Author: Frank W. Nelte Date: July 1996 THE JEWISH CALENDAR AND GOD'S HOLY DAYS ======================================= CONTENTS ======== Some Basic Terms . . . . . p 3 The Questions To Address . . . . p 5 Some Background To The Roman Calendar . . . p 6 Some Basics Of Astronomy . . . . p 8 The Equinox As Expressed In The Julian Calendar . . p 10 If The Leap Years Had Not Been Changed In 255 A.D. . p 15 The Calculation Of The Jewish Calendar . . . p 17 The Rules Of Postponement . . . . p 20 Are These Rules Of Postponement Really Valid? . . p 22 "The Crucifixion Was Not On Friday" by Herman L. Hoeh . p 27 "Calculating the Passover in 31 A.D." by Herman L. Hoeh . p 42 Consider The Observance Of Other Days By The Jews . p 46 The Postponement Rule Creates A Flaw In The Calendar . p 48 A Preparation Day . . . . . p 50 Calendars In The Bible . . . . . p 54 Noah In The Ark . . . . . . p 56 There Is No "Sacred" Calendar Today! . . . p 60 The Weaknesses In The Hebrew Calendar . . . p 61 The Origin Of The Jewish Calendar . . . p 67 The Witness Of Jewish Authorities . . . p 69 The Present Jewish Calendar . . . . p 73 The Next 19-Year Cycle . . . . . p 79 Do We Have A Bias? . . . . . p 81 If Hillel II Had Been A Farmer And Had Owned A Computer . p 81 Should We Use A Fixed Calendar? . . . . p 83 Two New Moon Days Or Just One? . . . . p 86 The Hebrew Calendar Article by Herman L. Hoeh . . p 88 "God's Sacred Calendar" by Stephen Flurry . . p 95 "Questions And Answers" by Jim Franks . . . p 97 "The Hebrew Calendar For UCG?" by Robert Boraker . p 101 "The Calendar YAH Gave To Moses" by Herbert Solinsky . p 104 "What's Wrong With The Calendar?" by Harold Hemenway . p 108 "Whose Calendar ... ?" by John Trescott . . . p 110 Are There Really 19-Year Cycles? . . . p 111 How Accurate Is The Jewish Calendar? . . . p 112 How Far Back Does The Jewish Calendar Go? . . p 113 What Are The Biblical Requirements For A Calendar? . p 114 Why The Molad Of Tishri Is Calculated . . . p 115 Did God "Give" Moses A Calendar? . . . p 116 A Fixed Calendar Or One Based On Observation? . . p 116 So Should We Use The Jewish Calendar Or Some Other One? . p 118 Should We Apply The Same Sequence Of Leap Years? . p 119 Should We Accept The Postponement Rules? . . p 119 The "Jewish Calendar" Computer Program "Calendar.exe" . p 123 "Men And Brethren, What Shall We Do?" . . . p 130 {NOTE: The page numbers are only approximate. They are based on A4 size paper and Courier 10 cpi font. A change in paper size, in the margin size and in fonts will result in different page numbers for these sections.} Author: Frank W. Nelte Date: July 1996 THE JEWISH CALENDAR AND GOD'S HOLY DAYS ======================================= The Church of God observes God's annual Holy Days as they are listed in Leviticus chapter 23. Towards this end we have always utilized the Jewish calendar in determining when these days are to be kept. This was decided by Mr. Armstrong as far back as 1940 or so. In recent times various groups and individuals have challenged the use of the Jewish calendar for the purpose of establishing the annual Holy Days. Quite a number of people have by now written articles for or against the use of the Jewish calendar. WHAT IS THE TRUTH? Does God want us to use the Jewish calendar or not? Several people have sent booklets and articles to me for comments. I was at first reluctant to go into this matter of the calendar. For one thing, I have been quite comfortable with the calendar as it is. But even more so, I realized that to do the question justice would require A GREAT DEAL of work! I would have to examine the writings of many different authors, as well as different source documents. It would be very time-consuming to do all the necessary research. I have now spent well over a month in researching fairly thoroughly into the Jewish calendar and the Holy Days. Amongst others, I have carefully studied all of the following material: 1) "The Calendar Yah Gave To Moses" by Herbert Solinsky and Rob Anderson, preliminary edition, 1982 2) "Whose Calendar -- God's Or The Jews'?" by John W. Trescott 3) "What's Wrong With The Calendar?" by Harold Hemenway 4) "The Hebrew Calendar -- Authoritative for God's Church Today!" by Herman L. Hoeh, Good News Magazine, April 1981 5) "The Crucifixion Was Not On Friday" by Herman L. Hoeh 6) "Questions and answers on the Hebrew calendar" by Jim Franks, IN-Transition newspaper, April 22, 1996 7) "Is the Hebrew Calendar Authoritative for UCG Today?" by Robert Boraker 8) "God's Sacred Calendar" by Stephen Flurry and Mark Nash, The Philadelphia Trumpet, April 1996 9) "Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics" by Solomon Gandz; Introduction by Shlomo Sternberg, KTAV Publishing House Inc. New York, 1970 10) "Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. - A.D. 75" by Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein, Brown University Press, Providence, Rhode Island, 1956 11) "Elements of the Jewish and Muhammadan Calendars, with Rules and Tables and Explanatory Notes on the Julian and Gregorian Calendars" by Sherrard Beaumont Burnaby, London, George Bell & Sons, 1901. In addition I have also checked The Encyclopedia Britannica, The Jewish Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Judaica, Groliers Encyclopedia and Microsoft Encarta 96 Encyclopedia for various topics. I have also spent quite a number of hours going through sections of two different editions of The Babylonian Talmud, one published by The Soncino Press in London in 1948, and the other published by the New Talmud Publishing Company, New York in 1897. Several of the above are reference works which provide factual information, without being concerned about the dispute amongst some of the people of God about the validity of the Jewish calendar. Others are booklets or articles written for the explicit purpose of either endorsing or else discrediting the use of the Jewish calendar. Those authors that endorse the unqualified use of the Jewish or Hebrew calendar basically refer back to the 1981 article by Dr. Hoeh and the line of reasoning presented in that article. Those authors that challenge the validity of the Jewish calendar express rather divergent views amongst themselves, though in a loose way they basically refer back to the article by Herbert Solinsky. As far as I am concerned, there are a number of things which are not addressed, or which are not really made clear in any of the articles I have mentioned above. There are some valid questions and they do require answers. In this article I will try to address and to clarify those things. SOME BASIC TERMS ---------------- A discussion of the calendar is by nature a rather technical subject. Towards that end I need to clarify a few terms before we go any further. 1) The entire discussion will be from the perspective of someone in the northern hemisphere. The fact that the seasons are reversed for us here in the southern hemisphere will never enter the discussion. 2) Thus the term "vernal equinox" is always used to refer to the spring equinox of the northern hemisphere, which is around March 21 at this present time. 3) The term "molad" refers to the invisible conjunction when the moon is exactly between the earth and the sun. The molad usually precedes the first faint visible crescent of the new moon by at least six to eight hours (and often by more than eight hours). 4) The term "leap year" when used with the Julian or Gregorian calendar refers to a year with 366 days in it. But when used with the Jewish year the term "leap year" refers to a year which has an extra month, i.e. a year with 13 months in it. 5) In the Jewish calendar a month may have 29 days or it may have 30 days. The 30th day is sometimes referred to as the "intercalated" day. A month with 30 days is said to be "full", while a month with only 29 days is said to be "defective". 6) Similarly, in a year with 13 months, the 13th month is also called the "intercalated" month. Such a Jewish leap year is also called "an embolismic year". 7) While we are accustomed to dividing an hour into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds (thus 3600 seconds per hour), in the Jewish way of calculating time an hour is divided into 1080 "halakim", often also referred to as 1080 "parts" (of an hour). This means that each "part" of an hour is exactly three and one- third seconds long. Since the calculation of the Jewish calendar utilizes this system of "hours" and "parts", I will also do so throughout this paper, as well as sometimes using the divisions into minutes and seconds. If in places you find this a little confusing, then try to keep in mind that 180 parts are equal to exactly 10 minutes, 360 parts are equal to 20 minutes, etc.. 8) We are dealing with THREE different calendars. Today we use the "Gregorian calendar", which was introduced in Europe in 1582 A.D., though it was not accepted by some countries until several centuries later. Before then the "Julian calendar" was in general use in Europe. The Julian calendar employs a 4-year cycle, where 3 successive years have 365 days each, and the fourth year has 366 days. The Gregorian calendar follows a 400-year cycle, which incorporates the exact same cycles of the Julian calendar; the only difference being that full centuries not divisible by 400 are NOT leap years. Thus, since its inception the years 1700 A.D., 1800 A.D. and 1900 A.D. were NOT leap years. A 400-year Gregorian cycle is 3 days shorter than a period of 400 Julian years. Ancient dates are usually given in terms of the Julian calendar, rather than according to the Gregorian calendar, which did not exist prior to 1582. That is an established practice followed by historians and researchers into the past. People who have access to the computer programs which calculate all the Holy Days for any past or future year need to keep this in mind. For example, the program "HD.EXE", copyrighted by Ambassador College in 1988- 1989, will display the Holy Days for the year 4 B.C. according to the Julian calendar, and not according to the Gregorian calendar we use today (though it is able to print out the equivalent Gregorian calendar for any given year). Then there is the Hebrew calendar which is based on a 19-year cycle. Such a cycle consists of 235 lunar months, structured into exactly 19 solar years. Thus 12 of those years have 12 months each and the remaining 7 years have 13 months each. It is according to this calendar that the Holy Days are calculated. Once that has been done, then the dates thus established are expressed in terms of our Gregorian calendar. I have used the terms "Jewish calendar" and "Hebrew calendar" interchangeably. 9) For calendar purposes days start and end at 6:00 P.M.. The days are numbered from 1 to 7, with Sunday being Day 1, Monday being Day 2 ... and Saturday being Day 7. Using the abbreviations "D" for Day, "H" for Hour and "P" for parts, we would, for example, express 11:30 P.M. on a Saturday evening as: D1 H5 P540, since the Day Sunday is reckoned as having started at 6:00 P.M. on Saturday evening. When we speak about an amount of time, then we simply use the abbreviations AFTER the number instead of before it. Thus, if we wish to express a period of time equal to 3 Days and 4 Hours and 15 Minutes, then we express this as: 3D 4H 270P. In calculations such amounts of time are frequently expressed in their lowest common denominator, i.e. in Parts. Thus 3D 4H 270P would also be expressed as: (3*24*1080) + (4*1080) + 270 = 82350P. THE QUESTIONS TO ADDRESS ------------------------ As a result of the articles that challenge the validity of the Jewish calendar a number of questions need to be addressed. They include the following: 1) Is it right before God to use a fixed calendar to determine when the Holy Days should be observed ... or does God expect us to determine the beginning of each month by visually observing that first faint crescent of the new moon? 2) If it is right or acceptable to God that we use a fixed calendar, should we use the calculations which are used to compute the Jewish calendar ... or should we use some other method for calculating new moons? 3) If it is right to use the Jewish computations for the calendar, should we also follow the sequence of leap years which the Jewish calendar currently employs ... or should we follow a different sequence? 4) If the Jewish calculations used for establishing the time of the molad are acceptable before God, should we also accept all of the rules of postponement which result in the whole year sometimes starting one or two days later ... or should we accept only some of those rules ... or should we reject all of them? 5) Are the Jewish calculations actually accurate ... or is there a margin of error in those calculations? 6) Is there such a thing as "19-year cycles" ... or is there really nothing to this idea? And who originated the idea of 19- year cycles anyway ... the Jews or the Greeks? Is there any real importance to this concept of 19-year cycles? 7) How far back does the present Jewish calendar go? Have the Jews always used the calendar in the form in which it exists today ... or has the Jewish calendar been changed over the years? If it has been changed ... why was that done? 8) As regards a yearly calendar, exactly what things does the Bible show as absolutely essential components? How much flexibility does the calendar God wants us to use contain? 9) Is it proper to refer to the Jewish (or Hebrew) calendar as "sacred"? Is it correct to refer to it as "God's" calendar? These are a few of the questions we should look at with an open mind. If the Jewish calendar, as it stands today, is indeed the one God expects us to use, then that should become quite obvious as we study this whole subject in detail. SOME BACKGROUND TO THE ROMAN CALENDAR IN GENERAL USE TODAY ---------------------------------------------------------- Some background to our modern calendar may be helpful. Here is a brief account of how our calendar came about. According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21, 753 B.C. by Romulus and Remus. Romulus (supposedly) made the year to consist of 304 days, divided into 10 months of nearly equal length. Starting with the first month, they were: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December. {Much later Quintilis was changed to Julius and Sextilis was changed to Augustus.} The next king of Rome after Romulus, Numa Pompilius, added 2 months to the year. He added Januarius at the beginning of the year and Februarius to the end of the year. He made his 12 months to be lunar, consisting of alternately 30 days and 29 days. This made the year 354 days long, but in deference to the popular superstition that uneven numbers were more lucky, he added 1 more day. Thus his year was 355 days long. This was more than 10 days shorter than the true solar year. Therefore Numa (who knew the year was 365,25 days long) ordered that for every 8 years, 90 days should be intercalated as follows: - a month of 22 days was intercalated in every 2nd and 6th year; - a month of 23 days was intercalated in every 4th and 8th year. These intercalations were to be made between February 23rd and February 24th (very confusing!), thereby dividing February into two portions every second year. Thus 8 such years would amount to (8 * 355) + 90 = 2930 days, or 366,25 days per year. This is exactly 1 day too long per year. Therefore Numa ordered that in every 3rd period of 8 years (i.e. for 8 years out of every 24 years) there were to be only 3 intercalated months, and they were to be each 22 days long. Thus for 24 years there would be: 2930 + 2930 + 2906 = 8766 days divided by 24 = 365,25 days per year. A very laborious system indeed. These instructions were committed to the priests and they were to implement them correctly. In practice the priests manipulated this system for their own ends. In order to hasten annual elections (to get rid of an unpopular official) they would omit these intercalated months. In order to keep a popular official in office a bit longer they would arbitrarily add these intercalated months. It is not surprising that the calendar ended up in chaos. And so at the time of the Decemviri (a commission of legal experts instructed to gather and to publish the oral customs of Rome for the purpose of informing the common people), around 450 B.C., the number of days in the months was altered. January was retained as the first month of the year, but February was moved from last place to second place, right after January. This continued down to the time of Julius Caesar. By 46 B.C. the calendar was again in disarray. Therefore Julius Caesar instructed Sosigenes, an astronomer from Alexandria, to reform the calendar. He assumed the length of the year to be 365,25 days. For his calendar Sosigenes adopted the Egyptian year of 365 days, with the correction that every 4th year would have 366 days. The extra day was obtained by duplicating "dies sextus ante Kalendas Martias" (the 6th day before the Kalends of March), corresponding to February 24th. {You get the idea that February 24th was quite important to people back them.} Caesar agreed that the year should start with January 1, and it came into force on January 1 in 45 B.C.. He ordered that uneven months (more lucky!) should have 31 days and the others 30 days, except for February. February should have 29 days for 3 years and then 30 days for 1 year. Caesar Augustus, Julius' nephew, later gave the month August 31 days, taking 1 day away from February. Augustus also reduced September and November down to 30 days, instead giving October and December 31 days each (to avoid three 31-day months in a row ... July, August, September). That is basically the calendar we have today! Since the solar year is only 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds long, it means that this Julian year is 11 minutes and 14 seconds too long. This means that for every 128 years the Julian calendar is 1 whole day too long. And so in 1576 A.D. Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi (also called Aloysius Lilius) prepared a new calendar, but Luigi died before he could show it to the Pope. His brother then submitted it to Pope Gregory XIII, pointing out that for that year the equinox had moved away from March 21 (where it had been in 325 A.D. at the time of the Council of Nicea) and was at March 11. Pope Gregory responded quickly to the suggested reform. Thus in 1582 10 days were DROPPED from the calendar: Thursday October 4th was followed by Friday October 15th. Thereafter it was decreed that every full century not divisible by 400 should NOT be a leap year. This means that for every 400 years 3 days are dropped from the Julian calendar. And that's where we are today. Now the year is STILL 26 seconds too long. This amounts to 1 day in 3323 years ... nothing for us to worry about at this stage of human history. Now let's look at some basic facts of astronomy. SOME BASICS OF ASTRONOMY ------------------------ The earth revolves once around the sun in exactly 365 days and 5 hours and 48 minutes and 46 seconds (as mentioned above). The moon revolves once around the earth in exactly 29 days and 12 hours and 44 minutes and 2,8 seconds (i.e. to return to the exact same phase from our perspective here on earth). Let's look at a period of 19 years: 19 years of the Julian calendar = 6939,75 days; 19 solar years (earth's actual movements) = 6939,601782 days; 235 lunar months (moon's actual movements) = 6939,688171 days; 19 years of the Gregorian calendar = 6939,6075 days. In more familiar terms: The Julian calendar for 19 years is 3 hours 33 minutes 26 seconds too long, when compared to the earth's actual movements. The Gregorian calendar for 19 years is only 8 minutes 14 seconds too long, when compared to the earth's actual movements. Thus the Gregorian calendar is only 1 day too long for every 3323 years. Thus from the inception of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 A.D. this will only amount to 1 day by the year 4905 A.D. ... which need not concern us. 235 lunar months lie somewhere between the Julian figure and the correct figure for 19 solar years. These 235 lunar months are 1 hour and 29 minutes 2 seconds shorter than the Julian calendar ... but they are still 2 hours 4 minutes 24 seconds longer than 19 solar years. Over a period of only 19 years these differences can seem to be very negligible indeed. But over thousands of years they certainly add up. The Jewish calendar is based on the calculation that 235 lunar months are equal to 6939 days 16 hours 33 minutes 3,3 seconds, or 6939,689622 days. Thus: in the Jewish calculations 235 months are actually 2 minutes and 5,3 seconds longer than 235 actual lunar months. This means the Jewish calculations are 1 day too much for every 689,54 19-year cycles ... i.e. 1 day for every 13100 years! Clearly, the Jewish calculations are accurate enough, AS FAR AS CALCULATING LUNAR CYCLES IS CONCERNED (!) to not ever present a problem for the entire time which God has allotted to mankind! When it comes to comparing 19 Jewish years with 19 solar years, then we see the following: Over a period of 19 years the Jewish calendar is actually 1 hour 26 minutes 56,6 seconds MORE ACCURATE than the Julian calendar. BUT it is still 2 hours 6 minutes 29,3 seconds TOO LONG, when compared to the earth's actual movements. This means that the Jewish year is actually 1 full day too long for every 216,3 years. This means that there is a gradual shift in the seasons with the Jewish calendar! Currently the Jewish calendar is in the year 5756. This means that when you calculate the molad for the year 3761 B.C., then CALCULATIONS, which supposedly are based on the seasons, were actually OUT by 26,6 days! In plain English, for the years from 3761 B.C. the 19-year cycles of the Jewish calendar would have been 26 days earlier in relation to the equinox than they are today, if the calendar had never been changed at any time since then. This is not readily apparent when you look at a computer reading of the molad for the year 3761 B.C. ... because the Julian calendar was even further out than the Jewish year. If we take the Julian calendar in 325 A.D. as being the standard, then in the year 3761 B.C. the Julian calendar would have been out by 31,8 days from the year 325 A.D. ... whereas the Jewish calendar for the same period was out by only 18,8 days. The Julian calendar was out by 1 day every 128,18 years. This error in the Julian calendar has been rectified by the Gregorian calendar. It needs to be clearly understood that the Jewish calendar, if never altered, will produce A SEASONAL SHIFT in the Holy Days, IN REAL TERMS of 26 days over a period of 5623 years. Such a shift is almost equal to one full lunar month. This shift by the Jewish calendar away from the equinox has been known quite well for some time. For example, in 1886 A.D. Isidore Loeb published in Paris that the Jewish cycle in 19 years exceeds the Gregorian by 2 hours, 8 minutes and 15,3 seconds . This makes a difference in 1900 years (i.e. in 100 cycles) of 8 days, 21 hours, 45 minutes and 5 seconds (as published in "Tables du Calendrier Juif, page 6, Paris 1886). {COMMENT: The correct figure per cycle is actually 1 hour, 58 minutes and 15,3 seconds, exactly 10 minutes less (based on a 400 year Gregorian cycle and not on a 4000 year Gregorian cycle) than what Loeb stated.} The Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition, volume 4, page 678, article "calendar" also stated that the Jewish years will move away from the equinox by one day in 216 years. The Jewish Encyclopedia, copyright 1903, 1912, volume 3, page 500, article "Calendar, History of" makes exactly the same point. It states: "The assumed duration of the solar year is 6 minutes, 39,43 seconds in excess of the true astronomical value, which will cause the dates of the commencement of future Jewish years, which are so calculated, to advance from the equinox a day in error in 216 years." So it has been known for at least a century that the Jewish calendar is one day too long for every 216 years. As far as the seasons and the equinoxes are concerned, here is a quotation from the Encarta 96 Encyclopedia. "The two points at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator are called nodes or equinoxes. The sun is at the VERNAL EQUINOX about MARCH 21 and at the AUTUMNAL EQUINOX about SEPTEMBER 23. On the ecliptic, halfway between the equinoxes, are the summer and winter SOLSTICES. The sun arrives at these points about JUNE 21 and DECEMBER 22, respectively. The names of the four points correspond to THE SEASONS BEGINNING in the northern hemisphere ON THESE DATES. THE EQUINOXES ARE NOT FIXED, for the plane of the equator revolves in relation to the plane of the ecliptic. It makes a complete revolution once every 25,868 years. The movement of the equinoxes along the ecliptic is called the precession of the equinoxes. A correction for precession must be applied to celestial charts to find the true position of the stars at any given time." (Article "Ecliptic," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia) Thus, in general terms, we have the following situation: 1) SPRING: starts March 21; 92 days in length 2) SUMMER: starts June 21; 94 days in length 3) AUTUMN: starts September 23; 90 days in length 4) WINTER: starts December 22; 89-90 days in length This means that spring and summer together are 186 days long. By contrast, autumn and winter are only 179 days long (180 days in a Roman leap year). Make a careful note of this fact that there are 186 days from the spring equinox to the autumn equinox. We will come back to this fact later. THE EQUINOX AS EXPRESSED IN THE JULIAN CALENDAR ----------------------------------------------- In the year 325 A.D. the vernal equinox was about March 21. The Gregorian calendar of today has preserved this state of affairs, so that today the vernal equinox is still around March 21/22. The following table gives some indication of how the equinox has shifted, as expressed in terms of the JULIAN calendar. Keep in mind that, as far as the Gregorian calendar is concerned, the equinox is always on March 21. The table also shows the date of the latest Passover in that cycle, and how many days that was after the equinox. {For the dates of the Passovers I have ignored the postponement rules, because that distorts the true picture ... it would only make the Passovers look even later. Thus, if there was a 1-day postponement for Trumpets that year, then I have shown the Passover as 1 day earlier than your calendar program will tell you. If there was a 2-day postponement then I have shown the Passover as 2 days earlier than your program will tell you. This way the seasonal shift is more realistically reflected.} YEAR B.C. DATE OF EQUINOX LATEST PASSOVER DAYS AFTER EQUINOX 3754 April 21 May 9 18 3640 April 21 May 8 18 3526 April 20 May 8 18 3393 April 19 May 8 19 3260 April 18 May 7 19 3127 April 17 May 7 20 3013 April 16 May 6 20 2880 April 15 May 6 21 2747 April 14 May 5 21 2614 April 13 May 5 22 2500 April 12 May 4 22 2367 April 11 May 4 23 2234 April 10 May 4 24 2101 April 9 May 3 24 1987 April 8 May 3 25 1854 April 7 May 3 26 1721 April 6 May 2 26 1588 April 5 May 1 26 1474 April 4 May 2 28 1341 April 3 April 30 27 1208 April 2 April 30 28 1094 April 1 April 30 29 961 March 31 April 29 29 828 March 30 April 29 30 695 March 29 April 29 31 581 March 28 April 28 31 448 March 27 April 28 32 315 March 26 April 28 33 182 March 25 April 28 34 68 March 24 April 27 34 YEAR A.D. 66 March 23 April 26 34 199 March 22 April 26 35 333 March 21 April 15 25 NOTE! During cycle # 212 (the first year was 249 A.D.) the sequence of leap years was changed. This resulted in a shift back towards the equinox for those years that had been rather late. BUT it also resulted in the Feast of Tabernacles being shifted far too early in certain other years, as we will see in a moment. For example, in 265 A.D. the Feast of Tabernacles started on the evening of September 11 and the Last Great Day was on September 19 ... and that was a full four days before the equinox. This is shown in a later table. {COMMENT: In Dr. Hoeh's booklet about "The Crucifixion" you will find the date 142 A.D. given as the year in which the sequence of leap years was changed. Others have claimed this change took place in the 250's A.D. The indications are more likely that this change was the result of a Jewish scholar by the name of Mar Samuel, whom I will refer to later. At any rate, in one sense it makes no difference which year we select for the sequence to have been changed, as long as we are agreed that it was after 100 A.D. However, people who have produced computer programs to display the Holy Days for any past year have usually had to commit themselves to making the change for one specific year. I have done it somewhat differently. In the computer program that goes with this article YOU can select the sequence of leap years to be used for any past or future 19-year cycle. Therefore in our program it is without any consequence at all whether the sequence was changed in 142 A.D. or in 255 A.D. or only in 355 A.D.} YEAR A.D. DATE OF EQUINOX LATEST PASSOVER DAYS AFTER EQUINOX 447 March 20 April 15 26 580 March 19 April 13 25 713 March 18 April 13 26 846 March 17 April 13 27 960 March 16 April 12 27 1093 March 15 April 12 28 1226 March 14 April 12 29 1340 March 13 April 11 29 1473 March 12 April 11 30 1579 March 11 April 9 30 1606 March 21 April 21 31 1739 March 21 April 22 32 1872 March 21 April 21 31 2005 March 21 April 22 32 2252 March 21 April 23 33 2499 March 21 April 24 34 Now my point here is to show the very clear and definite drifting away from the equinoxes by the Passover. As mentioned in the quotation from Encarta 96, the equinoxes are not fixed; there is a certain amount of movement in their occurrences. Therefore I am not trying to present the above table as absolutely correct to the very day ... I readily grant that the dates I have given for the equinoxes may be out by a day here or there.It is the clear TREND which I would like to highlight. And that trend is NOT based on any speculations on my part ... it is a fact. And that trend is inherently built into the Jewish calendar by the very fact that a Jewish 19-year cycle is over two hours and six minutes longer than a 19-year solar cycle. Notice one other important fact! The Jewish calendar has always drifted AWAY FROM the vernal equinox towards a time LATER than the equinox. This drifting away is HIDDEN from the inception date of 3761 B.C. until 1582 A.D. simply because for that entire period of time the error in the Julian calendar was even greater! Therefore, IN TERMS OF THE JULIAN CALENDAR, it appeared as if the Jewish calendar was actually moving towards the equinox, when in fact it was ALSO moving away from the equinox all the time. It is for this purpose that the column "Days After Equinox" is helpful. And this drifting away from the equinox has only become readily apparent since the inception of the Gregorian calendar. So don't be mislead by the Passover dates APPARENTLY becoming earlier from 3761 B.C. until 1582 A.D.. In real terms throughout that entire period of time the Passover was becoming later. Now notice in the next table what has happened to the EARLIEST possible Feast of Tabernacles over the exact same period of time, in this case relative to the autumnal equinox. Again, I have ignored the postponements for the sake of giving a clearer picture of the steady progression that is involved, in this case from 18 days before the equinox right up to the time of the equinox ... only to be pushed back 10 days into summer again. We have today reached the point where this 10 day deficit has been reduced to only 4 days being in the summer for the year 2013 A.D. Notice ... YEAR B.C. DATE OF EQUINOX EARLIEST F.O.T. DAYS BEFORE EQUINOX 3746 OCT. 24 OCT. 6 18 3632 OCT. 23 OCT. 5 18 3518 OCT. 22 OCT. 5 17 3385 OCT. 21 OCT. 4 17 3252 OCT. 20 OCT. 4 16 3119 OCT. 19 OCT. 4 15 3005 OCT. 18 OCT. 3 15 2872 OCT. 17 OCT. 3 14 2739 OCT. 16 OCT. 2 14 2606 OCT. 15 OCT. 2 13 2492 OCT. 14 OCT. 1 13 2359 OCT. 13 OCT. 1 12 2226 OCT. 12 OCT. 1 11 2093 OCT. 11 SEP. 30 11 1979 OCT. 10 SEP. 30 10 1846 OCT. 9 SEP. 30 9 1713 OCT. 8 SEP. 29 9 1580 OCT. 7 SEP. 28 9 1466 OCT. 6 SEP. 29 7 1333 OCT. 5 SEP. 27 8 1200 OCT. 4 SEP. 27 7 1086 OCT. 3 SEP. 27 6 953 OCT. 2 SEP. 26 6 820 OCT. 1 SEP. 26 5 687 SEP. 30 SEP. 26 4 573 SEP. 29 SEP. 25 4 440 SEP. 28 SEP. 25 3 307 SEP. 27 SEP. 25 2 174 SEP. 26 SEP. 25 1 60 SEP. 25 SEP. 24 1 YEAR A.D. 74 SEP. 24 SEP. 23 1 207 SEP. 23 SEP. 23 0 341 SEP. 22 SEP. 12 10 NOTE! As already mentioned, during cycle # 212 (the first year was 249 A.D.) the sequence of leap years was changed. 455 SEP. 21 SEP. 12 9 588 SEP. 20 SEP. 10 10 721 SEP. 19 SEP. 10 9 854 SEP. 18 SEP. 10 8 968 SEP. 17 SEP. 9 8 1101 SEP. 16 SEP. 9 7 1234 SEP. 15 SEP. 9 6 1348 SEP. 14 SEP. 8 6 1481 SEP. 13 SEP. 8 5 1614 SEP. 23 SEP. 18 5 1747 SEP. 23 SEP. 19 4 1880 SEP. 23 SEP. 18 5 2013 SEP. 23 SEP. 19 4 2260 SEP. 23 SEP. 20 3 2507 SEP. 23 SEP. 22 1 So while the latest possible Passover was moving from 18 days after the equinox to 36 days after the equinox, in the same period of time the EARLIEST Feast of Tabernacles moved from 18 days BEFORE the autumnal equinox right up to the time of the equinox. This illustrates the extremes possible within a 19-year cycle. In general terms, when the latest Passover is only 18 days after the equinox, then the earliest F.O.T. in the same 19-year cycle will be about 18 days BEFORE the autumnal equinox. But when the latest possible Passover is 36 days after the spring equinox, then the earliest F.O.T. in the same 19-year cycle will be at about the autumnal equinox. Keep in mind that from Passover (Nisan 14) to the First Day of F.O.T. (Tishri 15) is exactly 178 days, whereas from the spring equinox on March 21 it is about 186 days to the autumn equinox at around September 23. This means that a Passover 4 days AFTER the vernal equinox results in a Feast of Tabernacles 4 days BEFORE the fall equinox. It follows that if you want to allow for the autumn harvest to have been completed before the Feast of Tabernacles, then the Passover should not be too close to the equinox. A LATER Passover puts the Feast of Tabernacles much more squarely into autumn. Notice one other point: just at the time when the cycles had progressed to the point where the earliest possible Feast of Tabernacles would start at the autumn equinox, the sequence of leap years was changed ... and even today, 1750 years after that change was made, we still have not again reached that point where the Feast will consistently start ON or AFTER the equinox, as it was (theoretically!) doing just before 250 A.D. This table, all by itself, conclusively proves that there is nothing inspired about the Jewish calendar. This calendar information which we have from the time of Hillel II makes clear that, had this calendar been in force since 3761 B.C., and even allowing for a different cycle of leap years before 255 A.D., then out of the past 303 full 19-year cycles there would have been no more than 3 or 4 cycles in which EVERY YEAR IN THAT CYCLE had the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles AFTER the autumn equinox. In fact, the cycles, during which according to this calendar for SOME years the ENTIRE Feast of Tabernacles fell BEFORE the equinox, collectively amount to over 3000 years! I don't think most people who argue that the Hebrew calendar is "sacred" or "inspired" grasp that for over 50% of human history every 19-year cycle would have at least once in each cycle had the ENTIRE Feast of Tabernacles take place before the autumn equinox ... if the present Jewish calendar (including the Pre- 255 sequence for dates before that time) had been adhered to. Based on the facts in the above table it seems to be self evident that the Jewish calendar, as we have it today, was NOT used from the time of Moses to the time of the New Testament. Yes, the information Hillel made public is fairly accurate ... but there is no way that his backward extrapolation to the molad of 3761 B.C. and then determining a sequence of leap years, which was supposedly adhered to, is based on reality. To illustrate the point: this calendar would have required Moses and/or Joshua in 1447 B.C. to have observed the Feast of Tabernacles from September 29 till October 5 and the Last Great Day on October 6 ... at a time when the equinox itself was still on October 6! So understand this: THE PROBLEM with this Jewish calendar does NOT lie in the way the molad is calculated. That is reasonably accurate and useful. The problem lies in deciding WHICH MOLAD in the year will be the molad of Tishri! In every cycle all those years which have had the Feast of Tabernacles start before the autumn equinox, for those years the next molad should really have been declared as the molad of Tishri. There is a way to achieve this, as I will explain later. But let's continue. IF THE SEQUENCE OF LEAP YEARS HAD NOT BEEN CHANGED IN 255 A.D. ------------------------------------------------------------- Now let's look at the figures for the same period of time but for the sequence of leap years as they had been before 255 A.D.. This is what that would have looked like (again ignoring the postponement rules) had Hillel II enforced the old sequence. LEAP YEAR SEQUENCE: 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18 YEAR A.D. DATE OF EQUINOX LATEST PASSOVER DAYS AFTER EQUINOX 332 March 21 April 25 35 446 March 20 April 25 36 579 March 19 April 25 37 712 March 18 April 24 37 845 March 17 April 24 38 959 March 16 April 24 39 1092 March 15 April 23 39 1225 March 14 April 23 40 1358 March 13 April 22 40 1491 March 12 April 22 41 1586 March 21 May 2 42 1738 March 21 May 2 42 1871 March 21 May 3 43 2004 March 21 May 3 43 2270 March 21 May 4 44 2498 March 21 May 5 45 And here is what this sequence of 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18 would look like as far as the EARLIEST F.O.T. in any cycle is concerned (without postponement rules): YEAR A.D. DATE OF EQUINOX EARLIEST F.O.T. DAYS AFTER THE EQUINOX 340 SEP. 22 SEP. 22 0 454 SEP. 21 SEP. 22 1 587 SEP. 20 SEP. 22 2 720 SEP. 19 SEP. 21 2 853 SEP. 18 SEP. 21 3 967 SEP. 17 SEP. 21 4 1100 SEP. 16 SEP. 20 4 1233 SEP. 15 SEP. 20 5 1366 SEP. 14 SEP. 19 5 1499 SEP. 13 SEP. 19 6 1594 SEP. 23 SEP. 29 6 1746 SEP. 23 SEP. 29 6 1879 SEP. 23 SEP. 30 7 2012 SEP. 23 SEP. 30 7 2270 SEP. 23 OCT. 1 8 2506 SEP. 23 OCT. 3 10 So with this particular sequence the latest possible Passover would have moved from 35 days after the equinox to 45 days after the equinox, while the earliest possible F.O.T. would have moved from right on the equinox to 10 days after the autumn equinox. As this clearly shows, IF this sequence had been maintained after 255 A.D., THEN the Feast of Tabernacles would ALWAYS have remained fully AFTER the autumn equinox. However, by around 1500 A.D. to 1700 A.D. the earliest F.O.T. would have been later after the autumn equinox than it needed to have been. Thus a change in the sequence of leap years was NOT needed in 250 A.D. ... such a change would only have become desirable from around 1500 A.D. onwards. It is the shift of 1 day in every 216,3 years that makes such a change necessary. THE CALCULATION OF THE JEWISH CALENDAR -------------------------------------- The fixing of any Jewish year consists of the following steps: 1) Based on certain established data the molad for the month of Tishri is calculated. 2) Once the molad of Tishri is known, then this date is checked against all the accepted postponement rules to see whether that day should become the Feast of Trumpets, or whether the Feast of Trumpets needs to be postponed by one or possibly by two days. 3) Once the day for the Feast of Trumpets has been established, then the other Holy Days for the year can be calculated. 4) Since a year can have one of six possible lengths (353, 354, 355, 383, 384 or 385 days), therefore the molad of Tishri for the next year must also be calculated and evaluated against the postponement rules. Only once the date for the next Feast of Trumpets has also been firmly fixed is the length of the present year known. Only then is the length of Heshvan (the 8th month) and Kislev (the 9th month) fixed for the year under consideration. If the year is "perfect" (355 or 385 days), then both these months receive 30 days each. If the year is "defective" (353 or 383 days), then both these months receive 29 days each. If the year is "regular" (354 or 384 days), then Heshvan receives 29 days and Kislev receives 30 days. When a year requires a 13th month, then an extra month of 30 days is inserted between the 11th month (Shevat) and the 12th month (Adar). Many people think that in a Jewish leap year a 13th month is simply added to the end of the year. But that is not so! The ancient book "AL-BIRUNI, ATHAR-UL-BAKIYA" which was written in about A.D. 1000, and for which the English translation of the MS was made by Dr. C. E. Sachau, under the title "The Chronology of the Ancient Nations, or Vestiges of the Past", and which was published in London in 1879 for The Oriental Translation Fund, states the following on page 63 (of the translation): "They added these days as a complete month [i.e. thirty days], which they called the First Adhar, whilst they called the original month of this name the Second Adhar, because of its following immediately behind its namesake." (quoted by Burnaby on page 30) In ordinary years the month Adar has 29 days. In a leap year this month of 29 days becomes Adar II. In front of it is inserted the embolismic month Adar I which has 30 days. The proof for this is very easy to see: all the religious days which in ordinary years are observed in the month of Adar, in a leap year are observed in Adar II and NOT in Adar I. No religious days of any kind are observed in Adar I ... just like February 29 in the Julian calendar has no specific feasts attached to it. People who believe that Adar II is the added month will have to reason as follows: A) A month of 30 days, i.e. Adar II, is added to the end of the year. B) Then 1 day is taken away from this added month and given to the previous month, which normally only has 29 days. C) Then this previous month, Adar I, is stripped of any and all its religious festivals. These festivals are then instead transferred to the added month, Adar II. But it doesn't make sense to elevate an added month to great religious significance (Adar 13 = fast of Esther; Adar 14 = Purim; Adar 15 = 2nd Purim) at the expense of the month which regularly carries this significance. It should be clear that Adar I is the added month and that the name of the month normally called Adar is simply changed to Adar II. It is the same with our Roman calendar. In a leap year the month of February receives an extra day. Most of us assume that February 29 IS that extra day! But that is not what Sosigenes planned back in 45 B.C.. As I mentioned earlier, he planned that ... "dies sextus ante Kalends Martias" (i.e. February 24) would in effect be duplicated. The result is that February will have 29 days. There is a parallel between this method of intercalation and the intercalation of the 30-day long Adar I in a Jewish leap year. The calculation of the molad of Tishri itself proceeds as follows: 1) The time elapsed from a specific and fixed starting point (the molad of Tishri in 3761 B.C.) to the desired year is calculated. 2) First the day and time of the week on which the molad for the desired year will fall is calculated. 3) Next the day of the month in the Julian or Gregorian calendar, and also the exact time of the day, for the new molad is calculated. For years before 1582 the date is normally calculated according to the Julian calendar. For dates since then it is calculated in the Gregorian calendar. It is obvious that the exact time of day in both calculations (day of the week and day of the month) must be the same. In the days before computers and electronic calculators this provided a very useful way of verifying the accuracy of the calculations ... since they are so diverse with totally different numbers involved that even the smallest mistake in either calculation ensured that no compatible answers would be obtained. Today computers can correctly make these calculations within a fraction of a second. For example, together with my son Michael I have produced a computer program which will print the dates for all 19 molads of Tishri for any given 19-year cycle to the screen of the computer monitor within a couple of seconds. It is, for all practical purposes, instantaneous. As far as the exact time of the starting molad in 3761 B.C. is concerned, this is fixed at Day 2, Hour 5, Parts 204 (D2 H5 P204). This is equivalent to Sunday evening, 204 Parts after 11 p.m.. The great Jewish scholar of the Middle ages, Moses Maimonides, who died in 1204 A.D., discusses the calendar at great length in his work "Kiddusch hachodesch". Maimonides explains the starting molad as follows: "For God gathered together the earth out of which He formed the first man during the first (thirteenth) hour. Since, therefore, from the time of the first foundation of the world to that of the perfected man there had elapsed five whole days and fourteen hours of the sixth day, we must make it our business to know both the month to which those days and hours belong, and also the first New Moon of that year to which the month belongs. From the time therefore of that New Moon, which occurred when the second (fourteenth) hour of the sixth day was ending, there must be subtracted four days, eight hours and 876 chalakim (4d. 8h. 876 ch.), which is the excess of a Common Lunar year of twelve months above an exact number of weeks; and we find that the first New Moon of the year which preceded the creation of man occurred on the second day of the week, when five hours and 204 chalakim of its night had elapsed. {Maimonides here means: D6 H14 P0 MINUS 4D 8H 876P = D2 H5 P204, or Sunday evening, just after 11:00 p.m..} Its character [molad] is therefore 2d. 5h. 204 ch. And certainly, by computing those years which have elapsed since the creation of the world, this anticipative year may be determined." {This is quoted from page 43 of Burnaby's "Jewish and Muhammadan Calendars", and Burnaby himself has translated a quotation from the Latin version of Maimonides by L. de Compiegne de Veil, which was published in London in 1683 under the title "Tractatus de Consecratione Calendarum, et de Ratione Intercalandi".} Note carefully! While later writers may deny that the year 3761 B.C. is supposed to represent the year of the creation of Adam, Maimonides VERY PLAINLY believed that it WAS the time of Adam's creation! Much of our information about the calendar reform by Hillel II in the 350's A.D. is from Maimonides, from his "Kiddusch hachodesch". {Another author who wrote a classic treatise on the calendar is Abraham Savasorda. He wrote in 1122 A.D., about 60 years or so before Maimonides.} Therefore I have quoted the above section in full to illustrate the totally fictitious character of the starting molad in 3761 B.C.. It did not involve any divine revelation! It involves a supposed knowledge of the assumed new moon BEFORE the creation of Adam, an impossibility. It also makes clear that it is based PURELY on reasoning from assumed premises. It should also make clear that the starting date of 3761 B.C., as originally conceived, was indeed intended to represent the molad at the time of the creation of Adam and Eve. This we know quite well is not the case! The year 3761 B.C. was certainly not the time of Adam's creation. It should be quite obvious that the molad of Tishri for 3761 B.C. was arrived at by extrapolating back from known molads at the time of Hillel in the 350's A.D.. I mentioned earlier that the Jewish calculations for one lunation only contain a very small error, in the order of 1 day for every 13100 years. This means that if Hillel II extrapolated back to 3761 B.C. from any correctly known molad during his own time, then the error, as far as the molad is concerned, would involve no more than 7 hours 31 minutes and 47 seconds for those 4110 years. Furthermore, from Hillel's time to our time (taking the year 2000 A.D.) the error would only involve 3 hours 1 minute and 22 seconds ... also nothing to be concerned about, since we are talking about an invisible conjunction anyway. Furthermore, since the Jewish calculations are LONGER than the actual lunations, it means that since Hillel's time the Jewish calculations for the molad have actually DRAWN CLOSER to the visible new moons by about 3 hours. Given enough millennia, the Jewish calculations for the conjunction would eventually represent the time of the actual visibility of the first faint crescent of the new moon. As far as the molad representing the conjunction according to the Jerusalem meridian is concerned, this is also pure speculation. Maimonides states that the molad must represent Jerusalem time, not because it was originally calculated at Jerusalem, but because Maimonides felt that Isaiah 2:3 ("... for out of Zion shall go forth the law") implied that the molad had to be based on Jerusalem time. Thus the idea of the molad representing Jerusalem time was never based on any observations made at Jerusalem, but purely on the interpretation of a specific statement in Scripture. Now I don't question that Jerusalem time SHOULD be the standard to judge by ... but whether Jerusalem time ever WAS used in establishing the calculations that are used is another matter altogether. Anyway, once the molad of Tishri has been calculated, then we come to the postponement rules. THE RULES OF POSTPONEMENT ------------------------- There are four different rules. They are also carefully spelled out by Maimonides. These rules are as follows: 1) The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) may not fall on a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday. THIS RULE OF POSTPONEMENT HAS THE GREATEST IMPACT! There are two reasons for this rule. The first reason is a desire to not have the Day of Atonement fall on either a Friday (i.e. before a weekly Sabbath) or on a Sunday (i.e. immediately after a weekly Sabbath). Not permitting Trumpets to fall on a Wednesday or on a Friday prevents Atonement falling on a Friday or on a Sunday. The second reason is a desire to not have the 7th Day of Tabernacles fall on a Saturday, which would then be followed on Sunday by the Last Great Day. Not permitting Trumpets to fall on a Sunday prevents this from happening. Therefore when the Molad of Tishri falls on one of these three forbidden days, then the Feast of Trumpets is postponed by one day, making the previous year one day longer. THE JUSTIFICATION FOR THIS RULE IS EXTREMELY FLIMSY AND ARTIFICIAL, AS I WILL SHOW SHORTLY! 2) If the molad of Tishri is at noon or later (i.e. 18 Hours), then Trumpets must be postponed by one day. However, if such a postponement causes Trumpets to fall on a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday, THEN it must be postponed by one more day, causing a total postponement of two days after the molad. THE PRINCIPLE OF THIS RULE MAKES PERFECT SENSE! {Here I am not referring to the possibility of a further postponement because of one of the three forbidden days.} The molad represents the invisible conjunction when the moon is exactly between the earth and the sun. This is always AT LEAST 6 hours before the first faint crescent of the new moon will be visible ... and in most cases quite a lot more than 6 hours before visibility. So a postponement to the next day will usually mean a postponement to the first day when visibility would be possible, under favourable conditions. Because of rule #1 two more rules are needed. They are to prevent the years from becoming too long or too short as a result of compulsory postponements due to rule #1. 3) If the molad in an ordinary year (i.e. one with only 12 months) falls on Day 3, Hours 9, Parts 204 or later (later than 3:11:20 a.m. on a Tuesday), then Trumpets must be postponed two days to the Thursday (as Wednesday is not permitted). The reason is as follows: If the molad for Tishri is D3 H9 P204 in a common year, then the molad for Tishri the next year will fall D7 H18 P0. This is a simple matter of adding 12 lunations to the known molad. But the next year's molad falls at 18 Hours (i.e. at noon) and therefore Trumpets must be postponed from Day 7 to Day 1. But Day 1 is a Sunday, and therefore it must then be postponed still further to Day 2. Now the following year will have to be postponed, one way or the other ... because the molad falls at 18 Hours or later on a Saturday. Thus it is established that the next year will not start until a Monday. BUT if the current year then starts on a Tuesday anyway, it will have 356 days (from a Tuesday to a Sunday inclusive is 1 day short of 51 weeks, and the next year then starts on a Monday), and that is 1 more day than is permissible. 12 lunations take 354,36 days, and so a year length of 353, 354 or 355 days is permitted. Those are the values on both sides of the actual value. To permit a year to contain 356 days, would be to depart too far from the actual new moons. Therefore this rule #3 was enacted to contain the year within acceptable limits. Therefore, when the Feast of Trumpets is postponed from Tuesday 9 Hours 204 Parts to the Thursday, then the following year will only be 354 days long. This rule does not cause a similar problem for the previous year; it will still be within acceptable limits. Also, this rule does not apply in leap years because the molad after a leap year which started with Day 3 Hour 9 Parts 204 will lead to the next molad falling on a Monday. This means the year will end on a Sunday. So if the year starts on a Tuesday and ends on a Sunday, then it will be 1 day short of 55 weeks long, which is 384 days, and that is perfectly acceptable. 4) If in a common year immediately after a leap year the molad falls on Day 2 Hours 15 Parts 588 or later (Monday 9:32:43 a.m.), then the Feast of Trumpets is postponed to Tuesday. The reason is as follows: If the calculation is made backwards for 13 lunations, then the previous molad of Tishri will have been on a Tuesday at 18 Hours (i.e. 12 noon). Therefore the previous year had been postponed by two days to a Thursday. But if the previous year started on a Thursday and then ends on a Sunday (with Monday being the start of the next year), then that year would only have 54 weeks and 4 days = 382 days, which is one day too short for a leap year. Therefore a postponement from the Monday to the Tuesday lengthens the previous year by one day to 383 days, which is the acceptable minimum. It should be quite clear that both, rule #3 and rule #4, are only needed because of the compulsory postponements required by rule #1. In the absence of rule #1, by itself rule #2 would never require rules #3 and #4. ARE THESE RULES OF POSTPONEMENT REALLY VALID? --------------------------------------------- The justifications for rule #1 are as follows: Friday is designated by God as the preparation day for the Sabbath. Therefore it would be A HARDSHIP to have the Day of Atonement on a Friday, preventing any preparation for the Sabbath. Similarly, it is considered inappropriate to have the Day of Atonement immediately AFTER a Sabbath. THIS LINE OF REASONING IS NOTHING BUT CARNAL NONSENSE! SOMETHING THE PHARISEES WERE EXPERTS AT! Similarly, it is not considered appropriate to have the 7th day of Tabernacles fall on a Saturday, and thus be followed by the Last Great Day on a Sunday. Once again there is no preparation day available for this Last Great Day. Also, since then both, the Feast of Trumpets and the First Day of Tabernacles would also fall on a Sunday, difficulties in travelling to the Feast are cited as "legitimate objections" to the Feast starting on a Saturday evening. AGAIN, THIS LINE OF REASONING IS NOT REALLY SOUND! The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 5, article "CALENDAR", page 44, states quite openly that the postponement rule #1 (they are called 'dehiyyot' in Hebrew) is: "(1) MAINLY in order to prevent the Day of Atonement (Tishri 10) from falling on Friday or Sunday, and Hoshana Rabba (the seventh day of Sukkot; Tishri 21) from falling on Saturday." Consider the following things: 1) God Himself planned it so that Pentecost always falls on a Sunday! That makes it difficult to travel to Pentecost sites, and it makes it difficult to prepare for Pentecost. {In biblical times people would obviously have had to travel to Jerusalem BEFORE this double Sabbath ... they didn't have cars, etc..} 2) The 1st Day of Unleavened Bread can and does fall on a Sunday (e.g. 1974). Again, here God permits a double Sabbath. It is obviously just as difficult to prepare for a Sunday 1st Day of Unleavened Bread as it is for a Sunday Last Great Day. It doesn't make sense to claim that God accepts the 1st Day of U.B. on a Sunday, but that God "INSPIRED" a rule so that the Last Great Day and the Feast of Trumpets will never fall on a Sunday. 3) The 7th Day of Unleavened Bread can and does fall on a Friday (e.g. 1971), again creating a double Sabbath. It should be obvious that it will be just as difficult to prepare for the weekly Sabbath when the 7th Day of U.B. falls on a Friday, as it is to prepare for the weekly Sabbath when the Day of Atonement falls on a Friday. So if it is not appropriate for the Day of Atonement to fall on a Friday, why should it be any more permissible to have the 7th Day of U.B. fall on a Friday? 4) There is no biblical evidence anywhere for permission to postpone a year because certain days would be "INCONVENIENT"! Some people will refer to the year Jesus Christ was crucified in an attempt to prove that God accepts these postponement rules as valid. Obviously, the Jews themselves never use this line of reasoning to garner support for permission to postpone a year. Here is the line of reasoning: The year Jesus Christ was crucified, the Passover was on a Wednesday, with both, an annual Sabbath and a weekly Sabbath in that week. I certainly agree with this! Then people look at the year 31 A.D., in which the molad of Tishri fell on Thursday, October 4 at 23 Hours and 941 Parts (i.e. 5:52:16 p.m.), less than 8 minutes before the end of that day. As it was after 18 Hours, according to the postponement rules this required a postponement of Trumpets to Saturday, October 6th. Now IF the Feast of Trumpets was indeed postponed to Saturday, THEN the Passover in 31 A.D. was on Wednesday, April 25th. IF the postponement rules did not exist in 31 A.D., THEN the Passover would have been kept on Monday, April 23rd, or possibly on Tuesday, April 24th (since the invisible molad was only 8 minutes before Friday would have started). But a Monday Passover simply does not fit in with the facts. THEREFORE this information is presented as proof of God's acceptance of the rules of postponement. Sounds quite good! There is just one little point: In the previous year, 30 A.D., the molad of Tishri fell on Saturday, September 16th, at 2 Hours 352 Parts (about 8:19:33 p.m. Friday evening). Therefore the Passover in 30 A.D. was on WEDNESDAY, April 5th ... and without any postponements of any kind being involved! To this people will reply: yes, but we know, and the Church has consistently taught, that Christ was crucified in 31 A.D.. Really? Whether the Church has "consistently taught" a 31 A.D. crucifixion or not is not really proof for any historical fact. The main fact we have is the prophecy of Daniel which pinpoints the start of Christ's ministry. Daniel wrote: Know therefore and understand, [that] from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince [shall be] seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. (Daniel 9:25) In plain English, Daniel tells us that "from A to B shall be 69 weeks". The "69 weeks" refers to 69 * 7 = 483 years. The start of that 483 year period is delineated as "the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem". That places the start of this period squarely into the time of the Medo-Persian Empire. The end of that period is delineated as "unto the Messiah the Prince". This is a reference to the start of Christ's ministry. So in order to date the start of Christ's ministry, we need to accurately pinpoint the time of "the going forth of the commandment". That is found in Ezra chapter 7. Notice verse 8 ... And he came to Jerusalem in THE FIFTH MONTH, which [was] in THE SEVENTH YEAR of the king. (Ezra 7:8) The fifth month is the month of Ab, which then varied from the end of July to the early part of September (because of some leap years with 13 months). When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, he had in his possession a letter from King Artaxerxes. Notice verse 11 ... Now this [is] the copy of THE LETTER that the KING ARTAXERXES GAVE UNTO EZRA the priest, the scribe, [even] a scribe of the words of the commandments of the LORD, and of his statutes to Israel. (Ezra 7:11) >From verses 12 - 26 we have the text of the letter, which Artaxerxes gave to Ezra. It starts off in verse 13 with ... I MAKE A DECREE, that all they of the people of Israel, and [of] his priests and Levites, in my realm, which are minded of their own freewill TO GO UP TO JERUSALEM, go with thee. (Ezra 7:13) The rest of the letter spells out how much silver and gold and other items were to be made available to Ezra from the treasuries of the Persian Empire (i.e. this was to be done at State expense). And it concludes with the instruction that Ezra was to set up magistrates and judges to teach the laws of God in the rebuilt nation with Jerusalem as its capital (verses 25-26). So when was the fifth month (July/August/September) of the seventh year of King Artaxerxes? In 1956 Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein wrote a book entitled "Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. to A.D. 75". This was published by Brown University Press, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. In this book Parker and Dubberstein present the new-moon tables of Karl Schoch, as found in "The Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" by S. Langdon and J. K. Fotheringham (published in London in 1928). Parker and Dubberstein checked all the new-moon tables. Then they published the date of every single new moon from Nisan 626 B.C. to the new moon of Adar in 76 A.D. ... a total of over 8600 new moons. By way of some comments: these tables represent the visible new moons, not the invisible molads. Thus they are all LATER than the dates for the corresponding molads used in the Hebrew calendar calculations. They represent the visible new moons at Babylon, not at Jerusalem. Since Babylon lies east of Jerusalem the new moons there are always LATER than at Jerusalem. In fact, based on latitude and longitude alone, the new moon at Babylon is at least 37 minutes later than at Jerusalem. This does not take into account the higher altitude of Jerusalem, which would make the difference between Jerusalem and Babylon even greater. I have a copy of all these new moons and I have checked and compared them for the months of Tishri and Nisan with those in the calendar calculations. The new moons for Babylon are consistently two (and sometimes three) days behind those for Jerusalem for Tishri, and one to two days behind for Nisan. In view of the fact that they are based on visual observations that were recorded, and in being later than at Jerusalem, a one to two day difference with the Jewish molads seems very realistic. Now Parker and Dubberstein have recorded all of these new moons under the reigns of the respective Kings. They start with Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar II, Amel-Marduk, Nergal-Shar-Usur, Nabunais, Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius I, Xerxes, Artaxerxes I, Darius II, Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III, Arses, Darius III, Alexander III, Philip Arrhidaeus, Alexander IV, and then move on to the "Seleucid era", from 311 B.C. onwards. The work is fairly meticulous, as might be expected of university research done in 1956. They point out that "The accession year of every king is shown as the last year of his predecessor" (page 26). The last year for Xerxes was 465 B.C.. It was during this year that Artaxerxes I ascended the throne. His first year is listed as starting with the new moon of Nisan on April 13 in 464 B.C. In 464 B.C. the molad of Tishri fell on Friday, October 6th and Trumpets was thus (theoretically at least) postponed to Saturday, October 7th. The 14th of Nisan that year (accepting the 1 day postponement) was kept on April 26th, which would have been the 15th day after the new moon because of the postponement of one day. So the molad of Nisan in Jerusalem was April 12th, or one day before the new moon in Babylon. {As calculated from the molads, the new moon was April 12, H3 P153, or April 11, 9:08:30 p.m..} So the Babylonian new moon tables are certainly accurate in this case. This is the first year of Artaxerxes I. Parker and Dubberstein must be correct in their assessment because of the way the new moons occurred. In 465 B.C. the Passover was on April 6, and the relevant new moons that year were March 24, 5H 644P and April 22, 18H 357P. In 463 B.C. the Passover was on April 16, and the new moon was April 1, 11H 1029P. Therefore Parker and Dubberstein must be correct in their assessment that 464 B.C. is the correct year for Artaxerxes' first year ... since the new moon of that year IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH the new moon at Jerusalem; and it is also completely incompatible with the new moons in either 465 B.C. or in 463 B.C.. This is fairly strong evidence that the reign of Artaxerxes is dated correctly by Parker and Dubberstein. The 7th year of Artaxerxes I was from April 8th 458 B.C. until March 26th 457 B.C.. The fifth month of the King was from August 4th to September 3rd 458 B.C. So let's add 483 years to August/September 458 B.C.. Remember that there is no year "zero". Therefore: 483 - (458 -1) = 26 A.D., August/September. When was the Feast of Trumpets in 26 A.D.? The molad of Tishri for 26 A.D. was Monday, September 30 at 2 Hours 375 Parts (about 8:20:50 p.m. on Sunday evening, 29th September). So Trumpets was on September 30. If Christ started His ministry in the autumn of 26 A.D., around the Feast of Trumpets, that is very close to being exactly 383 years after the 5th month of the 7th year of Artaxerxes I, as listed by Parker and Dubberstein. Then, three and one half years later takes us exactly to PASSOVER IN 30 A.D.! I might add the following: it is CORRECT to say that Artaxerxes' 7th year went from 458 B.C. to 457 B.C. ... as long as you clearly understand what is meant by this statement. To be exact: the TENTH month of the 7th year started on December 29 458 B.C., the ELEVENTH month started on January 28, 457 B.C. and the TWELFTH and final month of the 7th year of Artaxerxes started on the 27th February 457 B.C.. But Ezra chapter 7 is quite specific: it is the 5th month which refers to the decree, NOT the 10th, 11th or 12th month. So the claim that his 7th year "EXTENDED" from 458 B.C. to 457 B.C. is obviously misleading. And further, 483 years from the 11th or 12th month would NOT bring you to the autumn of 27 A.D. ... it would only bring you to a time before spring in 27 A.D. ... the wrong time of year for the start of Christ's ministry, one that would require an autumn crucifixion in 30 A.D. after a three and one half year ministry. So that scenario doesn't really work. In an effort to support a 31 A.D. crucifixion date, many people in the Church will turn to a booklet Dr. Hoeh wrote in 1959. Let's look at that booklet. "THE CRUCIFIXION WAS NOT ON FRIDAY" BY HERMAN L. HOEH ----------------------------------------------------- This is a booklet Dr. Hoeh wrote in 1959, before computers and before calculators were available. Thus Dr. Hoeh did not have access to examining the Hebrew calendar as I am doing in this article. I say this in fairness to Dr. Hoeh because the only way for him to examine the calendar back in 1959 was by manually performing one long calculation after the other, or else by relying on tables which had been prepared by other people in previous ages. As I read this old booklet now, it is hard for me to believe how biased and closed-minded we all were back then! Frankly, the way Dr. Hoeh twisted the facts in order to fit in with his preconceived ideas is the way ALL OF US reasoned back in the 50's and 60's ... from Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong right on down! All of us seemed to always manage "to make things fit" with the way we figured the prophecies would work out. I have considered not referring to this booklet since it is rather old. However, it is something very many people in the Church have read, and to those people this booklet represents "THE PROOF" that Christ was crucified in 31 A.D. Since the facts are misrepresented in this booklet, therefore the only way to convince such people of the truth is to expose the flaws and the misrepresentations for what they are. So here goes. The main purpose of the booklet was to show that Christ was crucified on a Wednesday and not on a Friday. Towards this end Dr. Hoeh proposes to present "seven historical and calendrical proofs". In the process he appeals to the Hebrew calendar and points out that in both, 30 A.D. and in 31 A.D., the Passover fell on a Wednesday. The Passover dates he presents are as follows: A.D. 29 = Saturday, April 16 A.D. 30 = Wednesday, April 5 A.D. 31 = Wednesday, April 25 A.D. 32 = Monday, April 14 A.D. 33 = Friday, April 3 What he does not point out is that of those five dates ONLY the 30 A.D. date is not the result of a postponement! Without postponements (the existence of which is not proved for the time prior to 250 A.D. in ANY records that are available!) these dates would look as follows (all observed the previous evening): A.D. 29 = Friday, April 15 A.D. 30 = Wednesday, April 5 A.D. 31 = Tuesday, April 24 A.D. 32 = Saturday, April 12 A.D. 33 = Wednesday, April 1 Dr. Hoeh then asserted: "Thus, if you want to believe that the crucifixion was in 30 A.D. --- which it was NOT --- you would still have to admit that Friday is NOT the day of the crucifixion!" (page 21) His statement that the 30 A.D. date makes clear that the Passover was NOT on a Friday is correct. BUT his bold assertion that the crucifixion was "NOT" in 30 A.D. is not proved at all! It is nothing more than a very biased opinion! A few sentences further along he reiterates this unproved opinion as follows: "Hence in 31 A.D. the Passover was 30 days later on a Wednesday --- and this is THE ONLY POSSIBLE YEAR in which Christ could have been crucified, as we shall now PROVE." (page 21) However, what Dr. Hoeh then proceeds to present ACTUALLY PROVES A 30 A.D. CRUCIFIXION DATE ... but he twists and bends the facts he himself presents in order to make them "FIT" into his idea of a 31 A.D. date. As I reread this booklet, I do not understand WHY it is so important for Dr. Hoeh to interpret all the facts in such a way that 31 A.D. is presented as "THE ONLY POSSIBLE YEAR"? Is it a desire to force 100 19-year cycles between the crucifixion and the year 1931 A.D.? So what is the problem in accepting a 30 A.D. crucifixion date when all the main evidence does point to such a 30 A.D. date? After all, in 30 A.D. the Passover DID fall on a Wednesday ... and for 30 A.D. that is totally beyond dispute. Notice what Dr. Hoeh did. He entitled this section "Proof Two: The Decree of Artaxerxes". He states that ... "records, preserved in world-famous American and foreign libraries, have been found that were written in the very month that Artaxerxes --- under whose reign the decree was issued --- came to power". That's fine ... but this is written to impress us without giving us any facts at all! WHAT RECORDS? ... WHAT "WORLD-FAMOUS" LIBRARIES? ... WHO ARE THE RESEARCHERS WHO FOUND THIS? Referring to "world-famous" libraries without specifying which libraries he means is a way of trying to impress the reader without giving him any facts at all, which would enable him to verify these claims. {Possibly Dr. Hoeh was referring, amongst others, to the book by Parker and Dubberstein, which I am also quoting from?!} This is not to dispute what Dr. Hoeh presents in this particular regard ... but it is a way of writing which keeps the reader totally in the dark and dependent on Dr. Hoeh's statements. Understand that this style of writing is usually a clear give- away that you are dealing with a very biased presentation! Even if a library really is "world-famous", that still does not make the content of every book in that library absolutely correct and beyond dispute. I have access to many of the libraries of the University of Cape Town, but many of the books in these libraries present information that can be challenged. Any book or document must always be evaluated on its own merits, and not on the reputation of the library where such a book or document is kept. Anyway, Dr. Hoeh states that "the death of Xerxes occurred in late December 465 B.C., and his son, Artaxerxes, came to the throne in that month." (page 24) CORRECT! Then Dr. Hoeh states: "According to the Persian spring-to-spring reckoning of regnal years --- as these business documents CLEARLY SHOW --- Artaxerxes' first year extended from APRIL, 464 TO APRIL 463 B.C." AGAIN CORRECT! He also states: "The period of time from the day the new king ascended the throne to the first year of his reign was called his ACCESSION YEAR and was regarded as completing the last regnal year of the previous king." THIS IS ALSO CORRECT! So now let's carefully list the first 8 years of Artaxerxes, BASED ON THIS INFORMATION DR. HOEH HAS PRESENTED. This is what it looks like: His 1st year: April 464 - April 463 His 2nd year: April 463 - April 462 His 3rd year: April 462 - April 461 His 4th year: April 461 - April 460 His 5th year: April 460 - April 459 His 6th year: April 459 - April 458 His 7th year: April 458 - April 457 His 8th year: April 457 - April 456 It should be quite clear that Artaxerxes' 7th year CONCLUDED in April 457 B.C.! {Comment: Actually it concluded on March 26th Julian calendar and Artaxerxes' 8th year started on Wednesday, March 27th 457 B.C. Very likely the Jewish calendar at that time was in agreement with the Babylonian calendar ... since Ezra very evidently replaced all the Hebrew names of the months with the Babylonian names for those months. The Hebrew calendar programs will show the Passover for 457 B.C. as having been on April 8; thus the 1st of Nisan would have been March 26 ... one day earlier than the Babylonian date. Anyway, one day either way doesn't make a difference in our discussion here. We are agreed on the years and the months involved.} Here is the evidence that Ezra simply accepted and adapted the Babylonian names for the months and employed them in "God's" calendar, as Dr. Hoeh and others frequently call it. (And I myself used to do exactly the same thing.) Notice the Babylonian names and the Jewish names which have been derived from those Babylonian names. MONTH NUMBER BABYLONIAN NAME HEBREW NAME 1 Nisanu Nisan 2 Aiaru Iyyar 3 Simanu Sivan 4 Duzu Tammuz 5 Abu Ab 6 Ululu Elul 7 Tashritu Tishri 8 Arahsamnu Heshvan 9 Kislimu Kislev 10 Tebetu Tebeth 11 Shabatu Shebat 12 Addaru Adar {13 Addaru II Adar II } (For this information see page 26 of "Babylonian Chronology" by Parker and Dubberstein) It is very clear that the present Jewish names for the months were brought into usage by Ezra, and that they are simply adaptations of the Babylonian names. I'll just remind you that "Tammuz" is in fact the name of a Babylonian PAGAN IDOL! So one of the months in "God's SACRED calendar" is named in honour of a pagan idol! Doesn't that tell you something? Now since Ezra so very obviously adapted the Babylonian names for the months for use amongst the Jews in Palestine, it is highly unlikely that he would have instituted such names if they were not TOTALLY SYNCHRONIZED WITH THE CALENDAR IN USE IN BABYLON! Can you understand this? I mean, what would be the point if the 8th day of Tebetu in Babylon coincided with the 7th or 9th day of Tebeth in Palestine; what if the 5th day of Addaru coincided with the 10th of Adar; what if the 1st day of Nisanu in Babylon coincided with the last day of Adar in Palestine, and then the 2nd day of Nisanu coincided with the 1st day of Nisan? WHY would Ezra possibly have wanted to create that kind of confusion ... after deliberately rejecting the old Hebrew names of the months (Abib, Zif, Ethanim, and Bul) in favour of adapted Babylonian names ... and when he knew that the Babylonian calendar followed the cycles of the moon in the exact same way as the Jewish calendar does? The point is that the calendar in use in Babylon was the same type as the Jewish calendar, based on the months starting with the new moons. And in the Babylonian calendar the year also started with "Nisanu" in the spring. It seems like Ezra had no problem accepting all those Babylonian names and voluntarily using them. The same type of calendar ... governed by exactly the same principles ... and therefore readily using the same names for the months. That doesn't exactly make the calendar look "INSPIRED" by God. Rather, it looks like a copy of the Babylonian calendar. The Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Calendar, History of" states: "The Babylonian years were soli-lunar; that is to say, the year of 12 months containing 354 days was bound to the solar year of 365 days by intercalating, as occasion required, a thirteenth month. Out of every 11 years there were 7 with 12 months and 4 with 13 months." (Volume 3, page 499) {With this system the years averaged out at 364,9 days per year ... or an error of about 3-4 days for every 11 years. This was before the Greek astronomer Meton discovered the 19-year cycle.} The article continues to state: "The Talmud (Yerushalmi, Rosh ha-Shanah i.1) correctly states that the Jews got the names of the months at the time of the Babylonian exile." (page 499) So when the Jews returned from the Babylonian captivity, they brought the Babylonian calendar with them. They rejected the old Hebrew names and called their months instead by the Babylonian names. In terms of our modern world this would look as follows: Now, in 1996, a group of us leave America for some area in Australia. In America, the area we left, the calendar in use is the one that goes from January to December. In our new area in Australia we also use a calendar, and we call the names of the months in our calendar January, February, March, etc.. Now IF we choose to retain the names "January, February, March" etc. in our calendar, what is the likelihood that we will institute a January that will not be identical to the January in use in America ... especially if we retain fairly close links with America? Can you understand what the adoption of the Babylonian names for the months of the year tells us? It tells us that Ezra WILLINGLY IDENTIFIED the calendar he used with the one in use in Babylon. Since the Babylonian calendar was calculated according to the correct principles (i.e. it was "soli-lunar"), therefore Ezra had no problem with it. And therefore we find the Babylonian names for the months freely used in the post-exilic books of the Bible. It might be helpful to present all the new moons for the first 10 years of the reign of Artaxerxes I from the tables prepared by Parker and Dubberstein. They present this data under the Babylonian names for the months, giving first the month and then the day of the month (American date notation). This information is taken from page 32 of their book. So here are the new moons for a part of the reign of Artaxerxes: YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 B.C.464 B.C.463 B.C.462 B.C.461 B.C.460 NISANU 4/13 4/3 4/22 4/11 3/31 AIARU 5/13 5/2 5/21 5/10 4/30 SIMANU 6/11 6/1 6/20 6/8 5/29 DUZU 7/11 6/30 7/19 7/8 6/27 ABU 8/10 7/30 8/18 8/6 7/27 ULULU 9/9 8/29 9/16 9/5 8/25 TASHRITU 10/8 9/27 10/16 10/4 9/23 ARAHSAMNU 11/7 10/27 11/15 11/3 10/23 KISLIMU 12/6 11/26 12/14 12/2 11/21 B.C.463 B.C.461 B.C.460 TEBETU 1/5 12/25 1/13 1/1 12/21 B.C.462 B.C.459 SHABATU 2/3 1/24 2/12 1/31 1/20 ADDARU 3/4 2/22 3/12 3/1 2/19 ADDARU II 3/24 3/20 YEAR 6 YEAR 7 YEAR 8 YEAR 9 YEAR 10 B.C.459 B.C.458 B.C.457 B.C.456 B.C.455 NISANU 4/19 4/8 3/27 4/15 4/4 AIARU 5/18 5/8 4/26 5/14 5/4 SIMANU 6/17 6/6 5/25 6/13 6/2 DUZU 7/16 7/6 6/24 7/13 7/2 ABU 8/15 8/4 7/24 8/11 7/31 ULULU 9/13 9/3 8/22 9/10 8/30 TASHRITU 10/12 10/2 9/21 10/10 9/29 ARAHSAMNU 11/11 10/31 10/20 11/8 10/29 KISLIMU 12/10 11/30 11/19 12/8 11/27 B.C.458 B.C.455 TEBETU 1/9 12/29 12/18 1/6 12/27 B.C.457 B.C.456 B.C.454 SHABATU 2/8 1/28 1/17 2/5 1/25 ADDARU 3/9 2/27 2/15 3/6 2/24 ADDARU II 3/16 3/25 This information is in total agreement with Dr. Hoeh's statement that "Artaxerxes' first year extended from April 464 to April 463", the exact dates given by Parker and Dubberstein being from April 13, 464 to April 2, 463 B.C. But these tables ALSO make quite clear that Artaxerxes' SEVENTH YEAR finished on March 26, 457 B.C. WITH THE SAME STARTING DATE AS THE ONE DR. HOEH HAS PRESENTED, THERE IS SIMPLY NO WAY TO GET AROUND THIS FACT ... THAT ARTAXERXES' 7TH YEAR FINISHED ON MARCH 26, 457 B.C.!! So now notice the biased and unsound reasoning from Dr. Hoeh! The problem for Dr. Hoeh is that these facts VERY CLEARLY lead to 26 A.D. and not to 27 A.D. for the start of Christ's ministry! But that didn't fit in with what Dr. Hoeh had in mind. So here is how he twisted these facts to fit in with his own bias. He reasoned as follows: "The seventh year of Artaxerxes --- the year in which he issued his decree (Ezra 7:8) --- would extend from about September 458 B.C. to September 457 B.C." (page 24) INCREDIBLE!! After first freely acknowledging that Artaxerxes' FIRST YEAR extended from APRIL 464 to APRIL 463 B.C., Dr. Hoeh has now, by means of some mental gymnastics, arrived at claiming that Artaxerxes' SEVENTH YEAR extended from SEPTEMBER 458 to SEPTEMBER 457 B.C.! That is a blatant twisting of the facts! But that is precisely how closed-minded all of us were in the 50's and 60's! We simply ignored facts that contradicted our own ideas ... and then promptly accused evolutionists of doing what we ourselves were guilty of. We said that THEY weren't willing to look at the truth, that THEY twisted the facts to conform to their preconceived ideas ... but we did exactly the same thing. The facts are that from March 27th 457 B.C. onwards it was obviously THE EIGHTH YEAR of Artaxerxes; or, to accept Dr. Hoeh's more general statement, from "APRIL 457 B.C." onwards was obviously the 8th year of Artaxerxes. The new moon tables above make very clear that "September 457 B.C." was during the 8th year of Artaxerxes! Notice Dr. Hoeh's totally unwarranted reasoning. He wrote: "From the first month to the fifth month of God's calendar --- from the latter part of March to the latter part of July 457 B.C. --- Ezra journeyed to Judaea IN THE SEVENTH YEAR OF ARTAXERXES ..." (page 24-25) "JULY 457 B.C." does not in any way "fit" into Artaxerxes' 7th year! July 24 in 457 B.C. was the first day of the month Abu (or the Jewish month Ab) of the EIGHTH year of Artaxerxes. Dr. Hoeh has presented the correct starting facts, which agree with the historical records. Then, by means of a double manipulation, he is able to dispense with the one year he doesn't want in his calculation. The truth is that: "From the first month to the fifth month according to BOTH, the Babylonian calendar and the Hebrew calendar, from April 8 until August 4 in 458 B.C. Ezra journeyed to Judaea IN THE SEVENTH YEAR OF ARTAXERXES ... ." The "mental gymnastics" employed by Dr. Hoeh go as follows: 1) He decides to CHANGE Artaxerxes' first year of April 464 to April 463 B.C. to run from "SEPTEMBER 464 to SEPTEMBER 463 B.C.", claiming that such a shift by 6 months is justified because of some unspecified "BUSINESS DOCUMENTS" which were found. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him back in 1959 that unspecified "BUSINESS DOCUMENTS" don't really change a king's reign one way or the other!! If you KNOW the king's years are reckoned from April to April and you KNOW the king's reign started in 464 B.C., then no amount of "business documents" changes that in any way! Further, the Bible (and Ezra chapter 7 specifically) is NOT on the level of some "business document"! Furthermore, the Jewish custom of "autumn-to-autumn" reckoning has NO BIBLICAL SUPPORT AT ALL! Do we understand this? We try to justify the Jews in their custom of calling the Feast of Trumpets "New Year". But that custom is nothing more than a sign of REBELLION against God!! God tells us VERY PLAINLY that Abib (or Nisan) is to be "THE FIRST MONTH OF THE YEAR TO YOU" (see Exodus 12:2). God also tells us very plainly that the Feast of Trumpets is in fact the first day of the SEVENTH month (see Leviticus 23:24). There is no biblical justification ANYWHERE for having an "autumn-to-autumn" reckoning! Yes, the Jews DO refer to Trumpets as "New Year", but they have no biblical support for doing so. And further, they do acknowledge that this "New Year" is in fact the first day of the 7th month. They do NOT refer to Tishri as the first month, and they do not refer to Nisan as the 7th month. They FREELY acknowledge that Nisan is the first month of the year. Yes, I do understand that there is a value to calculating the calendar by calculating the first day of Tishri rather than by calculating the first day of Nisan, and I will comment on this later. But that does not justify claiming that the year "starts" or "should start" or "should be reckoned from" the first day of Tishri. To count years by "autumn-to-autumn" reckoning is not an expression of obedience to God ... it is an expression of defiance! 2) Anyway, by claiming, without any justification at all, that Artaxerxes' years should be reckoned from autumn-to-autumn, Dr. Hoeh is able to reason that therefore Artaxerxes' SEVENTH year must have "been reckoned" as going from the autumn of 458 to the autumn of 457 B.C., or roughly from September 458 to September 457 B.C. Notice carefully: this little shift by 6 months was achieved by appealing to "THE JEWISH" mode of reckoning. Now comes the next step. 3) Having decided that, according to the Jewish reckoning, Artaxerxes' 7th year ran from September 458 to September 457 B.C., NOW Dr. Hoeh wants to revert to the spring-to-spring reckoning. Since he has already committed himself to calling autumn-to-autumn the JEWISH RECKONING, he now calls the spring- to-spring reckoning "GOD'S calendar"! So here is what he then wrote: "From the first month to the fifth month of GOD'S CALENDAR --- from the latter part of March to the latter part of July, 457 B.C. --- Ezra journeyed to Judaea in the seventh year of Artaxerxes at which time the decree went forth ..." (page 24-25) THIS IS AN UNBELIEVABLE EXERCISE IN DOUBLE-TALK! Look at the two verses this is based on, in Ezra chapter 7: 8 And he came to Jerusalem in THE FIFTH MONTH, which [was] in THE SEVENTH YEAR of the king. 9 For upon the first [day] of THE FIRST MONTH began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first [day] of THE FIFTH MONTH came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him. (Ezra 7) Right in the middle of these two verses he SWITCHES standards in order to achieve his desired results. Notice: - the 1st and 5th months he bases on spring-to-spring reckoning; - the 7th year he bases on autumn-to-autumn reckoning. Artaxerxes was NEVER a "Jewish" king! He was a PERSIAN king, and there is no justification for wanting to fit Artaxerxes' reign into the pattern of JEWISH kings! There had not been any Jewish kings for over 100 years. And how Jewish kings reckoned their reigns has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL to do with how the reign of Artaxerxes, a Persian, should be reckoned ... by Jews or by anyone else. The Persian kings clearly reckoned their years from spring to spring! So any references to some Jewish custom of "autumn-to- autumn" reckoning are of no value and do not apply. THEREFORE THE FACTS DR. HOEH HIMSELF HAS PRESENTED PROVE THAT THE DECREE WAS MADE IN 458 B.C.! It is a simple matter to add 483 years to 458 B.C. (remember that there was no year "Zero" ... the day December 31, 1 B.C. was followed by the day January 1, 1 A.D.). This leads to 26 A.D. There simply is no way around this! But notice Dr. Hoeh's bias, as expressed in the article: "And just 483 years later would bring us to the autumn of A.D. 27 --- the year when the Messiah would appear. Although the date of the issuance of this decree is AMPLY PROVED from astronomy, dozens of business documents, and the Canon of Ptolemy, historians sometimes misinterpret the facts TO SUIT THEIR PET THEORIES! ... But the true date --- 457 B.C. --- IS ABSOLUTELY FIXED BY THE MOST ACCURATE RECORDS OF HISTORY WRITTEN AT THAT VERY TIME." page 25) What a load of twisting the facts! To suit his own "pet theory" Dr. Hoeh himself has "misinterpreted the facts"! He is trying to impress us with references to "astronomy, dozens of business documents and the Canon of Ptolemy"! But the only factual evidence he has presented actually makes VERY CLEAR that the 5th month of the 7th year of Artaxerxes was in 458 B.C. and NOT 457 B.C.! It is IMPOSSIBLE, according to the facts of astronomy which Dr. Hoeh acknowledged show Artaxerxes' 1st year starting in the spring of 464 B.C., for the 5th month of Artaxerxes' 7th year to have been in 457 B.C.! His claim that the date 457 B.C. is "ABSOLUTELY FIXED" is plain nonsense! What about you ... do you have a loyalty to the past teachings of the Church ... or do you have a loyalty to THE TRUTH? Are you prepared to admit that Dr. Hoeh's reasoning in this article is biased and contrived? Understand this: The express purpose of the 70-weeks prophecy in Daniel chapter 9 is to help us pinpoint the start of the ministry of Jesus Christ! That is the reason why God gave this prophecy to us through the prophet Daniel. GOD revealed the starting point for this calculation and GOD revealed the length of time that would elapse until the Messiah's ministry. NOTHING ELSE IS AS ACCURATE IN DATING THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST AS THE GOD-INSPIRED 70-WEEKS PROPHECY! Understand that GOD didn't tell us to look to eclipses; He didn't tell us to focus on the timing of the wise men; He didn't tell us about the time it would take to construct the Temple; He didn't tell us about the reign of Emperor Tiberius; and He didn't tell us about the time that Pontius Pilate would be governor. GOD GAVE US THE 70-WEEKS PROPHECY! The evidence of the 70-weeks prophecy is clear, as I have shown. According to the dating of the reign of Artaxerxes the ministry of Jesus Christ MUST have started in 26 A.D. Dr. Hoeh agrees that the 1st year of Artaxerxes went from April 464 to April 463 B.C. The rest is a simple calculation from the 5th month of his 7th year to exactly 483 years later. NO ECLIPSE OR REIGN OF AN EMPEROR OR A GOVERNOR CAN CONTRADICT THE INSPIRED EVIDENCE OF GOD (i.e. the 483 years)! Since Dr. Hoeh has twisted the facts to come up with a 27 A.D. start for the ministry of Christ, THEN he finds ways to make everything else fit with this contrived date of 27 A.D. So let's briefly notice his supposed other "proofs" for this 27 A.D. date. He attempts to date the ministry of Christ by the death of Herod. Notice what he said: "Although Herod's death IS COMMONLY DATED IN APRIL, 4 B.C. --- or even as late as 2 B.C. --- neither of these dates is correct. (page 26) Do you see what Dr. Hoeh is doing? He has to rewrite history in order to fit in with his 27 A.D. date. And so, based on an eclipse of the moon Dr. Hoeh confidently asserts that Herod died in 3 B.C. Again, he has achieved a 1-year shift. The whole argument is based on some eclipse which Josephus refers to in his writings. And Dr. Hoeh says: "That eclipse, AS CALCULATED, occurred about March 13, 4 B.C." (page 26) That may sound very authoritative, until you realize that this dating is not based on observation, but purely on CALCULATIONS! And they certainly CAN be calculated very accurately. But they are also VERY COMMON. Notice this extract from the Encarta 96 Encyclopedia: "... Lunar eclipses recur 48 or 49 times and solar eclipses 68 to 75 times before slight differences in the motions of the sun and moon eliminate the eclipse. During one saros [a period of just over 18 years] about 70 eclipses take place, usually 29 lunar and 41 solar; of the latter, usually 10 are total and 31 partial. The MINIMUM number of eclipses that can occur in a given year is 2, the MAXIMUM 7, and the AVERAGE 4. During the 20th century 375 eclipses have taken or will take place: 228 solar and 147 lunar." "Eclipse," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia. When you realize that there are 147 lunar eclipses in this century, and it was similar 2000 years ago, then it becomes very obvious that you can find lunar eclipses (they always take place at full moon) for most years, if you really look hard enough. This is especially the case when all you are doing is CALCULATING back to an eclipse for a specific year. But notice that by Dr. Hoeh's own witness "HISTORIANS" commonly date Herod's death at one year earlier than fits into Dr. Hoeh's ideas. He has done the same thing with Herod's death as he did with the 7th year of Artaxerxes' reign. Thus he claims that the child Jesus was "slightly less than 6 months old at the time of Herod's death" (page 28). This is in spite of Herod killing all the male children under the age of TWO YEARS! He ASSUMES the star appeared BEFORE the birth of Jesus ... again without any proof of any kind to support this claim! The indications are that when the wise men came to Jesus, He was already a little older than just being a newborn baby. In Matthew 3:9-11 the word translated as "young child" is "paidion". This generally indicates a child a little older than a "babe" (the Greek word used in Luke 1:41, 44, etc. for "babe" is "brephos"). So again Dr. Hoeh's reasoning rests on assumptions. The next "proof" he presents concerns the time Herod took to build the Temple. Now obviously, having dated the death of Herod one year later than is correct, it follows that he will also date the time Herod took to build the Temple as one year later. So his reasoning is once again influenced by his bias. Next Dr. Hoeh refers to the ministry of John the Baptist. Luke 3:1-2 tells us that John started his ministry in the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar. Dr. Hoeh claims that Luke used the customary Jewish form of dating. Now near the start of this article I mentioned that in 45 B.C. the Julian calendar had come into effect on January 1. This is about 70 years later. Thus for 70 years the reigns of Roman emperors had already been reckoned from January 1 to December 31. Anyway, Dr. Hoeh then claims that Tiberius' 15th year went from ... "APRIL, 26 A.D. TO APRIL, 27 A.D." (page 30) The year 26 A.D. for the start of Tiberius' 15th year is correct, though the claim that it started in "APRIL" is rather arbitrary. It may have started in January of 26 A.D. Anyway, in 26 A.D. the Passover was on April 19 without any postponements being involved that year, and Tabernacles and the Last Great Day went from 14th to 21st October. So let's carefully examine the facts Dr. Hoeh has presented here: A) John the Baptist started his ministry in Tiberius' 15th year; B) That year went from April 26 A.D. to April 27 A.D. C) Thus: John started his ministry at Passover time in 26 A.D. D) 6 months later, at Tabernacles 26 A.D. Jesus Christ started His ministry. E) Three-and-one-half years later, at Passover 30 A.D., Jesus Christ was crucified. F) For Christ to have started His ministry around Tabernacles time, it follows that John must have started six months earlier at Passover time. G) That could only be 26 A.D. because by Passover 27 A.D. Tiberius' 15th year would have already ENDED! This would be especially the case if the emperor's years were dated by the normal Roman calendar which had already been in use for 70 years by all Roman officials. H) But even by the April-to-April reckoning the Passover in 27 A.D. was too late for the start of John's ministry. Remember that the Passover is on the 14th day of the FIRST month. This means that by the Jewish reckoning Tiberius' 15th year CONCLUDED the day before the 1st of Nisan in 27 A.D. (in 27 A.D. Nisan 1 was on Thursday, 27th March). Surely we are not going to be told that the year that started with Nisan 1 in 26 A.D. somehow extends to the 14th day of Nisan in 27 A.D., are we? So John must have started his ministry at Passover time in 26 A.D. I) There is ONLY ONE PASSOVER in each year! Either the Passover in Tiberius' 15th year was in 26 A.D. or it was in 27 A.D. IF the Passover in 26 A.D. (April 19 that year) was in the 15th year, THEN the Passover in 27 A.D. was obviously in the 16th year. J) To have John the Baptist's ministry starting at the Passover in 27 A.D. means that the Passover in 26 A.D. MUST be reckoned to have been in Tiberius' FOURTEENTH year, and not in his 15th year! Just think this through very carefully. Once again, the evidence which Dr. Hoeh himself presented actually proves a 26 A.D. start for the ministry of Jesus Christ. It is hard to understand how Dr. Hoeh himself could avoid drawing this conclusion from the evidence he himself presents. Next Dr. Hoeh reasons about the time when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea. As Luke 3:1 told us, this was during the 15th year of Tiberius ... Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, (Luke 3:1) Then Dr. Hoeh writes: "Many historians give his [ Pontius Pilate's] dates as 26 to 36 A.D., BUT THIS IS A MISTAKE." (page 30) And so once again Dr. Hoeh attempts to rewrite history in order to fit in with his own ideas! That seems like a pattern in this whole presentation by Dr. Hoeh. The reasoning goes as follows: A) Pilate was deposed at the end of his 10th year; B) Then he "HURRIED" to Rome to appeal to Tiberius; C) On this trip he received news that Tiberius had died; D) Tiberius died in March 37 A.D.; E) THEREFORE he must have left shortly before March 37 A.D.; F) THEREFORE he must have started his governorship around the beginning of 27 A.D. Here are some facts about Tiberius from Encarta 96: "In AD 26 Tiberius left Rome, which he had come to dislike intensely, and withdrew to Campania. The following year he went to the island of Capreae (modern Capri), leaving Rome under the rule of Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard. Finally realizing that Sejanus was trying to seize imperial power, Tiberius had him and his supporters executed in AD 31. The emperor continued to live at Capreae until AD 37. HE DIED ON MARCH 16, AD 37, at Misenum, near Naples, DURING A RARE EXCURSION TO THE MAINLAND. It was rumoured at the time that he was smothered by the prefect of the Praetorian Guard." "Tiberius", Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia For the last 10 years of his life Tiberius didn't live in Rome, but on the island of Capri. And here is what Encarta 96 says about Pontius Pilate: "Nevertheless, fear of an uprising in Jerusalem forced Pilate to accede to the demand of the populace, and Jesus was executed. PILATE WAS RECALLED TO ROME IN AD 36. According to the theologian and church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, he later committed suicide. Pilate is revered as a martyr by the Coptic church, which celebrates his feast day on June 25." "Pilate, Pontius", Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia This is one reference from "THE MANY HISTORIANS" who Dr. Hoeh acknowledges date Pilate's time from 26 to 36 A.D. But notice the quotation which Dr. Hoeh presents from the "New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia", from the article "Pilate": "... IT IS NOT LIKELY THAT PILATE REQUIRED MORE THAN A YEAR FOR HIS RETURN JOURNEY TO ROME ... AND HE ARRIVED THERE AFTER TIBERIUS' DEATH, WHICH TOOK PLACE MARCH 16, 37." Here Schaff-Herzog acknowledges that Pilate's return journey may in fact have taken UP TO A YEAR! Clearly Schaff-Herzog make allowance for Pilate to have left Judaea for his trip to Rome possibly anywhere from July to September 36 A.D., to then winter in some "commodious" port (cf. Paul's trip in Acts 27:12) and continue on towards Rome in the early spring ... and only arriving some time AFTER Tiberius had died. While Schaff-Herzog speculates that Pilate "PROBABLY" succeeded Gratus in 27 A.D., they certainly make allowance for a governorship from 26 to 36 A.D. However, Dr. Hoeh simply ASSUMES that it has been PROVED that Pilate didn't start until 27 A.D. He then writes: "Now notice. AS PILATE DID NOT BEGIN HIS GOVERNORSHIP TILL ABOUT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 27 A.D. ..." (pages 30- 31) Even in this wording Dr. Hoeh acknowledges that Pilate probably started during 26 A.D. by using the wording "TILL ABOUT THE COMMENCEMENT OF 27 A.D."! If 27 A.D. has not yet commenced, then it is still 26 A.D., and it is not really correct to refer to it as "ALMOST 27 A.D.". The dating from Tiberius' 15th year is quite clear ... there is only one Passover in each year. John started his ministry around Passover time. When people appeal to the Jewish April-to-April dating, they mean from Nisan 1 to the end of Adar. The Passover is always at the beginning of such a period and not at the end. So Tiberius' 15th year again pinpoints a 26 A.D. Tabernacles start for Christ's ministry. And that covers all of the supposed "proofs" Dr. Hoeh presents for a 27 A.D. start for the ministry of Jesus Christ and a 31 A.D. crucifixion date. An open mind will have to conclude that there isn't really any proof at all for a 31 A.D. crucifixion date. NOTHING of what Dr. Hoeh has presented towards that end stands up to careful examination. Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, the claim that Christ was crucified in 31 A.D. is the only supposed "proof" that God had inspired the Pharisees to institute the postponement rules to prevent the Holy Days from falling at "awkward" times. There is no other proof of any kind that God "accepts" or "approves of" the pharisaical postponement rules. In view of the fact that a 31 A.D. crucifixion date is highly improbable, it is totally inappropriate to claim God's approval for this postponement rule #1 based on such a 31 A.D. date. But let's also notice "Part II" of Dr. Hoeh's booklet. "CALCULATING THE PASSOVER IN 31 A.D." BY DR. HOEH ------------------------------------------------- Part II of the booklet "The Crucifixion Was Not On Friday" is devoted to presenting the calculation for when the Passover occurred in 31 A.D. In view of the fact that this was written in 1959, before calculators and computers were available, the arduous and involved method of explanation is understandable. However there are a number of flaws and unwarranted claims which should be pointed out. Dr. Hoeh correctly points out: "The calculations which determine the Hebrew Calendar DO NOT COME FROM THE TALMUD! You won't find them there! (page 34) CORRECT! What he is acknowledging is that there is no written authority ANYWHERE for the Hebrew calendar, not even in the Talmud. The calculations belong to the POST-talmudic period. He then said: "GOD GAVE THEM just as He also gave Israel the Bible." FALSE! Anything that has not been written down somewhere has simply NOT "been given by God"! There is no such thing as God-revealed knowledge, intended for posterity, which God has not caused to be written down for posterity. The claim is ridiculous ... that a people somehow have secret, inside information from God, for which no written record exists. The calculations which determine the Hebrew calendar can very readily be led back to the calculations of Hipparchus (who lived during the very time when the religious movement which produced the sect of the Pharisees was started; and they produced the Talmud). Those calculations do in fact contain a small error. There is really nothing "inspired" or "divinely revealed" about the calculations of the Hebrew calendar. AND THE HEBREW CALENDAR IS NOT PERFECT! Dr. Hoeh then asserts: "GOD ORDAINED that His calendar, which He GAVE to the Hebrews, should run on a 19-year cycle." (page 36) Talk about "blind faith"! How can you possibly claim that God "GAVE" something, when there is not one shred of evidence of that "something" ever having been "GIVEN"? We are speaking about fairly involved mathematical calculations (though they are simple to perform) and there is no record that they were ever "given". Similarly, Dr. Hoeh then asserts: "GOD ORDAINED that 7 times in a 19-year cycle a 13th month should be added!" (page 37) At no stage does Dr. Hoeh offer any PROOF that "God" gave this calendar, and that "God" ordained that 7 years should have 13 months. Since there is no written evidence for this, and since these calculations are not even recorded in the Talmud, we are expected to accept "on faith" that God is the One who "gave" this calendar to the Jews. But there is no proof for this claim. Later Dr. Hoeh asserts: "According to the calculations preserved by the Jews SINCE THE TIME OF MOSES, the new moon in the sky ..." (page 39) It is utterly impossible for anything as intricate as the calculations for the Hebrew calendar to have been preserved "since the time of Moses" without any written record for these calculations! It is impossible to remember these calculations without written records. Do we understand that in some cases FOR CENTURIES the Jewish people were "out of touch" with what God had instructed? For example, in the 640's to 620's B.C., during the time of King Josiah, the High Priest Hilkiah one day "FOUND" a copy of "the book of the law" (the books of Moses). Here was a High Priest, and he had never before in his whole life even "SEEN" the book of the law. Notice the excitement at this unexpected discovery. And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I HAVE FOUND THE BOOK OF THE LAW in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. (2 Kings 22:8) And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. (2 Kings 22:10) 11 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. 12 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asahiah a servant of the king's, saying, 13 Go ye, enquire of the LORD for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great [is] the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. (2 Kings 22) It was a STAGGERING DISCOVERY to actually find a copy of God's instructions, given in the days of Moses. People were clueless that such a book had been in their possession all along. Read the rest of that chapter to see the indictment God then pronounced against Judah. As God said through the prophetess Huldah ... Because THEY HAVE FORSAKEN ME, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched. (2 Kings 22:17) To claim that all through this history of repeatedly "forsaking" God the Jews SOMEHOW retained and faithfully applied the calculations of the calendar which God had supposedly given in the days of Moses, is to ignore the facts which the Bible so clearly reveals ... they just did not obey God. The fact is that while in Babylonian captivity they really had no calendar of their own. And when they returned to Palestine in the days of Ezra, then Ezra clearly endorsed the luni-solar Babylonian calendar, by retaining all the Babylonian names for the months. Notice how Dr. Hoeh justifies the change in leap years in 142 A.D. from the 2,5,7,10,13,16,18 sequence to the 3,6,8,11,14,17,19 sequence of today. He writes: "This postponement (in the sequence of leap years) in 142 A.D. was necessary OR ELSE the Passover would have occurred too late in the year and would not have been observed in its proper season." (page 45) THAT IS TOTALLY FALSE! Here are the facts. The year 142 A.D. was the 8th year of Cycle #206 from the 3761 B.C. starting date. During that cycle the vernal equinox was still at March 23 and the autumn equinox was at September 25. Employing the old sequence of leap years (the "Pre 255-A.D." sequence) we find the following facts: EARLIEST F.O.T. IN THAT CYCLE = 150 A.D. Starting date = evening of September 24 {This starting date is due to a 2-day postponement of Trumpets, since the molad of Tishri fell on Tuesday, September 9 at 17 Hours and 1044 Parts. Therefore exactly 2 cycles later, in 188 A.D. when the molad did NOT require any postponements, then according to this sequence of leap years F.O.T. would have started on Sunday evening, September 22. That is VERY CLEARLY still before the equinox!} LATEST F.O.T. IN THAT CYCLE = 142 A.D. Starting date = evening of Sunday, October 22 {This starting date is also due to a 2-day postponement of Trumpets, since the molad of Tishri fell on Saturday, October 7 at 18 Hours and 10 Parts. Therefore exactly 5 cycles later, in 237 A.D. when the molad did NOT require any postponements, then according to this sequence of leap years this "latest" F.O.T. would have started on Friday evening, October 20.} Thus the earliest Feast of Tabernacles still started from 1-3 days BEFORE the equinox (the greater figure applies when no postponements come into play). This all by itself clearly negates any possible changes to EARLIER dates! The latest Feast of Tabernacles still started from 27-29 days AFTER the equinox. Again, this is a clear indication that the cycle CERTAINLY should not be shifted to an earlier time. Now let's examine the effect of the change in leap years, which Dr. Hoeh so readily justifies. Employing the new sequence of leap years, the one which is still in use today (the "Normal" sequence), we find the following facts: EARLIEST F.O.T. IN THAT CYCLE = 140 A.D. and 151 A.D. Starting date = the evening of September 13 in both years. Last Great Day = September 21 {In both those years the starting date was due to a postponement of 1 day. Thus exactly 2 cycles later when no postponement was required, in 189 A.D. Tabernacles started on Friday evening, September 12, and the Last Great Day concluded on September 20 ... A FULL 4 DAYS BEFORE THE EQUINOX! And Tabernacles would have STARTED a full 12 DAYS before the equinox!} Notice that it is THE VERY REASON which Dr. Hoeh presents in order to JUSTIFY the change in the sequence of leap years, which in effect PROVES that the change was actually totally contrary to God's instructions! How can you possibly justify a change which requires the Feast of Tabernacles to start IN THE SUMMER, 12 days before the autumn equinox?! Now I understand that in 1959 Dr. Hoeh did not have the benefit of a computer program to instantly show him the data for any year of his choice for any combination of leap years that he might want to select. So it would have been extremely difficult to demonstrate all the things I am pointing out. But we DO need to acknowledge that what Dr. Hoeh presented was IN ERROR! And therefore his claims of divine inspiration of and divine approval for the Jewish calendar are also in error! So much for the key booklet on which many people in God's Church have based their convictions that the Jewish calendar is "sacred" and "God-given". Let's now move on to the next topic. CONSIDER THE OBSERVANCE OF OTHER DAYS BY THE JEWS ------------------------------------------------- The reasoning that "if the Day of Atonement falls on a Friday, then there is no day for preparing for the Sabbath" becomes very hollow when examined in light of the Jewish customs that were already extant at the time of Hillel II. This also applies to not wanting the Feast of Tabernacles to start on a Friday or to having the Last Great Day on a Sunday. It is quite well known that the Jews had established the custom of keeping TWO days for every day, except for the Day of Atonement. So here are some of the days which were kept by the Jews: 1) When Trumpets starts on a Thursday, THEN they keep Rosh Hashanah First Day on the Thursday, and Rosh Hashanah Second Day on the Friday. And then comes the weekly Sabbath!! That is three days in a row! 2) When Trumpets starts on a Saturday, THEN they keep Rosh Hashanah First Day on the Saturday, and Rosh Hashanah Second Day on the Sunday. Again, that is two days in a row! Understand that Tishri 1 and Tishri 2 are religiously treated as one day, and together they are called "Yom Arichta" (or "a day lengthened out"). Both days are kept with equal solemnity! So where does that leave the justification for the first rule of postponements? 3) Exactly the same two situations repeat themselves twice more! Tishri 15 is kept as Succoth First Day and Tishri 16 is kept as Succoth Second Day. Likewise, Tishri 22 is kept as Shemini Atzerat and Tishri 23 is kept as Simchat Torah ("Rejoicing of the Law"). Now think about this: When the Feast of Trumpets falls on a Thursday, then in the space of four successive weekends the Jews observe THREE periods of THREE DAYS EACH, where in all three cases the weekly Sabbath is the third of the three days! There doesn't seem to be very much worry about not having a preparation day before the weekly Sabbath in those cases. 4) Consider Chanukah, the Feast of Dedication, which is kept on Kislev 25. Kislev 25 can fall on a Friday (as it will do in 2000 A.D.) and also on a Sunday (when Trumpets falls on a Monday in a year where Heshvan has only 29 days). Observing this day on a Friday or a Sunday does not seem to present any problems. 5) The Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) is observed on two days, Sivan 6 and Sivan 7. In years where Sivan 6 falls on a Sunday (which is fairly common), they don't seem to mind observing two consecutive days immediately after a weekly Sabbath. Again, A THREE DAY PERIOD is involved in the observances of the Jews. What happened to the preparation day? 6) For the Feast of Purim two days are observed (or three for those who are very strict, and who observe Adar 13 as 'The Fast of Esther'). The two days are Adar 14 and Adar 15 (in leap years Adar II 14 and Adar II 15). Now Adar 14 and 15 can fall on: a Friday and Saturday; a Sunday and Monday, a Thursday and Friday, etc.. What happens to the preparation day in all these situations? 7) The Jews observe Pesach First Day on Nisan 15 and Pesach Second Day on Nisan 16. {Nisan 15 is the First Day of Unleavened Bread.} Therefore when Nisan 15 falls on a Thursday, then they keep Thursday and Friday (preparation day?). And when Nisan 15 falls on a Sunday, then they keep Sunday and Monday, again forming a three day period with the preceding weekly Sabbath. When Nisan 15 falls on a Saturday, then they keep Saturday and Sunday. 8) The Jews observe Pesach Seventh Day on Nisan 21 and Pesach Eighth Day on Nisan 22. {Nisan 21 is the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread.} Therefore when Nisan 21 falls on a Saturday, then they keep Saturday and Sunday. When Nisan 21 falls on a Friday, then they keep Friday and Saturday. In both cases they keep two consecutive days, one of which is a weekly Sabbath. 9) The fast of the 9th of Ab commemorates when the Temple was destroyed by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. This falls on a Sunday when the Feast of Trumpets falls on a Tuesday. So here is a fast immediately after a weekly Sabbath. 10) The fast of the 17th of Tammuz. This is always on the same day of the week as the 9th of Ab. So this fast can also fall on a Sunday. There are several other days on which the strict Jews will also fast. Some of these days may also fall on a Friday or on a Sunday. When you examine all of these observances by the Jews, which include numerous occasions where two and even three consecutive days are observed, then the rule of postponement, which stipulates that Trumpets may not fall on a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday seems rather shallow and contrived! It doesn't present any problems at all to observe the days THEY THEMSELVES have decided upon without regard to "preparation days" or double and triple "Sabbath days"; but when the days GOD has ordained fall at certain "awkward" times, then a postponement is invoked. In dealing with the Pharisees and their teachings we should never let Christ's words about their teachings be far from our minds: But he answered and said unto them, WHY DO YE ALSO TRANSGRESS THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD BY YOUR TRADITION? (Matthew 15:3) And honour not his father or his mother, [he shall be free]. THUS HAVE YE MADE THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD OF NONE EFFECT BY YOUR TRADITION. (Matthew 15:6) And he said unto them, FULL WELL YE REJECT THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD, THAT YE MAY KEEP YOUR OWN TRADITION. (Mark 7:9) MAKING THE WORD OF GOD OF NONE EFFECT THROUGH YOUR TRADITION, which ye have delivered: AND MANY SUCH LIKE THINGS DO YE. (Mark 7:13) Let's face the facts: this rule of postponing the Feast of Trumpets from a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday is nothing more than "A TRADITION" of the Jews. It has no biblical basis! It is only human reasoning which justifies this rule of postponement. THE POSTPONEMENT RULE CREATES A FLAW IN THE CALENDAR ---------------------------------------------------- I mentioned earlier that 19 solar years are equal to 6939,601728 days. The figure for 19 Jewish years has the same number of days ... the Jewish calculations are based on 19 years being 6939,689622 days long. This means that a 19-year cycle may have 6939 days or 6940 days or 6941 days in it. But never more and never less! If there were only 6938 days, then it would be out of synch with the new moons; and if there were 6942 days, then it would also be out of synch. So one of the rules of the calendar stipulates these three possible lengths for any 19-year cycle. The postponement rules must all work within this parameter. And most people think that they always do ... but they don't always do so! Next year, 1997 A.D., will be the start of the 304th 19-year cycle from the starting date in 3761 B.C.. During the past 303 19-year cycles, IF THE POSTPONEMENT RULE #1 WAS IN FORCE, there will have been TWO CYCLES with 6942 days each! But that is not permitted by the rules of the calendar. Here are the facts, which are not all that well known. You will be able to verify them for yourself. Let's go one step at a time. Let's establish how many days, in addition to a full number of weeks, there are in each of these three possibilities for the length of a cycle. Thus: A) 6939 days = 991 weeks plus 2 days B) 6940 days = 991 weeks plus 3 days C) 6941 days = 991 weeks plus 4 days The cycle of the week has never changed. So the simplest way to determine the length for any 19-year cycle is to know the day of the week on which the cycle started, and the day of the week on which the cycle ends (that being the day before the next cycle starts). Case #1: Cycle # 154 started in 854 B.C. and the next cycle started in 835 B.C.. So let's look at the molads of Tishri for these years. Molad for 854 B.C. = Saturday, September 28, 17H 519P (11:28:50 a.m.). Thus Trumpets was on Saturday, September 28. Molad for 835 B.C. = Tuesday, September 28, 10H 34P (4:1:53 a.m.). Year 1 of a cycle has always been a common year. Since this molad is after 9H 204P, THEREFORE the Feast of Trumpets should be postponed to Thursday, September 30th for this year. And that is precisely what the computer programs, which calculate the calendar for you, will show you. Therefore cycle #154 went from Sat. Sept. 28th 854 B.C. up to Wednesday, September 29th 835 B.C.. This means that there are FIVE days in excess of a number of full weeks (the five days being Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues and Wed). This proves that the postponement rule forced cycle #154 to have 6942 days! But that is not permitted by the rules of the calendar. Case #2: Cycle #167 started in 607 B.C. and the next cycle started in 588 B.C.. Let's again look at the molads of Tishri. Molad for 607 B.C. = Saturday, September 27, 10H 694P (4:38:33 a.m.). Thus Trumpets was on Saturday, September 27. Molad for 588 B.C. = Tuesday, September 27, 9H 209P (3:11:36,6 a.m.). This is precisely 16,6 seconds within the need to postpone. {If it was NOT postponed, then that year would end up being too long.} So therefore Trumpets for 588 B.C. is postponed to Thursday, September 29th. Again, you can verify this yourself. Therefore cycle #167 went from Sat. Sept. 27th 607 B.C. up to Wednesday, September 28th 588 B.C.. As in the above example, there are again 6942 days in this cycle. Again this infringement of the laws that regulate the calendar comes about purely because of postponement rule #1. Yes, this is a rare occurrence. Assuming a continuation of the present Jewish calendar, it will not occur again until cycle #547 and then again in cycle #560 ... both of those are after the year 6600 A.D. But it DOES point out a flaw in the postponement rules. Without postponement rule #1 such a situation could NEVER come about. It seems strange to claim divine inspiration for a postponement rule which creates problems of its own. These two specific examples show up a weakness of this postponement rule. A PREPARATION DAY ----------------- One of the justifications used for postponing the Feast of Trumpets is the claim that Friday is the preparation day and it would be a hardship to not have Friday available for preparing for the weekly Sabbath. Really? First of all, it is not as if preparing for the Sabbath is the only purpose that a Friday has! Friday is a day in its own right, with work and activities like the other weekdays. A PORTION of a Friday is devoted to preparing for the Sabbath; but there should be more to a Friday than just preparing for another day. It is not as if eating is all there is to life and that therefore the preparation of food is the most important activity of the day. Do you remember what Jesus Christ said to Martha, who was so totally involved in the preparation of food (see Luke 10:38- 42)? Is there not a lesson in these verses? Next, what is the problem with using THURSDAY to prepare for the weekly Sabbath in a week where Friday happens to be a Holy Day? Does God have to spell it out in every little detail, like you would to a small child, before we can understand that on occasions where we can't prepare one day in advance we should simply plan to prepare TWO days in advance? It is really no more work at all to prepare TWO days ahead of an activity than it is to prepare one day in advance. And after all, people should ALWAYS do that on the Friday before Pentecost ... preparing on the Friday the things they plan to eat on the Sunday. The same applies to when the first or seventh Day of Unleavened Bread forms a double Sabbath in combination with a weekly Sabbath. For us today, with our fridges and freezers and all our electrical appliances it is no hardship at all to have food prepared for several days in advance. It is very easy to take something out of the fridge and then to serve it directly. But let's consider the situation in biblical times! Keep in mind that the Levitical priests REGULARLY were to eat bread that was ONE WEEK OLD! It was only after the bread had been used as shewbread for one whole week that it was then given to the priests to eat. Remember also that Jesse sent his son David with ten loaves and some cheeses (see 1 Sam 17:17-18) for his (David's) brothers in the army. Those loaves of bread were also several days old before they ever reached the people they were intended for. So could people in biblical times prepare food for the Sabbath on a Thursday or not? There certainly would not have been any problems with baking bread on a Thursday and keeping it until Saturday. At that time people REGULARLY ate bread that was two or more days old. They didn't buy their bread from commercial bakeries. A woman would bake a large batch of bread and then not bake again until that was all eaten up. What about cheeses ... like the ones Jesse told David to take with him? There was no problem with keeping a cheese from a Thursday to a Saturday, was there? What about fresh fruits and honey? What about dried fruits and nuts? What about hard-boiled eggs? They can easily keep for two days. What about the large range of vegetables that can be eaten raw ... carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, cauliflower, onions, lettuce, cabbage, etc.? What about raw oats, where you simply pour the milk over them before eating? And what about potatoes baked in their jackets and then eaten cold a day or two later? What about foods that have been pickled in brine? What about olives, a favourite in the Middle East? Keep in mind that whatever foods were prepared on the Friday for the Sabbath were then EATEN COLD on the Sabbath! Preparing foods for the Sabbath in those days did NOT mean that on the next day those foods were quickly heated up (as we do today). They were all things that were then eaten COLD! So if you are preparing foods that are going to be eaten cold anyway, what's the problem with preparing those foods two days in advance instead of just one day in advance? Remember also that meat was NOT a part of their DAILY diet! They only ate meat when they slaughtered an animal and after that they didn't have any meat for another week or two or more until they again slaughtered an animal. This is the way it was for the vast majority of people. Only the very rich people had meat more frequently than that. Historically most people have had a staple food which provided the greatest part of their regular food intake. That could be wheat or maize (corn) or rice or potatoes, etc.. And there are ways in which these staple foods can all be prepared ahead of time on occasions. So what REALLY was the problem with using the Thursday as a preparation day for the Sabbath on those rare occasions where the Day of Atonement fell on a Friday? Well, the problem was all the rituals and traditions which the Pharisees had built up around the Sabbath! To use a Thursday before Atonement in order to prepare for the weekly Sabbath day simply did not fit in with THE TRADITIONS which the Pharisees held in such high esteem! Look again at what Jesus Christ said in Matthew 15:3,6 and in Mark 7:9,13. On half a dozen or more other occasions in the year they were quite willing to observe a day on a Friday or on a Sunday, and in some cases even for TWO DAYS either before or after a weekly Sabbath; but when God clearly spelled out that the Day of Atonement is to be observed on a certain day of the month, THEN they are quite willing to shift that month around to avoid "INCONVENIENT" days! Let's be quite open about this! The Jews themselves invented the concept of "a Sabbath Day's journey". That is not an injunction from God. Yet, once they had invented this concept of "a Sabbath Day's journey", THEN they also thought up any number of ways to get around this restriction. For example, on a Friday a man could prepare a small bucket of soil which he took from his own garden. Then, if he really wanted to travel a longer distance on the Sabbath, he would simply take this small bucket with him on his trip. And every "Sabbath's Day's journey" he would simply scatter a teaspoon full of that soil in front of him. This represented that he was again at his own home ... since the soil came from his own garden. So, in order to travel 20 times the distance of "a Sabbath Day's journey" a man needed no more than 19 or 20 teaspoons full of soil from his own garden. Isn't that a clever way to get around the "Sabbath Day's journey" restriction? If you think that this reasoning is extremely carnal, then you are quite right! But that is the way all of the traditions which are preserved in the Talmud basically go. For example, in the Talmud (published by Soncino) in the book "Bezah", in chapter 1, a 20-page section is devoted to whether a chicken-egg that is laid on a festival day before a Sabbath day (i.e. including ALL of the Jewish festivals in this term "festival day") may be eaten on the same day or only on the following day. For 20 pages the argument goes back and forth: the motivation for keeping the hen is examined, whether it will be eaten raw or cooked is examined; etc., etc.. Some authorities said 'yes' to eating it but only on the Sabbath day, while others said 'yes' but only to eating it on the first day. In the end, you can do what you want to do ... and you will have approval from someone. It is total carnal confusion. I know ... I took the time to read it for myself. It is like the thoughts about the time when God created Adam and Eve. In the Talmud section entitled "Synopsis of Subjects of TRACT ROSH HASHANA" it states: "R. Eliezer says, that the world was created in Tishri. R. Joshua says, that the world was created in Nissan [spelling]." [Comment: Tishri is in the autumn and Nisan is in the spring.] So people who tell you that the Talmud says that God created Adam in the autumn are only telling you half the story. The Talmud ALSO says that God created Adam in the spring ... you just have to search until you find WHERE this is said. If you ever have 6 or 8 hours to spare, why don't you go to the nearest university library, where you might be able to find a copy of the Talmud, and just read and read? The total exclusion of what GOD actually wants us human beings to do almost shouts at you from every page of the Talmud! The discussion about this chicken-egg is by no means an isolated case ... not at all. Understand that what the Jewish religious authorities have done with "a Sabbath Day's journey", they have also done with the annual Holy Days of Leviticus chapter 23. If a certain day is not convenient to us, then let's shift it to another day! And we just drop a teaspoon of soil from our front garden along the way every now and then, and that then makes it okay. God has spelled out which days of the month we are to keep; so we can't really change them. BUT God didn't say that we can't shift THE WHOLE YEAR, did He? So let's just do THAT and then we'll still get it the way WE want it! It might be helpful to understand that there is a sect of Judaism, whose followers are known as "Karaites". Their law forbids them from being counted in a census, but the Encyclopedia Judaica estimated that there were over 7000 of them in Israel in 1970 A.D. (Volume 10, Page 778, copyright 1972). On page 779 this article about the Karaites says: "In determining the date of the holy days, Karaites deviate from Rabbanite usage in the following manner: the New Year Festival may begin on any day of the week (contrary to the Rabbanite rule, which provides for the postponement of the day of the New Year in three specific cases); as a result the Karaite Day of Atonement does not always coincide with the Rabbanite; Passover and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) are observed for seven days only; the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot) falls on the 50th day following the Saturday of the Passover week (in accordance with the literal interpretation of Lev. 23:11, which the Talmud interprets in a different manner) , and is therefore always on a Sunday." {Encyclopedia Judaica} So there ARE some Jews who do NOT recognize the first rule of postponement as being valid. I think it is good for us to understand this. {The same Jews also always keep Pentecost on a Sunday.