The three Israelite Holidays

Amazingly, the three original Holidays mentioned in the JE text are so different from the holidays that evolved later that they are alomst unrecognizable. P era holidays (circa 600 BCE), which are only 200 years afterward the JE Era, had assumed an entirle new face. I know this through careful exegesis of the Bible, specifically the different "documents/sources" of the Bible.

I will start with the J text. The J document we have only mentions the holidays once. In fact, no laws are ever mentioned anywhere else in the entire J document. This means that not only are Pesach Shavuoth and Sukkoth only mentioned once, but Sabbath, Matzah, Bikkurim and Peter Rechem are also only mentioned once and all other commandments are either from E or P.

Ex 34:11 Observe that which I command you this day.

Article 1 Behold, I drive out before you the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you: but you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim.

Article 2 For you shall not bow down to another god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Don`t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice; and you take of their daughters to your sons, and their daughters play the prostitute after their gods, and make your sons play the prostitute after their gods.

Article 3 You shall make no cast idols for yourselves.

Article 4 You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. All that opens the womb is mine; and all your cattle that is male, the firstborn of cow and sheep. The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb: and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. No one shall appear before me empty. Six days you shall work, and on the seventh day you shall rest.

Article 5 In plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest: You shall observe a septuple feast with the first-fruits of wheat harvest.

Article 6 And the feast of Gethering at the year`s end. Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land when you go up to appear before Yahweh, your God, three times in the year.

Article 7 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.

Article 8 Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left to the morning.

Article 9 You shall bring the first of the first-fruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God.

Article 10 You shall not boil a young goat in its mother`s milk.

I will now explain each of these articles.

Article One Commentary: It may seem that this Article consists of two separate commands. One is not to make a covenant with the Canaanites and the other is to destroy their altars etc... In fact, if we really want we can break it down even further: "you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and you shall cut down their Asherim" could be seen as constituting three separate commands. However, this is not that way these articles were intended. The Ten Articles are designed to issue commands in ten separate areas. Not every clause is a command unto itself. Somestimes, several clauses are needed in order to drive the point home and that's just the case here. The overall idea here is not to befriend the Canaanites and create an atmosphere where you will be obliged or inclined to honor their gods. This is expounded upon in the Second part of Article Two: "Don`t make a covenant with ...". If you make a military convenant with them not to attack each other and to come to each other's defense, then you will be invited to their feasts and eat from their sacrifices (which is still okay) and you will be attracted to their daughters and their daughters will in turn convince you to start worshipping the Canaanite gods. Rather, you shall destroy their religious altars, pillars and Asherah trees so that you don't come to worship their gods through these items. We thus see that this is actually a single, monolithic article.

In Exodus 23, which contains the E Ten Articles parallel to the J Articles, we see the following:

Ex 23:24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars. Ex 23:25 You shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water… Ex 23:32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you."

As you can see, all the bold parts of these verses are a repetition of language used in article two of the J source. We also see that that these phrases combine to form a single idea and we therefore rightfully consider all of this as a single article.

Article Two Commentary: "You shall not prostrate to another El!". El was a Canaanite deity and was a very popular deity throughout the Near East in those days. When the Israelites emerged onto the scene in 1200 BCE they adopted this deity and merged it with the Yahweh deity. This is why we find that El in the bible often refers to the same deity as yahweh. Thus, yahweh was not considered exclusive of El like he was considered exclusive from other deities. He was considered to be "another El", a different kind of El, a more powerful, more sophisticated and more just El. The Article here is admonishing against prostrating and worsjipping any El other that Yahweh.

The parallel of this article in the E source is as follows:

Ex 23:24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices.

Again, we see that E uses similar language and also clarifies that all acts of worship are forbidden, not just protrating before their God.

This is a completely separate command from article one. Article one talks about making a militray covenant with the Canaanites and allowing them to maintain their pagan lifestyle. This article talks about actually worshipping their gods. It may seem obvious that no worship of their gods is allowed once we say that even a covenant with them is not allowed. However, this is not so. In a sense, a covenant with pagans could be considered a greater sin against yahweh, for a covenant is permanent and binding while an isolated act of worship does not imply that one is completely and permanently submitting to that particular deity.

