Editing Hebrew calendar (section)

==== Historicity ====
It has been noted that the procedures described in the Mishnah and Tosefta are all plausible procedures for regulating an empirical lunar calendar.{{sfn| Stern|2001|loc=pp. 162ff.}} Fire-signals, for example, or smoke-signals, are known from the pre-exilic Lachish ostraca.<ref>James B. Pritchard, ed., ''The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures'', Vol. 1, Princeton University Press, p. 213.</ref> Furthermore, the Mishnah contains laws that reflect the uncertainties of an empirical calendar. Mishnah Sanhedrin, for example, holds that when one witness holds that an event took place on a certain day of the month, and another that the same event took place on the following day, their testimony can be held to agree, since the length of the preceding month was uncertain.<ref>Mishnah ''Sanhedrin'' 5:3: "If one testifies, 'on the second of the month, and the other, 'on the third of the month:' their evidence is valid, for one may have been aware of the intercalation of the month and the other may not have been aware of it. But if one says, 'on the third', and the other 'on the fifth', their evidence is invalid."</ref> Another Mishnah takes it for granted that it cannot be known in advance whether a year's lease is for twelve or thirteen months.<ref>Mishnah ''Baba Metzia'' 8:8.</ref> Hence it is a reasonable conclusion that the Mishnaic calendar was actually used in the Mishnaic period.

The accuracy of the Mishnah's claim that the Mishnaic calendar was also used in the late [[Second Temple of Jerusalem|Second Temple]] period is less certain. One scholar has noted that there are no laws from Second Temple period sources that indicate any doubts about the length of a month or of a year. This led him to propose that the priests must have had some form of computed calendar or calendrical rules that allowed them to know in advance whether a month would have 30 or 29 days, and whether a year would have 12 or 13 months.<ref>Gandz, Solomon. "Studies in the Hebrew Calendar: II. The origin of the Two New Moon Days", ''Jewish Quarterly Review'' (New Series), 40(2), 1949–50. {{JSTOR|1452961}}. {{doi|10.2307/1452961}}. Reprinted in Shlomo Sternberg, ed., ''Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics by Solomon Gandz'', KTAV, New York, 1970, pp. 72–73.</ref>