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Now we continue our study of the evolution of Essenic beliefs as we examine chapters 72-82 of the book of Enoch. This deal with the third section of the book; and most scholars estimate its date somewhere between 143 and 140 B.C.E. Like all preceding Essene scripture, it reflects the ideology of private property and free enterprise, which as you know, would be completely reversed in the days of Jesus as revealed not only by their own literature but the accounts of the New Testament as well. This third part of Enoch is profuse in its condemnation of sinners; yet it nowhere correlates wealth or the employment of labor with wickedness.
This portion of Enoch is a treatise on astronomy and is loaded with Zoroastrian concepts. This is important because the calendar was determined by it, together with the number of days in the year, and the sequence of Sabbaths, feast days, and holy days.
Uriel, one of the seven archangels, discloses the secrets of the heavenly luminaries to Enoch, who inscribes them on "the heavenly tablets" and relays this knowledge to his son Methuselah (Enoch, lxxxi). This will become the foundation for a whole new liturgical calendar which replaced the one of Moses and the Torah. Again we find the distancing from Torah concepts of this group of emerging Zoroastrians.
This revelation is important because it established the calendar which placed the Essene feast and holy days on dates differing from those celebrated by all other Jews; and, as we shall see, this may have been the cause of the conflict which culminated in the death of the last Teacher of Righteousness. Again we find the Essenes repudiating Judaism as they knew it along with their Festivals and worship on "appointed days." The Essene calendar created a year of four equal parts, each of three thirty-day months; one intercalated day was added to each quarter, thus making a year of 364 days, which was to replace the confusing Hebrew year, in which a twelve-month period consisted of 353, 354, or 355 days; in each 19-year cycle, there were seven years with an additional intercalated lunar period; so these years had 383, 384, or 385 days (Ency. Brit., 14 th Ed. 4:580-581).
Although the Essene reckoning left something for science to correct (Enoch, lxxii-lxxxii), this innovation was no doubt a source of great pride. The Convenanters were persuaded that their truth had been lost because of the sins of mankind (Ibid., lxxx) and that evil was so multiplied as to threaten its very future existence. We may suppose that, since a 364-day year would in the course of time completely dislocate the seasons and the seedtime, the Essenes must have learned before a generation had elapsed, to intercalate a day or two at certain intervals in order to keep their seasons on even keel.
According to the Essenes, the reckoning used by the Men of the Community was holy, for it had been revealed in the Tablets of Enoch (Enoch, lxxxii); they relied, therefore, upon the highest authority for their years and months and for the dates on which their festivals and holy days should be celebrated, all in opposition to those of orthodox Judaism and the more scientific calculations of the Greeks.