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A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account
Open accessAbstract
Administrators in ancient Judah used schematic 30-day months and a 360-day year alongside other annual frameworks. This year was never practiced as a “calendar” for any cultic or administrative purpose, but rather served as a convenient framework for long-term planning, as well as for literary accounts that were not anchored to a concrete calendar year. Examples for such a usage are attested here from Mesopotamian texts. Material evidence for the 360-day year in Judah comes forth from a series of small perforated bone plaques from various sites in Iron Age Judah. One such item was recently unearthed in the city of David. These objects can reasonably be understood as reflecting a schematic 360-day year, serving as desk calendars for Judahite administrators. Several priestly pentateuchal texts are best understood against this background, such as the dating of some festivals and most notably the dates in the Flood narrative (Gen 7–8). The original dating system is best represented in LXX Gen 7:11, while the reading of MT is a late modification, inserted later, when calendar debates took a central place in the religious discourse. MT is thus a link in a chain of later reworking of this narrative in Second Temple literature. The 360-day year is thus a unique case where material culture dovetails with literary evidence, and may shed light on the material culture of priestly sources. This insight is significant for future studies of biblical time reckoning.
Overview
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TL;DR
Ben-Dov argues that Iron Age Judahite administrators used a schematic 360-day year of twelve 30-day months alongside practical calendars, not as a cultic or civil calendar but as a framework for long-term planning and generic literary dates. He links perforated bone plaques from Judah and priestly biblical texts, especially the Flood narrative, to this schematic reckoning.
Key findings
- Judahite administrators used schematic 30-day months and a 360-day year for long-term calculations and generic time formulas, while the calendar in practice was likely lunar/lunisolar.
- Nine small perforated bone plaques from Iron Age II Judah—including Lachish, Gezer, Tel el-Farʿah (south), Jerusalem, and ʿAroʿer—can reasonably be read as portable schematic calendars; the ʿAroʿer plaque has one line of twelve holes plus three lines of ten holes, and the Jerusalem plaque has fifteen holes, suggesting a schematic month used twice.
- Priestly festival dates for Matzot and Sukkot on the fifteenth of the first and seventh months reflect a schematic mid-month placement, not the full moon.
- In the Flood narrative, LXX Gen 7:11 gives the 27th of month II and Gen 8:14 gives the 27th of month II, making the flood exactly one 360-day year; MT/SP’s 17th in Gen 7:11 is a later modification tied to Second Temple calendar debates.
Methods
- Combines archaeological analysis of Iron Age Judahite bone plaques with literary and text-critical analysis of biblical calendars and Flood chronology.
- Compares Judahite material and biblical evidence with Mesopotamian administrative and astronomical uses of a schematic 360-day year.
- Compares textual versions—MT, LXX, and SP—for the Flood dates, arguing LXX preserves an earlier schematic reading.
Limitations
- The paper states that not all evidence is conclusive and that the plaques may also have been used with a lunar calendar; schematic use cannot be conclusively proven.
- It acknowledges that the archaeological part of the argument may not stand on its own, though it claims the Flood chronology analysis stands regardless.
- The Judahite case is presented as analogous to, not identical with, Mesopotamian practice; the paper does not claim direct continuity with the obsolete Babylonian administrative tradition.
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Claims the paper makes
57 Own interpretation · 12 No basis given · 6 Own result · 5 Sources not found · 4 Not checked yet · 1 Own method
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The MT-SP reading, which measures the length of the flood by one year plus eleven days (from II/17 until II/27 in the next year)”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“This period was equivalent to five full consecutive months, as can be deduced from the date formulas in Gen 7:11 (seventeenth of month II) and 8:4 (seventeenth of month VII).”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
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In the paper
“Reading the data with an eye to schematic years, the situation seems clearest in the LXX version, where the flood lasted for exactly one year.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Interestingly, these devices seem to divide the months, if at all, into units of five or ten days, without recourse to the seven-day week.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ Conclusion
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In the paper
“Many economic and calendrical documents from the third millennium BCE attest to the use of such a year, which functioned as the main framework for accounting: inventories, tax calculations, and long-term planning.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Abstract
plainstates an association- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“I shall now examine in this light a series of material objects from Iron Age Judah, which give a good example for the everyday use of thirty-day months and of the schematic year by clerks and administrators.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plainstates an association- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Admittedly, these items can be and have been explained as useful with other calendrical systems, but I believe that the schematic 360-day year better accounts for their material details.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
hedgedstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Administrators in ancient Judah used schematic 30-day months and a 360-day year alongside other annual frameworks.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Abstract
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“In contrast to the view of most commentators, who see the LXX reading as a later correction, I follow Gunkel in stating that the correction should be sought in MT.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Gunkel, Genesis, 147
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
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- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“To conclude this section, there are good grounds for claiming that the plaques attest to a bureaucratic use of schematic months and years in Iron Age Judah.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
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- It may state two separate claims as one. 28
- Probably not a substantial claim. 10
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In the paper
“Altogether then, the ʿAroʿer plaque contains one line of twelve holes plus three lines of ten holes each, and in addition three holes at the top.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plainSingle case- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This system is attested by a number of carved bone plaques discovered in major Judahite sites of the Iron Age II, although admittedly the plaques may have also been used with a lunar calendar.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ Conclusion
hedgedstates an association- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The holes drilled in these rectangular plaques are arranged in three lines of ten holes each, altogether thirty holes, with additional decorations separating the lines and adorning the edges of the plaque.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The Jerusalem plaque stands out as it contains three lines of only five holes each, altogether fifteen rather than thirty.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plainSingle case- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A result the paper reports from its own data — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the first one assigns the flood to the confines of the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, beginning and ending exactly at the borders of that year (Gen 7:6; 8:13); the second one assigns less round figures for the dates of the beginning of the flood year (Gen 7:11) and of its end (8:14).”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
