[Courtesy NASA Photo from http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/earth/near_earth_moon.jpg ]
The Hebrew Calendar
The Hebrew Calendar, unlike our
Gregorian Calendar, is a calendar based on lunar phases. Each new month in the Hebrew Calendar starts
at the beginning of the lunar cycle, which is called “the new moon.” The “new moon” is marked by the very first
crescent of the moon to become visible in the sky after the conjunction of
the earth, moon and sun. So with the
advent of “modern astronomy” with its super-telescopes coupled to high-speed
supercomputers, some people think that they can improve on the Hebrew Calendar,
how it’s computed, making it more accurate. The Big Question is: Have these people succeeded? Secondly, and more important, we need to
know whether the Hebrew Calendar and the way it is calculated, and has been
calculated for thousands of years by the Jews, is God-ordained and
God-authorized in the Bible. If it is,
and we can prove it, then we shouldn’t be tampering with it. It’s just that simple. Hopefully we’ll answer both questions in this
short study.
Astronomical Conjunction verses
Mean Conjunction
The Hebrew calendar does not
attempt to calculate the astronomical conjunction, as does the Naval
Observatory.
The
astronomical conjunction occurs when the sun, moon and earth are on the same
longitude. i.e. the moon is directly
between the earth and sun, so it is completely darkened out.
While the U.S. Naval Observatory
uses detailed astronomical data to calculate the exact time of the astronomical
conjunction (with the moon 100 percent darkened), the Hebrew calendar uses the average time of the conjunction, or the mean conjunction (see Maimonides,
“Sanctification of the New Moon”, p.27) i.e. The determination of the new moon of Tishri (7th month
of the Hebrew calendar) is not based on the exact time of the conjunction, but
on the average time of the conjunction, which rarely coincides with the actual
conjunction. The Hebrew term Molad means average or mean conjunction. The purpose of calculating the Molad, or mean conjunction is to determine the earliest time that the new
crescent may possibly be seen from Jerusalem. If that time falls before noon Jerusalem time (JT), and the day is not
contradicted by the Rules of Postponement, that day is declared the New
Moon. According to the Hebrew calendar,
the New Moon of Tishri (7th month) is not the astronomical
conjunction but the “new crescent.” What
I would say we need first of all is to find Scriptural evidence that this
system utilizing the Molad was in use
during Biblical times, giving it God-ordained authenticity.
Initial Scriptural Evidence
David and Jonathan knew when the
New Moon would occur ahead of time, showing the Hebrew Calendar was already
being calculated in advance of the actual occurrence of the New Moon. The Hebrew word used for “new moon” is ghoh-desh (Strongs #2320). It is first found in 1st Samuel 20:5, 18, “And David said to Jonathan, ‘Indeed
tomorrow is the New Moon, and I
should not fail to sit with the king to eat. But let me go, that I may hide in the field until the third day at evening…Then Jonathan said to
David, ‘Tomorrow is the New Moon; and
you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.” How did David know that the New Moon, the ghoh-desh would occur on the following day? The
first crescent occurs, at the very minimum, 17.2 hours after the astronomical
conjunction, so it wouldn’t be visible to David one day before the actual first
sighting of the crescent moon, which is the New Moon. The only answer is that the New Moon had
already been calculated out in advance! Jonathan did not say “maybe” the New Moon, he said “tomorrow is the New Moon.” They both knew that the Hebrew calendar had predicted the occurrence of
the New Moon on the following day. 1st Samuel 20:24, “Then David
hid in the field. And when the New Moon
had come, the king sat down on his seat to eat the feast.” Also the Hebrew noun ghoh-desh (New Moon) is used with the Hebrew verb hay-yah (Strongs #1961), and translates
to “was come.” Hay-yah means to arise or appear, as also seen in Genesis 1:5
in reference to the appearance of the evening and the morning (sunset and
sunrise) on the first day of creation. The use of the verb hay-yah in
1st Samuel 20 reveals that when king Saul sat down to observe the
Feast of Trumpets, the New Moon was clearly visible in the evening sky. This is clearly evidence that the New Moon of
Scripture is not the astronomical conjunction. The astronomical conjunction takes place during “the dark of the moon”,
and is not visible from any point on earth. No part of the moon can appear in the sky during the astronomical
conjunction. Yet the verb hay-yah records the New Moon appeared in
the sky above the palace of Saul and above the field where David was
hiding. That day, which had been
calculated in advance, was confirmed by the appearance of the New Moon.