Article Three Commentary: "You shall make no cast idols for yourselves!" This article does not talk about worshipping a deity other than yahweh. This is talking about worshipping yahweh by means of a cast idol. The practice of representing deities in cast metals was very common in those days. That did not mean that the worshipper believed that the inanimate idol had any intrinsic powers; that would be foolish and naive. It was simply a way of representing their Gods in forms that are readily perceived by the senses and performing acts of worship to the all-powerful storm god (Baal), sun god (Amon Re, Shamash) or moon god through those idols. The practice of idolatry is what this article forbids and the Golden Calf that the Israelites made in the wilderness violated this article. Recall that when Aaron made the golden calf he said to the Israelites "These are your gods, oh Israel, which have extricated you from the land of Egypt!". He did not introduce any new deity; he was just representing Yahweh in these golden calves and allowing the people a sensual perception of Yahweh in their midst, in the absence of Moses.

Why does it mention "molten gods"? That's because at the time that this article was codified in 800 BCE, the temple in Jerusalem contained two golden cherubs which represented the presence of yahweh in the tample. The golden cherubs, however, were gold-plated and not cast in metal. Thus, the wording of this article was designed so as not to contravene the established norms of society. This is further illustrated when we take a look at the parallel article in E:

Ex 20:23
You shall not make alongside me gods of silver, and you shall not make any gods of gold for youselves.

E which was written by disenfranchised Levitte priests in the norther kingdom of Israel, had no interest in legitimizing the golden cherubs in the Jerusalem temple. Nor did they approve of the golden calves that Jeroboam had established in BethEl and Dan. To them, these idols were equally abhorrant and unacceptable. Yahweh should not be represented in any form of gold silver, molten or plated.

Article Four Commentary: "You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread..." This is by far the most complicated and controversial of all the articles and I will elaborate on this as best as I could. Let's start with the verse that seems to talk about Sabbath:

Ex 34:21 Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest: in plowing and in harvest you shall rest.

At a first glance, this verse talks about the weekly Sabbath: Six days you may work (in the field)but on the seventh day of the week you shall rest from plowing and harvesting. This is also the tradition interpretation of this verse. However there are some serious problems with this interpretation:

1. Why is this verse dropped in the middle of the discussion about the three festivals? Verse 18 talks about the feast of Unleavened-Bread ("Matzoth") and verse 22 talks about the Septuple feast ("shabuoth") and the Gathering feast ("Asiph"). Verse 19 that talks about donating firstborn humans and animals to yahweh is understood in the context of the Unleavened-Bread feast: when you come to see my face (in the temple) on the Unleavened-Bread festival do not come empty-handed but bring along your firstborn humans and animals and sacrifice them to yahweh. The term "You shall not see my face empty-handed" gives it away. It's obviously talking about a time when one comes to see the face of Yahweh and that is on the UB feast, as articulated in verse 23: Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. But observance of the weekly Sabbath has no connection whatsoever to the three annual feasts and so why is it mentioned here? Furthermore, in E this material is missing completely; there is no mention of any Sabbath or firstborn donation among the three festivals.

2. The Hebrew term Charish (plowing) and Katzir (harvest) do NOT refer to acts of plowing or harvesting; they refer to the seasons of plowing and harvesting. Note that these nouns are constrcuted in the same model of Asiph (gathering, verse 22) and Abibh (corn, verse 18) which has only one meaning: the season when one gathers his produce from the field into his house and the season when the corn ripens. It makes no sense to say that the weekly Sabbath shall be observed in the plowing and harvesting season. Does the weekly Sabbath not apply during other annual seasons?

3. In E (where Sabbath is mentioned separately), the phrase "you shall rest in plowing and harvest" is not present: Ex 23:12 "Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the alien may be refreshed".

4. There is absolutely no mention of the weekly Sabbath anywhere else in the J source. Thus if Ex 34:21 does indeed talk about the weekly Sabbath, isn't this major command that deserves some serious attention?

5. In all other places where the weekly Sabbath is mentioned there is a reason given why the Sabbath is so important. In E, it's so that one's servants may rest; in P, it's because god rested on the seventh day; in D it's because we were slaves in Egypt. Why does J not give a reason for this major command?

I have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that Ex 34:21 does NOT talk about the weekly Sabbath. The reason this is so important to me is because the foundation of Judaism has now been shattered. The absence of any mention of the weekly Sabbath in the J text implies that at best the J Sabbath was characterized by some special worship in some circles of society. If the ordinary citizen was required to rest on every seventh day, it surely would have been mentioned among the Ten Articles or elsewhere in J.

