EN WE DON'T REALIZE what is not being said because of what is being said. In other words, hidden or unspoken assumptions are always at work in communication, though we rarely take the time to seriously examine these assumptions for ourselves. Advertisers, politicians, and others who wish to control your thinking implicitly understand this and therefore regularly employ various techniques to distract you from examining their assumptions. They understand that the louder (or more frequently or more threateningly) something is said, the less likely you will question its truth status or engage in reasonable thinking of your own.... In other words, "truth" for such pragmatists is little more than persuasion. Get the crowd to believe you and you've got the "truth."
Take, for example, the idea that we should all rush about purchasing Christmas presents to give on December 25th, and that shortly thereafter we should celebrate a transitional day that marks the end of one year and the beginning of the next. In most countries of the world, New Year's Day is usually celebrated on January 1st, though this date comes from the arbitrary decree of the consuls of ancient (and pagan) Rome -- not from anything taught in the Hebrew Scriptures. Some Christian churches plan their own New Year's celebrations, offering a service to make resolutions and to offer up special prayers. (Because it falls eight days after December 25th, some Roman-influenced churches observe this date as the "Feast of Christ's Circumcision.") Many mainline churches plan "midnight" communion services so that the sacraments could be taken just before the start of the "new year." Now while all this might be encouraging and helpful on some level, it needs to be stressed that the civil New Year that the world celebrates is not a Biblical holiday at all, and in fact is opposed to the Biblical Calendar that was revealed in the Torah and Scriptures.
The study of the various calendar systems used in the world is highly convoluted and intricate. Consider, for example, the ancient calendars of the Egyptians, the Sumerians (i.e., Babylonians), and the Aztecs. Or consider the Druid legends and Stonehenge.... Indeed, there are numerous calendar systems that have been developed throughout human history -- some based on the appearance of the moon (lunar calendars), some based on the sun (solar calendars), and still others based on various astrological signs and omens (the Aztecs followed the movements of the planet Venus, and the Romans counted backwards from fixed points of the moon's cycle and considered months of 29 days to be unlucky). 
The Torah designates the month of Nisan (Scripturally called aviv, or "Spring") as the first month of the year (Exod. 12:2). Originally, then, the Hebrew calendar was lunar and observational. When the new moon was sighted, a new month begun. Since the Torah also identified Sukkot as "the end of the (harvest) year" (Exod. 23:16), the sages of the Mishnah later identified the fall month of Tishri (i.e., the "seventh month") as the start of a new year.... During the Babylonian exile (6th century BC), Babylonian names for the months (i.e., Tammuz) were adopted. This might harken back to the earlier Sumerian Calendar of Abraham's day...
By the time the Mishnah was compiled (200 AD), the sages had identified no less than four new-year dates for every lunar-solar year (the modern Jewish calendar was apparently ratified by Hillel the Elder in the 3rd century AD):
- Nisan 1 (i.e., Rosh Chodashim) marks the start of the month of the Exodus from Egypt and the beginning of Jewish national history. As such, it represents the start of the Biblical year for counting the festivals (Exod. 12:2). Note that the month of Nisan is also called Aviv since it marks the official start of spring.
- Elul 1 marks the start of the year from the point of view of tithing cattle for Temple sacrifices. Since the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, the rabbis decreed that this date should mark the time of selichot, or preparation for repentance before Rosh Hashanah. Elul 1 marks the start of the last month of summer.
- Tishri 1 was originally associated with the agricultural "Feast of Ingathering" at the "end of the year" (Exod. 23:16, 34:22), though after the destruction of the Second Temple, the sages decided it would mark the start of the civil year in the fall.Tishri 1 was therefore called Rosh Hashanah ("the head of the year") which begins a ten-day "trial" of humanity climaxing on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).
- Shevat 15 (i.e., Tu B'Shevat) originally marked the date for calculating the tithes of the harvest (ma'aserot) that farmers would pledge to the priests of Israel. This was the start of the year from the point of view of tithing of fruit trees. Today Tu B'Shevat represents a national Arbor Day in Israel, with tree planting ceremonies in Israel. Unlike the other three "new years," Tu B'Shevat begins in the middle of the month, during a full moon in winter.
In practical terms, however, there are two "New Years" in Jewish tradition. The first occurs two weeks before Passover (Nisan 1) and the second occurs ten days before Yom Kippur (the other two "new years" are not regularly observed, except by the ultra-orthodox). The first New Year is Biblical and is called Rosh Chodashim(see Exod. 12:2). This is the month of the redemption of the Jewish people -- and it is also the month Yeshua was sacrificed upon the cross at Moriah for our sins. Oddly enough for most Christians, "New Years Day" should be really celebrated in the spring....
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All of this is in striking contrast, however, with the most widely used calendar in the world today -- the "Gregorian Calendar" -- named after Pope Gregory XIII who reigned over the Catholic Church in the 1500's.
The Gregorian calendar, considered to be a revision to the Julian calendar (which was itself a revision of the pagan Roman/Greek calendars) retains most of the names of the days of the week and months of the year from pagan Rome (and therefore, ancient Greece). The ancient Greeks named the days of the week after the sun, the moon and the five known planets (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn) which themselves were associated with the gods Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronus, respectively:
- Sunday. Latin: dies solis - "Sun Day." Sunday celebrates the sun god, Ra, Helios, Apollo, Ogmios, Mithrias, or the sun goddess, Phoebe. In the year 321 AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine ruled that the first day of the week, 'the venerable day of the sun', should be a day of rest. The name was later changed to dies Dominica, "Lord's Day" in ecclesiastical tradition.
- Monday. Latin: lunae dies - "Moon Day." Monday was named in honor of the Assyrian goddess, Selene, Luna and Mani. In old English, mon(an)daeg meant "day of the moon."
- Tuesday. Latin: dies Martis - "Day of Mars." In Greek mythology Ares was the god of war (renamed "Mars" by the Romans). In English, "Tuesday" comes from Tiu (Twia), the English/Germanic god of war and the sky (identified with the Nordic god called Tyr).
- Wednesday. Latin: dies Mercurii - "Day of Mercury." In Greek mythology Hermes was the god of trade and commerce (renamed "Mercury" by the Romans). In English, the name "Wednesday" derives from the Scandinavian god Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology. Woden is the chief Anglo-Saxon/Teutonic god, the leader of the Wild Hunt.
- Thursday. Latin: dies Iovis - "Day of Jupiter." In Greek mythology Zeus was the god of the sky (renamed "Jupiter" by the Romans). The English word "Thursday" comes from the Middle English Thorsday, refering to "Thor" (the Nordic counterpart to Jupiter).
- Friday. Latin: dies Veneris - "Day of Venus." In Greek mythology Aphrodite was the goddess of love/fertility (renamed "Venus" by the Romans). The name "Friday" comes from Freya (Fria), the name of the Norse god Odin's wife and Teutonic goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.
- Saturday. Latin: dies Saturni - "Day of Saturn." In Greek mythology Cronus was the god of the harvest (renamed "Saturn" by the Romans) who ruled until dethroned by his son Zeus.
Likewise the names of the months ("moons") have pagan-Roman connections. The month of "January," for instance, is named on behalf of Janus, the two-faced Roman "god of doorways" who had one face looking forward and one backward ("Janus faced"). March is named after Mars, the god of war; April for the fertility goddess Aphrodite, July is named on behalf of Julius Caesar, August for Augustus Caesar, and so on.... Of course, the Gregorian calendar of the Roman church tradition assimilated the pagan pantheon into its own liturgical calendar, as the Latin names of the days and months reveal.
אֶל־דֶּרֶךְ הַגּוֹיִם אַל־תִּלְמָדוּ
וּמֵאתוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם אַל־תֵּחָתּוּ
כִּי־יֵחַתּוּ הַגּוֹיִם מֵהֵמָּה
כִּי־חֻקּוֹת הָעַמִּים הֶבֶל הוּא
el · de·rekh · hag·go·yim · al · til·ma·du
ume·o·tot · ha·sha·ma·yim · al · te·cha·tu
ki · ye·cha·tu · hag·go·yim · me·hem·ah
ki · chuk·kot · ha·a·mim · he·vel · hu
"Learn not the way of the Gentiles,
nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens
because the Gentiles are dismayed at them,
for the customs of the nations are vanity."
(Jer. 10:2-3)
It frankly baffles me that certain Christian theologians and preachers can be so meticulous about certain doctrines (such as justification by faith alone, the definition of the "church," the "inerrancy" of Scripture, the exact formula for baptism, etc.) and yet be seemingly oblivious to the fact that the modern, institutionalized Church inherits much of its substance and practice from pagan Rome... True, the Jews themselves adopted pagan names of the months from ancient Babylonia, but the Torah (as opposed to Jewish tradition) calls months (and days) by their ordinal number (the "first" month, the "second" month, etc.), and explicitly mentions that the New Year begins in spring (aviv). So, while I'd like to wish you all a "Happy New Year," I'd like to wait until Nisan 1! Meanwhile, I hope and pray that you draw close to our Lord Yeshua, regardless of the time or day! Shalom Chaverim...
Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε τὸν κόσμον μηδὲ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον,
οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ - 1 Jn 2:15
ADDENDUM: I am not suggesting that we should reject the secular calendar in preference to the Biblical calendar, at least for everyday, practical matters in this world. Conventionally we all use the words "Monday," "Tuesday," "January," "February," and so on without regard for the pagan associations of these names, and since we live in a secular culture, we are constrained to use the same terms as the culture around us, especially regarding times, dates, etc. Nevertheless I think it's worthwhile contrasting the Biblical view of the calendar with that of the pagan world around us, especially since this reveals the disparity between the "Greek" and "Hebrew" mindsets so clearly. Our Jewish Lord and Messiah told us that we were "in but not of" the world, after all (John 17:5).
Moreover I am concerned that the predominantly Gentile Church has unthinkingly adopted many assumptions of the pagan world and has thereby become gravely out of touch with the divine calendar and the prophetic purpose of the festivals of the LORD. Perhaps this is a result of the almost intractable problem of "Covenant Theology" or its ideological twin, "Dispensationalism," two interpretative methods that are used by various church theologians as they read the Scriptures. Churches that teach "Covenant Theology" advocate a form of "Replacement Theology," claiming that Israel should really be identified with the Gentile "church." On the other hand, churches that teach "Dispensationalism" consider the "Old Testament" to be worthy of instruction but really applicable only to the Jewish people (the Pauline epistles and perhaps the Gospel of John, on the other hand, are intended for the predominantly Gentile church). I believe that both approaches misread the Scriptures. (For more on this subject, see this article).
