Ancient Jewish Calendar Construction

Ancient Jewish Calendar Construction—No. 2

There is significant and impressive his­tory connected with every Biblical date.

By GRACE EDITH AMADON, Research Worker, Takoma Park, Maryland

There is significant and impressive his­tory connected with every Biblical date. It is the purpose of this series to place before readers of the Ministry dependable methods by which the chronological outline of both history and prophecy can be submitted to proof. These methods are based on the prin­ciples governing the ancient Jewish calendar and on the calculation of the day of the week when occurring in any Biblical date.

The ancient Jewish year, so far as the cal­endar was concerned, began in the spring. Since the time of Moses the Jewish months have always been numbered from the spring,' even though a king's reign may have been reckoned from the fall by the civil calendar. The first seven months of the year compassed the period of the sacrificial feasts, which were connected with the harvests of field, vine, and tree. During the remainder of the year ad­justments were made in the length of certain months in order to balance the length of the year with the course of the sun and moon. Frequently a day was added to the eighth month, and now and again a day was taken away from -the ninth. A whole lunar month was added every second or third year by rule—commonly seven times in nineteen years.2 This procedure was termed "intercalation," and the ruling was ordered only by priest or patriarch. Both Jews and Babylonians began their year with the first new moon after the vernal equi­nox ;8 but if the crescent moon was seen even on the equinox, or a little before, then the year began twenty-nine days later, with the subse­quent visibility of the next new moon.

The hebdomad, or seven-day period, also played an outstanding part in the construction of the ancient Jewish calendar. The Passover on the Jewish "fourteenth" occurred as the last day of the first fortnight of the year, irrespec­tive of the day of the week; the Feast of Pente­cost came on the fiftieth day (seven weeks plus one day) after the feast day of unleavened bread; the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles began on the next day after the first fortnight in Tishri—the month which followed the in-gathering of the oil and wine. And these, too, were irrespective of the day of the week. The law read: "Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine." Dent. 16:13.

The Sacrificial Feast Period

The major feasts (see illustration) were all connected with the harvest period. The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread came at the very beginning of barley harvest, when a ripe sheaf could be offered; Pentecost—a one-day festival—occurred at the end of wheat harvest, when loaves of bread could be made of flour for the offering; and the Feast of Tabernacles was appointed as the next day after the long period of hebdomads following Pentecost, and after the harvesting of the oil and the wine. Thus a little more than the first half of the Jewish year was given over to the festal sacrifices, while calendar adjustment was allotted to the second half, and thereby did not interfere with the calculated dates of the sacred festivities. These feasts therefore can be summed up as follows:

  1. Passover on the fourteenth—a one-day cere­mony, in harmony with which the crucifixion lamb was slain and eaten, the communion supper insti­tuted as a memorial, and Christ Himself was arrested, tried, and slain—all on one day.'
  2. Feast of unleavened bread on the fiftee,nth­the beginning of a feast week. The first and last days of this feast week were called "holy convocations," or ceremonial sabbaths. (Lev. 23 :6, 7; Num. 28:18.)
  3. Day of the wave-sheaf offering, called "morrow after the [ceremonial] sabbath"—always occurring on the second day of the feast week of unleavened bread, likewise irrespective of the day of the week, that is, on the sixteenth day of Nisan. (Lev. 23 :ii.)
  4. Feast of Pentecost—fiftieth day from the day of offering the wave sheaf, inclusive (Lev. 23 :15, 16), or the fiftieth day after the feast of unleavened bread. (Always the same day of the week as the wave sheaf.)
  5. Feast of Tabernacles on the fifteenth of Tishri —one day later than the first fortnight in the seventh month (Lev. 23 :39), or one day later than the long period of hebdomads after Pentecost.

Relation of Tabernacles to 1 Nisan

It will simplify our problem to remember that the first day of any month—lunar or solar —is always the same day of the week as the fifteenth, and that the Passover on the Jewish fourteenth always followed the day and date of the Nisan full moon. Then came the feast of unleavened bread on the fifteenth, and at the end of the sacrificial period, the Feast of Tabernacles, two days later in its calendar week. The modern rabbinical calendar still observes the same ruling for the Feast of Tabernacles. We shall here try to discover its origin in the ancient calendar.