The New Moon of Modern Astronomy is not the New Moon
of Scripture
The astronomical conjunction does
not determine the appointed times of God (i.e. the calculations for the
beginning of each month, when Passover falls for the 14th Nisan, and
the 1st of Tishri when the Feast of Trumpets falls). On modern calendars the astronomical
conjunction of the moon, earth and sun is designated as the “new moon.” Because the conjunction takes place during
the “dark of the moon,” the “new moon” is depicted as a black circle in the
modern Gregorian calendars. But the “new
moon” of modern astronomy is not the new moon of Scripture. The astronomical conjunction does not
determine the appointed times of God. What determines the appointed times of is the earliest possible
visibility of the new crescent of the moon as calculated on the Hebrew
calendar. A minimum of 17.2 hours must
pass from the time of the astronomical conjunction before the crescent can
possibly be seen by the naked eye. Naval Observatory astronomical conjunctions
will always differ from those of the Hebrew calendar. Why? Rather than calculate the astronomical conjunction the Hebrew calendar
uses the mean conjunction to project
the earliest visible crescent.
Why use the mean conjunction to
calculate the new moons?
The “mean conjunction” provides a
consistent basis for the calculation of the new moon of Tishri 1 from year to
year. Tishri 1 is always used to set up
the next year’s calendar, and not Nisan 1 (we’ll get into that later). But why use the “mean conjunction”? This is why. The actual time from one astronomical conjunction to another---from one
month to another---fluctuates from five minutes to three hours, and may vary
more than twelve hours in the course of the year. “To calculate the exact time of conjunction
for each and every month for a whole year would require double-precision
(64-bit) arithmetic” (Dershowitz and
Reingold, The Calendrical Calculations, p.
135). The Hebrew calendar resolves the
problem by using the average or mean time---that is, 29.5 days for the
length of its months (alternating between 29 and 30 days every other
month). The variation in length of time
between astronomical conjunctions is caused by the countless irregularities
that occur in the moon’s orbit. To date,
astronomers have identified more than 5,000 perturbations of the moon as it
circles the earth. Before modern
astronomy with its computerized mathematics, it would have been an impossible
task to calculate the exact astronomical conjunctions from month to month and
year to year, and then calculate on that basis the day of the new moon (i.e.
when the first crescent appears). That
is why God established the mean
conjunction as the basis for calculating the New Moon. The use of that mean conjunction provides a simple,
reliable and consistent basis for calculation in the Hebrew calendar.
Determining the New Moon Day
In the days of David and the
early kings of Israel the lunar cycle was much more constant. During the reigns of Ahaz and later in
Hezekiah’s reign God directly altered the arrangement of the heavenly bodies
(within the solar system, sun, moon, etc.). Those changes required new steps to be added to the process of
determining the New Moon. Among the
procedures that were instituted to adjust the Hebrew calendar to the changes in the heavenly bodies are what are called “The Rules of Postponement.” Some claim these Rules of Postponement
postpone the observation of Tishri 1 past the time of the New Moon. But they do no such thing. Instead, they keep the observation of Tishri
1 “in harmony” with the cycle of the heavenly bodies. In as many as six years out of ten, these
rules must be applied in order to ensure that the declaration of Tishri 1 is as
accurate as possible.
