Calendars from Jewish Documents in the Judean Desert from the First Revolt to Bar Kokhba

This paper reports the preliminary findings of the examination of dates in legal documents of the First, and Second (Bar Kokhba) Revolts, the Babtha archive, the Salome Komaïse archive, and other civil documents from lay Jewish communities found in Cave Letters in Nahal Hever, Wadi Murabba'at and other sites. It is proposed that a pattern of dates that occurs in the documents may indicate an interest in fortune days to sign legal contracts. These apparent repetitions occur in secular and religious (marriage-related) legal documents written in Hebrew and Aramaic in the mid and late first century, and in Greek under the Roman administration in the early second century. They seem to occur irrespective of the different calendars used. After testing the hypothesis of "lucky days" by examining the dates in some marriage contracts the paper suggests that more research is needed to investigate possible Jewish interest in hemerologies, and the belief by lay people and rebels alike that some days of the month, or those with particular numbers, were better for sealing agreements.