This becomes somewhat more complicated in the case of the
Jewish calendar, for it is still coordinated with the phases of the moon. Indeed, it is that which determines the times of the Feast days. This is of particular importance with those that fall on the new moon and those that are celebrated at the time of the full moon. In addition, since the 12-month lunar year is a few days shorter than a solar year, strict adherence to a lunar calendar would mean that the holidays would eventually take place at the wrong season.
This would mean that every now and then we would celebrate
Hanukkah, the mid-winter festival of lights, in the middle of summer and
Sukkot, the autumn harvest festival, in the early spring. Therefore, in an attempt to coordinate the traditional lunar year with the solar year Judaism has worked out a system of 19-year cycles, in which there are seven leap years. In distinction to the day added to the secular leap year, the Jewish calendar adds a full month to the end of its year. In this manner the Jewish holidays fluctuate by about a month or so in relationship to the Gregorian calendar, but always fall at the same time of year.
I'm not sure about the accuracy of this but check it out for yourself
For an excellent online resource on the Hebrew calendar Claus Tondering has
a website with some very informative articles on calendars. There is also an excellent Jewish resource giving valuable and helpful details on the Hebrew Calendar at
this website.
Like many calendars before Roman times the Hebrew calendar was a lunar-solar calendar. It was based upon the moon as well as the sun and the passage of the years. The first day of any given month was determined by the first sighting of the new moon. It was a wonderful calendar in that the phase of the moon gave an indication of the the day of the month. Anyone looking up into the night sky could get some idea of where they were in the month. If they had recorded the evening when they first saw the new moon then they had could mark down the ensuing day as day 1. And knowing that the lunar month was about 29.5 days they knew the month would run to either 29 or 30 days. With this they had a celestial calendar they could use with some fairly good accuracy from month to month. Amongst the populace at large they knew the month of the year in which the moon above them was shining. But not knowing precisely when the new moon would be seen they could not plan for, (say), a merchant or a military rendezvous on a certain day in the future with full assurance that all the parties would arrive at the agreed meeting place on the same day.
The key to the lunar-solar calendar was the sighting of the new moon. The new moon is not usually visible to the naked eye until it is 24 hours old. (See the photo above from the Islamic website
moonsighting.com/moonphoto.html). And sometimes the new moon would be obscured by cloud. This is why the Hebrew calendar required confirmation by two or more witnesses. There were some definite vagaries in assigning the first day of the month.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PURE SOLAR CALENDAR.
THE ROMAN EMPIRE INSTITUTES THE JULIAN CALENDAR.
The lunar calendar was used by Semitic peoples and many others from ancient times. It was the Romans who in their iron-fisted way decided that they would make an improvement. They would make their calendar fully predictive into the future by ignoring the lunar cycles altogether. They would name and set forth the so-called "months" of the year with the names of their Caesars and other luminaries, and assigning a certain number of days to each. Then, since the year was close to being a quarter of a day over the 365 days they would decree a leap year every four years and add an extra day beyond February 28 to make February 29 the last day of the month that "leap" year. Of course by doing this they would be totally ignoring the actual cycles of the moon.
It was during the reign of Julius Caesar that the Romans set forth their new calendar. It was based solely upon the annual passage of the earth around the sun. They considered the solar year to be so-close to 365.25 that this would be "good enough for government work". By this means they hoped to keep the equinoxes and solstices fixed to certain dates on their solar Julian calendar for some considerable time to come.
This worked fairly well for many centuries. But since the true solar year was actually 365.2422 days and the Julian calendar had been set at 365.25 days the Julian calendar was falling behind the proper dates expected for the equinoxes and solstices and the actual expected dates for the passages of the earth around the sun. The Julian calendar was falling behind by one day every 128 years. After many centuries the Julian calendar had come way out of proper synchronization with the solar equinoxes. Ecclesiastical authorities during the rule of Pope Gregory adjusted the Roman calendar and by dropping ten days off the Julian calendar, (and whilst keeping the weekly cadence the same), they reset the calendar to the solar passages. This was accomplished in 1582. Here is that story.
The Gregorian calendar is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree or a papal bull signed in February of 1582. The reformed calendar was adopted later that year by a handful of countries, with other countries following suit over the following centuries. The need for the Gregorian reform stemmed from the fact that the Julian calendar assumes time between vernal equinoxes is 365.25 days, when in fact it is about 11 minutes less. The accumulated error between these values had amounted to about 10 days when the reform was made in 1582, resulting in the equinox occurring on March 11 instead of March 21 and moving steadily earlier in the calendar. Since the equinox was tied to the celebration of Easter the reform in the solar calendar was a very necessary undertaking by the Western rulers. And the ruling power in the West at that time was the Roman Catholic Church.
