“... THE DAY THAT THE OMER WAS OFFERED Scripture mandates that the omer of the first produce be offered “on the day after the Sabbath.” Onkelos replaces “the Sabbath” with “the holiday.” [...] Verse 11, mandating that the sheaf of the first fruits be offered “on the day after the Sabbath,” was one of the principal contentious passages that divided the two groups. The word “Sabbath” is obscure. It could mean a time of resting, as the word Shabbaton in verse 39. If so, it could denote the weekly Sabbath or one of the annual festivals. The Sadducees insisted that “Sabbath” means “the Sabbath” and offered the sheaf on “the day after,” which was Sunday. The Oral Torah, conversely, interpreted the “Sabbath” as the festival. This view is reflected in all of the Targums, Sifra, and the Babylonian Talmud, Menachot 65a, b. The Septuagint is similar: “on the morrow of the first day [that is, the day after the first day of the festival].” The interpretation of this verse is important not only in identifying when the sheaf of the first fruits is offered but the date of the holiday of Shavuot, which occurs on the fiftieth day, seven full weeks, after the day the sheaves were offered. The Sadducees celebrated Shavuot fifty days after the Sunday, and their holiday therefore always occurred on a Sunday. In contrast, the Pharisees’ Shavuot occurred fifty days after the first day of Passover (their understanding of the “Sabbath”) and this resulted in Shavuot occurring on different days of the week, although always on the same date, in contrast to the Sadducees’ annually changing observance. ...”