A precise period of hebdomads between Pentecost and Tabernacles is obvious for two reasons: (I) The Feast of Tabernacles did not have a specific relation to the full moon of Tishri such as the Passover had to the full moon of Nisan, and hence its "fifteenth" oc­curred either on or after the Tishri full moon ;9 and (2) any additional day in the period of hebdomads following Pentecost—as might pos­sibly occur at the end of the sixth month—would thereby have deferred Tabernacles to the sixteenth. But the fact that this feast was appointed by Mosaic law invariably on the fifteenth plainly shows that on the calendar it followed a precise number of seven-day periods after Pentecost.

The appearance of the Tishri crescent com­monly agreed with this calculated pattern of the sacrificial feasts. The new moon of the seventh month was regularly checked by observation. But calendar adjustment in the length of the Jewish months has always been applied to the eighth and ninth months, and this fact makes obvious the original intent to protect the exact length of the seven festal months. Further­more, Jewish authorities uniformly agree that anciently, the sixth month Elul was never allowed more than twenty-nine days on the calendar? This feature tended to relieve the calendar of a belated Tishri crescent, and the sacrificial period therefore invariably consisted of an alternate series of thirty and twenty-nine day months.

The foregoing are important features that characterized the ancient feast schedule, and they consistently account for its relation to the succession of hebdomads. For Pentecost was not appointed to a lunar date like the other feasts, but was given by law a definite connec­tion with the fifteenth-day feast of unleavened bread, always occurring just one day later in its calendar week.s And the Feast of Taber­nacles, which was also one day later than the series of hebdomads after Pentecost, was, moreover, two days later in its calendar week than the feast of unleavened bread itself, or its calendar counterpart, the first day of Nisan. The Jewish hebdomad is repeatedly stressed by Philo as a characteristic of the ancient calendar. (Cf. Num. 28:26.) Knowing therefore the Julian date of the first day of Nisan, and hence its corresponding day of the week,9 we have simply to ascertain the day of the week cor­responding to the Feast of Tabernacles.

Passover Ruled Time of All Other Feasts

The ancient Passover, therefore, was the rul­ing feast, and it governed the day of the week for every other sacrifice. No two of the prin­cipal feasts occurred on the same day of the week, as may be seen from the following series:

1) If Nisan full moon, for example, on the Jewish thirteenth................................................... Thursday

(2) Then Passover on the fourteenth.............................................................................................Friday

(3) And feast of unleavened bread on the fifteenth......................................................................Saturday

(4) And Pentecost—one day later in its week than the feast of unleavened bread...............Sunday — Monday

These festal relationships are incontrovertible. They show that anciently the major Jewish feasts always occurred on consecutive days of the cal­endar week. The modern rab­binacal calendar still main­tains similar relationships, even with its fictitious moons and undefined mer idian.11 These features are largely brought about by the dehi­yoth, or "postponments," which advance some of the feasts a day later in the week, but, contrary to earlier Jewish timekeeping, thereby elimi­nate altogether certain week­days from the calendar.19 The ancient calendar, however, with its hebdomads and sacri­ficial feasts in the harvest months, had a strictly Jewish and exact form of its own.

This calendar was plainly lunar, for it was checked by a crescent moon that was ob­served on a fixed latitude and longitude, and by a Passover "fourteenth" that had a defined rela­tion to both crescent moon and full moon.13

This ancient calculation was not only quite different from the modern rabbinical form, but in several respects unlike that of any other na­tion of the ancient East, which had no sacrifice of the Passover lamb on its calendars. More­over, Oriental calendars do not tie any Jewish feast date to a known phase of the moon.

Biblical New Moons Calculated

The Biblical dates are in harmony with the principles of feast calculation set forth in this study. The ' dates themselves are the best proof of the argument that from very ancient time the patriarchs understood how to calculate their calendar. The flood chronicle itself is witness not only to the length of both lunar and solar year," and the length of the lunar months, but also to the festal hebdomads. Either this inspired calculation must have been made by Moses, at least a millennium after the flood, or else it had been passed down to posterity by his forefathers. This great prophet has left more dates on record than any other Biblical writer.

