4Q502 a New Year Festival?

Abstract

In 1982 M. Baillet entitled his publication of 4Q502 Rituel de manage (DJD 7.81-105). The interpretation of these fragments as a liturgy for a marriage has generally, although not universally, been accepted.' J.M. Baumgarten has advanced the most plausible alternative to Baillet's identification, arguing that the text is a Golden In this article will argue that 4Q502 should be understood as neither a marriage nor a Golden Age ritual. Rather, 4Q502 is more probably a New Year ritual marking the beginning of Nisan. 4Q502 is comprised of 344 fragments, many containing only a word or part of a word. Baillet himself is unsure if all of these fragments belong to a single unified text: On ne peut garantir l'appartenance de tous les fragments.2 The most complete fragments (1-14) have been joined to make four textual fragments: none of these I texts contains a single completely preserved line. There are five Group II fragments (16-21); three Group IH fragments (22-24); and the remainder of the fragments Baillet labels as Other. The fragmentary nature of the text, combined with its highly unusual content, make the continuing disagreements on its identification unsurprising. The primary arguments for identifying 4Q502 as a mariage are: