Calendar according to Moshe

Religious people in Yehoshua’s days.

Daniel ben Ya’acov Ysrael

Today many fight against Lunar Shabbat keepers, sometime with harsh judgment. In this paper, I want to see what is the Calendar Moshe held, and if it was the same calendar the people in Yehoshua’s days held.

Did Moshe held a New Moon Calendar?

Did Moshe taught to observe a New Moon Calendar?

Did Yehoshua support a New Moon or simply a Moon Calendar?

We are going to approach this issue with the Scriptures and compare what is widely taught in Judaism, Messianic, and other groups.
Here a picture of the two possibility of month in the lunar calendar:

PLEASE READ TO THE END TO UNDERSTAND THE CHANGE IN THE CALENDAR!

First of all let us search the definition of “moon”:

H3394 יָרֵַח yareach (yaw-ray'-akh) (or Yrechow) n-m.

1. the moon

From
H3391 יֶרַח yerach (yeh'-rakh) n-m.

1. a lunation, i.e. month

The word appears in the TaNaHk Total KJV Occurrences: 26 times

• Moon, 26

Gen 37:9; Deut 4:19; Deut 17:3; Josh 10:12; Josh 10:13; 2Kgs 23:5; Job 25:5; Job 31:26; Ps 8:3; Ps 72:5; Ps 72:7; Ps 89:37; Ps 104:19; Ps 121:6; Ps 136:9; Ps 148:3; Eccl 12:2; Isa 13:10; Isa 60:19; Jer 8:2; Jer 31:35; Ezek 32:7; Joel 2:10; Joel 2:31; Joel 3:15; Hab 3:11

Some few examples
B’reshit/Gen 37:9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon (Yerach) and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.

D’varim/Deut.4 : 19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon (Yerach), and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which YHWH thy Elohim hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

Joshua 10 : 13 And the sun stood still, and the moon (Yerach) stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

Joel 3 : 15 The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

The moon in Hebrew is clearly called “yareach” not “chodesh”, this is the first to discern. So but what means “chodesh”?

B’reshit 7: 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month (Chodesh), 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.

H2320 חוֹדֶשׁ chodesh (kho'-desh) n-m.

1. the new moon

2. (by implication) a month
From

H2318 חָדַשׁ chadash (khaw-dash') v.

1. to be new

2. causatively, to rebuild

Now tradition explains that the moon is renewed every month and thus the “chodesh” points to the “New Moon” (Chodesh).

Let see if the scriptures support this affirmation from many messianic and other groups (including the teaching of Judaism)

Here all the occurrences in which the word “chodesh” is used:
chôdesh

kho'-desh

Total KJV Occurrences: 279 time

• another, 1

Isa 66:23

• day, 1

Exod 40:2

• month, 217

Gen 7:11(2); Gen 8:4(2); Gen 8:5(2); Gen 8:13; Gen 8:14(2); Gen 29:14; Exod 12:2(2); Exod 12:3; Exod 12:6; Exod 12:18(2); Exod 13:4; Exod 13:5; Exod 16:1; Exod 19:1; Exod 23:15; Exod 34:18(2); Exod 40:2; Exod 40:17(2); Lev 16:29(2); Lev 23:5; Lev 23:6; Lev 23:24(2); Lev 23:27; Lev 23:32; Lev 23:34; Lev 23:39; Lev 23:41; Lev 25:9; Num 1:1; Num 1:18; Num 3:15; Num 3:22; Num 3:28; Num 3:34; Num 3:39; Num 3:40; Num 3:43; Num 9:1; Num 9:3; Num 9:5; Num 9:11; Num 9:22; Num 10:11; Num 11:20; Num 11:21; Num 18:16; Num 20:1; Num 26:62; Num 28:14(2); Num 28:16; Num 28:17; Num 29:1(2); Num 29:6; Num 29:7; Num 29:12; Num 33:3(2); Num 33:38; Deut 1:3(2); Deut 16:1(2); Josh 4:19; Josh 5:10; 1Sam 20:27; 1Sam 20:34; 1Kgs 4:7; 1Kgs 4:27; 1Kgs 5:14(2); 1Kgs 6:1(2); 1Kgs 6:38; 1Kgs 8:2; 1Kgs 12:32(2); 1Kgs 12:33(2); 2Kgs 25:1(2); 2Kgs 25:3; 2Kgs 25:8(2); 2Kgs 25:25; 2Kgs 25:27(2); 1Chr 12:15; 1Chr 27:1(2); 1Chr 27:2; 1Chr 27:3; 1Chr 27:4; 1Chr 27:5; 1Chr 27:7; 1Chr 27:8; 1Chr 27:9; 1Chr 27:10; 1Chr 27:11; 1Chr 27:12; 1Chr 27:13; 1Chr 27:14; 1Chr 27:15; 2Chr 3:2; 2Chr 5:3; 2Chr 7:10; 2Chr 15:10; 2Chr 29:3; 2Chr 29:17(3); 2Chr 30:2; 2Chr 30:13; 2Chr 30:15; 2Chr 31:7(2); 2Chr 35:1; Ezra 3:1; Ezra 3:6; Ezra 3:8; Ezra 6:19; Ezra 7:8; Ezra 7:9(2); Ezra 8:31; Ezra 10:9(2); Ezra 10:16; Ezra 10:17; Neh 1:1; Neh 2:1; Neh 7:73; Neh 8:2; Neh 8:14; Neh 9:1; Esth 2:16(2); Esth 3:7(5); Esth 3:12; Esth 3:13(2); Esth 8:9(2); Esth 8:12(2); Esth 9:1(2); Esth 9:15; Esth 9:17; Esth 9:19; Esth 9:21; Esth 9:22; Jer 1:3; Jer 2:24; Jer 28:1; Jer 28:17; Jer 36:9; Jer 36:22; Jer 39:1; Jer 39:2(2); Jer 41:1; Jer 52:4(2); Jer 52:6(2); Jer 52:12(2); Jer 52:31(2); Ezek 1:1; Ezek 1:2; Ezek 8:1; Ezek 20:1; Ezek 24:1(2); Ezek 26:1; Ezek 29:1; Ezek 29:17; Ezek 30:20; Ezek 31:1; Ezek 32:1(2); Ezek 32:17; Ezek 33:21; Ezek 40:1; Ezek 45:18; Ezek 45:20; Ezek 45:21; Ezek 45:25; Dan 10:4; Hos 5:7; Hag 1:1(2); Hag 1:15; Hag 2:1; Hag 2:20; Zech 1:1; Zech 1:7(2); Zech 7:1; Zech 7:3

• monthly, 1

Isa 47:13

• months, 37

Gen 38:24; Exod 12:2; Num 10:10; Num 28:11; Num 28:14; Judg 11:37; Judg 11:38; Judg 11:39; Judg 19:2; Judg 20:47; 1Sam 6:1; 1Sam 27:7; 2Sam 2:11; 2Sam 5:5; 2Sam 6:11; 2Sam 24:8; 2Sam 24:13; 1Kgs 5:14; 1Kgs 11:16; 2Kgs 15:8; 2Kgs 23:31; 2Kgs 24:8; 1Chr 3:4; 1Chr 13:14; 1Chr 21:12; 1Chr 27:1; 2Chr 36:2; 2Chr 36:9; Esth 2:12(3); Job 14:5; Job 21:21; Ezek 39:12; Ezek 39:14; Ezek 47:12; Amos 4:7

• moon, 9

1Sam 20:5; 1Sam 20:18; 1Sam 20:24; 2Kgs 4:23; Ps 81:3; Isa 66:23; Ezek 46:1; Ezek 46:6; Amos 8:5

• moons, 11

1Chr 23:31; 2Chr 2:4; 2Chr 8:13; 2Chr 31:3; Ezra 3:5; Neh 10:33; Isa 1:13; Isa 1:14; Ezek 45:17; Ezek 46:3; Hos 2:11

• old, 1

Lev 27:6

• same, 1

Gen 7:11

21 times as “moon or moons”, but 254 times as “month or months”, this is very interesting but let us goes to the test of some verses of each and compare.

Let us start with the word chodesh used for moon:

1 Samuel 20: 5 And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, tomorrow is the new moon (chodesh), 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.

2^nd King 4: 23 And he said, wherefore wilt thou go to him today? it is neither new moon (chodesh), nor Sabbath. And she said, It shall be well.

Psalm 81 :3 Blow up the trumpet in the new moon (chodesh), in the time appointed (b’kece), on our solemn feast (chag) day.

“Kece”: The Hebrew word “kece” is also translated:
Psa 81:3 Blow the ram’s horn at the time of the New Moon, At the full moon, on our festival day (chag).
This verse is in perfect harmony with Vayiqra 23, and Psalm 104:
Lev 23:1 And יהוה spoke to Mosheh, saying,

Lev 23:2 “Speak to the children of Yisra’ĕl, and say to them, ‘The appointed times (MOEDIM) of יהוה, which you are to proclaim as set-apart gatherings, My appointed times (MOEDIM), are these:

Lev 23:3 ‘Six days work is done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest (shabbatown), a set-apart gathering. You do no work, it is a Sabbath to יהוה in all your dwellings.

Lev 23:4 ‘These are the appointed times (MOEDIM) of יהוה, set-apart gatherings which you are to proclaim at their appointed times.

After verse 4 we see listed all the feast of Yehowah! The first of all is the Shabbat, the reason be that the Shabbat is above all other moedim:

Psa 104:19 He made the moon for appointed times (MOEDIM); The sun knows its going down.

The Shabbat place in Yehowah’s mind:

Exo 31:12 And יהוה spoke to Mosheh, saying,

Exo 31:13 “And you, speak to the children of Yisra’ĕl, saying, ‘My Sabbaths you are to guard, by all means, for it is a sign¹ between Me and you throughout your generations, to know that I, יהוה, am setting you apart.

Exo 31:14 ‘And you shall guard the Sabbath, for it is set-apart to you. Everyone who profanes it shall certainly be put to death, for anyone who does work on it, that being shall be cut off from among his people.

Exo 31:15 ‘Six days work is done, and on the seventh is a Sabbath shabbatown, set-apart to יהוה. Everyone doing work on the Sabbath day shall certainly be put to death.

Exo 31:16 ‘And the children of Yisra’ĕl shall guard the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant.

Exo 31:17 ‘Between Me and the children of Yisra’ĕl it is a sign forever. For in six days יהוה made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’ ”

Exo 31:18 And when He had ended speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Mosheh two tablets of the Witness, tablets of stone, written with the finger of Elohim.

Yehowah again told the prophet to remind of the importance of the Shabbats

Eze 20:11 “And I gave them My laws and showed them My right-rulings, ‘which, if a man does, he shall live by them.’

Eze 20:12 “And I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign¹ between them and Me, to know that I am יהוה who sets them apart…………………….

Eze 20:20 ‘And set apart My Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between Me and you, to know that I am יהוה your Elohim.’

Eze 20:21 “But the children rebelled against Me. They did not walk in My laws, and My right-rulings they did not guard to do them, which, if a man does, he shall live by them. They profaned My Sabbaths, so I resolved to pour out My wrath on them to complete My displeasure against them in the wilderness.

We have seen the full moon is with the “New Moon” the time of Festival day

Is.66 :23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon (chodesh) to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith YHWH.

Amos 8 : 5 Saying, When will the new moon (chodesh) be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

Did Moshe taught the people to celebrate or to mark the “New Moon”?

We see that Moshe used the word “chodesh” for moon.

So how does it comes that translators have written “New Moon” instead of Month? Let us see the mentioned verses with the word “month” and see if they are wrong:
1 Samuel 20: 5 And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, tomorrow is New Moon (chodesh), 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.

I found two translations which put it another way:
Bishops 1568:

1Sa 20:5 And Dauid sayd vnto Ionathan: Beholde, to morowe is the beginning of the moneth, and I should sit with the king at meate: But let me go, that I may hide my selfe in the fieldes vnto the thirde day at euen.

Geneva 1567:

1Sa 20:5 And Dauid said vnto Ionathan, Behold, tomorrow is the first day of the moneth, and I shoulde sit with the King at meate: but let me goe, that I may hide my selfe in the fieldes vnto the third day at euen.

It seems that “chodesh” is either used for “month” or “New Moon”, meaning that month and new moon are tighten together!

2^nd King 4: 23 And he said, wherefore wilt thou go to him today? it is neither New Moon (chodesh), nor Sabbath. And she said, It shall be well.

Psalm 81 :3 Blow up the trumpet in the New Moon (chodesh), in the time appointed (full moon), on our solemn feast day.

Is.66 :23 And it shall come to pass, that from one New Moon (chodesh) to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith YHWH.

Amos 8 : 5 Saying, When will the New Moon(chodesh) be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

In none of these verses the word for “new” (Rosh/head) appears in the Hebrew text, it was determined by context, that it was the beginning of the MONTH but not according to the moon (sighted), what we will see later, a latter add from Babylon. Just bear with me and try to avoid coming to a quick conclusion, because of this we all have committed false worship and idolatry. Yes even us who say to keep the Torah, but be patient and let us read together.

Now let us see how it is with the same word used as “month” in the scriptures, again we will take some examples, you can search on your own for more if you like, they are mentioned above.

B’reshit/Gen. 7: 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month (chodesh), the seventeenth day of the month (chodesh), the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

B’reshit/Gen. 8 : 4 And the ark rested in the seventh month (chodesh), on the seventeenth day of the month (chodesh), upon the mountains of Ararat.

B’reshit/Gen. 20 : 14 And Laban said to him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him the space of a month (chodesh).

Sh’mot/Ex.12 : 2 This month (chodesh) shall be unto you the beginning of months (chodeshim pl.): it shall be the first month (chodesh) of the year to you.

Sh’mot/Ex.12 ; 3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month (chodesh) they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:

Does Moshe told the Children of Ysrael « Observe the New Moon » and you will know that we have another Month?

Why did Yehowah told Moshe:” This month (chodesh) shall be unto you the beginning of months (chodeshim pl.): it shall be the first month (chodesh) of the year to you. »?

Before we answer let us look at this “first month”
Sh’mot/Ex.13: 4 This day came ye out in the month (chodesh) of the aviv.
The word « abib » means :
H24 אָבִיבּ 'abiyb (aw-beeb') n-m.

1. Green, i.e. a young ear of grain

It is the time in the spring when the grain is in the ear, still green, just before it is fully ripe.

So then why did Yehowah told Moshe that this month shall be the beginning of « chodeshim », months?

For those who know a bit Judaism, they are familiar with the celebration of “Rosh Hashana” (the Head of the Year). Judaism tells that it is in this day that the world was created, based on the word “r’shit” (beginning) read from inversing the word from the End.
Rosh Hashanah marks the start of a new year in the Hebrew calendar (one of four "new year" observances that define various legal "years" for different purposes as explained in the Mishnah and Talmud). It is the New Year for people, animals, and legal contracts. The Mishnah also sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years, shmita and yovel years. Jews are confident that Rosh Hashanah represents either figuratively or literally God's creation ex nihilo. However, according to Rabbi Eleazar ben Shammua, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man.^(wikipidia)

Now what about the first Month ?

From Chabad.org

The Jewish Months

Nissan is the first month on the Jewish calendar. Before the Jews left Egypt, on the first day of the month of Nissan, G‑d told Moses and Aaron: “This chodesh (new moon, or month) shall be to you the head of months.”⁴ Thus the peculiarity of the Jewish calendar: the year begins on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the month of Tishrei (the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve), but Tishrei is not the first month. Rosh Hashanah is actually referred to in the Torah as “the first day of the seventh month.”⁵

The Lunar Cycle

The Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles.¹ Towards the beginning of the moon’s cycle, it appears as a thin crescent. That is the signal for a new Jewish month. The moon grows until it is full; the middle of the month, and then it begins to wane until it cannot be seen. It remains invisible for approximately two days ²—and then the thin crescent reappears, and the cycle begins again.

The entire cycle takes approximately 29½ days.³ Since a month needs to consist of complete days, a month is sometimes twenty-nine days long (such a month is known as chaser, “missing”), and sometimes thirty (malei, “full”).

Knowing exactly when the month begins has always been important in Jewish practice, because the Torah schedules the Jewish festivals according to the days of the month.

The first day of the month, as well as the thirtieth day of a malei month, is calledRosh Chodesh, the “Head of the Month,” and has semi-festive status. See Why is Rosh Chodesh sometimes one day and sometimes two?

The Jewish Months

The Jewish Months and their Special Dates

Jewish Month	Approximate Secular Date	This Month’s Special Dates
Nissan	March–April	Passover
Iyar	April–May	Lag B’Omer
Sivan	May–June	Shavuot
Tammuz	June–July
Menachem Av	July–August	Tisha B’Av
Elul	August–September
Tishrei	September–October	The High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah andYom Kippur), Sukkot, Shmini Atzeret, andSimchat Torah
Marcheshvan	October–November
Kislev	November–December	Chanukah
Tevet	December–January	Conclusion of Chanukah
Shevat	January–February	Tu B’Shvat
Adar	February–March	Purim

Sanctifying the Month

“The L‑rd spoke to Moses and to Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, ‘This chodesh shall be to you the head of months.’” (Exodus 12:1–2)

From the wording of this verse, “shall be to you,” the sages deduced that the responsibility of pinpointing and consecrating the chodesh, the crescent new moon, was entrusted to the leaders of our nation, the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical supreme court of every generation.

Originally, there was no fixed calendar. There was no way to determine in advance the exact day of a coming holiday or bar mitzvah, because there was no way to determine in advance when the month would begin. Each month anew, the Sanhedrin would determine whether the month would be 29 or 30 days long—depending on when the following month’s new moon was first sighted—and would sanctify the new month.

Here we see that they say:” The Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles”

Gen 1:14 And Elohim said, “Let lights come to be in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs (othot) and appointed times (moedim), and for days and years,

Gen 1:15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.” And it came to be so.

Where it is written that the moon will be the « head » of the month ?

Psalm 104: 19 He appointed the moon (Yereach) for seasons (moedim): the sun knoweth his going down.

Once again we see that the moon is for seasons (moedim).

Psa 81:1 Shout for joy to Elohim our strength; Raise a shout to the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ.

Psa 81:2 Lift up a song and beat the tambourine, The pleasant lyre and with the harp.

Psa 81:3 Blow the ram’s horn at the time of the month (Chodesh), At the full moon* (kece), on our festival day (moed).

Psa 81:4 For this is a law for Yisra’ĕl, And a right-ruling of the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ.

Psa 81:5 He appointed it in Yehosĕph for a witness, When He went throughout the land of Mitsrayim; I heard a language that I did not know.

*H3677 כֶּסֶא כֶּסֶה kece' (keh'-seh) (or keceh {keh'-seh}) n-m.

1. (properly) fullness or the full moon, i.e. its festival

“kece” can also mean hidden! (conjunction?)

This festival is marked by the Full moon, but the English read differently:
Psalm 81: 3 Blow up^H8628 the trumpet^H7782 in the new moon^H2320, in the time appointed^H3677, on our solemn feast^H2282 day^H3117.

We see that H3677 is the Hebrew word « kece » and means fullness or full moon, and that New Moon is H2320 and means « month » or New moon.

Another version says:

Psalm 81/3 Sound the ram’s horn on the day of the new moon,¹ and on the day of the full moon when our festival begins.²

The Hebrew do not used the preposition “and”. It was used in order to “help” the reader to believe that there are two actions, what the scriptures do not say.

Context:
The Psalm 81 is about the coming out of Egypt, they left the 15^th days of the first chodesh in the night:

Psa 81:5 This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out through the land of Egypt: where I heard a language that I understood not.

Psa 81:6 I removed his shoulder from the burden: his hands were delivered from the pots.

Psa 81:7 Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder: I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. Selah.

But let us investigate on the Calendar:

Jubilee 5:20 And YHWH said that he would destroy everything which was upon the earth, both men and cattle, and beasts, and fowls of the air, and that which moves on the earth.

21 And He commanded Noah to make him an ark, t hat he might save himself from the waters of the flood.

22 And Noah made the ark in all respects as He commanded him, in the twenty-seventh jubilee of years, in the fifth week in the fifth year (on the new month of the first month). [1307 A.M.]

23 And he entered in the sixth (year) thereof, [1308 A.M.] in the second month, on the new month of the second month, till the sixteenth; and he entered, and all that we brought to him, into the ark, and YHWH closed it from without on the seventeenth evening.

First of all we see that the translation says: “on the new month of the first month”, and not “New moon”.

What then with the “New Moon?
Psalm 104: 19 He appointed the moon for seasons (moedim): the sun knoweth his going down

Let’s us now look at the moedim:
Lev 23:1 And YHWH spake unto Moses, saying,

Lev 23:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of YHWH, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts (moedim).