The Papal Gregorian calendar is the one we have in the West today. It still tracks along with the annual orbit of the earth around the sun and continues with the same names of the month that had been set by the Romans. It remains a Roman style solar calendar. It still completely ignores the phases of the moon and runs completely independently of the lunar passages.
SOME SHIFTY BUSINESS AT THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA.
WE KNOW FROM THE SEVENTY WEEK PROPHECY THAT THE YEAR OF THE PASSION
CAME IN 32. A.D.. THE NASA LUNAR DATA HEBREW CALENDAR WITH THE NISAN 14 DATE FOR PASSOVER THEREBY ASSIGNING THE
JULIAN DATES FOR THE EVENTS OF HOLY WEEK. THEN RUNNING BACK OUR PERPETUAL
CALENDAR INTO THE FIRST CENTURY TO THE WEEK OF THE PASSION WE DISCOVER THAT THERE IS A MISMATCH OF OUR PERPETUAL CALENDAR WITH HOLY WEEK.
There is more to this story of the Julian calendar than we have been told. This solar Julian calendar did undergo a very significant change at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.. It is something we discover as we "connect the dots". Whilst the Julian years and dates of the month were allowed to continue unchanged we can discern that there was a big change to the days in a week AND the weekly cadence of the week. Here is a brief background to the story.
The earlier Roman week, the week that was used by Rome in the First Century, was not a seven day week. It was an 8 day week, in which the days were labeled A-H. This was called the Nundinal Cycle. The 9th day, the first day of the next Roman week was known as "Market Day". At the Council of Nicaea two significant changes were made to the Julian calendar. These changes did not affect in any way the faithful continuation of the Julian year and the running of the days of the month. But the layout of the week was profoundly changed and the cadence of the week as compared to the cadence of the Hebrew seven day week was quite different. Here is what happened.
1. the 8 day week was changed to a seven day week.
2. This new seven day week was reset with the first day of the new seven day week honoring the pagan "Sun" god as "SunDay".Throughout the deliberations and calendar change at Nicaea the passage of Julian years, months, and days of the month remained undisturbed. And so in that regard the Roman Julian Calendar continued unchanged and the dates on the Julian calendar continued as the calendar of Western Christendom. This Julian calendar was upheld by the Roman Church throughout the Dark Ages and on into the medieval era.
But, there is an untold story here. As we can see when we lift the covers, it is is a story subterfuge and intrigue.
Let us lay out the facts. With our establishment of 32 A.D. as the Passion Year and what we can see is Biblically correct concerning the weekly layout of Passion Week we can start our search by looking at the Nisan 14 crucifixion date for the Passover of that year. The NASA lunar data will give us the Hebrew calendar and Nisan 14 date to help us lay out the the significant events of the Nisan 14 deathm the Nisan 15 burial on Unleavened Bread, and the Firstfruits Resurrection three days later on the first day of the Week following that epic Passover of 32 A.D. And then, after having put the pieces of the puzzle together we have the correct layout of Passion Week on both the hebrew and Julian calendars. Next, we compare this with the weekly layout we might expect when we run the Perpetual Calendar backwards into the first Century.
And what do we find? Something very very interesting.
There is a significant mismatch between our present seven day week, (the one set in motion at the Council of Nicaea, and the seven day week of the Hebrew calendar we saw back in the first century
See
this PDF PowerPoint Presentation.
THE BEAUTY OF THE HEBREW LUNAR-SOLAR CALENDAR.
CAN THE BIBLICAL CALENDAR BE RESTORED? AND IS
THIS NECESSARY TO ACCURATELY ANTICIPATE THOSE EPIC
FUTURE EVENTS YET TO UNFOLD ON THE FALL FEASTS OF ISRAEL,
NAMELY THE FEAST OF TRUMPETS AND THE DAY OF ATONEMENT?
The early lunar calendars were agricultural calendars. They were important for planting and harvesting. The Hebrew calendar was set by the priests of Israel every spring. The beginning month of the year was the month of Abib. The word "Abib", meaning "ripe" was the moon which would see the ripening of the barley harvest. This month of Abib was also the month of Nisan.
Nisan was determined by a celestial event. The Nisan moon was the first moon that would become a full moon after the passing of the spring equinox. Nisan thereby marked the first month of the year on the Hebrew calendar for the religious year. The Nisan moon, confirmed by the ripening of the barley harvest determined the month in which Passover would be celebrated.