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Note about "Hyperreality"
"Hyperreality" is a term used to refer to the impairment of mind, conditioned by postmodern culture, to sometimes fail to distinguish between what is real and what is "virtually real." This has led to various techniques of "mass media" that invent a sort of "Disney world" effect in which people "enter into" illusory social constructs and passively regard them as realities. Such "fake depictions" create illusions that cater to people's fears, desires, and imaginations. It is the "technological mediation" of experience, and it is commonplace today, so commonplace, in fact, that it is the manufactured interpretation of what is "real."
Some examples of hyperrealities include: mass media "news"; the Internet; "reality TV"; TikTok; advertising of all kinds; fake "science," Facebook "friends," sexual "identity," HDR photography; faux antiques; pornography; Disney World; the music industry; fast "food," professional sports; fiat currency; and "Neo's noodles" (from the Matrix), among others..
The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with years consisting of 12 lunar months, each beginning when a new crescent moon was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset, plus an intercalary month inserted as needed by decree.
The year begins in spring, and is divided into reš šatti “beginning”, mišil šatti “middle”, and qīt šatti “end of the year”. The word for “month” was arḫu. The chief deity of the Assyrians is assigned the surplus intercalary month, showing that the calendar originates in Babylonian, and not later Assyrian times.
During the 6th century BC Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews, the Babylonian month names were adopted into the Hebrew calendar. In Iraq and the Levant, the Gregorian solar calendar is used with Arabic names of the Roman months replacing the Latin names.
The Days of the Month
Counting from the new moon, the Babylonians celebrated every seventh day as a “holy-day”, also called an “evil-day” (meaning “unsuitable” for prohibited activities). On these days officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to “make a wish”, and the 28th was known as a “rest-day”.
On these days, offerings were made to a different god and goddess at nightfall to avoid the prohibitions:
Tablets from the sixth-century BC reigns of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses II indicate these dates were sometimes approximate. The lunation of 29 or 30 days basically contained three seven-day weeks, and a final week of eight or nine days inclusive, breaking the continuous seven-day cycle.
The Monthly Calendar
Until the 5th century BC, the calendar was fully observational, but beginning about 499 BC the months began to be regulated by a lunisolar cycle of 19 years equaling 235 months. After no more than three isolated exceptions, by 380 BC the months of the calendar were regulated by the cycle without exception. In the cycle of 19 years, the month Adaru 2 was intercalated, except in the year that was number 17 in the cycle, when the month Ulūlu 2 was inserted.
Season – Reš Šatti – Spring – The Beginning – 𒊕𒈬
During this period, the first day of each month (beginning at sunset) is the day when a new crescent moon was first sighted—the calendar never used a specified number of days in any month.
1st Month –Araḫ Nisānu
2nd Month – Araḫ Āru
3rd Month – Araḫ Simanu
4th Month – Araḫ Dumuzu
Season – Mišil Šatti – Summer/Fall – The Middle – 𒁇𒈬
During this period, the first day of each month (beginning at sunset) is the day when a new crescent moon was first sighted—the calendar never used a specified number of days in any month.
5th Month – Araḫ Abu
6th Month – Araḫ Ulūlu
7th Month – Araḫ Tišritum
8th Month – Araḫ Samnu
Season – Winter – Qīt Šatti – The End – 𒌀𒈬
During this period, the first day of each month (beginning at sunset) is the day when a new crescent moon was first sighted—the calendar never used a specified number of days in any month.
9th Month – Araḫ Kislimu
10th Month – Araḫ Ṭebētum
11th Month – Araḫ Šabaṭu
12th Month – Araḫ Addaru / Adār
Intercalary or 13th Month
In year 17 of the 19-year cycle, the intercalary month was named Araḫ Ulūlu – 𒌚𒆥 – Adar II
The Egyptian calendar was developed in the Egypt of the pharaos, so long ago that we don't know when exactly, but probably 4000 or more years ago. The Egyptian calendar was a solar calendar.
Already around the year −2150, the Egyptians divided the night (from sundown till sunup) into twelve equal parts, which were therefore shorter in the summer than in the winter: so-called
There is an ancient document that claims that the Egyptian calendar year contained 365 days from the end of the 17th dynasty of pharaos (around −1500), but had only 360 days before then [Verbrugghe, pp. 156, 179]. With a 360-day calendar year, the start of the year would have moved through all seasons in only about 70 years, and with a year of always 365 days it takes about 1460 years. That latter period is now referred to as a Sothis period, but it was apparently of no importance in ancient Egypt itself.
When the Romans conquered Egypt around AD 30, they enforced the use of a leap year every four years, which made the Egyptian calendar stay in step (as far as the length of the calendar year goes) with the Juliancalendar then in use in Rome itself. The Egyptian calendar after the adoption of the leap year rule is called the Alexandrian calendar. The first day of the Alexandrian calendar is always around 29 August on the Julian calendar.
Every Egyptian calendar year contained 12 months. Those months and their lengths are mentioned in the following table.
Table 1: Months of the Egyptian Calendar
| month | days | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thoth | 30 |
| 2 | Phaophi | 30 |
| 3 | Athyr | 30 |
| 4 | Choiak | 30 |
| 5 | Tybi | 30 |
| 6 | Mecheir | 30 |
| 7 | Phamenoth | 30 |
| 8 | Pharmuthi | 30 |
| 9 | Pachon | 30 |
| 10 | Payni | 30 |
| 11 | Epiphi | 30 |
| 12 | Mesore | 30 |
| (epagomenai) | 5 | |
The names in the table are those mentioned by Claudius Ptolemaeus in his Almagest (from around AD 150) [Toomer]. Every Egyptian calendaryear has the same number of days (365), and so does every month (30 days), with 5 extra days at the end of the year (called epagomenai by the ancient Greeks) to complete the year. With these rules, the Egyptian calendar was very easy to use, and was used also outside of Egypt, by astronomers, from the ancient Greeks (such as Claudius Ptolemaeus around AD 150) through the end of the Middle Ages, around 400 yearsago. Copernicus still used the Egyptian calendar!
2. The Babylonian calendar
The Babylonian calendar was used in ancient Mesopotamia (nowadays Iraq and its surroundings). The origin of this calendar is hidden in great age, probably around 3000 years ago. The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with 12 or 13 months a year that each had 29 or 30 days. The months of the Babylonian calendar are listed in the following table.
Table 2: Months of the Babylonian Calendar
| month | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Nisannu |
| 2 | Ajjaru |
| 3 | Simanu |
| 4 | Du`uzu |
| 5 | Abu |
| 6 | Ululu |
| Ululu Ⅱ (embolismic month) | |
| 7 | Tashritu |
| 8 | Arahsamnu |
| 9 | Kislimu |
| 10 | Tebetu |
| 11 | Shabatu |
| 12 | Adaru |
| Adaru Ⅱ (embolismic month) | |
Embolismic months were inserted after Ululu or Adaru. A new day started at sunset, and a new month at the first appearance of the yound crescent Moon after New Moon. The beginning of the year was always around the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere.
At the latest around the year −750 (in the Julian proleptic calendar) the Babylonians divided a full day into twelve equal parts ("double hours"), which were each divided into 30 equal parts. Babylonian arithmetic was based on the number 60, and that's where our division of an hour into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds comes from [Stephenson, p. 2].
At first, the beginning of months and years was determined by observations, but after a while periods and rules were discovered with which the lunar phases, and so the beginning of months, could be reasonably accurately predicted. From about the year −400 the calendarwas based on fixed rules, themselves based on the close connection between 235 synodical months and 19 tropical years. The city of Babylon was deserted and forgotten after about AD 100, and eventually the Babylonian calendar also got out of use. When Islam spread across the area around AD 650, the associated Islamic calendar gained prominence, which is of a quite different type. The Babylonian calendar still lives on to some degree in the Jewish calendar, which follows almost the same rules and has very similar names for the months.
3. The Greek calendars
The Greeks in ancient times used both equal and unequal hours[Stephenson, p. 3]. Each Greek city-state had its own calendar, with its own names for the months, and inserting embolistic months into the local calendar had more to do with local politics than with the desire for a regular predictable calendar. Because of this, our knowledge of the exact correspondence between dates on ancient Greek calendars and dates on other calendars is very limited.
4. The Julian calendar
The oldest Roman calendar (used from perhaps as early as the year−700 on the Julian proleptic calendar) was a lunar calendar, with in the beginning perhaps only 10 months in each calendar year, though that isn't very clear. The year then started with the month of March, and September through December were then the 7th through 10th months, as their names suggest (septem = 7, octo = 8, novem = 9, decem = 10). July was then still called Quintilis (quint = 5), and August was called Sextilis (sext = 6). Eventually (or perhaps soon) January and February appeared at the end of the calendar year.
Around −450, the calendar changed to become a lunisolar one, by occasional insertion of an embolistic month of 22 or 23 days just after the feast of the Terminalia on 23 February. The remaining days of February followed after the embolistic month. The insertion of the embolistic month happened so haphazardously that the calendar year came to be very much out of step with the seasons. In that time, March, May, Quintilis and October each had 31 days, February had 28, and the remaining months had 29, which yields a total of 355 days.
To get the calendar back into line with the seasons, Julius Caesar, the leader of the Roman Empire at the time, inserted several extra months into the year −44, which made that year 445 days long. Caesar changed the calendar, starting with the year we now refer to as −44, to a solar calendar of 365 days a year, by adding a couple of days to certain months: January, Sextilis, and December got 2 days extra to end up with 31, and April, June, September, and November gained 1 day to end up with 30. Caesar had the year officially start with January, which apparently had been the case already unofficially for a while. He also decreed that each fourth year should get an extra day inserted where the embolistic months used to be inserted, between 23 and 24 February [Censorinus], [van Wijk, p. 51]. With the Roman way of inclusive counting, the extra day was the sixth one before the end of February, and was called the bissextile day (the "second sixth" day). It is possible that Caesar learned the advantages of a regular predictable calendar during a lengthy visit to Egypt in −45.