} Now let's go to the Bible, to see what we can learn about calendars. Many of us have taken some things for granted, which may not be correct at all. So let's try to understand God's views about calendars. CALENDARS IN THE BIBLE ---------------------- In the re-creation account in Genesis chapter 1 Moses stated the following: 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be FOR SIGNS, AND FOR SEASONS, and FOR DAYS, AND YEARS: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made TWO GREAT LIGHTS; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also. (Genesis 1) This is speaking about the sun and the moon specifically, and all of the stars collectively in a general way. Here God stated that the sun and the moon would serve for four purposes. They would be for: 1) SIGNS, 2) SEASONS, 3) DAYS, 4) YEARS. The Hebrew word here translated as "signs" is "owth" and one of the definitions for this word, as given in Gesenius' Hebrew- Chaldee Lexicon is "the sign of anything which cannot itself be seen". The word is also translated as "a mark" (of Cain in Genesis 4:15) and "a token" (of the covenant in Genesis 17:11). This tells us that God will at times use the sun and the moon to represent or to symbolize something. Examples are found in Malachi 4:2; Revelation 12:1; etc.. That need not concern us in this discussion about the calendar. The word translated as "seasons" is "mow'ed", which is used 223 times in the Old Testament. It is translated 150 times as "CONGREGATION", 23 times as "FEAST", 13 times as "SEASON", 12 times as "APPOINTED" and 12 times as "TIME". It comes from a root word which means: to fix, to appoint, to meet, to assemble. And so in Genesis 1:14 God is telling us that THE SUN AND THE MOON are to help us determine the times when we are to assemble and to meet together (as a congregation). This means that both, the sun and the moon, are involved in determining a right calendar. >From Genesis 1:14 alone it should be quite clear that neither the Julian nor the Gregorian calendar (both of which are totally independent of the movements of the moon) should be used to determine the times when God wants us to assemble together. That information is contained in the Hebrew word translated as "seasons". The sun tells us when it is day-time, and the moon tells us when it is night-time. Lastly, we are told that the sun and the moon should help us to determine "the years". Again, a calendar which takes both, the movement of the earth around the sun, and also the movement of the moon around the earth into account, is implied. Next, notice that at the end of the re-creation week God surveyed everything that He had made, and He pronounced it to be "VERY GOOD". Notice ... And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31) This statement was made AFTER God had specifically singled out the movements of the sun (from our perspective on earth) and of the moon in being influential in determining when people should assemble together. Now let's be honest about this! The moon's movement around the earth in exactly 29 days and 12 hours and 44 minutes and 2,8 seconds is NOT "VERY GOOD"! And the earth's movement around the sun in exactly 365 days and 5 hours and 48 minutes and 46 seconds is ALSO NOT "VERY GOOD"! Frankly, those times do NOT represent something that is "very good" in the sight of God! Can you understand this? To be quite honest, those times are SO AWKWARD that it is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE to have anything like "a perfect calendar"! There is NO WAY that you can possibly have a perfect calendar based on those imperfect movements! Genesis 1:14 tells us that it was God's INTENTION that a month should have a perfect number of days and that a year should have a perfect number of months, thereby giving the year a perfect number of days. But when both, the month and the year have A FRACTION of a day, then you have something that is imperfect, something that is flawed! Can you understand this? Let's look at what Genesis tells us about a calendar. Over 1650 years after the creation of Adam and Eve, Noah entered into the ark. For each of those generations from Adam to Noah we are given an exact number of years. Those "years" listed in Genesis chapter 4 must be based on the same calendar the years in Noah's time were based on, since Moses wrote the whole account without any interruption being indicated. So let's look at Noah's time in the ark. NOAH IN THE ARK --------------- In Genesis 7:11 we are told ... In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. (Genesis 7:11) This verse pinpoints ONE VERY SPECIFIC DAY! It was Month 2, Day 17 of Noah's 600th year. Such dating obviously implies a calendar. A few verses later we are told ... And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. (Genesis 7:24) Here we have A VERY SPECIFIC AND LIMITED PERIOD OF TIME. It was exactly 150 days. This is repeated a few verses later ... And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated. (Genesis 8:3) The very next verse then again pinpoints ONE VERY SPECIFIC DAY! It was Month 7, Day 17. And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. (Genesis 8:4) The conclusion is inescapable that the period of time of 150 days was equal to exactly FIVE MONTHS! Expressed as a mathematical equation this would read as: Month 2, Day 17 + 150 Days = Month 7, Day 17. Therefore in the calendar that was in use at the time of Noah (and therefore also in the time going back to the creation of Adam!) every month consisted of exactly 30 days ... no more and no less! BUT THAT IS NOT THE HEBREW CALENDAR! Because the moon takes just over twenty nine and one half days to go around the earth, THEREFORE in the Jewish calendar the months have alternately 30 days and 29 days. The 2nd, 4th and 6th month always have 29 days ... to stay synchronized with the movements of the moon. It follows that with the Jewish calendar the equation would thus have been: Month 2, Day 17 + 147 Days = Month 7, Day 17. So here is the point to understand: We see here at the time of Noah A PERFECT CALENDAR, one in which every month had exactly 30 days and where every year consisted of 12 * 30 days = 360 days. And that is the annual cycle which, back in Genesis 1:31, God pronounced as "VERY GOOD"! That is also the reason WHY in prophecy a year is equated with 360 days ... because that is precisely the way it was when God created Adam and Eve. A prophetic year consisting of 360 days is not some kind of wishful thinking on the part of God ... it is an expression of the reality which existed when man had first been created until at least the time of Noah. There is a popular song which is sometimes sung at weddings, where some of the words go like this: "... LOVE, LOVE CHANGES EVERYTHING ...". What we need to understand is that this statement is equally true for SIN. It is a fact of life that ... "SIN, SIN CHANGES EVERYTHING ...!" Sin ALWAYS changes things! When God first created Adam and Eve things were vastly different from today. At that time ... - animals were tame and did not hurt human beings; - there were no weeds to impede the growth of crops; - there were no sicknesses and no AIDS viruses, etc.; - there were no fears; - there was only one language; - there was a perfect annual cycle. But sin changed everything! It didn't all change all at once ... but things continued to constantly change for the worse ... and that is still happening today! As a direct result of sins, over a period of time ... - many animals became hurtful to mankind; - weeds made farming increasingly difficult; - sicknesses and diseases appeared and continue to appear; - fears became a regular and permanent part of life; - God divided people through different languages; - the cycles of the moon and of the earth were changed. Yes, sin, sin changes everything! As far as the solar year and the lunar month are concerned, we could speculate as to when and how those changes occurred. We can postulate and we can speculate and we can reason ... but we don't really know! Frankly, it doesn't really make a difference as to whether God changed the yearly cycle at the time of Joshua's long day (see Joshua 10:12-13) or whether God did this at the time of King Hezekiah (see 2 Kings 20:10-11) or even at some other time. What we DO know is that today we don't have a 30-day lunar month and we don't have a 360-day solar year. But those are precisely the lengths that are indicated in prophetic statements and they are also indicated at the time of Noah. Therefore at some point in time between the creation of Adam and today those cycles were changed. Now exactly what do all of these changes from their original state to the state we find today represent? They represent PENALTIES FROM GOD! Can you understand this? Why did God change it so that many animals are in fact DANGEROUS for us human beings? It is a penalty for human sins! Why did God create weeds? They are a penalty for sins (see Genesis 3:17-18). Why did God create a multitude of sicknesses and diseases? They are the penalties for sins (see Exodus 15:26). Why are we human beings constantly plagued by fears? Because we sin, and fear is always the first immediate consequence of sins, even as it was for Adam and Eve (see Genesis 3:10). Why did God divide the languages? Because the sins of humanity were getting worse (see Genesis 11:6-8). And why did God change the lengths of the lunar month and the solar year? Because of human sins! Understand that in the presence of sins you simply CANNOT have perfection in any area of life. Perfection simply does not exist in the presence of sins. The perfection in everything that God included in His statement in Genesis 1:31 has been destroyed by human sins. EVERYTHING HAS DEGENERATED SINCE THEN! Nothing of what was "very good" is still left today ... not one thing! Go back to Genesis chapter 1 and examine it carefully. On the first day light again penetrated down to this earth. But that light is no longer "very good"! Today it will give you skin cancer ... we have polluted the atmosphere to the point where direct sunlight is actually dangerous to our health. On the second day the waters were divided and the atmosphere was created. But we have polluted the atmosphere with countless poisons. On the third day the seas were divided from the dry land and all the plants were created. But we have polluted the water and the soil with the most dangerous toxins imaginable. And we have polluted all the vegetation which God created. That includes the foods we eat. On the fourth day God established perfect cycles for the lunar month and the solar year ... but as a result of human sins they have been corrupted to the cycles we have today. On the fifth day God created the sea creatures and the birds, but the perfection God created in these creatures has long since been marred by human sins; we have polluted the food chains and the habitat for all of these creatures. On the sixth day God created all the land animals and mankind. But our sins have destroyed many species and corrupted the lifecycles of all the others. Sicknesses in the animal kingdom are the result of human sins. And we have most certainly corrupted ourselves. We are the last degeneration in the chain of human life, dream teams and all! And on the seventh day God created the Sabbath. And we human beings have certainly polluted that! So what is left of the "everything" which God had made and which He pronounced to be "very good"? Nothing is still left. It has all been polluted. Can you understand this? Now think very carefully. It was GOD'S doing (in response to human sins) that the lunar month and the solar year were changed from their perfect cycles to the corrupted cycles we see today. DOES GOD EVER CLAIM ANYTHING THAT IS CORRUPTED TO BE "HIS"? DOES GOD DESIGNATE CORRUPTED AND POLLUTED THINGS AS "SACRED"? People have talked about God's "SACRED" calendar (e.g. the article by Stephen Flurry). But is there really anything "SACRED" about our corrupted solar year and our corrupted lunar month? People tend to use words rather freely, sometimes without considering the actual meaning of the words they use. For example, here are the meanings of the word "sacred", as given in Webster's Dictionary: - set apart for the service or worship of deity; - devoted exclusively to one service or use; - worthy of religious veneration, holy; - entitled to reverence. Do these definitions apply to the Jewish calendar? For that matter, do these definitions apply to ANY calendar we could devise today? NO, THEY DON'T! Listen! When God, in response to human sins, corrupted the perfect solar year, then God did NOT at the same time give humanity a "SACRED" calendar to regulate that corrupted solar year. As with all of man's sins in other areas of life, when God imposed penalties on man, then God in effect said: "Until now I have done things for you. But your sins are cutting you off from Me. Therefore from now onwards I sentence you to working it out for yourselves! You didn't want My ways. So go ahead and work out your own ways!" THERE IS NO "SACRED" CALENDAR TODAY! ------------------------------------ The only calendar that can be called "sacred" is the one which has exactly 12 months, each of which has exactly 30 days. That is the calendar which God Himself referred to throughout the prophecies, and that calendar is used by God right to the last book of the Bible. In Revelation 11:2 God refers to 42 months; in the next verse God refers to 1260 days; in Revelation 12:6 God again refers to 1260 days and in Revelation 12:14 to three-and-one-half "times" or years; in Revelation 13:5 God again refers to 42 months. This is not to say that all of these periods of time refer to exactly the same thing. But the point is this: these periods of 1260 days do not relate to a yearly cycle of from 353 days to 355 days (i.e. the Hebrew calendar) or a cycle of 365 days (a solar year, approximately). These periods of time ONLY have a meaning when we accept that God means for a year to have exactly 360 days. Only THEN can we see a connection, or at least a parallel, between 1260 days and 42 months and three-and-one-half years. It follows that the expression "the SACRED calendar" should be reserved exclusively for the calendar which has a 360-day year. Therefore any calendar deviating from this 360-day year simply CANNOT be called "sacred"! A different calendar may be "USEFUL" in regulating time during this age while we have a corrupted solar year, but that doesn't make it "sacred"! We have referred to the components of such a sacred calendar as "a PROPHETIC year" being 360 days and "a PROPHETIC month" being 30 days. But it isn't that when it comes to prophecies, then all of a sudden God endorses one calendar; but when it comes to observing God's Holy Days then God has a different "SACRED CALENDAR" which has been preserved by the Jews. Only one of those two calendars can be sacred. I will prove to you beyond any shadow of doubt that the Jewish calendar is NEITHER INSPIRED NOR SACRED! And after that I will explain why and how we should nevertheless use the Jewish calendar in order to determine when the Holy Days should be observed. Mr. Armstrong wrote in the Author's Statement on page X of "Mystery of the Ages" the following: "Most people, I realized, accept or reject a belief on CARELESS ASSUMPTION due to whatever they have heard, been taught, or assumed WITHOUT PROOF. I wanted to understand. And I wanted to be sure on positive proof, not on careless assumption or WISHFUL THINKING." When it comes to the Hebrew calendar that is precisely what people have done! We, Mr. Armstrong included, have ASSUMED that God simply MUST have preserved "His sacred calendar" through the Jews ... and then we have looked for proof to substantiate our assumption. This reasoning is presented quite clearly in a "Good News Letter" Mr. Armstrong wrote in 1940 (and quoted by Dr. Hoeh in his article), where Mr. Armstrong stated: "UNLESS GOD HAS PRESERVED HIS SACRED CALENDAR THROUGH THE JEWS, then we do not know how to figure Passover or any of the holy days this year. For there is no authority for any other way. THERE IS NO BIBLE AUTHORITY WHATSOEVER for figuring the first day of the first month from the new moon nearest the spring equinox." Can you see the desperation in Mr. Armstrong's statement ... "UNLESS the Jews have got the correct calendar, we are in big trouble!" It is out of a sense of desperation that we have conferred upon the Jewish calendar the designation "GOD'S SACRED CALENDAR". But there is nothing sacred or even inspired about the Jewish calendar. People have never examined the calendar closely enough to see the weaknesses it inherently embodies. Let's now look at the proof that the Hebrew calendar is not at all "sacred". THE WEAKNESSES IN THE HEBREW CALENDAR ------------------------------------- 1) The starting date for the Jewish calendar is the molad of Tishri in the year 3761 B.C.. This is given as: Sunday evening, October 6th, at 204 Parts after 11 p.m.. THAT DATE AND TIME IS TOTALLY FICTIONAL!! It was arrived at by extrapolating backwards from the time of Hillel II with the intention of arriving at the year of the creation of Adam. I have already earlier quoted the passage from Maimonides' work "Kiddusch hachodesch", where Maimonides makes quite clear that as far as he was concerned (living in 1200 A.D.) this starting molad represented the year in which God created Adam. BUT THAT IS OUT BY MORE THAN 200 YEARS!! It is absolutely beyond any doubt that 3761 B.C. was NOT the year when God created Adam. Therefore those who want to claim inspired status for the Jewish calendar have looked for some other significance for the year 3761 B.C.. But there is no other significance! It was just an erroneous calculation by Hillel II, or perhaps even by someone after Hillel's time. 2) While 3761 B.C. falls short of going back to the creation of Adam, it certainly goes back to more than 1000 years before the Flood. But this starting date ASSUMES that new moons back then occurred every 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3,3 seconds (i.e. the Jewish calculation). BUT the calendar extant at the time of the flood is based on new moons occurring every 30 days exactly. So for over 1000 years the calendar calculates molads that have no connection with when the new moons actually occurred. It is a totally theoretical date, the molad of Tishri of 3761 B.C.. It is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that there ever was a molad on October 6th or 7th in 3761 B.C.. God would not inspire some meaningless figure, which has no bearing to reality, to be used for the start of the calculation of the new moon. God doesn't play "Let's just pretend ..." games! 3) While the error in the Jewish calculations for the molad only amounts to about 1 day in 13100 years, or about 7 hours and 30 minutes in extrapolating back to 3761 B.C. from Hillel II's time in 350 A.D.(assuming for the moment that the same lunar cycle existed back then), the SHIFT IN THE SEASONS, when compared to the solar year, amounts to about 19 days for that same period of time. What none of the authors of the articles which endorse the Jewish calendar seem to understand is that there is an UNAVOIDABLE SHIFT AWAY FROM THE EQUINOX (AND THEREFORE A SEASONAL SHIFT!) inherent in the Hebrew calendar. That shift away from the seasons is equal to one day for every 216,3 years. This shift is UNAVOIDABLE with the Jewish calendar. Later I will explain in some detail the computer program my son and I have produced, which very clearly shows this shift in the form of a graph that you can draw for as many 19-year cycles as you want to draw ... up to 1000 cycles! As an illustration of those authors who don't understand this seasonal shift, Stephen Flurry, for example, writes: "In other words, His spring festivals should be kept in the SPRING and the autumn festivals in the AUTUMN. And that is EXACTLY WHAT THE HEBREW CALENDAR ENSURES - -- that these days will be kept in their proper season." BUT THIS STATEMENT IS INCORRECT! Here is the proof: The first 19-year cycle went from 3761 B.C. to 3743 B.C.. During that cycle THE ENTIRE FEAST OF TABERNACLES would NOT have been kept in the autumn at all for 6 years in that cycle! Here are the facts, which you can check on your own Holy Day computer program. The dates for F.O.T. + L.G.D. are as follows: 3760 B.C. = October 10 - 17; (molad was 26/9) 3757 B.C. = October 7 - 14; (molad was 22/9) 3755 B.C. = October 15 - 22; (molad was 1/10) 3752 B.C. = October 12 - 19; (molad was 27/9) 3749 B.C. = October 8 - 15; (molad was 24/9) 3746 B.C. = October 6 - 13; (molad was 22/9). That seems just fine until you realize that all of those dates are for the JULIAN CALENDAR! If you convert all of the above dates into the GREGORIAN CALENDAR, in which the autumn equinox is on September 23, then you get the following dates for F.O.T. + L.G.D.: 3760 B.C. = September 9 - 16; (molad was 26/8) 3757 B.C. = September 6 - 13; (molad was 22/8) 3755 B.C. = September 14 - 21; (molad was 31/8) 3752 B.C. = September 11 - 18; (molad was 27/8) 3749 B.C. = September 7 - 14; (molad was 24/8) 3746 B.C. = September 5 - 12. (molad was 22/8) Look at those dates in terms of the calendar we today use. The dates for the molad are basically the dates for the Feast of Trumpets, unless it is postponed by 1 or 2 days. Anyone who claims that the Hebrew calendar ENSURES that the autumn festivals stay in the autumn doesn't know what he is talking about. How can you possibly claim that a calendar which requires you to keep the Feast of Trumpets on the 22nd of AUGUST keeps the autumn festivals in the autumn? THIS IS CLEAR AND IRREFUTABLE PROOF THAT THE STARTING DATE IN 3761 B.C. MUST BE TOTALLY FICTITIOUS! So understand this: when you extrapolate the molad of Tishri backwards, then the calculation of the molad itself will be quite accurate (excluding a change in the length of the lunar cycle for the moment) -- certainly within acceptable limits -- but absolutely no consideration at all is given to the seasonal shift of 1 day for every 216,3 years! It is absolutely impossible to have a Jewish calendar which will cover a period of 5750 years (i.e. from 3761 B.C. up to the 1990's A.D.) without some modifications along the way. In that period of time it will shift by over 26 days away from the equinox. In calculating back to B.C. dates the shift is to BEFORE the equinox; in calculating forward to future dates the shift is to AFTER the equinox. That is unavoidable. Only blind faith and wishful thinking and the desperation embodied in Mr. Armstrong's 1940 "Good News Letter" would claim that a fictional starting date, supposedly representing the creation of Adam, and a system which requires the Feast of Trumpets to repeatedly have fallen in August (by our calendar today) is actually INSPIRED by God, and is something that GOD commissioned the Jews to preserve. As I have tried to explain earlier, we have an IMPERFECT lunar month and an IMPERFECT solar year ... and the Jews have an IMPERFECT calendar! 4) As I have also mentioned already at various times, the Jewish calculations of the molad actually contain a small error, the error amounting to 2 minutes and 5,3 seconds in 19 years. Not a very big error at all ... but neither is it inspired by God! IF God had given this information about the calendar to the Jews, then He would not have given them a calculation which contains an error. And here we are speaking about the discrepancy between 19 Jewish years and 19 actual "lunar" years. 5) As mentioned earlier, the postponement rule #1 will occasionally cause a 19-year cycle to be 1 day longer than is permitted. This also proves that God did not inspire this postponement rule, since God would not inspire something that requires rules to be broken. 6) The double Sabbaths that can occur with the First Day of U.B., with the 7th Day of U.B. and with Pentecost, in addition to the numerous occasions on which the Jews will observe one day, and even two consecutive days, before or after a weekly Sabbath, should make abundantly clear that God has not at any stage given His approval to postponing the Feast of Trumpets simply because a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday would be "inconvenient". The appeal to a 31 A.D. crucifixion is very inconclusive in view of the factors that strongly imply a 30 A.D. crucifixion, where no postponements of any kind are needed. Frankly, the appeal to 31 A.D. in order to justify THE PHARISEES in their tradition of postponing the Feast of Trumpets, is really no different than the Protestants appealing to "breaking bread on the first day of the week" in order to justify Sunday-keeping. Let's at least have enough integrity to be totally HONEST about this, right?! If you cannot justify the postponement rule #1 any other way than by appealing to a 31 A.D. crucifixion date, then you really have NO PROOF AT ALL to justify such a postponement! All you are doing is using REASONING, but you have no facts to back up your reasoning. 7) As the quotation from Mr. Armstrong's 1940 letter points out, "THERE IS NO BIBLE AUTHORITY WHATSOEVER for figuring the first day of the first month from the new moon nearest the spring equinox." What Mr. Armstrong understood quite clearly is that the Bible simply does not contain ANY specific instructions as to exactly when a year is to start. That is because God did not actually "GIVE" Israel a detailed calendar to go by. God simply gave some general guidelines. Numbers 9:2 instructs us ... Let the children of Israel also keep the passover AT HIS APPOINTED SEASON. (Numbers 9:2) The word here translated as "appointed season" is "mow'ed", which we saw earlier. It basically means: a time that has been fixed for assembling. As such it does not tell us anything about "a season"; the focus is really on the fact that it has been appointed. The main instruction regarding the calendar is found in Exodus 12:2, where God plainly said ... THIS MONTH [shall be] unto you the beginning of months: it [SHALL BE] THE FIRST MONTH OF THE YEAR TO YOU. (Exodus 12:2) Here God very specifically tells Israel when the first month of the year is to take place! However, it says nothing about how such a calendar is to be calculated, and it certainly says nothing about postponement rules. Implied seems to be not so much some kind of calendar change, as simply a shifting of when the year is to start ... in a different season from previously. The same thing LATER happened to our Roman calendar. As I mentioned earlier, originally the Roman calendar started in March, then the start of the year was moved to January, which at that time came after February and therefore time-wise coincided with our February today. Thereafter February was moved to be AFTER January, thus shifting the start of the year back by another month. Then it was Julius Caesar who, in 45 B.C., fixed the start of the year at January 1. So the start of the Roman year had been shifted away from when APPROXIMATELY the Hebrew year starts to about 2 months earlier. Exodus 12:2 is basically the same sort of thing, a change as to WHEN the year is to start. Implied in God's statement in Exodus 12:2 is that this "first month" is to always stay in the same season of the year. That first month is also called by the name "Abib" several times (Exodus 13:4; 23:15; 34:18; Deut. 16:1). This Hebrew word means "green", or "green ears" of barley. The Hebrew name Abib implies the spring of the year. That Abib is to be in the spring of the year is also confirmed by the instructions which were to be carried out during the time of Unleavened Bread, which occurs in this month. The priest was to wave a sheaf of the firstfruits of the harvest. This instruction pinpoints the spring of the year, when the first grains start to ripen. The Feast of Tabernacles is also called "the Feast of Ingathering" in Exodus 23:16 and in Exodus 34:22. And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and THE FEAST OF INGATHERING, [which is] IN THE END OF THE YEAR, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field. (Exodus 23:16) This is a clear reference to the main harvest in the autumn. In Exodus 34:22 there is a different expression for "at the year's end". Here is the verse. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. (Exodus 34:22) The expression "at the year's end" consists of the two Hebrew words "tekuphah shaneh". The word "shaneh" means "year", coming from the Hebrew verb "shanah", meaning "to change" or "to repeat". The word "tekuphah" (plural is tekuphot) is explained as follows in Encyclopedia Judaica, article CALENDAR: "TEKUFOT ("Seasons"). As stated, the four seasons in the Jewish year are called 'tekufot'. MORE ACCURATELY, it is THE BEGINNING OF EACH OF THE FOUR SEASONS -- according to the common view, the mean beginning -- that is named 'tekufah' (literally "circuit", related to "to go around"), the 'tekufah' of Nisan denoting the mean sun at the vernal equinoctial point, that of Tammuz denoting it at the summer solstitial point, that of Tishri, at the autumnal equinoctial point, and that of Tevet, at the winter solstitial point." (page 46, volume 5) It should be quite clear that the Jewish understanding of the Hebrew word "tekuphah" is that it refers to the solstices and the equinoxes. The word is used only four times in the Old Testament, and in Psalm 19:6, where it is used in reference to the sun, it is translated as "circuit". There is no reason to doubt that the Jewish understanding that "tekuphah" pinpoints the start of the four seasons at the equinoxes and the solstices is in fact correct. Thus Exodus 34:22 tells us that the Feast of Tabernacles is to be kept at or after the autumnal equinox. That certainly makes sense! If a farmer in an agrarian society has to go to the Feast of Tabernacles BEFORE the autumnal equinox, then he certainly will not have gathered in all of his main harvest before going to the Feast. He will be going to the Feast while it is still summer. Thus Exodus 34:22 is an important consideration in pinpointing the time for the Feast of Tabernacles. So we have the following guidelines for establishing a calendar: 1) The year is to start in the spring. 2) The seasons are to be kept constant in such a calendar. 3) Both, the sun and the moon, are to be involved. That is what the Jewish calendar basically attempts to achieve. BUT, a lunar calendar, ANY lunar calendar, that is inflexibly fixed by a 19-year cycle, cannot prevent a drifting away from the seasons. IF God had established a rigid and fixed calendar at the time of Exodus 12:2, such as the Jewish calendar, THEN TODAY that calendar would be 16 DAYS later in the seasons than in the days of Moses! That is a shift of over half a month! Check again the tables I gave earlier regarding the shifting of the latest Passover and the earliest F.O.T. over the centuries. Those shifts are largely obscured by the Julian calendar, which was used until about 400 years ago. Since it is not spelled out in the Bible, exactly where DOES the Jewish calendar come from? THE ORIGIN OF THE JEWISH CALENDAR --------------------------------- The calculation employed in the Jewish calendar can be traced back to rabbis Samuel and Hillel II. The Jewish Encyclopedia states the following on page 500, Volume 3, article "CALENDAR, HISTORY OF": "One of the important figures in the history of the calendar was Samuel (born about 165, died about 250), surnamed "Yarhinai" because of his familiarity with the moon. He was an astronomer ... he was director of a school in Nehardea (Babylonia), and while there arranged a calendar of the feasts in order that his fellow-countrymen might be independent of Judea. He also calculated the calendar for sixty years. HIS CALCULATIONS GREATLY INFLUENCED THE SUBSEQUENT CALENDAR OF HILLEL. According to Bartolocci his tables are preserved in the Vatican. ... Mar Samuel reckoned the solar year at 365 days and 6 hours, and Rab Adda (born 183) at 365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes, and 25 seconds and 25/57th of a second." >From the testimony of rabbi Hai Gaon [Gaon means "Illustrious" and it is a title of honour], who lived in the 11th century, it is known that the calendar can be traced back to these two men ... Samuel and Hillel II. However, there is NO RECORD at all that the leap year sequence of 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19 (as used today and supposedly fixed by Hillel II) was a part of the canon until about 1200 A.D., at the time of the Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides. Encyclopedia Judaica (Vol. 5, page 48) mentions that until the 10th century variations of the "ordo intercalationis" in the form of the sequences (1,4,6,9,12,15,17) and (3,5,8,11,14,16,19) and (2,5,7,10,13,16,18) existed alongside the sequence (3,6,8,11,14,17,19). These other sequences obviously also had different starting molads, going back to 3762 or 3761 or 3760 or 3759 B.C.. As we today clearly know, NONE OF THOSE starting dates are close to the time of the creation of Adam. Scholars know this from a very detailed and authoritative manuscript called "Al-Biruni, Athar-ul-Bakiya", which was written around 1000 A.D., and which was translated into English by Dr. C. E. Sachau under the title "The Chronology of Ancient Nations, or Vestiges of the Past", and published for the Oriental Translation Fund in London in 1879. It has a detailed discussion of the Hebrew calendar. But it TOTALLY OMITS any reference to a fixed sequence of leap years. When explaining the calculation of the calendar, it seems inconceivable that the author would have omitted any reference to a fixed cycle of leap years if such a fixed cycle was already a part of the calendar. However, Moses Maimonides, who lived at 1200 A.D., and who also wrote very extensively about the calculations of the calendar, makes clear references to this cycle of 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19 in his work "Kiddusch hachodesh", which was translated into Latin as early as 1683 by L. de Compiegne de Veil and then published in London. Therefore it is quite understandable that Sachau felt that this sequence of 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19 did not really become canonical until the time of Maimonides. So then where does the idea of a 19-year cycle come from? Around 432 B.C. the Athenian astronomer Meton found that 235 lunations are very nearly equal to 19 solar years. Thus 19-year cycles are normally referred to as metonic cycles. The Jewish calendar is clearly based on these metonic cycles. The Greeks considered this to be such an important discovery that this information was engraved in letters of gold on a marble tablet and placed in one of the temples in Athens. But Meton's calculations for the length of the solar year were still out by about 25 minutes or so. As a point of interest, Meton's discovery was during the time when Ezra and Nehemiah were in Jerusalem. So did the Jews adopt Meton's cycle? Yes and no! Yes, they DID adopt Meton's 19-year cycle. But NO, they did NOT adopt Meton's calculations. Around 146 B.C. another Greek astronomer, named Hipparchus, made some more accurate calculations of the synodic (lunar) months. Hipparchus calculated the 235 lunations at 6939 days plus 16 hours plus 33 minutes plus 3,3 seconds. This is the EXACT figure which is employed in the calculation of the Jewish calendar! Thus it seems quite clear that the calculations which Hillel II made public in the 350's A.D. are based EXACTLY on the calculations of Hipparchus (via Mar Samuel). This should become quite clear when we realize that 235 lunations are in fact equal to 6939 days plus 16 hours plus 30 minutes plus 57,97 seconds. The Jewish calculation for 235 lunations is in fact 2 minutes and 5,3 seconds too long ... the exact same error as embodied in the calculations of Hipparchus. It is well-known amongst teachers that the easiest way to detect that a pupil was copying answers from someone else during an examination, is when the WRONG answers are copied verbatim. That always stands out quite glaringly. Hipparchus' calculations were really quite good; they were the best available at that time; and so it makes perfect sense that the Jews would make use of those calculations. There is nothing wrong with that at all! But that is not the same as saying that the Jewish calculations were "INSPIRED"! Now, as I have already mentioned, this error of 2 minutes and 5,3 seconds per 19 years does not really cause any problems. The error will only amount to one full day in 13101 years ... hardly something to worry about! THE WITNESS OF JEWISH AUTHORITIES --------------------------------- In the book "Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics", listed at the start of this article, Shlomo Sternberg wrote in the introduction: "The second Hillel and his court enacted the fixed calendar which is still enforced today. THE ONLY PROBLEM OF A LEGAL NATURE which we have in regard to this calendar, is a theoretical one, namely, ON WHAT BASIS WAS THE ENACTMENT OF THIS CALENDAR VALID? It is a generally accepted legal principle {Comment: that is not the same as a binding law!