20 The Jewish Calendar and Jewish Sciences

This chapter surveys the reception and development of the Enochic 364-day calendar in later Jewish and Christian traditions, focusing on sources from Ethiopia. It traces the creation of Enochic astronomy and of the 364-day calendar in their Mesopotamian and ancient Jewish setting, and then continues to assess this legacy in the Book of Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and, in a rather different way, in 2 Enoch and other Jewish apocalypses. This is done with an eye toward the transmission of other branches of ancient sciences, such as astrology and physiognomy. The chapter then continues to assess the path of the Enochic teaching in Christian Ethiopia, dwelling on the tension between the preservation of the ancient tradition and its acculturation to other, later, branches of Ethiopic astronomy.