Historians have determined that the year −44 was not a leap year. In honor of Caesar, the Senate of Rome decided to rename the month of Quintilis to Julius (July), but Caesar did not live to see the first month of July, because he was assassinated on the 15th day (the Ides) of the preceding March (of the year −43). After the death of Caesar, the Romans mistakenly counted every third year a leap year instead of the intended every fourth year, so that the calendar quickly got out of step with the seasons again. Caesar's successor, Emperor August, fixed this mistake by not having any leap years for a decade or so, so that from the year AD 8 at the latest the Julian calendar was once again on the track laid out by Caesar. In honor of Emperor August, the month of Sextilis was renamed to Augustus (August). The history of the lengths, names, and places of the months is illustrated by the following table (based on a description by the late Roman author Censorinus [Censorinus] [van Wijk, p. 51]).
Table 3: Months of the Julian Calendar
| around −450 | >−44 | later | English | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | ianuarius | 29 | 1 | 31 | January | |
| 12 | februarius | 28 | 2 | February | ||
| 1 | mars | 31 | 3 | March | ||
| 2 | aprilis | 29 | 4 | 30 | April | |
| 3 | maius | 31 | 5 | May | ||
| 4 | iunius | 29 | 6 | 30 | June | |
| 5 | quintilis | 31 | 7 | iulius | July | |
| 6 | sextilis | 29 | 8 | 31 | augustus | August |
| 7 | september | 29 | 9 | 30 | September | |
| 8 | october | 31 | 10 | October | ||
| 9 | november | 29 | 11 | 30 | November | |
| 10 | december | 29 | 12 | 31 | December | |
| 355 | 365 | |||||
The Romans used a very different way from us for naming days of the month. For an example of the Roman way of dating, see the Roman Calendar Example Page.
The Julian calendar was used without interruption until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII made some changes that modified the calendar (at first only in the Catholic areas, later also elsewhere) into the Gregoriancalendar.
On 17 August 2010 it was 750,000 days since the death of Julius Caesar.
5. The French revolutionary calendar
The French revolutionary calendar was used in France after the French Revolution, from 24 November 1793 until 1 January 1806 (when Napoléon Bonaparte had become the leader of the French people), and again from 6 until 23 May 1871 (on the Gregorian calendar). Each yearbegan at the autumnal equinox (the one in what we call September) and contained 12 months of 30 days each, followed by 5 (or 6) days that were not part of any month. The names of the months were: Vendémiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivôse, Pluviôse, Ventôse, Germinal, Floréal, Prairial, Messidor, Thermidor, and Fructidor, and the 5 or 6 month-less days that followed were together called the jours sansculottides. Each month was divided into three periods of 10 days (called décades), of which the last day was a day of rest. The workers weren't happy about this, because on the Gregorian calendar they had had a day of rest every 7th day.
The epoch of the calendar (1 Vendémiaire of year 1) coincided with the autumnal equinox of 1793 on the Gregorian calendar. At first, leap yearswere determined by the rule that the autumnal equinox must fall on 1 Vendémiaire, but this led to problems to predict when exactly future years would begin, so it was suggested to use a set of Gregorian-like leap year rules, but the calendar was abolished before those rules came into effect [Dershowitz].
6. The Central American calendars
The peoples of Anahuac (Central America) used many different calendarsbefore they were conquered by the Spaniards in the 16th century, but those calendars were all based on the same pattern, which we'll explain here based on the Tikan calendars of the Maya.
The calendars of Anahuac had a period of 20 days (called venteina by the Spaniards; the local name is not known anymore) with a name for each day. The names of the days of the venteina used in the Tikal calendar were: Imix, Ik, Akbal, Kan, Chicchan, Cimi, Manik, Lamat, Muluc, Oc, Chuen, Eb, Ben, Ix, Men, Cib, Caban, Etz'nab, Cauac and Ahau. The calendars also had a period of 13 days (called trecena by the Spaniards) in which each day had a number. These two cycles were run at the same time, such that after a day 6 Ik followed a day 7 Akbal, and then 8 Kan. A particular designation for a day in this system returned after 260 days, which period was called tzolkin in the language of Yucatan.
At the same time, there was also a year of 365 days, divided into 18 months of 20 days each, plus a 19th month of only 5 days. Each day in each month got a number (starting in the Tikal calendar with number 0, not 1), such that after day 0 Pop followed 1 Pop, and then 2 Pop. The names of the months in the Tikal calendar were: Pop, Uo, Zip, Zot'z, Tzec, Xul, Yaxkin, Mol, Ch'en, Yax, Zac, Ceh, Mac, Kankin, Muan, Pax, Kayab, Cumku and Uayeb. This system is now sometimes called the haab. With this year of 365 days, the calendar was a solar calendar.
A particular year was not identified by a number, but (usually) by the identification of the first day of the year in the tzolkin. If, for example, a particular year started with day 6 Ik, then the year was also called 6 Ik. The next year would then be 7 Manik, with the number one greater because 365 days equals 28 trecenas plus one day, and the month five positions further beause of the five extra days at the end of the year. The following year would then be 8 Eb, and the years after that 9 Caban and 10 Ik, and so on.
The calendars of Anahuac did not have leap years, so the calendar year ran out of step with the seasons by about 1 day each 4 years, just like the Egyptian calendar. A given day was usually identified by its positions in both the tzolkin and the haab cycles, for example 6 Ik 2 Pop, which was followed by 7 Akbal 3 Pop. After 52 calendar years of each 365 days a particular tzolkin-haab combination would come again. This period was called the hunab and is now called the calendar round, or even the Mayan century.
Besides these two cycles, the peoples of Anahuac also used the so-called Long Count, with several cycles that each consisted of a number of smaller cycles. The cycles and their lengths were:
| 1 kin | = | 1 day | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 tun | = | 18 uinal | = | 360 days | |
| 1 katun | = | 20 tun | = | 7'200 days | (about 20 years) |
| 1 baktun | = | 20 katun | = | 144'000 days | (about 394 years) |
| 1 may | = | 13 katun | = | 1'872'000 days | (about 5125 years) |
| 1 pictun | = | 20 baktun | = | 2'880'000 days | (about 7885 years) |
| 1 calabtun | = | 20 pictun | = | 57'600'000 days | (about 157'700 years) |
| 1 kinchiltun | = | 20 calabtun | = | 1'152'000'000 days | (about 3'154'004 years) |
| 1 alautun | = | 20 kinchiltun | = | 23'040'000'000 days | (about 63'080'082 years) |
Only the first five of these units of time were usually used in the Long Count. After 13 baktun = 20 may, the main cycle of the Long Count was complete and a new one would start. Each date was indicated by its (numbered) position in all cycles, starting with the baktun and then down to the kin. The numbers started at 0. A complete date specification consisted of the positions of the day in the Long Count, the tzolkin, and the haab.
The first day of the Long Coun, the epoch, was 0.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. With which day on the Julian proleptic calendar does that correspond? After the conquest of Central America by the Spaniards, many of the documents of the indigenous peoples were destroyed by the conquerors, and many local customs (such as the local calendars) were suppressed if the new masters felt they were not suitable. Because of this, the exact correspondence between the calendars of Anahuac (and especially the Long Count) and the calendars of the Spaniards (Julian/Gregorian) has been lost. Investigators of this question have proposed dates between the years of −3632 and −2593 of the Julian proleptic calendar. Nowadays most experts agree that 6 September −3113 (Julian proleptic; Julian day 584,283) is the correct one, as proposed in 1950 by Thompson.
A date, for example chiseled into a building or statue, was usually given in the tzolkin and haab. Sometimes the Long Count was also included, but sometimes it was not. If there's no Long Count, then the date is ambiguous even in its own calendar, because then the same combination recurs every 52 calendar years. For example, there's a Maya inscription (in the "Leyden Plaque" [Edmonson, p. 32]) that lists the date (after translation into the Tikal calendar) 1 Eb 0 Yaxkin. This date occurred most recently on 8 August 1983, and every 18,980 days before that. Which one is the correct one? Fortunately, the Long Count is also given, as 8.14.3.1.12, and that corresponds (assuming the Thompson correlation) with 14 September, AD 320.
1 January 2000 corresponded to 12.19.6.15.2 11 Ik 10 Kankin. The Long Count of 0.0.0.0.0 recurs on 21 December 2012, but that date can still be distinguished from the epoch because the tzolkin-haab designation of the coming 0.0.0.0.0 is 4 Ahau 3 Kankin, and the epoch was 0.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku. The first time that 0.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 8 Cumku comes again is in the year 34,302.
7. The Gaulish Calendar
Our knowledge of the Gaulish calendar is almost entirely based on the "Calendar of Coligny" that describes five years, probably dates to the 1st century AD, and was found in 1897 near Coligny in France. This Gaulish calendar was a lunisolar calendar with 12 or 13 months per year. The names and lengths of the months are displayed in the following table. (It is of course possible that the names or even the whole calendar was different in other regions or times.)
| day | ||
|---|---|---|
| Ciallos | 0/30 | |
| 1 | Samon | 30 |
| 2 | Dumann | 29 |
| 3 | Riuros | 30 |
| 4 | Anagantios | 29 |
| 5 | Ogron | 30 |
| 6 | Cutios | 30 |
| Ciallos | 0/30 | |
| 7 | Giamon | 29 |
| 8 | Simiuisonn | 30 |
| 9 | Equos | 29 |
| 10 | Elembiu | 29 |
| 11 | Edrin | 30 |
| 12 | Cantios | 29 |
The month Ciallos was an embolistic month that was inserted before Samon once every five years, and between Cutios and Giamon 2.5 yearslater. This Gaulish calendar therefor had an embolistic month every 2.5 years. This gave the calendar year a length of 354 or 384 days, with an average length of 366 days. To keep in step with the seasons in the long run, an embolistic month needed to be dropped once in a while, but how and when this happened is not known.
It is not clear at what phase of the Moon each month began. Some people think it was at Full Moon, others at New Moon, and yet others at First Quarter. The Celts counted a full day as a night and the following day. Modern Western calendars count days, but the Celts counted nights (as in "fortnight" for a period of 14 days).
It is not entirely clear in which time of year each month of the Gaulish calendar fell. Many people think that the Gaulish month of Samon roughly corresponds with the modern Irish month of Samhainn (November), but John Bonsing gives convincing arguments [Bonsing] that there is no reasonable proof for the Samon - Samhainn connection, that modern Samhainn in fact corresponds to the Gaulish month of Giamon, and that the beginning of the Gaulish year (with the month Samon or the preceding embolistic month of Ciallos) corresponds to about the middle of the modern month of May.
