ARIEL STONE

applied Torah law incorrectly; for, according to the Karaites , their interpretations had led the Rabbanites away form the original intent of the sacred texts. Anan is quoted as explaining:

The religion of my brother employs a calendar based upon calculation of the time of the new moon and intercalation of leap years by cycles, whereas mine depends upon actual observation of the new moon, and intercalation regulated by the ripening of new grain.’

By rejecting Rabbanite mathematical calculation of the month and demanding actual, ritually witnessed observation of each new moon, with data regarding leap-year adjustments dependent on word from Eretz Yisrael, the Karaites held that they were restoring the calendar to its proper biblical form.

Another calendrical divergence from Rabbanism concerned the date of Shavuot : the text of Vayikra 23.15-16 specifies that on the first day of Pesach

You shall count unto you from the morrow after the day of rest, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the waving; seven weeks shall there be complete; even unto the morrow after the seventh week shall you number fifty days; and you shall present a new meal offering unto the Lord.

We are to count the“morrow after the day of rest,” seven full shabbatot, and on the day that is“the morrow after the seventh week” we are to observe Shavuot . The argument is over whether the term“shabbat” is to be understood as meaning“week,” as the Rabbanites understood it; counting seven weeks from the first day of Pesach and the day after the seven weeks, or the fiftieth day, was declared to be the festival of Shavuot . For the Karaites Shabbat

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