God's Calendar and His Holy Days
No one can properly worship God unless they keep His Holy Days. And God only puts His presence in those days He made Holy, not in any days of our own choosing.
So we have to know how God's calendar is computed - how to mark off time according to God's instructions not man's. You might think this is a pretty simple proposition but it isn't. Right from the beginning man has taken to himself the authority to change the times and seasons to suit his own selfish purposes.
Some might think the Jews would be the first to look to as a peoples who faithfully perpetuated God's traditions. After all they faithfully preserved God's inspired word. Indeed they did. But they didn't preserve God's calendar --- they only saved the inspired words of the Old Testament that show us how to determine God's calendar. In fact mainstream Jewish tradition actually perpetuates arbitrary postponements in God's calendar --- postponing the first day of God's month without any scriptural justification at all.
So there is only one real place to look for authority on this whole subject-God's inspired word, the Bible.
The Origins of God's Measurement of Time
At the very beginning of creation Genesis tells us that God originally gave us "lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and ... for signs and seasons and for days and years" (Gen. 1: 14).
The sun and moon are the two obvious guides we use to establish God's reckoning of time. They establish the day as God wills it --- from sunset to sunset. They establish the seasons of God's year through turns, (equinoxes and solstices). The moon in particular establishes the beginning of each month. Month means moon. As David wrote, "He appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knows its going down. You make darkness, and it is night" (Ps. 104:19-20). Sunset, sets the precedent for the dark new moon.
The sun and moon are usually not associated with being signs. But the stars are! The various constellations in the celestial sphere are also part of God's lights and act as signs that tell us directions. And if you've ever wondered why the day is divided up into 24 hours, or why there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute, that's because all of us adhere to the sidereal day, hour and minute! (Pronounced, sigh-dear-ee-el). Our day, hour and minute is divided according to the stars! Of course the constellations God made never correspond with our modern Gregorian calendar because it is an arbitrary calendar. It is simply imposed upon us by tradition. But the constellations God designed at creation He even boasted about them to Job: "Can you bind the cluster of Pleiades or loose the bell of Orion? Can you bring out Mazzaroth [Literally, "the constellations"] in its season? Or can you guide the Great Bear [Arcturus) with its cub? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you set their dominion over the earth?" (Job 38:31-33).
These constellations are also part of the way God helps us to tell time! And they act as a back-up to the luni-solar calculations God expects us to make. So it's not just the luni-solar year God's people are to rely on. There's a back-up to it: The sidereal year.
The Natural Basis of God's Calendar
God's calendar is a natural calendar. It is luni-solar in that it begins with the new moon nearest the vernal turn (equinox) and proceeds by successive moons. Every year there are usually twelve new moons, but seven times out of every 19 years there are thirteen new moons. After this 19-year time-cycle, the new moon sequence repeats itself. Get the calendar right for 19 years and your on your way. And of course that is exactly what our ancient predecessors did.
Few realize today how amazingly accurate the ancients were in astronomy. Secular history accords the highest honors to the ancient Babylonians and their incredibly complex mathematical calculations dating from 2,000 B.C. They actually built a number of observatories for the express purpose of collecting all of this astronomical data.
Jewish tradition, however, mentions Enoch and Abraham as being exceptionally brilliant in this area. (Abraham passed on his knowledge to the Egyptians and Chaldeans according to the same tradition.)
Centuries before Christ, humankind was capable of predicting eclipses, calculating the diameter of the earth, predicting the turns (equinoxes and solstices), correctly tracking the sun's ecliptic (its apparent path through the celestial sphere, remember the earth, moon, planets and stars move, the sun stands still!), and even accounting for the slight annual changes in the earth's tilting axis! (See Encyclopedia Britannica, 1993, 15th ed., Macropedia, v. 25, ‘The Physical Sciences,' pg. 828-829 plus the ‘Milestones of Astronomy' chart in the 1988 Encyclopedia Americana, v.2, under ‘Astronomy").
