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Calendar manual with distinctive Palestinian calendar traditions, such as the rule of 641–642. Defers to Babylonian calendar rules, in a way that is inconsistent and calendrically impossible. The outcome is a flawed manual that could never have been used. This text confirms that Palestinian calendar rules were preserved for well over a century after the controversy of 921/2. It also provides us, for the first time ever, with explicit evidence of a different version of the Four Gates, based on the month of Nisan. The manuscript can be dated by its script to the late eleventh or early twelfth centuries.93 The text begins on the first folio, and appears to finish at the bottom of the second; thus the manual appears to be preserved completely.

This manuscript, T-S Ar. 29.190 fol. 9, contains the first part of Palestinian Calendar Manual 1, of which the other text witness is T-S Ar. 29.129. Provides minimal information on the calendar, perhaps intended as a aid for those who were already knowledgable about calendar calculations. It consists of a discontinuous bi-folio, each side written in a different hand. Our text, on the recto right side only, marks a new beginning, following a blank page on its verso. The manuscript is tidy and well produced.

This manuscript, T-S Ar 29.129, contains the first part of Palestinian Calendar Manual 1. It provides as much information as is needed for an individual to calculate and construct the calendar of any year. This manual is attested in two manuscripts, T-S Ar 29.129 (here) and T-S Ar. 29.190 fol. 9. The scribes took the liberty to word it the two manuscripts in their own ways, possibly because the calendar data needed to be updated to the scribe’s own year. It is part of a set of Jewish calendar manuals dating from the eleventh and early twelfth centuries that display a number of Palestinian calendrical features, and in particular, the rule of 641–642 with led ben Meir to his controversy with the Babylonians in 921/2. These manuals demonstrate that the controversy of 921/2 did not end in a Babylonian victory; the Palestinians, or those who affiliated with this tradition, upheld and used the calendar of ben Meir for almost two centuries after the controversy.

Provides minimal information on the calendar. Perhaps intended as a aid for those who were already knowledgable about calendar calculations. Includes the Palestinian calendar rule of 641–642 and treats it as normative. Given its practical orientation, this manual provides strong evidence that the calendar of ben Meir was in use for a long time after the controversy of 921/2CE.