One of the only instances of "sabbath" in scriptures during the JE period is in 2 kings 4:23 where the husband of the Shunamite asks her why she wants to go to Elisha "He said, Why will you go to him today? it is neither new moon nor Sabbath?" We see that the Sabbath is comparable to a new moon. The new moon is NOT considered a day of rest in P literature. There were some special sacrifices in the temple on the new moon but work is not prohibited. Therefore, from this juxtaposition of Chodesh and Sabbath, we can assume that in JE, the Sabbath recurred often just like the Chodesh (unlike the seasonal festivals) and it was observed in a similar manner to the Chodesh, namely, special sacrifices in the temple but no general observance by the multitudes.

This point, however, is debatable. The Sabbath command in E is mentioned together with the seventh-year Release (Shemitah) command:

Ex 23:10 For six years you shall sow your land, and shall gather in its increase, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the animal of the field shall eat. In like manner you shall deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove. Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the alien may be refreshed.

We thus see that in E, the seventh-day Sabbath is comparable to the seventh-year Shemitah: a time when no field work is permissable. This stands in direct contrast to the 2 Kings story where it seems that Sabbath is not a major rest day. It is possible that the E text was codified at a somewhat later stage in the E religion when Sabbath observance was intensified. Regardless, this is all E material; the J text that could be talking about Sabbath has now been proven not to and so in J there is no weekly Sabbath. There is more that I wish to talk about Sabbath but this would detract from our "ten articles" discussion and so I will leave that for another time.

What does Ex 34:21 talk about? Simple! It talks about the observance of the festival of Passover, referred to in J as the "Unleavened-Bread festival". Six days we are told to "work" and on the seventh day we are told to "rest". Resting here means observance of the feast of Pesach; that is, bringing a lamb to the temple and offering it as a sacrifice. In J terminology, resting is synonymous with feasting, because when one rests there is nothing else to do but feast and when one feasts, he is by definition parting and not tilling the field.

But the question remains what kind of work do we do in the first six days? The most likely explanation here is that it means "six days you may work". It is not a command that one shall work like the seventh-day rest is a command. Thus, J is saying that although Matzah must be eaten all seven days, only the seventh day is a rest/feast day. During the first six days, one may only eat Matzah but one must not be physically present in the temple. This is the only way in which the JE Passover holiday can be understood properly: The feast takes place on the seventh day, NOT the first day and the feast lasts for one day only. Note that even though D states that the passover feast shall take place on the first day, it still admits that on the following morning one may return to his tent (Deut 16:7). Thus, it seems that it was a longstanding tradition that the passover feast is held on the day before one returns home and this tradition was preserved by D even after it moved the feast day to the first day of the seven day Matzah festival.

What was done with all the leftover meat? Obviously, one cannot consume an entire lamb in one day. But you must realize that the Passover sacrifice was never intended to be consumed by a single person or family. The Passover sacrifice is no different than the "peace-offering" (shelamim) mentioned throughout the P text. Those peace-offerings were designed to be shared between the feaster, the priest and yahweh: the fats and blood goes to Yawhweh (placed on the altar), most of the meat is kept by the feaster and consumed by family and friends and certain sections -- such as the breast and thigh -- go to the priest who officiates the sacrifice and ensures that it is done properly and that Yahweh is satisfied. Furthermore, as we shall see in article eight (verse 25), the Passover sacrifice was not allowed to be left over until the following morning. This law supports the notion that the passover sacrifice was made on the seventh day and since the following day was not an official feast day, the entire animal had to be consumed on the evening of the seventh day.

The E parallel to Exodus 34:21 "Six day you may work and on the seventh day you shall rest" is not the E verse that talks about the weekly Sabbath Exodus 23:12, for we have already established that J is not talking here about a weeklt Sabbath. The Parallel is found Exodus 13:6 "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to Yahweh". That is the Masoretic version of the text. However, the Septuagint translation reads "Six days you shall eat UB..." and since the Septuagint text is considered more ancient and more reliable we will go with it instead. Note, however, that the Septuagint deviation from the Masoretic text does not imply any material difference in the observance of the Matzah law. The intent of the Septuagint version is the same as that of the Masorete version: Matzah shall be eaten all seven days. It is just expressed differnetly in the Septuagint. It means: six days you shall eat Matzah while you go about performing your own chores, but on the seveth day you shall hold a feast before yahweh (at the Jerusalem temple) in addition to eating Matzah. This is the very same idea expressed in our J text: Six days you may work (while eating Matzah) but on the seventh day you shall rest (in addition to eating Matzah).