Lev 23:3 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of YHWH in all your dwellings.

Lev 23:4 These are the feasts (moedim) of YHWH, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.

Lev 23:5 In the fourteenth day of the first month at even(ereb) is YHWH's passover.

Lev 23:6 And on the fifteenth day (full moon) of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto YHWH: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.

The first of the “moedim” is the Shabbat!

The Shabbat was given at the creation B’reshit/Gen.Chapter 2. Thus since the creation Adam (mankind), was commanded to keep the Shabbat which is marked by the moon!

In the Encyclopedia Biblica (1899) we find stated that "the stars served to mark divisions of time. They are set in the firmament 'to divide the day from the night,' and to 'be for signs, and for moeds/signs/festivals/appointed times, and for days and years!' The Hebrew month is a lunar month and THE QUARTER OF THIS PERIOD -- ONE PHASE OF THE MOON -- appears to have determined the WEEK OF SEVEN DAYS" (The MacMillan Company. P. 4780).

The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopedia states that "among ALL early nations the lunar months were the readiest large divisions of time...(and were divided into 4 weeks), corresponding to THE PHASES OR QUARTERS OF THE MOON. In order to connect the reckoning by weeks with the lunar month, we find that ALL ANCIENT NATIONS observed some peculiar solemnities to mark the day of the New Moon (1904, p. 1497).

Hutton Webster, in Palestine "the Hebrews employed LUNAR SEVEN-DAY WEEKS, perhaps for centuries preceding the Exile; weeks, that is, which ended with special observances on the seventh day but none the less were TIED TO THE MOON'S COURSE" (Rest Days, p. 254).

The Jewish Encyclopedia mentions that during this time "the months of the year were LUNAR, and began with the NEW MOON (hodesh, which came to mean "month"). During the era of the Kings the new moon was observed by a TWO-DAY FESTIVAL (I Sam. 20:24-27)." (The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Calendar," p. 631).

Further evidence is supplied by the Encyclopedia Biblica (1899) which says --

The New Moon and the Sabbaths alike called men to the sanctuary to do sacrifice as in: Isaiah 1:12-17, Isa. 56:1-7, and Ezekiel 20:10-20. Hosea takes it for granted that in captivity the Sabbath will be suspended along with the other feasts, because in His day a feast implied a sanctuary. The Sabbath is a Mark of Separation or division from the heathen. In I Samuel 20:18, 24, and 27, the New Moon was celebrated TWO DAYS. The Sabbath is on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28^th* days FROM EACH NEW MOON. (Note: The dark side of the moon would be 1 or 2 days, i.e. intercalary days.) -- The MacMillan Company, p. 4177.

· *This counting was adopted from Babyloninas who were moon worshipers.

Later on, in the second century A.D., proof that the Jews were still keeping the Sabbath day according to the lunar week can be found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-215 A.D.): "[Peter] inferred thus: 'Neither worship as the Jews...[for] IF THE MOON IS NOT VISIBLE, they do not hold the SABBATH, which is called the first; nor do they hold the NEW MOON, nor the FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, nor the FEAST, nor the GREAT DAY'" (The Stromata, or Miscellanies, chapter 5).

This clearly indicates that at this time the weekly Sabbath was still dictated by the moon's course. Further, in chapter 16 of The Stromata, Clement plainly writes that "in periods of SEVEN DAYS the MOON undergoes its changes. In the FIRST WEEK she becomes HALF MOON; in the SECOND [WEEK], FULL MOON; and in the THIRD [WEEK], in her wane, AGAIN HALF MOON; and in the FOURTH [WEEK] she DISAPPEARS."

(Excerpt from: “Hope of Ysrael Ministry” “From Shabbat to Saturday”). Later on, in the second century A.D., proof that the Jews were still keeping the Sabbath day according to the lunar week can be found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria (circa 150-215 A.D.): "[Peter] inferred thus: 'Neither worship as the Jews...[for] IF THE MOON IS NOT VISIBLE, they do not hold the SABBATH, which is called the first; nor do they hold the NEW MOON, nor the FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, nor the FEAST, nor the GREAT DAY'" (The Stromata, or Miscellanies, chapter 5).

This is about as plain as it can get. Obviously, in Clement's day, the week (as kept by the Jews) was still tied to the moon's phases and, by extension, the weekly Sabbath was also still tied to the moon! It appears, however, that by this time (150-215 A.D.) some of the Christians had gotten away from a week and Sabbath that was dependent upon the lunar reckoning.

The Christian Divorcement of the Sabbath

In the years following Clement of Alexandria's time, an ominous change started to take place that was to radically change the Christian concept of the Sabbath. "This intimate connection," records the Encyclopedia Biblica, "between the week and the month was soon dissolved. It is certain that the week soon followed a development of its own, and it became the custom -- without paying any regard to the days of the month (i.e. the lunar month) -- ...so that THE NEW MOON NO LONGER COINCIDED WITH THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK" (The MacMillan Company, 1899, p. 5290).

Then, on page 4179 of the same encyclopedia, we read: "The introduction...of the custom of celebrating the Sabbath every 7th day, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE DAY TO THE MOON'S PHASES, led to a complete separation from the ancient view of the Sabbath..."

In the article Shawui Calendar: Ancient Shawui Observance, we find confirmation of this radical change in YEHOVAH God's calendar --

The [lunar]...calendar was used by ALL the original disciples of Yeshua...This original Nazarene lunar-solar calendar was supplanted by a Roman "planetary week" and calendar in 135 C.E. -- when the "Bishops of the Circumcision" (i.e. legitimate Nazarene successors to Yeshua) were displaced from Jerusalem. This began a three hundred year controversy concerning the TRUE CALENDAR AND CORRECT SABBATH:

This [calendar] controversy arose after the exodus of the bishops of the circumcision and has continued until our time" (Epiphanius, HE4, 6, 4).

"The groundwork for this supplanting of the true calendar", suggests the ancient historian Iranaeus, "began in Rome with a Bishop Sixtus (c.a. 116-c.a.126)."

According to Iranaeus, "Sixtus was the first to celebrate a Sunday Easter in Rome instead of the traditional Nisan 15 [full moon] date on the lunar calendar. This change from the luni-solar to a fixed solar calendar occurred in Rome during the repressive measures which were enacted against ALL Jewish customs and practices, INCLUDING THE LUNAR CALENDAR, during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. With the fall of the Nazarene headquarters...at Jerusalem, this new Roman calendar quickly spread throughout 'Christendom.' This NEW CALENDAR not only replaced yearly festival dates such as Passover, BUT IT ALSO REVAMPED THE CONCEPT OF THE WEEK AND ITS SEVENTH DAY."

Hutton Webster points out that "the early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish [lunar] seven-day week with its numbered weekdays, but by the close of the third century A.D. this began to give way to the planetary week; and in the fourth and fifth centuries the pagan designations became generally accepted in the western half of Christendom. The use of the planetary names by Christians attests to the growing influence of astrological speculations introduced by converts from paganism" (Rest Days: A Study in Early Law and Morality. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1916, p. 220).

It should be noted that the oldest dated Christian inscription to employ a planetary designation belongs to the year 269 A.D. (Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae, ed. De Rossi, 1861, i, No. 1).

In the article Shawui Sabbath: Ancient Sabbath Observance, the author asks these questions --

But what of Gentile Christians? Did this early break-off of true Nazarene[s]...also observe a Sabbath cycle? Early historical records clearly confirm that very early Gentile Christians also kept the same [lunar] Sabbath Calendar as the...Nazarenes. This practice was first changed by [Pope] Sixtus in 126 A.D. and later officially changed by a royal Roman decree from the emperor Constantine. Observance of the Sabbath day was made illegal and observance of a "Sunday" of a FIXED WEEK was made mandatory for all except farmers. Previous to this time the ROMAN SATURDAY was the FIRST DAY OF THE ROMAN WEEK. The veneration of the Sun in the second century A.D. began to pressure Roman culture to change the first day of their week FROM SATURNDAY TO SUNDAY. (Had the Jews been observing this same Roman calendar at this early date, as some maintain, then their seventh day Sabbath would have been on FRIDAY which was the the traditional seventh day of this Roman calendar during the first century A.D.).

Hutton Webster adds that "the change from such [lunar] cycles to those UNCONNECTED WITH THE LUNATIONS would not have involved so abrupt and sudden a departure from the previous system of time reckoning as that from a bipartite division of the lunar month to a week which ran continuously through the months and the years" (Rest Days).

Babylonian Rabbis Divorce the Sabbath

While the influence of Rome caused the early Christians to adopt a continuous seven-day week with the Sabbath on every seventh day, the Jews came under a more subtle influence.

Following the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the Palestinian Jews struggled hard to retain control of the sacred calendar. Notes the Encyclopedia Britannica:

The calendar was originally fixed by observation, and ultimately by calculation. Up to the fall of the Temple (A.D. 70), witnesses who saw the new moon came forward and were strictly examined and if their evidence was accepted the month was fixed by the priests. Eventually the authority passed to the SANHEDRIN and ultimately to the PATRIARCH. When necessary, a second "Adar" was inserted in order that the reaping of the corn should come at Passover. Gradually observation gave place to calculation. The right to determine the calendar was reserved to the PATRIARCHATE; the JEWS OF MESOPOTAMIA tried in vain to establish their own calendar but the perogative of Palestine was zealously defended.

Continues the encyclopedia –

So long as Palestine remained a religious centre, it was naturally to the homeland that the Diaspora looked for its calendar. Uniformity was essential, for if different parts had celebrated feasts on different days confusion would have ensued. IT WAS NOT UNTIL THE 4TH CENTURY A.D. THAT BABYLON FIXED THE CALENDAR...The Talmud speaks of various New Year's Days. It may be regarded as certain that in Palestine the New Year [Rosh Hoshana] began in NISSAN (cf. Exod. xii. 2) and IN BABYLON in TISHRI (volume 4, article "Calendar").

What is not realized by many is that control of the calendar implied ultimate POLITICAL AUTHORITY in Judaism. In other words, whoever controlled the calendar also controlled the destiny of the Jewish people -- for good or for evil!

"In the period after 70 C.E." writes Herschel Shanks, "THE RABBIS ARROGATED THIS AUTHORITY TO THEMSELVES. In the story that appears in the Talmudim, Rabbi Hananiah, an migrant Judean scholar, tried to assert the SUPREMACY OF BAYLONIAN JEWRY by asserting its right (that is, his own right while in Babylonia) to intercalate the calendar. His attempt was unsuccessful because it was SEVERAL CENTURIES TOO EARLY. This authority remained for some time with the rabbis in the land of Israel" (Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, p. 197).

Saturn and the Sabbath

Talking about the time prior to the Diaspora, Hutton Webster tells us that

an old and still common theory derives the Sabbath institution from the worship of SATURN after which planet the first day of the astrological week [Saturday] received its designation. The theory is untenable for more than one reason. In the first place the Hebrews did not name their weekdays after the planets, but indicated them by ordinal numbers. In the second place SATURN'S DAY [SATURDAY] BEGAN THE PLANETARY WEEK, while the Jewish Sabbath was regarded as the LAST DAY of the seven, a suitable position for a rest day. And in the third place neither the Hebrews nor any other Oriental people ever worshipped the planet Saturn as a god and OBSERVED HIS DAY AS A FESTIVAL (Ibid., p. 243).

However, in the Diaspora, this soon changed with the influence of the Zoroastrian revival and the Roman planetary week:

These imported [from Babylon] superstitions eventually led Jewish rabbis to call Saturn SHABBTI, "the STAR OF THE SABBATH," [and]...it was not until [after]the first century of our era, when the planetary week had become an established institution, THAT THE JEWISH SABBATH SEEMS ALWAYS TO HAVE CORRESPONDED TO SATURN'S DAY [SATURDAY]" (ibid., p. 244).

"The association of the Sabbath Day with Saturday," explains Webster, "was probably one reason why Saturn, a planet in Babylonian astrological schemes regarded as beneficent rather than malefic, should have come to assume in late classical times the role of an unlucky star (sidus tristissimum, stella iniquissima)...Dio Cassius [Roman historian born 155 A.D., died after 230 A.D.] also speaks of the Jews having DEDICATED TO THEIR GOD THE DAY CALLED THE DAY OF SATURN [SATURDAY], 'on which, among many other most peculiar actions, they undertake no serious occupation'...Tacitus [another Roman historian] (Historiae, V, 4) thinks that the Jewish Sabbath may be an observance in honour of Saturn..." (Rest Days, p. 244-245).

Notes the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: "With the development of the importance of the Sabbath as a day of consecration and the emphasis laid upon the significant number seven, the week became more and more DIVORCED FROM ITS LUNAR CONNECTION..."(volume 10, 1943. Article, "Week," p. 482).

Also, writes Hutton Webster, "the establishment of a periodic week ending in a Sabbath observed every seventh day was doubtless responsible for the gradual obsolescence of the NEW MOON FESTIVAL AS A PERIOD OF GENERAL ABSTINENCE, since with continuous weeks the new-moon day and the Sabbath Day would from time to time coincide" (ibid., p. 255).

This obsolescence of the New Moon festival is also noted by the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia --

However, in the Diaspora the New Moon came to occupy a secondary position in contrast to the Sabbath; the prohibition against work and the carrying on of commerce was LIFTED, and the New Moon, although still celebrated by means of increased offerings, soon was reduced to the rank of a minor of half holiday. Its importance was confined to the fact that it remained of great value and necessity for the fixing of the festivals (volume 8, p. 171. Article "New Moon").

Eviator Zerubavel, in his book The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week, observes that

The Jewish and and astrological weeks evolved quite independently of one another. However, given the coincidence of their identical length, it was only a matter of time before some permanent correspondence between particular Jewish days and particular planetary days would be made. A PERMANENT CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE SABBATH AND "THE DAY OF SATURN" WAS THUS ESTABLISHED...[some time] later than the first century of the present era, Jews EVEN CAME TO NAME THE PLANET SATURN SHABTAI, AFTER THE ORIGINAL HEBREW NAME OF THE SABBATH, SHABBATH. Moreover, as they came into closer contact with Hellenism, their conception of their holy day was evidently AFFECTED BY THE ASTROLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF SATURN AS A PLANET that has an overwhelming negative influence (a conception which, incidentally, is still evident even from the association of the English word "saturnine" with a gloomy disposition). There are traditional Jewish superstitious beliefs about demons and evil spirits that hold full sway on the Sabbath, and an old Jewish legend even links the choice of "the day of Saturn" as the official Jewish rest day with the superstition that it would be an inauspicious day for doing any work anyway! (New York: The Free Press, 1985, p. 17).

Commerce and the Sabbath

On page 11 Zerubavel makes some interesting comments about the Jewish divorcement of YEHOVAH's true Sabbath day from the lunar phases --

...the dissociation of the week from a natural cycle such as THE WAXING AND WANING OF THE MOON can be seen as part of a general movement toward introducing asupranatural deity. Not being personified as any particular natural force, the Jewish god was to be regarded as untouched by nature in any way. Accordingly, the day dedicated to this god was to be regarded as part of a divine temporal pattern that transcends even nature itself. That obviously involved DISSOCIATING THE WEEK FROM NATURE AND ITS RYTHMS. Only by being based on an entirely artificial mathematical rhythm could the Sabbath observance BECOME TOTALLY INDEPENDENT OF THE LUNAR OR ANY OTHER NATURAL CYCLE.

Zerubavel goes on to say that

A continuous seven-day cycle that runs throughout history paying no attention whatsoever to the moon and its phases is a distinctly JEWISH INVENTION. Moreover, the dissociation of the seven-day week from nature has been one of the most significant contributions of Judaism to civilization. Like the invention of the mechanical clock some 1,500 years later, it facilitates the establishment of what Lewis Mumford identified as "mechanical periodicity," thus essentially increasing the distance between human beings and nature. Quasi [lunar] weeks and [continuous] weeks actually represent TWO FUNDAMENTALLY DISTINCT MODES OF TEMPORAL ORGANIZATION OF HUMAN LIFE, the former involving partial adaptation to nature, and the latter stressing TOTAL EMANCIPATION FROM IT. The invention of the continuous week was therefore one of the most significant breakthroughs in human beings' attempts to BREAK AWAY from being prisoners of nature [and from under God's law] and create a social world of their own (The Seven Day Circle, p. 11).

The author further expounds, on page 8 of his book –

...the establishment of a seven-day week based on the regular observance of the Sabbath IS A DISTINCTIVELY JEWISH CONTRIBUTION [?] TO CIVILIZATION...it is crucial to remember that the ANCIENT DWELLERS OF MESOPOTAMIA themselves did not have a real seven-day week [as we know it today]. While...the seven-day intervals entailed in the regular observance of the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the lunar month...served as the model for the Jewish week, they themselves cannot be considered weeks. Such intervals, which I shall call quasi-weeks, undoubtedly bear a striking resemblance to the week and are often mistaken for it. Nevertheless, they are an essentially different phenomenon.

One of the most distinctive features of the [present] week is the fact that it is entirely dissociated from the lunar cycle. It is essentially defined as a precise multiple of the day, quite independently of the lunar month. Quasi [lunar] weeks, on the other hand, are generally defined as rough approximations of fractions of the lunar month, and are appropriately called "lunar weeks" by Francis H. Colson (ibid.).

Zerubavel concludes by saying that

...the indispensability of a CONTINUOUS week for the establishment of settled life with a high level of social organization, [was] particularly significant since the RISE OF A MARKET ECONOMY, which involved orderly contact on regular recurrent, periodic market days. Only by establishing a weekly cycle of an unvarying, standard length could society guarantee that the continuity of its life would never be interrupted by natural phenomena such as the lunar cycle. The DISSOCIATION OF THE WEEK FROM THE LUNAR CYCLE, is, therefore, the most significant breakthrough in the evolution of this cycle from its somewhat rudimentary and imperfect [?] predecessor. Only by defining the week as a precise multiple of the day, rather than...a fraction of the lunar month, could human beings permanently avoid the problem of having to handle LOOSE REMAINDERS and, thus, introduce into their lives the sort of temporal regularity that they could never attain with the quasi [lunar] week (The Seven Day Circle, p. 10).

Yehowah cause the Shabbat and the Feast (meodim) to be forgotten by Yehudah first:
Lam 2:5 יהוה was as an enemy: he hath swallowed up Israel, he hath swallowed up all her palaces: he hath destroyed his strong holds, and hath increased in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

Lam 2:6 And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden: he hath destroyed his places of the assembly: יהוה hath caused the solemn feasts (moedim) and Sabbaths to be forgotten* in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

* Forgotten:H7911 שָׁכַח shakach (shaw-kach') v.
שָׁכֵחַ shakeach (shaw-kay'-ach)
to mislay, i.e. to be oblivious of, from want of memory or attention.

Second to Ephraim (the House of Ysrael)

Hos 2:10 And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.

Hos 2:11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease*, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.

*It is interesting to see that the Hebrew word for « cease » is « shabbat ». So we can read:
Hos 2:10 And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand.

Hos 2:11 I will also cause all her mirth to shabbat (rest from), her feast days (moedim), her new moons (chodesh), and her Sabbaths (shabbot), and all her solemn feasts.

In fact Ephraim exiled and scattered in the four corners of the earth adopted the traditoins of the pagans including the « sun-day » worship, and pagans feast.

THE SEASONS:

The Calendar was marked by the counting of Jubilee, “the fifth week in the fifth year”

Jasher chapter 4: 12. And at that time the sons of men sowed the ground, and a little food was produced, yet the sons of men did not turn from their evil ways, and they trespassed and rebelled against God.

13. And the wife of Lamech conceived and bare him a son at that time, at the revolution of the year*.

Jasher 6: 37. And Yehowah hearkened to the voice of Noah, and said to him, When though shalt have completed a full year thou shalt then go forth.

38. And at the revolution of the year (tekufa), when a full year was completed to Noah's dwelling in the ark, the waters were dried from off the earth, and Noah put off the covering of the ark.

39. At that time, on the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was dry, but Noah and his sons, and those that were with him, did not go out from the ark until the

Lord told them.

Jasher tell us that Noah put off the covering “at the revolution of the year (tekufa), when a full year was completed to Noah's dwelling in the ark”

The term “revolution of the year” in Hebrew is “Tekufah” and is so described in Judaism:

Tekufot (Hebrew: תקופות, singular: tekufa) are the four seasons of the year recognized byTalmud writers. The four tekufot are:

1. Tekufat Nisan, the vernal equinox (March 21), when the sun enters Aries; this is the beginning of spring, or "eit hazera" (seed-time), when day and night are equal.

2. Tekufat Tammuz, the summer solstice(June 21), when the sun enters Cancer; this is the summer season, or "et ha-katsir" (harvest-time), when the day is the longest in the year.

