The Enoch/Qumran Calendar

The Enoch/Qumran Calendar

The Enoch/Qumran Calendar
Wandering Stars…
They Did not Come Forth at their Appointed Times.
(Jude 1:13 & 1Enoch 18:15)

By
James Scott Trimm

There has long been a controversy over the “Astronomical” section or “Calendrical” section (Chapters 72-82). What is this calendar? Why does it insist that it works when it loses more than a day a year? Why is it filled with contradictions? Why does it disagree widely with the traditional Hebrew calendar? Why does it seem to insist that its solar months coincide neatly with lunar cycles when it does not? How could the New Moon be significant to this calendar.

The answers to all of these questions can be found elsewhere in the Book of Enoch itself. The Book of Enoch recounts the fall of a group of angels, who fell from heaven and took human form in order to copulate with human women (1Enoch 6; Gen. 6). Now Chapter 41 gives a prophecy Enoch received BEFORE this fall of angels (see 1En. 39:1). At that time Enoch says concerning the movements of the Sun and Moon:

5 And I saw the chambers of the sun and moon, whence they proceed and whither they come again, and their glorious return, and how one is superior to the other, and their stately orbit, and how they do not leave their orbit, and they add nothing to their orbit and they take nothing from it, and they keep faith with each other, in accordance with the oath by which they are bound together.
6 And first the sun goes forth and traverses his path according to the commandment of YHWH Tzva’ot, and mighty is His name for ever and ever.
7 And after that I saw the hidden and the visible path of the moon, and she accomplishes the course of her path in that place by day and by night-the one holding a position opposite to the other before YHWH Tzva’ot.
And they give thanks and praise and rest not;
For unto them is their thanksgiving rest.
8 For the sun changes oft for a blessing or a curse,
And the course of the path of the moon is light to the righteous
And darkness to the sinners in the name of YHWH,
Who made a separation between the light and the darkness,
And divided the spirits of men,
And strengthened the spirits of the righteous,
In the name of His righteousness.
9 For no angel hinders and no power is able to hinder; for He appoints a judge for them all and He judges them all before Him.
(1En. 41:5-9 Trimm Translation)

 

And later in the Astronomical/Calendar section we read:

 

“And in the days of the sinners the years shall be shortened,
and their seed shall be tardy on their lands and fields,
and all things on the earth shall alter,
and shall not appear in their time . . . .
and many chiefs of the stars
shall transgress the order (prescribed);
and these shall alter their orbits and tasks,
and not appear at the seasons prescribed to them”
(1 Enoch 80:2,6)

(This translation of the Book of Enoch, taken wherever possible from the Aramaic manuscripts found at Qumran, is available at: http://nazarenespace.com/page/books-dvds )

However AFTER the fall of these fallen angels Enoch receives another revelation concerning the “stars” (The ancients counted the Sun, the Moon, and the five visible planets as “stars”):

14 The angel said: ‘This place is the end of heaven and earth: this has become a prison for the stars and the host of heaven.
15 And the stars which roll over the fire are they which have transgressed the commandment of YHWH in the beginning of their rising, because they did not come forth at their appointed times.
16 And He was wroth with them, and bound them till the time when their guilt should be consummated (even) for ten thousand years.’
(1En. 18:14-16 Trimm Translation)

Jude refers to these “stars” when he refer to “wandering stars for whom is reserved blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 1:13b). It is no coincidence that the Greeks called the “planets” “wandering stars” or that the ancients identified them with false gods.

What Enoch is telling us is that after the fall of the angels recounted in 1Enoch 6 and Genesis 6 the heavenly luminaries changed their motions, having rebelled against YHWH’s commandments. Whereas before the fall the Sun, Moon and stars “[did] not leave their orbit, and they add[ed] nothing to their orbit and they [took] nothing from it, and they [kept] faith with each other, in accordance with the oath by which they [were] bound together.” (41:5) yet after the fall they no longer “did come forth at their appointed times”.