The Gregorian calendar has become the standard for measuring the progression of time since Pope Gregory XIII first introduced it in the year 1582. His papal influence let it spread to Italy, Spain, France, and other Catholic countries before becoming the most widely used calendar standard. Now years later, it is an official standard and civil calendar, acting as the basis for date and time guidelines in ISO 8601:2004 – Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times. The standard structures and names for months and other labels used in the Gregorian calendar are reflective of the past calendars from which it derived, and it even has similarities with the calendars that it shares no direct connection.
Humanity has long been interested in measuring and understanding the dimension of time, and has used the different celestial, or “heavenly”, bodies to track the changes in the rotation of the Earth and alteration of seasons. However, assessing the calendar systems of the past is not always reliable, since records were either poorly taken or have been long lost over time. Archaeological evidence in the past several years has indicated that Stone Age Britons from 10,000 years ago might have used a complex of pits to indicate the months of the year and the lunar stages in those months. Additionally, while the purpose of Stonehenge is not exactly known, some believe that the massive rocks might indicate some kind of calendar or representation of the movement in the solar system.
| Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England |
The Sumerian calendaris the earliest known confirmed calendar. The Sumerians were interested in astronomy, and their months began during the visibility of the first moon. This gave them twelve lunar months. The Mesopotamian solar year was divided into two seasons, which were essentially an extended summer and regular winter. Basing the 12 months off the visibility of the moon turned out to be problematic, since a lunar year is only 354 days. To accommodate this into the 365-day solar year, which they depended on for their agriculture, the Sumerians installed what is basically a leap month every several years, which was to be determined by the king at the time.
Much of the success of the Sumerian calendar is due to the economic benefits that came with being able to track barley loans, which later led to the implementation of silver as a standard form of currency. The successive Babylonians adapted the Sumerian calendar into their use, and strove to solve the issue of adding random months during the Eighth Century BCE. During this time, astronomers realized that 235 lunar months are almost identical to 19 solar years. This led them to conclude that 7 out of every 19 years ought to be leap years with an additional month. This solidified the standardized Babylonian calendarin Mesopotamia.
During this time, in a completely different part of the world, the Maya had developed their calendar system as the standard in a significant portion of Mesoamerica, specifically, the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico. The Mayan calendarconsists of different cycles, or counts of different lengths, including the Tzolkin 260-day count and the Haab 365-day cycle, the latter of which consisted of 20-day weeks plus additional 5-day period. These calendars were combined into a calendar that was used to track a period of time that spanned generations, the Long Count, which begins in the Gregorian calendar on August 11, 3114 BCE and initially ended on December 21, 2012. Centuries after the fall of the Maya Civilization, misinterpretation of the Long Count calendar and the assumption that it would be ending, and not just simply recycling, sparked the belief that it would mark the apocalypse.
In the last millennium of BCE, the Roman calendarbecame the Old World standard, but it did not last long due to its bizarre structure. It consisted of 10 months that were either 30 or 31 days long, beginning in March (Martius) and ending in December. Initially, the winter season was not accounted for in the 304-day year, but the eventual addition of January and February extended the total year to closely match the actual solar year.
| Statue of Julius Caesar in Piazza Tre Martiri in Rimini, Italy |
Despite this change, the Roman calendar was incredibly complicated and frequently required the decision to remove or add days to keep the calendar in track with the seasons, leading to Emperor Julius Caesar’s motive for an update in 45 BCE. Working with the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, he created the Julian calendar. Key changes to this calendar included a 365-day year and the addition of a Leap Year once every 4 years. The Leap Day was initially February 24, since February marked the end of the year in the Roman calendar. However, the months were later adjusted into the order that they are today, giving some of them names that do not match their chronological placement. For example, October moved from the eight to the tenth month of the year. The name of the seventh month was also changed to July, in honor of Caesar.
Following this time, the Julian calendar became the standard as it spread in usage all across the vast Roman Empire, but there really was not a standard form of epochs. Different people devised the majority of these as a way to determine the time in which the Earth was created according to their respective cosmologies. One notable system was the Diocletian system, named after the 51st emperor of Rome, which began during his reign. In 525 CE, once Christianity had become the predominant religion of Rome, a Monk named Dionysius Exiguus decided to do away with the Anno Diocletiani era and its memory of an emperor who had been mercilessly ruthless to Christians.
Dionysius was determined to make his era coordinate with the birth of Jesus Christ, making the starting date of Anno Domini (AD) 1. This was incredibly important to him, since he wanted to be able to accurately date Easter. Even though he was a skilled mathematician, today we do not exactly know how Dionysius determined the date of Christ’s birth. Today, historians actually place the birth of Jesus Christ around the year 4 BCE, so his calculation ended up being slightly off, possibly from placing the first day of the year in September rather than January. He also established the time before AD 1 to be BC, or “Before Christ”. Interestingly, there is no year 0 in the modern era system, not for any particular deliberate reason on Dionysus’s part, but because Romans had no symbol for the number 0, which had not yet been passed on by Indian mathematicians. Due to his change, Anno Domini 532 followed Anno Diocletiani 247.
Anno Domini became accepted all throughout Europe in the next several centuries, but there was still one major issue with the standard Julian calendar: it miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, causing it to fall out of the seasons as time progressed. This is what encouraged Pope Gregory XIII to alter the error in the calendar in an attempt to place the date of Easter closer to the spring equinox. He and Italian scientist Aloysus Lilius realized the addition of a Leap Day every four years made the calendar slightly too long, devising the idea of leap years divisible by 4, unless that year is divisible by 100. However, if the year is also divisible by 400, a leap year is added regardless. This concept gave us the Gregorian calendar that we use today.
| Statue of Pope Gregory XIII |
Change from the Julian to Gregorian calendar did not happen instantly. In 1752, a vote of Parliament in Great Britain determined that England and all of its territories would switch to the adjusted calendar standard, advancing the calendar overnight from September 2 to September 14. It is rumored that British citizens woke up in outrage to this change, while Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying “It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.” Some countries didn’t make this switch until the 20th Century, including Russia, Turkey, Greece, Albania, Lithuania, and Estonia.
The most recent change is one that has likely gone unnoticed by many people. In the year 1615, after over 1000 years of utilizing the AD label in the Gregorian calendar, Johannes Kepler, German mathematician and astronomer who discovered the elliptical orbit of the planets, referred to Anno Domini as the “Vulgar Era”. Over the next several centuries, as the majority of society moved closer to an ideology more closely associated with Modernity, with a greater emphasis on secularization and scientific thought, the term Vulgar Era was given more traction, and was often interchangeable with Common Era. Since the mid-Twentieth Century until today, the designation of CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before Common Era) has been used to respectively replace AD and BC in the academic community.
According to the Encyclopedia International, article "Week," the days were names for the sun, the moon, and the five visible planets, all of which were associated with pagan deities. The names of the days of the week and their meanings are as follows:
|
But how did this planetary week come to be so commonly used in the professing Christian world?
Hutton Webster, in his book Rest Days, provides the answer: "The early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish seven-day week with its numberedweekdays, but by the close of the third century AD this began to give way to the planetary week. . . . The use of planetary names by Christians attests the growing influence of astrological speculations introduced by converts from paganism. . . . Thus, gradually a pagan institution was engrafted on Christianity" (emphasis added; see pages 220-221).
This planetary week with its days named after pagan deities is not of God. God Almighty did create the week with seven days, but He merely numbered the days one through seven (Genesis 1:3—2:3). The only day He named was the seventh day, calling it the "
The names of the months and their meanings are as follows:
|
The rest of the months—September, October, November, December—are derived from the Latin words for the numerals 7, 8, 9, and 10. They were the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months of the old Roman calendar before July and August were inserted ahead of them.
The Hebrew months were originally numbered, but over time names were given to them. For instance, Abib, the first month of spring, means "green [ears of barley]" (this month is also called Nisan, meaning "their flight [out of Egypt]"). Later, the Jews borrowed Babylonian names for many of their months, some of which (e.g., Tammuz) refer to pagan deities.
In 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII introduced his Gregorian calendar, Europe adhered to the Julian calendar, first implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Since the Roman emperor's system miscalculated the length of the solar year by 11 minutes, the calendar had since fallen out of sync with the seasons.
Which calendar should society follow, Pope Gregory XIII Gregorian calendar or God’s Calendar? Everything we do should start with God! Our conscious tells us that we should follow God’s truth and not man’s truth. The amazing thing about the human conscious is this...even if you don't believe what I am saying, you believe what I am saying. Even if you reject the truth of what I am saying, there is rooted deep inside you a conviction which you can suppress with the years that is which is nonetheless telling you these things are so. And this truth is the truth that the scripture won't let you forget. - Stuart Loy.
First, we must seek to understand God’s truth and apply His truth in our daily lives. God’s calendar has “appointed festivals or holidays” that He commands we follow and worship. God’s calendar, nor the Bible identify the Pagan festivals or holidays (Gregorian calendar) that has been passed down from century to century as biblical holidays. Pagan’s have mixed truth with what is false, and changed God’s appointed festivals in His Luni-Solar calendar to fit their Gregorian calendar.
Therefore, we all must understand that just because holidays and traditions have been passed down from one generation to the next doesn’t make them biblical or truth. Just the opposite, many of us have been deceived most of our lives. For example, nowhere in the Bible does God have appointed holidays such as Christmas with Santa Claus, or Easter with the Easter bunny or Halloween with witches, ghosts and goblins. These Pagan holidays are nowhere to be found in God’s appointed festivals or holidays in the Bible.
What we have found though is, for centuries, man has been confused and made modifications to God’s appointed festivals. It is God’s appointed times that He has commanded we celebrate. We, meaning all of mankind, not just Jews. God’s commands, instructions and warnings are not just for the Jews, but for all the ways of the world.
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: “These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.” – Leviticus 23: 1 (NIV).
In the beginning (Genesis 1:14-16), God created all things from nothing. In the beginning there was no light. And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. – Genesis 1:14-16 (NIV).
God also gave man the Sabbath: a blessed and holy time where we are to give back love and worship to our Creator. All of mankind must worship. God’s appointed times or festivals were not just for the Jews, but for all mankind. But after many generations, many became confused and lost track of days, weeks and months. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. – Ecclesiastics 1:9 (NIV).
At the time of creation, God provided patterns and actions for the sun, the moon and the stars, an ever present, accurate calendar to measure time and clearly designate our work days from our worship days. Nothing new under the sun means that the sun, moon and stars were created to repeat themselves. The sun, moon and stars, simply put are God’s time pieces to help us calculate our days (sun), months (moon), and years (stars) and their annual cycles. The sun and the moon follow the same pattern. But the stars determine the year and are dependent on the sun and the moon.