} that the central court, being representative of the people {Comment: democracy or leadership from God?}, had the right to determine the years, months, and therefore the festivals. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER THE COURT IS EMPOWERED TO DETERMINE THE MONTHS AND THE YEARS FAR INTO THE FUTURE OR NOT. According to the opinion of Maimonides, the legal basis of the court's power is not so much judicial or legislative (NOTE!!) as it is that the court acts as the instrument representing the community as a whole {Comment: does that sound like making something SACRED?}. AS SUCH, IT IS NOT EMPOWERED TO ENACT CALENDRICAL DECISIONS INTO THE FUTURE." (pages XXV-XXVI) Do you grasp what this Jewish author is saying? Do you understand that he is saying that Hillel II did NOT really have the power to make his calendar binding on future generations? The next sentence reads: "Our current calendar is based LEGALLY on the fact that all Jewish residents of Israel, IN FACT, follow this calendar in practice." He is saying: it is legal NOT because Hillel II decided on it, but because we, the residents of Israel, CHOOSE to accept it! Sternberg continues to say: "As we have mentioned already, the nineteen-year cycle goes all the way back to the old Chaldean (i.e. Babylonian!) tables, at the least." On page XXVII Sternberg writes: "The nineteen-year cycle with its selection of thirteen month and twelve month years is found in ancient Babylonian tablets dating to the fifth century before the common era (i.e. 400's B.C.), as we have already mentioned. To the best of my knowledge, this cycle is not mentioned explicitly in the Talmud. However, it is related to the figure of 29 days 12 hours and 793 parts (i.e. 44 minutes and 3,3 seconds) for the mean motion of the moon, and this figure is mentioned in the Talmud (cf. Tractate Rosh Hashana 25a)." This figure which is mentioned in the Talmud is the exact calculation Hipparchus came up with in 146 B.C.. That was well before the reference in the Talmud was written. Hipparchus' calculations represented the most accurate calculations available to anyone. Therefore it is logical that anyone who was trained in astronomy would make use of those figures. So Sternberg confirms the facts we have seen: that the knowledge of the metonic cycles goes back to the fifth century B.C., but that the calculations used with such cycles go back to the second century B.C.. Regarding postponement rule #1 Sternberg mentions that The Babylonian Talmud mentions that: "... the calendar is to be adjusted so as to avoid Yom Kippur falling on Friday or Sunday BECAUSE OF THE INCONVENIENCE THIS MIGHT CAUSE. This means that Rosh Hashana must not fall on Wednesday or Friday. The Jerusalem Talmud also mentions that the calendar must be adjusted so that the seventh day of Succoth does not fall on the Sabbath. Thus Rosh Hashana may not fall on Sunday. (The implication from the Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashana 20a is that the Babylonian Talmud did not have any such rule.) R. Nissim, in his commentary to Alfasi, Succah noticed this discrepancy and observed that "WHOEVER FORMULATED OUR FIXED CALENDAR CHOSE TO FOLLOW THE JERUSALEM RATHER THAN THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD IN THIS MATTER". In any event, the source we have in the Talmud for rule 1 indicates A UTILITARIAN REASON FOR THE RULE." (pages XXVII - XXVIII) Notice several things here: first of all, the different Talmuds contain contradictory information. For that matter, within the same Talmud you commonly find contradictory opinions. Next, the comment from R. Nissim acknowledges that whoever formulated the fixed calendar (perhaps Hillel II) did so based on consulting the existing Talmuds! Understand the significance of this admission! There are people in the Church of God who want to claim DIVINE INSPIRATION for Hillel II and his decision ... out of desperation to have some authority to fall back on. At the same time there are Jewish authors who freely admit that Hillel's decision was based purely on what was written in SOME TALMUD OR OTHER! They equally freely admit that he didn't really have any authority to make decisions which would be binding on future generations. The same people who want to claim a "sacred" status for Hillel's decision will at other times readily and quickly TOTALLY REJECT the contradictory and confusing claims and statements which are found in the Talmud. So understand this: IF you want to claim divine inspiration and a "sacred" status for the decision which Hillel II made (and which was based on the Talmuds he had access to!), THEN you should also extend that same status to the rest of the Talmud! By the way, Maimonides realized that "inconvenience" might not seem like much of a valid reason for postponing Rosh Hashana. And so Maimonides tried to justify postponement rule #1 on astronomical grounds. But that justification is clearly flawed! Sternberg writes: "Maimonides, in Chapter VII, H.7 gives a different explanation: "Why does this method of calculation eliminate days 1, 4, and 6 from being declared New Moon Days (of Tishri)? Because this method reckons with the conjunction of the moon and the sun based not on their true position but only on their mean position as we have pointed out above. Therefore, days of declaration are made to alternate with days of postponement in order to hit upon the day of true conjunction." (page XXVIII) This is clearly nothing more than an attempt to justify the postponement away from "inconvenient" days. It is on the same level as Maimonides' reasoning about the new moon before the creation of Adam ... it is without foundation. The point is this: the calculation of the molads is in fact so accurate that it is only out by 1 day over a period of 13100 years, which represent over 162000 new moons. The error is in fact barely over one half of a second per lunar cycle. Yes, it is the mean position of the molad which is calculated, but it always precedes the first visible faint crescent of the new moon. Furthermore, the location for which the molad is calculated is unknown! So what is the point of postponing when you don't even know the exact location for which you are calculating the molad? It is assumed to be Jerusalem, but that cannot really be proved. As Sternberg writes: "The fixed calendar gives a starting epoch for molad or mean conjunction. For purposes of computing the calendar, it doesn't matter to us where this time is based. HISTORICAL EVIDENCE SEEMS TO INDICATE THAT THE TIME IS SET IN BABYLONIA AND NOT AT JERUSALEM. In any event, it comes as no surprise that the mean time of conjunction given by Maimonides in the astronomical section of his 'Laws of Sanctification of the New Moon' differs by over an hour from the 'molad' as computed from the calendrical rules." (page XXIX) The facts make clear that Maimonides' justification for postponing from Days 1, 4, and 6 has no basis in astronomy. If you are sometimes attempting to postpone from the mean conjunction to the true conjunction (assuming the mean conjunction precedes the true conjunction), then at other times you will inevitably also postpone away from the true conjunction. So the argument is artificial. That is why other authors have not appealed to Maimonides' explanation; instead they freely acknowledge the real reason behind the postponement rule. In the Talmud Bezah 4b we find the reason why Jews are to keep TWO days when God says we are to keep ONE day, even after an accurately calculated calendar is available. The Talmud says: "And now that we know the determination of the months, why do we observe two days? Because they sent word from there [Israel]: 'BE CAREFUL TO RETAIN THE CUSTOM OF YOUR FOREFATHERS; at times the government might issue a decree and difficulties might ensue'." Again, what this highlights is the importance placed on "the traditions of the fathers", which Jesus Christ soundly condemned! The motivation for pronouncing the Jewish calendar in its present form as binding on the Church of God clearly needs to be examined. Is the decision based on a careful examination of the calendar, its origin, strong points and weak points ... or is it a desire to retain the status quo? Also note again the contrast between the Jewish rabbi quoted above, who said: "WHOEVER formulated OUR fixed calendar ...", implying that the answer to this question is not totally clear- cut ... and the zealous people in the Church of God who confer UNQUALIFIED DIVINE INSPIRATION on every facet of the Jewish calendar! Here are people in the Church of God who without question attribute far more divine inspiration on the Jewish calendar than the Jewish authorities themselves are prepared to claim. HOWEVER ... it is the Jewish authorities who happen to be fluent in Hebrew and who are familiar with all the Jewish writings about the calendar ... all of the Jewish authors who have written about the calendar during the past 1800 years! By contrast we in the Church of God battle just to correctly identify a few Hebrew words with the help of a Strong's Concordance and we are totally unaware of what Jewish scholars through the centuries have written about the Hebrew calendar ... but we will without hesitation pronounce the Hebrew calendar "sacred" and "inspired". If the Jewish authors, who are proud of their calendar, and who have read what Maimonides and the other Jewish scholars of the past centuries have to say about the Jewish calendar, feel that they should make allowance for a degree of uncertainty in deciding exactly who it was that formulated the fixed calendar ... shouldn't we, in our condition of a certain amount of ignorance (relatively speaking), proceed a little cautiously before claiming "divinely inspired status" for their calendar? Think about that for a while. The 19-year cycle goes back to the fifth century B.C. to the Greeks (and perhaps even to the Babylonians?). The calculations of the Hebrew calendar are clearly based on the calculations of Hipparchus, a Greek astronomer; the calculations were not somehow revealed to the Jews under inspiration. The starting molad in 3761 B.C. is totally mythical and has no bearing on what actually DID occur in 3761 B.C.. Applying the calculations to that first 19-year cycle clearly places the Feast of Trumpets and the whole Feast of Tabernacles right into summer on at least 6 occasions, something which is not really correct. The postponement rule #1 has no biblical justification of any kind; and in view of all the other days observed by the Jews it is hypocritical. Hillel II did not have the right to make a decision that would be binding on future generations. The decision Hillel II DID make was based on what others before him had written in the Talmud. This makes clear that Hillel's decision was guided by "traditions". Attempting to bind the fixed calendar on future generations does not take the unavoidable shift of 1 day for every 216,3 years into account. Now let's look at what Hillel actually did. THE PRESENT JEWISH CALENDAR --------------------------- It is generally accepted that prior to 250 A.D. the sequence of intercalation (the sequence of the leap years) was 2,5,7,10,13,16,18. This was changed as a result of the studies by Mar Samuel (or Samuel Yarhinai) who died around 250 A.D.. At that time the sequence was changed to 3,6,8,11,14,17,19. {COMMENT: In the booklet "The Crucifixion Was Not On Friday" Dr. Hoeh sets this date at 142 A.D. To me it doesn't make a difference when this occurred, other than that in 255 A.D. the change looks just a shade less BAD than it did one hundred years earlier.} Let's notice what happened. First, understand that the same year number in any cycle will have the molad of Tishri at almost the same date as in the next cycle. Now here are the dates for the molads (or moladot) for cycles 210 - 212, all based on the old leap year sequence of 2,5,7,10,13,16,18. CYCLE #210 YEAR # YEAR DATE MONTH 1 211 Wed 25 Sep 2 212 Sun 13 Sep 3 213 Sat 2 Oct 4 214 Wed 21 Sep 5 215 Mon 11 Sep 6 216 Sun 29 Sep 7 217 Thu 18 Sep 8 218 Wed 7 Oct 9 219 Sun 26 Sep 10 220 Fri 15 Sep 11 221 Thu 4 Oct 12 222 Mon 23 Sep 13 223 Fri 12 Sep 14 224 Thu 30 Sep 15 225 Tue 20 Sep 16 226 Sat 9 Sep 17 227 Fri 28 Sep 18 228 Tue 16 Sep 19 229 Mon 5 Oct CYCLE #211 YEAR # YEAR DATE MONTH 1 230 Sat 25 Sep 2 231 Wed 14 Sep 3 232 Tue 2 Oct 4 233 Sat 21 Sep 5 234 Thu 11 Sep 6 235 Tue 29 Sep 7 236 Sun 18 Sep 8 237 Sat 7 Oct 9 238 Wed 26 Sep 10 239 Sun 15 Sep 11 240 Sat 3 Oct 12 241 Thu 23 Sep 13 242 Mon 12 Sep 14 243 Sun 1 Oct 15 244 Thu 19 Sep 16 245 Tue 9 Sep 17 246 Mon 28 Sep 18 247 Fri 17 Sep 19 248 Thu 5 Oct CYCLE #212 YEAR # YEAR DATE MONTH 1 249 Mon 24 Sep 2 250 Sat 14 Sep 3 251 Thu 2 Oct 4 252 Tue 21 Sep 5 253 Sat 10 Sep 6 254 Fri 29 Sep 7 255 Tue 18 Sep 8 256 Mon 6 Oct 9 257 Sat 26 Sep 10 258 Wed 15 Sep 11 259 Tue 4 Oct 12 260 Sat 22 Sep 13 261 Thu 12 Sep 14 262 Wed 1 Oct 15 263 Sun 20 Sep 16 264 Thu 8 Sep 17 265 Wed 27 Sep 18 266 Mon 17 Sep 19 267 Sun 6 Oct When you compare these three successive cycles, you will see that the date of the molad repeats itself every 19 years. After 216 years all the dates in the cycle will have shifted to 1 day later, though there are minor fluctuations (e.g. Roman calendar leap years influence this pattern, causing some variations). The dates for cycles #210 and #211 you can verify with your own computer programs for the calendar. But for cycle #212 you will find some variations with the dates your program will show you. The reason is that the cycle was changed in the year 255 A.D.. That was the 7th year of the cycle. Until then it had always been a leap year. But in that year the leap year cycle was changed to 3,6,8,11,14,17,19. Thus, while the year 255 started at the same time as in the previous cycle, it ENDED one month earlier, since it was no longer a leap year. And so from year 256 A.D. onwards you will notice different dates for the molads of years 8 (256 A.D.), 11 (259 A.D.), 14 (262 A.D.), 17 (265 A.D.) and 19 (267 A.D.). In subsequent cycles the difference will also affect years 3 and 6. Now here are the molads for cycle #212, as calculated based on the new sequence 3,6,8,11,14,17,19, starting with the year 255 A.D. (and using the old sequence before then): CYCLE #212 YEAR # YEAR DATE MONTH 1 249 Mon 24 Sep 2 250 Sat 14 Sep 3 251 Wed 2 Oct 4 252 Tue 21 Sep 5 253 Sat 10 Sep 6 254 Thu 29 Sep 7 255 Tue 18 Sep 8 256 Sun 7 Sep 9 257 Sat 26 Sep 10 258 Wed 15 Sep 11 259 Sun 4 Sep 12 260 Sat 22 Sep 13 261 Thu 12 Sep 14 262 Mon 1 Sep 15 263 Sun 20 Sep 16 264 Thu 8 Sep 17 265 Tue 29 Aug 18 266 Mon 17 Sep 19 267 Fri 6 Sep {Days are reckoned as starting at 6:00 p.m. previous evening.} What this change achieved is to move the entire cycle to an earlier date! Specifically compare: 237 with 256 = Oct. 6 to Sep. 7 240 with 259 = Oct. 3 to Sep. 4 243 with 262 = Oct. 1 to Sep. 1 246 with 265 = Sep. 27 to Aug. 29 248 with 267 = Oct. 5 to Sep. 6 This downward shift will only be fully evident in the next full cycle. So here it is: CYCLE #213 YEAR # YEAR DATE MONTH 1 268 Thu 24 Sep 2 269 Mon 13 Sep 3 270 Sat 3 Sep 4 271 Fri 22 Sep 5 272 Tue 10 Sep 6 273 Sat 30 Aug 7 274 Fri 18 Sep 8 275 Wed 8 Sep 9 276 Mon 25 Sep 10 277 Sat 15 Sep 11 278 Wed 4 Sep 12 279 Tue 23 Sep 13 280 Sat 11 Sep 14 281 Thu 1 Sep 15 282 Wed 20 Sep 16 283 Sun 9 Sep 17 284 Thu 28 Aug 18 285 Wed 16 Sep 19 286 Mon 6 Sep Now when you compare cycles, you see the full impact of the change in the sequence of leap years. Now compare: 232 with 270 = Oct. 2 to Sep. 3 235 with 273 = Sep. 29 to Aug. 30 237 with 275 = Oct. 6 to Sep. 8 240 with 278 = Oct. 3 to Sep. 4 243 with 281 = Oct. 1 to Sep. 1 246 with 284 = Sep. 27 to Aug. 28 248 with 286 = Oct. 5 to Sep. 6 {For that cycle the equinoxes were still around March 22 and September 23/24 in the Julian calendar.} These molads represent the Feast of Trumpets. So the Feast of Trumpets has been moved into August for two of the years in that cycle! That means that as a result of this change THE ENTIRE FEAST OF TABERNACLES for the years 273 A.D. and 281 A.D. and 284 A.D. was moved to before the autumn equinox. SO MUCH FOR THE HEBREW CALENDAR ENSURING THAT THE AUTUMN FESTIVALS STAY IN THE AUTUMN! Now note carefully! This examination of the IMMEDIATE consequence of the change in the sequence of leap years PROVES without a shadow of a doubt that this change was NOT APPROVED BY GOD! The change was a mistake! Look, I am not trying to blame poor old Mar Samuel. His studies had shown him this inevitable movement away from the equinox. He wanted to rectify that and saw that he could shift the whole cycle downwards simply by changing the sequence of the leap years. But he didn't have access to computers or calculators; he had to work out all the calculations slowly and laboriously. By contrast, with our computer program I can analyze the effect of any change in the sequence of the leap years for a period of 20000 years, looking at every single molad of every year ... and I can do that in just a few minutes; much, much more than Mar Samuel would have been able to do in an entire lifetime. Mar Samuel tried his best ... but he made a mistake. Let's move on to the time of Hillel II and the 350's A.D.. Here is the cycle which Hillel II fixed for the calendar. Check it out with your own program, to verify that what I am saying is correct. The moladot are: CYCLE #217 YEAR # YEAR DATE MONTH 1 344 Mon 24 Sep 2 345 Fri 13 Sep 3 346 Tue 2 Sep 4 347 Mon 21 Sep 5 348 Sat 10 Sep 6 349 Wed 30 Aug 7 350 Tue 18 Sep 8 351 Sat 7 Sep 9 352 Fri 25 Sep 10 353 Wed 15 Sep 11 354 Sun 4 Sep 12 355 Sat 23 Sep 13 356 Wed 11 Sep 14 357 Mon 1 Sep 15 358 Sat 19 Sep 16 359 Thu 9 Sep 17 360 Mon 28 Aug 18 361 Sun 16 Sep 19 362 Thu 5 Sep The years to take note of are: 346 = Sep. 2 349 = Aug. 30 351 = Sep. 7 354 = Sep. 4 357 = Sep. 1 360 = Aug. 28 362 = Sep. 5 {For this cycle the equinox was at September 23 in terms of the Julian calendar ... basically the same as today in the Gregorian calendar.} As can be seen quite clearly from these molads of Tishri, there are several entire Feasts of Tabernacles which were before the equinox! THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THAT YOU CAN POSSIBLY CLAIM DIVINE INSPIRATION FOR A DECISION WHICH CAUSED THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES TO START ON THE EVENING OF SEPTEMBER 10 IN 360 A.D.! It was clearly A MISTAKE which Hillel II made in authorizing this sequence of leap years. Now it is true that, given enough millennia, that mistake will rectify itself, simply because of the constant drift away from the equinox. But frankly, that mistake by Hillel II has NOT been rectified even yet, in 1996! In the 1640 years since Hillel's time the calendar has only been rectified to the tune of 7,5 days! I will show this in a little while. But first we need to acknowledge very clearly that Hillel's decision was NOT inspired, that the calendar he set up was NOT "sacred" and that Hillel's decision was NOT an expression of the will of God! Next, IF we are willing to acknowledge that it was a mistake to institute a sequence which results in the Feast of Tabernacles starting as early as September 10th, THEN where does that leave God's divine approval for the postponement rule? Can you really claim divine inspiration for one aspect of the calendar computation, when the other aspect of the same calculation is clearly in error? Hardly! What cycle #217 illustrates is what I have tried to explain earlier on ... that God simply has NOT given the Jews or anyone else a perfect calendar. The imperfect lunar month and the imperfect solar year, which are extant now in this age, are A PENALTY FOR SINS! They are part of the curse we have reaped for our sins. And God has said: now you work out your own calendar, since you have shown very clearly that you don't really want My ways. The assumed premise that there IS such a thing as a "sacred" calendar somewhere for this corrupted solar year we have to deal with, is a mistake which will prevent us from seeing the truth. God did not ordain one specific calendar which He then gave to the Jews with the responsibility to preserve it. The Jewish calendar, as it has existed since the time of Hillel II, is proof that the Jews have not preserved any calendar in the correct form! So don't waste your time looking for a "sacred" calendar. In this age we don't need "a perfect calendar". What we need is simply A GOOD ONE; a calendar which takes the sun and the moon into consideration, a calendar which ensures that the Feast of Tabernacles always stays in the autumn, a calendar which has an effective way to deal with the seasonal shift of 1 day for every 216,3 years. And the Jewish calendar can do all that for us! This year, 1996 is the last year of cycle #303. Next year a new 19-year cycle will commence. Cycle #304 will go from 1997 - 2015 A.D.. Let's take a closer look at that cycle. THE NEXT 19-YEAR CYCLE ---------------------- The most effective way to examine the Jewish calendar is by using a computer to show us exactly what the effect is with any change in the sequence of leap years. But you must also know what you are looking for. So here is what we will do. We will examine Cycle #304 with 6 different sequences of leap years. For each of these sequences we will want to know two things: when will the EARLIEST F.O.T. be and when will the LATEST F.O.T. be? To save space, I will simply list the information for the relevant years without all the dates for every year in each of these 6 different sequences. All dates refer to starting at sunset the previous evening. Here is what this will look like: 1) The current sequence in use today: 3,6,8,11,14,17,19 Earliest F.O.T. = 2013 A.D. = September 19 Earliest Passover = March 25 Latest F.O.T. = 2005 A.D. = October 17 Latest Passover = April 22 2) The Pre-255 A.D. sequence = 2,5,7,10,13,16,18 Earliest F.O.T. = 2012 A.D. = October 1 Earliest Passover = April 6 Latest F.O.T. = 2015 A.D. = October 29 Latest Passover = May 4 3) Alternate Option #1 sequence = 2,5,8,10,13,16,18 Earliest F.O.T. = 2004 A.D. = September 30 Earliest Passover = April 5 Latest F.O.T. = 2015 A.D. = October 29 Latest Passover = May 4 4) Alternate Option #2 sequence = 3,5,8,11,13,16,19 Earliest F.O.T. = 1999 A.D. = September 25 Earliest Passover = March 31 Latest F.O.T. = 2010 A.D. = October 23 Latest Passover = April 28 5) Alternate Option #3 sequence = 3,5,8,11,14,16,19 Earliest F.O.T. = 2010 A.D. = September 23 Earliest Passover = March 29 Latest F.O.T. = 2002 A.D. = October 21 Latest Passover = April 26 6) Alternate Option #4 sequence = 1,4,6,9,12,15,17 Earliest F.O.T. = 2011 A.D. = October 13 Earliest Passover = April 18 Latest F.O.T. = 2003 A.D. = November 10 Latest Passover = May 16 In our computer program you can display each of these 6 cycles as a graph superimposed on top of each other with a different colour for each graph for easier identification. Let's examine this data in more detail. You will notice that irrespective of which sequence you select (and it must ALWAYS be a form of the 3-3-2-3-3-3-2 sequence from leap year to leap year), the difference between the earliest F.O.T. and the latest F.O.T. in that cycle will be 28-29 days. That is an unchangeable fact. You cannot devise a 19-year cycle which will have a smaller range than 28 days (excluding the possibility of a little bit of juggling due to the postponement rules) from earliest to latest F.O.T.. The reason for this is that it is 29 days from one new moon to the next. Therefore 28 days is the minimum fluctuation possible in any combination. So let's review our results. For each sequence I will just list the range from earliest (First Day of) F.O.T. to latest (First Day of) F.O.T.. This is what this then looks like: 1) Current sequence = Sept. 19 - Oct. 17 2) Pre-255 A.D. = Oct. 1 - Oct. 29 3) Option #1 = Sept. 30 - Oct. 29 4) Option #2 = Sept. 25 - Oct. 23 5) Option #3 = Sept. 23 - Oct. 21 6) Option #4 = Oct. 13 - Nov. 10 Expressed another way, we can say that the CURRENT SEQUENCE is the EARLIEST of all 6 sequences. Then this can be stated as follows: 1) Current = Current + 0 days 2) Option #3 = Current + 4 days 3) Option #2 = Current + 6 days 4) Option #1 = Current + 11 days 5) Pre-255 A.D. = Current + 12 days 6) Option #4 = Current + 24 days This information is specific to the 19-year cycle just ahead of us right now. By now you should understand that after about 216 years each one of those possibilities will have increased by 1 day. A quick check is to add 209 years to each one of those earliest and latest dates and check the molads for those years 209 years from now. {The reason for 209 years is that that figure is equal to exactly 11 19-year cycles and in that way you will be comparing the same years in the cycle with the years we are looking at for Cycle #304. There will obviously be fluctuations due to the postponement rules.} The thing to understand is that whichever option one pursues, it will basically remain stable for about 200 years into the future. By about then it will shift by one day. DO WE HAVE A BIAS? ------------------ In looking at this information, the current sequence seems SO CLOSE to being correct, that we might be inclined to feel a loyalty towards it to stick it out with that sequence. HOWEVER, based on this sequence, even 200 years from now, farmers will STILL have to go to the Feast of Tabernacles before the autumn equinox. The mistake Mar Samuel introduced around 250 A.D., and which about 100 years later Hillel II endorsed, will still not have been fully eradicated by 2200 A.D.. In effect, they set the calendar OFF TRACK for the next 2000 years! I hope you can understand this. We can easily be biased towards what we are used to. Very few of us in the Church today are farmers. Very few of us have any real experience of "INGATHERING". Someone who lives on the land and who farms the land for a living can readily confirm that the "ingathering" is not really completed before the equinox! A farmer NEEDS the time up to the equinox to bring in his crops. And Exodus 34:22 tells us that the Feast is at the equinox, and not before it. 1600 years ago the mistake with the current sequence of leap years was blatantly obvious! But the Jews were already in the Diaspora ... and they were no longer farmers. They lived as foreigners and as aliens amongst the Gentile nations, often despised and discriminated against. They were not farmers, except for tiny little plots of land. The farming land belonged to the kings and the nobles of the lands they had settled in. So the Jews lived in the cities. And moving the Feast to before the equinox didn't really affect them in any major way. BUT THAT DIDN'T MAKE IT RIGHT! And furthermore, the assumption that Hillel had a right to make some binding decisions about the calendar (i.e. binding on the people of God) is incorrect. IF HILLEL II HAD BEEN A FARMER AND HAD OWNED A COMPUTER ... ----------------------------------------------------------- What if Hillel himself had lived a farming-style existence, totally dependent on the crops which the land produced year by year? Furthermore, what if Hillel had owned a computer and had access to the program which I have used in making the analysis for the six different sequences of leap years? What if Hillel had also understood about the shift of 1 day every 216,3 years? It is assumed that Hillel had a genuine desire to set up a calendar which God will accept, and which complies with the parameters laid down by various biblical instructions. WHAT WOULD HILLEL THEN HAVE DECIDED UNDER THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES? First of all, he would have understood that any calendar he would have established would have to incorporate a variable. This would be to deal with the seasonal shift of about one week every 1500 years or so. There is no such thing as, given our present astronomical factors, setting up a rigid and inflexible calendar. The calendar he devised would of necessity have to incorporate the ability to adapt as time passed. Secondly, he would not have changed from the Pre-255 A.D. sequence to the current sequence at all! He would have made the following recommendations (since he could not enforce what would happen after his own lifetime): 1) Have a permanent calendar, with fixed calculations. 2) The only variable would be the ability to change the sequence of leap years every 500 - 1500 years. In that way the calendar could constantly be brought back from the Feast drifting too far after the equinox. 3) He would have instructed that the Pre-255 A.D. sequence be maintained from his own time until the end of cycle #278 (ended in 1521 A.D.), at which time the earliest Feast of Tabernacles had moved to about 6-7 days after the equinox. 4) Then he would have recommended that beginning with cycle #279 (from 1522 A.D. onwards) a switch be made in the sequence of leap years, to Option #1 (2,5,8,10,13,16,18). The earliest Feast in that cycle would start on September 18 (at that time the equinox was on September 13/14); so the move ensured that the Feast would always still start after the equinox. 5) Then he would have recommended that this sequence be maintained until the end of cycle #294 (ended in 1825 A.D.). At that time the earliest Feast would be in 1814 A.D. on September 29; and thus about 6 days after the equinox. 6) Then he would have recommended that beginning with cycle #295 (from 1826 A.D. onwards) a switch be made to Option #2 (3,5,8,11,13,16,19). The earliest Feast in that cycle would start (in 1828 A.D.) on September 25, two days after the equinox. This he would have recommended be maintained until cycle #350 (will end in 2889 A.D.), at which time the earliest Feast would start on September 28 (in 2873 A.D.). 7) He would then have recommended that from cycle #351 (starting in 2890 A.D.) a switch be made to the "Normal" sequence which is currently employed (3,6,8,11,14,17,19). That would bring the earliest Feast back to September 26, three days after the equinox. And so on .... {Comment: I have not excluded the postponement rules in the above "suggestions"; thus they will be responsible for a certain amount of fluctuation.} Hillel would also have understood that in order to have the earliest possible Feast of Tabernacles at least 1 day after the equinox, it means that the LATEST possible Passover in the same cycle would have to be about 36 days after the vernal equinox. That is because the latest possible Feast of Tabernacles would then be 29 days after the equinox and you then still have to add about 7 days to that (from vernal equinox to autumn equinox is about 7 days longer than from the Passover to Feast of Tabernacles). So he would not at all have been perturbed by the fact that for some years the Passover would follow the new moon which was as late as 22 days after the equinox (Passover is 14-15 days after the new moon; thus we get 36-14=22 days). And when the earliest Feast is 5 days after the autumn equinox (not at all an unreasonable time), then the latest possible Passover will be as much as 40 days after the vernal equinox, with the new moon having been 25 - 26 days after the vernal equinox. {I am not quibbling about one single day, where some people may place the autumn equinox one day later than other people.} Hillel with his computer and his farming background would have understood all this. Yes, a computer with the right kind of software would have helped Hillel II to understand that the sequence he endorsed was actually 2500 years ahead of its time! And it was really a bad mistake for his own time! But Hillel didn't have a computer, and he couldn't examine thousands of cycles in the space of a few minutes. And he wasn't a farmer either. So he made the decision he felt was best. But that decision was a mistake! Let's now look at another question. SHOULD WE USE A FIXED CALENDAR? ------------------------------- The first question I posed near the start of this article is: Is it right before God to use a fixed calendar to determine when the Holy Days should be observed ... or does God expect us to determine the beginning of each month by visually observing that first faint crescent of the new moon? The principle Jesus Christ gave for the Sabbath also applies to the calendar. Notice ... And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: (Mark 2:27) It is equally correct to say that a calendar should serve us to live more productively, and not that we human beings should be in servitude to some calendar. This is not to say that we can push the calendar around, but we should know in advance what to expect when. Thus at the time of Noah there was A FIXED CALENDAR, with 12 months, each having 30 days. That calendar did not require observation. It was predictable. That is the same calendar which will be "RESTORED" when Christ returns to this earth. As Acts 3:21 tells us ... Whom the heaven must receive UNTIL THE TIMES OF RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:21) Christ will not establish the government of God over this earth and then rule with imperfect lunar and annual cycles. So during the millennium there will be a FIXED calendar, and not one that will be based on observation. Now if you do not have access to accurate calculation, then there is nothing wrong in basing your calendar on visual observations. But that does not mean that therefore God wants us to always stay tied to visual observations. Understand that God did NOT intend for us to be at the mercy of the appearance of a tiny sliver of the first crescent of a new moon. Nowhere in the Bible do we ever have an example of someone watching for the new moon. Nowhere is there ever AN INDICATION that the new moon should be proclaimed based on some "WITNESSES" testifying that they saw it for a moment or two. The rabbinical custom of the second Temple period to proclaim the new moon based on the testimony of witnesses was just a ritual without any real significance. Let me give you a lengthy quotation from Page XXIV of the Introduction to "Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics" by Solomon Gandz (Introduction written by Shlomo Sternberg). The quotation starts of with a quotation from the Talmud. "When Rabbi Zaira came, he said to them, 'The night and the day must both be from the new moon and this is what Abba, the father of R. Simlai [meant when he] said we reckon the conjunction if it occurs before noon then it is certain the moon is visible close to sunset. If the conjunction does not occur before noon then it is known that the moon was not visible close to [the time of] sunset.' What difference does it make? Rav Ashi said, 'TO CONTRADICT WITNESSES.' Rab Zaira says in the name of Rabbi Nachman: 'The moon is covered for twenty-four hours. For us, six from the old moon and eighteen from the new, and for them six from the new and eighteen from the old. What difference does it make? He said, TO CONTRADICT WITNESSES.' The master said 'The night and the day must be from the new [month] ...' ." This is all a verbatim quotation from the Talmud. Then Sternberg comments on this section as follows: "There are a number of difficulties in understanding this particular passage, the main one being that the discussion started by Samuel referred to A CONSTRUCTION OF A FIXED CALENDAR which would then depend on the mean motion of the moon, and the actual facts of visibility should NOT be so very relevant, whereas, the later discussion relating the problem to the credibility of witnesses seems to indicate that THE TALMUD WAS ALSO USING THESE RULES AS COMPUTATIONAL RULES FOR VISIBILITY RATHER THAN MEAN APPROXIMATIONS FOR CALENDRICAL PURPOSES." In plain language: even when the new moons were pronounced with great ceremony and ritual after two witnesses had testified to seeing the first sliver of the new moon, even THEN the people in authority were actually USING CALCULATIONS TO PREDICT VISIBILITY! When witnesses gave a report of visibility which disagreed with their calculations, then the report of the witnesses was rejected as false. The calculations were more important. And the report of the witnesses was just a ritualistic formality. If you are not yet convinced that "eye witness reports" were nothing more than a hollow ritual, then consider this: WHY did the people in authority not go out and watch for the first signs of the new moon themselves ... WHY did they leave that responsibility up to "witnesses", deliberately avoiding going out themselves and looking for the new moon? After all, if THEY, the people in authority, could see the new moon, then that would eliminate the need for any witnesses. But they were very careful to not get involved in "moon watching" themselves. It was nothing more than a ritual, that's all. There is nothing wrong at all with calculating ahead so you can plan your actions and activities in advance. Such planning ahead removes uncertainty and insecurity. God wants us to plan ahead! The prudent man foresees potential problems, and he takes appropriate actions, to sort things out. We do the same thing for the Sabbath. We calculate ahead for when sunset will be, and we don't rely on weekly visual observations of sunset on a Friday evening. Even the people who argue for visibility base their arguments on CALCULATIONS! Think about that! What is the whole point about insisting on the "visibility" of the new moon, when all you are going to do is CALCULATE WHEN THAT VISIBILITY IS SUPPOSED TO OCCUR? All of the tables of "visibility" for future years, which people may show you, are nothing more than CALCULATIONS! So they are simply saying that they have a better or more suitable calculation, that's all. But they are not really relying on visual observations themselves. They CALCULATE IN ADVANCE when visibility is supposed to occur. For example, in Herbert Solinsky's article "The Calendar Yah Gave to Moses" Appendix 5 is titled: "VISIBLE NEW CRESCENTS FOR THE YEARS 1979 - 1999". What's the point of calling it "VISIBLE", if it is nothing more than an advance calculation? What if when we get to 1998 or 1999 and it turns out that the new crescent actually was NOT "visible" on the day that had been CALCULATED? What if it turns out that the new moon actually WAS visible one day earlier than the prediction? How important is REAL visibility, which is documented and visually verified on an ongoing basis? How important is it really to actually SEE a tiny crescent of a new moon? Appendix 6 of Herbert Solinsky's article is titled "Time of Sunset at Jerusalem", and it then gives a sunset time for every day of the year which can be converted to either the time zone for Jerusalem or to the actual local time in Jerusalem. Again, it has nothing to do with real observations; it is just a set of good CALCULATIONS; calculations which can PREDICT with reasonable accuracy when something is likely to occur. THE JEWISH CALCULATIONS FOR THE CALENDAR DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING, AND THEY DO IT EQUALLY ACCURATELY! It is just that they predict a different event. The Jewish calculations predict the invisible molad, whereas Solinsky's calculations predict the visible first crescent of the new moon. And by predicting first visibility in advance Solinsky has also created A FIXED CALENDAR! The advance predictions of visibility have fixed his calendar long in advance of the actual occurrences of the new moons. Therefore any visual observations of the new moon will only fulfill a ritualistic formality ... since visibility was accurately predicted. So a fixed calendar is certainly desirable. TWO NEW MOON DAYS OR JUST ONE? ------------------------------ It is known that at some stage the Jews developed the custom of observing two new moon days, just to be safe that they also had the right one. Solomon Gandz comments on this practice. After referring to various known authorities from the Middle Ages on the Hebrew calendar, including Moses Maimonides, Abraham Savasorda and Juda ibn Rakofal (all between 1000 A.D. and 1200 A.D.), Gandz then states: "None of these authorities refer to any earlier source of the custom (to observe two days instead of just one) in the Bible, Mishna or Talmud, but they all speak only of the later institution of the fixed calendar. IN THIS STUDY, HOWEVER, THE WRITER PROPOSES TO TRACE THE ORIGIN OF THE CUSTOM OF OBSERVING TWO NEW MOON DAYS TO THE EARLY TIMES OF THE BIBLE, Mishna and Talmud." (pages 35-36) Gandz then proceeds to expound on the account in 1 Samuel 20, about David and Jonathan. He then deduces from this chapter that King Saul habitually kept two new moon days. Gandz writes: "From the story of David and Jonathan ... it appears clearly that ... King Saul, prior to 1000 B.C.E., was in the habit of observing two new moon days." It seems quite clear that King Saul had some kind of formal meals on two consecutive days. While this may indicate that he was using the occasion of the new moon to have an added opportunity for a more formal banquet, the question that never seems to be asked is: "Yes, BUT SHOULD King Saul actually have done that?" Saul was the very first King over Israel. He did not inherit any royal customs or traditions. Nor was he submissive to God at that point in his life. The whole chapter deals with Saul's attempt to kill David, who had already been chosen by God to replace Saul. Next, there is no indication that Saul's MOTIVATION for banquets on two successive days had anything to do with whether the new moon had been visually observed or not. At no stage is there any reference to visually observing the new moon. It is simply an observation that Saul was going to have banquets on those two days. Here is verse 5: And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, TO MORROW [IS] THE NEW MOON, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field UNTO THE THIRD [DAY] AT EVEN. (1 Samuel 20:5) And here is verse 18: Then Jonathan said