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Calendar and Community$
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Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar, 2nd Century BCE to 10th Century CE

Sacha Stern

Print publication date: 2001

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270348

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003

DOI: 10.1093/0198270348.001.0001

The New Moon

Chapter:
(p. 99 ) 3 The New Moon
Source:
Calendar and Community
Author(s):

Sacha Stern (Contributor Webpage)

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/0198270348.003.0003

The month in Jewish lunar calendars usually began when the new moon crescent was first sighted, as evident from Philo, Josephus, and other literary and epigraphic sources (e.g. the Berenike inscriptions—rabbinic sources are dealt with in the next chapter). From the fourth century c.e., however, some Jewish calendars appear to have begun the month on the day of conjunction (thus about two days earlier), as evident from the document of the Council of Sardica, the Catania inscription, and the ketubah of Antinoopolis. These calendars were not empirically determined, but based on fixed, calculated schemes. Diversity of practice appears to have persisted, nevertheless, until the end of antiquity (as evident, for instance, from the Zoar inscriptions).

Keywords:   Antinoopolis, Berenike, calculation, Catania, conjunction, diversity, Josephus, new moon, Philo, Sardica, Zoar

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