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It may state two separate claims as one.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“The 360-day year was the standard for traditional Babylonian astronomy, and did not disappear until much later, in Greek astrology.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Abstract
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Several priestly pentateuchal texts are best understood against this background, such as the dating of some festivals and most notably the dates in the Flood narrative (Gen 7-8).”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Abstract
plainstates an association- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“While the Book of Daniel was written at a period in which calendar debates did play an important part in the religious worldview, the simpler 360-day scheme was retained for the purpose of multi-year calculations.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plainstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This is not to say that civil or cultic calendars in ancient Israel functioned with this kind of month, but only that generic time formulas used them as a literary device.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Early administrators were aware that 360 is not a valid number for any year in practice.They were also aware that intercalation may be required”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Abstract
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“In ancient Mesopotamia until the Old Babylonian period, the most wide-spread system in administrative use was a schematic year of 360 days, existing alongside the lunar calendar.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Abstract
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In terms of the calendar conflict, this is also the most naïve version, because although the flood lasted one year, there is no way to tell from the text which kind of year measured its duration.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“MT and SP are thus interested parties in the calendar debate, while the reading in LXX is indifferent to it, hence also earlier.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The date of festivals, therefore, does not relate to the full moon, but rather to a schematic date, the fifteenth of the first or the seventh month.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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What the paper did — it cites no source for this, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Admittedly, the schematic use of the plates cannot be conclusively proven, because they may have been used also in the framework of the lunar calendar.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
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In the paper
“it aims to show that, while the flood indeed lasted for one complete solar circuit of 364/5 days, the calendar dates invoked in the narrative are not counted by that system but rather by the common lunar year of 354 days.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plainstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, the Pentateuchal account never specified which kind of year was reflected in the flood narrative”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The LXX reading is preferable because the indicated dates mark exactly one year without supplying any hinge on which to hang a preference for any particular year.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plainstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Indeed, calendrical undertones were associated with the story of the flood already in pre-biblical literature from the Ancient Near East.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plainstates an association- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Scribal activity with regard to the dates in the flood account arose only in later Second Temple times, since calendar debates were not present, or at least not pressing, earlier.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ Conclusion
plainstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“In major sites from the period at the height of the monarchy, excavations yielded several portable calendars in the form of small, perforated bone plaques, with the holes arranged in numerical patterns.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“In reality, Achaemenid kings followed either the Old Persian lunar calendar or the Zoroastrian calendar of 365 days, with neither of them amounting to 360 days.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The use of a schematic year gives the best explanation known to me for the dates in the priestly account of the flood.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ Conclusion
hedgedstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The priestly account in Genesis had not originally striven to make a point about any length of any year, but rather used schematic time indications, in the spirit of other ANE flood accounts, as we know them now.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This calendar operated alongside the one in practice, and was used for long-term calculations and generic statements of time, both in administration and in law and literature.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ Conclusion
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This is also the case in the period of 180 days in Esth 1:3, a period that amounts to six schematic months of thirty days each, or half of a year.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Thus, Gabriele Boccaccini has demonstrated how the numbers in Daniel 12:11-12 function according to that schematic mode of reckoning.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
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The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“However, in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28 they are both dated to the fifteenth of the seventh and first months respectively, Matzot being preceded by Passover by one day.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
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- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“earlier biblical authors did not consider the calendar to be of crucial importance and treated it as a matter-of-fact technicality.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Given this period of 150 days, it is hard to deny that the author/ editor of these verses in Genesis 6-8 used schematic thirty-day months, together constructing a schematic year of 360 days.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
boostedstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This exactly is the force of the schematic year, an ideal figure for hyperbolic literary accounts, which are not necessarily tied to any calendar year in practice.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The week and the Sabbath may have been significant for the sacred division of time, but they were surely not used for mundane time reckoning until a much later period in time.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Darshan's association of this datum with the seventeenth of the month in Gen 7:11 is unwarranted, since the latter date is a scribal product, the original date being the twenty-seventh of the month.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“I suggest that the author of Esther used schematic time periods as part of the hyperbole.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World
hedgedstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“If the above is true, then all numbered dates in the priestly flood narrative had originally related to the twenty-seventh of the month, not the seventeenth.The number seventeen is a product of deliberate correction, reflected in MT and SP.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
hedgedstates a cause- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: unclear — It is unclear why the paper says it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: The original form of the priestly flood narrative can be distinguished from later scribal corrections.
