Introducing The Sabbath Calendar Journal
Join Bill and Karen Bishop, authors of "The Biblical Calendar Then and Now", as they continue to substantiate the ancient Zadokite Sabbath calendar, bringing forth scriptural and historical insights from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Learn about this Biblical calendar, its significance, and how it connects to our walk of faith today.
Hello and Welcome!
As you may already know, the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) were discovered in 1948 by a Bedouin boy who was throwing rocks into a cave. Coincidentally, the nation of Israel was officially declared as an independent state the same year this repository of their ancient historical and scriptural treasure was found. One of the first scholars that began to examine the content was a French woman, Annie Jaubert, who had been studying ancient, Biblical time-keeping systems. She thoroughly scrutinized the DSS content with an eye toward Scriptural integrity, writing a series of papers from 1953-1957. Here is an excerpt about her work from a paper written by another DSS scholar, Jonathan Ben-Dov, The 364-Day Year in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish Pseudepigrapha, pg 8:
A Final Note -
The SCJ is currently in its infancy as this is only a beginning of our effort to get this site up and going. We will be adding much more material during the next few months, and then the pace should taper off. Please keep informed with the latest postings by checking back frequently, bookmarking sabbathcalendar.org in your browser and subscribing for periodic email notices (which will be sent no more than once per week). If you are on any social media platforms, please share The SCJ with your friends too.
May our divisions be conquered as we continue to grow, seeking Yah's Abundant Wisdom to guide our hearts and minds -
Proverbs 23:12
(12) Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
As you can clearly see, the "news" about this calendar is not new. It was revealed within an audience of Biblical scholarship over 70 years ago! It has now become much more well known and increasingly studied since the late 1990's when access to the DSS was opened to the international academic community. So with a slow progression of public awareness happening over several decades, we are currently seeing a sudden surge of discussion, acknowledgement, error, confusion, acceptance, refusal, and sometimes outright vitriol among Believers over adopting this seemingly "new" calendar system for the observance of Biblical Holy Days and appointed times.
Hence, our mission with this website is to offer a singular platform that will provide factual information from various reliable sources across all types of media. There is a wealth of historical, archaeological and scriptural evidence that supports the Biblical authenticity and validity of this "really-not-so-new-and-perhaps-original" calendar system that has appeared from the sands of antiquity. We endeavor to gather a wealth of information here for your study as well as sharing our own studies through articles, videos, audio books or podcasts. Please understand that this is a mission of peace for overcoming strife and division, affirming factual truth over error, and revealing a restoration of the old paths to walk in harmony with our Messiah.
Jeremiah 6:16 (KJV)
(16) Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.
We aspire that The Sabbath Calendar Journal (SCJ) will become a wellspring of dependable knowledge, bringing clarity to you and other faithful Believers as we navigate together, finding "where is the good way, and walk therein" - returning to the garden in Spirit and Truth!
Shalom, Bill & Karen Bishop
During the 1950s, preliminary publications of the first scrolls unearthed at Qumran revealed a surprising similarity between the Qumran calendars and those calendars previously studied by Jaubert. Accordingly, Jaubert maintained that the Qumranic 364-day calendar tradition had very early origins in Jewish antiquity, and that the 364-day year was put to practice in the Jerusalem Temple for the first few centuries after its restoration in the late 6th century [BCE]. She claimed that the luni-solar calendar (later also adopted by the rabbis) gained hold in Jerusalem only gradually in the Hellenistic period.