Exodus 34:21 is an explanation of verse 18. It explains how the seven Matzah days are broken down: six days just Matzah and the seventh day the feast as well. The parallel in E to verse 18 is, of course, Exodus 23:15: Seven days you shall eat Matzah, as I have commanded you...

Another important verse which carries that same instruction, Exodus 13:7: You shall eat Matzah for seven days and you shall not see unleavened-bread; and you shall not see sourdough within your entire border. This particular verse, I believe, was part of the original J text (it pretty much duplicates the previous E verse). The JE redactor (JER) saw no need to create a separate J account of how the law of Matzah came into being and instead dropped this J verse in the middle of the E account. This provides a precedent in both J and E to the law of Matzah. The precedence of the Matzah law is stated clearly "asher tsiwithichah" (=that I have commanded you) in both the J and E version of the Ten Articles (Ex 34:18 and Ex 23:15). It implies that the command to eat Matzah is not novel to the Ten Articles; it had already been mentioned previously in the text and that is Ex 13:7 for J and Ex 13:6 for E.

Firstborn of Oxen and Sheep and Firstboen of Humans (in J)

This is the other clause that is sandwhiched in betwen the three festivals in the J text of Exodus 34; I should say it is the only clause, now that we have concluded that the Sabbath clause talks about the Passover festival. The question is how exactly is the donation of the firstborn related to Passover? We will start with Exodus 12 & 13. Exodus 12 & 13 contain a series of proto-Israel for-generation commands and they are attributed to the E source (if they are not E, they are J; they are definitely extremely old and they don't fit the profile of P).

Ex 12:24 You shall observe this thing for an ordinance to you and to your sons forever. It shall happen when you have come to the land which Yahweh will give you, according as he has promised, that you shall keep this service.

It will happen, when your children ask you, `What do you mean by this service?` that you shall say, `It is the sacrifice of Yahweh`s Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians, and spared our houses.`

Ex 13:3 Moses said to the people, Remember this day, in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand Yahweh brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. This day you go forth in the month Abib.

It shall be, when Yahweh shall bring you into the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to Yahweh. Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and no leavened bread shall be seen with you, neither shall there be yeast seen with you, in all your borders.

You shall tell your son in that day, saying, `It is because of that which Yahweh did for me when I came forth out of Egypt.` It shall be for a sign to you on your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the law of Yahweh may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand Yahweh has brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year.

It shall be, when Yahweh shall bring you into the land of the Canaanite, as he swore to you and to your fathers, and shall give it you, that you shall set apart to Yahweh all that opens the womb, and every firstborn which you have that comes from an animal. The males shall be Yahweh`s. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb; and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck; and you shall redeem all the firstborn of man among your sons.

It shall be, when your son asks you in time to come, saying, `What is this?` that you shall tell him, `By strength of hand Yahweh brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage; and it happened, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that Yahweh killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of animal. Therefore I sacrifice to Yahweh all that opens the womb, being males; but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.` It shall be for a sign on your hand, and for symbols between your eyes: for by strength of hand Yahweh brought us forth out of Egypt.

Note how I divided these accounts into seven sections:

1A - Observance of the Pesach 12:24
1B - Explanation of Pesach to son 12:25-27
2 - Moses' preamble to the people vs 13:3-4
3A - Law of Matzah vs 13:5-7
3B - Explanation of Matzah to son vs 13:8-10
4A- Law of Firstborn vs 13:11-13
4B - Explanation of Firstborn to son vs 13:14-16

1A - Observance of Passover Sacrifice. This command does not tell us to offer a sacrifice to God named Pesach. Rather, it tells us HOW to offer our sacrifices to God. The fact that we will be bringing sacrifices to Yahweh at regular intervals during the year or on occasion depending on our economic status is assumed because animal sacrifices were virtually the only form of worship available in those days. What E is commanding us here is the form of worship: It explains that the blood of the sacrifice shall be placed on the lintel and doorpost of our homes and that we are not to depart our homes on the night of the offering. When shall we offer up this sacrifice ("Zebach")? It does not say! Do these rules apply to all sacrifices? Yes, That is precisely the point! Whenever we offer a sacrifice to yahweh, this procedure should be followed.

1B - Pesach. We are to explain the son that Israelite sacrifices our called "Passover" becasue Yahweh hopped over our houses when he smote the Egyptian firstborn. Again, we are not supplying a reason for offering sacrifices in general; this is self understood. Rather we are explaining to him why the sacrifice is carried out in this paricular way.