Astronomy is one of the world's oldest sciences and indeed the advanced knowledge the ancients had is truly amazing to read about! Ancient monuments such as the Pyramids, Stonehenge, and many Aztec and Inca structures all testify to the advanced knowledge and preciseness our ancient ancestors had in this area.
Of the fact that these calculations could be made and were made there is simply no doubt.
Indeed there is no evidence that any aspect of God's calendar was left to speculation or based on mere visible approximations. Time was able to be astronomically calculated to a very high degree of accuracy and any in-depth encyclopedia article will substantiate this. Accord to Jewish history, the Sanhedrin questioned the observers of the crescent moon and checked up on them through the astronomical calculations.
The Authority of God's Word
So what are the scriptural foundations for God's measurement of time?
The sun, the moon, and the stars! And when does God's new year begin?
The first day of God's new year begins with the first new moon nearest the spring turn (equinox). We know this for several reasons: God instructed His people to keep the Feast of Ingathering (Tabernacles) at the "end [or turn] of the year" (Ex. 23 and 34). The Feast of Ingathering is kept in the seventh month of the year (Lev. 23) and so we know God is referring here to the end of the agricultural year-near the autumn turn (equinox) after the harvest. Seven months prior to the harvest is the spring. Thus God's year begins with the nearest new moon at the spring turn.
A New Moon Begins the Year
We know God's year begins with a new moon because the scriptures tells us so: "This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you, God proclaimed to the Israelites" (Ex. 12:2). The actual word ‘month," remember means ‘moonth,'one complete lunation beginning with the new moon.
We also know we begin with the new moon nearest--before or after --- the spring turn (equinox) or else God's Feast of Ingathering could not always occur at the turn of the agricultural year!!.
From here then the successive new moons of God's calendar can be obtained from an observatory or computer program showing when the last of the waning crescent moon ends and a dark moon begins. The observatory sources are superior to that of the local newspaper's in that they usually tell you the specific time of the new dark moon each month in Jerusalem time zone. This is important to someone in God's church. The world's calculations are based on the Roman midnight-to midnight day. God's calculations are based on His sunset-to-sunset day calculated from Jerusalem time. All of God's holy convocations should be calculate based on this.
The first day of the year is the day which includes the new moon conjunction. Passover is kept at twilight at the beginning of the 14th day of the first month (immediately after sunset of the 13th). The Days of Unleavened Bread extend from the beginning of the 15th to sunset of the 21st. The Feast of Trumpets is observed on the very first day of the seventh moon or month. Atonement the 10th day. The Feast of Ingathering from the 15th to the 22nd. All of these dates can be worked out from Leviticus 23.
All, that is, except Pentecost!
Pentecost is not calculated according to moons. It is calculated from a wave-sheaf offered during the Days of Unleavened bread. Fifty days are counted: "And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath, then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD" (Lev. 23:15-16).
Here we would seem to have three questions: (1) How do we calculate the wave-sheaf day? (We don't use a wave-sheaf offering anymore because Christ was the fulfillment of it in John 20:17); (2) Which initial Sabbath is being referred to here--the weekly Sabbath or one of the Sabbath High Days beginning or ending the Days of Unleavened Bread?; and (3) How do we actually do the counting from the wave-sheaf day to Pentecost?
It is true that the Sadducees had control over all festival matters in Jesus' day. Their priestly order after Boethus stipulated that the wave-sheaf offering always occurred during the Days of Unleavened Bread and that "the cutting of the sheaf does not take place at the end of the day of the feast [the first day of Unleavened Bread], but only at the end of the next regular Sabbath" (Menahoth, 10,3). And all of this would be good and fine enough except for one thing: It still isn't Bible proof, is it?
But did you know there IS Bible proof that confirms the Sadduccean tradition of the wave-sheaf? Did you know that in your very Bible two portions of two widely separated calendars are revealed to us that absolutely confirm that the wave-sheaf was offered according to Sadduccean tradition?
Two Ancient Calendars
The first calendar portion we have is the one that surrounds our very Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in 30 A.D.!