In order to worship God on the days He appointed, people must be able to understand how God’s calendar works to know which day is the first day, the starting point for counting the six days of work to the seventh day of worship.
God’s Celebrated Festivals:
1. Passover (1 day) – Leviticus 23:5 (NIV)
2. Unleavened Bread (7 days) – Leviticus 23:5-6 (NIV)
3. Firstfruits (1 day) – Leviticus 23:9-14 (NIV)
4. Pentecost (weeks/one day) – Leviticus 23:15-19 (NIV)
5. Trumpets (one 48-hour day) – Leviticus 23:23-25 (NIV)
6. Day of Atonement (one day) – Leviticus 23:26-32 (NIV)
7. Tabernacles (7 days) – Leviticus 23:33-43 (NIV)
Seasons and Festivals from Leviticus, Chapter 23 (NIV):
1. The Sabbath (Saturday on Gregorian calendar) - There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the LORD. – Leviticus 23:3
2. The Passover and Unleavened Bread (Jesus died and was buried) - These are the LORD’s appointed festivals, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times: The LORD’s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. On the fifteenth day of that month the LORD’s Festival of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. For seven days present a food offering to the LORD. And on the seventh day hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. – Leviticus 23:4-8
3. Offering the Firstfruits (Jesus Ascended into Heaven) - The LORD said to Moses, Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest. He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath. On the day you wave the sheaf, you must sacrifice as a burnt offering to the LORD a lamb a year old without defect, together with its grain offering of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour mixed with olive oil—a food offering presented to the LORD, a pleasing aroma—and its drink offering of a quarter of a hin of wine. You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. – Leviticus 23:9-14
4. The Festival of Weeks (50 days/Holy Spirit comes and Disciples) - From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD. From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the LORD. Present with this bread seven male lambs, each a year old and without defect, one young bull and two rams. They will be a burnt offering to the LORD, together with their grain offerings and drink offerings—a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD. Then sacrifice one male goat for a sin offering and two lambs, each a year old, for a fellowship offering. The priest is to wave the two lambs before the LORD as a wave offering, together with the bread of the firstfruits. They are a sacred offering to the LORD for the priest. On that same day you are to proclaim a sacred assembly and do no regular work. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the LORD your God. – Leviticus 23:15-22
5. The Festival of Trumpets (2nd Coming of Christ) - The LORD said to Moses, Say to the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the LORD. – Leviticus 23:23-25
6. The Day of Atonement (Churches Repent) - The LORD said to Moses, The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present a food offering to the LORD. Do not do any work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God. Those who do not deny themselves on that day must be cut off from their people. I will destroy from among their people anyone who does any work on that day. You shall do no work at all. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. It is a day of sabbath rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your sabbath. – Leviticus 23:26-32
7. The Festival of Tabernacles (Birth of Jesus) - The LORD said to Moses, Say to the Israelites: On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the LORD’s Festival of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. For seven days present food offerings to the LORD, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the LORD. It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work. (These are the LORD’s appointed festivals, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies for bringing food offerings to the LORD—the burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and drink offerings required for each day. These offerings are in addition to those for the LORD’s Sabbaths and in addition to your gifts and whatever you have vowed and all the freewill offerings you give to the LORD.) So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the LORD for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. So Moses announced to the Israelites the appointed festivals of the LORD. – Leviticus 23:33-44
God’s Appointed Times:
The 1st day of the first month (Nisan) is the first day of the God’s calendar year. It would begin at the new moon of our March/April, and coincides with the latter rains (Joel 2:23). Each month begins with a new moon. (Numbers 10:10, 28:11, 1 Samuel 20:5, Psalm 81:3, Isaiah 66:23, Ezekiel 46:3, Amos 8:5, Colossians. 2:16.) The 1st day of Tishri, in the Fall, customarily begins the new civil year, God’s New Year.
God established several national holidays each year for celebration, fellowship, and worship. Much can be learned about people observing the holidays they celebrate and the way they celebrate them. Take note of your holiday traditions. What do they say about your values? In what ways do your celebrations and holidays reflect your relationship with God, your Creator. The Creator of Heaven and Earth!
Yeshua, our Savior, even under any other name or assigned Christian made up title such as the Catholic title of “Christ” or the KJV “Jesus” was never in Christmas or Easter, so why worry about it or try to shove him and his Holy Fall Feast of Tabernacles birth [not December 25th] into a sungod, heathen holiday or tie him and His Spring Resurrection to a bare breasted sungoddess spring festival? It makes no sense at all and it is nonsense for Christians to mix the Holy things of YHWH God with pagan things dedicated to Satan’s kingdom and then to celebrate the mixture as ‘harmless’ or Christianized. Celebrate the secular midwinter solstice holiday and Easter if you wish, but do not tie them to Almighty God or to Yeshua/Jesus. That is wrong and it denigrates the Bible, God’s Word. Do not say, “That is not what it means to me”. It does not matter to Yeshua or YHWH God what it means to you if you use that tired excuse for disobedience to the Word of God. Your worldview must line up with scripture if you are to follow the Savior at all. “This is the Way, walk ye in it”, says the Almighty. See my article on Yeshua/Jesus real birthday at the Feast of Tabernacles on my WordPress website.
Deuteronomy 12:28-32 says:
“Shomer [Obey] and hear all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you le-olam-va-ed [forever], when you do that which is tov [good] and right in the sight of Yahweh your Elohim. When Yahweh your Elohim shall cut off the nations from before you, that you are going to possess, and you dispossess them, and dwell in their land; Guard yourself that you are not ensnared by following them, after they are destroyed from before you; and that you inquire not after their elohim, saying, how did these nations serve their elohim? Even so will I do too. You shall not do so to Yahweh your Elohim: for every abomination to Yahweh, that He hates, have they done to their elohim; for even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their [prosperity] elohim. Whatever I am commanding you, shomer [take care] to do it: you shall not add to it, nor take away from it [the Word].”
First of all, this examination of the Biblical Hebraic Roots of Christianityand its applicability to today’s Church systems is not an attack on either true Christianity or Christians in this 21stCentury of the “Christian era”, but it is a course correction out of the shipwrecking rocks and shoals of error and illusions. Those who would take offense without consideration of the teachings given here should not fall into the same snare that Judah fell into when confronted with Jeremiahs proclaiming what YHWH told him to say to the people chosen by Yahweh to bear His Name. That snare which is called by Yahweh, “Lashan Hara” or the evil tongue; speaking slander and vilification against the messenger rather than considering the message that YHWH wanted the Prophet to convey to them.
This is an examination of the Pagan, Roman Catholic Gregorian Calendar used universally by Protestant Christianity today in place of Yahweh’s Calendar from the Bible. Some may consider that I am being cruel to fellow believers in Jesus/Yeshua, but I am really not writing this from any animosity whatsoever. I, exhorting as a Bar-Naba, hate lies and deception. I desire above all else to free my brothers and sisters from the “traditions of men, which put the things of the Almighty God to naught” in the minds of his children. The Scripture is true in its entirety and provides our only light. The lies of the clerics provide only darkness and have always done so.
2 Kefa (Peter), chapter 3:
“And consider the long patience of our Master as salvation; even as our beloved brother Sha’ul (Paul) also according to the chochmah (wisdom) given to him has written to you; As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things; in which some things are hard to understand, which they that are unlearned and unstable twist, as they do also the other Keetvay HaKodesh (Holy Scriptures), to their own destruction (and their students confusion). You then, beloved ones, seeing you know these things beforehand (from your youth), beware lest you also, being led away with the delusion of Torah-less-ness (lawlessness), fall from your ownsteadfastness. But grow in favor and in the da’at (grace) of our Master and Savior Yeshua ha Moshiach. To Him be tifereth (glory) both now and le-olam-va-ed (forever). Omein.”
In my reading and studying of the Hebrew Scriptures, I have yet to find one place that requires us to submit to any authority of those that:
1) Add to, delete from or change the teachings of Yahweh’s written Torahand:
2) Refer to the Law given to Moshe (Moses), not as an authoritative code of instruction and teaching of believers; but as a mere “source of law” for the purpose of deriving and enacting new laws such as Ecclesiastical orRabbinical Oral Enactments, Takanot and Ma’asim.
Furthermore, I have yet to find one written Scriptural source (written Torah/Tanach and the written Gospels/Renewed Covenant) that says that we can only receive the Spirit of Elohim (Holy Spirit) on condition that we live according to the exacting standards of Pharisaic or Denominational Takanot and Geserot(decrees, regulations, doctrines and prohibitions added to Moses written words) and Ma’asim (Precedents of the Rabbis and Church Denominations).
The Pagan Calendar in use on the Roman Catholic continent of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea lands during the “Dark Ages” was called the Julian calendar and was created by that famous pagan, sun worshiping Roman dictator, Julius Caesar; a devotee of Sol Invicta Mithras and also Jupiter, the Roman Solar deities. This calendar received the blessings of all the Roman Catholic Popes and their pagan church until it was mathematically “corrected” during the reign of Pope Gregory in 1585. The changes were mathematical and minimal in scope and encompassed the additional “changing of days and seasons” in defiance of scripture. The Pagan prosperity sungod names that Julius Caesar gave to days, weeks and months remained intact by Pope Gregory and will be discussed later in this article. These calendars worked well for the Anti-Israel and Anti-nomian, sun worshiping Babylonian Papal system, which had successfully divorced the Christian church from its Hebrew roots and created a new man made religion called Catholicism [Universal, they hoped]. This religion followed Babylon and is correctly named, “The Second Babylon”. Read Alexander Hyslop’s book of the same name, published in the 1850’s. It is excellent and correctly describes Christianity’s descent into Entropy and semi-paganism.
Yahweh God gave Moses in the Torah books, a perfect, Heavenly based calendar spelled out in detail in the Holy Torah as the eternal pattern written with the finger of Yahweh Elohim on Mount Horev; the true mountain of the Testimony. The New Year began at the new moon of the month of Aviv and the spring “Aviv Barley” in Israel before the spring equinox and was delineated in minute detail with many examples throughout Scripture. You, if you do not understand the Calendar of YHWH God, you will also never understand the Bible, and will never understand Bible Prophecy or the Gospel correctly. The Almighty does not like, nor does he comply with Pagan Calendars; but only his own Holy Calendar that began at Creation in Genesis 1:1!
Exodus 12: 2: “This month [Aviv] shall be for you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year for you.”