to David, TO MORROW [IS] THE NEW MOON: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty. (1 Samuel 20:18) With these two verses as background, notice what Gandz says: "More than that, it appears that when David and Jonathan met, THEY KNEW THAT THE NEXT DAY WOULD BE CELEBRATED AS THE NEW MOON DAY, for in vv. 5 and 18 of the same chapter we read: "And David said, Behold TOMORROW IS THE NEW MOON when I am supposed to come to the King's table to eat, so let me go that I may hide myself in the field UNTO THE EVENING OF THE THIRD DAY." The last sentence indicates that David even KNEW that the feast was going to last two days, hence he proposed to hide until the evening of the third day. THIS ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE OF THE DATE OF THE NEW MOON DAY PROVES THAT AT THAT TIME SOME SORT OF A FIXED CALENDAR WAS IN FORCE, which regulated the date of the new moon day, AND NOT THE EMPIRICAL CALENDAR OF THE PHARISEES which depended upon the actual observance of the new moon and the announcement by some Court or other official authority. There is nothing strange in that, for we do know that in early biblical times the new moon day was observed as one of the main festivals; hence the date of the regularly recurring festival must have been fixed by law or custom and not simply left to the chance of whether the new moon would actually appear and be observed or not. The alternative succession of full and defective months must have been a very old observation." (pages 37-38) So while at the time of the Pharisees visual observations of the new moon may have been given a prominent role in the rituals, the indication is that AT THE TIME OF DAVID, and before his time, Israel actually had A FIXED CALENDAR! It follows that the custom of TWO new moon days has nothing to do with the calendar God wants us to use. And 1 Samuel 20 does not prove that God requires VISUAL observance of the new moon. Now let's look at some of the articles I mentioned at the start. Let's start by looking at the article by Dr. Hoeh, which represents the foundation for some of the other articles. THE HEBREW CALENDAR ARTICLE BY DR. HERMAN HOEH ---------------------------------------------- Dr. Hoeh refers to the man who felt that the Passover should follow the new moon nearest to the vernal equinox. This man's error should be readily apparent to every reader by now. As I have pointed out already with the example referring to Cycle #304, in order to ensure that the earliest possible Feast of Tabernacles starts on or one day after the autumn equinox (i.e. starting on the evening of September 23) you cannot avoid having the latest possible Passover in the same 19-year cycle take place as late as April 26/27 ... because of the inevitable 28-29 day fluctuations between the earliest and the latest occurrences of the Feasts in any given cycle. Subtracting 14-15 days from April 26/27 places the new moon of that cycle at April 11-12, or about 21 days after the vernal equinox. Thus it is clearly NOT the nearest new moon to the equinox at all. Then Dr. Hoeh quotes Mr. Armstrong's 1940 letter, where Mr. Armstrong wrote: "After thorough study of the Bible, of the Hebrew calendar, of history and every angle ... we have unanimously agreed that THE HEBREW CALENDAR HAS BEEN PRESERVED CORRECT BY THE JEWS." THAT STATEMENT IS CLEARLY INCORRECT! Now let's remember that Mr. Armstrong didn't have access to a computer back then, or even to a little hand-held calculator. Nor was he a mathematician who would spot mathematical difficulties with the calendar. So I am not blaming Mr. Armstrong for coming to the wrong conclusion. But the fact is that in this article I have really made "A THOROUGH STUDY OF THE HEBREW CALENDAR", compared to which Mr. Armstrong's effort was at best very superficial. And such a "thorough" study makes clear that: 1) the Jews use the calculations of Hipparchus; 2) the starting date of 3761 B.C. is totally fictitious; 3) the change in 255 A.D. shifted F.O.T. back into the summer; 4) the calendar ignores the shift of one day every 216 years; 5) a calendar MUST be flexible enough to accommodate such a seasonal shift; 6) the error of Hillel II has still not been fully erased; 7) there is no evidence that God gave this calendar to the Jews; 8) There is no evidence that the postponement rules are approved by God. Dr. Hoeh then quotes Acts 7:38-39 and Romans 3:1-2. These verses refer to "the ORACLES" of God. In this regard Dr. Hoeh reasons incorrectly. These verses state ... This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and [with] our fathers: who received THE LIVELY ORACLES to give unto us: (Acts 7:38) Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed THE ORACLES OF GOD. (Romans 3:2) The error lies in attaching a wrong and unwarranted meaning to the word "oracles". The Greek word used here is "logion", which is a diminutive of "logos", from which it is derived. Now "logos" means "word" and "logion" means "LITTLE word". Understand that "logion" is a SMALLER word than "logos" and NOT a LARGER word. It is not as inclusive as the word "logos". Notice this extract about "ORACLES" from Encarta 96 Encyclopedia, copyright by Microsoft Corporation: Oracle, advice or prophecy delivered by a deity or supernatural being to a worshipper or enquirer; also, the place at which PEOPLE CONSULTED THEIR DEITIES. THERE WERE MANY SUCH PLACES in the ancient Greek world, most notably at Delphi, Didyma on the coast of Asia Minor (in modern Turkey), Dodona in Epirus, and Olympia. The god's reply could be elicited through a person as in an entranced priestess at Delphi, through the interpretation of signs as in the tinkling of a cauldron hit by a chain blown in the wind at Dodona, or through the behaviour of sacred animals. The most famous non-Greek oracle was that of the Egyptian Amon at Siwah oasis in the Sahara. Oracles were used by the Hebrews, as in the consultation of the Urim and Thummin by the high priest. In Phoenicia the oracles were associated with the deities Baalzebub and other Baalim. Oracles were also common throughout Babylonia and Chaldea. (article "Oracle," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96 Encyclopedia) Now notice how Thayer's Lexicon defines the word "logion": "LOGION: diminutive of logos; properly: A LITTLE WORD, A BRIEF UTTERANCE, in prophetic authors A DIVINE ORACLE (doubtless because oracles were generally BRIEF; in the Septuagint it is used of THE BREAST- PLATE of the high priest which he wore when he consulted God, but chiefly [i.e. still in the LXX] for ANY UTTERANCE OF GOD, whether precept or promise; used by Philo of the ten commandments ("ta deka logia" = the ten little words or the ten short utterances). The problem with Dr. Hoeh's explanation is that he makes the word "oracles" out to be a BIGGER word than the word "logos"; but in fact it should be just the opposite. Dr. Hoeh tries to find ADDITIONAL things which he can group together under the umbrella of "oracles". And so he reasons that "oracles" refers to THREE things: the Bible, the calendar and the week. THAT IS A MISTAKE! The error is not that easy to spot because on the surface that statement seems to be a truism. It only falls down when you examine this statement more closely. The word "logion" is used only four times in the New Testament, in the above two verses and in the following two verses: If any man speak, [let him speak] AS THE ORACLES OF GOD; if any man minister, [let him do it] as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:11) For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which [be] the first principles OF THE ORACLES OF GOD; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. (Hebrews 5:12) The Apostle Peter's reference illustrates this meaning of a brief, short utterance. In a sermon a minister will only cover one small subject, and not the entire Bible! Likewise, in Hebrews 5:12 Paul is telling the Jews that they need someone to again teach them THE BASICS, referring to the short and concisely stated clear instructions from God ... a much smaller statement than telling them that they really need to study THE ENTIRE BIBLE IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND EVERY LAST DETAIL. Paul's statement here is much more limited and restricted than the instructions he gave to Timothy, a fellow minister, whom he told to "STUDY" the whole Bible. Notice ... Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing THE WORD OF TRUTH. (2 Timothy 2:15) Here Paul did not use the diminutive "logion"; here he used the word "logos", meaning "THE WHOLE BIBLE". His focus with Timothy on the WHOLE Bible is also made clear a little later, when Paul said: ALL SCRIPTURE [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2 Timothy 3:16) Clearly here Paul is speaking in a much larger and more inclusive context than in Hebrews 5:12. In Romans Paul was writing to Gentiles who were very familiar with the concept of "oracles", places where people received concise and to the point advice or answers to specific questions, as explained in the quote from Encarta 96. So, as a matter of interest, what ARE "the oracles of God", which Paul had in mind? What are the "short utterances" from God? From Exodus 4:22 to Malachi 1:4 we are told 281 times in 279 verses "THUS SAITH THE LORD"! Those are all given as direct "utterances" from God! They are precisely the type of thing (i.e. short and concise and to the point) that the pagans associated with "oracles". And they are all given to the Jews, not to the Gentiles. And those concise "thus saith the Lord" statements are precisely what they would have understood by the word "logion" (oracles). They are all utterances from God, as opposed to the words of the prophet or the writer of a book. They certainly are the "logion" of God! That is not to say that this expression "the oracles of God" refers exclusively to these "thus saith the LORD" statements, but at least we should see that these statements TYPIFY what is meant by "the oracles of God". In Romans 3:2 Paul is simply not talking about the calendar or the weekly cycle! To claim that he is doing so is to read something into this verse that Paul himself did not have in mind. NOWHERE in the Book of Romans does either the calendar or the weekly cycle feature in any way! Those things have nothing to do with the letter to the Romans! Dr. Hoeh's reasoning also falls down in the following regard: exactly what is supposed to be meant by "the week was committed to the Jews"? Do the Jews have any kind of CONTROL over the week? Can they change it (as they did the calendar) if they want to do so? All the Jews have done regarding the weekly cycle is set us an example. But up to this point in time the weekly cycle has ALSO been preserved by the Catholic Church!! Do we understand this? When they dropped 10 days in 1582 A.D., the Catholic Church made quite certain that the cycle of the week was NOT changed! Thus far the Catholic Church has ALWAYS acknowledged very freely that Sunday is the FIRST day of the week! They have thus far most emphatically "PRESERVED" the cycle of the week. Next, it is impossible to have the Jewish calendar from the time of Moses to our time today (about 3500 years) and rigidly preserve what supposedly was committed to Moses. Since that time the Jewish calendar would have shifted by 16 days away from the equinox. So IF at the time of Moses the earliest Feast of Tabernacles would have been 2 days after the autumn equinox, then today the earliest Feast of Tabernacles would be 18 days after the equinox, and the latest Feast of Tabernacles would start 46 days after the equinox, on November 6 and the Last Great Day would be on November 13! As it is, IF the sequence of leap years which is employed today was in force at the time of Moses, THEN in 1465 B.C. the Feast of Tabernacles would have started on the evening of September 4 and the Last Great Day would have been on September 12 ... in terms of our present GREGORIAN calendar! IF we accept the sequence of leap years that is generally assigned to the time before 255 A.D., THEN in the year 1466 B.C. the Feast of Tabernacles would have started on the evening of September 15, which is still more than one week before the end of summer at the autumn equinox. The Feast of Trumpets that year would have started on the evening of September 1, very much still in the summer! The Jews HAVE changed the calendar (in 255 A.D.). THEREFORE they have not "preserved" what they had before that time!! And, as I have shown, THAT CHANGE IN 255 A.D. WAS IN FACT WRONG! Just when the calendar was getting to the point where the Feast of Tabernacles would always start in the autumn, they went and changed it and put the Feast back into the summer! THIS PROVES THAT THEY HAVE NOT CORRECTLY PRESERVED WHAT THEY HAD BEFORE! Dr. Hoeh's appeal to FAITH is not valid! We are not supposed to have a "BLIND" faith! And Matthew 23:2-4 (the Pharisees sitting on Moses' seat) does NOT give the Pharisees the authority to move the Feast of Tabernacles into the summer! The "court of Hillel" had no authority at all to make such a decision! In such cases Peter's admonition, stated to the Pharisees in Acts 5:29, clearly applies ... Then Peter and the [other] apostles answered and said, WE OUGHT TO OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN. (Acts 5:29) Dr. Hoeh then states that "the Jews were IN AUTHORITY under God OVER THE ORACLES" (meaning the Bible, the calendar and the week). THAT IS NOT TRUE! In what way were the Jews possibly OVER the Bible and OVER the weekly cycle? They were not over the Bible or over the weekly cycle at all! They have no control over the weekly cycle and they have no control over the content of the Word of God. But Dr. Hoeh uses that wording specifically to introduce a way of justifying the postponement rule #1. Frankly, it is just not true that to have the Day of Atonement fall on a Friday or on a Sunday is "BINDING A HEAVY BURDEN"! To have Atonement on a Friday is no more a burden than to have it on a Wednesday or on a Thursday! That is just so much pharisaical reasoning and justification. There is no hardship in preparing food on a Thursday! Look again at ALL THE OTHER DAYS when the Jews quite willingly have special days fall on a Friday. The postponement rule #1 is just so much pharisaical hypocrisy ... and Mr. Armstrong and Dr. Hoeh and all of us fell for it; we didn't see through it because our eyes were blinded by the false premise that the Jews must be doing it right. They don't do it right for Pentecost; they don't do it right for the Passover; but somehow they must have it right when they want to postpone Atonement. But they don't! Can we not see that they have SHIFTED Pentecost to Sivan 6, they have SHIFTED Passover to Nisan 15, and they have SHIFTED Atonement by postponing the whole calendar when it would otherwise be "inconvenient" to them? The Jews have NOT set us the right example when it comes to the Holy Days! It is an ASSUMPTION that in 358-359 Hillel II was STILL sitting "in Moses' seat"! Is there any Jew TODAY who is still sitting "in Moses' seat"? Who? Where? If not, WHEN did a Jew stop sitting "in Moses' seat"? Is there any instruction, or even any hint of an indication, that after the resurrection of Jesus Christ true Christians were to STILL look to the Jewish hierarchy for leadership and for guidance? No, there isn't! Are Christians instructed to be subject to the Jewish religious authority? Where is such instruction? Does Paul ANYWHERE tell Christians to look to the Jews for guidance? What about Romans chapter 3, where he refers to "the oracles" ... does he then present the conclusion that THEREFORE we Christians ought to look to the Jews for guidance? Where? There is not even a hint in that direction. Instead, Paul points out that they have been BLINDED (see Rom. 11:25). Are we to look to THE BLIND for leadership and instructions? Here is a quotation from Dr. Hoeh's own article which PROVES that the "court of Hillel" made a decision contrary to God's laws. Dr. Hoeh writes: "Second, even if it were permissible to have Passover as early as March 20 -- the very beginning day of spring -- the Feast of Tabernacles would fall too early. Did you ever notice that the Bible requires the Feast of Tabernacles, commemorating the second and great harvest of human beings, to AT LEAST reach the beginning of autumn? ... It is here specifically referring to the autumnal equinox -- when day and night approach equal length. It normally falls on September 23 this century. But if the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles were one month earlier this year the Festival would fall on Sept. 14-20. And that is WHOLLY IN SUMMER AND PLAINLY CONTRARY TO EXODUS 34:22." Notice what Dr. Hoeh acknowledges in this quote: 1) Spring starts at the vernal equinox. 2) Autumn starts at the autumnal equinox. That is on September 23 in this century. 3) Exodus 34:22 makes clear that the Feast of Tabernacles must be after the autumnal equinox. By Dr. Hoeh's own admission the calendar which came into force from 255 A.D. onwards, and which Hillel II endorsed about 100 years later, is "PLAINLY CONTRARY TO EXODUS 34:22"! And therefore true Christians should NOT have followed Hillel's decision! Notice Dr. Hoeh's admission that in this century it is still SUMMER up to and including September 22. It follows that if any farmer has to travel to the Feast BEFORE September 23, then he has to travel to the Feast in the summer. Because Dr. Hoeh knows that even today the Feast does at times still start in the summer, THEREFORE he interprets Exodus 34:22 to mean that it is acceptable as long as A PART OF THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES "at least reaches the beginning of autumn". That is a concession to the error Hillel II introduced! Look, it doesn't help a farmer if the last day or two of the Feast happen to reach autumn; he still has to go to the Feast IN THE SUMMER! The Feast of Tabernacles pictures "the great harvest", as Dr. Hoeh stated; thus once a farmer has to get on the road to attend the Feast of Tabernacles, THEN in theory his time for harvesting is over! {In practice many farmers in the Church today go home after the Feast and then continue their harvest!} In 1983, including a one day postponement, the Feast started on the evening of September 21 ... two full days before the start of autumn. In 1975 the Feast started on the evening of September 19 ... four full days before autumn. In 2013 the Feast is scheduled to start on the evening of September 19 once again. The farmer obviously must leave his land before the Feast starts. His very last POSSIBLE day for any farming in 2013 will be September 18 ... assuming he lives fairly close to his Feast site. So he is required to complete his harvest 5 full days BEFORE the end of summer in order to attend the Feast. That is not right! But it gets still worse! In 2032 A.D. (one cycle later) the Feast starts on Sunday evening, September 19. The previous day is a Sabbath. Therefore Friday, September 18 is the last possible day for a farmer ... - to reap his crops; - to prepare for the weekly Sabbath; - to prepare to go to the Feast. It will be A HECTIC FRIDAY FOR FARMERS ... September 18, 2032 A.D.! They will get very little real "farming" done on that day. But that's not our problem ... since most of us live in the cities and are not farmers, right? It is because the Jewish calendar at present requires the Feast to sometimes start in the summer, that therefore Dr. Hoeh interprets Exodus 34:22 to imply that the Feast must "AT LEAST REACH" the beginning of autumn. The point is quite clear: Exodus 34:22 requires THE WHOLE FEAST to be in the autumn! And the error of Hillel II put THE WHOLE FEAST into summer for some years back in the 280's A.D. (as in 284 A.D. when the Last Great Day finished on September 20, and when the equinox was still at September 23/24). That error has been largely hidden by the passage of time, to the tune of one day for every 216,3 years. Dr. Hoeh concluded his article by saying: "So before thinking the Hebrew calendar needs your input, think first how much you need God's input from His written Word! He does reveal in the Bible more than you may be aware about His calendar." It is not a matter of the calendar needing my input; it is simply that it should be blatantly obvious that Hillel's decision was contrary to God's Word! By Dr. Hoeh's own statement it was contrary to Exodus 34:22 for Hillel to move the Feast wholly into summer. And it is an assumption that the Jewish calendar is GOD'S calendar. And Hillel's error clearly demonstrates that Romans 3:2 (the oracles of God) has nothing to do with the calendar! Now let's look at the next article. "GOD'S SACRED CALENDAR" BY STEPHEN FLURRY ----------------------------------------- This article is based almost totally on the previous article by Dr. Hoeh. As such, all of the comments about Dr. Hoeh's article also apply to this one. Here are some further comments. The use of the word "sacred" is not warranted. It implies that nothing can be changed from the way God supposedly gave it. The calculations of the Jewish calendar can be traced to the calculations of Hipparchus, which were not inspired. His calculations contain a small error, which is also reflected in the Jewish calendar. The claim that the Hebrew calendar keeps the autumn festivals in the autumn is clearly wrong, as I have shown. The reference from Josephus that the sons of Seth ... "were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, AND THEIR ORDER", has nothing to do with the Hebrew calendar. It has no more merit that some quote from the Talmud. Josephus makes a lot of claims which can easily be disproved. His tendency to exaggerate and to embellish the facts in order to make the "antiquity" of the Jews look great is quite well known. As a result his credibility and historical integrity are extremely low. In view of the totally fictitious nature of the molad of the starting date in 3761 B.C. (during the lifetime of Seth!), and in view of the calendar employing the calculations of Hipparchus, Stephen's deduction that ... "it appears as though God's revelation concerning the heavenly bodies, including the times and seasons, began with the earliest generations" ... must be classified as pure speculation without factual support. It is again the wishful thinking in wanting to prove the Jews right, without actually examining the effects of the calendar itself. The author then states: "The first rule (of postponement) prevents holy days and the Passover from occurring AT AWKWARD TIMES (making Feast preparation difficult, etc.)." WHAT IF THE SABBATH COMES AT AN "AWKWARD" TIME ... CAN WE POSTPONE IT? Can we not see that the reasoning employed by the Jews for these postponements is just so carnal, so unconverted? Stephen's claim that ... "the exact time for the new moon of Tishri in Jerusalem in 1987, AS DETERMINED BY SCIENTISTS, was on a Monday at 5:34 a.m." ... is not quite correct. That time was not determined by scientists at all! The molad ACCORDING TO THE CALCULATIONS OF HIPPARCHUS, FROM 146 B.C. was on Monday, October 2 at 614P after 5:00 a.m., which is 5:34:6,6 a.m.. The molad of Tishri for 31 A.D. was Friday, October 5th (Julian calendar!) at 5H 941P, which translates into Thursday evening, October 4th at 11:52:16,6 p.m.. But those are NOT the times modern scientists would calculate! According to modern scientists these calculations are actually 2 minutes and 5,3 seconds too long for every 19-year cycle (as I have previously mentioned). This means that "scientists" would place the molad at about 3 hours and 33 minutes nearer to us than according to the Jewish calculations. So IF the molad for 1978 is correct, then "scientists" would place the molad in 31 A.D. on Friday, October 5th at 3:25:16 a.m.. So we need to be clear on whether we are appealing to the authority of "SCIENTISTS" or whether we are relying on the Jewish calculations, which come from Hipparchus. The argument about a 31 A.D. crucifixion date is rather weak. I have already discussed this earlier at some length. Mr. Flurry's statement ... "Do you think it is just coincidence that on the Hebrew calendar Passover never comes as early as March 20?" ... shows that he has not really done his homework! In 265 A.D. Passover was on March 18, in 284 A.D. on March 19, in 303 A.D. on March 19, in 322 A.D. on March 19, in 341 A.D. on March 18, etc.. By 341 A.D. the equinox was on March 21, as now. The 1600 years since then have simply obscured that error to some degree. But by his own reasoning this should make Stephen reject the claim that the Hebrew calendar is "inspired". Let's move on to the next article. "QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS" BY JIM FRANKS ------------------------------------- This article is also based on Dr. Hoeh's article. Thus the same comments also apply to this article. Jim writes: "Some scholars claim that Hillel II initiated the rules of postponement, but I have seen no proof of this. In fact, there is MORE EVIDENCE (in my opinion) for the rules of postponement having been part of the calendar for many centuries. SOME SAY they go as far back as the Babylonian captivity. They reason that, since all the names of the months are Babylonian, IT IS POSSIBLE that the calendar calculations (including the rules of postponement) were in effect from that time." Jim is trying to convince us that the rules of postponement go back to antiquity. He states that he has not seen any proof that they were initiated by Hillel II. Obviously he has not taken the time to read what Moses Maimonides wrote about the calendar, he hasn't read what Abraham Savasorda and Juda ibn Rakofal have said about the calendar, he hasn't read what Solomon Gandz has to say about the calendar, he hasn't read what Isidore Loeb has to say about the calendar, and he hasn't read what Sherrard Beaumont Burnaby has to say about the calendar. It is no wonder that he has not seen any proof that Hillel II introduced those rules of postponement. True, not all of these authors assign these rules to Hillel II, but they all have A LOT to say about the calendar! Jim then continued to say that in his opinion there is "MORE EVIDENCE" for the rules of postponement having been a part of the calendar for many centuries. REALLY? MORE EVIDENCE than all of the authors I have listed above? What is that evidence? Well, that "evidence" consists of: "some say ... they reason ... it is possible", etc.. Is THAT "evidence"? Then he presents the argument about 31 A.D., which is also presented by Stephen Flurry. Several statements in the article show a lack of understanding. For example, Jim writes about the rule of postponing if the molad fell at noon or later: "It also makes sense that, if half a day is gone, then it could not be declared to be the first day of the month." That statement is not correct. When only half the day is gone, then the month is NOT postponed! It is only postponed when THREE QUARTERS of the day is gone! At twelve noon three quarters of the day is past! The day starts at 6:00 p.m. and ends at 6:00 p.m.. When half the day has passed, then it is only 6:00 A.M. The point we need to understand is that when the molad falls between 6:00 p.m. and 12:00 o'clock midnight, then NO POSTPONEMENT is invoked ... those hours between 6:00 p.m. and midnight are a part of the next day already. This postponement rule only applies to a SIX hour period and not to a twelve hour period. Regarding the changeover from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, Mr. Franks writes: "When the changeover took place, 11 days had to be ADDED to the calendar to bring everything into synch." THAT IS NOT CORRECT! The Julian year is TOO LONG! And 11 days had to be DROPPED, and not "added"! In fact the Gregorian calendar is still too long, and if we want to keep the seasons constant in relation to the Gregorian calendar then we need to DROP an additional day every 3320 years or so. Another error is in the way he explains how the 11 days were "added" (really dropped!). He writes after the above quoted sentence: "If this were done on Sept. 1, then the next day would become Sept. 12." THAT IS ALSO INCORRECT! When 11 days were dropped (in the 1750's) then September 1 was followed by September 13, and NOT by "September 12"! If September 12 was the day following September 1, then only TEN days would have been dropped. That should also be easy to see. The reasoning Jim presents about Romans 3:1-3 doesn't really make "as strong a case" as he makes out. It is based on a lack of understanding exactly what is meant by "oracles". He then says: "... we have much older copies of the calendar -- A.D. 358 (359), the time of Hillel II -- yet some people aren't willing to accept its authenticity?" Is it wrong to want to see REAL proof? Is it wrong to put that "older" calendar to the test? Mr. Franks himself has NEVER had access to a copy of the calendar that goes back to 358 A.D., even though he freely says: "WE HAVE much older copies ...". WHERE does he "HAVE" those OLDER COPIES? Can he show them to us? Or is he referring to the evidence of Maimonides from 1200 A.D.? Actually, it is only ... "A TRADITION", which is quoted in the name of Hai Gaon (died 1038 A.D.), that the present Jewish calendar was introduced by the patriarch Hillel II in 670 Era of the Seleucids = 4119 Era of the Creation = 358/359 A.D. (500 A.D. claimed to derive from another version, seems to rest on a mistake). THIS POSSIBLY ONLY REFERS TO THE PRESENT ORDER OF THE SEVEN LEAP YEARS IN THE 19-YEAR CYCLE." (Encyclopedia Judaica, Copyright 1972, volume 5, article "Calendar", page 48) If the Encyclopedia Judaica is not aware of "much older copies" than the evidence of Hai Gaon around 1030 A.D., where does Mr. Franks get his "MUCH OLDER" copies from? If we want to refer to the Talmud, then we also need to acknowledge that the Talmud contains AN INCREDIBLE NUMBER OF CONTRADICTIONS AND TOTALLY UNWARRANTED IDEAS AND OPINIONS! You want an example? Here is an example of the typical, and biblically totally unsound, rambling you'll find on page after page in the Talmud. This IS the supposed "ORAL LAW". This is quoted from the 1897 Michael Rodkinson (New York) edition of the Babylonian Talmud: "We have learned R. Eliezer says: In Tishri the world was created, the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob were born and died; Isaac was born on Passover; on New Year's Day Sarah, Rachel and Hannah were visited with the blessing of children, Joseph was released from prison, and the bondage of our fathers in Egypt ceased; in Nissan our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt, and in Tishri we shall again be redeemed. R. Jehoshua says: In Nissan the world was created, and in the same month the patriarchs were born, and in Nissan they also died; Isaac was born on the Passover; on New Year's Day Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were visited, Joseph was released from prison, and the bondage of our fathers in Egypt ceased. In Nissan our ancestors were redeemed from Egypt, and in the same month we shall again be redeemed. We have learned in a Boraitha R. Eliezer says: Whence do we know that the world was created in Tishri? From the scriptural verse, in which it is written [Gen. 1.11]: "And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree.'" etc. In what month does the earth bring forth grass, and at the same time the trees are full of fruit? Let us say Tishri, and that time of the year (mentioned in Genesis) was the autumn; the rain descended and the fruits flourished, as it is written [Gen. 2.6]: "But there went up a mist from the earth," etc. R. Jehoshua says: Whence do we know that the world was created in Nissan? From the scriptural verse, in which it is written [Gen. 1.12]: "And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed, and the tree yielding fruit," etc. In which month is the earth covered with grass (and at the same time) the trees bring forth fruit? Let us say Nissan, and at that time animals, domestic and wild, and birds mate, as it is said [Psalm 65.13]: "The meadows are clothed with flocks," etc. Further says R. Eliezer: Whence do we know that the patriarchs were born in Tishri? From the passage [1 Kings 8.2]: "And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim" (strong), which is the seventh month; i.e. the month in which Ethanim, the strong ones of the earth (the patriarchs) were born. How do we know that the expression ethan means strength? It is written [Numb. 24.21] 'ethan moshabhekha', "strong is your dwelling-place," and it is also written [Micah 6.2]: "Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and (ve-haethanim) ye strong foundations, " etc. " {This is verbatim, parenthetical statements and all!} Next the Talmud explains the reasoning behind the claim that Isaac was born in Nisan, which reasoning is BIBLICALLY TOTALLY UNSOUND! The reasoning assumes he was conceived at Tabernacles, and then says ... "... a similar objection may be made, for who bears children in the sixth month of gestation? This last objection could be answered according to the following Boraitha: We have learned that that year was a leap year, and Mar Zutra says that although a child born during the month (but only at the end of the required time), still a seven months' child can be born before the seventh month is complete, as it is said [1 Sam. 1,20]: "And it came to pass, 'li-tequphath ha-yamim' (when the time was come about)"; the minimum of 'tequphoth' is two and of 'yamim' is also two (i.e. after six months and two days' gestation, childbirth is possible). There! Now you've had a taste of "the ORAL law". Now you know how and why some Jews will tell you that Isaac was conceived at Tabernacles, while others will tell you that he was born at the Passover. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT IN THE TALMUD? It is just "tohu and bohu" ... chaos and confusion; a mish-mash of confused and conflicting ideas and opinions. So ... if the "older" evidence Mr. Franks refers to is based on the Talmud, then just forget it! You can prove just about anything you like from the Talmud ... and many Jewish teachers have done just that. Jim's claim that the Apostle Paul "MADE A STRONG REFERENCE TO" ... the rules of postponement in Romans is totally without any kind of support! Where on earth do you find "rules of postponement" in the Book of Romans, unless you really read your own preconceived ideas into Paul's words? The claim that the Jews "preserved THE ORAL LAW" is incorrect! There is no such thing FROM GOD (!!) as "the ORAL law"! Does the above rambling from the Talmud sound like something "GOD" gave to the Jews to preserve? Do you want MORE QUOTATIONS from the Talmud to prove that to you? Those long quotes I have just given you are all part of "the oral law" which the Talmud has supposedly preserved. The "oral law" is nothing more than "A MYTH" to justify human traditions. As far as the calendar is concerned, the evidence speaks for itself! As it stands it certainly does NOT represent the will of God. But it does represent "TRADITION"! To the direct and pointed question: "Does God approve of man postponing His Holy Days for the sake of convenience?", Jim replies: "I think it is presumptuous of me to speak for God in this matter and declare what He approves and what He doesn't." THAT IS A CLEAR COP-OUT! What does Ephesians 5:17 say ...? Wherefore BE YE NOT UNWISE, BUT UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE WILL OF THE LORD [IS]. (Ephesians 5:17) If Ephesians 5:17 applies to ordinary members of God's Church, how much more so does it apply to ministers? And if you are NOT sure that God does indeed approve of postponement rules, then how can you accept them without compromising your conscience? Regarding the calendar, there is no such thing as "verbal instructions from God"!! When you study the writings of the leading authors about the calendar, men like Savasorda, Juda ibn Rakoval, Maimonides, Isidore Loeb, etc., all Jewish writers, then it becomes VERY EVIDENT that there is not a shred of evidence of some secret "VERBAL" information that was somehow passed on from generation to generation. When you search through the Talmud for information about the calendar, then this becomes even more evident. When you then see that the Jewish calendar is simply an application of the calculations of Hipparchus, then this becomes even more evident. And when you understand that the Jewish calendar, as it stands, has no mechanism for coping with the shifting of the seasons by one day every 216,3 years, then that should put the speculation about "verbal instructions" to rest once and for all! Let's move on to the next article. "IS THE HEBREW CALENDAR AUTHORITATIVE FOR UCG?" BY ROBERT BORAKER ----------------------------------------------------------------- Since Mr. Boraker was my journalism teacher at Ambassador College and the one who taught me how to write letters as a 'Personal Correspondent' for the Church, I must tread carefully here. {Just kidding, Mr. Boraker.