On the 14th of Abib-Tuesday evening after sunset-Christ shared His last supper with His disciples. The following day, Wednesday He was crucified, spent three days and three nights in the grave, was resurrected at the end of the weekly Sabbath, then briefly ascended to His Father in heaven on the next day Sunday as the fulfillment of the Old Testament wave-sheaf! (John 20:17). Christ became the wave-sheaf offering in person on the Sunday following the weekly Sabbath not the day after the Last Day of Unleavened Bread nor the day after the First Day of the feast! The Last Day of Unleavened Bread hadn't even arrived yet---it was yet to come the following Wednesday! And the First Day of Unleavened Bread had already passed! This calendar during Christ's final days on earth absolutely confirms, that the Sadduccean tradition of the wave- sheaf being offered the Sunday after the regular weekly sabbath --- not the day after the First or Last Days of Unleavened Bread or any other imagined day.
And there is yet another calendar portion in the Bible that confirms the Sadduccean tradition! Let's go back some two thousand years earlier to the exodus of the ancient Israelites. We know from I Cor. 10:1-2 that the passing of the Israelites through the Red Sea was representative of baptism. Further to this, however, few realize that the actual event occurred on the Last Day of Unleavened Bread during the exodus. Bible chronology substantiates this. The Last Day of Unleavened Bread, therefore, pictures baptism. The historical occurrence of this event furnishes us with a starting point for God's calendar at that time.
According to Leviticus 23, when, the last Day of Unleavened Bread would have been the 21st day of Abib (Nisan). It took them some forty days to reach Mt. Sinai (Ex. 19:1 etc.) and hear God's Law thundered to them! (Ex. 19:16) On the following day the children of Israel affirmed the covenant (Ex. 24:4), and on the Day of Pentecost, seven days later--fifty days from when the wave-sheaf offering would have normally occurred (cp. Ex. 13: 11-16)---Moses went into the cloud up on the mountain to receive God's Law written on tablets of stone (Ex. 24:12-18). On the Day of Pentecost back then at Mt. Sinai, "the sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel" (Ex. 24:17). Then immediately beginning with Ex. 25:1, God instructed the Israelites what sort of offering He wanted on His Day of Pentecost back then. Even though there was no firstfruits of the harvest to offer to God, Israel had just recently become God's firstling or firstborn a few verses earlier by ratifying a covenant with blood!
What all of this sequence of events goes to show is that the wave-sheaf, had it been kept that year, had to have been kept prior to the Last Day of Unleavened Bread when they passed through the waters of the Red Sea! Otherwise the numbers wouldn't add up at the end when they observed Pentecost. It would have been too much later than when Moses and the Israelites kept it. The Bible confirms this chronology! You cannot get an Old Testament Pentecost out of that portion of the calendar if you begin with a wave-sheaf a day after the Red Sea crossing on the Last Day of Unleavened Bread! And it would have fallen too early if you compute it from the day after the First High Day. Try it yourself. You'll see! No-Pentecost had to have been computed from the day after the first regular sabbath of the festival.
So the portions of the two calendars we've just looked at proves absolutely that the Sadduccean tradition of keeping the wave-sheaf was correct and is the one we should use today in figuring Pentecost!
So now we've gotten the answers to the first two concerns above. But what about the third? How do we count Pentecost and get the right day? Why the Difficulty Figuring Pentecost?
Look at Leviticus 23:15 again: The computing of Pentecost has always been a simple matter and for some reason certain people who acknowledge the need to keep God's Holy Days have gotten hung up on a ‘straw man' of their own making. They seem unable to understand the English language when it comes to determining Pentecost.
If I arbitrarily ask you to count five days from the day after Tuesday will you not begin with Wednesday? Well, in Lev. 23:15 God asks us to count from the day after the Sabbath--in other words from Sunday, the wavesheaf day. Pretty simple isn't it? No Hebrew lexicon needed here. We start counting with Sunday. Now continue reading the following verses because they confirm this proper grammatical understanding: Verse 16: "Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then ... offer a new grain offering . . . and . .." [ v. 21] proclaim the same day a holy convocation."