3. Tekufat Tishrei, the autumnal equinox(Sept. 23), when the sun enters Libra, and autumn, or "et ha-batsir" (vintage-time), begins, and when the day again equals the night.

4. Tekufat Tevet, the winter solstice (Dec. 22), when the sun enters Capricornus; this is the beginning of winter, or "et ha-ḥoref" (winter-time),^[1] when the night is the longest during the year.

It is written: “recognized by Talmud writers”, but does the Torah speaks of four seasons?

Gen 8:22 as long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest (two seasons), and cold and heat (two seasons), and winter and summer (two seasons), and day and night shall not cease.”

It seems that Yehowah sorted two seasons out and not four!

But what is “tekufa” in scriptures and what use it has?

Exo 34:22 “And perform the Festival of Weeks (Shavuot) for yourself, of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering (Succoth) at the turn of the year (Shana Tekufah)

Tekufah:

H8622 תְּקוּפָה תְּקוּפָה tquwphah (tek-oo-faw') (or tquphah {tek-oo-faw'}) n-f.

1. a revolution, i.e. (of the sun) course, (of time) lapse

Revolution of the Sun. No mention of the « solciste » from Judaism.

The End of the Year is mentioned by Moshe to be at Succoth. That is really overwhelming.

Let see if we have another verse:

Exo 23:16 and the Festival of the Harvest, the first-fruits of your labours which you have sown in the field; and the Festival of the Ingathering at the outgoing of the year (Succoth), when you have gathered in the fruit of your labours from the field.

The outgoing of the year is here the word:
H3318 יָצָא yatsa' (yaw-tsaw') v.

1. to go out

In Psalm 19 we read:

6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit (tekufah) unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

Tekufah in 2Chronicles 24:23 and Tekufah in 1Samuel 1:20

2Ch 24:23 And it came to be, at the turn of the year (tekufah), that the army of Aram came up against him. And they came into Yehuḏah and Yerushalayim, and destroyed all the rulers of the people from among the people, and sent all their spoil to the sovereign of Darmeseq.

1Sa 1:20 And it came to be at the turn of days (tekufah), that Ḥannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Shemu’ĕl, “Because I have asked יהוה for him.”

Now let us go back to the question:

Why did Yehowah told Moshe that the First of the month ((chodesh) will be at the month Abib (aviv), did Moshe knew the calendar?

We have seen that until today Judaism call the seventh month “Rosh HaShana” literally “the Head of the year”.

The length of months:

Genesis 7:24
And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

According to the calendar of 12 months with 30 days each, utilized by Noah, this 150 day period consisted of 5 months. This is established in Gen. 8:3b, which states: "and after the end of the one hundred and fifty days the waters were abated." If we add these 5 months to the second month mentioned in 7:11, we come to the seventh month.

Genesis 8:4-5
And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on thefirst day of the month, were the tops [rosh; H7218] of the mountains seen.

From the 17th day of the 2nd month, to the 17th of the 7th month is exactly 5 months, in the 12 month, 30-day calendar.

Job:

Job 38:31-33
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or lose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth the Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?

Clarke gives us following information:

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades - The Pleiades are a constellation in the sign Taurus (letter alef which in ancient Hebrew is the bull). They consist of six stars visible to the naked eye; to a good eye, in a clear night, seven are discernible; but with a telescope ten times the number may be readily counted. They make their appearance in the spring. Orion may be seen in the morning, towards the end of October, and is visible through November, December, and January; and hence, says Mr. Good, it becomes a correct and elegant synecdoche for the winter at large. The Pleiades are elegantly opposed to Orion, as the vernal renovation of nature is opposed to its wintry destruction; the mild and open benignity of spring, to the severe and icy inactivity of winter.

Job 9:9 Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.

Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south - For this translation the original words are עשה עש כסיל וכימה והדרי תמן oseh ash, kesil, vechimah vehadrey theman, which are thus rendered by the Septuagint: Ὁ ποιων Πλειαδα, και Ἑσπερον, και Αρκτουρον, και ταμεια νοτου; “Who makes the Pleiades, and Hesperus, and Arcturus, and Orion, and the chambers of the south.”

The Vulgate, Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et Hyadas, et interiora Austri; “Who maketh Arcturus, and Orion, and the Hyades, and the innermost chambers of the south.”

The Targum follows the Hebrew, but paraphrases the latter clause thus: “and the chambers or houses of the planetary domination in the southern hemisphere.” (Clarke)

Arcturus — the great bear, which always revolves about the pole, and never sets. The Chaldeans and Arabs, early named the stars and grouped them in constellations; often travelling and tending flocks by night, they would naturally do so, especially as the rise and setting of some stars mark the distinction of seasons. Brinkley, presuming the stars here mentioned to be those of Taurus and Scorpio, and that these were the cardinal constellations of spring and autumn in Job’s time, calculates, by the precession of equinoxes, the time of Job to be eight hundred eighteen years after the deluge, and one hundred eighty-four before Abraham. (Jamieson, Fausset and Brown).

Did Job knew how many month in the Hebrew calendar?

Mazzaroth:

- Original: מזּרה

- Transliteration: Mazzarah

- Phonetic: maz-zaw-raw'

- Definition:

1. Mazzaroth

a. the 12 signs of the Zodiac and their 36 associated constellations

2Ki 23:5 And he put down the black-robed priests¹ whom the sovereigns of Yehuḏah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Yehuḏah and in the places all around Yerushalayim, and those who burned incense to Baʽal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations (matzaloth), and to all the host of the heavens..

- Original: מזּלה

- Transliteration: Mazzalah

- Phonetic: maz-zaw-law'

- Definition:

1. constellations

a. signs of zodiac

Today Judaism add a 13^th month depending on the year in order to keep the course of the feast. Does the TaNaHK support this view, only the counting of the added month is different?

2Ch 8:14 And according to the ruling of Dawiḏ his father, he appointed the divisions of the priests for their service, the Lĕwites for their duties, to praise and serve before the priests, as the duty of each day required, and the gatekeepers by their divisions at each gate, for so was the command of Dawiḏ the man of Elohim.

1Ch 24:7 And the first lot came forth to Yehoyariḇ, the second to Yeḏayah,

1Ch 24:8 the third to Ḥarim, the fourth to Seʽorim,

1Ch 24:9 the fifth to Malkiyah, the sixth to Miyamin,

1Ch 24:10 the seventh to Haqqots, the eighth to Aḇiyah,

1Ch 24:11 the ninth to Yĕshua, the tenth to Sheḵanyahu,

1Ch 24:12 the eleventh to Elyashiḇ, the twelfth to Yaqim,

1Ch 24:13 the thirteenth to Ḥuppah, the fourteenth to Yesheḇ’aḇ,

1Ch 24:14 the fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Immĕr,

1Ch 24:15 the seventeenth to Ḥĕzir, the eighteenth to Happitstsĕts,

1Ch 24:16 the nineteenth to Pethaḥyah, the twentieth to Yeḥezqĕl,

1Ch 24:17 the twenty-first to Yaḵin, the twenty-second to Gamul,

1Ch 24:18 the twenty-third to Delayahu, the twenty-fourth to Maʽazyahu.

1Ch 24:19 These were their offices in their service for coming into the House of יהוה according to their right-ruling by the hand of Aharon their father, as יהוה Elohim of Yisra’ĕl had commanded him.

We have seen that in Noah’s days, the months were 30 days long, so no problem to count and found the next month (chodesh). Now what about the Equinox?

Tekufah is the turning of the season which appears according to Yehowah in the Sping and the winter. Fall season and Winter (at the End).

The date are: September 20-21 and March 21.

Was it possible to know it in the time of Moshe?

We read in the book of Jasher concerning the time when Yoseph made himself known to his brethren:

Jasher 53: 19. And Benjamin said, Thy servant is knowing also in all the wisdom which my father taught me, and Joseph said unto Benjamin, Look now at this instrument and understand where thy brother Joseph is in Egypt, who you said went down to Egypt.

20. And Benjamin beheld that instrument with the map of the stars of heaven, and he was wise and looked therein to know where his brother was, and Benjamin divided the whole land of Egypt into four divisions, and he found that he who was sitting upon the throne before him was his brother Joseph, and Benjamin wondered greatly, and when Joseph saw that his brother Benjamin was so much astonished, he said unto Benjamin, What hast thou seen, and why art thou astonished?

21. And Benjamin said unto Joseph, I can see by this that Joseph my brother sitteth here with me upon the throne, and Joseph said unto him, I am Joseph thy brother, reveal not this thing unto thy brethren; behold I will send thee with them when they go away, and I will command them to be brought back again into the city, and I will take thee away from them.

Among the antiquities discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran was found a small clay tablet instrument may be similar as the one used by Benjamin, which Archaeologists have determined that this Qumran Sundial was used for the purpose of determining the Spring “tekufah”, the circuit of the sun, the vernal Equinox. It can be seen that this was a small portable clay instrument, which would have been clearly within the reach of common people and farmers.

Why did Yehowah told Moshe that the First of the month ((chodesh) will be at the New Moon in the Abib (aviv) month, did Moshe knew the calendar?

The word “Abib”means:

H24 אָבִיבּ 'abiyb (aw-beeb') n-m.

1. green, i.e. a young ear of grain

And Total KJV Occurrences: 8

• Abib, 6

Exod 13:4; Exod 23:15; Exod 34:18(2); Deut 16:1(2)

• corn, 1

Lev 2:14

• ear, 1

Exod 9:31

Exo 13:4 “Today you are going out, in the month Aḇiḇ.

Literally Exo 13:4 “Today you are going out, in the month of young ear of grain.

Exo 23:15 “Guard the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Aḇiḇ – for in it you came out of Mitsrayim – and do not appear before Me empty-handed;

Literally:

Exo 23:15 “Guard the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of young ear of grain – for in it you came out of Mitsrayim – and do not appear before Me empty-handed;

Deu 16:1 “Guard the month of Aḇiḇ, and perform the Passover to יהוה your Elohim, for in the month of Aḇiḇ יהוה your Elohim brought you out of Mitsrayim by night.

Literally:

Deu 16:1 “Guard the month of Aḇiḇ, and perform the Passover to יהוה your Elohim, for in the month of young ear of grain יהוה your Elohim brought you out of Mitsrayim by night.

Use as “corn”

Lev 2:14 ‘And if you bring a grain offering of your first-fruits to יהוה, bring for the grain offering of your first-fruits green heads (Abib) of grain roasted on the fire, crushed heads of new grain.

Who then commanded to look at the Abib of theBarley to determine the First month after the “New Moon”?

According to Karaite Nehemiah Gordon and those who claim the “Barley abib”:

. Barley believers add the following additional beliefs not found in the Torah

"Abib" refers to a certain stage of ripeness in the barley harvest.
"Abib" begins at the first new moon after the barley has reached this certain stage of ripeness.
Not just any barley will do - the barley ripeness in question is Jerusalem barley.

No mention of any of these points in the Torah.

The consequence of that is that it becomes doubtful if the Barely minchah (offering) is required for the Firstfruits offering, and not wheat?

I found something interesting before the Children of Ysrael left Egypt, but let us read what happened during the hail plague:

Exo 9:31 And the flax and the barley were smitten, for the barley was in the head (abib) and the flax was in bud.

Exo 9:32 But the wheat and the spelt were not smitten, for they were late crops.

The wheat and the spelt were late crops!

This make me to think, simply because in the same year, Moshe and the children of Ysrael left Egypt and Yehowah told him:

Exo 13:4 “Today you are going out, in the month Aḇiḇ

My question is: Who says that Yehowah was speaking of Barley, do we have any mention of barley in any of the four times it appears in the Torah? The answer is obvious and is: NO!

If we read carefully, we will see that the minchah (grain offering) for the Firstfruits is more to be from the wheat. Barley was again a tradition add later by the Pharisee and discussed in the Talmud:

Barley a food for animal and poor people:

Babylonian Talmud sotah 14a s'horah (Barley) was considered animal food and food for the poor people.

Is that what Yehowah required as a minchah (grain offering) pointing to Yehoshua as the Mashiach?

Even the rabbis argue in the talmud about the barley:

Talmud Menachot 84a, the rabbis argue wither it is Barley or wheat, because of the expression: "in the ear"

We are commended to bring the best for the minchah of the Firstfruits , not Barley, animal food, but "solet" (cream of the wheat) from "chittah"(wheat).

Another point is that the Children of Ysrael leaving Egypt will walk toward Mount Siani and received the Torah fifty days later at the time of Shavuot. This brings again the question which Minchah (Grain offering) they brought? For they couldn’t have brough Barley Abib, because it was destroyed.

You may argue with me, but we know that Moshe died at the age of 120 (D’varim/deut.34:5-7) and that they spent forty years in the wilderness:

Number 32 :13 And YHWH's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of YHWH, was consumed.

So we can easely conclude that Moshe was eighty year when they left Egypt.

But read more:

Act 7:23 “And when he (Moshe) was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Yisra’ĕl.

Act 7:24 “And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended and revenged him who was oppressed, smiting the Mitsrite.

And when did he came back to Egypt?

Act 7:30 “And after forty years were completed, a Messenger of יהוה appeared to him (Moshe) in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.

So, no dount that the barley was destroyed in the year the Children of Ysrael left Egypt.

Conclusion: We can easely say that when Yehowah told Moshe:” Exo 13:4 “Today you are going out, in the month Aḇiḇ”

He could have spoken of wheat and not barley! Interesting point.

Biblical Leap Years

The Biblical year begins with the first New Moon after the barley in Israel reaches the stage in its ripeness called Abib. The period between one year and the next is either 12 or 13 lunar months. Because of this, it is important to check the state of the Barley crops at the end of the 12th month. If the barley is Abib at this time, then the following New Moon is Hodesh Ha-Aviv ("New Moon of the Abib"). If the barley is still immature, we must wait another month and then check the barley again at the end of the 13th month.

By convention, a 12-month year is referred to as a Regular Year while a 13th month year is referred to as a Leap Year. This should not be confused with Leap Years in the Gregorian (Christian) Calendar, which involve the "intercalation" (addition) of a single day (Feb. 29). In contrast, the Biblical Leap Year involves the intercalation of an entire lunar month ("Thirteenth Month", also called "Adar Bet"). In general, it can only be determined whether a year is a Leap Year a few days before the end of the 12th Month.

But we don’t see any commandment from Yehowah or?

Where does Nehemiah Gordon got the “leap year”, not from the TanaHk!

Let us found out:

(Source Wikipedia):

The Hebrew calendar (הלוח העברי ha'luach ha'ivri), or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits(dates to commemorate the death of a relative), and daily Psalm readings, among many ceremonial uses. In Israel, it is an official calendar for civil purposes and provides a time frame for agriculture. The current year of the Jewish calendar (16 September 2012 to 4 September 2013) is 5773.^[1]

The Hebrew calendar has evolved over time. For example, until the Tannaitic* period (approximately 10–220 CE) the months were set by observation of a new crescent moon, with an additional month added every two or three years to correct for the difference between twelve lunar months and the solar year, and therefore, to keepPassover in the spring. The addition of the extra month was also based on observation of natural events, namely the ripening of the barley crop, the age of the kids, lambs and doves, the ripeness of the fruit trees, and the relation to the Tekufah (seasons).^[2]Through the Amoraic period (200 to 500 CE) and into the Geonic period, this system was displaced by mathematical rules. The principles and rules appear to have been settled by the time Maimonides compiled the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century.

Because of the roughly eleven-day difference between twelve lunar months and one solar year, the length of the Hebrew calendar year varies in the repeating 19-yearMetonic cycle of 235 lunar months, with the intercalary month added according to defined rules every two or three years, for a total of 7 times per 19 years. Seasonal references in the Hebrew calendar reflect its development in the region east of the Mediterranean and the times and climate of the Northern Hemisphere. The Hebrew calendar year is longer by about 6 minutes and 25+²⁵/₅₇ seconds than the present-day mean solar year, so that every 224 years, the Hebrew calendar will fall a full day behind the modern solar year, and about every 231 years it will fall a full day behind the Gregorian calendar year.

* The Tannaim (Hebrew: תנאים [tanaˈʔim], singular תנא [taˈna], Tanna"repeaters", "teachers"^[1]) were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 10-220 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 210 years. It came after the period of the Zugot ("pairs"), and was immediately followed by the period of the Amoraim ("interpreters")^[2]

The Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar, meaning that months are based on lunar months, but years are based on solar years.^[3] The calendar year features twelve lunar months of twenty-nine or thirty days, with an intercalary lunar month added periodically to synchronize the twelve lunar cycles with the longer solar year. (These extra months are added seven times every nineteen years. See Leap months, below.) The beginning of each Jewish lunar month is based on the appearance of the new moon.^[4] Although originally the new lunar crescent had to be observed and certified by witnesses,^[5] the moment of the new moon is now approximated arithmetically.

According to the Mishnah and Tosefta, in the Maccabean, Herodian, and Mishnaic periods, new months were determined by the sighting of a new crescent, with two eye witnesses required to testify to the Sanhedrin to having seen the new lunar crescent at sunset.^[14] The practice in the time of Gamaliel II (c. 100 CE) was for witnesses to select the appearance of the moon from a collection of drawings that depicted the crescent in a variety of orientations, only a few of which could be valid in any given month.^[15] These observations were compared against calculations.^[16] When thirty days elapsed since the last new moon, the witnesses were readily believed.^[^{citation needed}^]

At first the beginning of each Jewish month was signaled to the communities of Israel and beyond by fires lit on mountaintops, but after the Samaritans began to light false fires, messengers were sent.^[17] The inability of the messengers to reach communities outside Israel before mid-month High Holy Days (Succot and Passover) led outlying communities to celebrate scriptural festivals for two days rather than one, observing the second feast-day of the Jewish diaspora because of uncertainty of whether the previous month ended after 29 or 30 days.^[18]

In his work Mishneh Torah (1178), Maimonides included a chapter "Sanctification of the New Moon", in which he discusses the calendrical rules and their scriptural basis. He notes,

"By how much does the solar year exceed the lunar year? By approximately 11 days.* Therefore, whenever this excess accumulates to about 30 days, or a little more or less, one month is added and the particular year is made to consist of 13 months, and this is the so-called embolismic (intercalated) year. For the year could not consist of twelve months plus so-and-so many days, since it is said: throughout the months of the year (Num 28:14), which implies that we should count the year by months and not by days."^[19]

*This is due to the fact that Yehowah did put the sun 10 degrees backward as a witness for the healing of King Hezkiah.
2Kgs 20:8 And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that יהוה will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of יהוה the third day?

2Kgs 20:9 And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of יהוה, that יהוה will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forth ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?

2Kgs 20:10 And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees.

2Kgs 20:11 And Isaiah the prophet cried unto יהוה: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.

This « ten degrees » represent 40 minutes per day or 11 days in one year, this is why we add one month every 3 years to keep the Feast of Pesach in its spring season.

Leap months

The solar year is about eleven days longer than twelve lunar months. The Bible does not directly mention the addition of "embolismic" or intercalary months. However, without the insertion of embolismic months, Jewish festivals would gradually shift outside of the seasons required by the Torah. This has been ruled as implying a requirement for the insertion of embolismic months to reconcile the lunar cycles to the seasons, which are integral to solar yearly cycles.

When the observational form of the calendar was in use, whether or not an embolismic month was announced after the "last month" (Adar) depended on 'aviv [i.e.the ripeness of barley], fruits of trees, and the equinox. On two of these grounds it should be intercalated, but not on one of them alone.^[6] It may be noted that in the Bible the name of the first month, Aviv, literally means "spring". Thus, if Adar was over and Spring had not yet arrived, an additional month was observed. However, according to some traditions, the announcement of the month of Aviv could also be postponed depending on the condition of roads used by families to come to Jerusalem for Passover, adequate numbers of lambs to be sacrificed at the Temple, and on the ripeness of the barley that was needed for the first fruits ceremony.^[^{citation needed}^]

Under the codified rules, the Jewish calendar is based on the Metonic cycle of 19 years, of which 12 are common years (12 months) and 7 leap years (13 months). The leap years are years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 of the Metonic cycle. Year 19 (there is no year 0) of the Metonic cycle is a year exactly divisible by 19 (when the Jewish year number, when divided by 19, has no remainder). In the same manner, the remainder of the division indicates the year in the Metonic cycle (years 1 to 18) the year is in.

During leap years Adar I (or Adar Aleph — "first Adar") is added before the regular Adar. Adar I is actually considered to be the extra month, and has 30 days. Adar II (or AdarBet — "second Adar") is the "real" Adar, and has the usual 29 days. For this reason, holidays such as Purim are observed in Adar II, not Adar

What is the “metonic cycle”?