The lunar calendar set forth years of 12 months or 13 months. In a span of nineteen years, the Metonic Cycle, there were seven years of 13 months. These were years in which the religious authorities would closely examine the new moon in the early springtime after the passage of 12 moons. The Sanhedrin or priests authorized to make this assessment would determine if that upcoming moon was going to come to fullness after the spring equinox or if the full moon would fall short of the spring equinox. If the full moon was going to come
after the Spring equinox it would be declared to be the Nisan moon. If it was going to fall short of the spring equinox then it would be declared a second month of Adar, in effect a 13th month for that year. This extra or embolismic month would "push" the following moon, (which of course was now the moon of Nisan), up into the year. This in turn would to make for a late Passover, a late Pentecost, and late Fall Feasts for that year.
So in those years with an extra embolismic month called Adar 2), the Paschal month of Nisan would come later than usual for that year. Passover in such years would be celebrated well up into our Roman month of April. The next year Nisan would fall back 11.24 days and the following year back another 11.24 days until the moon after the 12th moon again failed to come to fullness before the spring equinox. Once again the lunar calendar would have to be adjusted. A second month would need to be inserted into the Hebrew calendar to bring it into proper alignment with the springtime. These extra embolismic months "Adar 2" would push the month of Nisan up into the threshold of the spring equinox and into the time when the barley ripened and became "Abib".
The lunar calendar worked pretty well in its time. For agriculturally based societies and for pilgrim travelers this solar-lunar calendar was very useful. It did not have the predictive accuracy to the very day that the Roman solar calendar provided. But their solar-lunar calendar was very practical and handy for planting and harvest and the Spring, Summer and Fall festivals. It was, in effect, a calendar that God had provided for the people. It was posted up in the sky at night. And it was there for everyone to see.
In its early days of the Semitic peoples and before the 19 year Metonic cycle was discovered the lunar calendar needed attention early every spring. The adjustment of adding in another month was called for 7 years out of the 19 year Metonic cycle. The early Hebrew priest would make their determination of Nisan in the early springtime. When the new moon on approach to the spring equinox was first seen they would determine if it was going to come to fullness before the spring equinox. If it was then it would qualify for the month of Nisan. If it failed to qualify they would consider it a 13th month and declare it as the month of Adar 2. The next moon following it would be be the month of Nisan.
Twelve months of 29.53 days makes for a lunar year of close to 354 days. This is 11.24 days short of the solar year which is 365.24 days. So a calendar containing 12 lunar months falls back 11.24 days every year. Hence the leap months added seven years out of 19.
THE DISCOVERY OF METON IN 432 B.C.
19 YEARS = 235 LUNAR MONTHS.
AND SO THE LUNAR CYCLE = 29.53 DAYS.
THE 19 YEAR "METONIC CYCLE" IS DISCOVERED
WHICH PREDICTS THE LUNAR-SOLAR CALENDAR.
Meton of Athens was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, geometer, and engineer. He lived in Athens in the 5th century BCE. This remarkable scholar was doing what the Greeks did well. He was using Greek logic. He was looking for patterns in nature in an attempt to quantify the natural world. He was deliberately seeking a deeper understanding of the rhyme and reason of things in the universe. When he looked back at what the lunar calendar had actually been doing down through the years he made a very important discovery. Meton noticed that
19 solar years was exceedingly close to being exactly
235 moons in length. He saw that 19 solar years and 235 lunar months
both add up to
6940 days.
This was a great discovery. And it had a wonderful application in the solar-lunar calendar. 7 extra months could be neatly inserted into the lunar calendar every 19 years. This would make the solar-lunar calendar predictable over 19 years. In
432 BC Meton introduced the 19-year Metonic cycle into the lunisolar Attic calendar.
This was truly a "Eureka" moment in the history of the solar-lunar calendar. The
Metonic Cycle had been discovered! The discovery proved to be of great value. The solar-lunar calendar could be determined ahead of time.
THE CADENCE OF THE METONIC CYCLES.
THE METONIC CYCLE
(1) .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(2)
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .
0 (
OOMP )
(3) . .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0. . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(4) .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(5)
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .
0 (
OOMP )
(6) . .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(7) .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(8)
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .
0 (
OOMP )
(9) . .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(10) .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(11)
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .
0 (
OOMP )
(12) .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(13)
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .
0 (
OOMP )
(14) . .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(15) .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(16)
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .
0 (
OOMP )
(17) . .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(18) .
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 ( PA )
(19)
0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . . 0 . .
0 (
OOMP )
