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The text describing the Sabbath ceremonies -- as found at Masada -- is definitely not in the
same context as is the composite text recorded on Scroll 4Q403 (a Qumran document).

It is ultimately obvious that the Masada Fragment (which provides liturgical detail lead-
ing up to the 7th Sabbath) contains the theme of an originally written document. The respective
original document seems to have pertained to only a cycle of 7-weeks (not the theme of a count of
13 weeks).

The Qumran text -- which includes the fuller-count of 13 Sabbaths -- must therefore repre-
sent an edition of a more original document (a document which is most correctly represented by
the Masada Fragment). Thus, the Qumran version of The Song of the Sabbath Sacrifice may
represent the compilation of two or more existing documents. The Qumran version may also repre-
sent an earlier written document inserted into newly fabricated material.

It then ultimately seems rather evident -- even from the Dead Sea Scroll library that early
mainstream Jews might have once used a calendar which consisted of lunar-based weeks.

Apparently, late in the Second-Temple Era, an annual calendar of 52 Sabbaths was in-
vented, and this version of the Sabbath was advocated (or observed) by -- at least -- the residents
of Qumran (as also previously cited).

It is then of large significance that two different definitions for the Sabbath week can be
identified from the Second-Temple literature. One of these Sabbath definitions concerns a "full"
and "complete" (or perfect) count of the week. This definition can be found in the original language
of the Bible Book of Leviticus:

"From the day after the Sabbath...count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the
day after the seventh Sabbath... ". (NIV text of Leviticus 23:15-16).

The Hebrew word used in Leviticus, Chapter 23:15 to describe this "full" count of weeks
is: "tamiym" (which means: complete, whole, entire, sound). In translating this passage, the Inter-
linear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament (by Kohlenberger) uses this expression:

"...7 weeks full-ones they must be..." (extracted from verse 15).

A distinction between the two types of Sabbath weeks can be recognized from the Hagigah
Tractate (section 17a) of The Babylonian Talmud -- where in a note to that section, the translator,
Rabbi Abrahams stated,

"...the Sadducees [a group of Jewish philosophers which flourished in and before the
First Century]...understood the word 'Sabbath' in Leviticus 23:11,15 literally...".

It is noteworthy that the Sadducees were comprised largely of the priest-class. As per Jo-
sephus, the doctrine held by the Sadducees was not popular among mainstream Jewish society
(who were more closely aligned with the party of the Pharisees).

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