For astronomy and calendar studies, theMetonic cycle or Enneadecaeteris (fromAncient Greek: εννεαδεκαετηρις, "nineteen years") is a period of very close to 19 years which is remarkable for being nearly a common multipleof the solar year and the synodic (lunar) month. The Greek astronomer Meton of Athens (fifth century BC) observed that a period of 19 years is almost exactly equal to 235 synodic months, and rounded to full days counts 6940 days. The difference between the two periods (of 19 years and 235 synodic months) is only a few hours, depending on the definition of the year.

Considering a year to be ¹⁄₁₉ of this 6940-day cycle gives a year length of 365 + ¹⁄₄ + ¹⁄₇₆ days (the unrounded cycle is much more accurate), which is slightly more than 12 synodic months. To keep a 12-month lunar year in pace with the solar year, an intercalary 13th month would have to be added on seven occasions during the nineteen-year period (235 = 19 × 12 + 7). Meton introduced the cycle in circa 432 BC, but it was actually known earlier by Babylonian astronomers.(Wikipedia)

New year

Exodus 12:2 and Deut 16:1 set Aviv (nowNisan) as "the first of months":

this month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.

Nisan 1 is referred to as the ecclesiastical new year.

In ancient Israel, the start of the ecclesiastical new year for the counting of months and festivals (i.e. Nisan) was determined by reference toPassover. Passover begins on 14 Nisan, (Leviticus 23:4-6) which corresponds to the full moon of Nisan. As Passover is a spring festival, 14 Nisan begins on the night of a full moon after the vernal equinox. According to normative Judaism, the verses in Exodus 12:1–2 require that the months be determined by a proper court with the necessary authority to sanctify the months.^[21]

According to some Christians and Karaites, the tradition in ancient Israel was that 1 Nisan would not start until the barley is ripe, being the test for the onset of spring.^[22] If the barley was not ripe an intercalary month would be added before Nisan.

The day most commonly referred to as the "New Year" is 1 Tishrei, which actually begins in the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year. On that day the formal New Year for the counting of years (such as Shmita and Yovel), Rosh Hashanah ("head of the year") is observed. (see Ezekiel 40:1, which uses the phrase "beginning of the year".) This is the civil new year, and the date on which the year number advances. Certain agricultural practices are also marked from this date.^[23]

Josephus, in the 1st century CE, states that while -

Moses...appointed Nisan...as the first month for the festivals...the commencement of the year for everything relating to divine worship, but for selling and buying and other ordinary affairs he preserved the ancient order [i. e. the year beginning with Tishrei]."^[24]

Edwin Thiele has concluded that the ancient northern Kingdom of Israel counted years using the ecclesiastical new year starting on 1 Aviv (Nisan), while the southern Kingdom of Judah counted years using the civil new year starting on 1 Tishrei.^[25] The practice of the Kingdom of Israel was also that of Babylon,^[26] as well as other countries of the region.^[13] The practice of Judah is still followed.

In fact the Jewish calendar has a multiplicity of new years for different purposes. The use of these dates has been in use for a long time. The use of multiple starting dates for a year is comparable to different starting dates for civil "calendar years", "tax or fiscal years", "academic years", "religious cycles", etc. By the time of the redaction of theMishnah, Rosh Hashanah 1:1 (c. 200 CE), jurists had identified four new-year dates:

The 1st of Nisan is the new year for kings and feasts; the 1st of Elul is the new year for the tithe of cattle... the 1st of Tishri is the new year for years, of the years of release and jubilee years, for the planting and for vegetables; and the 1st of Shevat is the new year for trees-so the school of Shammai; and the school of Hillel say: On the 15th thereof.^[27]The month of Elul is the new year for counting animal tithes (ma'aser). Tu Bishvat ("the 15th of Shevat") marks the new year for trees (and agricultural tithes).

The Maccabeans period :

The Maccabean Period, also called the Hasmonean Period, or Period of Independence, lasted from 167 to 63 B.C. during which the land was ruled by leaders from the family of Judas Maccabeus. It ended when the Romans took control of the country in 63 B.C.

Where did the Jews got the moon calendar?

The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare the rosh chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell people when the month began.
The problem with strictly lunar calendars is that there are approximately 12.4 lunar months in every solar year, so a 12-month lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter than a solar year and a 13-month lunar is about 19 longer than a solar year. The months drift around the seasons on such a calendar: on a 12-month lunar calendar, the month of Nissan, which is supposed to occur in the Spring, would occur 11 days earlier in the season each year, eventually occurring in the Winter, the Fall, the Summer, and then the Spring again. On a 13-month lunar calendar, the same thing would happen in the other direction, and faster.
To compensate for this drift, the Jewish calendar uses a 12-month lunar calendar with an extra month occasionally added. The month of Nissan occurs 11 days earlier each year for two or three years, and then jumps forward 30 days, balancing out the drift. In ancient times, this month was added by observation: the Sanhedrin observed the conditions of the weather, the crops and the livestock, and if these were not sufficiently advanced to be considered "spring," then the Sanhedrin inserted an additional month into the calendar to make sure that Pesach (Passover) would occur in the spring (it is, after all, referred to in the Torah as Chag he-Aviv, the Festival of Spring!).
A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me'uberet (pronounced shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht), literally: a pregnant year. In English, we commonly call it a leap year. The additional month is known as Adar I, Adar Rishon (first Adar) or Adar Alef (the Hebrew letter Alef being the numeral "1" in Hebrew). The extra month is inserted before the regular month of Adar (known in such years as Adar II, Adar Sheini or Adar Beit). Note that Adar II is the "real" Adar, the one in which Purim is celebrated, the one in which yahrzeits for Adar are observed, the one in which a 13-year-old born in Adar becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Adar I is the "extra" Adar.
In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle, so that the lunar calendar realigns with the solar years. Adar I is added in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the cycle. The current cycle began in Jewish year 5758 (the year that began October 2, 1997). If you are musically inclined, you may find it helpful to remember this pattern of leap years by reference to the major scale: for each whole step there are two regular years and a leap year; for each half-step there is one regular year and a leap year. This is easier to understand when you examine the keyboard illustration below and see how it relates to the leap years above.

In all these commentaries we never see Yehowah commanding all these traditions!
Moon worship

moon worship, adoration or veneration of the moon, a deity in the moon, or a personification or symbol of the moon. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic rhythms of life and the universe. A widespread phenomenon, appearing in various eras and cultures, moon worship has engendered a rich symbolism and mythology.

The moon is viewed in terms of the rhythmic life of the cosmos and is believed to govern all vital change. The cyclical process of disappearance and appearance of the moon is the basis of the widespread association of the moon with the land of the dead, the place to which souls ascend after death, and the power of rebirth. The lunar governance of this cycle likewise leads to association of the moon and fate.

The mythology of the moon emphasizes especially those periods when it disappears—the three days of darkness in the lunar cycle and eclipses. Both are usually interpreted as the result of battles between some monster who devours or slays the moon and who subsequently regurgitates or revives it. The interregnum is interpreted as an evil period necessitating strict taboos against beginning any new or creative period (e.g., planting or sexual intercourse). In some areas loud noises are part of a ritual activity designed to scare off the moon’s assailant.

Lunar deities, gods and goddesses who personify the moon and its cycles, are comparatively rare. In primitive hunting cultures the moon is frequently regarded as male and, particularly in regard to women, is understood as a preeminently evil or dangerous figure. In agricultural traditions the moon is usually regarded as female and is the benevolent ruler of the cyclical vegetative process. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Archaeologists have uncovered temples to the Moon-god throughout the Middle East. From the mountains of Turkey to the banks of the Nile, the most wide-spread religion of the ancient world was the worship of the Moon-god. In the first literate civilization, the Sumerians have left us thousands of clay tablets in which they described their religious beliefs. As demonstrated by Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshipped a Moon-god who was called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the crescent moon. Given the amount of artifacts concerning the worship of this Moon-god, it is clear that this was the dominant religion in Sumeria. The cult of the Moon-god was the most popular religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Akkadians took the word Suen and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-God. As Prof. Potts pointed out, "Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the Semites. "

In ancient Syria and Canna, the Moon-god Sin was usually represented by the moon in its crescent phase. At times the full moon was placed inside the crescent moon to emphasize all the phases of the moon. The sun-goddess was the wife of Sin and the stars were their daughters. For example, Istar was a daughter of Sin. Sacrifices to the Moon-god are described in the Pas Shamra texts. In the Ugaritic texts, the Moon-god was sometimes called Kusuh. In Persia, as well as in Egypt, the Moon-god is depicted on wall murals and on the heads of statues. He was the Judge of men and gods. The Old Testament constantly rebuked the worship of the Moon-god (see: Deut. 4:19;17:3; II Kngs. 21:3,5; 23:5; Jer. 8:2; 19:13; Zeph. 1:5, etc.) When Israel fell into idolatry, it was usually the cult of the Moon-god. As a matter of fact, everywhere in the ancient world, the symbol of the crescent moon can be found on seal impressions, steles, pottery, amulets, clay tablets, cylinders, weights, earrings, necklaces, wall murals, etc. In Tell-el-Obeid, a copper calf was found with a crescent moon on its forehead. An idol with the body of a bull and the head of man has a crescent moon inlaid on its forehead with shells. In Ur, the Stela of Ur-Nammu has the crescent symbol placed at the top of the register of gods because the Moon-god was the head of the gods. Even bread was baked in the form of a crescent as an act of devotion to the Moon-god. The Ur of the Chaldees was so devoted to the Moon-god that it was sometimes called Nannar in tablets from that time period.

A temple of the Moon-god has been excavated in Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley. He dug up many examples of moon worship in Ur and these are displayed in the British Museum to this day. Harran was likewise noted for its devotion to the Moon-god. In the 1950's a major temple to the Moon-god was excavated at Hazer in Palestine. Two idols of the moon god were found. Each was a stature of a man sitting upon a throne with a crescent moon carved on his chest. The accompanying inscriptions make it clear that these were idols of the Moon-god. Several smaller statues were also found which were identified by their inscriptions as the "daughters" of the Moon-god. What about Arabia? As pointed out by Prof. Coon, "Muslims are notoriously loath to preserve traditions of earlier paganism and like to garble what pre-Islamic history they permit to survive in anachronistic terms."

During the nineteenth century, Amaud, Halevy and Glaser went to Southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean, Minaean, and Qatabanian inscriptions which were subsequently translated. In the 1940's, the archeologists G. Caton Thompson and Carleton S. Coon made some amazing discoveries in Arabia. During the 1950's, Wendell Phillips, W.F. Albright, Richard Bower and others excavated sites at Qataban, Timna, and Marib (the ancient capital of Sheba). Thousands of inscriptions from walls and rocks in Northern Arabia have also been collected. Reliefs and votive bowls used in worship of the "daughters of Allah" have also been discovered. The three daughters, al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat are sometimes depicted together with Allah the Moon-god represented by a crescent moon above them. The archeological evidence demonstrates that the dominant religion of Arabia was the cult of the Moon-god.

In Old Testament times, Nabonidus (555-539 BC), the last king of Babylon, built Tayma, Arabia as a center of Moon-god worship. Segall stated, "South Arabia's stellar religion has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various variations." Many scholars have also noticed that the Moon-god's name"Sin" is a part of such Arabic words as "Sinai," the "wilderness of Sin," etc.

The Worship of the Moon

Because of its size and also because of the events which accompanied the first appearance of the Moon, many ancient peoples regarded the Moon as the chief of the two luminaries. “The sun was of smaller importance than the moon in the eyes of the Babylonian astrologers.” ⁽¹⁾

The Assyrians and the Chaldeans referred to the time of the Moon-god as the oldest period in the memory of the people: before other planetary gods came to dominate the world ages, the Moon was the supreme deity. Such references are found in the inscriptions of Sargon II (ca. -720)⁽²⁾ and Nabonidus (ca. -550).⁽³⁾ The Babylonian Sin—the Moon—was a very ancient deity: Mount Sinai owes its name to Sin.

The Moon, appearing as a body larger than the Sun, was endowed by the imagination of the peoples with a masculine role, while the Sun was assigned a feminine role. Many languages reserved a masculine name for the Moon.⁽⁴⁾ It was probably when the Moon was removed to a greater distance from the earth and became smaller to observers on the earth, that another name, usually feminine, came to designate the Moon in most languages.⁽⁵⁾

References

1. C. Bezold in Boll, Sternglaube und Sterndeutung, p. 4.[In Babylonian cosmology the Moon-god Sin (Nanna) was considered to be the father of the Sun-god Shamash (Utu) and was commonly addressed as “father Sin” (S. Langdon, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms [1909), p. 193. F. Cumont noted the prominence of Sin in the earliest historical period in Babylonia and found it “remarkable that at first the primacy was assigned to the Moon.” (Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, p. 124; cf. Lewy, “The Late Assyro-Babylonian Cult of the Moon” ). According to the Dabistan (ch. 29), a Persian work of early Islamic times, the Ka’abah of Mecca was originally dedicated to the worship of the Moon. On Moon worship among the ancient Arabs, cf. also Tuch, “Sinaitische Inschriften,” Zeitschrift des Deutsches Morgenlaendisches Gesellschaft III (1849), p. 202, and Osiander, “Vorislamische Religion der Araber,” ibid.,VII (1853), p. 483. Cf. I. Goldziger, Mythology among the Hebrews and its Historical Development (1877), p. 72ff. The Greeks regarded the Moon as of greater importance than the Sun: “The sun’s subordination to the moon . . . is a remarkable feature of early Greek myth. Helius was not even an Olympian, but a mere Titan’s [Hyperion’s ] son.” (R. Graves, The Greek Myths[London, 1955] vol. I, sec. 42.1). Christoval de Molina(An Account of the Fables and Rites of the Yncas,transl. by C. R. Markham [London, 1873], p. 56) described sacrifices to the Moon by the natives of Peru in the sixteenth century. Also the Indians of Vancouver Island assigned greater importance to the Moon than to the Sun (E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture [New York,, 1929], p. 299), as did several tribes in Brazil (ibid.,loc. cit.)].

2. See Sargon II’s “Display Inscription,” lines 110 and 146: “since the distant days of the age of Nannaru.” Cf. H. Winckler, Himmels und Weltenbild der Babylonier(Leipzig, 1901), p. 31: “Die aeltere Zeit bezeichnet Sargon II als die Zeit der Nannar—eine Erscheinungsform des Mondgottes.” [A cuneiform text describes the first appearance of the Moon: “When the gods . . . fixed the crescent of the moon, to cause the new moon to shine forth, to create the month. . . . The new moon, which was created in heaven with majesty, in the midst of heaven arose.” R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (New York, 1912), p. 46.].

3. D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria (1926-27), II. 870; cf. J. Lewy, “The Late Assyro-Babylonian Cult of the Moon and its Culmination in the Time of Nabonidus,” Hebrew Union College Annual (19xx), pp. 443, 461ff., 486.

4. Yoreach in Hebrew, Sin in Assyrian, der Mond in German, Mesiatz in Russian, and so on. (source Varchive).

What do the prophets have to say?

Isa 2:6 For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Yaʽaqoḇ, because they have been filled from the East, and practise magic like the Philistines, and they are pleased with the children of foreigners.

Isa 2:7 And their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures. And their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots.

Isa 2:8 And their land is filled with idols; they bow themselves to the work of their own hands, to what their own fingers have made.

Isa 44:17 And the rest of it he makes into a mighty one, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my mighty one.”

Isa 44:18 They do not know nor understand, for He has smeared their eyes from seeing, and their hearts from understanding.

Jer 1:16 “And I shall pronounce My judgments against them concerning all their evil, because they have forsaken Me, burned incense to other mighty ones, and bowed themselves to the works of their own hands.

Jer 8:1 “At that time,” declares יהוה, “they shall bring the bones of the sovereigns of Yehuḏah, and the bones of its heads, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Yerushalayim, out of their graves,

Jer 8:2 and shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of the heavens, which they have loved and which they have served and after which they have walked, which they have sought, and to which they have bowed themselves. They shall not be gathered nor buried, they shall be for dung on the face of the earth

Eze 8:12 And He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Yisra’ĕl are doing in the dark, each one in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘יהוה does not see us, יהוה has forsaken the land.’ ”

Eze 8:13 And He said to me, “You are to see still greater abominations which they are doing.”

Eze 8:14 And He brought me to the door of the north gate of the House of יהוה, and I saw women sitting there, weeping for Tammuz.

Eze 8:15 Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? You are to see still greater abominations than these.”

Eze 8:16 And He brought me into the inner court of the House of יהוה. And there, at the door of the Hĕḵal of יהוה, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the Hĕḵal of יהוה and their faces toward the east, and they were bowing themselves eastward to the sun.

The proof of the 13^th month:
Quote:
The only place (that I am aware of) which gives any evidence for an intercalated lunar/solar cycle is found in the book of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 1-4, YHWH uses the prophet Ezekiel to give Israel and Judah an object lesson. YHWH instructs Ezekiel to lay on his side 390 days for the sins of Israel. He goes on to instruct him to lay on his other side for 40 days for the sins of Judah. These unusual instructions provide us a rare opportunity to define the lunar/solar calendar and its intercalations.

In the 5th year of Jehoiachin’s captivity, in the 5th day of the 4th month, Ezekiel was given commanded to lay on his left side for 390 days for the iniquity of Israel. Following this he was commanded to lay on his right side for 40 days for the house of Judah. This was a total of 430 days.In the 6th month of the following year after completing his object lesson Ezekiel was sitting in his house with some of the elders of Judah. From this gathering YHWH physically took Ezekiel and showed him the departure of the Shekinah from Jerusalem. (Eze. 8-10) There are three possible ways to calculate the amount of time between the 4th month of Ezekiel’s 5th year and the 6th month of his 6th year. They are listed in the chart below:

Only the 3rd option allows for the necessary time given the chronological evidence provided in the text. In order for Ezekiel to have lain on his side for 430 days, the 5th year of Jehoiachin’s captivity must have had an intercalary or 13th month. Incidentally this is of great value to the chronologist who is interested in synchronizing the lunar/solar cycle in terms of the macro chronological record. As far as I know this is the only place in the Scripture which provides evidence of an intercalary month. Contextually, this shows that during the captivity period the Jewish people understood time in the sense of an intercalated lunar/solar calendar. Their religious calendar was normally 12 lunar months of 29.53 days each followed by an intercalary or 13th month every 3 or 4 years.
In a symbolic sense the rising and setting of the sun regulated man’s labor and rest throughout the solar year. The lunar cycle on the other hand regulated the religious calendar and its mow’eds (appointed times). These two cycles were synchronized by the 13th Month. (excerpt from (the13numeration.com)

All these practices were learn from living with pagans and will more and more determine the way of changing the Torah among the Jews.

How is it with Ephrayim?

Hos 13:1 When Ephrayim spoke there was trembling, he was lifted up in Yisra’ĕl. But through Baʽal he became guilty, and he died.

Hos 13:2 And now they sin more and more, and make for themselves moulded images from their silver, idols according to their skill, all of them the work of craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who slaughter kiss the calves!”

Hos 13:3 Therefore they shall be like a morning cloud, and like dew that goes away early, like chaff blown off from a threshing-floor, and like smoke from a window.

Hos 13:4 “But I am יהוה your Elohim since the land of Mitsrayim, and an Elohim besides Me you shall not know, for there is no Saviour besides Me.

Hos 13:5 “I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.

Hos 13:6 “When they were fed they were satisfied. They were satisfied and their heart was exalted, therefore they forgot Me.

Now let us look in the New Testament if we can glean some information.

We know that Yehoshua in many occasion rebuked the Pharisee for their traditions, which were against the Torah

Mat 21:10 And as He entered into Yerushalayim, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?”

Mat 21:11 And the crowds said, “This is יהושע, the prophet from Natsareth of Galil.”

Mat 21:12 And יהושע went into the Set-apart Place of Elohim and drove out all those buying and selling in the Set-apart Place, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold doves.

Mat 21:13 And He said to them, “It has been written, ‘My House shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of robbers.’ ”

In another place Yehoshua says concerning the Pharisee:

Mat 23:1 Then יהושע spoke to the crowds and to His taught ones,

Mat 23:2 saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on the seat of Mosheh.

Mat 23:3 “Therefore, whatever they (He/Moshe)) say(s) to you to guard, guard and do. But do not do according to their (Pharisee) works, for they say, and do not do.

Mat 23:4 “For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders, but with their finger they do not wish to move them.

Mat 23:5 “And they do all their works to be seen by men, and they make their t’fillen wide and lengthen the tzitziyot¹ of their garments, Mat 23:6 and they love the best place at feasts, and the best seats in the congregations,

Mat 23:7 and the greetings in the market-places, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’

Mat 23:8 “But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi,’ for One is your Teacher, the Messiah, and you are all brothers.

