The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

Enastr^7i-m THE SYNCHRONISTIC CALENDAR 283
not Otherwise specified, the sun completes its movements on the 'sections'
of the first gate and the morning after it rises again from the first gate.
This is thus a reference to the end of the 9th solar month and the beginning
of the loth; see En. 72: 25-7. Now, the first day of the loth solar month,
in a year made up of 364 days, falls exactly on the eighth day of the loth lunar
month (the 8th Tebeth) in a lunar year composed alternately of months of
30 and of 29 days. Our author described tirelessly, day after day, the phases
of the moon during the 12 lunar months. His plan, which is evident from
fr. 7 of Enastr^ (to be completed by partial data which come from other
fragments of the same manuscript and from those of Enastr*), is as follows.
During the first 14 days of each lunar month, the moon waxes from one
half of the seventh part of its light up to the full moon, thus from ^ to
7 = 3^ to In the second half of each month, on the other hand, it wanes
from n to ^ (= astronomical new moon) between the i6th and the 29th of
each month composed of 30 days, and between the 15th and the 28th day of
each month composed of 29 days. Each new month (new moon, WIU; see
below, p. 293) starts with of the lunar light, borrowed, moreover, from the
sun (En. 78: 4).
According to our fragment of Enastr* 7 ii 8, the moon sets ('enters') in the
second gate in the morning of the 25th of the month, which we have just
fixed as the 9th lunar month of the Jewish year. It rises, however, during the
night of the same day, from the gate which is not specified (line 7), which
means that it was mentioned above as 'the third gate'. During the 26th
night of the 9th month the moon 'comes out of the second gate' (line 10).
This scarcely tallies with the Ethiopic table of lunar risings (above, p. 278),
according to which the moon rises from the second gate on the 25th and
26th of the 9th month. According to column iii of the same fragment the
moon sets in the fifth gate during the night of the 9th of the loth month;
on the morning of the same day it rises from the same fifth gate (lines 6
and 8). Now, according to the Ethiopic table the moon rises from the fifth
gate on the loth of the loth month. These variations of one day between the
data of our Aramaic text and the data of the Ethiopic text imply alterations
to the table of the risings of the moon, either in its Greek or in its Ethiopic
form, alterations the reason for which completely escapes me.
Not one fragment of 4QEnastr contains a complete description of days 15
and 30 for the months of 30 days and of day 29 for the months containing
29 days. Thus it is not certain whether the author interposed a fraction of
^ of the lunar light, as Charles suggests (note to En. 73: 5-8, p. 157 of II),