} This brief article also appeals to Dr. Hoeh's 1981 article for support. Thus the same comments largely apply. One point to note is a quotation Bob presents from John Kossey. He says: "John Kossey summed it up well by saying, "Without these postponement rules, the Hebrew calendar would be in a perpetual state of confusion. Holy days [in the autumn] would fall on a Sunday. The lengths of years would be irregular. Calendar reformers would be tempted to tamper with this calendar more often. ... But all that turmoil is avoided by four very simple and easily applied postponement rules. Instead of the Sacred Festivals being subordinate to the Hebrew calendar, the latter serves the Holy Days." (The Hebrew Calendar: A Mathematical Introduction by John A. Kossey) John Kossey's claims are simply NOT CORRECT! It is FALSE to claim that without the postponement rules the calendar would be in a perpetual state of confusion. That is just not true! Look, the months are determined by the molads. And the molads are TOTALLY INDEPENDENT of any postponement rules. The molads do not change with the postponement rules. As I have shown earlier, it is postponement rule #1 which actually CAUSED cycles #154 and #167 to each be one day too long (i.e. assuming that rule #1 was in force at that time, which is highly improbable). The ONLY postponement rule that is needed is rule #2, which says to postpone to the next day if the molad occurs at noon or later. If the molad does not occur in the first 18 hours of the day, then it should be postponed, since by far the greatest part of the day has already passed. The length of years will NOT be irregular without postponement rule #1 (rules #3 and #4 are only needed because of rule #1). The lengths of years can stay in exactly the same parameters as is now the case. Once the molad for the next year has been calculated, then the lengths of Heshvan and Kislev can be determined. It sounds very nice for John Kossey to say that "the calendar will serve the Holy Days", instead of the other way around. That may sound very appealing, but there really is no substance to it. God's instructions regarding the dates for all of the Holy Days are very precise in Leviticus chapter 23. There is not the slightest hint that any of these days could be postponed because of inconvenience. As mentioned earlier, there is no problem at all with preparing for the Sabbath on a Thursday when Friday happens to be the Day of Atonement. The year 1997 will commence Cycle #304. The following table gives the HYPOTHETICAL dates for the Feast of Trumpets under three different conditions. The first column gives the date according to the present calendar with all the rules of postponement applied. The second column gives Trumpets with ONLY RULE #2 (postpone if molad is after 18 Hours) applied. The third column gives it with NO POSTPONEMENTS at all; i.e. the date of the molad IS the date for Trumpets. Here are the dates. NUMBER YEAR ALL 4 RULES ONLY RULE #2 DON'T POSTPONE APPLY APPLIES 1 1997 Oct 2 Oct 2 Oct 2 2 1998 Sep 21 Sep 21 Sep 21 3 1999 Sep 11 Sep 11 Sep 10 4 2000 Sep 30 Sep 29 Sep 28 5 2001 Sep 18 Sep 18 Sep 18 6 2002 Sep 7 Sep 7 Sep 7 7 2003 Sep 27 Sep 26 Sep 26 8 2004 Sep 16 Sep 15 Sep 14 9 2005 Oct 4 Oct 3 Oct 3 10 2006 Sep 23 Sep 23 Sep 23 11 2007 Sep 13 Sep 12 Sep 12 12 2008 Sep 30 Sep 30 Sep 30 13 2009 Sep 19 Sep 19 Sep 19 14 2010 Sep 9 Sep 9 Sep 9 15 2011 Sep 29 Sep 28 Sep 27 16 2012 Sep 17 Sep 16 Sep 16 17 2013 Sep 5 Sep 5 Sep 5 18 2014 Sep 25 Sep 24 Sep 24 19 2015 Sep 14 Sep 14 Sep 13 1 2016 Oct 3 Oct 2 Oct 1 etc. ... This is a whole cycle. For all three columns all the years are in the accepted length range of 353 - 355 days for common years and 383 - 385 days for leap years. This PROVES that John Kossey's comment that ... "the lengths of years would be irregular" is NOT CORRECT! You can go ahead and check the lengths of all 19 years in all 3 columns. None of them are too long or too short. As far as Holy Days falling on a Sunday, what is the problem with that? The Jewish days Purim and Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah 2nd day and 2nd day Succoth and Simchat Torah can all fall on a Sunday; so why not some of the other days as well? Why be partial? The "turmoil" John Kossey suggests is very artificial. There really isn't any turmoil. And remember, the molads are not affected by postponements and they will continue to be evenly spaced. So there will not be unduly short or long years, simply because there are no postponements. As a matter of fact, as I mentioned earlier, the Karaites in Israel don't accept any postponements; and they are managing just fine. So don't be mislead by John Kossey's claims. At the end of the article Bob writes: "So it is a matter of whose rules we should go by, and who has the authority to set the dates for the calendar. When a Holy Day is to be observed is not for the individual Christian to decide. That responsibility was given to the authority in the Church -- the ministry -- and the Hebrew calendar is presently being used to determine those dates. If ever the ministry decides that the Jews are using some rules that are not justified, then changes would be made accordingly." WELL SAID! And I will come back to this later. That covers the authors (whose writings I have a copy of) who have written in support of retaining the Jewish calendar. Now let's look at the others who have written against using the Jewish calendar. "THE CALENDAR YAH GAVE TO MOSES" BY HERBERT SOLINSKY ---------------------------------------------------- This is probably the main article written against using the Jewish calendar. The article really consists of two separate parts. Part one is an explanation of basic astronomy, with a focus on the factors that influence the yearly solar cycle. As such, I personally feel that this is EXTREMELY WELL WRITTEN! The explanations are clear and easy to follow. And I found this section to be very helpful. It is in part two that Mr. Solinsky presents his ideas regarding the calendar. And that is where the problems lie. The author ASSUMES that God did in fact give Moses a calendar! But that assumption is without proof. The "calendar" Solinsky speaks about is based on REASONED OUT DEDUCTIONS from various Scriptures. It amounts to looking at the Bible like so many pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and then attempting to use these pieces for the purpose of constructing a calendar. I don't believe that is the right way to go about it! Using the same approach with God's laws, it would look like this: let's suppose that God had not at any point in the Bible stated the 10 commandments and the laws regarding Holy Days, tithing and unclean meats in a direct and unequivocal way. Instead, the Bible simply revealed various principles at various points along the way. Then you come along and make logical deductions and you reach the conclusion, based on your reasoning: it is quite obvious that God gave 10 commandments to Adam, and that God later gave the following laws to Moses (Holy Days, etc.). Or you might even reason that God gave all of those laws to Adam as well. What would you have? All you would have is your own ideas, some of which might even be right. And yes, you might even have all of the correct principles. But your assertions as to what was given when would be purely your own speculations. That's what we have in Solinsky's article about the calendar. The only clear statement we have in the Bible about a calendar in the days of Moses is found in Exodus 12:2, which refers to a change to the start of the year. Exodus 12:2 does NOT reveal a whole new type of annual calendar, with a whole new way of determining how and when the months should start. It is written from the assumption that people were familiar with a calendar, but that God was introducing a new start to the year. The Roman calendar went through a similar process, when the start of the year was changed from March to January. IF other calendar reforms or modifications take place at the same time, that is independent of the decision as to WHEN the year should start. And in Exodus 12 there is no indication that such "reforms" took place. A major part of Solinsky's presentation is based on 1 Samuel chapter 20, the account with David and Jonathan. From that section of Scripture he draws some totally unwarranted conclusions. That is a big flaw! And based on that alone his whole argument already falls to pieces. The reasoning is specious. He reasons that Samuel was alive. Since Samuel was a man of God, he reasons that what Saul did would have had God's approval. The facts are that Saul was disobedient to God, that he was in fact trying to kill David. The facts are that five chapters earlier we have the very clear statement that Samuel NEVER AGAIN saw King Saul! Notice 1 Samuel 15:35 ... AND SAMUEL CAME NO MORE TO SEE SAUL UNTIL THE DAY OF HIS DEATH: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel. (1 Samuel 15:35) So the whole build-up about "the influence of Samuel" is without substance! it is just so much reasoning to "load the deck" in favour of his interpretation of this chapter. Then he attaches a lot of importance to certain Hebrew phrases, like "ha chodesh ha shaynee". Again, this is all based on the ASSUMED PREMISE that whatever disobedient King Saul was doing on those two days, was in fact a reflection of CALENDRICAL INSTRUCTIONS GOD HAD GIVEN TO MOSES. He then reasons about "visibility". The point is: he does NOT have any clear instructions, regarding how a calendar should be structured, to appeal to. And so HE REASONS ... from Hebrew phrases, from the custom of one particular king (who had already been rejected by God), etc.. It is this assumed premise that somewhere there must be the ideal calendar which God had revealed to Moses, and if we can just make the right deductions from scattered and unrelated references, then we should be able to reconstruct the model God had given to Moses. But no proof is ever presented that God did in fact give Moses such a calendar. In order to support the idea of "two new moon days" Solinsky then appeals to the Mishnah, which was written between 70 and 170 A.D.. First of all, the Mishnah, which is the first part of the Talmud, is just as confused and as contradictory as the rest of the Talmud (i.e. the Gemara), and the opinions it expresses are obviously without any divine inspiration. Secondly, whatever people then happened to do (e.g. wait for witnesses to attest to the visual observance of the new crescent) has nothing to do with what God has actually instructed. It is not logical to look at what the Jews are doing, or have done at some stage, and to deduce that what they were doing must have been in fulfillment of instructions from God. There is no automatic connection between the customs of the Jews and the instructions God has given to mankind. Nowhere does the Bible require, or even hint at, "witnesses" pronouncing that they have seen the new moon. That is just a custom that was extant during the period of the Pharisees. There is a vast difference between that custom not necessarily being wrong, and that custom being a requirement by God for determining the start of a new month. It is well-documented that the dates and lengths of time given in Ezekiel 1:1; 3:15; 4:4-6 and 8:1 imply an intercalated month (i.e. a year with 13 months). See the 1964 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Calendar", and Encyclopedia Judaica, 1972 edition, article "Calendar". But then the Babylonian calendar of that time ALSO employed intercalated months; and it is unlikely that the Babylonians got their calendar from Moses. So the presence of an intercalated month does not prove inspiration or direct instructions from God one way or the other. Solinsky does raise the valid issue that the year needs to start LATE enough so that there can be some grain ripe at the Passover time for the purpose of the wavesheaf offering. If the year starts so early that there will not be any grain ripe, then the calendar is out of step with God's instructions. THAT IS A REAL PROBLEM WHICH WE NEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE! As a result of Hillel's decree the Passover in 357 A.D. (the year of Hillel's decree!) was on March 21 and the Wavesheaf should have been brought on Sunday, March 23 (Gregorian is March 24). THAT IS SIMPLY TOO EARLY!! If the sequence of leap years had not been changed around 255 A.D., THEN the Passover in 357 A.D. would have been kept on April 21, and the Wavesheaf would have been waved on Sunday, April 27. And that was certainly possible from an agricultural point of view. But March 23 was simply not possible! In an effort to justify Hillel's decision, people come up with all kinds of ways to have some grain ready for harvesting as early as March 23/24. And it is just not on, if you are speaking about the average grain fields in the area of Jerusalem or Palestine. It is not a matter of finding some special valley where grain ripens a little earlier ... or even growing a small quantity in a flowerbox in greenhouse-type conditions. It is a general statement that the barley harvest would be ready for harvesting from that day onwards. Again the point is this: ensuring that the Feast of Tabernacles is always after the autumn equinox will ensure that the Wavesheaf is never required before the beginning of April, or the last day of March at the very earliest. Solinsky asserts that a year should be "A VISIBLE ASTRONOMICAL EVENT". In so doing he reads his own ideas into the Scriptures he uses. His conclusion is: "Thus a simple, natural, aesthetically satisfying, visually observable method exists for determining the first month". That may be the case ... that it exists. BUT that does not prove that God wants, requires or expects us to depend on a "visually observable method". His "biblical method" for determining the equinox consists of presenting one biblical reference to the equinox (Ecclesiastes 1:5-6) and then interpreting this rather general comment by Solomon as a method for us to determine the equinox. What's wrong with accepting the opinions of the experts? Does God expect us to determine for ourselves every year when the equinox takes place ... by observing the shadows of sticks and keeping careful records? Is it that important if the experts are really out by one day? And are we likely to be more accurate by observing shadows for ourselves? Solinsky does also correctly point out this shift of one day every 216 years, or 7 days for every approximately 1500 years. This point is not acknowledged by those who endorse the unqualified use of the Jewish calendar. Solinsky's conclusion is: "God gave Moses an empirical calendar, i.e. a calendar based upon collective human observation." THAT IS NOT TRUE! There is no evidence, and none has been presented by Solinsky, that God did in fact GIVE "a calendar" to Moses. That is an unproved assumption! Finally, after having made this issue about "OBSERVABLE" events, Solinsky then concludes his paper with PREDICTION TABLES for new moons and sunsets! If you are going to rely on "observation", then why would you want to use, or why would you need "prediction tables"? It is just a different set of predictions that he ends up recommending. To me it is a big anticlimax, after having gone through all the reasoning as to why VISUAL observance is so crucial, to be told: "now that you understand all this, why don't you just use these tables here?" "WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE CALENDAR?" BY HAROLD HEMENWAY ---------------------------------------------------- This is another booklet which someone sent to me for comments. So here are a few brief comments. The author makes some rather grand claims on the first page, but the answers he offers are very unbalanced and display a lack of real understanding of the Scriptures. For example: 1) He tells us what the angels are supposedly like by quoting from a poem by HESIOD, an 8th century B.C. Greek poet. In the didactic (i.e. intended to be instructive rather than entertaining) poem "Works and Days" Hesiod develops the theme of moral decay through five supposed stages, from the age of gold to the age of iron (Hesiod's own time). The poem is FILLED with allegories and fables. And this poem is Hemenway's authority for what he claims the angels were like. He also appeals to the Roman poet Ovid (born 43 B.C., died 17 A.D.) for authority on this question of what angels are like. 2) He claims that at the time of Adam God ... "created a WATER- VAPOR-CANOPY GREENHOUSE WITH A WARM TROPICAL SPRING CLIMATE FROM POLE TO POLE. ... THERE WERE NO RAINBOWS OR RAIN. ... RAIN WAS UNKNOWN." (his own emphasis). Typically he offers no proof for any of these assertions. 3) He then boldly claims: "The magnetic poles coincided with the geographic poles. Venus did not yet have its present reversed spin from most of the other planets. Mercury's inclined orbit of 7 degrees didn't yet exist. It was in the same flat plane as the other planets. Same with Pluto (unless it was a moon of Neptune originally). Uranus at this time did not rotate at a 98-degree angle from its orbital plane." 4) He asserts "Humans and animals were VEGETARIAN. ... but as sin entered, God altered the snake's body and instinct. The same changes occurred with birds, fish and other animals. ... Man remained vegetarian until the flood." etc. 5) He then asserts: "Sabbath-keepers should ignore the (International Date) line in the Pacific. Instead they should look to the meridian on the 46-degree east line which runs through the town of "Eridu" -- the most probable site of the Garden of Eden. This line starts the new day." {COMMENT: That's about 10 degrees or nearly 700 miles east of Jerusalem, Hemenway's proposed International Date Line.} 6) His ridiculous reasoning is typified by the following quotation: "Virtually all the people living east of this (International Date) line are non-Sabbath-keeping orientals and blacks until we come to Australia and New Zealand. In other words, virtually all Jewish or Christian Caucasians live west of this (International Date) line. So the line is well positioned. But the man-made International Date Line (i.e. through the Pacific Ocean) cuts off Australia and New Zealand from their kindred Celto-Saxon nations to the east and causes these people to unknowingly break the Sabbath even when they rest on 'Saturday'. Australian Sunday-keepers are unknowingly meeting together on Saturday and Sabbath-keepers are actually resting on Friday." etc. What does all this have to do with "the calendar"? NOTHING! The author also gets rather involved in astrology, attaching major significance to certain signs of the zodiac, and attempts to link some of the signs to the Bible: - VIRGO with Revelation 12:1; - TAURUS with Exodus 32:4; - ORION with Job 38:31; - LEO with Matthew 24:3; - CRATER (in LEO) with Revelation 16:19; - DRAGO (the crooked serpent) with Isaiah 27:1. 7) On the last page of the booklet he suggests that 2043-2044 A.D. will be the 70th Jubilee and then says: "Christ may well return three-and-one-half years before this date." So now you know when to expect the second coming! I will spare you 50 or so further quotes of this nature. It is quite clear that he doesn't really know what he is speaking about. His postulations border on fantasy. Mixed among all these foolish comments are a number of statements that point out some of the real difficulties with the Jewish calendar. That includes mentioning: - the shift of 1 day per 216 years; - Tabernacles being moved into summer; - no biblical justifications for postponement rule #1; - Passover too early for a Wavesheaf offering; - today the Pharisees do NOT sit "on Moses' seat". He also quotes from Solinsky's work quite a number of times. In view of all the other clearly unbalanced and biblically unsound ideas he presents, the credibility of his valid points is unfortunately considerably diminished. And that's about all there is to say about that booklet. Let's look at one more booklet which was sent to me. "WHOSE CALENDAR -- GOD'S OR THE JEWS'?" BY JOHN TRESCOTT -------------------------------------------------------- The booklet starts out with a quote from Garner Ted Armstrong, which appeared in the Good News magazine in October 1975. After that most of the booklet is a response to some questions Ron Dart posed in the June-July 1983 issue of "International News". The author's main point is that the months should start based on the VISIBLE crescent of the new moon. It follows that he is against the postponement rules and against a fixed calendar with predetermined intercalated months. Towards this end he presents a number of references which show that at the time of Christ Atonement was not prevented from falling on a Friday or a Sunday. These references are from the tannaitic literature, the tannaim being "the masters of the ORAL law". While the ideas expressed by these tannaim are not in any way inspired, there is no reason to suppose that their references to Atonement and the days of the week on which it was observed during their time are not historically correct. [COMMENT: The tannaim made up their own rules and laws, creating the Mishnah, and claimed historical validity for the things they wrote. In effect these tannaim laid the foundation for rabbinic Judaism, devising a myriad of traditions. Judah ha-Nasi is considered to have been the last of the tannaim, dying around 220 A.D..] On the last page of his booklet the author says: "Now ... for the most important truth of all so far presented ... When did the death of your Saviour, Jesus Christ, occur?" He then states that Christ died on Wednesday, April 25 in 31 A.D.. The point he wishes to make with this statement is that this proves that the new moon of Nisan that year was NOT the new moon nearest to the equinox. AGREED! In 31 A.D. the new moon of Nisan was not the one nearest to the equinox. But so what?? The new moons in 31 A.D. were as follows: (Julian calendar) March = March 12 at 11 Hours 284 Parts; April = April 11 at 1 Hour 503 Parts. In our Roman calendar this latter new moon was on Tuesday evening, 10th of April at 7:27:57 p.m., at the very start of the 11th of April. But the first day of Nisan was only Thursday, April 12. It seems strange and rather incongruous to me that the people who insist on VISIBLY seeing the new moon crescent in order to start a month will then turn around and use THEORETICAL CALCULATIONS in order to try to prove their points! How does Mr. Trescott know when the new moon was in 31 A.D.? From calculations, that's all! But the point about the year 31 A.D. is that it actually required a POSTPONEMENT by one day in order to have the Passover on a Wednesday (observed Tuesday evening). Without a postponement the Passover would have been one day earlier. The molad of Tishri was Friday, October 5 at 5 Hours 941 Parts (less than 8 minutes before midnight on Thursday evening, October 4), and this requires a postponement of Trumpets to Saturday, October 6 ... otherwise you cannot have a Wednesday Passover for 31 A.D.. However, in 30 A.D. the Passover fell on a Wednesday without any postponements being involved. THEREFORE: IF THE POSTPONEMENT RULES WERE NOT USED AT THAT TIME, THEN CHRIST MUST HAVE DIED IN 30 A.D.! And incidently, in 30 A.D. the new moon was on March 23 at 3 Hours 994 Parts (at that time the equinox was also still at March 23). Passover was Wednesday, April 5 in that year. That new moon certainly was the one NEAREST to the equinox, not that this is really important though. Then, at the bottom of the page, the author offers A CHART ..."showing when the new moons SHOULD occur through 1999". A CHART? ... PREDICTIONS WITHOUT VISIBLE PROOF? What is the point of the whole argument about "visible sightings of the new moon", when at the end of it all you pull out your PREDICTION CHARTS? Prediction charts obviously imply "a FIXED calendar", right? So when you examine it very carefully, you find that the people who insist on VISIBLE sightings of the new moon actually ALSO, TO A VERY LARGE DEGREE (!) RELY ON CALCULATIONS! None of these authors take a "let's wait and see when the new moon will be visible" approach from one month to the next, for the rest of their lives. THEY ALL CALCULATE AHEAD, to know when they can expect to see the new moon. How could they POSSIBLY plan ahead for the Feast of Tabernacles, if they would, from month to month, take a "wait till we see it" approach? They wouldn't even know, without advance calculations, when the Feast of Trumpets will be until the very day has started and they have actually SEEN the new crescent. Imagine a congregation waiting till sunset to then ask their leader: "Did you SEE it and is TODAY the Feast of Trumpets? Or did you NOT see it and will TOMORROW be the Feast of Trumpets? Right ... well then let's just spread the word really quickly, so everyone will know that they SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT come for a morning service tomorrow morning." That takes care of all the articles which were sent to me for comments. Now let's look at the questions I posed at the start. ARE THERE REALLY 19-YEAR CYCLES? -------------------------------- Yes, certainly! The simplest way to demonstrate this is to compare the molads of Tishri exactly 19 years apart. They are on the same day of the month in the Gregorian calendar for about 216 years or so, after which they will have advanced by one day. For example, considering this present year 1996, we find that the molads of Tishri were: - 1996 = Sept. 13 6H 620P - 1977 = Sept. 13 14H 25P - 1958 = Sept. 13 21H 510P - 1939 = Sept. 14 4H 995P - 1920 = Sept. 13 12h 400p - 1901 = Sept. 13 19H 885P {Fluctuations as reflected in the Gregorian calendar are due to the influence of Gregorian leap years. We are comparing dates 19 years apart, but the Gregorian leap years come at 4 year intervals. This is reflected in the date for 1939, for example.} These cycles were discovered by Meton, a Greek astronomer, around 432 B.C.. It is because they ARE very accurate that they are used in the Jewish calculations. Even Jewish encyclopedias will freely acknowledge that the Jewish calendar employs the metonic cycles, without attempting to claim that they (the Jews) were the first ones to understand these cycles. HOW ACCURATE IS THE JEWISH CALENDAR? ------------------------------------ There are two parts to the answer to this question. As far as calculating the cycles of the moon (lunations) are concerned, it is extremely accurate. The error is barely over half a second per lunation. This translates into being wrong by only one full day every 13100 years. If we accept that God intends for human beings to have a total period of about 6000 years before Christ intervenes and establishes the government of God, then this error is nothing to be concerned about. These calculations can very easily be traced back to Hipparchus, another Greek astronomer. Where such calculations come from is not nearly as important as that they are accurate. It should be clear, however, that no divine revelation is involved in any of the calculations. They have been known since 146 B.C.. As a point of interest, the minute error contained in the calculations is actually bringing the time of the CALCULATED molad closer to the time of the first visible crescent, which can be considered as a favourable factor. As far as the 19-year cycles (235 lunar months) staying in harmony with the solar year is concerned, there is a shift of one day for every 216,3 years. This shift is not due to any error in the calculations, but to the fact that the movements of the moon are simply not perfectly synchronized with the solar year. THIS IS GOD'S DOING ... IN RESPONSE TO HUMAN SINS! So, while the calculations themselves are accurate, the Jewish calendar as it stands today is NOT accurate, since it makes no allowance for this shift by one day for every 216 years. HOW FAR BACK DOES THE JEWISH CALENDAR GO? ----------------------------------------- The present Jewish calendar very possibly goes back to Hillel II in the 350's A.D., though this understanding is only based on a statement by Hai Gaon, who died in 1038 A.D.. After Hai Gaon it is supported by others, including Maimonides at around 1200 A.D.. We should note that there is no proof, PRIOR TO HAI GAON, that the present calendar, with its sequence of leap years, does in fact go back to Hillel II. That is a 700 year gap from Hillel to Hai Gaon. We should also note that the records show that up to the 11th century different sequences of leap years existed side by side amongst the Jews, as mentioned in the Encyclopedia Judaica. The Encyclopedia Judaica states in the "Calendar" article: "Development of the Present Order of Intercalation. There is, on the other hand, unimpeachable evidence from the works of writers with expert knowledge of the calendar that the present 'ordo intercalationis' and epochal molad were not yet intrinsic parts of the calendar of Hillel II." (page 50) Notice that this Jewish authority freely admits that the present Jewish calendar, the one some people insist on calling "sacred", is not the same as what "the court of Hillel II" established. However, while differences in the sequence of intercalation existed, all of the different versions were based on the same calculations. All of them employed the calculations of Hipparchus, which were acknowledged as the most accurate figures available. {As a matter of interest, Hipparchus' error of 0,53319 seconds per lunar cycle expressed as a fraction of a day is only equal to 0,000006171 days. This illustrates how extremely detailed his calculations had to be, since they didn't have stopwatches back then} It is very likely that these known calculations were employed from as early as 100 B.C. to the time of Hillel II. Even though the Pharisees introduced the custom of pronouncing the new moons based on the reports of witnesses, it is known that they really relied on calculations, which they used "to prove witnesses wrong". So the present calendar is very likely based on astronomical data from the period 100 B.C. to 350 A.D.. The starting date in 3761 B.C. was then simply extrapolated back to. Its only purpose is to have a fixed starting point which looks more authoritative than a date in the 350's A.D.. As Maimonides makes clear, that starting date was (erroneously so) deemed to be the year of Adam's creation. The fact that this backward extrapolation meant that for the year 3745 B.C., for example, if the same sequence of intercalation as employed by Hillel was used, the Feast and Last Great Day would have fallen on AUGUST 24-31 (Gregorian) was not a problem to anyone. In Julian terms it doesn't really look out of place at Sept. 24 - Oct. 1 ... but there was no scale of Julian years in place yet. The "B.C. and A.D." scale, which allows us to reference dates in relation to all other dates, was only invented around 525 A.D. by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus. Prior to that time it was extremely difficult to reference dates to other events ... except by using the Jewish calendar, which had year 1 starting in 3761 B.C. (as we now refer to it). With our knowledge today this date for the Feast in 3745 B.C. doesn't look very acceptable. With a different sequence of leap years (the Pre-250 A.D. sequence) it looks a little better. But even then for the year 3746 B.C. the Feast and Last Great Day would have fallen on September 5-12 (Gregorian), which is still most emphatically far too early. Such backward extrapolation also totally ignores the calendar extant at the time of Noah. In such backward extrapolations there is no room for a year where five consecutive months amount to exactly 150 days. The year of the flood has been estimated at 2370 B.C. If you examine all of the years up to 20 years on either side of that date, you will not find a year that can accommodate Noah's five months totalling 150 days. However, understand that such backward extrapolation doesn't really cause any problems. It means that when you calculate forward from 3761 B.C., then 4100 years later (around 350 A.D.) you are right on target ... because that is the data you started with anyway. The errors in the calculations for dates before 350 A.D. don't affect anyone. {By "errors" I mean the placement of Feasts in regard to the solar year; the calculation of the molads themselves would basically be accurate back to the point (unknown to us) where our present lunar cycle came into existence.} They simply illustrate that there is nothing inspired about the method of calculation. So as far as astronomical accuracy goes, the Jewish calendar is based on lunar data that was correct in 350 A.D.. Since that date the error amounts to barely over 3 hours ... and this means that the calculation of the molad today actually yields a result that is 3 hours closer to visibility of the first crescent than at the time of Hillel. That seems quite acceptable to me. WHAT ARE THE BIBLICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR A CALENDAR? -------------------------------------------------- The indications are that a calendar should take into consideration two things: the movements of the moon around the earth, and the movement of the earth around the sun. Within those parameters the calendar must ensure that at Passover time a sheaf for a wave offering is available (thus Passover must be in the spring), and the Feast of Tabernacles must fall in the autumn, i.e. after the autumn equinox. Since the time from the Passover to the Feast of Tabernacles is about one week shorter than the time from the vernal equinox to the autumn equinox, it means that if Tabernacles is never before September 23, then the Passover will never be before March 29. It follows that it is more important to focus on Tabernacles than on the Passover ... if the time for Tabernacles is correct, then the Passover will automatically also be correct. What is flexible in the biblical requirements for a calendar? The starting day of the year is flexible. The sequence of leap years is also flexible. What is inflexible in the biblical requirements for a calendar? The Feast of Ingathering must always be in the autumn, i.e. after the autumn equinox. When this is the case, then everything else will automatically also be correct. That is also why the calculation of the calendar starts with calculating Tishri and not with calculating Nisan! WHY THE MOLAD OF TISHRI IS CALCULATED ------------------------------------- Some people wonder why the calendar is based on calculating the molad of Tishri, the seventh month. Why is it not based on calculating the molad of Nisan? There is a very good reason for this. It has been known for a long time that summer is longer than winter (i.e. vernal equinox to autumn equinox is longer than autumn equinox to vernal equinox). It is also well known that from vernal equinox to autumn equinox is about one week longer than 6 lunar months. Therefore: If calendar calculations are based on calculating the molad of Nisan by looking at the vernal equinox, it is quite easy to select a date that may cause the Feast of Tabernacles to commence before autumn ... because of this one extra week of summer. But if the calculation is based on the molad of Tishri, and if this is done correctly, then Passover and Unleavened Bread will automatically be correct ... also because of this one extra week of summer. If the molad of Tishri would cause Tabernacles to start before the equinox, then the sequence of intercalation is obviously incorrect. Passover will automatically be correct if the calendar ensures that Tabernacles never starts before the equinox. Because of this fact that summer is longer than winter, therefore it is wiser if the calculation of the calendar focuses on the molad of Tishri, rather than on the molad of Nisan. DID GOD "GIVE" MOSES A CALENDAR? -------------------------------- No! All that is indicated is that God instructed a switch in the start of the year from autumn to spring. Implied is that Moses was ALREADY familiar with "a" calendar. There is no such thing as the present Jewish calendar preserving information from the time of Moses. People simply make assertions to this effect in an attempt to justify compliance with the present Jewish calendar. There is no proof in the Bible to substantiate such claims; and there is no such thing as "the ORAL law" ... as a reading of the Mishnah and the Talmud will very rapidly demonstrate! They are privately invented traditions, precisely the type of thing the Apostle Peter warned about (see 2 Peter 1:20). Understand this! The yearly cycle and the lunar months, which God in Genesis 1:31 pronounced to be "VERY GOOD", are once again, as a result of man's sins, in a state of 'tohu and bohu' ... chaos and confusion. Along with this chaotic state goes the penalty that we human beings ourselves are responsible for devising a calendar. That is precisely what the Jews have done. They made use of the most accurate calculations available and conscientiously devised a method of calculation that considers both, the sun and the moon. And so, while the Jewish calendar is not really "divinely inspired", it is nevertheless THE BEST ONE AVAILABLE! There is no better solar-lunar calendar available. The calculations of the new moon are CORRECT! The Jewish calendar CALCULATIONS certainly fit in with a calendar which God would want His people to use for observing the Holy Days. The problem is not with the calculations of the molad, but with how those calculations are applied. A FIXED CALENDAR OR ONE BASED ON OBSERVATION? --------------------------------------------- Most emphatically there should be a FIXED calendar! It is not a question of whether at one time or another in the past people employed visual observation in order to determine the time of the new moons. What people have done in the past is not the same as an instruction to always do the same thing in the future. In biblical times people did not have tractors and farming machinery. That does not mean that therefore we are not supposed to develop more efficient ways of farming than were practised in Old Testament times. In biblical times many things were done differently from today. There is no instruction anywhere in the Bible as to exactly how we are to go about determining the time of the new moon. For example, while someone may not be able to "see" the first new crescent of the moon with the naked eye, yet someone else, with a powerful pair of binoculars may at that same time actually be able to see the crescent. The point is that the new crescent is in fact THERE, but because of its proximity to the position of the sun it is not visible with the naked eye. But it is in fact THERE! Next, there is no instruction anywhere that the new moon must be based on when it appears in Jerusalem. For over 400 years after Moses, Jerusalem was still a Canaanite city. So Moses didn't use a Jerusalem standard. Next, while the nation of Israel occupied just a small area in Palestine, it may have been possible to communicate new moons fairly quickly to all the towns and villages in the country. BUT if Israel had been as large as the entire Roman Empire, stretching from Spain to Palestine, it would have been an utter impossibility for a calendar to be based on the visual new moons at Jerusalem. How could such information POSSIBLY have been communicated throughout the empire at that time? For that matter, consider the Jews who were visiting Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost ... Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. (Acts 2:9-11) These Jews lived in all of these different countries. All of these countries had small Jewish populations. How could those Jews POSSIBLY have observed the Holy Days without a calculated calendar? The journey from Jerusalem to some of these areas took several MONTHS! How could they possibly wait for news of VISUAL sightings of the new moon before knowing when a month would start? It should be self-evident that Jews in Spain simply would NOT have been able to wait for confirmation of visual sightings of the moon before knowing which day would start the new month. It should be obvious that such communities needed a fixed calendar which was based on calculations! It should also be clear that Jews in Spain 1900 years ago should NOT have calculated a calendar based on the LOCAL visibility of the new moon. That would produce chaos! The further west one goes, the earlier the new moon becomes visible (earlier in relation to the local time at that point further west). It would be a fairly common occurrence for a new moon to be visible in Spain one day before it is visible in Palestine. Therefore if the Jews in Spain developed a calendar based on the visibility of the new moon to them in Spain, then some of the time they would have their Holy Days on different days from people in Jerusalem. So while there is no clear command that the new moon should be based on Jerusalem time, it is an unavoidable requirement that one recognized standard be accepted for the whole world ... simply to avoid confusion! A Jerusalem standard meets that requirement very well. Similarly, the more spread out around the world the people who are going to keep the Holy Days are, the more imperative it becomes to have a calculated calendar. It is only in very recent history that instant communication has become possible. Let's suppose some of God's people went across to Rhode Island in the late 1600's, because of the state's policy of religious freedom ... how could they possibly have observed the Holy Days based on a calendar which required the visual observation of the new moon at Jerusalem? For that matter, how could people even in England back in the 1600's have depended on visual sightings of the new moon at Jerusalem? What about Peter Waldo in the late 1100's and early 1200's ... if he had wanted to observe the Holy Days, how could he have done so based on visual sightings of the new moon at Jerusalem? Don't judge this question from the premise of our present means of instant communications. For the overwhelming portion of man's time on this planet communication with distant lands was a long and difficult process. During that entire time a fixed calendar, based on the most accurate calculations available, was absolutely necessary to enable people in areas away from Jerusalem and Palestine to observe God's Holy Days. Without a fixed calendar the Jews throughout the Roman empire during the first century A.D. would simply not have been able to keep the Holy Days. It should really be self-evident that a fixed calendar, one that all true Christians in all parts of the world acknowledge and recognize as valid, is the only way to avoid "tohu and bohu". SO SHOULD WE USE THE JEWISH CALENDAR OR SOME OTHER ONE? ------------------------------------------------------- The Jewish calendar is the only one that takes both, the sun and the moon, into consideration. It is very accurate as far as the calculations of the lunar cycles are concerned. And since that is the only thing which is calculated in the Jewish calendar, therefore YES, we should use the Jewish calendar to calculate when the Holy Days should be observed. The calculations for the Jewish calendar take the solar year into consideration, by means of the 19-year cycles, but the calculations themselves have NOTHING to do with the movement of the earth around the sun. The length of the solar year does not feature anywhere in the Jewish calendar. That length is not calculated in any way. It is simply assumed that 19 solar years are equal to 235 lunar months. We know that, if left unchanged, any 19-year cycle will result in a one day shift away from the equinox every 216 years. That shift needs to first be acknowledged, and then it needs to be dealt with in an appropriate manner. This brings us to the next question. SHOULD WE APPLY THE SAME SEQUENCE OF LEAP YEARS? ------------------------------------------------ No, we should not! Understand that the calculation of the calendar itself is VERY GOOD! Hipparchus did an excellent job back in 146 B.C. and the Jewish authorities acknowledged this by adopting his calculations, which were the best ones known to man. But it is an impossibility to institute a rigid sequence of leap years which may never be changed ... and to expect the calendar to remain within the same seasonal restraints! I have given you very clear evidence that Hillel II made a mistake when he authorized the present sequence of intercalation. He moved Tabernacles from the autumn back into the summer. THAT DECISION WAS NOT IN AGREEMENT WITH GOD'S INSTRUCTIONS! That is proof that the present Jewish calendar does NOT reflect the will of God! See again the section titled "If Hillel II Had Been a Farmer and Had Owned a Computer" for more information in this regard. WHAT ABOUT THE POSTPONEMENT RULES ... SHOULD WE ACCEPT THEM? ------------------------------------------------------------- No! Once you understand that there is nothing inspired about the present Jewish calendar, then you don't have to seek justifications for it! You don't have to claim that Atonement on a Friday is "a hardship" ... the real "hardship" (if that's what you want to call it) is that we are to afflict our souls, and not which particular day of the week that happens to be. Look again at all the days where a double Sabbath (a Holy Day and a weekly Sabbath day) is a clear possibility. THEN look at all the ADDITIONAL occasions where the Jews themselves have invented (i.e. they are not enjoined by God in the Bible) religious days, which readily form double and even triple "Sabbath" (i.e. REST) days. THEN look at the 9th of Ab and the 17th of Tammuz, where it is quite acceptable for a fast to fall on a Sunday. And after considering all THESE FACTS ... can you then still claim about this rule of postponement (as Mr. Franks does) that ... "You really can't prove this (whether or not God inspired this rule) one way or the other"? Read again Leviticus 23:24-32 about the instructions for Atonement. Do you AT ANY TIME, IN ANY OF THESE VERSES, get the impression that God was really concerned that this day should not fall at an "INCONVENIENT" time? Do we understand that in biblical times it was COMMON for the men of God to fast from 3 - 10 days? Moses himself had set the example (though not intended for emulation) of fasting for 40 days ... so how concerned would he have been in his mind that we should be really careful that the ONE DAY fast on Atonement doesn't inconvenience us in some way? And what about the sailors on the ship with Paul in Acts 27:33 ... and they weren't even Jews?! Where do you get the idea from that God is so concerned about a one day fast that He wants it to be CAREFULLY HEDGED ABOUT by postponement rules, to make really sure that it is not "inconvenient"? Are we also still "without understanding", as were the apostles in Matthew 15:16-17? Does it really make sense to say that AFTER GOD has clearly spelled out which days are to be observed in certain ways, that THEN He somehow expects us to DEDUCE CERTAIN EXCEPTION CLAUSES, even though He has nowhere stated any of those clauses? Does God give CARNAL HUMAN BEINGS (Pharisees, to be precise!) the right to superimpose such exception clauses onto His clear instructions in Leviticus chapter 23? Can we not see that "postponing" the start of the year is nothing more than a clever game ... to get exactly what we want to get? Or do we RATIONALIZE that, while it would be wrong to keep Atonement on the 11th of Tishri ... if we can manage to postpone the whole year, THEN what would have been the 11th of Tishri will now be called the 10th of Tishri, and therefore it is okay? Can we not see that that type of RATIONALIZING is an expression of exactly the same kind of mind which Jesus Christ rebuked in Matthew chapter 23 with ... Woe unto you, [ye] blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; BUT whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! (Matthew 23:16) ... [Ye] blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. (verse 24) Do we understand that there is NO EVIDENCE AT ALL that this postponement rule #1 was in force at the time of Christ? Consider the following facts about the cycle during which the crucifixion took place. That was Cycle #200. IF WE CLAIM THE SAME SEQUENCE OF LEAP YEARS AS TODAY ("NORMAL"): THEN there were only 3 Passovers that could POSSIBLY have occurred on a Wednesday, namely 27 A.D., 30 A.D., and 37 A.D.. For both, 27 A.D. and 37 A.D. a Wednesday Passover is conditional on postponement rule #1 being applied. BUT for the year 30 A.D. the Passover was on a Wednesday without any postponements at all! IF WE CLAIM THE PRE-255 A.D. SEQUENCE OF LEAP YEARS: THEN there were only 4 Passovers that could POSSIBLY have occurred on a Wednesday, namely 27 A.D., 30 A.D., 31 A.D., and 34 A.D.. Three of these are totally dependent on postponement rule #1 being applied ... 