Mat 23:9 “And do not call anyone on earth your father, for One is your Father, He who is in the heavens.

Mat 23:10 “Neither be called leaders, for One is your Leader, the Messiah.

Today we proclaim to follow the Torah as I was, be convinced I was on the right track until I came across a new challenge for lack of understanding, and which brought all my view on Yehowah’s calendar upside down.

Abib choice:

Conservative Seventh-day Adventists are drawn the term "Karaite" as they have come to believe that the Karaites had a layer of truth beyond that which was held by the Rabbinical Jews. However, before we buy everything purported by the Karaites today, please condsider the following: many leaders of the Karaite movement do not accept Yehoshua as the Messiah.

To further caution against the automatic credibility which the term "Karaite" carries among S.D.A's today, please consider the following quotation regarding the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) in 1844. Both Ellen G. White and Hiram Edson were given visions regarding October 22, 1844. These visions confirmed that this day was the Day of Atonement that year. This teaching is in direct opposition to the Karaite view. Karaites teach that September 23, 1844 was the Day of Atonement.

The typical Karaite viewpoint on this is stated most powerfully in a statement endorsed by Nehemia Gordon, himself (as it appears on the Karaite Korner website.) Robert K. Sanders, with Nehemia's endorsement wrote: “Yom Kippur 1844 was celebrated by the Karaites in September and not October is confirmed by a Karaite Tomb Stone inscription cited by Abraham Firkowitz in his book "Avnei Zicharon" (lit. 'Stones of Remembrance'. published Vilna 1872). Seventh-day Adventists have FAILED to provide any Karaite calendar or any documentation from the Karaite Jews to show their Day of Atonement was on October 22 and that it was a month later than the Rabbinical Date. S. S. Snow was wrong in setting the wrong date and Ellen G. White was wrong in endorsing it with her prophetic seal. Ellen's date of October 22, 1844 HAS BEEN IMPEACHED, AS WELL AS HER SANCTUARY AND INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT DOCTRINE.” (http://www.truthorfables.com/Day_of_Atonement_of_the_Karaite.htm)

We certainly could not disagree more! Clearly, the Karaite viewpoint is not one which Seventh-day Adventists can afford to buy hook, line and sinker. But, in addition to their blatant denial of the Seventh-day Adventist light on 1844, the Karaites also have inadvertently revealed a deeper inconsistency in their dating.



From the Nasa web site:





 Year      New Moon       First Quarter       Full Moon       Last Quarter          ΔT

1844 Jan 5 17:35 Jan 12 21:32 00h00m

Jan 19 18:18 Jan 27 12:31 Feb 4 08:43 Feb 11 05:22

Feb 18 08:46 Feb 26 09:58 Mar 4 21:02 Mar 11 13:20

Mar 19 00:17 Mar 27 05:02 Apr 3 06:58 Apr 9 22:09

Apr 17 16:32 Apr 25 20:17 May 2 15:17 May 9 08:23

May 17 08:53 May 25 07:30 May 31 22:48 t Jun 7 20:29

Jun 16 00:26 P Jun 23 15:25 Jun 30 06:17 Jul 7 10:50

Jul 15 14:23 Jul 22 21:13 Jul 29 14:34 Aug 6 03:27

Aug 14 02:32 Aug 21 02:16 Aug 28 00:34 Sep 4 21:43

Sep 12 13:17 Sep 19 07:52 Sep 26 13:14 Oct 4 16:29

Oct 11 23:25 Oct 18 15:16 Oct 26 05:05 Nov 3 10:19

Nov 10 09:37 P Nov 17 01:31 Nov 24 23:42 t Dec 3 02:08

Dec 9 20:13 P Dec 16 15:22 Dec 24 19:29

How can the Karaites arrive at such a firm date when there are no clear records of Jerusalem's barley harvest in the year 1844? That is a very good question. Not only are the Karaites sure that Yom Kippur was on September 23 of the year 1844, many Messianic Karaites teach that they can calculate the day of the week upon which Passover fell in Christ's lifetime. There are definately no barley harvest records going back that far! In these historical cases, Karaites switch back to the Vernal Equinox way of dating. Through using US Naval Observatory calculations, it is possible to accurately pinpoint the start of any year, even going back into the time of the life of Christ. And if you can pinpoint the start of the year, you can find any given feast day (such as Passover - upon which Christ died). This is because the US Naval Observatory is capable of pinpointing any Vernal Equinox and any new moon.

We need to consider following point when affirming that the barley Aviv is the beginning of Year:

There are three very serious issues which starting the year with the Barley doesn't address. Please consider these three considerations:

Consideration # 1: The Jubilee years had no grain planting - no barley

For two successive growing seasons (the Sabbath and Jubilee years), no grain was to be planted and, therefore, no maturing barley was available to consult (Lev. 25:1-24). True, barley sometimes sprouts and grows voluntarily with no cultivation, but this was less likely in the second year. It was illegal to reap volunteer grain in the 50th year, so Israel probably allowed their flocks to graze the fields. This was legal (Lev. 25:7,11).
Consideration # 2: Noah knew the beginning of year while the earth was covered with water - no barley

During the flood, Noah was able to determine the first day of the year without consulting a barley harvest. Genesis 8:13 “And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.”
Consideration # 3: During the Wandering in the Wilderness (40 years) Israel started the years - no barley

During the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness (a desert), Israel kept a careful record of the months and years - apparently without consulting the barley harvest in Canaan.

How Does the Bible Say to Calculate the Start of the Biblical Year? (excerpt from lightedway.org)

From the New Jerusalem Bible translation:

"God said, "Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate festivals, days and years" (Genesis 1:14).

From the New American Bible translation:

"Then God said: "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years" (Genesis 1:14).

If the heavenly lights are to be used to "indicate" years, they must be used to determine the start and end of the year. But how does this work? And is this Biblical? Or is this just another example of humans putting words into Scripture that simply aren't there?

For the majority of those who use the heavenly lights to determine the beginning of the Biblical year, it is the Vernal Equinox they look for as the key event. From there, some division in perspective follows. Some believe the closest new moon to the Vernal Equinox is the first day of the first month of the new year, while others believe that the first new moon after the Vernal Equinox is the first day of the new year.

Before we address which new moon (if any) surrounding the Vernal Equinox should be used as the first day of the Biblical year, let us first determine whether the Vernal Equinox is a valid starting point at all. Perhaps, it like the barley harvest is putting words in Scripture that simply aren't there.

But Vernal Equinox Isn’t In the Bible! Is it?

While it has been given a very pagan name, the celestial event which has come to be called "vernal equinox" is certainly a heavenly happening. And it has being taking place anually in the heavens since ancient times. But, this in and of itself is not compelling enough evidence to denote that this heavenly event is the one that begins the year as mentioned in Genesis 1:14.

"It seems to have been understood all over the world, from ancient times until now, that the vernal equinox signals the arrival of spring and the autumnal equinox signals the arrival of fall. ... Wait until the sun signals the arrival of spring at the equinox, then select the first visible new crescent for the beginning of months: ... the first month of the year to you." A Paper, "Does Close Count?," by Henry Wylle.

Having been a common denotation for the beginning of Spring also does not put the Vernal Equinox in a favorable position as being the indicator of the beginning of the Biblical year. The real issue is what does the Word of God say on the subject? But, before we go to the Word of YHWH on the subject, let us first be very clear about the science of the vernal equinox.

The equinox is either of two points on the celestial sphere at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator. Either of the two times during a year when the sun crosses the celestial equator and when the length of day and night are approximately equal; the vernal equinox or the autumnal equinox. The term "vernal equinox" is Middle English, from Old French equinoxe, from Medieval Latin aequinoxium, from Latin aequinoctium: aequi-, equi- + nox, noct-, night. Equinox literally means "equal days and nights."

To further understand this solar event, please consider the illustration above. The upper panel shows that on an equinox (which occurs twice a year: once in the Spring and once in the Fall), neither half of the Earth points directly towards the Sun. In fact, the Sun is at the equator, so both halves of the Earth are getting about the same amount of sunlight.

The bottom panel of the picture shows how the sun looks to someone standing on the ground at the equinox. The equinox occurs when the sun "crosses" the equator.

Having given a brief overview of the science of the equinox, let us now address the real issue at hand. Does the Bible tell us that the equinox is the marker for the beginning or end of the Biblical year? If so, this is the celestial event which denotes which new moon is the first of the Biblical year. If not, this cannot be the correct method for determining the year. The ultimate event must be Biblical if it is truth.

At first, it appears that there is no Biblical reference to the vernal equinox. It simply isn't there as any Bible student can confirm by searching the Strong's Concordance. But this is only how things appear at first. Instead of trying to find the vernal equinox term in the Bible going from English first, let us search for it in Hebrew. Hebrew words have multiple meanings and the translators of the Bible may have selected from any one of them when translating the original text.

The Hebrew word for equinox is tekufah. This word refers to the solstices as well as to the equinoxes. And notibly tekufah is in original Hebrew text of the Bible!

Tekufot (plural) means "seasons;" literally, "circuit, to go round." The four seasons in the year are called tekufot. More accurately, tekufotis the beginning of the four seasons. ...Tekufah stands for the true, not the mean, equinox. The tekufah (singular) of Nisan denotes the sun at the vernal equinox. The next tekufah denotes the summer solstice. The third tekufah denotes the fall equinox. And the fourthtekufah denotes the winter solstice.

The four Tekufot of the Biblical year are:

Tekufah Nisan or Abib, the vernal equinox (Spring) - This occurs when the sun enters Aries; this is the beginning of spring, or "eit hazera'" (seed-time), when day and night are equal.
Tekufah Tammuz, the summer solstice - This occurs when the sun enters Cancer; this is the summer season, or "'et ha-air" (harvest-time), when the day is the longest in the year.
Tekufah Tishri, the autumnal equinox - This occurs when the sun enters Libra, and autumn, or "'et ha-hair" (vintage-time), begins, and when the day again equals the night.
Tekufah Tevet, the winter solstice - This occurs when the sun enters Capricornus; this is the beginning of winter, or "'et ha-oref" (stripping-time), when the night is the longest during the year.

The original Hebrew word Tekufah appeared in four Scripture texts. Let us see if any of them refer to the beginning or ending of the Biblical year.

First use of Tekufah in Scripture - It is called the "end of the year"

"And it came to pass at the end of the year [tekufah], that the Syrians came up against him..." (2 Chronicles 24:23).
Second use of Tekufah in Scripture - It is referred to as the "year's end"

"And you shall observe the feast of weeks, even the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end [tekufah]" (Ex. 34:22).
Third use of Tekufah in Scripture - It refers to the whole circuit of the heavens as they progress through the seasons

"In them [the heavens] He has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs it's course with joy. It's rising is from the end of the heavens and it's circuit [tekufah] to the end of them, and there is nothing hid from it's heat" (Psalm 19:4,5 RSV).
Fourth use of Tekufah in Scripture - It refers to the time when Samuel was born

"And it came to pass, when the time [tekufah] was come about, that Hannah conceived, and bore a son..." (1 Samuel 1:20).

Of these four quotations, two use the term tekufah to refer to the end of the Biblical year. This appears to support the teaching that the vernal equinox is the end of the year from which we watch for the first new moon. The new moon following the vernal equinox, or more accurately the tekufah, is the first day of the new year.

But, there are a few missing pieces to be certain about this. First, Bible scholars agree that the Biblical year began in the Spring. In a statement found in the 1888 version of the Great Controversy, we find that this teaching was espoused by most of the early S.D.A. leadership as well (as is evidenced by this statement being included in this important book).

"ANCIENTLY THE YEAR DID NOT COMMENCE IN MIDWINTER, AS NOW, BUT AT THE FIRST NEW MOON AFTER THE VERNAL EQUINOX. THEREFORE, AS THE PERIOD OF 2300 DAYS WAS BEGUN IN A YEAR RECKONED BY THE ANCIENT METHOD, IT WAS CONSIDERED NECESSARY TO CONFORM TO THAT METHOD TO ITS CLOSE. HENCE, 1843 WAS COUNTED AS ENDING IN THE SPRING, AND NOT IN THE WINTER." The Great Controversy, 1888 edition, p 681.

Some have cast dispersions upon this Great Controversy quotation because Ellen White herself did not write it. While this is certainly true (she did not write the above quotation), it is incorrect to thereby assume that this statement was added to her book without her awareness and approval. In fact, as Sister White explains in her own words, all of the editorial statements added to her book were scrutinized by Mrs. White. Here is what she had to say about these editorial additions to her Great Controversy book (which includes the above quotation):

"A few days ago, I received a copy of the new edition of the book Great Controversy, recently printed at Mountain View, and also a similar copy printed at Washington. The book pleases me. I have spent many hours looking through its pages, and I see that the publishing houses have done good work... Some changing in the wording has been proposed (by the editorial staff). These changes I have carefully examined, and approved..." Ellen G. White --Letter 56, 1911

Now that we have established that the end of the Biblical year was in the Spring, the only missing link to be sure that tekufah is Biblically the event which ends the year is to link it to the Spring. Can this be done without twisting the Scriptures? The answer is yes. We simply need to view the 2 Samuel 11:1 quotation in additional Bible versions.

In the King James Version we plainly find that the Biblical year expires or ends at tekufah. It reads, "And it came to pass, after the year was expired (tekufah), at the time when kings go forth to battle..." (2 Samuel 11:1). The connection to Spring is found in more modern versions like the Revised Standard Version. In the RSV, this text reads, "In the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle..."Thus we have demonstrated Biblically that tekufah (called the vernal equinox in modern times) is indeed the end of the Biblical year.

Most Christians have heard of the significant finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls (largely found in Qumran - see the above map). But, many have not heard of a small, equally significant limestone device found along with the scrolls. Pictured below, archaeologists have determined that this Qumran Sundial was used for the purpose of determining the Spring tekufah (vernal equinox).

Uwe Glessmer and Matthias Albani, "An Astronomical Measuring Instrument from Qumran", The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformatted Issues, edited by Donald W. Parry and Euguene Ulrich (Boston: Brill, 1999), p. 442.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1944 edition, Vol. 4, states under "Calendar - Ecclesiastical Calendar" that "The Jews celebrated their Passover on the 14th day of the first month, that is to say, the lunar month of which the 14th day either falls on or next follows the day of the vernal equinox." Later in this same volume, under "Calendar - Jewish", it is stated that "The Feast of Passover, on 14 Nisan (Abib) could not begin before the spring Tequfah." The term Tequfah is defined as "the mean beginning of the seasons" - so the "spring Tequfah" referred to here is the vernal equinox. The Biblical year starts with the lunar month in which Passover (the 14th day of the month) falls on or after the spring equinox."

Tekufot in the Encyclopedia Judaica confirms this. It states, "The equinox occurs because of the (apparent) action of the sun. The earth, which is tilted 23.5 degrees, circles the sun, creating our seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter). The equinox occurs when the sun "crosses" the equator. The Hebrew word is tekufah, and refers to the solstices as well as to the equinoxes."

Additional historical confirmation for tekufah being the end of the Biblical year is found in the writings of Flavius Josephus and Philo Judaeus. Both of which were Jews contemporary to Christ.

“In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of our year, on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries, (for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians,) the law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover; and so we do celebrate this passover in companies, leaving nothing of what we sacrifice till the day following. The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month, and continues seven days, wherein they feed on unleavened bread...” Flavius Josephus

As is shown in the above picture, the time "when the sun is in Aries" is the tekufah or vernal equinox.

"Moses puts down the beginning of the vernal equinox as the first month of the year, attributing the chief honour, not as some persons do, to the periodical revolutions of the year in regard of time, but rather to the graces and beauties of nature which it has caused to shine upon men; for it is through the bounty of nature that the seeds which are sown to produce the necessary food of mankind are brought to perfection … Now wheat and barley are among the things which are very necessary…" Philo Judaeus. Translated by C.D. Yonge. "A Treatise on the Life of Moses, Book II, XLI." The Works of Philo Complete and Unabridged. Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

Excerpt from « inthatday.net »

The predominant viewpoint of lunar-calendar Messianic today, is that the eqionox was simply far too complex for ordinary ancient people to know or identify (apperception possibly influenced by the experience that today it is a fact that the common person has absolutely no knowledge of the heavenly luminaries and no expertise as to identify the exquinoxes), and thus deductively the argument follows that the sighting of the conjunction or sliver moon the obvious identification of the beginning of the months and the beginning of the years, thus the lunar conjunction/first sliver is authentic calendar rather than the equinox. This plain experience of the moon then provides first hand support to various theological treatises.

What Calendar Did Yehoshua Keep – Whose Report Will We Believe?

Abstract:

This paper demonstrates how astronomical, historical and biblical evidence directly points to Yehoshua’s Passover meal as described in Mark 14:12-26 as being:

Marked in fat, the possible date in the pagan Roman calendar for Yehosua’s death, in the month of Aviv, taking in consideration that none can be before the spring Equinox (march 20).All date from the Nasa: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/phase/phases0001.html

Phases of the Moon: 30 to 33
Universal Time (UT)

Year      New Moon      First Quarter       Full Moon       Last Quarter          ΔT       (Shabbat)               (Shabbat)    (Shabbat)

   30AD                                       Jan  8  11:58     Jan 15  11:07      02h51m

        Jan 22  11:39     Jan 30  10:17     Feb  7  01:04     Feb 13  18:35

        Feb 21  02:20     Mar  1  05:59     Mar  8  11:23     Mar 15  02:29

        Mar 22  17:46   Mar 30  22:18     Apr  6  19:42     Apr 13  11:34

        Apr 21  09:36     Apr 29  10:40     May  6  03:00 n   May 12  22:26

        May 21  01:12 A   May 28  19:33     Jun  4  10:09 p   Jun 11  11:35

        Jun 19  15:45     Jun 27  02:01     Jul  3  18:00     Jul 11  03:18

        Jul 19  04:48     Jul 26  07:23     Aug  2  03:26     Aug  9  21:20

        Aug 17  16:26     Aug 24  12:58     Aug 31  15:21     Sep  8  16:38

        Sep 16  03:13   Sep 22  19:58     Sep 30  06:27     Oct  8  11:38

        Oct 15  13:50     Oct 22  05:29     Oct 30  00:38     Nov  7  04:52

        Nov 14  00:41 T   Nov 20  18:15     Nov 28  20:33 n   Dec  6  19:23

        Dec 13  11:44     Dec 20  10:30     Dec 28  16:04

Year New Moon First Quarter Full Moon Last Quarter ΔT

31AD Jan 5 06:55 02h51m

Jan 11 22:52 Jan 19 05:37 Jan 27 09:20 Feb 3 15:45

Feb 10 10:14 Feb 18 02:00 Feb 25 23:34 Mar 4 22:36

Mar 11 22:19 Mar 19 21:41 Mar 27 10:55 Apr 3 04:30

Apr 10 11:32 Apr 18 15:06 Apr 25 19:59 p May 2 10:42

May 10 01:57 A May 18 05:36 May 25 03:30 May 31 18:29

Jun 8 17:05 Jun 16 17:16 Jun 23 10:18 Jun 30 05:00

Jul 8 08:19 Jul 16 02:35 Jul 22 17:21 Jul 29 18:58

Aug 6 23:07 Aug 14 10:12 Aug 21 01:49 Aug 28 12:19

Sep 5 13:19 Sep 12 16:54 Sep 19 12:47 Sep 27 08:11

Oct 5 02:51 Oct 11 23:43 Oct 19 02:59 p Oct 27 05:00

Nov 3 15:38 H Nov 10 07:52 Nov 17 20:13 Nov 26 01:04

Dec 3 03:27 Dec 9 18:24 Dec 17 15:19 Dec 25 18:43

Year New Moon First Quarter Full Moon Last Quarter ΔT

32AD Jan 1 14:14 Jan 8 07:53 Jan 16 10:36 Jan 24 08:49 02h51m

Jan 31 00:12 Feb 7 00:01 Feb 15 04:34 Feb 22 19:02

Feb 29 09:55 Mar 7 17:47 Mar 15 20:11 Mar 23 01:59

Mar 29 20:00 P Apr 6 11:58 Apr 14 09:00 t Apr 21 06:57

Apr 28 07:00 P May 6 05:37 May 13 19:09 May 20 11:33

May 27 19:16 Jun 4 22:01 Jun 12 03:14 Jun 18 17:20

Jun 26 08:57 Jul 4 12:40 Jul 11 10:17 Jul 18 01:38

Jul 26 00:05 Aug 3 01:13 Aug 9 17:31 Aug 16 13:22

Aug 24 16:24 Sep 1 11:39 Sep 8 02:03 Sep 15 04:53

Sep 23 09:14 P Sep 30 20:21 Oct 7 12:42 t Oct 14 23:56

Oct 23 01:32 P Oct 30 04:10 Nov 6 01:46 Nov 13 21:24

Nov 21 16:20 Nov 28 12:08 Dec 5 17:07 Dec 13 19:21

Dec 21 05:09 Dec 27 21:10

Year New Moon First Quarter Full Moon Last Quarter ΔT

33AD Jan 4 10:14 Jan 12 15:24 02h51m

Jan 19 16:09 Jan 26 07:51 Feb 3 04:21 Feb 11 07:42

Feb 18 01:49 Feb 24 20:20 Mar 4 22:20 Mar 12 19:37

Mar 19 10:38 T Mar 26 10:33 Apr 3 14:51 p Apr 11 03:45

Apr 17 19:09 Apr 25 02:19 May 3 04:54 May 10 09:20

May 17 03:59 May 24 19:15 Jun 1 16:19 Jun 8 13:50

Jun 15 13:57 Jun 23 12:41 Jul 1 01:42 Jul 7 18:42

Jul 15 01:56 Jul 23 05:38 Jul 30 10:06 Aug 6 01:14

Aug 13 16:33 Aug 21 21:14 Aug 28 18:34 Sep 4 10:38

Sep 12 09:42 A Sep 20 10:57 Sep 27 03:50 p Oct 3 23:51

Oct 12 04:16 Oct 19 22:42 Oct 26 14:17 Nov 2 17:13

Nov 10 22:34 Nov 18 08:45 Nov 25 02:03 Dec 2 14:01

Dec 10 15:10 Dec 17 17:29 Dec 24 15:19

1) a most significant lawful Passover and not a “last supper”,

The issue of the biblical calendar is not simply a central issue of passion to messianic but, at its highest level it is at the heart of all institutionalized religions of the so-called “Abrahamic faiths”, and as such the most significant theological issue second only to the deity of Yehoshua Messiah.