In the paper
“Kister rightly states that all the various flood chronologies in Second Temple literature seem forced and detached from the original account, and thus cannot be taken as an organic continuation of the tradition.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Kister, 'Studies in MMT,' 363
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
The paper relies on this without support.
The authors of the priestly flood account did not have concrete archival information about the year of the flood.
“Since the author or authors obviously did not have concrete archival information on the year of the flood in hoary antiquity”
The paper relies on this without support.
The original form of the priestly flood narrative can be distinguished from later scribal corrections.
“In the original flood account as attested in the LXX and partly in MT”
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.
Rated minor: it would not touch a result — a value no result rests on, a p-value that stays on the same side of the significance level, or a conflict that is clerical, resolved elsewhere in the paper, or outside its own findings.
In the paper
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
“In contrast, MT-SP read here the seventeenth, having had to change the original reading on account of the change in 8:14.”
§ A 360-Day Administrative Year in Ancient Israel: Judahite Portable Calendars and the Flood Account > ■ The 360-day Year in the Flood Narrative
“Here the textual versions differ: LXX MT, SP Beginning (7:11) 27th of month II 17th of month II End (8:14) 27th of month II 27th of month II”
Citations
Cites
The publisher hasn’t deposited this paper’s reference list.
Research works printed but not linked: 7
- Jonathan Ben-Dov, "Calendar and Festivals," The Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Law (ed.
- Brent A. Strawn; New York: Oxford University Press, 2015) 87-93;
- Jon D. Levenson, Esther: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 23-27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816021000298 Published online by Cambridge University Press 44 See Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978) 96, who mentions in this regard the priestly office of peqidim and its derivatives (2 Kgs 11:18; Jer 20:1-2; Ezek 44:11). I thank Jeffrey Stackert for the reference. 45 Haran, Temples and Temple Service, 149. Early readers of the priestly source emphasized this aspect of P while in fact disregarding the literary qualities that do exist in it. A good summary of these views can be found in Sean E. McEvenue, The Narrative Style of the Priestly Writer (AnBib 50; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1971) 1-8.
- For this notion, see already Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (trans. M. E. Biddle; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997) 147 (original German edition published in 1901). In this article I will not discuss in detail the various modifications enacted by later Second Temple period authors to the year of the flood, but will rather focus on the versions of the biblical text, mainly MT, LXX, and SP.
- Guy Darshan, "The Calendrical Framework of the Priestly Flood Story in Light of a New Akkadian Text from Ugarit (RS 94.2953)," JAOS 136 (2016) 507-14. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816021000298 Published online by Cambridge University Press 50 Cryer, "The Interrelationships of Gen 5,32; 11,10-11"; this conclusion is implicitly supported by Martin Rösel, "Die Chronologie der Flut in Gen 7-8: Keine neuen textkritischen Lösungen," ZAW 110 (1998) 590-93;
- Albani, "Israels Feste im Herbst," 138. 51 In this article I am concerned with the priestly layer or layers of the flood story and with the final redacted story. In addition to this narrative(s) there is another layer, whose interest in time measuring concentrates on time periods of seven and forty days, but without any interest in months and years. Literature on the identification of these layers and their interrelationship is vast and cannot be covered here. A convenient gateway to this affair is John A. Emerton, "An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis: Part I," VT 37 (1987) 401-20; idem, "An Examination of Some Attempts to Defend the Unity of the Flood Narrative in Genesis: Part II," VT 38 (1988) 1-21; later literature by Reinhard G. Kratz, The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament (trans. J. Bowden; London: T&T Clark, 2005) 235-36;
- Jason M. Silverman; Biblical Intersections 12; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2013) 57-83. The attempts by Najm and Guillaume to bypass this difficulty are not compelling. The authors take the 364-day year as their point of departure, striving to prove that the flood narrative corresponds to a pre-existing 364-day year, instead of searching objectively for the best possible solution. They are thus drawn into circular reasoning, as on pg. 2: "Since the result is not a whole number of weeks, we consider it an unlikely representation of P's system." In "Sifting the Debris," Guillaume is drawn into a set of far-reaching assumptions in order to posit that a sabbatical calendar had underlined the flood account. He assumes that the period of 150 days replaced "a period of two sabbatical seasons of an earlier version" (60; I do not see traces of such periods, however). He further assumes that the 360-day year, which is apparent in the flood account, is the result of a reform in the Persian calendar, between the Egypto-Achaemenid calendar and its Avestan predecessor (65; I do not see any of these calendars in the biblical account and have suggested an indigenous Judahite background). Finally, he explains that the flood was conceived as
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Metadata
- Authors
- Ben-Dov, J.
- Venue
- Harvard Theological Review
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2021-10
- Volume
- 114
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 431-450
- ISSN
- 0017-8160 (ISSN-L)
- 1475-4517
- OpenAlex
- W3211419576
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2023: 2
- FWCI
- 4.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Harvard Theological Review (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology (arts and humanities) › Ancient Near East History
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Historical Astronomy and Related Studies
- Keywords
- ancient Judah, Iron Age Judah, flood narrative, Septuagint, Masoretic text, Second Temple literature, Priestly source, David
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