract

The origin of the 364-day calendar attested in Dead Sea scrolls and in the books of Jubilees and Enoch is disputed. While it is often considered as a sectarian invention during the 3rd or 2nd centuries bce, Jaubert, VanderKam and Gardner claim that it is already used in the Torah and may be as old as Pg. Using the number seven and the notion that the actual Flood period marks the interruption of time and calendar, this article shows that the 364-day calendar is used by the Priestly writer both in Genesis 1 and in the Flood Narrative, thus suggesting that one of the aims of the Priestly writing was to establish a new calendar to mark the end of the Babylonian rule.