The Main Religions Avoid the Equinox From The Calculations Of Their Calendars
Historical Christianity determines their appointed weekly day of worship as Sunday, having replaced the Sabbath, and their date of Easter in their calendar is determined by the first Sunday which occurs after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The modern Christian calendar, based on the Roman Gregorian calendar, adjusts itself back to the vernal equinox with a leap month day every 4^th year.
In the Rabbinical Jewish calendar the determination of the beginning of the year is on the first conjunctive moon closest to the vernal equinox, thereafter counting conjunctive new moons, with a 13^th month periodically implemented to readjust to the calendar back to a close alignment with the vernal equinox when it drifts out some, three weeks or more.
In the Karaite calendar, there is no acknowledgement of the vernal equinox, and the calendar is determined by the visual sighting of the first “sliver” of the new moon after the identification of the “aviv’ condition of the wild barely growing in and around Jerusalem. Again, a 13^th month is kept periodically to re-adjust the drift of the calendar back to the times of the vernal equinox, given that the "avivi" condiition of the Barley is reached through as a biological response to the ratio of hours of sunlight and darkness - although they will not concur with that assessment.
It is interesting to note that all three religious calendars purposely avoid the significance of the vernal equinox as being directly significant to the anchor leap year adjustments of their calendars and all then proceed to differently define the various conditions of the moon to determine the beginning of the months and the appointed times of worship. To be noted is that all three of these calendars practice leap yearadjustments, which tacitly means that in the final analysis their calendars are steadilydrifting out of alignment of the equinox all the time and need to be readjusted from become totally out of season.
The issue at its core is that the Rabbinical and Karaite lunar year calendars can range from approximately 354 days through to 383 days (when a leap month is intercalated), whereas the physical astronomical year (one full 360 degree circuit around the sun) takes 365.242 days.
Some have written me to say that today the average person cannot pinpoint the equinox, therefore how could the ancients have had this ability to have knowledge of the astronomical year and the identification of equinoxes, yet archeology of the ancients bears a different testimony - for instance the mathematics of the great pyramid of Egypt presents a precise witness of the exact measure of 365.242 days in the astronomical year, and certain passages point a line precisely to the star Alcyone of the Pleiades cluster, identifying the precise time of the autumnal equinox in the year of 2144 BC.
How is it that modern archeological evidence reveal the ancients circumnavigated the world far more than modern academia understood, yet in the Hereford Cathedral of England there exists a world map from the 1300’s that shows the known world as flat and consisting of the Mediterranean and the lands of known Roman Empire, surround by a circular ocean, after which one would fall off the earth? The fact is the effects of the darkness of the dark ages that was brought about by Roman Christendom (Edom), are vastly still underestimated.
Not only that, but in more recent history, archeological artifacts from the dead sea scrolls recently released (after many decades of secrecy) indicate that the citizens of Judea in the time of Yehoshua Messiah were able to identify the equinox by the use of small portable clay tablet instrument.
The predominant viewpoint of lunar-calendar Messianics today, is that the equinox was simply far too complex for ordinary ancient people to know or identify (a perception possibly influenced by the experience that today it is a fact that the common person has absolutely no knowledge of the heavenly luminaries and no expertise as to identifying the equinoxes), and thus deductively the argument follows that the sighting of the conjunction or sliver moon the obvious identification of the beginning of the months and the beginning of the years, thus the lunar conjunction/ first sliver is authentic calendar rather than the equinox. This plain experience of the moon then provides first hand support to various theological treatises.
However, in amongst the antiquities discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran was found a small clay tablet instrument, which Archaeologists have determined that this Qumran Sundial was used for the purpose of determining the Spring “tekufah” (circuit of the sun, the vernal equinox). From the picture below, it can be seen that this was a small portable clay instrument, which would have been clearly within the reach of common people and farmers.

The above picture is from :http://www.lightedway.org/year.html from the reference :Uwe Glessmer and Matthias Albani, "An Astronomical Measuring Instrument from Qumran", The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformatted Issues, edited by Donald W. Parry and Euguene Ulrich (Boston: Brill, 1999), p. 442.

What Did Yehoshua Teach On The Subject?

In the New Testament scriptures there appears no straight forward easily understood clear plain teaching by Yehoshua Messiah on this subject of calculation of the biblical calendar.
This has had a significant impact by leaving a large degree of room for the Christian traditions to form their own opinions. From the Historical Christian tradition, the theological position has been that whilst the Gospels accounts clearly testify of Yehoshua and His Apostles arranged and had a Passover on the night before He was crucified, this was not in fact a authentic legal Passover but could only therefore be a last supper, since the Passover offering at the Temple – which held the authentic authority over the biblical calendar - had yet to happen the next day, when the Messiah would be hung on the tree. Thus to many the 14^th of Nisan was marked the next day with Yehoshua’s crucifixion along with the sacrifice of the lamb in the Temple, with the feast of Unleavened bread (15^th Nisan) yet to commence that evening.
This issue of avoiding the equinox was also well considered in early protestant evangelical theology as we can see from the writings of Newton, who when publishing his calculation of the year of the crucifixion of Messiah as being 33 or 34 CE stated:
“Computing therefore the new moons of the first month according to the course of the moon and the rule Jah, and thence counting 14 days, I find that the 14th day of this month in the year of Christ 31, fell on tuesday March 27; in the year 32, on sunday Apr. 13; in the year 33, on friday Apr. 3; in the year 34, on wednesday March 24, or rather, for avoiding the Equinox which fell on the same day, and for having a fitter time for harvest, on thursday Apr. 22,”
In this case Newton was referring to the “New Moons” as the conjunction moon, rather than the sliver moon, and he noted that when the conjunction fell on the day of the equinox – that day was to be avoided from any counting of the appointed times.
Why would Newton state that the day on which the equinox falls should be isolated from the counting to identify the date of crucifixion? He did so because he understood that this was the practice in place in the establishment of the calendar that in operation by the Temple, in the day of Yehoshua Messiah.
It must also be noted, that not only do the Sadducee/ Pharisee/ Rabbinical Jews isolate the equinox from their count of their calendar, but so also do the modern Karaite Jews in their counting of the “sliver” new moon, although the Karaite’s differ in that rather than following the conjunctive moon they substitute the equinox for the sighting of a condition of the barley and then focus on the sighted first sliver moon. In addition, it should also be noted that historical Christendom also avoids the equinox by identifying the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox for its declaration of the day of its Easter celebration.

But What Calendar Did Yehoshua Messiah Observe?

This is now a very significant question and brings us back to a careful and detailed consideration of the witness account of Yehoshua’s preparations and Passover account as witnessed by the Apostles. In Mark’s Gospel, there are significant details that need to be re-examined as they give evidence to the biblical calendar that Yehoshua observed in the year of His crucifixion.

Mark 14: 12 ¶ And the first (Strongs 4413 – “protos” meaning “before”) day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover?
13 And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him.
14 And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the goodman of the house, The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?
15 And he will shew you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us.
16 And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the Passover.
17 And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.
18 And as they sat and did eat, Yehoshua said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.
19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I?
20 And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish.
21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
22 And as they did eat, Yehoshua took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.
24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
25 Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
26 And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.

Summary:
We note that:

It was the day before the feast of Unleavened Bread according to the Apostles account, yet the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread as defined by the current temple practice was the next day, when Yehoshua would be crucified
Two disciples were sent to find a man carrying a water pitcher
They would follow that man to his quarters for Yehoshua’s Passover.
Yehoshua called this man ‘the good man”
That the disciples must tell him that Yehoshua would keep His Passover/Unleavened Bread (not a last supper) that night in the man’s guest upper room
That neither the Apostles nor the “Goodman” showed any protest in any way that this was the incorrect day for the Passover preparation for Unleavened Bread to be held, or that this was unlawful according to the law of Moses, or that they should rather only be doing this the following day, as was the recorded institutional religious practices of the Temple at that time where the Temple’s Passover Day of Preparation (Nisan 14) was the very next day.

The Identity of the “Good Man” who was Carrying The Water Pitcher

Many bible scholars have identified this “Goodman” man who was carrying the water pitcher as being an Essene. In both Mark 14:13 and Luke 22:10, Yehoshua commanded two Apostles to "follow a man bearing a pitcher of water". It is known that men in the 1st Century Judah did not carry water. Only women or slaves carried water in Judea. The Essenes carried their jars of water because of their personal practices of ceremonial washing.
Josephus presents a detailed account of the Essenes in The Jewish War (75 CE), with a shorter description in Antiquities of the Jews (94 CE) and The Life of Flavius Josephus(97 CE). Josephus claimed firsthand knowledge of the Essenes and he described the “Essenoi” as one of the dominant religious sects of Jewish philosophy alongside the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Josephus stated that the Essenes lived in communities within the cities in Judea and lived lives of piety, with some observing celibacy, the absence of personal property and of money, the belief in communality and commitment to a strict observance of Sabbath.
Josephus also stated that the Essenes ritually immersed in water every morning, ate together after prayer, devoted themselves to charity and benevolence, forbade the expression of anger, studied the books of the elders, preserved secrets, and were very mindful of the names of the angels kept in their sacred writings.
From the evidence of the Dead Sea scrolls that has been permitted to be made public, other scholars have noted that the Essenes were in fact were reflecting much of the tribal communities of the Levites in the cities of Judah, who had exiled themselves from participation of the rites of the Temple in those times because they viewed the Temple as having been taken over by unauthorized leadership and corrupted in its calendar practices. We know however that John the Baptist’s father, Zecharia undertook his course of duty at the Temple in the time around John’s birth so we know that not all Levites had exiled themselves from participation in the Temple even though it had been captured by a biblically unauthorized leadership.
We also know that in the time of Yehoshua, the Temple was dominated by the sect known as the Sadducees, who were not the Levites, but wealthy Hasmonean aristocrats that had taken power over the Temple after the time of the Maccabees. We also know that the positions of the priesthood in the Temple in the day of Yehoshua, such as Caiaphas the High Priest, were political appointees by the ruling Edomites, such as Herod, and later by the Romans.
Some biblical scholars point to John the Baptist as being qualified as the rightful high priest who should have been in position in the Temple in the day of Yehoshua , because he was a direct descendant of the line of Aaron.
Also to be noted is that the Essenes took specific issue with the Temple priesthood hierarchy stating that they were falsely claiming themselves to be the descendants of the Zaddock priestly line.

The Essenes Were a Significantly Large Constituency of People in Judea

It appears that the Essenes were not simply a small group of people in a few isolated communities in Judea as historical Christendom would like to have us believe. According to Josephus, the Essenes were "not in one city" but "in large numbers in every town" (Josephus , The Wars of the Jews. vol2.p 124). The Roman philosopher Philo also made similar mention of "more than four thousand" Essaioi living in "Palestine and Syria", "in many cities of Judaea and in many villages and grouped in great societies of many members.
Consequently the whole population of Judea would have known who the Essenes were, what they believed and what they practiced. Interestingly there was no sign of the common people wanting to rid themselves of the Essenes which would have happened if they were breaking the law of Moses, or if they were the mystical “Gnostics” that Historical Christianity would have us believe.
One perspective on the formation of the Essenes was that they were founded by a Jewish high priest, dubbed by the Essenes the Teacher of Righteousness, whose office had been usurped by one Jonathan (of a priestly but not Zadokite lineage), labeled the "man of lies" or the false priest".
This points to other historical information confirming that the Levites in the Second temple had been largely usurped sometime after the Maccabean revolt, when the Hasmoneans (an aristocratic wealthy class of Jews who emerge after the great Maccabean wars) and politically claimed the offices of the high / senior priesthood as part of the spoils of war in driving out the Seleucids.
Apparently, there was argument that arose that the Maccabees couldn’t be priests because they didn’t come from the Levites, but that consequently the Levites were pushed aside to a junior position and this take over and oppression of the Levites in the Temple resulted, with the emergence of a foreign priesthood class not qualified by the Law of Moses resulted in many (but not all) of the Levites rejecting the Temple and remaining in communities within their cities which came to be known as the Essenes. This separation was further promoted because the Essenes honored a biblical calendar which was different to the ruling Hasmonean priesthood, resulting in the keeping of different appointed times of worship. However the Essenes apparently still continued to honour the Temple itself in their taking up of their offerings. Have exiled themselves from the Temple, the Essenes worked mainly as farmers and shepherds in the cities of Judeah and made farm tools or household articles.
There is much that intrigues about the practices of the Essenes, since those who have studied them report that they followed a way of life that closely resembled the early messianic congregations of the Book of Acts. Some mention that the Essenes did not appear to present their sacrifices at the Temple on the days of the Temple calendar, because they believed the Temple calendar was incorrect and the appointed times profaned. However they apparently did present their offerings to the Temple revealing that the revered the geographical place of YHVH’s Name rather than the profaned institution. The Essenes reveal that in the day of Yehoshua, a radical challenge to the corrupt political hegemony of the Temple was already in existence.

The Essenes Kept a Different Biblical Calendar

The Dead sea scrolls give evidence that the Essenes observed the equinox and the earth’s solar circuit of the sun as the foundational count of the annual biblical calendar and the calculation of months and that they gave no acknowledgement whatsoever to the new moon lunar conjunctions or sighted slivers for the calculation of the months, nor did they observe the condition of the Aviv barley as espoused by contemporary Karaites. In the Essenes’ “Book of Jubilees”, also found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the practices of the lunar calendar by those who were in control of the temple is described in this way:
6:34. And there will be those who will make observations of the moon, for this one (the moon) corrupts the stated times and comes out earlier each year by ten days*. (35) And in this way they will corrupt the years and will observe a wrong day as the day of testimony and a corrupted festival day, and everyone will mix holy days with unclean ones and unclean with holy; for they will err as to months and sabbaths and festivals and jubilees.

*The statement “by ten days”, as we have seen is supported by the counting of Ezekiel. The Book of Jubilees is a specific book to the Essenes, whom Shaul/Paul warn because of their traditions:
Col 2:18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

Col 2:19 And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of Elohim.

Col 2:20 Wherefore if ye be dead with the Messiah from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

Col 2:21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Col 2:22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

From the Dead Sea Scrolls, we find that the Essenes revered the Book of Jubilees and considered it an authoritative text. The injunction of Jubilees 6:34 explains much as to why the Essenes, being the tribal Levitical priesthood who had been superseded and then subsequently chose exile themselves from their office and function of a corrupted Temple priesthood, refused to bring sacrifices up to the Temple on the days of religious calendar days that the Temple practiced.
Further historical evidence of this usurping of the Levitical priesthood is confirmed to us in the in the gospel accounts, that the Temple was controlled by the Hasmonean Sadducees and Caiaphas in Yehoshua’s day, as described. With the political hegemony that the Sadducees and Pharisees held over the Temple in an alliance with the infiltration of Edomites who eventually ruled the Jews through Herod, it is not difficult to understand why both John The Baptist and Yehoshua Messiah would ultimately be killed, because they would have both been highly regarded by the Essenes and the common people as front line leaders of the way of Moses.
Christian Theologians across the board have collectively told us that the Essenes were essentially Gnostics, and of course this label has scared many to seriously consider what they actually stood for in relation to the Sadducees and Pharisees. It is probable that in Yehoshua’s time they were not all gnostic in their ways, and that many Essenes would have followed the way of Yehoshua Messiah, leaving those who did not to remain behind and become more mystical and isolated in their communities as they continued struggled against the dominance of the Saduccees and Pharisees. Ultimately we know that with the Roman conquest of Jerusalem of 70 CE, the Sadducean hegemony over the Temple was destroyed, the Essenes were isolated into small communities in the wilderness, but the Pharisees consolidated their position as Rabbinical Judaism being able to quickly adapt to the exile. However 20 century Roman Christendom appears to have controversially guarded the Dead Sea Scroll artifacts from being made available to the public for many decades causing some commentators to argue that was a deliberate theologically motivated conspiracy and marks the most significant Christian controversy of the 20^th Century.
The book “The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception” details the explosive contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the Christian Church was concerned to suppress them. Whilst the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1945, it has taken 60 years for just some of the archeological information to leak out about these extraordinary people. Information has been released in little parts over the years with the last release of texts being occurring in 2011. It is not known what still remains under lock and key. What apparently was so shocking to the scholars who have examined the ancient documents presented evidence of Jewish sect practicing a faith in many instances congruent with the ethics of the early messianic believers and the Apostles, for nearly 200 years before John the Baptist and Yehoshua.
The Essenes believed in the resurrection from the Dead, and the keeping of the Law of Moses and they, specifically in contrast to the Sadducees and Pharisees were prophetically expecting the imminent arrival of the Messiah to come and redeem them. They lived in a way whereby they held all things in common with no private properties, as was the experience and testimony of the early congregation of Yehoshua described in the book of Acts.
It is significant to note that John the Baptist was ministering to the people of Jerusalem and Judea when he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees pitch up, whereupon he directly rebuked them both as being vipers and snakes, and he called on them to do some serious repentance back the scriptures.

Matthew 3: 5 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan,
6 And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 ¶ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
We remember that Yehoshua himself also gave admonishment to his disciples to watch out and beware leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees (Matthew 16:6).

We also know from the book of Acts that it was the Pharisees and Sadducees who, in the endeavor to preserve their hegemony, undertook actions to destroy the both the testimony and the individual people of the messianic congregation, as recorded in the martyrdom of Stephen.