Isn't the day after the seventh Sabbath a Sunday? Alright-so we're supposed to count fifty days up to the Sunday after the seventh Sabbath, offer a new grain offering and proclaim the same day a holy convocation. Pentecost is always going to be a Sunday. Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Saturday, offer a new grain offering and proclaim the same day a Holy Day! Isn't that day a Sunday? Why have people had a difficulty with the computing of Pentecost? The Bible is very clear if you approach it with a clear head. Therefore on a strictly biblical basis, Pentecost is counted from the Sunday after the regular weekly Sabbath of Unleavened Bread, even if it is the Passover which lands on a Sabbath. Two biblically-based calendars confirm this. Furthermore, the Bible confirms that Pentecost will always be on a Sunday. This only makes sense, too. If Christ was historically offered to God as a first-of-the-firstfruits wave-sheaf on a Sunday-- wouldn't it make sense that His future brothers and sisters would also become firstfruits on another Sunday later?
Let us allow God's word, the Bible, be our guide to keeping His holy convocations. Not men's traditions. It is the lights in the firmament that determines God's Holy Days. The sun, the moon, and the stars.
The Many Paths of Error
Some calculate the beginning of God's year by looking for the first shoots of corn stalks. Abib, the Israelites' name for the first month, apparently means 'bursting forth, ears, or green ears of corn (an antecedent of aviv). But God never appointed vegetation at creation to be the determinant of His year! And the Bible doesn't teach us that it was God who named the first month of the year Abib, or later Nisan --- He simply called it the first month originally (Ex. 12:1-3). From the earliest times God seems to have numbered the months, not named them (Gen. 7:1 1; 8:1314, etc.). Yet both names, Abib and Nisan, are found in the Bible with no intention of acting as a criteria for establishing God's calendar. Nisan is the name of a Babylonian fertility goddess and hopefully no one uses that name as the basis for beginning God's year! Besides this, there are only three other Hebrew months' names known from the Bible and no one knows for sure the meaning of these names.
The True Moon Conjunction
Versus the Crescent
Some think that the new moons should begin with the visible observance of its crescent. Many Bible dictionaries even teach this.
Yet the Jewish medieval scholar Maimonides states that: "the new moon is defined as the 'moment in which the sun and moon, in their uniform motion, become conjoined in a certain part of the sky, which occurs in the same way everywhere [in contrast to the varying times at which the new crescent first becomes visible] in different areas" (Sanctification of the New Moon, Bk 3, trtse. 8, p. 89, ch 6).
The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon identifies the biblical new moon as something round, surrounded, concealed behind a curtain, remaining behind. Hebrew lexicons don't gleam their understandings of Hebrew words from merely Old Testament Hebrew. These meanings reflect hundreds, even thousands, of parallel usages of variants in other ancient Semitic inscriptions. Cognates to many Hebrew words are found in ancient Ugaritic, Moabite, Phoenician, Aramaic, Arabic, and Akkadian that confirm their original Hebrew meanings.
Of course our common dictionaries define the actual new moon as beginning with darkness. And, incidently, even if God's new moon had to be visually observed--though it doesn't --- it could be observed just as easily by the waning crescent, as the waxing crescent moon anyway. The period of darkness of each month where the true astronomical new moon occurs, even in the absence of astronomical data, the correct new moon could be observed if it were necessary. Even the Jewish Karites say, "It is easier to find the final waning moon than it is to establish the new waxing crescent!"
On the other hand, the crescent moon is almost always identified in the writings of ancient geographers and historians as the moon of choice among pagans. According to Encyclopedia Americana the ancient fertility cult of Ashtoreth is most frequently represented in inscriptions as a queen sitting astride the horns of the moon- -- by definition the crescent moon! Ancient Israel frequently fell into worshiping Ashtoreth so the Bible records. This world's Easter actually derives its name from the Old German Eostre and back through the Indo-Aryan Estre, Astarte, or Ashtoreth. So it shouldn't surprise us that when we happen to pass by the occult section of our local bookstores, it is the crescent moon that is readily seen on front covers.
