הפולמוס נגד לוח השנה הירחי בכתבים של באי הברית החדשה מקומראן

The editor of this paper attempts to further buttress the theory that the members of the "Renewed Covenant", which flourished at the height of the Second Temple Period, part of whose idiosyncratic literature was discovered in the Qumran caves, embraced a solar calendar of 364 days per annum, and totally rejected the 354-day lunar calendar by which mainstream Judaism abided. The calendar controversy is seen as the decisive factor that caused the Covenanters to become dissenters (פרשנו מרוב העםin the words of 4QMMT C 7), and to establish their community as a corpus separatum. Adding to previous discussions of this issue, the author concentrates on an analysis of the intrinsic meaning of the fragmentary document 1Q27 (Mysteries), and especially the pregnant term מולדי עולה. Differing from the prevalent understanding of the collocation as 'those born in iniquity', and as a contemptuous designation of the Covenanters' adversaries, the author maintains that here and in other Qumran documents, like in the rabbinic parlance מולד, refers to the 'new(ly born) moon'. Whereas in the rabbinic tradition, the appearance of the new moon was greeted with joy and festive prayers, the Covenanters conceived of it as an 'evil' phenomenon. 1Q27 predicts the future, ultimate victory of the solar calendar over the lunar one.