The Essenes used the reference point of the Equinoxes and solcistes as the 4 markers of the year. Theologically the Essenes began counting their calendar from the first Wednesday (day 4) following the vernal Equinox(about March 20 Gregorian), given their understanding of the account of the creation, and consequently the 14th of Aviv the Day of Preparation for the Passover always fell on a Tuesday. This is a very significant point when we come to consider Yehoshua’s behaviour in choosing the day of preparation for His Passover as we saw previously record in Mark 14:12-26.

he Rabbinical lunar calendar we know today is derived from the foundational precepts of the practice of those who controlled the Temple in the time of Yehoshua – that being lunar based, whilst the Essene followed the astronomical equinox calendar, and it can be reasonably assumed that this calendar was also followed by many common people across the cities of Judea. The Essenes calendar was not a hidden or minor movement in that historical time and all of Judea at that time would have known about this calendar and how it differed from the Sadducean / Pharisee lunar calendar.
Hence, when Yehoshua said to his disciples they were to go and find the man carrying the water pitcher, who was “the good man” we now can understand that they knew they were looking for an Essenes, a Levite in the city who was living in the “Way of the Torah of Moses”, and that this man would be keeping a different calendar date for the Passover than to the Temple. Hence we do not find recorded in the scriptures any protest or comment being made by the Disciples that Yehoshua might have surprised them by electing the wrong date for His Passover.
We know that Yehoshua’s Apostles were mainly selected from among the supposedly religiously uneducated common people (as perceived by the Sadducean and Pharisaic perspective that is), and that the disciples were not surprised at Yehoshua command for His Passover date. The reality is that the common people including the Apostles were very familiar with the Torah of Moses and the writings of the prophets and the Essenes and their practises concerning the biblical calendar. What the common people and the Essenes did not know was what Yehoshua, as Messiah, would come to correct in His teachings of how Moshe was pointing to Him concerning “the Way, the Truth and the Life” in YHVH.
In addition, the Qumran materials point out strongly that the Essenes were apocalyptic in their worldview and were looking for imminent appearance of the Messiah who would come and redeem them and restore “the Way”, and having already experienced John the Baptist’s ministry, many would have already become disciples of John and clearly would then have been open to receive Yehoshua into their community home at his request that He would keep the Passover there in their residence. The Sadducees and Pharisees however would have rejected any request from Yehoshua to keep the Passover in their homes, particularly since their calendar dates were for the appointment to be a day later.
With Yehoshua commanding His disciples to go to the house of the water carrier ( the “good man”) He is very clearly demonstrating by His behaviour that He is in accord with the Essene calendar identification on that specific year for the Passover.
We do not have any evidence whether Yehoshua supported the method of how the Essenes began their count of their calendar on a Wednesday, since it will be shown below in that specific year the vernal equinox fell out during the daylight part of Wednesday, making the 1^st of Aviv to fall out on the Tuesday evening/night previous. But what we do know, is that when Yehoshua chose his Passover meal on the evening beginning Aviv 15, the Essene water carrier was there at the house on the very day and evening that Yehoshua chose to keep the Passover.
For the sake of repetition, it is important remember that neither a Pharisee nor a Sadducee would have accepted such a request from Yehoshua since they did not keep the solar calendar and their day for the observance of Passover would, from the account of the Gospels, only be occurring the following evening.
Consequently we now know from the history of the Essenes and the dead sea scrolls that the account of scripture that Yehoshua indeed kept His LAWFULL Passover, but it was on a calendar concomitant with the traditions of the Essenes, that was different to the lunar based calendar of the Sadducees and Pharisees.

Years of Confusion:
Clash of the Calendars

What we now call the year 46 BC was a very odd year in Julius Caesar's Rome. It extended for 445 days, and was nicknamed Annus Confusionus, "Year of Confusion."

This is the year that Julius Ceasar prepared for the introduction of his calendar reform, which offically began the following year. The extra days were added to 46 BC so the Julian Calendar could begin on a day that would ensure its conformity to the divisions of the solar year: mainly, the spring equinox.

But it is curious that we report, as a historical fact, that some period of time we call a "year" was 445 days long. Imagine how odd it would be to say that the noon-hour on a certain day lasted 90 minutes!

In reporting that 46 BC was 445 days long, we seem to acknowledge that historical years are not necessarily defined by our present conventions. We do not follow our own, Gregorian calendar and insist that 46 BC could only have been 365 days long, since that's how long years are--if they're not leap years.

Rather, our conception of historical time-periods like years seems to defer to the people who lived in those periods. The year in which they lived is to be defined the way they defined it. Yet, on the other hand, we don't defer totally to their conception of time, since they surely didn't designate that year as 46 BC.

A similar curiosity attends the odd months of Gregorian Reform. It is regularly reported that October 1582 was 10 days short: the 4th was followed immediately by the 15th. Similarly, September 1752 was 11 days short in Britian.

But notice this: Neither the earlier, Julian calendar, nor the later, Gregorian calendar, defines the month of October 1582 as having only 21 days. October always has 31 days in each calendar.

So when we say October had only 21 days in 1582, we must again be deferring to some definition or designation of the people who lived in that period of time. Yet if these people didn't follow either the Julian or Gregorian calendars in that year of the short October, then what calendar did they follow?

Suppose we say that the people in 1582 followed a unique calendar all their own: one with a short October. This suggestion emphasizes the idea that historical time is to be defined and designated by the people who lived in it. But in that case, we'll have to stop saying that the Gregorian calendar began in 1582. If we say no one followed the Gregorian calendar in 1582, this means it can only have been instituted in 1583.

On the other hand, we could say that the people in 1582 followed the Julian calendar for part of that year, and then followed the Gregorian calendar for the rest of the year. But when we say this, what do we mean by the "year" that was partly Julian and partly Gregorian? It couldn't have been either a Julian or a Gregorian year, since it had only 355 days. So what kind of "year" was 1582? (Answer: "A year of confusion.")

ROMAN CALENDAR BEFORE JULIUS CEASAR

The original Roman calendar is believed to have been a lunar calendar, which may have been based on one of the Greek lunar calendars.^[1] As the time between new moons averages 29.5 days, its months were constructed to be either hollow (29 days) or full (30 days). Full months were considered powerful and therefore auspicious; hollow months were unlucky. Unlike currently used dates, which are numbered sequentially from the beginning of the month, the Romans counted backwards from three fixed points: the Nones, the Ides and the Kalends of the following month. This system originated in the practice of "calling" the new month when the lunar crescent was first observed in the west after sunset. From the shape and orientation of the new moon, the number of days remaining to the nones would be proclaimed. At some point in history dates of months ceased to be connected with lunar phases, but it is unknown when it happened.

Calendar of Romulus

Roman writers attributed the original Roman calendar to Romulus, the founder of Rome around 753 BC. The Romulus calendar had ten months with the spring equinox in the first month: (Wikipedia)
The regular calendar year consisted of 304 days, with the winter days after the end of December and before the beginning of the following March not being assigned to any month.^[3]
The names of the first four months were named in honour of Roman gods: Martius in honour of Mars; Aprilis in honour of Fortuna Virilis (later Venus Verticordia in the mid-4th century AD).;^[4] Maius in honour of Maia; and Iunius in honour of Juno; The names of the months from the fifth month on were based on their position in the calendar: Quintilis comes from Latin quinque meaning five; Sextilis from sex meaning six; September from septem meaning seven; October from octo meaning eight; November from novem meaning nine; and December from decem meaning ten.

Calendar of Numa

Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven traditional kings of Rome, reformed the calendar of Romulus around 713 BC. The Romans considered odd numbers to be lucky, so Numa took one day from each of the six months with 30 days, reducing the number of days in the 10 previously defined months by a total of six days.^[5]
There were 51 previously unallocated winter days, to which were added the six days from the reductions in the days in the months, making a total of 57 days. These he made into two months, January and February, which he prefixed to the previous 10 months. January was given 29 days, while February had the unlucky number of 28 days, suitable for the month of purification. This made a regular year (of 12 lunar months) 355 days long in place of the previous 304 days of the Romulus calendar. Of the 11 months with an odd number of days, four had 31 days each and seven had 29 days each:
February consisted of two parts, each with an odd number of days. The first part ended with the Terminalia on the 23rd, which was considered the end of the religious year, and the five remaining days formed the second part.
To keep the calendar year roughly aligned with the solar year, a leap month, called the Mensis Intercalaris, sometimes also known as Mercedonius or Mercedinus, was added from time to time between these two parts of February, after the 23rd or the 24th. The second part of February was incorporated in the intercalary month as its last five days, with no change either in their dates or the festivals observed on them. The resulting leap year was either 377 or 378 days long, depending on whether Intercalaris began on the day after the Terminalia^[9] or the second day after the Terminalia.^[10] Intercalaris had 27 days, consisting of 22 additional days plus the five days brought over from February. Its Nones were on the fifth and its Ides on the 13th as usual; the next following day was a.d. XV Kal. Mart.^[11]
The Pontifex Maximus determined when an intercalary month was to be inserted. On average, this happened in alternate years. The system of aligning the year through intercalary months broke down at least twice: the first time was during and after the Second Punic War. It led to the reform of the Lex Acilia in 191 BC, the details of which are unclear, but it appears to have successfully regulated intercalation for over a century. The second breakdown was in the middle of the first century BC and may have been related to the increasingly chaotic and adversarial nature of Roman politics at the time. The position of Pontifex Maximus was not a full-time job; it was held by a member of the Roman elite, who would almost invariably be involved in the machinations of Roman politics. Because the term of office of elected Roman magistrates was defined in terms of a Roman calendar year, a Pontifex Maximus would have reason to lengthen a year in which he or his allies were in power, or shorten a year in which his political opponents held office. For example, Julius Caesar made the year of his third consulship in 46 BC 445 days long.

Julian calendar

Main article: Julian calendar

Julius Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus, reformed the calendar in 46 BC. The new calendar became known as the Julian calendar. The calendar reforms were completed during the reign of his successor Augustus, who renamed Quintilis as Iulius (July) in honour of Julius Caesar in 44 BC^[^{citation needed}^] and Sextilis as Augustus (August) in honour of Augustus in 8 BC.

Months

In the earliest times, the three reference dates were probably declared publicly, when appropriate lunar conditions were observed. After the reforms of Numa, they occurred on fixed days.

Kalendae (whence "calendar"), Kalends—first day of the month; it is thought to have originally been the day of the new moon. According to some ancient or modern proposed etymologies of the word, it was derived from the phrase kalo Iuno Covella or kalo Iuno Novella, meaning, respectively, "hollow Juno I call you" and "new Juno I call you", an announcement about the Nones or in proclaiming the new moon that marked the Kalends which the pontiffs made every first day of the month on the Capitoline Hill in the Announcement Hall.^[12]
Nonae, Nones—thought to have originally been the day of the half moon. The Nones was eight days before the Ides, and fell on the fifth or seventh day of the month, depending on the position of the Ides. (Nones implies ninth from the Latin novem, because, counting Ides as first, one day before is the second, and eight days before is the ninth).
Idus, Ides—thought to have originally been the day of the full moon, was the 13th day of the months with 29 days, but the 15th day of March, May, July, and October (the months with 31 days).

The day preceding the Kalends, Nones, or Ides was Pridie, e.g., Prid. Id. Mart. = 14 March. Other days were denoted by ordinal number, counting back from a named reference day. The reference day itself counted as the first, so that two days before was denoted the third day. Dates were written as a.d. NN, an abbreviation for ante diem NN, meaning "on the Nth (Numerus) day before the named reference day (Nomen)",^[13] e.g., a.d. III Kal. Nov. = on the third day before the November Kalends = 30 October. The value two was not used to denote a day before the fixed point, because second was the same as pridie. Further examples of date equivalence are: a.d. IV Non. Jan. = 2 January; a.d. VI Non. Mai. = 2 May; a.d. VIII Id. Apr. = 6 April; a.d. VIII Id. Oct. = 8 October; a.d. XVII Kal. Nov. = 16 October.
In detail, the system worked as follows:
Months were grouped in days such that the Kalends was the first day of the month, the Ides was the 13th day of short months, or the 15th day of long months, and the Nones was the 9th day (counted inclusively) before the Ides (i.e., the fifth or seventh day of the month). All other days of the month were counted backward (inclusively) from these three dates. In both long and short months (except February), there were 16 days between the Ides of the month and the Kalends of the next month, and the date referred to the name of the next month, not that of the current month; thus, for example, the date of the 16th day of March was a.d. XVII Kal. Apr. In intercalary years, the first part of February was terminated on the 23rd or 24th day, i.e., the day of the Terminalia or the following day, and the festivals normally held in the last five days of February were held instead in the last five days of the intercalary month, immediately before the Kalends of March. The first 22 days of the intercalary month were inserted between these two parts.
So:

In long months (31 days—March, May, July (Quintilis), and October), the days were divided into:

1st day of the month: 1 day for the Kalends of the month
2nd to 6th days of the month: 5 days before the Nones
7th day of the month: 1 day for the Nones
8th to 14th days of the month: 7 days before the Ides
15th day of the month: 1 day for the Ides
16th to 31st days of the month: 16 days before the Kalends of the next month

In short months (29 days—January, April, June, August (Sextilis), September, November and December), the days were divided into:

1st day of the month: 1 day for the Kalends of the month
2nd to 4th days of the month: 3 days before the Nones
5th day of the month: 1 day for the Nones
6th to 12th days of the month: 7 days before the Ides
13th day of the month: 1 day for the Ides
14th to 29th days of the month: 16 days before the Kalends of the next month

In ordinary years, the days in February (28 days) were divided into:

1st day of the month: 1 day for the Kalends of February
2nd to 4th days of the month: 3 days before the Nones
5th day of the month: 1 day for the Nones
6th to 12th days of the month: 7 days before the Ides
13th day of the month: 1 day for the Ides
14th to 28th days of the month: 15 days before the Kalends of March

In intercalary years, the days in February (23 or 24 days) were divided into:

1st day of the month: 1 day for the Kalends of February
2nd to 4th days of the month: 3 days before the Nones
5th day of the month: 1 day for the Nones
6th to 12th days of the month: 7 days before the Ides
13th day of the month: 1 day for the Ides
14th to 23rd days of a 23-day February: 9 days before the Kalends of the intercalary month
14th to 24th days of a 24-day February: 10 days before the Kalends of the intercalary month

The days of the intercalary month inserted in intercalary years (27 days) were divided into:

1st day of the intercalary month: 1 day for the Kalends of the intercalary month
2nd to 4th days of the intercalary month: 3 days before the Nones
5th day of the intercalary month: 1 day for the Nones
6th to 12th days of the intercalary month: 7 days before the Ides
13th day of the intercalary month: 1 day for the Ides
14th to 27th days of the intercalary month: 14 days before the Kalends of March

Some dates were also sometimes known by the name of a festival that occurred on them, or shortly afterwards. Examples of such dates are recorded for the Feralia, Quirinalia, and the Terminalia, though not yet for the Lupercalia. The known examples of such dates are all after the Ides of February, which suggests they are connected with resolving an ambiguity that could arise in intercalary years: dates of the form a.d. [N] Kal. Mart. were dates in late February in regular years, but were a month later in intercalary years. However, it is much debated whether there was a fixed rule for using festival-based dates. It has been variously proposed that a date like a.d. X Terminalia (known from an inscription in 94 BC) implied that its year 'was', 'was not', or 'might have been' intercalary.
When Julius Caesar added days to some months, he added them to the end of the month, so as not to disturb the dates of festivals in those months. This increased the count of all days after the Ides in those months, and had some odd effects. For example, the emperor Augustus was born in 63 BC on the 23rd day of September. In the pre-Julian calendar, this is seven days before the Kalends of October (or, in Roman style, counting inclusively, a.d. VIII Kal. Oct.), but in the Julian calendar, it is eight days (a.d. IX Kal. Oct.). Because of this ambiguity, his birthday was sometimes celebrated on both dates. See discussion in Julian calendar.

Nundinal cycle

A fragment of the Fasti Praenestini for the month of April (Aprilis), showing the nundinal letters on the left edge

The Romans of the Republic, like the Etruscans, used a "market week" of eight days, marked as A to H in the calendar. A nundina was the market day; etymologically, the word is related to novem, "nine", because the Roman system of counting was inclusive. The market "week" is the nundinal cycle. Since the length of the year was not a multiple of eight days, the letter for the market day (known as a "nundinal letter") changed every year. For example, if the letter for market days in some year was A and the year was 355 days long, then the letter for the next year would be F.
The nundinal cycle formed one rhythm of day-to-day Roman life; the market day was the day when country people would come to the city, and the day when city people would buy their eight days' worth of groceries. For this reason, a law was passed in 287 BC (the Lex Hortensia) that forbade the holding of meetings of the comitia (for example to hold elections) on market days, but permitted the holding of legal actions. In the late republic, a superstition arose that it was unlucky to start the year with a market day (i.e., for the market day to fall on 1 January, with a letter A), and the pontiffs, who regulated the calendar, took steps to avoid it.
Because the nundinal cycle was absolutely fixed at eight days under the Republic, information about the dates of market days is one of the most important tools used for working out the Julian equivalent of a Roman date in the pre-Julian calendar. In the early Empire, the Roman market day was occasionally changed. The details of this are not clear, but one likely explanation is that it would be moved by one day if it fell on the same day as the festival of Regifugium, an event that could occur every other Julian leap year. When this happened, the market day would be moved to the next day, which was the bissextile (leap) day.
The nundinal cycle was eventually replaced by the modern seven-day week, which first came into use in Italy during the early imperial period,^[14] after the Julian calendar had come into effect in 45 BC. The system of nundinal letters was also adapted for the week, see dominical letter. For a while, the week and the nundinal cycle coexisted, but by the time the week was officially adopted by Constantine in AD 321, the nundinal cycle had fallen out of use. For further information on the week, see week and days of the week.

Character of the day

Each day of the Roman calendar was marked on the fasti with a letter that designated its religious and legal character. These were:^[15]

F (fastus), days when it was legal to initiate action in the courts of civil law (dies fasti);
C (comitialis), a day on which the Roman people could hold assemblies (dies comitalis);
N (nefastus), when these political activities and the administration of justice were prohibited (dies nefasti);
NP of elusive meaning, but marking feriae, public holidays (sometimes thought to mean nefastus priore, "unlawful before noon", along with FP, fastus priore, "lawful before noon");
QRCF (perhaps for quando rex comitiavit fas^[16]), a day when it was religiously permissible for the rex (probably the priest known as the rex sacrorum) to call for an assembly;^[17]
EN (endotercissus, an archaic form of intercissus, "cut in half"), for days that were nefasti in the morning, when sacrifices were being prepared, as well as in the evening, while sacrifices were being offered, but were fasti in the middle of the day.

Years

Fragment of an imperial-age consular fasti, Museo Epigrafico, Rome

The calendar year originally began on 1 March, as is shown by the names of the six months following June (Quintilis = fifth month, Sextilis = sixth month, September = seventh month, etc.). It is not known when the start of the calendar year was changed to 1 January. Ancient authors attributed it to Numa Pompilius. Varro states that, according to M. Fulvius Nobilior (consul in 189 BC), who had composed a commentary on a fasti preserved in the temple of Hercules Musarum, January was named after Janus because the god faced both ways, which implies the calendar year started in January in his time, before the consular year started beginning on 1 January in 153 BC. A surviving calendar from the late Republic proves the calendar year started in January before the Julian reform.
How years were identified during the Roman monarchy is not known. During the Roman Republic, years were named after the consuls, who were elected annually (see List of Republican Roman Consuls). Thus, the name of the year identified a consular term of office, not a calendar year. For example, 205 BC was "The year of the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus and Publius Licinius Crassus", who took office on 15 March of that year, and their consular year ran until 14 March 204 BC. Lists of consuls were maintained in the fasti.
The first day of the consular term changed several times during Roman history. It became 1 January in 153 BC. Before then, it was 15 March. Earlier changes are a little less certain. There is good reason to believe it was 1 May for most of the third century BC, until 222 BC. Livy mentions earlier consular years starting on 1 Sextilis (August), 15 May, 15 December, 1 October and 1 Quintilis (July).
In the later Republic, historians and scholars began to count years from the founding of the city of Rome. Different scholars used different dates for this event. The date most widely used today is that calculated by Varro, 753 BC, but other systems varied by up to several decades. Dates given by this method are numbered ab urbe condita (meaning "from the founding of the city", and abbreviated AUC), and correspond to consular years. When reading ancient works using AUC dates, care must be taken to determine the epoch used by the author before translating the date into a Julian year.

Converting pre-Julian dates

The fact that the modern world uses the same month names as the Romans can lead to an erroneous assumption that a Roman date occurred on the same Julian date as its modern equivalent. Even early Julian dates, before the leap year cycle was stabilised, are not quite what they appear to be. For example, Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in 44 BC. This is usually converted to 15 March 44 BC. While he was indeed assassinated on the 15th day of the Roman month Martius, the equivalent date on the modern Julian calendar is probably 14 March 44 BC.
Finding the exact Julian equivalent of a pre-Julian date is complex. As there exists an essentially complete list of the consuls, a Julian year can be found to correspond to the pre-Julian year.
However, the sources rarely reveal which years were regular, which were intercalary, and how long an intercalary year was. Nevertheless, the pre-Julian calendar could be substantially out of alignment with the Julian calendar. Two precise astronomical synchronisms given by Livy show that in 168 BC, the two calendars were misaligned by more than two months, and in 190 BC, they were four months out of alignment.
A number of other clues are available to reconstruct the Julian equivalent of pre-Julian dates. First, the precise Julian date for the start of the Julian calendar is known, although some uncertainty occurs even about that. Detailed sources for the previous decade or so are found, mostly in the letters and speeches of Cicero. Combining these with what is known about how the calendar worked, especially the nundinal cycle, an accurate conversion of Roman dates after 58 BC relative to the start of the Julian calendar can be performed.
The histories of Livy give exact Roman dates for two eclipses in 190 BC and 168 BC, and a few loose synchronisms to dates in other calendars provide rough (and sometimes exact) solutions for the intervening period. Before 190 BC, the alignment between the Roman and Julian years is determined by clues such as the dates of harvests mentioned in the sources.
Combining these sources of data, an estimate can be computed for approximate Julian equivalents of Roman dates back to the start of the First Punic War in 264 BC. However, while there are enough data to make such reconstructions, the number of years before 45 BC for which pre-Julian Roman dates can be converted to Julian dates with certainty is very small, and several different reconstructions of the pre-Julian calendar are possible. A detailed reconstruction giving conversions from pre-Julian dates into Julian dates is available.^[18]
^{From
webexhibits.org}
The Romans borrowed parts of their earliest known calendar from the Greeks. The calendar consisted of 10 months in a year of 304 days. The Romans seem to have ignored the remaining 61 days, which fell in the middle of winter.
The 10 months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. The last six names were taken from the words for five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Romulus, the legendary first ruler of Rome, is supposed to have introduced this calendar in the 700s B.C.E.
According to tradition, the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius added January and February to the calendar. This made the Roman year 355 days long. To make the calendar correspond approximately to the solar year, Numa also ordered the addition every other year of a month called Mercedinus. Mercedinus was inserted after February 23 or 24, and the last days of February were moved to the end of Mercedinus. In years when it was inserted, Mercedinus added 22 or 23 days to the year.