Evidence the Rules of
Postponement Were Being Followed in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah
In two separate instances (Ezra
3:1-6; 6:1-22) during the time of Ezra, knowing the exact day Tishri 1 was
observed and kept, and by comparing data from very accurate Hebrew calendar
software programmed to John Kossey’s “The Hebrew Calendar: A Mathematical
Introduction” proves the Rules of Postponement were being employed by Ezra, and
also that these “Rules of Postponement” were adjusting the declaration of
Tishri 1 to the actual time when the crescent of the New Moon would become
visible (astronomically from Jerusalem). The second passage in Ezra shows the declaration of the New Moon
accurately using the Rules of Postponement for the 5th month on the
Hebrew calendar through programmed calculations using Kossey’s “The Hebrew
Calendar: A Mathematical Introduction.”
The Sanhedrin in charge of
Calendrical calculations
During the time of Christ the
Nasi or President of the Sanhedrin was in charge of the calculations for the
Hebrew Calendar. The Nasi or President
of the Sanhedrin had a lineage going back to Ezra, who then goes back to
Hilkiah the high priest who was the father of Jeremiah the Prophet. They had all inherited a full knowledge of
the Hebrew calendar, including intercalculations and the Rules of Postponement. These nasi’s ruled, right after the time of
Christ, outside of Jerusalem up to Hillel II in the 300s AD. So we see the regulation of the Hebrew
Calendar by a central authority and single family going from the 300s AD back
to Ezra, and then back to Hilkiah the high priest and father of Jeremiah the
Prophet! Anyone who says Hillel II
invented the Rules of Postponement is going directly against the records of
history, both in the Bible and those histories accurately maintained by the
Jews themselves. Hillel II, as the last
of the great sages, used his office of nasi to absolutely guarantee that the
knowledge of the Hebrew Calendar and its methods of calculation would not be
lost. He made sure this priestly
knowledge---withheld from the general populace until his day---was imparted worldwide
to all the Jews. Why? He was worried that continued Roman
persecution might do away with the observance of the Holy Days at the proper
times commanded by God in his Word. The
New Moons of Nisan 1 and Tishri 1 were determined far in advance, and were only
verified by direct observation. The
discussion of the ancient rabbis in the tractate Rosh Hashanah offers historical evidence that the Hebrew Calendar
at the time of Christ and the apostle Paul was both calculated and
intercalculated when the bet din calculated the calendar for the upcoming year. The most important part of their work was determining the New Moon of
Tishri, which would set the Holy Day season for the entire upcoming year. Included in their calculations was the
application of rules, whether written or not, which called for the
intercalculation in a set pattern of years (3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19) [in a
19-year time cycle---which would then be repeated for the next 19-year time
cycle, and so forth]. The addition of a
13th month in these years (3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19) automatically
made Tishri 1, and all the Holy Days, fall a month later in the solar year,
keeping these days in harmony with the harvest seasons. The calendar was further adjusted by applying
the Rules of Postponement, which delayed the declaration of the New Moon of
Tishri by one or two days. This “fine
tuning” of the calendar kept the months of the year aligned with the lunar
cycle. The calculation of the New Moon
and the practice of intercalculation did not begin at the time of Hillel II, as
some have claimed. The records of the
Jerusalem Talmud clearly contradict this assertion. The historical evidence in the tractate Rosh Hashanah confirms that the
calculated Hebrew calendar was in effect at the time of Christ and Paul---more
than 300 years before Hillel II, who merely codified the rules.
Rules of
Postponement
1. The Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah, Tishri 1, may not occur
on Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday. If Rosh Hashanah were on Sunday, Hosha’na
Rabbah (the 7th day of the Feast of Tabernacles) would be on
Saturday, and this must be avoided because it would prevent the proper
celebration of the Festival of Willows. If Rosh Hashanah were on
Wednesday, Yom Kippur would be on a
Friday and this would cause undue hardship because there would be two days in a
row with severe restrictions. If Rosh Hashanah were on a Friday, Yom Kippur would be on a Sunday, and,
again, we would have two days in a row with severe restrictions. Therefore, if the new moon (Molad) is on
either Sunday, Wednesday or Friday, the first day of Tishri (7th month) is postponed to the following day.