The Calendar section in 1st Enoch was originally a recounting of the pre-fall calendar. I suspect that this pre-fall calendar had a 360 day solar year with exactly twelve lunar months to the day. (This is not an astronomical absurdity, as it is very common for astronomical bodies to have the same orbital momentum and/or to be tidally locked.) After the fall the luminaries departed from “their appointed times”. It may also be possible that the solar year was exactly 364 days with exactly 12 lunar months. In any case the Calendar section may have been corrupted over the centuries by well intended attempts to “correct” the faulty calendar and make it work in one way or another. Some Essenes at Qumran may have engaged in one of these efforts.

Further evidence for this theory may be found in the Ancient Egyptian Solar Calendar. This calendar had 360 days divided into twelve months of thirty days each plus five additional days (thus a 365 day year). This is obviously similar to the Enoch Calendar which adds four days evenly distributed into one month of each of the four seasons.

But why would the Ancient Egyptian Calendar reflect a revision of Enoch’s calendar? Josephus writes in his Antiquities of the Jews:

Now Adam, who was the first man, and made out of the earth, (for our discourse must now be about him,) after Abel was slain, and Cain fled away, on account of his murder was solicitous for posterity a vehement desire of children, he being two hundred and thirty years old; after which time he lived other seven hundred, and then died. He had indeed many other children but Seth in particular. As for the rest, it would be tedious to name them; I will therefore only endeavor to give an account of those that proceeded from Seth. Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues. All these proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them, till they died. They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars, the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.”
(Ant. 1:2:3)

“Siriad” is believed to refer to Egypt. It refers to the Land of the Sirius followers. The Egyptian Calendar used the movements of the Star Sirius to establish the beginning of the year for their solar calendar, since its movements coincided closely with the annual flooding of the Nile. The Pillar of the Sethites (which some today call the Pillar of Enoch) had astronomical information from before the flood inscribed on it!

Some identify the Great Pyramid with this Pillar, however this is itself unlikely. Josephus mentions the Pyramids elsewhere (Ant. 2:9:1) as having been built by Hebrew slaves, and here he clearly calls them “Pyramids” not “Pillars”? Also the Great Pyramid has no inscriptions, but the Pillar of the Sethites had Astronomical information “inscribed on it”. However it may well be that the Pillar of the Sethites contained information that was used to build the Great Pyramid.

This is further supported by the fact that the Ancient Egyptian god Thoth was a perversion of Enoch and the ancient Egyptian religion a perversion of YHWH worship into Pantheistic Polytheism.

Thoth/Hermes was known to the ancients as the “Scribe of the gods” or “messenger of the gods” and was associated with the planet we know today as Mercury (the Romans god “Mercury” was a slight revision of the Greek god Hermes). While Enoch was known as “Enoch the Scribe” and “The Scribe of Righteousness” (1Enoch 12:4; 15:1; Jub. 4:17, 20) and the Talmud refers to the planet we call Mercury as “The Scribe of the Sun” (b.Shabbat 156a).

The Book of Enoch says:

“After this I saw the secrets of the heavens,
and how the kingdom is divided,
and how the actions of men are weighed in the balance.”
(1Enoch 41:1)

While the following depiction from the Egyptian Book of the Dead shows the Egyptian god Anubis weighing souls in a balance, and Thoth, the scribe of the gods, making a record:

The false god Thoth/Hermes was in fact the result of pagans turning to the worship of Enoch. These false gods are pagan twisting of Enoch.

Enoch worship resulted from a misunderstanding of who Metatron is. There are two very different traditions about who Metatron is. One tradition has it that Metatron is “the lesser YHWH”; the “Word” or “Adam Kadmon”. The other tradition has it that Metatron is just a name for Enoch.

How did the two become confused? The answer lies in the Book of Enoch. The earliest extra-biblical Ma’aseh Merkavah account is found in the Book of Enoch Chapter 14. Here Enoch comes before the figure on the throne and comes near to the “Holy Word”. The set-ting is that Enoch has been attempting to intercede for the fallen angels. Enoch passes through the worlds and comes before the throne and before the Word. Enoch is then given a message of judgment to take back to the fallen angels (1 Enoch 13-15).