How do you read the calendar?

In the calendar of the ancient Romans, the months contained three primary markers – the Kalends, the Nones and the Ides.
The Kalends were always the first day of the month.
The Nones were usually the 5th but sometimes the 7^th.
The Ides were the 15th but sometimes the 13th. All the days after the Ides were numbered by counting down towards the next month’s Kalends. The holidays were generally bunched together to form continuous celebrations, and the remaining days of the month were usually nondescript workdays.
The days were each identified with certain letters and names. The Kalends were always identified as shown in the diagram below. The archaic form of the K, for Kalends, was used in front of the name of the month. The first letter was called the Nundinae ("nine day") , or the Nundinal letter, and it represented the market day. Every 9th day (counting inclusively) was a market day, but as it shifted every year, a designated letter between A and H would represent the market day for that year. The final letter identifies the type of day for purposes of religious observance or legal business.

The first letter is the nundinal letter for the market day. If the market day for this year was E then this would be a market day. The second letter signifies the type of religious or legal observance required or permitted on this day. In this case the letter C represents dies comitiales, days when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters. The other letter designations :

F stands for dies fasti, days on which legal action is permitted.

N stands for dies nefasti, which meant that no legal action or public voting could take place on this day.

EN stands for endotercisus, or intercisus, which were "in-between" F or C days in which mornings and afternoons had different designations.

NP, the combination of N and P, represented some important type of religious observance of which all records have disappeared. However, they all seem to be directly associated with major holidays.

FP also represented some religious holiday, but no definition survives for this abbreviation.

The center diagram is a typical festival, or feriae. On these days the day letter follows the holiday name, which is abbreviated in these calendars. These holidays are explained in the write-up for each day.
The Romans enjoyed more holidays than the number of our holidays and weekends combined. Roman taxes were also only a tithe, or 10%. One of the hallmarks of progress seems to be that the populace is always made to work longer and, on top of it all, they are taxed more.

What were the Roman weekdays?

The Romans did not have weekdays in the same sense as our Monday, Tuesday, etc., however, they did have a defined markers within each month. Originally, the month and the markers were based on the moon.

At the time of their early kings, Roman months were of a length identical to the lunar cycle. Each month was divided into sections that ended on the day of one of the first three phases of the moon: new, first quarter or full. All days were referred to in terms of one of these three moon phase names, Kalends, Nones or Ides.
At that time a pontifex (priest) was assigned to observe the sky. When he first sighted a thin lunar crescent he called out that there was a new moon and declared the next month had started. For centuries afterward, Romans referred to the first day of each month as Kalendae or Kalends from the Latin word calare (to announce solemnly, to call out). The word calendar was derived from this custom.

Day of Kalends

Of the three sections, Kalends was the longest – it had more days than the other two combined. That’s because it spanned more than two lunar phases, starting from the day after full moon and continuing thru its last quarter and waning period, then past the dark new moon until another lunar crescent was sighted. The day of Kalends itself began a new month. It was dedicated to Juno, a principal goddess of the Roman Pantheon.
Unnamed days in the early Roman month were assigned a number by counting down following the day of each named phase, day by day, ending with the next of those three phases. The first numbered day in each section had the section’s highest value. Each succeeding day was one number lower than that of the day before. (Similar to the modern count-down when coordination of a group of people is required for a complicated activity such as launching a rocket.)
Latin for "the evening before" is "Pridie," a word that was used to refer to the day before each of these named phases. So Pridie was always the day that would otherwise have been numbered two. The count-down was inclusive; the day from which they started as well as that of the moon phase to which they were counting down, day one, were both included.

Day of Nones

Nones (Latin nonus or ninth) was originally the day when the moon reached its first quarter phase. When the pontifex initially saw the lunar crescent he noted its width and, using empirical knowledge, calculated the number of days that were expected to elapse between then and the first quarter moon. He then specified that number after he announced the new crescent. If he called out the number six, the day following Kalends would be referred to as the sixth day before Nones.
In any given year, the second day of Martius might well have been designated as the sixth of the Nones of March: "ante diem VI Non. Mart." If this were the case, Nones would be the seventh day and Ides would be the 15th day of that month. The difference between these two dates, eight days, was always the length of the Ides section.
Use of the word "Nones" (nine) was intended to express the inclusive number of elapsed days between first quarter and full moons. Actually, the time between moon phases now averages about 7.4 days, but they sometimes occur eight days apart. Eight-day separations of first quarter and full moons now usually come grouped in consecutive lunations. They then give way to mostly seven-day periods.
Six of the first seven lunations of 1997, for instance, had their first quarter and full moon phases eight days apart (inclusive nine-day spans). Also, July 1 of 1998 had a first-quarter moon followed by a new moon on July 9, a nine-day period. This helps explain why the unlikely term of Nones, meaning ninth, was used to designate one fourth of the moon’s period that now averages about 29.53 days.

Day of Ides

Ides, dedicated to Jupiter, was originally the time of the full moon. Because a full moon comes halfway thru each lunation, its day was called Idus in Latin from an Etruscan word meaning "divide."
After Ides, the next new moon was expected to appear in from 15 to 17 days. Variations in the length of time before another new moon can be sighted is due to constantly changing positions of moon and Earth relative to the sun.

When did they stop using the moon for months?

Romans separated their months from the lunar cycle in the fifth century B.C.E. Month lengths then became fixed. At that time, Ides was assigned as the 15th day in all months given 31 days in length – March, May, July and October. It was designated as the 13th day in all other months. As a result, from then on the Kalends section had from 16 to 19 days, the Nones section had either four or six days and the Ides section, as before, always had eight days.
Sometime after Kalends, Nones and Ides were fixed on predetermined days of the month rather than being defined by phases of the moon, Romans used letters A thru H on the left side of each month’s calendar column to indicate days of their eight-day marketing week. The first day of each new year was represented by the letter "A."

When did the early Roman calendar begin?

The early Roman calendar originated as a local calendar in the city of Rome, supposedly drawn up by Romulus some seven or eight centuries before the Christian Era. The year began in March and consisted of 10 months, six of 30 days and four of 31 days, making a total of 304 days: it ended in December, to be followed by what seems to have been an uncounted winter gap. Numa Pompilius, according to tradition the second king of Rome (715?-673? B.C.E.), is supposed to have added two extra months, January and February, to fill the gap and to have increased the total number of days by 50, making 354. To obtain sufficient days for his new months, he is then said to have deducted one day from the 30-day months, thus having 56 days to divide between January and February. But since the Romans had, or had developed, a superstitious dread of even numbers, January was given an extra day; February was still left with an even number of days, but as that month was given over to the infernal gods, this was considered appropriate. The system allowed the year of 12 months to have 355 days, an uneven number.

When did the Roman republican calendar begin?

The so-called Roman republican calendar was supposedly introduced by the Etruscan Tarquinius Priscus (616-579 B.C.E.), according to tradition the fifth king of Rome.
The Roman republican calendar was a dating system that evolved in Rome prior to the Christian era. According to legend, Romulus, the founder of Rome, instituted the calendar in about 738 B.C.E. This dating system, however, was probably a product of evolution from the Greek lunar calendar, which in turn was derived from the Babylonian. The original Roman calendar appears to have consisted only of 10 months and of a year of 304 days. The remaining 61¼ days were apparently ignored, resulting in a gap during the winter season. The months bore the names Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Juniius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December–the last six names correspond to the Latin words for the numbers 5 through 10. The Roman ruler Numa Pompilius is credited with adding January at the beginning and February at the end of the calendar to create the 12-month year. In 452 B.C.E., February was moved between January and March.
By the 1st century B.C.E., the Roman calendar had become hopelessly confused. The year, based on cycles and phases of the moon, totaled 355 days, about 10¼ days shorter than the solar year. The occasional intercalation of an extra month of 27 or 28 days, called Mercedonius, kept the calendar in step with the seasons. The confusion was compounded by political maneuvers. The Pontifex Maximus and the College of Pontiffs had the authority to alter the calendar, and they sometimes did so to reduce or extend the term of a particular magistrate or other public official. Finally, in 46 B.C.E., Julius Caesar initiated a thorough reform that resulted in the establishment of a new dating system, the Julian calendar.
He wanted the year to begin in January since it contained the festival of the god of gates (later the god of all beginnings), but expulsion of the Etruscan dynasty in 510 B.C.E. led to this particular reform’s being dropped. The Roman republican calendar still contained only 355 days, with February having 28 days; March, May, July, and October 31 days each; January, April, June, August, September, November, and December 29 days. It was basically a lunar calendar and short by 10¼ days of a 365¼ -day tropical year. In order to prevent it from becoming too far out of step with the seasons, an intercalary month, Intercalans, or Mercedonius (from merces, meaning wages, since workers were paid at this time of year), was inserted between February 23 and 24. It consisted of 27 or 28 days, added once every two years, and in historical times at least, the remaining five days of February were omitted. The intercalation was therefore equivalent to an additional 22 or 23 days, so that in a four-year period the total days in the calendar amounted to (4 x 355) + 22 + 23, or 1,465: this gave an average of 366.25 days per year.
Intercalation was the duty of the Pontifices, a board that assisted the chief magistrate in his sacrificial functions. The reasons for their decisions were kept secret, but, because of some negligence and a measure of ignorance and corruption, the intercalations were irregular, and seasonal chaos resulted. In spite of this and the fact that it was over a day too long compared with the tropical year, much of the modified Roman republican calendar was carried over into the Gregorian calendar now in general use.

What were the Roman months?

Much of the knowledge we now have about early Roman calendars came from Ovid, a Roman born in 43 B.C.E., and from Plutarch, a Greek biographer who wrote between C.E. 105 and 115. Both of them had access to historical documents that are no longer extant. Ovid claimed that his information was "dug up in archaic calendars," so it was already ancient over two thousand years ago.
We can assume that the Roman calendar was brought from their birthplace by Rome’s original citizens. Initially, it contained only ten months. It has been suggested that those month lengths reflected growth cycles of crops and cattle. When compared with the solar year, it had an uncounted winter period of approximately sixty days.
Plutarch said that months at the time of Rome’s founding were of varying lengths, some as short as twenty days and others with thirty-five or more in what early Romans believed was a year of three hundred and sixty days. Romulus, the legendary first king, was said to have made extensive changes to those month lengths, assigning twenty-nine days to some and thirty-one to others.
→ Read excerpt of Plutarch’s essay.

March (the first month)

Both Ovid and Plutarch said that Martius, originally the first month, was named after Mars, the Roman god of war. Six of the other original ten were simply numbered as Quintilis thru Decembris (fifth thru tenth) but there were already disagreements when Ovid wrote, two thousand years ago, as to the sources of names for what were originally the second thru fourth, Aprilis, Maius and Junius. These disagreements continue to the present time.

April

When writing about April, Ovid said "I have come to the fourth month, full of honor for you; Venus, you know both the poet and the month are yours." It was later said that "April was sacred to Venus, and her festival – the Festum Veneris and Fortuna Virilis – occurred on the first day of this month." Apparently Aprilis stems from aphrilis, corrupted from Aphrodite, a Greek name for Venus. Jakob Grimm, a later authority, opposed this stating it may have originated from the name of a god or hero named Aper or Aprus."

May

Maius was said by some to be named after the goddess Maia, a daughter of Atlas, and Junius "is indirectly named after the goddess Juno, the Roman equivalent of Frigga." But Ovid suggested that names of months we now call May and June possibly refer not to sky-gods but rather to elders and young men.

January (at the end of the year)

There was also disagreement in Ovid’s day as to the sequence and time at which Januarius and Februarius were added to the original ten months. Januarius became part of the calendar within half a century after Rome was founded because Plutarch said that Numa, the king who followed Romulus, made it the first month of the year and made February the last. One historian assigns that action an exact date by stating that "January and February were added to an original Roman calendar of only ten months in 713 B.C.E."
January was named after Janus, a sky-god who was ancient even at the time of Rome’s founding. Ovid quoted Janus as saying "The ancients called me chaos, for a being from of old am I." After describing the world’s creation, he again quoted Janus: "It was then that I, till that time a mere ball, a shapeless lump, assumed the face and members of a god." A Lydian named Joannes identified Janus as a planet when he wrote: "Our own Philadelphia still preserves a trace of the ancient belief. On the first day of the month there goes in procession no less a personage than Janus himself, dressed up in a two-faced mask, and people call him Saturnus, identifying him with Kronos."
Early Romans believed that the beginning of each day, month and year were sacred to Janus. They thought he opened the gates of heaven at dawn to let out the morning, and that he closed them at dusk. This eventually led to his worship as the god of all doors, gates, and entrances.
Some say Februarius got its name from a goatskin thong called a februa ("means of purification.") On the 15th day of this month Romans observed the festival of Lupercalia. During the festival, a februa was wielded by priests who used it to beat women in the belief that it would make a barren woman fertile. However, there’s a Latin verb februare, meaning to "expiate" or "purify." It seems more reasonable to assume the purification people had in mind when naming the month was that of the calendar year’s length, not that of women upon whom the thong was applied.

Februrary (at the end of the year)

Apparently Februarius, when adopted, had but 23 days – traditionally the 23rd day of that month was the end of the calendar year. That indicates Februarius was observed in pre-Romulan times when months had as few as twenty days. Also, adding five days at year-end (to extend February’s length to 28) is similar to the change made by many other peoples who, around the time of Rome’s founding, added five days to their own calendar, but considered them to be unlucky and not part of the normal year.

Why is our leap day in Februrary, not the end of the year?

Romans always reconciled differences between calendar and solar year lengths during the "Month of Purification." Whenever and however Roman calendars were modified to correspond to year length, it was always done after the 23rd day of February, traditionally the last day of the year. Even in our time, leap year is observed with a 29-day February. To purists, "leap day" is February 24, not the 29th.
Plutarch wrote: "Numa...added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of twenty-two days, and called by the Romans the month Mercedinus. This amendment, however, itself, in course of time, came to need other amendments." (When observed, that leap month always immediately followed February 23.)
According to historian Livy, Numa divided the year into twelve months, corresponding to the moon’s revolutions. But as the moon does not complete thirty days in each month, and so there are fewer days in the lunar year than in that measured by the course of the sun, he interpolated intercalary months and so arranged them that every twentieth year the days should coincide with the same position of the sun as when they started, the whole twenty years being thus complete. He also established a distinction between the days on which legal business could be transacted and those on which it could not, because it would sometimes be advisable that there should be no business transacted with the people.
Others claim that it wasn’t until 452 B.C.E. that a month named Intercalaris was added to the Roman calendar in order to add those days required to bring calendar length back into phase with the solar year. This month also began after the 23rd day of Februarius. It was observed every second year and was said to have had a length of either 22 or 23 days, with the remaining five days of Februarius added after them.

Beware the Ides of March!

SOOTHSAYER.	Caesar!
CAESAR.	Ha! Who calls?
CASCA.	Bid every noise be still.–Peace yet again!
	[Music ceases.]
CAESAR.	Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music, Cry "Caesar"! Speak, Caesar is turn’d to hear.
SOOTHSAYER.	Beware the Ides of March.
CAESAR.	What man is that?
BRUTUS.	A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.
CAESAR.	Set him before me; let me see his face.
CASSIUS.	Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.
CAESAR.	What say'st thou to me now? Speak once again.
SOOTHSAYER.	Beware the Ides of March.
CAESAR.	He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.
	[Sennet. Exeunt all but BRUTUS and CASSIUS.]

If you’ve heard the warning, "Beware the Ides of March," then it’s probably due to the works of William Shakespeare. The Roman ruler, Julius Caesar, was assassinated on the Ides of March - March 15, 44 B.C.E. In Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, (I, ii, 33), a soothsayer tells Caesar who is already on his way to the Senate (and his death), "Beware the Ides of March."
Caesar asks him to come closer and repeat what he has just said. He studies the man’s face, listens to the warning again, but decIdes, "He is a dreamer, let us leave him. Pass." There is irony here, because the audience knows (from history) that Caesar will be killed on the Ides, and that he is exercising poor judgment in dismissing this prophecy. Later, when he meets the Soothsayer again on the way to the Senate, he confidently says to him, "The Ides of March have come." But the Soothsayer reminds him, "Ay, Caesar, but not gone." There will be other warnings to Caesar from different people, which he will ignore, and go off to meet his death. The phrase "Beware the Ides of March" is one of the most remembered lines of Shakespeare’s plays.
The unidentified soothsayer from Shakespeare’s play may have been a Roman astrologer by the name of Spurinna. According to to historical writer C.J.S. Thompson (and confirmed in Plutarch’s account of the story written in 75 C.E.) it was reportedly sometime prior to the fateful day of March 15 that Spurinna had first given Caesar the famous warning to "beware of the Ides of March." The astrologer, Spurinna, had previously warned Caesar that on the Ides of March, he would be in great danger. If, however, Julius Caesar took care on that one day - then all would be well.
According to Plutarch, Caesar had previously made the wise decision to stay within the safety of his bedroom chambers on the 15th of March. However, Caesar’s "friend" Decimus (Albinus) Brutus (not Marcus Brutus) managed to convince him that the astrologer’s warnings were nothing more than superstitious foolishness. So Julius Caesar decided to attend the Senate on the 15th of March. On his way to the Senate, Caesar "accidentally" met up with the astrologer, Spurinna. Caesar then told the astrologer "The Ides of March are come." Spurinna answered, "Yes, they are come, but they are not past." Later that day - on March 15, 44 B.C.E - Caesar’s enemies assassinated him in the Pompey theater, at the foot of Pompey’s statue, where the Roman Senate was meeting that day in the temple of Venus.

Even the Geek used a lunar calendar:The Hellenic calendar—or more properly, the Hellenic calendars, for there was no uniform calendar imposed upon all of Classical Greece—began in most Greek states between Autumn and Winter except the Attic calendar, which began in June. The Greeks, as early as the time of Homer, appear to have been perfectly familiar with the division of the year into the twelve lunar months but no intercalary month Embolimos or day is then mentioned. Independent of the division of a month into days, it was divided into periods according to the increase and decrease of the moon. Thus, the first day or new moon was called Noumenia. The month in which the year began, as well as the names of the months, differed among the states, and in some parts even no names existed for the months, as they were distinguished only numerically, as the first, second, third, fourth month, etc. (source Wikipedia)

FINALY:
Shabbat has never been a Saturday in Yehoshua’s days
Karaites do not keep the right calendar
Yehoshua kept the Luni-solar calendar of Moshe
Majority of people chose to follow man tradition rather than the truth.
May Yehowah be our help in the study of the rightful calendar according to Moshe and Yehoshua, the prophet like Moshe.

samedi 19 avril 2014

Calendar according to Moshe vs Religious people in Yehoshua’s days

Leap months

New year

The Maccabeans period :

The Worship of the Moon

How Does the Bible Say to Calculate the Start of the Biblical Year? (excerpt from lightedway.org)

What Calendar Did Yehoshua Keep – Whose Report Will We Believe?

Abstract:

What Did Yehoshua Teach On The Subject?

But What Calendar Did Yehoshua Messiah Observe?

The Identity of the “Good Man” who was Carrying The Water Pitcher

The Essenes Were a Significantly Large Constituency of People in Judea

The Essenes Kept a Different Biblical Calendar

Calendar of Romulus

Calendar of Numa

Julian calendar

Months

Nundinal cycle

Character of the day

Years

Converting pre-Julian dates

How do you read the calendar?

What were the Roman weekdays?

Day of Kalends

Day of Nones

Day of Ides

When did they stop using the moon for months?

When did the early Roman calendar begin?

When did the Roman republican calendar begin?

What were the Roman months?

March (the first month)

April

May

January (at the end of the year)

Februrary (at the end of the year)

Why is our leap day in Februrary, not the end of the year?

Beware the Ides of March!

20 Parasha Tetzaveh - You shall command