2. If the New Moon (Molad) of
Tishri occurs at noon or later, the New Moon (Rosh Hodesh) is declared to be
the following day. Thus, if the Molad
(new moon) is Monday at noon or later, Tuesday is declared to be Rosh Hodesh
(New Moon). The reason is that if the
Molad (new moon) is before noon, it is certain that the new crescent will be
visible in some part of the world before sunset of the same day. If however, the new moon (Molad) occurs after
midday, the new crescent will not be visible before sunset of the same day
[which makes it the beginning of the next day]. If the following day is Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday [employing rule #1]
on which the first day of Tishri may not occur, it is further postponed to the
next following day, so that the first of Tishri is the third day counting from,
and including, the day of the Molad (new moon).
3. If the Molad of Tishri in an
ordinary year is on Tuesday at 3:204/1080 A.M. or later, the first of Tishri is
postponed to Thursday. It cannot be on
Tuesday because then the next year’s New Moon (Molad) of Tishri would be on
Saturday afternoon and new moon (Rosh Hodesh) would have to be postponed to
Sunday. This would make the year in
question 356 days long, which is more than the statutory limit of 355 days.
4. This occurs if the New Moon
(Molad) of Tishri, in a year succeeding a leap year, is on a Monday after 9:00
A.M. (ie. The fifteenth hour from the beginning of the night before) and
589/1080 parts. If this year were to
begin on Monday, Rosh Hashanah of the
preceding year would have fallen on Tuesday noon, and would have been postponed
to Wednesday. This would make the
current year 382 days in length, which is lower than the statutory limit of 383
days. [statutory limit, that is, for a
leap year containing one extra month.]
I know most of those rules seem
real complicated. It’s just important to
understand that they were designed as a system to “fine tune” the calculated calendar so it would always stay
in harmony with both the seasons and the actual spotting of the new moon, the
first crescent, as it appears in the sky a minimum of 17.2 hours after the Molad
or mean conjunction of earth, sun and
moon. We don’t have to know how to use
them to calculate our own calendar, the Jews do a good and accurate enough job
of that. We’ll see just how accurate a
job they do in a little while.
The Abib, Season of the Ripening Ears
Some have rejected the intercalary
rules of the Hebrew calendar. They claim
that it is no longer necessary for the months of the year to coincide with the
harvest cycle [in Palestine]. Because
the Wave Sheaf is no longer offered [it was being offered all the way up to
70AD], they see no reason to wait for the ripening of the first barley [sheaf]
before the beginning of the new year. Those who hold this view are ignoring the fact that when God linked the
year to the harvest cycle, he did not make any reference to the offering of the
Wave Sheaf. God’s instructions were only
to observe the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread in the first month. This month is clearly identified in Scripture
as the time of the ripening of barley, although the offering of the Wave Sheaf
did not begin until 40 years later---after the children of Israel had entered
the Promised Land.