Now the “Word” (Memra) is Metatron and it was this Word (Metatron) who gave Enoch a message to take back to the fallen angels. In a much later Rabbinic document the Midrash of Shemichazah and Aza’el we read:

Forthwith Metatron sent a messenger to Shemichaza and said to him: “The Holy One is about to destroy His world and bring upon it a flood.
(Midrash of Shemichazah and Aza’el)

This parallels 1 Enoch 13-15 exactly, only Enoch has simply become “a messenger” for Metatron, his name (Enoch) has been dropped. (Shemichazah and Aza’el were the leaders of the Fallen angels [1 Enoch 6; 10]). From this we can see how eventually Metatron (Adam Kadmon; the Lesser YHWH; the Word) became confused with His messenger Enoch. Just as Metatron was the Memra, the incarnate “Word”, Hermes had the epithet of Logios (Word).

Hermetic Kabbalah is an amalgamation between Jewish Kabbalah and Hermeticism. This amalgamation occurred when Hermeticists noticed parallels between Hermeticism and Jewish Kabbalah, and thus merged elements of the two systems together.

Why did Hermeticism resemble Jewish Kabbalah? Hermeticism a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the representation of the congruence of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes. In fact the Greek god Hermes was a re-imaging of the Egyptian god Thoth. The Thoth worshippers of Ancient Egypt had built their false religion around information inscribed on the Sethite Pillar.

This may also shed light on the religion of Amenhotep IV when he came to power. He had the old Egyptian religion abolished and replaced with the worship of a single universal god called Aton. Aton had been recognized by the Egyptian Polytheistic religion as an aspect of Ra. Aton was the disc of the Sun and it bears mentioning that Malachi 4:2 refers to Messiah as “the Sun of righteousness.” (And remember, the Talmud calls the planet “Mercury” with the title “the Scribe of the Sun” (b.Shabbat 156a). After Amenhotep IV’s death, the Polytheistic religion returned. But did Amenhotep IV invent this monotheistic religion, or did he embrace a competing Ancient Egyptian minority religion? Was this monotheism a monotheistic strain of this same perversion of YHWHism drawn from the Sethite Pillar?

Clearly the Ancient Egyptian calendar was based on a perversion of the pre-flood, pre-fall calendar which the Ancient Egyptian priests learned form the Sethite Pillar. They simply had to add five days to the end of the year to make an almost accurate calendar. Likewise certain Jews, attempting to “correct” the Enoch calendar, and make it work, added four days, one to each of the four seasons, to make a Solar calendar that was also almost accurate.

The traditional Hebrew calendar continues to use the Lunar Months as required by the Torah:

 

10 Also in the day of your gladness, and in your appointed seasons, and in your new
moons, you shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings. And they shall be to you for a memorial before your Elohim: I am YHWH your Elohim.
(Num. 10:10)

And in your new moons, you shall present a burnt-offering unto YHWH: two young
bullocks, and one ram, seven he lambs of the first year without blemish.
(Num. 28:11)

The word for “Month” in Hebrew is CHODESH and the word for “New Moon” is ROSH CHODESH (literally, the head/beginning of the moon/month)

And lest anyone should argue that ROSH CHODESH refers to a new month, but not necissarily to a New Moon:

6 And even the shining moon wanes according to its time.
Though it is for ruling the seasons and an everlasting sign.
7 By it are the seasons and the times of the statute:
And shining, it vanishes in its circuit.
8 The new moon (Rosh Chodesh), according to its name renews itself;
How wonderful is it when it changes!
The beacon of the host wanes on high,
Leaving the firmament aglow from its shining.
(Sira 43:6-8)

The traditional Hebrew calendar simply adds a leap month as needed to keep the Lunar year from falling more than a month behind the Solar year. But before the fall of the angels in Gen. 6/1Enoch 6, it was not necessary to add a leap month, because the Lunar Year and Solar Year were both exactly 360 days with twelve months of thirty days each,

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