For 3500 plus years or so after the Holy Mountain of YHWH God experience, the true descendants of Avraham, called Israel and not “Jews”, began their scriptural year at the new moon in accordance with scripture, starting at the spring Month of Aviv that is ordained by Yahweh God and then followed it by the great feast of Pesach [Passover] on the 14th of Aviv as indicated in Leviticus chapter 23, which is the listing of Yahweh’s annual, Memorial times and seasons. It is worth noting here that these are Yahweh’s eternal feasts; and not “Jewish” feasts from Judaism’s modern calculated Calendar of the 2nd Century CE. They are not even the “times and seasons of Moses law”, but they are Yahweh God’s Holy, everlasting Commandments ordained within the scope of HIS Eternal CALENDAR!
The true descendants of the two houses of Israel still obey these Holy Commands and the Holy types and patterns leading unto Yeshua, our Messiah, that they represent.
Papal, Catholic, pagan Rome adopted the pagan sungod calendar of her predecessor and mentor, Caesar’s Imperial Rome. Julius Caesar got his calendar from the pagan religions of both the Eastern and Western sun worshiping religions of his ancestors. Roman Catholicism viciously attacked all who kept the Scriptural calendar and slaughtered millions of Jews and true Christians who followed Yahweh’s ancient ways. She insisted on controlling the calendar and ordered all to adopt her corrupt computations. The results were predictable. By the year 1582 the Julian calendar was off by 11 days and began to be embarrassing to the “fisherman, lord god, the pope”. Pope Gregory XIII then called on his own church version of the “Gestapo”, the Jesuits for a fix. They then provided a Jesuit, Christopher Clavius, S.J, who became the architect of the Gregorian calendar! This heathen was a German Jesuit mathematician and “pseudo astronomer” and became the main engine of the modern Gregorian calendar used by Christianity today. With this Jesuit calendar, came also the Jesuit astronomy or, as is known today, the “heliocentric universe”. With his introduction of the new Catholic calendar, Pope Gregory XIII demonstrated to the world that the changing of “times and seasons” is centered in Rome, and not on Scripture and certainly not centered on the Holy One of Israel. This was an interesting “trick” and was probably related to countering the Protestant reformation, which was going on in Europe at the time. The protestors failed to protest or counter this change and the Christian Church remains ignorant of it to this present day! As most of the other calendars in the world attest, the Popes usually adjust the calendar to the particular god of each nation/religion. Pope Gregory has clearly demonstrated that his god was and is the Catholic sungod in the sky, and it is not centered on Yeshua, the Son of Yahweh, and Savior of mankind.
The idea that Christians chose to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25 December because this was the date of an already existing festival of Sol Invictus Mithra was expressed in an annotation to a manuscript of a work by 12th-century Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi. The scribe who added it wrote: “It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day.”
The Gregorian calendar was accepted in England and her colonies by an act of Parliament in 1752! Russia would not accept this Roman calendar until the Communist revolution in the early 20th century.
Protestants in early America used to recognize that Solar phenomena have no particular bearing on standard Christian practice, but now have fallen to the point that, on Easter morning [a pagan goddess, Ishtar/Semiramis, festival]; they go to the cemetery and face the rising sun in worship, not recognizing that they are following the ancient heathen worship of Semiramis/Mary, the “queen of heaven”! It is easy to deceive the unlearned or mistaught as Yahweh showed Ezekiel and Jeremiah.
The Gregorian calendar is named for an infamous persecutor and killer of Protestant Christians and Jews, most notably, the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572; Pope Gregory XIII.
The Holy One of Israel gave a name ONLY to the 7th day of the week, which He called Shabbat [Sabbath];the only day of the seven-day week that He designated as a Holy day of rest. The other 6 days, He numbered 1 through 6, [Exodus 20:11, Deuteronomy 5:12-14; etc]. He also designated as His Appointed Times, the seven Annual Feasts of YHWH and no other feast, to be observed in perpetuity by all of his people, Israel and including those grafted into Israel. Read Romans 9, 10 and 11 to get a glimmer of how you are seen by Yeshua.
Rebellious pagan Men gave names to all 7 days of the week and the months of the year, which they named after PAGAN deities. The deities of the week are symbols equivalent to the sun, moon and 5 major planets. The months of the year are named after the PAGAN Sungods of Rome, Greece, Ireland, Scandinavia and other European Nations, including Germany. Roman numbers designates some months for the months 7,8,9 and 10, September, October, November and December.
The word PAGAN [a Gentile] means a heathen; one who is not a Hebrew, Nazarene or even a true Christian. One cannot be “A Gentile saved by faith” This is FALSE and ignorant at best! You can only be one or the other, and you cannot be both, that is; you are a FORMER Gentile.
The terms Pagan, Gentile and heathen specifically refer to one or all of the ancient polytheistic peoples, especially the Greeks, Romans and the Muslim descendants of Edom in particular. Heathen is applicable to all idolaters and worshipers of false, twisted gods.
The Biblical day always begins at sunset as defined at creation in Genesis, while the Gregorian Catholic day begins at midnight, which figures because that hour is called in history as the “witching hour”. Go figure!
The following descriptives contain some mind-blowing facts that you never knew before and that may be damaging to your former complacency on these matters!
Now we will define each day of the week:
1] Day 1 is called as such by Yahweh. It is called by pagans as SUN-DAY; so named for the “day of the venerable sun”. The sungod, “Sol Invicta” is called Nimrod, Tammuz, Ra, Osiris, Helios, Apollo, Ogmios, Mithra, Zeus, Jupiter, St. Elias and many more, but you get the idea. Christians worship on this sun-day, thus obeying the edict of the first Pope, Emperor Constantine Ist,given in 321 C.E., which changed the scriptural Sabbath from the 7th day to the 1st day of the week, SUBDAY. No Scripture exists requiring this change, but Scripture is twisted unmercifully to try to justify this pagan practice. The Sunday symbol is the solar disc or the solar disc in the center of the cross of Mithra, which is the symbol of the Roman Legions sungod, Mithras. Rome murdered millions of true, Messianic believers and Jews on this Roman sungod cross. The Medieval horizontal “Rack” of the Catholic Inquisition was a variation on the Cross of Crucifixion adopted by Rome to kill freedom lovers and Jews. Roman Catholicism, along with Islam, together, is the longest-lived murder cults on planet Earth!
2] Day2 is called as such by Yahweh. Pagans call it MON-DAY in honor of the Moon goddess, personified as Selene, Semiramis, Luna and Mani among others. The symbol is the crescent Moon. Islam worships this god as Allah, the Moongod of Islam and the Curse [Strongs H#421-423] of everyone else.
3] Day 3 is called as such by Yahweh. Pagans call it TUES-DAY in honor of the demonic force [the Force] of power, energy and endurance personified as Ares, Tiwas, Tiw, Tuisco and Tyr among others. The symbol of this wargod is the red planet Mars.
4] Day 4 is called as such by Yahweh. Pagans call it WEDNES-DAY in honor of the demonic spirit of Gnostic knowledge and wisdom, personified as Woden, Odin and Hermes. The symbol of this false oracle is the planet Mercury.
5] Day 5 is called as such by Yahweh. Pagans call it THURS-DAY in honor of the idol of Thunder, personified as Thunor [Thor]. Other names for him are Zeus, Taranis, Perun, Perkunis and St. Olaf among others. The symbol of this sungod is the planet Jupiter.
6] Day 6 is called as such by Yahweh. Pagans call it FRI-DAY worshiping the goddess of sexual love, Frigga. The symbol is Venus. Muslims worship this day as their sabbath but do not exhibit love as westerners know it, but only love death which is dedicated to their idol, Allah; which means “the CURSE” in Hebrew, [Strongs concordance #H421-423].
7] THE Holy and Eternal 7th Day SABBATH is called by YHWH God the SHABBAT, and it is called by men as Saturday, the day of Saturnalia after the worship of the sungod Saturn and it is designated by pig/pork eating as worship, pagan feasting on forbidden garbage eating animal foods and the committing of sexual sins, including Homosexuality, bisexuality, animal sex, pedophilia, rape and the worship of Nimrods penis in all of its pagan forms. Obelisques are towers representing Nimrods erect, uncircumcised penis, including the one centered in Washington, DC. It is dedicated to George Washington, a 33rd Degree Mason and worshiper of the Masonic Temple’s many sungod’s. Groves, Wiccan Circles, prostitute temples worldwide, pornography, Homosexual baths, massage parlors, gentlemen’s clubs, drinking and drugs are but a few of the rotten fruits of this pagan and rebellious substitute day. Christians shop, work, drink, eat Biblically forbidden foods and watch pagan games and Hollywood “R” rated entertainments on YHWH God’s Holy Day. They condemn themselves to the lake of fire for doing such defiant abominations.
The months of the pagan year in the Gregorian calendar; when they are set against the Scriptural months, in this list beginning roughly with the Bibles first month of AVIV in the spring; read as follows with their deities defined:
4] April = Aphrodite. A pagan Greek sexual fertility spring goddess, who is also called the Roman goddess, Venus. The Anglo-Saxon name for this month is Eastermonath, the month of the goddess EOSTRE/Ishtar whose name is the origin of the word EASTER. April is named in honor of her. Even Christians celebrate Easter instead of Passover and they are ignorantly worshiping Semiramis or Ishtar, a satanic goddess idol!
5] May = Maia, the Greek goddess of spring, identified with the goddess of fertility, Bona-Dea. She is included with April as a spring goddess of fertility to cover all Passover eventualities with pagan festivities. Mayday is the day of little schoolgirls worshiping Nimrods penis by dancing around the “Maypole” of Nimrod and garlanding it with flowers as a preparation for later demonically led sexual activity. I saw this display of American schoolteacher ignorance as an ignorant young gradeschool boy on school playground equipment poles. IT IS SICK!
6] June = Juno; another goddess and wife of Jupiter; this time it is a Roman demon who is also known as the Greek goddess, Hera. Her chief claim to fame is as another “queen of heaven” and as a divine “watcher” over the female sex. This ties in with the month of June as being the most auspicious time for marriage in America.
7] July = Julius. Julius Caesar; the Emperor of Rome and self-proclaimed sungod; the creator of the Julian calendar who proclaimed his own deity prior to being ventilated by many knives by some disgruntled senators. So much for proclaiming, “man is god”.
8] August = Augustus. Named after the [guess who], the Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar; another ultimate politician and Obamanation.