God gave Moses the timing, when the first day of the
first month was to begin
The book of Exodus records that
the knowledge of when to begin the new year was spoken directly to Moses, who
delivered it to the elders of the tribes of Israel. Exodus
12:1-3a, “And the LORD spake unto Moses
and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall
be the first month of the year. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to
them every man a lamb,…” How would
they have known the tenth day, unless God had directly revealed the very first
day of the first month to Moses. Verses
1-2 are not a general statement, but a revealing of the exact timing for the
beginning of the first day of the first month. Abib is not the title of the month but a descriptive term linking the
first month with the beginning of the spring harvest cycle, abib meaning “green ears.” God told Moses exactly when the first day of the first month began. Each new month began at the new moon (at the
first appearance of the crescent moon). Since a major Holy Day started on the first day of the seventh month,
Tishri 1, the Aaronic/Levitical priesthood from Aaron and his sons on out used
Tishri 1 for the calculating of the Hebrew Calendar, with its Holy Days. The use of the word abib in the Hebrew text
of Exodus makes it clear that the beginning of the Hebrew year hinges on the
state of the barley harvest. There is no
evidence in Scripture to support the claim that God’s command for beginning the
year with the Abib no longer applies. To the contrary, the Scriptures clearly command that the festivals of
God in the first month of the year be observed “in season” (read Leviticus
23:4; Numbers 9: 1-3). The new moon of
the first month is not a festival, or annual Sabbath, as the New Moon of the
seventh month. The New Moon of the
seventh month is the only new moon of the year that has been sanctified by God
as a Holy Day. There is no Scriptural
basis for observing the new moon of the first month. Neither is there any Scriptural basis for
calculating the other months of the year from the first month. The Scriptures reveal that God ordained the
New Moon of the seventh month as the basis for calculating the New Year. Psalm
81:3-5, “Blow up the trumpet in the
new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. For this was a statute for Israel, and a law of the
God of Jacob. This he ordained in Joseph for a testimony, when he went out
through the land of Egypt: where I heard language that I understood not” (KJV). When we understand the meaning of the Hebrew words, it is evident that
at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, God issued Moses and Aaron “a law of a
festival” ghohk. The festival for which this law was issued
was the New Moon of the seventh month. This law decreed that each year the New Moon of the seventh month was to
be presented for judgment by computation, and that a written prescription, or
calendar, was to be issued. The record
we find in Psalm 81:3-5 reveals that God wrote the initial “calendar
prescription” by computing the calendar for Israel at the time they left
Egypt. It was decreed by God that the molad of the seventh month be calculated year by year. The Hebrew text clearly contradicts those
who claim that the new moon of the first month should determine the appointed
times of God (cf. Psalm 81:3-5). The New Moon of the seventh month is the
new moon that God ordained to set the months of the year. Those who use the new moon of the first
month are violating the clear decree of God himself as recorded in Psalm 81.
U.S. Naval Observatory Data verses the Hebrew
Calendar
Does the use of observatory data
lead to more accurate results than the Jewish calculations for the Hebrew
Calendar? The U.S. Naval Observatory
calculated the astronomical conjunction of Nisan 1 in the year 2000 to occur at
20:13 JT (10:13 PM) on Tuesday, April 4. Since the conjunction falls after sunset, this figure would place Nisan
1 on Wednesday, April 5, and Nisan 15 on Wednesday, April 19. The new moon on the eve of Wednesday, April
5, will not be visible because the conjunction will occur at 10:13 PM that evening. A minimum of 17.2 hours must pass from the
time of the conjunction [black of the moon] before the new crescent can
possibly be seen. The full moon on the
eve of April 19, which by this reckoning would be Nisan 15, the first day of
the Feast of Unleavened Bread, will be a
perfect100 %, indicating that the declaration was on target. However, the full moon on the eve of Tishri
15, which by this reckoning would be Thursday, October 12, will be only 96% accuracy for the two dates.
How do the calculations of the
Hebrew Calendar compare?
The Hebrew Calendar places Nisan
1 on Thursday, April 6, and Nisan 15 on Thursday, April 20. The new moon on the eve of Thursday, April 6,
will be visible over Jerusalem for a little less than one hour after sunset. The crescent will be visible because almost
20 hours will have passed since the conjunction the evening before. The full moon on the eve of Nisan 15 will be 99%, which is 1% less than the date set
by the observatory reckoning. However,
the full moon on the eve of Tishri 15, which by Hebrew Calendar rules falls on
Sunday, October 14, will be a perfect
100%. Thus the Hebrew Calendar
achieves an average of 99.5% accuracy
for the two dates. The calculations
of the Hebrew Calendar for the months of Nisan and Tishri are more accurately
aligned with the phases of the moon than are the dates that are calculated by
observatory data. No astronomical tables
were consulted to validate the dates for these festivals. After thousands of years of festival dates
have been calculated, why do some assume that there is a need to improve the
calculations of the Hebrew Calendar?
