| Summary: | The Bible records several versions of the Israelite festival calendar, including accounts in Exod 23; 34; Lev 23; Num 28-9; Deut 16; and Ezek 45. The festivals, as depicted in the various texts, have many commonalities; however, there are also differences. Some of the often cited differences in the festival calendar texts include: fixed dates v. dates based upon the harvest, local v. regional offering locations, spring v. fall beginning of the year, some accounts place an agricultural offering prior to the ripening of the harvest, the combination of two named rites into a larger ritual complex, the mention of simultaneous rites in different locations of the same text, and some festivals are named in one location and unnamed in others. Scholars have explored these similarities and differences arguing that the various calendars were written by different sources (authors/redactors) at different times in Israelite history. The current project provides a comparative analysis between Lev 23 and the second-millennium Akkadian multi-month festival calendar from Syria (Emar 446). The methodology included an investigation of the form, outline, and literary structures evident in each text. In addition, ritual aspects expressed in each text including: sacred time, sacred space, sacred objects, ritual participants, ritual sound, and ritual smell are explored to better understand the broader context, purpose, audience, and evidence oftextual traditions. After a review of each text and the contextual material, this study argues that Lev 23 may preserve an early second-millennium West Semitic ritual tradition.
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