9] September, the 7th month of the Biblical year [Sept] = Pomona;Named after the Roman goddess of fruit and fruit bearing trees. Wine, anyone?
10] October, the 8th month of the Biblical year [Oct] = Astraea, a Greek goddess. The Latin word Octber means eighth, so how did eighth become tenth? The Middle English word is Octobre, meaning a time to brew English/German Ale, called “Oktoberfest”.
11] November, the 9th month of the Biblical year [Nov] = Samhain. The name comes from the Catholic “All Saints day”, but the festival is really a Samhain [Satan] festival; known as Halloween, a celebration of devils.
12] December, the 10th month of the Biblical year [Dec] = Decima/Vesta. This is the middle goddess of the three fates and the Middle English spelling is Decembre. The Latin word is from decem meaning 10th. So why is the Catholic Calendar calling it the 12thmonth? Well, my confused American Christian friend, it is to sneak in “Christmas” with its lies so you will celebrate the Winter Solstice with the Wiccans and other pagans, who laugh at your naivete.
1] January = Janus, the two faced demonic god of endings, doors, theater and beginnings. The pagan new year is celebrated in January. The only “door” [dalet] that I recognize is the Holy One of Israel, Yeshua Ha Moshiach!
2] February = Februa, the Roman goddess of passion, death, purification and sex. Her orgiastic rites are celebrated on the 14th of February, St. Valentine’s Day. Send someone a valentine and participate in this feast of Wiccan, pagan lust. In the middle ages, one sent a Valentine such that a demon of lust would inhabit the recipient person you wished to have sex with. The demon is still present, but Americans are mostly ignorant of this evil intentioned root. Or are they?
3] March = Mars, the Roman god of war, known in Greece as Ares and by the Nordic Vikings as Odin. This month in early spring was considered a good time to start a war. Check your history on this one. For instance, when a squad leader wishes his troops to move out, what word does he use to get them going? Yes, you guessed it. MARCH!
The modern Protestant Christian Churches; in their zeal to accept and incorporate these pagan deities into their doctrines, holy days, holidays and ecclesiastical dogma, throw out and dispense with entire books of the Bible, notably the first 5 books of the Torah {Pentateuch] of YHWH God, to their eternal shame. It is little wonder that the new Babylonian system of Roman Catholicism calls the Protestant Denominations “wayward daughters, soon to return to the fold”. I am still waiting for the Protestants to complete the Reformation and cast aside their pagan doctrines. I do not think it will happen soon without church persecution and mass repentance on the part of the many Denominations naming the 400 year old name of “Jesus”, an English title which means nothing in the languages of Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. His Grace is sufficient, however, to cover that little bit of ignorance, so Yeshua allows His Western children to call him by that name anyway. His mercy endures forever and he allows a multitude of errors in Christians as a good Savior does. He does not expect a believing toddler to do everything that a teenager or a mature grownup would be expected to do.
Sha’ul (Paul) told the Thessalonians that before the Messiah returned, there would be a “falling away” (apostasy, a “departure from truth”). This departure from the truth would then open the door for something evil called “the man of lawlessness” to come forth. This “coming of the lawless one” would be accompanied by “all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders” which would “deceive those who are perishing.”
“They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved,” Paul writes. “For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie.” In preparation for the return of the Messiah, God is also sending powerful revelation to graciously expose the ancient lie, so that those who love the truth can depart from error and be freed from the bewitching influence of the spirit of lawlessness.
The Roman Pope has taken upon himself the role of a type of Ante [in place of] -“Christ” and as it is documented in encyclicals and edicts, his supposed right to “change times and seasons” in direct defiance of scripture. The many denominational Christian Churches have not only kept silent, but have slavishly followed the Roman Catholic calendars pathwayto destruction and divine judgment. Take note of the many goddesses named in the calendar, which universally represent the concept of a “queen of heaven”. Roman Popes have also placed Miriam [Mary] in this same category with the “Queen of heaven’s” named witchcraft pagan attributes, again, in defiance of Scriptural truth. After all, the Popes are all called “Lord God, the Pope” by the followers of this form of the Babylonian religion.
There is an excellent article outlining the “ABCs of the Biblical Calendar” on the website http://www/yrm.org/abccalendar.htmthat describes the Scriptural remedy to this sad state of affairs. Many will read this article and others of similar warning, but I think that few Christians will ACT upon what they read. The Bible is very clear on Yahweh’s position and instructions on His appointed times and seasons and His Calendar is very easy to understand, but, sadly, the majority will place the “traditions of men/ elders/ leaders/ pastors and Rabbis” foremost in their minds above the clear, Holy, Torah instructions and teachings of Yahweh God in His written word.
Much has been written and posted on the Internet on this subject and I add my humble observations to the lot and hope that someone’s mind and heart may be stirred to study to show themselves approved to YHWH God and then apply these teachings to their lives.
A Y S O F T H E W E E K -
1-Sunday Sun (Sol) God, under names such as Helios, Apollo, Star = SUN
Ogmios, Mithras, and St. Elias.
2-Monday Moon Goddess, under names such as Selene, Planet = MOON
Luna, and Mani.
3-Tuesday Norse God of War, under names Planet = MARS
Tiwas, and Tyr. The Latin translation is Mars.
4-Wednesday God of knowledge & wisdom, under names Planet = MERCURY
such as Woden, Odin, and Hermes.
5-Thursday God of Thunder, under the name of Thunor (Thor), Planet = JUPITER
Taranis, Perun, Perkunas, and St. Olaf.
6-Friday Goddess of love, under the name of Frigg. Planet = VENUS
7-Saturday God of Saturn, under the name of Seatere, or Seater. Planet = SATURN
M O NT H S O F T H E Y E A R -
January Janus Roman two-faced God of endings & beginnings
February Februa Roman Goddess of Passion and Love
March Mars Roman God of War Planet = Mars
April Afrodite Greek Goddess (& Roman Venus) Planet = Venus
May Maia Greek Goddess of Spring
June Juno Roman Goddess (Queen of Heaven)
July Julius Named after Emperor Julius Caesar
August Augustus Named after Emperor Augustus Caesar
September From Latin word "septem" meaning seven
October From Latin word "octo" meaning eight
November Front Latin word "Novem" meaning nine
December From Latin word "Decemi" meaning ten
The names of the last four months of the Gregorian Calendar are numerical titles which used to show their position in the older Julian Calendar. These four numerical months got out of order when the new months of January and February were added to the beginning of the 10-month Julian Calendar, to create the 12-month Gregorian Calendar. This forced the four months with numerical names further to the back of the calendar so that their names no longer matched their position in the calendar.
THE CREATOR'S CALENDAR:
The Creator, Yahweh our Elohim (God) has his own calendar which is quite different from our calendar and he is still running the world by it. It is our loss if we are ignorant of his time keeping system. If we want to flow along with him, we need to coordinate with his calendar so that we are not out of step with him. We don’t want to find ourselves zigging in one direction when he is zagging in an opposite direction. We will never be able to come close to understanding future prophetic events correctly without adopting his method of keeping time in our religious practices.
Not to confuse you, but sadly I have to report that there are at least four different versions of the Hebrew Calendar which is very frustrating because how can we celebrate them together as a Convocation (assembly) as we are commanded to do in Leviticus Chapter 23 if everyone is using different calendars from each other which often have a separate date set for each feast? Though these competing dates for the same holidays often fall within one to three days of each other, it still does not help us all celebrate these appointed times together as a unified people. Here are the four main versions of Hebrew or Biblical Calendars:
I. Hillel II fixed mathematical Calendar: This is the most used, and was made by
Hillel II who was the last head of the Sanhedrin Council just before the 2nd Temple
in Jerusalem was destroyed. This was probably the right thing to do since the Jews
were getting kicked out of Israel and would no longer be able to check the moon
and barley from there. Plus, since the Jews were being scattered throughout the
Roman Empire, they needed some way to celebrate the feasts simultaneously as a
group. Almost all Orthodox Jews, as well as a probably 70% of Messianic Believers
in Yeshua also keep this calendar. We used to do the Aviv Moon Calendar but have
since retreated to the use of this one created by Hillel because it is easier to plan
ahead with this one.
II. Aviv Moon Calendar: This is the most biblical one and seeks to match the barley
harvest on the temple mount in Israel, with the first sliver of the moon, and allows
for a 13-month year when needed if the barley hasn't yet progressed to the state of
Aviv in time. Karaite Jews and probably 20% of Messianic believers use this method.
Michael Rood and Nehemiah Gordon are strong advocates of this method. It appears
that the “Sighted Moon Calendar” is the same calendar or is at least calculated the
same way. The barley harvest only applies to establishing the first month of the
year. After the first month has been declared, all that is needed to declare a new
month is sighting of the first sliver of the moon.
III. The Sited Moon Calendar: This calendar sets the first day of the year by the sighting
of the first sliver of the moon in Jerusalem. Then after counting off 10 days, people
can go out and pick out a Passover lamb, and on the 14th day of the new year
Passover commences to get the feasts going for the year. This method seems to skip or overlook the need to incorporate the barely harvest in the calculations. After the first month has been declared, all that is needed to declare a new month for the remaining months of the year, is sighting of the first sliver of the moon.
IV. The Lunar Calendar: Although all Hebraic Calendars are based in part upon the
moon, this is the one that got coined with the name "Lunar" and is probably followed by about 12% of Messianic believers. This is a confusing concept that would encourage a lot of confusion and frustration in your life. Supposedly the 7th day Sabbath is set for the month by whatever day the first sliver of the moon falls on. Then that same day is the Sabbath day for the remainder of the month. Each succeeding month will name its own weekly Sabbath day in the same manner so that very rarely will it fall on Saturday. This method of calculating the calendar has been soundly renounced in most congregations of both Messianic Judaism, Messianic Ephriamites, and/or Messianic Believers.
V. The Conjunction of the Moon Calendar: This method seeks to declare the period from
1-3 years of non-lighted dark moon between old and new moon cycles as the official new moon. This occurs at the end of the month just before light begins to shine on the moon again. This method is probably followed by about 3% of all Messianic believers. They have their reasons but it is just too confusing for me. I struggled through watching a video clip of it that lasted 2 hours and 48 minutes, two and a half times, and I still didn’t understand it. Aside from many scriptures and definitions to the contrary, I can't believe that our Heavenly Father would require us to follow something that is this hard to learn and understand. So I vote no!
