Building on the Foundation

  The Biblical Calendar is a hotly debated topic with a plethora of different opinions.  How can we know which is the right one? Let's start with what the Bible actually requires.  Genesis 1:14 “ Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years .’” A Calendar must use the heavenly bodies. Furthermore, the feast of Passover must be in the spring. (this is discussed later.) That's it!   Those are the Biblical criteria for a calendar. Nothing less and nothing more. The purpose of a calendar is to keep people in synchrony with each other. This admission allows us to disregard any “calendar” that fails to do this. To find out which calendar to use we must whittle the pool down to what works, and what does not.  Let us explore the workings of a calendar that we will label as “ Calendar X ”   This calendar in following the Biblical guidelines for...

  Over the past thirty years or so, many people rejected the calculated Hebrew calendar in favor of sighted calendars, solar calendars, and probably others as well. But of all those who reject the Hebrew calendar, very few understand it. It seems to me that if people wish to reject the Hebrew calendar, they should at least understand it first. God’s Word tells us, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him” (Prov. 18:13). This post isn’t meant to wade into the calculated calendar vs. sighted calendar issue, but simply to show what the Hebrew calendar seeks to accomplish, and how it works. What Type of Calendar? Today, most of the world follows a solar calendar, the Gregorian calendar. In this system, the sun determines years, and the moon plays no role at all. Each time the earth completes one trip around the sun, that marks roughly one year. The calendar divides the year into twelve parts that are still called “months,” even though they have nothing ...

Since the invention of the Internet, innumerable calendars have popped up to challenge the Hebrew calendar, each one claiming to be the true calendar of the Bible. This includes numerous "sighted" calendars, that is, calendars that call for gazing up at the night sky and searching for the first visible crescent of the moon. This first visible crescent is said to be the "new moon" of the Bible and to mark the beginning of each month and, in turn, determine the dates of the holy days. First of all, if anyone can point to even one Bible verse that says we must look up at the sky and find the first visible crescent of the moon, I would love to see it. I have never found such a verse, nor have I ever seen anyone else point to such a verse. Secondly, the "new moon" doesn't appear in the Hebrew text of the Bible, as explained in this post . Neither is such a "new moon" defined; some define the new moon as the conjunction, when the moon is dark, and ...