Samaritan Calendar

The Samaritans are a people who define themselves as descendants of Israelites , but separated from the Jews since the first millennium BCE. They follow the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible), but their religion has some specifics in relation to Judaism. Among them, the Samaritans use a specific timetable.

The Samaritan calendar is a lunisolar calendar close enough to the Jewish calendar. Like this, it is composed:

• From year solar
• Of month lunar
• In weeks 7 days, starting on Sunday (day 1)

Months

The Samaritan calendar sets the first day of the month by the conjunction of the Moon with the Sun , not the new moon , contrary to the rule of the Jewish calendar.

The lunar month during 29.53 days, the Samaritan calendar (like the Jewish calendar) so the alternate months on 29 or 30 days.

Unlike the Jewish calendar, the Samaritan calendar does not have a name for months, but just a number, from 1 to 12 or 13 (depending on the year). Indeed, the month names Jewish names derived from Assyrian-Babylonian assimilated by the Jewish people during the exile in Babylon began in the ^sixth century BC. BC The Samaritans had not suffered exile did not include these names, and is based on the Pentateuch, which speaks of the first month, second month, etc.. but without naming them.

Months

A lunar year of 12 months gives 12 29.53 days = 354.36 days. But a solar year (one complete rotation of the Earth around the Sun ) was 365.25 days. It loses 365.25 to 354.36 = 10.89 days per year. He had to find a way to catch these days lost.

The solution was to define the years of 12 or 13 months (moons), as the cycle Meton. A Greek , Meton ( 433 BC ) remarked that if we stay with this system of 29.53 days, every 19 years, accumulating a lag exactly 7 months. The Samaritan calendar (like the Jewish calendar) then distributes these seven months over the life cycle Meton by calling for years is 12 months or 13 months.

In a Metonic cycle, seven years last 13 months. In the Jewish calendar, the years are ^{the 3rd, 6th,} 8th, ^{11th, 14th, 17th} and ^19th years of the cycle, the remaining 12 are common (12 months). In the Samaritan calendar, the 7 years does not fall at fixed intervals, but are fixed according to a calculation kept secret by the religious leadership Samaritan. "According to the Samaritan tradition, this calculation, which is called in Aramaic "Ishban Kashta" (the actual calculation), was taught to Adam ^{Count the days}

As the months, 7 days a week Samaritan did not name, but numbers one (Sunday) to seven (Saturday).

The day begins at sunset.

On Shabbat

The Sabbath falls on Saturday, the same day for Jews.

In the Jewish calendar, on Yom Kippur , and the celebrations of Sukkot can never fall on a Sabbath. Some days are possibly added in the month of Kislev to avoid it. In the Samaritan calendar, no changes are made, and these parties may therefore fall on the day of Shabbat.

Count the years

The Samaritan calendar "dates from the first year

Celebrations

Because the system of calculation described above, the celebrations Samaritan sometimes fall on the same dates as the Jewish equivalent celebrations, but can also be shifted by a few days or a month (when the number of months or years Jewish Samaritans do not match).

The Samaritans do not celebrate many Jewish holidays, which are not prescribed by the Pentateuch. Their main religious festival is the Feast of Passover. Unlike Jews who abandoned the Samaritans have preserved the sacrifice of the paschal lamb , usually made the day before Passover, on Mount Gerizim.
Passover is not only their party, because "three times a year, pilgrims visit their Israelite-Samaritans shrine on the summit of Mount Gerizim. The seventh day of Passover, which is called the "festival of unleavened bread" for Shavuot (Pentecost) and the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles ( Sukkot ) . These three pilgrimages correspond closely to the three major Jewish pilgrimage, the Sheloshet Haregalim.

For an example of festivals, celebrations and dates, here are the religious festivals of 2002 :

The Samaritans therefore share with the Jews most holidays prescribed in the Bible, but they observe neither celebrations introduced after the Babylonian exile, nor the Judean commemorations typically as four young.

See also

Internal Links

• Samaritans
• Jewish Calendar
• Lunar calendar

External Links

• (In) The Samaritan calendar
• (In) The Samaritan Calendar

References

• Portal of Jewish culture and Judaism

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