New Testament Scriptural Evidence
Much of the New Testament
chronology centers around the declarations of the holy days of God, which Jesus
observed. Should we now attempt to
invalidate the observances that are documented in the Gospel accounts, when
Jesus himself sanctioned these declarations by his own example? Look up for yourself all the places where
Jesus went to the Feasts, both Passover and Tabernacles, throughout his 3.5
year ministry. These Holy Days were
calculated by the acting Sanhedrin to formulate the Hebrew Calendar year by
year for the entire lifetime of Jesus, from childhood to his crucifixion. Then 50 days after this last Passover, the
disciples of Jesus were observing the Day of Pentecost, Shevuot, on the same
day the Jews in Jerusalem were, in the very Temple of God! Again, why do some assume that there is a
need to improve the Hebrew Calendar? Such action would show arrogant disregard for the inspiration of
Scripture and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Postponement Rules and mathematical constants of the Hebrew Calendar
supersede all the astronomical calculations that may be obtained from an
observatory, almanac, or other source of lunar information. None of these sources had any bearing on the
declarations of the feasts of God. The
Hebrew Calendar does not now nor has it ever defined the Molad of Tishri as the time of the astronomical conjunction. The two calculations are not aimed at
defining the same event. Determining the
exact time of the moon’s conjunction is not part of the calculations for the
dates of the feast days. Astronomical
data cannot improve on the accuracy of the Hebrew Calendar. All attempts to forge a better calendar by
the infusion of mounds of information have demonstrated that, while it is not
possible to construct a perfect relationship between lunar phases and God’s
feast days, the Hebrew Calendar is, nonetheless, the best calendar possible.
Mathematical Evidence
Plain mathematical evidence
exists to show that the calculations of the Hebrew Calendar are aimed at
mid-course corrections based on an average, which reduces the potential for
errors. The Hebrew Calendar avoids specific
readings of the moon’s position at a finite point in time. The results of using the average or mean
lunar period and applying the four Rules of Postponement will demonstrate that
this method is much more accurate than calculations that are based on specific
astronomical data. The figures speak for
themselves. Since postponements are applicable 61% of the years, gross
miscalculations would occur if these rules were not valid. A comparison of the calculated Hebrew
Calendar with calendars that are based on the moment of the darkest moon or the
observation of the new crescent will demonstrate that through the years, the
Hebrew Calendar achieves the highest percentage of accuracy in matching day of
the month to the desired lunar phase. This degree of success would not be possible without the Rules of
Postponement and the use of the average lunar month (29.53 days) for
calculations. The increased availability
of astronomical data that is offered by our modern hi-tech computer age cannot
improve the accuracy of the lunar dates that are calculated by the Hebrew
Calendar.
This year’s Hebrew Calendar
To see an up-to-date Hebrew
Calendar side by side with the Gregorian (astronomical) Calendar, log onto:
http://antipas.net/heb_cal_2010-11.htm
Most of the text for this booklet has been directly
excerpted from “The Feast of Trumpets
2000 AD” by Dwight Blevins & Carl D. Franklin, Christian Biblical
Church of God, P.O. Box 1442, Hollister, CA 95024-1442. For a more in-depth
treatment of this subject, be sure to write to the above address and request a
free copy of their booklet “The Feast of
Trumpets 2000 AD” for yourself.
Copyright © 2010, Christian Biblical Church of God,
all rights reserved.
For a more detailed study about the Hebrew Calendar see: http://www.biblestudy.org/maturart/calendar-used-by-jesus-and-apostles-1.html