are the natural times for festivals. The modern practice of assigning observance dates based on economic or agricultural cadences rather than historical chronology is also the norm with ancient holy dates. And this is demonstrably the case with the narrative dates in the Pentateuch. In the remainder of this chapter, we will look at evidence that the Pentateuch never expects its readers to take its twenty-one event dates as their original occurrence dates. Then, in the next chapter, we will look at