It is of outstanding significance that under the second temple, Nehemiah and all the people —priests, Levites, singers—entered into a solemn curse to keep the statutes and judgments of Moses—even of the new moons and set feasts. (Neh. 10:29, 3.3.) But if hence­forth the length of the calendar months had been governed only according to the appearance of the crescent in the evening sky, no Jewish month, from year to year, would commonly have had the same number of days, like the Babylonian months. For, as every observer knows, the crescent moon frequently appears a day earlier than usual and frequently a day later. The new moon, first visible on one evening at Jerusalem, might be seen the evening before in places west of Jerusalem; or might be invisible until the following evening accord­ing to the reckoning of places east of it.15

On the basis of these inequalities of the moon alone, no Biblical date or ancient historic syn­chronism could with certainty be identified. The solution of the problem is found in the calculated relation of the sacrificial dates to the calendar. In a later study we shall demonstrate this relation in connection with the Feast of Tabernacles. There are at least six instances in Bible times where seventh-month dates are tied to a known day of the week.16 Similar synchronisms are also common throughout medieval history. The circumstances underly­ing these dates are for the most part connected with chronological outlines whose years can be certified; but if not, the year can be computed if the date and day of the week are given. It then remains to prove that the historical record and the calendar are in agreement. Such is the character of the Biblical synchronisms with which the prophetic periods are linked.

References

1 Martin P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Keeping, p. 273. London, 1920.

2 Cf. Jewish Encyclopedia, art. "Calendar."

3 Uotham Johnson, Dare Studies, p. 5. Philadelphia, 1932

The Great Controversy, p. 399. (On this point the Old Testament is explicit: Exodus 12 :6, 2 Chronicles 30 :15 and 35 :1 have the passover killed on the fourteenth ; in Numbers 9 :3, Joshua 5 :to, and Ezra 6:10, the feast is kept on the fourteenth; in Numbers 9 :11, the feast is both kept and eaten on the four­teenth; in Leviticus 23:5 and Numbers 28:16, the passover is in the fourteenth.)

5 Cf. The Desire of Ages, p. 77 with Ant. 111.X.5.

6 The ancient Jewish calendar was fixed in two celestial points : (t) by tying the Passover on 14 Nisan to the day after full moon; (2) by beginning the Jewish day at sunset. This regulated every sacri­fice to the limit of the calendar, in harmony with Pentateuchal and astronomical law.

7 Since the time of Ezra, the month Elul is said never to have had more than twenty-nine days. Cf. Adolf Schwarz, Der Judisclie Kalender, p. 16; Rosh Hashanah Job, 32a: Beza 6h. So also the astrono­mers of Nehardea, the home town of Mar-Samuel (Schwarz, P. 45).

8 In Leviticus 23:15, r6, Pentecost is computed as the fiftieth day, inclusive, from the day of offering the wave sheaf. Hence this feast was a full fifty days after the feast of unleavened bread, which occurred on the day before the wave sheaf.

9 The day of the week corresponding to any Julian date can be ascertained from the Julian day numbers, a table of which is given in every current Nautical Almanac, published by the Nautical Almanac Office, U. S. Naval Observatory.

10 Nations around the Mediterranean—Romans, Egyptians, Arabs, Jews, and Babylonians—have all placed on record the fact that the Nisan moon commonly fulls on the Jewish thirteenth in this territory.

11According to Maimonides and Jewish chronolo­gers generally, the modern Jewish calendar is based upon the "mean motions of the sun and moon, the true having been set aside."—Maimonides, Kiddusch Ha-hodesch, chap. VIII, sec. 7, 8. Tr. Mahler, Wien, 1889, (The rabbinical calculation is not involved by the inequalities of the moon.)

12 For they [the Jews] have made an arrangement among themselves, that New Year shall not fall on a Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday, i.e., on the days of the sun and his two stars (Mercury and Venus) ; and that Passover, by which the beginning of Nisan is regu­lated, shall not fall on the days of the inferior stars, i.e., on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday."—Albirilni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, p. 66. Tr. Sachau. London, 1879.

13 Emil Schiirer : "Just this fragment [See Ministry, quotation d, page 35, February, 1944.1 shows that Aristobulus . . . really gave a description and ex­planation of the Jewish law."—The Jewish People in the Time of Christ, div. II, part III, p. 241. Scrib­ner's. New York.

14 Schiaparelli, Astronomy in the Old Testament, p. 127. Oxford, 1905. The author says: "We cannot doubt that this writer [Moses] knew the year of 365 days. In fact, he makes the flood begin in the 600th year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month ; and the definite drying of the earth and the end of the flood he puts in the 6oist year of Noah's life, on the twenty-seventh day of the second month. These months are certainly those of the Jewish calendar, that is to say, lunar periods."

15 E. W. Maunder, Astronomy of the Bible, p. 298. 2d ed., London.

16 Dedication of the first temple ; Eze. 40 :1; Neh. 8; John 5; John 7, 8; Wars 11.XIX.1.2.

By GRACE EDITH AMADON, Research Worker, Takoma Park, Maryland

April 1944

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