2 - Preamble. Moses is about to introduce two laws to Israel, the law of Matzah and the law of Firstborn. Of these, only the law of Matzah is time-specific to the month of "Abib". Therefore, he frist reminds the people that they are currently in the month of Abib and then he mentions the Matzah law FIRST which is specific to the month of Abib and tells the people to remember to perform Matzah in the Abib month annually.

3 - Matzah. The Law of Matzah is described here as applying to a seven-day period in the month of Abib. It also says that the seventh day of the Matzah observance is also a festival day. "Festival" or "feast" in biblical literature (Chag) always means the sacrifice of an animal. It does not specify when precisely to start the seven-day Matzah festival if we assume that "chodesh" means month. There is a possibility, though, that Chodesh here means new-moon and so the seven days start at the new moon in the Abib season.

4 - Firstborn. The Firstborn law is not time-specific. In 3A (13:5) it says "you shall work this work in this month" but the firstborn law is not applied to any specifc time. This suggests that all firstborn, regardless of when they are born, shall be offered up to yahweh in due time. And so if a cow gives birth immediately following one's return from temple, he could wait until his next temple journey to offer up the firstborn to yahweh.

In what way does the firstborn belong to Yahweh? This is not specified in any JE literature but it is explained in D (Deutoronomy 5:19). It says that we should sanctify the firstborn to yahweh and eat it before yahweh on an annual basis. In P (Numbers 18:15-18) it is explained that the Firstborn is to be sacrificed in the temple, the blood and sacrifice brought up on the altar to yahweh, and the flesh given to the priests. This contradicts D who says "you shall eat it", not the priest. Most likely, the JE concept of Firstborn was a mix between the two. Some parts of the animal were given to the priest and some were eaten by the owner. It is even possible that D does not mean that the owner should eat everything and P does not mean that the priest should eat everything and so there is no disagreement between the sources.

The question now remains: Does the firstborn offering fit the bill of the Passover sacrifice? Absolutely! Recall that the Passover sacrifice mentioned in Exodus 12:24-27 is NOT time-specific. It describes the rules of sacrifices in general and so these rules apply to firsborn sacrifices as well. Furthermore, there is no mention anywhere in JE as to the profile of feastly sacrifices in general (Zebach chag) and the Pesach in particular. And so it is entirely possible that the sacrifice of the Matzah festival (commonly called Pesach) as well as the feastly sacrifices of the other two annual festivals were intended to be firstborns.

This explains very well why the law of firstborn animals mentioned in the Ten Articles is listed right after the Law of the Matzah festival. This is because the firstborn sacrifice is part and parcel of the Matzah festival; it is the firstborn that is offered up as a "passover" sacrifice to yahweh. This also very neatly explains why article 8 (not to leave the passover sacrifice until the morning) is not mentioned until after J finished enumerating all three festivals. This is because all three sacrifices are called Passover, not just the Matzah festival sacrifice. Lastly we now understand that J and E do not differ in their concept of article 8. In E it says "The fat of my feast shall not be left over until the morning" not mentioning what kind of feast. If this applies to any feast, then according to the traditional distinction between Pesach and a general sacrifice, E article 8 is much broader than the J article 8 and almost contravenes it. But according to our explanation, there is no difference between a passover sacrifice and a general sacrifice. All sacrifices are called Passover and they all come from firstborns, if available.

Commentary on Article Five In plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest: You shall observe a septuple feast with the first-fruits of wheat harvest.

You immediately notice that I have taken the phrase "In plowing time and in harvest time you shall rest" and removed it from the end of the previous verse and instead appended it to the beginning of a new verse. This, however, is an obvious corollary to our previous comclusion that this phrase talks about the seasonal festivals of Shavuoth and Sukkoth and NOT the prohibited works of the Sabbath.

What might surprise you even more is the translation of the word "Shabuoth". It is commonly understood to mean "weeks" and it is almost certain that this was the understanding of P (Numbers 23:15) and D (Deut 16:9). But there are some serious problems with this interpretation.

1. It does not specify how many weeks. It is like calling the Pesach festival, a festival of months instead of a festival of Abib. That would not give us any idea at all as to when to celebrate the festival and neither does the term "festival of weeks".

2. All the other festivals in both J and E Ten Articles are described by adjectives preceded by "the": The Festival of Matzah, The Festival of Gathering, The Festival of Harvest. This is the only festival that omits the Hebrew letter He which means "the".