27 A.D. and 31 A.D. and 34 A.D.. But for 30 A.D. no postponement is required for a Wednesday Passover. You can see why people will not claim that the present order of leap years was in force back then ... because then there would not have been any possibility of a 31 A.D. Passover on a Wednesday at all! It is only by acknowledging the Pre-255 A.D. sequence that a Wednesday Passover in 31 A.D. becomes a theoretical possibility ... but STILL only by assuming that the postponement rules, for which not a shred of evidence exists prior to the time of Hillel II (!), were applied! Now at that time the autumn equinox was still at 25 September. For the "Normal" sequence the earliest Feast would have started on the evening of 13th September in 37 A.D., whereas for the Pre- 255 A.D. sequence the earliest Feast would have started on the evening of 23rd September in 36 A.D.. Again, this illustrates that the present "Normal" sequence would have been plainly contrary to God's instructions, and even with the "Pre-255 A.D." sequence there would have been a Feast in 36 A.D. which would have started before the equinox. The point is that the whole system only goes back to Hillel II and from his time it is a matter of theorizing as to exactly which sequence was applied at what time. {Again, such theorizing does not affect the accuracy of the molads, though in some cases it might have been the molad one month later that should have been accepted.} The dating of the decree of Artaxerxes at the time of Ezra (just before Meton discovered 19-year cycles) makes a 30 A.D. crucifixion much more likely than a 31 A.D. crucifixion. And apart from the speculation about a 31 A.D. crucifixion, there is no evidence at all for the postponement rules having been in force before the time of Hillel II. There are no references to indicate that before Hillel II this rule even existed, except VERY SHORTLY BEFORE Hillel's time a reference to TWO-THIRDS of this rule. This is mentioned in the Encyclopedia Judaica. Here is another quote from the Encyclopedia Judaica, volume 5, article 'Calendar', page 49: "Some of these variations were early eliminated. Already under the aegis of R. Judah ha-Nasi (c. 200) and of his pupil Rav (d. 247), Elul and Adar (in a leap year Adar II) contained invariably 29 days only. R. Yose b. Bun (c.300) assumed the same fixed number of days in the months Adar-Elul as in the present calendar, WITH ROSH HA-SHANAH POSTPONED FROM WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY BUT NOT YET FROM SUNDAY (Talmud Jerusalem Meg. 1:2, 70b)." Did you notice this candid admission? The postponement rule #1 was A GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT! By around 300 A.D. (coming to Hillel II's time) this rule was TWO-THIRDS developed! Postponements were made if the molad fell on Wednesday or Friday ... but there was not yet a postponement if the molad fell on Sunday. But the first two-thirds of that rule didn't yet exist at the time of Judah ha- Nasi (the last of the tannaim who died around 220 A.D.), who ALSO wrote about the calendar. So this rule #1 didn't yet exist when the Mishnah was completed. Therefore there is no evidence of it in the Mishnah, though it is referred to in the later Gemara. So we now have the situation where Christians in the Church of God attempt to prove a greater antiquity for this postponement rule #1 than the Jewish authors themselves claim. That seems a little incongruous. It also clearly reveals an ulterior motive ... a desire to desperately find biblical approval for the Jewish calendar as it exists today. {COMMENT: The Talmud consists of two parts, the Mishnah and the Gemara. The Gemara is a rambling, contradictory commentary. Since there are two Gemaras (which were only completed more than 200 years after the Mishnah was completed), therefore there are two main Talmuds. The authoritative one is the Babylonian Talmud, with the Jerusalem Talmud generally taking second place.} So in summary: There is no evidence which justifies the existence of postponement rule #1. Without rule #1 rules #3 and #4 automatically fall away; their only function is to neutralize errors that are introduced by rule #1. That leaves rule #2. This rule makes perfect sense. If the invisible molad occurs, for example, at 10 minutes before the end of the day, then there is no way to justify calling that day the Feast of Trumpets. A postponement is required by this rule if the molad falls in the last 6 hours of a 24-hour day. If three-quarters of a day has passed before the molad occurs, then it is a sound decision to reckon the next day as the first day of the month. If anything, this rule brings the calendar somewhat more in line with the visual occurrences of the new moon. So I personally am in full agreement with this rule. Right, so much for the postponement rules. In this paper I have given you a lot of facts. To enable you to verify the things I have said, and also to help you understand the workings of the calendar more fully, my son Michael and I have written a computer program (Michael wrote the source code from the information I gave him). This program can be used on any IBM compatible computer. The next section briefly tells you what this program will do. THE "JEWISH CALENDAR AND HOLY DAY CALCULATION" PROGRAM ------------------------------------------------------ The executable file in this program is called "calgraph.exe". That is to indicate a calendar program with the ability to display graphs. We are distributing this program as a self- extracting zipped .EXE file with the name "Calendar.exe". To install "calendar.exe" on your computer, type the command "calendar" followed by the path to a destination directory of your choice (e.g. " calendar c:\programs\holydays\ "). Make sure the destination you indicate already exists. The file "calendar.exe" will expand into 11 files in the destination directory you nominated. Once you have installed the program, then "calgraph.exe" is the file you need to run. I run it under Windows as a DOS application without any difficulties. I believe that at this point in time this program is the most powerful tool available anywhere for the explicit purpose of examining and analyzing the Hebrew calendar. However, as with any powerful software, unless you know how to use it, it is not of much value at all. In this case, what you need to know is not so much how to use this program (that's easy enough), but WHAT YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR! So here is a brief description of this program with specific examples of how you can extract meaningful and eye-opening information. Knowing what it is that you need to look for will give you all of the data I have presented in this article. Here are some of the features: 1) You can use a mouse or the arrow keys to move around the menus. On selection, further drop-down menus appear. 2) The "Calendar" menu offers 5 main choices: - Holy Days - Jewish Days - New Moons - 19-Year Cycles - Calendar 3) For each of these 5 options a further menu will open up with at least 2 choices. All except "19-Year Cycles" let you enter the year of your choice (minus for B.C. dates). After entering the year you want, then select the other option and press . You can enter numbers up to 20000 A.D.. 4) For 19-Year Cycles you enter a cycle NUMBER, ranging from 1 to 1000. Cycle #1 starts in 3761 B.C.; cycle #200 starts in 21 A.D.; cycle #304 starts in 1997 A.D.; etc.. 5) Once you have selected the cycle number you want, you then have two choices. Selecting "data" will list the molads of Tishri for all 19 years in that cycle. You can have the data for up to 3 cycles displayed on the screen at one time. 6) If you select "graph", then you will have all 19 molads for that cycle plotted on the screen in a line graph against a scale from August 11 to October 30. You can also change this scale to be from September 30 to December 19. The first graph you plot will have a small letter "a" at the point of each molad, the second graph the letter "b", etc. 7) Special features which apply to all 5 of the above menu choices: the key will display the information for exactly 19 years earlier; the key will display the information for exactly 19 years later; the will display the information for the next year; the will display the information for the previous year. 8) You can save the information called up to a disk file to then use within your own word processor. If you provide the name of a file that already exists, then the information is appended to the end of that file. 9) The Print menu lets you print the online manual, as well as any of the information you have called up, including the graphs. 10) The Tutorials menu gives you all the data needed for calculating the calendar. It also provides information about the equinox. And it lets you work step-by-step through one example of calculating the calendar. This will enable anyone with the help of a hand-held calculator to work out the Hebrew calendar for any given year for himself. 11) The Help menu contains help files in the form of questions and answers. It also contains a copy of the short manual for reading on your screen. 12) The Colours menu lets you set your own default colours, which you can then save for future use. IMPORTANT: this menu also allows you to change the colour between graphs. This allows you to plot graphs for different 19-year cycles, or even for the same 19-year cycle, in different colours, to highlight differences. 13) The Options menu has two choices. If you select Leap Years, a further 6 choices open up. THIS GIVES YOU THE OPTION TO SELECT ONE OF SIX POSSIBLE LEAP YEAR SEQUENCES. This will affect the data which is then displayed. The 6 options are "Normal" = the sequence that has been used since 255 A.D.; "Pre-255 A.D. = the sequence which was used at the time of Christ and before then (as far as we can ascertain); Options 1 - 4 = 4 other combinations of leap years. For the record, the leap year sequences are as follows: Normal = 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19 Pre 255 A.D. = 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 16, 18 Option 1 = 2, 5, 8, 10, 13, 16, 18 Option 2 = 3, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16, 19 Option 3 = 3, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16, 19 Option 4 = 1, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 17 You can display both, the data and the graphs by selecting any of these 6 options. For example, you can display the data for the same cycle side-by-side using 3 different possible sequences. Or you can display the graph for the same cycle in 6 different colours for the 6 different options. THESE OPTIONS ALLOWS YOU TO DO A LOT OF "WHAT IF ..." EXPERIMENTING! 14) The second choice under Options is Postponements. This opens three choices to you: All On, All Off, and Only Rule #2. Again, this lets you do a lot of experimenting. To calculate the Jewish days, we have not allowed you to turn the postponement rules off, since that would be unrealistic. All of your research will involve the "Calendar" submenus in combination with the "Options" submenus. 15) The calendar option lets you display the Jewish calendar side-by-side with the Julian and Gregorian calendars for any year of your choice. You can also move 1 year or 19 years forwards or backwards with one keystroke. While only half of the year is displayed on the screen at one time, when you save it to a file, or when you select Print, the whole year is automatically saved or printed. The key displays the first half of the year, and the key will display the second half of the year. 16) The New Moons menu lets you display all the molads for any year of your choice. These molads are not affected by the sequence of leap years or by the postponement rules. All the molads for the year are "new moons". One will be the molad of Tishri and another the molad of Nisan. You can use these dates of new moons to verify the dates of solar and lunar eclipses you may read about. This is especially so for eclipses referred to in books of history. Solar eclipses always occur on the new moon dates, while lunar eclipses occur at full moon. Thus, if you know about an eclipse in any given year, if it was a solar eclipse, then it must have been on one of the new moon dates for that year. If it was a lunar eclipse, then it must have fallen halfway between the dates for two successive new moons that year. Be sure to check whether the date should be according to the Julian calendar or according to the Gregorian calendar. 17) The Jewish Days menu lets you display the dates for 17 different Jewish religious days for any year of your choice. This allows you to check for yourself how many days actually DO fall on Fridays and on Sundays, and how common this occurrence is. Do you grasp the potential for calendar analysis this puts at your fingertips? Here are a few exercises you can try out, just to get you started. 1) Display the graph for cycle #1. Then hold down the key for 15 to 30 seconds (depending on the speed of your computer) and watch your computer draw from 100 to 1000 graphs on top of each other. Try the same thing with a different leap year sequence. Lesson: irrespective of which sequence you choose, the trend is always exactly the same. This should explode once and for all THE MYTH that the Jewish calendar somehow always keeps the Feasts in the right seasons. 2) Learn to interpret this information correctly: for cycles #1 to #282 the graph shows a downward trend. BUT THIS IS AN ILLUSION!! The downward trend is only due to the error of the Julian calendar, as explained in this article. From cycle #282 onwards the trend is inexorably upwards ... for all options. This reflects the true picture of what has ALWAYS happened, something the error in the Julian calendar disguised. 3) Display the graph for cycle #217 (time of Hillel II) first in the Pre-255 A.D. sequence, and then in a different colour in the Normal sequence. This shows you very clearly the effect Hillel's decision had ... to put Tabernacles back into the summer. 4) Display the data for cycle #217 for these two sequences side- by-side. Compare the dates for different years. 5) Display the data for cycles 209 years apart (i.e. 11 exact cycles). Take the sequence of cycles #1, #12, #23, #34, #45, #56, etc. For cycles up to #282 the trend is disguised. Then start with cycle #283, #294, #305, #316, #327, #338, etc.. Now the trend is clearly revealed. Lesson: The trend of shifting one day away from the equinox for every 216 years has always been a part of the Jewish calendar, but it has been somewhat disguised by the error contained in the Julian calendar. Do the same exercise but select graphs exactly 33 cycles (i.e. 627 years) apart, starting from #283. Alternate between two different colours for an effective contrast. Displaying cycles 627 years apart makes this trend very plain to see. 6) Display the data for cycle #304 (starting 1997 A.D.) in three columns, first with the Normal option, then the Pre-255 A.D. option and then with Option 4 (which represents the extreme opposite to Normal option. Now do the same thing by displaying the graphs for these three options, being sure to change the Foreground Colour between choices (e.g. use white, blue and yellow to give you clear contrasts). You see how the molads of Tishri are affected by your choice of leap year sequences. 7) Display the data for the same cycle three times. Keep the Leap Years option constant for all three columns. Only change the postponement setting to all three choices. Lesson: this visually demonstrates that a change in the postponement settings does NOT affect the molads. 8) Make your own table for any cycle of your choice. At the left edge of your sheet write the numbers 1 - 19 in a vertical column. In a column next to that write the dates for every year in the cycle of your choice (e.g. cycle #304 = 1997 - 2015). Now make 3 more columns next to these two. Write the following headings above these three columns: "All Postponements On", "Only rule 2 On", and "All Postponements Off". Then select the Postponements On option and look up the Feast of Trumpets for the first year (e.g. 1997) and write this date in column 1. By using the <+> key quickly find the date for every other year in that cycle and write it down also. Then do the whole thing twice more, first with the setting "Only Rule #2 On", and then with "All Postponements Off". Lesson: This will show you the effect which the postponement rules have. Omitting all postponements or only applying rule 2 certainly does not throw the cycle into any disarray as is claimed. 9) Make sure that you have selected the Postponements All On option. Now select Holy Days for any year of your choice. Note the date for the molad of Tishri. Use the <+> key to cycle through several years until you come to one where the molad falls on a Friday (or even on a Thursday after 18 Hours) and where the Feast of Trumpets is thus postponed to the Saturday (e.g. 1996). Now check the Jewish Days for the same year. Check exactly how many of their days fall on a Friday or a Sunday in spite of the Postponement rule having been applied (e.g. for 1996 there are 6 such days). Now cycle through the Jewish Days for one whole cycle (e.g. #303) and note how many days in each of those 19 years fall on a Friday or on a Sunday. Occasionally it will only be 3 such days in a year, but in most cases it will be from 4 - 6 such days. Several of those will make 3-day periods from Thursday - Saturday, or from Saturday - Monday. In the light of this information, just how important is it to postpone the Feast of Trumpets when it falls at an inconvenient time? 10) Check the years for cycle #212 with any OTHER Holy Day program you may have (e.g. HD V2.00 by Ambassador College). Write down the molads of Tishri for all the years in that cycle (i.e. 249 - 267 A.D.). Then look up cycle #212 in this program and display the data in two columns: first with the Pre-255 A.D. option and then with the Normal option. By comparing the dates in these two columns with the information you found in HD V2.00, you will see exactly when the change in the sequence of leap years came into effect ... which Hillel II endorsed about 100 years later. Now draw the graphs (different colours) for cycle #212 with these two options on top of each other. This illustrates clearly what happened during that cycle ... Tabernacles was pushed firmly back into summer. 11) Now display the data for any cycle of your own choice. Note the earliest and the latest dates for the molads of Tishri, and calculate the number of days between these extremes. Do the same for each of the different leap year options. Try the same thing with other cycles. Lesson: irrespective of which cycle you select and irrespective of which sequence of leap years you select, the difference between the earliest and the latest molad in any cycle will be about 28 - 29 days. It follows that if the earliest time Tabernacles starts is one day after the equinox, then the latest time Tabernacles starts is 29 - 30 days after the equinox ... and then the latest time for the Passover will be about 36 days after the vernal equinox. Thus, if the earliest time for Tabernacles (over a period of 1300 years) moves to 7 days after the equinox, THEN the latest time for Tabernacles will have moved to 35 - 36 days after the equinox, and the latest time for the Passover will have moved to about 42 days after the equinox ... and THEN the time has clearly come for a change in sequence. The reason is this: if the Passover (without any postponements!) is 42 days after the equinox, then the new moon was 27 - 28 days after the equinox. This means that there was one new moon from 1 - 2 days BEFORE the equinox which was not taken as the start of the year. The sequence of leap years SHOULD be changed before it gets to the point where there is a new moon ON the vernal equinox and which is NOT taken as the molad of Nisan. This should make very clear THE NARROW BAND within which the calendar can move: the earliest time for Tabernacles can move from a minimum of 1 day to a maximum of 7 days after the autumn equinox. Earlier than that and Tabernacles is moved into the summer; later than that and Nisan will only start with the second new moon from the vernal equinox. That narrow band of SIX DAYS should make very clear that AN ADJUSTMENT OF THE LEAP YEAR SEQUENCE IS REQUIRED AT LEAST EVERY 1300 YEARS! {This assumes we start out with the calendar in a correct sequence. As it is, with Hillel's sequence we are only now getting to the point where it no longer looks so OBVIOUSLY wrong. But we still have to do some covering up, by claiming that "at least part of Tabernacles should be after the equinox".} 12) Now picture yourself in the shoes of Hillel II, with the responsibility to publish instructions about the calendar that would serve your people correctly for the next 3000 years. But start with cycle #212 instead of cycle #217 (the cycle at Hillel's time). First note down the equinox information for the time from 250 A.D. to 3000 A.D., keeping it constant at March 21 and September 23 from 1600 A.D. onwards (if you are really out by one or two days then that is not really a problem; this is only a guideline). With all the information available to you through this program, and with your understanding of God's instructions that Tabernacles should always be in the autumn, YOU set up guidelines for what the people of God should do from 250 A.D. onwards! So call up the data for cycle #212, using different sequence options. Select one which ensures that Tabernacles is fully in the autumn. Follow that sequence (by means of graph or data) until the earliest time for Tabernacles is about one week after the equinox. Then display the data for that particular cycle for each of the different options of leap year sequences. Select one where the earliest time for Tabernacles (cycle through the Holy Days for that whole cycle for each of the possible sequences) is just barely after the autumn equinox. Follow this cycle until it has moved 5 or 6 days further away from the equinox. Then again examine all of the possible options for sequences of leap years, to see if there is one which brings the Feast back to the equinox without actually starting before the equinox. Repeat this process until you get to about 3000 A.D.. Now make a list of which leap year sequences are to be used for the calendar for which periods of time. For example you might arrive at something like this: 250 A.D. - 1500 A.D. = Pre-255 A.D. option 1500 A.D. - 1800 A.D. = Option 1 1800 A.D. - 2800 A.D. = Option 2 2800 A.D. - ... = "Normal" option {COMMENT: with the "normal" option at around 3000 A.D. the earliest time for Tabernacles would be just 2 days after the equinox.} In conclusion then: UNDERSTAND THAT, IN ORDER TO MEET THE INSTRUCTIONS GOD HAS GIVEN, THE GOAL OF ANY SEQUENCE OF LEAP YEARS IN THE 19-YEAR CYCLES MUST BE TO KEEP THE EARLIEST FEAST OF TABERNACLES STARTING WITHIN THAT NARROW BAND OF FROM 1 - 7 DAYS AFTER THE AUTUMN EQUINOX! ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO COMPENSATE FOR THE INEVITABLE SHIFT OF ONE DAY FOR EVERY 216 YEARS IS AN OCCASIONAL CHANGE IN THE SEQUENCE OF LEAP YEARS! I sincerely hope that you now have a clearer understanding about the Hebrew (or Jewish) calendar. And towards that end I would like to see every single individual, who is convicted of the responsibility to observe the annual Holy Days of Leviticus chapter 23, have access to this article. I would also like to encourage you, even if you disagree with some of my conclusions, to at least make the self-expanding computer file "Calendar.exe" available to every member of any of the Churches of God who has access to a computer. This program is a tool to help people gain a better understanding on this subject, irrespective of their affiliation. God's people NEED to understand the calendar. So if you have a private mailing list of people who also observe the Holy Days, I would like to urge you to offer this article and especially the file "Calendar.exe" to everyone on your list. These facts should be known and understood by all those who observe God's Holy Days. And this computer program should go a long way towards removing the mystery in which the Jewish calendar has been shrouded for so many people. If at this time the calculation of the Hebrew calendar is still being taught at Ambassador University, then please make the program available to the instructor concerned. It will make his job in this regard ten times easier, I can assure you. If you know of ANY educational institution which teaches the facts about the Hebrew calendar, then give them this program. I hope you can grasp what a powerful tool for calendar analysis this computer program will put into the hands of those who have it. I realize that some of my comments about the articles by other authors, which I have read on this subject may seem a little hard. In that regard I will say two things: it is difficult to break through prejudiced ideas, and I believe the best chance for doing so is to clearly point out errors. I do not believe in beating around the bush. (You already knew that, right?) Secondly, at any time when any of us write about any subject, we are obviously exposing ourselves to criticisms (I know, I get my fair share of that). Thus we should really expect criticism, even if we don't exactly look forward to receiving it. That is part of being willing to express our ideas and opinions on paper. As Peter said: As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, THAT YE MAY GROW THEREBY: (1 Peter 2:2) If receiving criticism helps me to come to a better understanding, then it is certainly worth it. "MEN AND BRETHREN, WHAT SHALL WE DO?" ------------------------------------- So what do we do now? Do we all just make our own calendars to calculate the Holy Days by? What CAN we possibly do? Ten and more years ago almost all of us were united in one body. Almost all of us accepted Mr. Armstrong's leadership as the man through whom God was working. After all, it was as a result of Mr. Armstrong's writings and preaching that most of us came into contact with the true teachings of the Bible. Since then the vast majority of people have left the Worldwide Church of God. Today we are divided into different organizations ... with a very large percentage of people not belonging to ANY specific organization at all at this point in time. Yet we all still view ourselves as God's people. And we try to live by the laws of God. None of those who have written against the use of the Jewish calendar have offered anything like a viable alternative. To tell us we should look for the ripening ears of barley in Palestine is not really very helpful or practical. Nor is a reliance on visible crescents of the new moon going to help anyone, since we all live in different parts of the world, with different times for the new moon. And we would then end up observing the Holy Days on different days from those who are in other parts of the world. The result would be confusion. When there is no recognized central authority, then we are always in greater danger. The introduction of idolatry into Israel (by an Ephraimite named Micah) after the days of Joshua is introduced with these words: IN THOSE DAYS [THERE WAS] NO KING IN ISRAEL, [BUT] EVERY MAN DID [THAT WHICH WAS] RIGHT IN HIS OWN EYES. (Judges 17:6) Once again today there is no king in (spiritual) Israel, to draw a parallel ... there is no leader who is universally recognized and accepted by all of the people of God at this point in time. THEREFORE WE ARE IN DANGER OF ALL GOING OUR OWN WAYS! Now understand the following point: It is a cop-out to claim that God has given unqualified authority over the calendar to the Jews, that God has not given ANY authority in matters of the calendar to His people, and that God requires His people to be subject to all the decisions in calendrical matters which the Jews may make ... even if we can prove those decisions to be contrary to God's instructions. The fact that Hillel II endorsed a calendar back in the 350's A.D. which clearly goes against God's instructions PROVES BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF DOUBT THAT THE PEOPLE OF GOD FROM THE 350's A.D. ONWARDS HAVE HAD A RESPONSIBILITY IN MATTERS PERTAINING TO THE CALENDAR! In an effort to justify Hillel's wrong decision we have reached the point of RATIONALIZING Exodus 34:22 to mean that "AT LEAST THE END OF TABERNACLES MUST REACH AUTUMN". That was wrong! Let's admit it: when the Feast of Tabernacles STARTS in the summer, then it is the Feast BEFORE the equinox ... it has begun BEFORE the year's end. And while the whole Feast of Tabernacles is 7 days long, let's remember that THE FIRST DAY is the Feast Day, the one on which "a holy convocation" is commanded. For the other 6 days "holy convocations" are not really commanded, even though we have the custom of observing the other days as convocations. The only other commanded "holy convocation" is the Last Great Day. So it is rather artificial to say that Exodus 34:22 is fulfilled as long as "a part of the Feast" is after the equinox ... clearly THE FEAST DAY at the Feast of Ingathering is the First Day of Tabernacles, and by that time the farmers are to be there and not on their farms. So when the Feast of Tabernacles starts before the equinox, then that does not fulfill the spirit of Exodus 34:22. And we should not attempt to justify Hillel's wrong decision! While we are divided at this point in time, we still have a few things in common. We still all accept the Sabbath, the Holy Days and (hopefully) also tithing and the matter of clean and unclean meats. Especially the weekly Sabbaths and the annual Holy Days help us to retain common convictions. PLEASE LET US NOT BECOME FURTHER DIVIDED OVER THIS MATTER OF WHEN THE HOLY DAYS SHOULD BE OBSERVED! The answer is NOT to bury our heads in the sand and to pretend that everything is just fine with the Jewish calendar. That's what the keeper of the Billy Sunday Tabernacle did back in the late 1920's, when Mr. Armstrong brought new understanding to him. Even though he could not prove Mr. Armstrong wrong, yet he refused to relinquish his cherished but wrong convictions. You know what happened ... GOD STOPPED WORKING WITH THE MAN! There is a lesson for us in this. As Paul explained to people in Athens ... AND THE TIMES OF THIS IGNORANCE GOD WINKED AT; BUT NOW commandeth all men every where to repent: (Acts 17:30) Once God has brought a problem to our attention, then it becomes a matter of principle that we respond to the knowledge we have been given. And principle has nothing to do with whether we may consider something to be major or only minor. Once God has shown us that something is wrong, then He expects us to ACT ON THAT KNOWLEDGE. It is not my desire to impose "MY" calendar on any of the people of God. Yet I have pointed out problems with the Jewish calendar. And the Jews themselves have been aware of these problems for close to a century already, as I have already indicated earlier. The Jewish Encyclopedia, copyrighted in 1903, 1910 and 1912 concludes the article "CALENDAR, HISTORY OF" in volume 3 in the following manner on page 501: "According to these calculations the Jewish year exceeds the Gregorian by 6m. 39.37s and the Jewish month by .492s. INSIGNIFICANT AS THESE DIFFERENCES MAY APPEAR, THEY WILL CAUSE A CONSIDERABLE DIVERGENCE IN THE RELATIONS BETWEEN NISAN AND SPRING AS TIME GOES ON ..." Correct! To illustrate this in the extreme: with the present and unaltered sequence of leap years by the year 30999 A.D. the Feast of Trumpets would fall on Thursday, February 6th (with the molad at 1 Hour and 566 Parts, which by then is out by more than 2 days, and thus will readily coincide with the first or second day of visibility of the new moon) ... and the Passover would have been on Monday, August 26 in the previous year! But this is precisely the problem the Jewish Encyclopedia foresaw in 1903 A.D. So there you have it from the Jews themselves! But that is not all. Notice the rest of that sentence: "... between Nisan and spring as time goes on, AND MAY REQUIRE A PAN-JUDAIC SYNOD TO ADJUST!" (page 501) Do you grasp the significance of that quote? Almost 100 years ago Jewish authorities already recognized that Nisan is moving away from the spring to the tune of one day every 216 years. And they understood that, while the Jews are divided amongst themselves into different sects and factions, it was important that all of the different factions would at least agree on a common calendar. Therefore they suggested the possibility of a "Pan-Judaic Synod". {COMMENT: Not being able to analyze the calendar as clearly as we can now do, it seems unlikely that they grasped that the passage of time was actually slowly erasing the error Hillel had introduced. But they did at least recognize the principle that a steady shifting away from the seasons will require periodic adjustments.} And so I would like to make a suggestion. Once God's people and our leaders in the different organizations have had an opportunity to use the computer program "Calgraph.exe" and to grasp what actually happens to the Jewish calendar, then those leaders should organize a "PAN-CHURCHES OF GOD CONFERENCE" for all the leaders who represent all of the different groupings which observe the Holy Days of Leviticus chapter 23. I would suggest that such a conference could perhaps meet under the chairmanship of Dr. Rod Meredith, one of the senior men at this time. However, whoever may preside at such a meeting is not nearly as important as that we all reach a common decision, one that is biblically correct, as to which calendar all of the people of God who observe the Holy Days of Leviticus chapter 23 should use. As Bob Boraker pointed out in his article: "It is important that we all observe the same day and assemble together in unity. ... Unless there is one central authority, there will be confusion and division ... If there is any doubt in this matter, it will need to be studied and discussed by the Doctrinal Committee and Council of Elders (applied to UCG)." I think that should be expanded to apply to all the Churches of God which keep the Holy Days. We should all at least continue to meet on the same days, and therefore strive to reach a common understanding regarding the calendar. The "Friends of the Sabbath" have been able to get together, bridging organizational divisions. Can the "Friends of God's Holy Days" do the same thing? It is a fact that at this point in time there is still a certain amount of movement, with members from some of the Churches of God moving to different organizations. It is not a one-sided movement, but a matter of people, for reasons of their own, changing their affiliations. To avoid confusion it will help if we all recognize the same calendar for determining the annual Holy Days. My suggestion, which could be a starting point, is quite simple: 1) Next year, 1997, is the start of a new 19-year cycle. 2) Accept the Jewish calendar with the following modifications: A) Change the cycle of leap years to "Option #2". B) Reject postponement rules #1, #3 and #4. Only accept #2. The change to officially accepting Option #2 will only change the Holy Days for three different years within the 19-year cycle. For the coming cycle those years are: - Year #6 = 2002 A.D. - Year #14 = 2010 A.D. - Year #17 = 2013 A.D. Thus until 2001 A.D. the cycle I personally would suggest is basically compatible with the sequence currently used by the Jews. From this point of view it would be easy to postpone a decision for another 5 years, during which time all the Feasts of Tabernacles will also start after the autumn equinox with the present Jewish system. But the change to rejecting postponement rules #1, #3 and #4 will have the following effects: For the years 1997 - 1999 no changes are required from the days which are calculated based on the current Jewish practice. It is only in the year 2000 A.D. that a rejection of postponement rule #1 will have an effect for the first time. In that year the Holy Days would then be observed one day earlier than the Jewish calculations would indicate. So, to summarize my suggestions: For the next three years they will not require any changes at all. Then in 2000 A.D. the Holy Days would be observed one day earlier than the current Jewish calendar would indicate. Then in 2002 A.D. all the Holy Days would fall one month later than the current Jewish calendar would indicate (the first year when the Feast will again start before the equinox according to the current Jewish sequence of leap years). Thereafter a number of years will have the Holy Days one day earlier than the Jewish calendar would indicate. So my suggestions do not require anyone to make a decision without thinking the whole thing through very carefully. We don't have to make a move from one day to the next. In one sense, we do have a period of grace for the next three years. Only then will a decision really be required of us. Obviously, such a conference of leaders of the Churches of God might reach totally different conclusions from the proposals I have put forward here. Possibly they will come up with a better way to deal with the problems inherent in the Hebrew calendar?! But at least my suggestions have put the problems squarely on the table for all to examine. However, since no changes are required for at least another three years, it is easy to just say: "Why don't we just let it ride? Maybe it will sort itself out before then? Maybe we won't even get to the year 2000 A.D.? Why rock the boat now ... we can always make a decision if we really get as far as 1999, right?" I don't think that is a responsible way to handle the problem. For one thing, it sends out the message that we are not willing to face and to acknowledge the problems others have pointed out to us. It says that we will stick to our traditions, even if they are proved wrong. For another thing, such indecision can be very discouraging to those people who do see the problems quite clearly. Such people might become sufficiently discouraged to be tempted to switch their allegiance to another group, a move that would be totally unnecessary. On the other hand, reaching a consensus amongst the leadership of the various different organizations which represent the people who observe the Holy Days sends out a very positive message. It says, in effect: 1) Yes, we acknowledge that genuine problems with the Hebrew calendar have been brought to our attention. 2) We are addressing / have addressed the issues raised by people who focus on the visual new moons and by those who focus on the time of the barley harvest in Palestine. 3) We are striving to implement a calendar which will meet the conditions God has inspired to be recorded in the Bible. 4) By seeking agreement amongst all those who observe the annual Holy Days we have at least considered many divergent views. Since there is no recognized central authority over all of the different groups who might be represented at such a conference, it goes without saying that none of the groups will be (or even can be) pressured into accepting "a majority decision". The acceptance of any decisions reached at such a meeting will be totally voluntary on the part of those organizations which attended. It merely says that, faced with a genuine problem, we were willing to consider a multitude of counsel. For the sake of the people of God this issue of the calendar needs to be addressed and resolved. So ... what think ye? Frank W. Nelte tungsten@iafrica.com | Christianity Index | Reference Library Index | Latest update: 19 March 1997 URLs of this page: http://miso.wwa.com/~curadist/ReferenceLibrary/Christianity/Nelte/calendar.htm http://acsl.home.ml.org/Nelte/calendar.htm Disclaimer: Inclusion of a work or a name of an individual or a group or an enterprise or anything else in this library does not constitite a recommendation or endorsement of any kind by The Keeper of the Archives. Each reader will find some works valuable and some works without merit, depending on past experiences, education, prejudices, etc. All readers should study carefully and make their own decisions in life. Further enquiries or suggestions for this Library? Email The Keeper of the Archives.