It was the crescent moon God was referring to when He condemned ancient Judah's "new moons." Why would God condemn ancient Judah's new moons unless they were keeping them in accordance with some other tradition? Their new moons had to have been the pagans' new moons not God's. And by changing to the pagan custom of observing the new crescent moon, God's peoples were keeping the wrong holy days! No wonder God said He hated their new moons and their holy days! They were the wrong new moons and consequently the wrong holy days! "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them" (Isa 1:13-14).
As Edward Gibbon noted in his classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the pagan world was amazingly united in its religious beliefs. And this most certainly included their custom of starting their months with the first sighting of the crescent moon. The crescent moon is an occult symbol reflective of its pagan past. All of the pagan peoples --- Phoenicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks --- started their months with the crescent moon despite their ability to calculate the new moon from the waning one. But to the pagan mind the crescent moon had a distinct personality whereas God's astronomical dark new moon did not. The Phoenicians and Babylonians were well-known for attributing superhuman qualities to their crescent moons on account of its visible characteristics. This served as the basis for their worship of it. Pretty hard to worship a dark moon you can't see isn't it? And that's why God's new moons never encouraged idolatry.
It was in the midst of one of these pagan cultures that Paul told the Colossians: "Therefore let no one judge [or condemn) you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths" (Col. 2:16). Why would the surrounding culture of Colossae condemn God's church in their calculation of a new moon? Because it was different than theirs --- it was the correct one! Being a Greek city, Colossae's local religions embraced the crescent moon! And if it was the Jewish population that was condemning the Colossian Christians then it was because the Jews were observing the pagan crescent moon as well! History indeed records that the Jews back then did begin their months with the crescent moon. Shortly after the time of Ezra and Nehemiah they had begun another descent into apostasy --- this time the result of Greek Hellenistic influences. Many of the Jewish apocryphal writings date from the time of the fourth century B.C. onwards and bear witness to this overt apostasy. Yes, all of this world's religions are the harlot daughters of the Babylonian Mystery Religion! God's word says so! Is it really any surprise?
So visibility is not the criteria God establishes as the basis of His calendar. If we observed His weekly Sabbath on a strictly visible basis we might end up breaking it by starting work before sunset was over--all the more so if you lived in a valley or in an overcast region!! Why then would we risk relying on a visible crescent to begin His month? Just as God's days begin with darkness --- the disappearance of the sun-so His new moons begin with darkness. Just as the day begins at sunset, sunset sets the precedent for the dark moon for the beginning of the new month.
The crescent moon appears at different times depending on where you observe it. In fact it does not appear to most of the nations on earth on the same day let alone at the same time. The true astronomical new dark moon--God's new moon--does. Furthermore, the astronomical accuracy of God's calendar has been able to be calculated by man for thousands of years.
The Bible's Authority Again
Perhaps the final coup de grace for crescent new moon observance is the Bible itself. If you read Psalm 81: 3-4 in either the New King James or New International versions you can easily detect that it is the astronomical new moon that is being used here as a reference point!
‘Blow the trumpet at the time of the New Moon, at the full moon, on our solemn feast day. For this is a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob."
Here three feast days are alluded to either directly or indirectly: The Feast of Trumpets (Lev. 23:24), the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:6), and the Feast of Ingathering or Tabernacles (Lev. 23:39). These three festivals are kept at either the new moon or full moon. But notice this passing reference to the full moon. As the crescent new moon is observed some 15 to 48 hours after the true astronomical new moon it could not be the moon God endorses because it could not allow the two feasts on the 15th of the first and seventh months to occur at or near full moons! Yes, the scriptures absolutely demand we keep the true astronomical dark moon as the beginning of God's month.