3. It is the only festival, named differently by J and E. Festival of Unleaveaned-Bread and Festival of Gathering are agreed upon by both texts but this one is named Festival of Harvest by E and Festival of Weeks by J. In fact, J itself associated it with the harvest season just a second ago "you shall rest in plowing time and in harvest time".

4. Moreover, it's not just a name difference. The very defintion of the Festival changes according to J. Take a look at the two versions of this article:

J: You shall make a festival of weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.
E: You shall keep the festival of harvest of the firstfruits of your work that you sow in the field.

In E, the festival is defined by the season of the firstfruit harvest just like the Festival of Gathering is defined by the season of gathering from the threshing floor and winery into the house. In J, the festival is defined by "weeks". We still don't know how many weeks and exactly how to count them but we know that it is defined by counting a number weeks from a fixed point in time. This stands in stark contrast the E definiton that this festival is just another seasonal festival that depends directly on the season.

Therefore, I a proposing that an error occured over the generations in the understanding and perhaps even in the spelling and pronunciation of the Hebrew term "Shabuoth". It originally was intended to mean not "weeks" but simply an entity that consists of seven units. The English word for this is "septuple". The Hebrew pronunciation of this word would have been "Shibe'ath". "Chag Shibe'ath" would thus be translated as "seven day feast". This festival would thus be very similar in structure to the Matzah festival held in the month of Abib: it lasts for seven days, the feast day (sacrifice of the animal) is on the seventh day and the first six days are celebrated with consumption of Matzah or Firstfruits of Wheat. What is the name of this festival? That is not given!

* This explains why there is no "he" preceding Shibe'ath. That's because Shibe'ath is NOT a proper name.

* It explains how the names of J and E are really compatible. The proper name is Festival of Harvest in both accounts but the J account omits this detail, even though it does hint at it by mentioning the word "harvest" in its description and in the introductory clause "you shall rest in plowing time and in harvest time.

* There is no counting towards the festival and there are no weeks involved according to both J and E. This is a seasonal festival just like the others.

How did this meaning come to be distorted over the ages? Simple! J and E material was codified (or atleast had begun to be codified) at the tribal age of Israel circa 900 BCE or earlier. Tribes in those days were entities unto themselves and there is even a very plausible possibility that not all tribes honored the Tabernacle of Shilo exclusively. Even if they did all sacrifice in Shiloh only, there couldn't have been too much coordination among them as to the timing of national festivals. Thus, Harvest season or Gathering season for one tribe does not necessarilly cooincide with that of another tribe. And so they would wind up all celebrating a seven-day feasts in Abib and in Harvest but not at the same time. This explains how it is possible for such a divergence of practice to exist without there being an clear consensus as to how to date the Harvest festival. After, the dissolution of the northern kingdom, perhaps as late as 650 BCE, the issue could have been taken up by the Judean priests (who took on the reponsibilities of the second temple scribe/rabbi as well) and they decided to count seven weeks from the start of the grain harvest season (month of Iyar/Ziv). Even this counting system was not agreed upon by both P and D. In P, the count is made from the morrow of Sabbath (Leviticus 23:15) and in D the count is made from the start of applying the sickle to the standing grain (Deut 16:9).

Finally, I would like to point out another difference between the P and D description of Shavuoth. Accroding to P we are to count seven "sabbaths" and according to D we are to count seven weeks. Is it possible that in the P tradition, the J text (Ex 34:22) read shin/beth/taw and not the Masoretic spelling of shin/beth/ayin/taw? Perhaps! that would neatly explain why they preferred to use the term Sabbath instead of the simpler term "Shabuah" meaning week.

Article Six Commentary. "And (you shall make) the feast of Gathering at the year`s end". According to our aforementioned understanding of the term Shabuoth, the question here is: is J implying that the Gathering Festival is not held for seven days like the previous two? This is uncertain! Even though it would seem at first glance that this is the case, it doesn't have to be this way. It could be understood either way and I will therefore not discuss this matter further at this point.

Article Seven Commentray. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread. Rabbinic opinion that Matzah only applies to Passover would be hard-pressed at the wording of this article. It does not mention Passover; it says that no sacrifice (of any of the three festivals) may be eaten with UB. According to our position that there are no major differnces among the three festivals, this article is properly worded and is meant literally: no sacrifice, even a sacrifice not related to the three festivals, may be offered up and eaten with UB.