Incidently, just before leaving this subject, notice that we avoid even the remotest possibility of beginning with the crescent moon starting the first day of God's months with the sunset-to-sunset day that contains the true astronomical new dark moon. This as opposed to starting from the sunset closest to the new moon conjunction. In the possible event that the closest sunset might be the following one, it could easily lead to starting the first day postponed and even with the first hints of the crescent moon showing! So God's first day of the month actually contains the new moon conjunction!
How God Sets Apart His Holy Days
An interesting side point to all of this is the understanding of how God makes His Holy Days Holy. God sanctifies His appointed times as those particular times comes to each person on this rotating earth. Remember, God's calendar is a natural calendar which pertains to you wherever you live on the earth. No artificial impositions like time zones, International Dateline, or days of the week need to bother anyone keeping God's Holy Days. But it does create some interesting situations if we think in the abstract for a moment. From a global perspective, the International Dateline dictates that the annual Holy Days will appear to differ by one day of the week. But if we keep Holy Day time from Jerusalem, we can all be in one accord. Each keeping and sharing in the same day. God sanctifies His Holy Days according to when they come to us wherever we are on the earth.
This does have unique ramifications for Pentecost, though. Pentecost, as we have already said, is not calculated in terms of a particular day of a month. It is calculated in terms of a regular weekly sabbath falling within Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. The Sunday after the Saturday Sabbath of Unleavened Bread commences the 50 day count to a later Sunday Pentecost, even if the Saturday Sabbath is Passover.
God's great time-clock, this universe, tells us how to calculate time and subsequently observe His annual Holy Days. God puts His presence in those particular days whenever they come to us.
We are absolutely safe in all ways if we calculate God's calendar based on Jerusalem time. When God revealed the knowledge of His calendar to mankind it was in the Middle East. When He divinely intervened to re-instruct the Israelites about His original calendar it was in the Middle East. Whenever Israel obeyed God and correctly based His Holy Days on the new moon He approved of it. And the very harvest theme of God's Holy Days is oriented to those who dwell in the Middle East. Lastly, when Jesus Christ returns to set up His future Kingdom of God here on earth, Jerusalem will be the capital of that future kingdom and the central authority for the administration of God's appointed Holy Festivals. Therefore the computing of all times in terms of Jerusalem acts as a final authority in all such matters.
All of this, of course, has nothing to do with the observance of the weekly Sabbath. We keep it as it comes to us on the seventh day of the week. But where there are some of God's people dwelling in the far reaches of the northern hemisphere--- ‘the land of the midnight sun'---a simple extension of sunset times from the same longitude but lower latitude will do the trick here.
There's no mistaking it. God's word is amazingly accurate regarding His calendar. More so than anyone could ever have imagined.
The lights in the heavens define that calendar. The luni-solar year provides the basis for that calendar and is, in turn, backed up by sidereal data.
The astronomical dark new moon nearest the vernal turn (equinox) out of Biblical necessity determines the beginning of God's year. All of the Holy Days can be calculated accordingly from this except Pentecost.
But here again, the Bible itself confirms the Sadduccean tradition of counting Pentecost. Scripture reveals to us the portions of calendars surrounding Jesus' final days on earth and the events of the Old Testament exodus. And those calendar segments demand that Pentecost be kept on a Sunday! You simply can't fight the scriptural record if you tremble at God's word!
Let's keep God's Holy Days at the Biblically defined times and leave all of the doubts and confusions about these matters to the rest of the world!! Let's get on with our Christian lives and grow in maturity readying ourselves with the sobering responsibilities that awaits all of us.
This world is on its last legs and Biblical end-time events are moving at a rapid pace before our eyes! We need the spiritual recharging that comes with the observance of God's Holy Days. It makes all of us more effective Christians, gives us more of God's power to overcome personally and more energy to preach the gospel to a world that doesn't have a clue about our wonderful Creator God's plan for mankind!
The full benefit of God's Holy Days can come only when we observe them at His sanctified times! It is He who puts His presence in them. It is impossible for us to receive the fullness of God's blessings in our spiritual lives if we willfully neglect to observe them carefully and correctly!
(Updated and reprinted from June 1994 issue of the Prove All Things).
Church of God, In Truth
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