VI. The Enochian Calendar: An ancient calendar described in the pseudepigraphical
(i.e.-falsely authored) book Enoch. It divided the year into four seasons of exactly
13 weeks each. Each such season consisted of two 30-day months followed by one
31-day month, and the 31st day ended the season, so that Enoch's Year consisted
of exactly 364 days. Since the Bible already advises that the first month of the year
is in the month of Aviv/Abib/Nissan, and biblical dates like Passover and such
are already figured on a counting basis off of the first day of the year, this method
runs afoul of the Bible. Plus, Pagan holidays like Christmas and Easter are built upon
the four seasons being cut in quarters by the Winter and Summer Solstices, and the
Spring and Fall Equinoxes. This method is definitely not Yahweh's method.
THE CREATOR'S NEW YEARS DAY:
A Biblical or Hebrew day starts in the evening when the sun first goes down. Each new day starts in the nighttime as soon as it first gets dark, but the daylight occurs in the second or last part of the day. It can be kind of hard to adjust our minds to this method of calculation when considering Biblical hours and days, because in our Western culture our new days technically begin at midnight, but we don't really call it the next day until daybreak arrives when the sun starts shining on the earth again. In contrast, the calculation of Biblical days is somewhat reversed because they start as soon as darkness appears wherever we currently happen to be located on earth. A well-known Rabbi once declared that it is not officially a new day marked by sundown, until there are at least three stars visible in the sky. To make it easy, a good rule of thumb is to say that "Hebraic days last from sunset to sunset". This definition of what a day consists of, to include when it starts, how it is calculated, and when it ends, is derived from the book of Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 1-5 [KJV] where we find that darkness existed on earth before there was light and specifically in verse 5 where it reads that "... the evening and the morning were the first day." [KJV]
Our Creator's New Year’s Day falls on the first day of the Hebrew Month of Abib or Aviv (also known as Nisan) which falls somewhere in our month of March or April. It varies between these two Gregorian months from year to year because the Gregorian Calendar of our Western Civilization is figured differently than the Hebraic one, and these two calendars almost never line up with each other the same way each year. (The King James Bible spells this month as "Abib" with "b"s but the letters "v" and "b" seem to be interchangeable when these words are transliterated into English.) The country of Israel and modern Jews have wrongfully renamed the month of Abib with the Babylonian name of Nisan during their days as captives under King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and have also renamed Yom Teruah (i.e.-The Feast of Trumpets) which falls on the first day of the 7th month as Rosh Hashanah (i.e-Head of the Year). They had no authority to make this change since the scriptures already said that the head of the year was called Abib and that it was to occur seven months earlier. No one is allowed to alter YHWH's commandments because it is written that we should not add to or diminish from YHWH's commandments as declared in Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32 [KJV].
+ Exodus 12:2 - "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be thefirst month of the year to you." 3 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, according
to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: [KJV]
+ Exodus 13: 4 - " This day came ye out in the month Abib." [KJV]
+ Exodus 13: 4 - " This day came ye out in the month Abib." [KJV]
+ Exodus 23:15 - " Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat
unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the
month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before
me empty:)" [KJV]
+ Exodus 34:18 - "The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou
shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for
in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt." [KJV]Deuteronomy 16:1 - "Observe
the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month
of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night." [KJV]
Their new year begins on the 1st day of the Month of Abib because it's the exact same month they left Egypt. Abib is a word used to describe the condition of the barley standing in the field which is almost ready to harvest because it's brittle enough to be damaged by a hail storm even though it still looks green (like what happened in one of the plagues).
THE CREATOR'S NEW MONTHS:
Hebraic months start at the sighting of the first sliver of sunlight reflecting off of the moon after it has been totally dark and out of direct sunlight. Thus, it is a lunar calendar. As soon as the first sliver of white appears from the moon's reflection of the sun, a new (or renewed) moon can be declared. On the other hand, the Gregorian Calendar is a solar calendar, and is only slightly coordinated with the changes of the moon.
THE CREATOR’S HOLIDAYS:
These are called the Feasts, Festivals, Appointments, or Appointed Times of the Lord.The Hebrew word used here is "Moed" for singular use, and "Moedim" (Moe-ed- eem) for plural use, meaning appointment, appointed time, feast or festival. The Feasts of the Lord are eternal and are to be celebrated forever by Israel and her descendants throughout all generations. We are also Israel if we have been grafted into the tree of Israel according to Romans Chapter 11 [KJV] and are a part of the commonwealth of Israel according to Ephesians Chapter 2 [KJV]. These are not the Feasts of “The Jews.” Though Jews usually do keep these feasts, they represent only one of the twelve tribes of Israel and part of the original Kingdom of Israel who were commanded to keep them. We are not trying to replace the Jews; we are simply accepting our invitation to be included with them and be annexed into Israel as a graft into their tree according to Romans Chapter 11 [KJV] and as a part of the commonwealth of Israel according to Ephesians Chapter 2 [KJV]. SO, WHOSE FEASTS ARE THESE ANYWAY? YAHWEH DECLARES OWNERSHIP in .... by declaring, "These are MY feasts" in Leviticus 23:2 [KJV].
THE FEASTS (a/k/a APPOINTED TIMES) OF YAHWEH:
People usually say there are only 7 Feasts of the Lord commanded for us to keep in the Bible. However, the weekly 7th day Sabbath is also described as an Appointed Time or Feast Day in Leviticus Chapter 23 [KJV]. So, in reality YHWH has eight commanded feast days as follows: One is weekly, and the other seven are annual. All these feasts of the Lord are listed in Chapter 23 of the book of Leviticus [KJV].
THE WEEKLY FEAST (a/k/a APPOINTED TIME) OF YAHWEH:
THE 7TH DAY WEEKLY SABBATH MEETING
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THE SEVEN (ANNUAL) APPOINTED TIMES OR FEASTS:
S P R I N G F E A S T S -
1) Pesach (Passover). The Greek rendering is Paska.
2) Chag Hamatzah (Feast of Unleavened Bread) - An Annual High Sabbath Day.
MANDATORY TO CONGREGATE
(Week of Unleavened Bread)—continues on for 6 more days totaling 7 in all.
3) Bikkurim (First Fruits of Barley) & begin the omer counting.
4) Shavuot a/k/a Feast of weeks (Pentecost a/k/a First Fruits of Wheat)
MANDATORY TO CONGREGATE
NOTE: When dealing with the Spring Feasts it is important to realize that feasts #1, #3, & #4 overlap or coordinate with #2. So, there is no real situation where there is a break where one feast completely stops before another feast starts except for the case of “Passover” which depicts the act of killing the Lamb for sacrifice on its own appointed day. That slaughtered lamb is later eaten the next day on the first day of the week of unleavened bread, but Jewish tradition often labels that meal as the “Passover” meal instead of “the first unleavened bread meal”. Technically the Lamb is slaughtered on a different day that it is eaten, but the slaughtering and eating both usually happen within 6 to 12 hours because of the way that biblical days are calculated. Biblical days do not start in the dawn of daylight, nor during the darkness at midnight. 24-hour days in the bible run from Sunset to Sunset so if you slaughter a lamb in the afternoon just before the sun goes down, and then cook it, it will be ready to eat the next day which will occur as soon as it is dark after sundown. Since our western time system and calendar is so different from the biblical one, we would consider the whole affair of slaughtering, cooking, and eating the lamb to have happened within the last 6 hours of the same 24-hour day.
F A L L F E A S T S -
5) Yom Teruah (Day of Trumpets) & wrongfully known as Rosh Hashanah (Head of the
Year)
6) Yom Kippurim (Day of Atonements), not spelled “Yom Kippur” or “Day of Atonement”
because it is plural
7) Sukkot (Tabernacles)
MANDATORY TO CONGREGATE
The last Great Day - an added 8th day to the Feast of Sukkot.
NOTE:
There are three travelling feasts each year where all males are supposed to travel to a place Yahweh has placed his name (Jerusalem is preferred) to celebrate them there, but there are some verses which indicate that we should also bring other people to these events such as our relatives, and strangers who also believe. So really it should be attended by all believers who worship Yahweh, but only the males would be sinning if they ignored them. These three feasts are the Chag Hamatzah (Feast of Unleavened Bread), Shavuot (Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles—which is 8 days in a row when “the last great day” is added to at the end as it always is). In the list above we have written “MANDATORY TO CONGREGATE” in green ink after each of the three feasts that all of the males may not be absent from according to Deuteronomy 16:16. They can be called “Mandatory Travelling Feasts” because all males are required to leave their house to travel to a place that Yahweh has selected for people to congregate at to celebrate these feasts. Usually that place would be Israel but since most of us are living outside of the land of Israel in exile, and cannot afford to travel to there for these feasts 3 times in each and every year, most of us search for a local congregation of people where we can attend so that we can celebrate these feasts with them. It is quite fine for us all to stay home alone or with our families to keep the rest of the feasts so long as we keep them on the appointed calendar dates, and try to be true to what the scriptures require of us. However, if you can find a congregation to assemble with on these other less mandatory travelling dates, then why not fellowship with them and enjoy their company?
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THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPRING FEASTS AND FALL FEASTS
Among Feast Keepers who are both Torah observant and also submit to Yahshua of Nazareth as Master, Savior, and Messiah, it is commonly taught and believed that Yahshua has already fulfilled the Spring Feasts during his first coming to the earth and has yet to fulfill the Fall Feasts which will take place in the future at his second coming. The idea is as follows — He fulfilled each Spring Feast during his life on the date of each feast, and will fulfill each Fall Feast on each of those dates as well:
Y E S H U A F U L F I L L E D :
PASSOVER, when he gave his life as the required lamb for our sins;
WEEK OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, by cleaning sin out of our life which is represented by
leaven-free bread;
FIRST FRUITS OF BARLEY, when he rose from the dead and was presented to the Father as the firstborn of many others. (1st Colossians 1:18, and Romans 8:29);
PENTECOST, where the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh who are following him, to help write the Torah on our hearts.
Y E S H U A W I L L F U L F I L L :
TRUMPETS, when he returns to catch us away into the air at the sound of a trumpet when he is to be crowned as King of Kings;
ATONEMENTS, when his followers repent and his blood is applied to forgive us in the group we belong to, and other groups;
NOTE:
At this point between the Feast of Atonements and the Feast of Tabernacles, is a 5-day period and is probably when he pours out his vials or bowels of destructive judgment on the world which appears in the book of Revelation, after he is sure that his body of covenant partners have been fully cleansed, forgiven, and protected.
TABERNACLES, when he and all of his saints who have been raptured return to the land of Israel to tabernacle together in one huge 8-day party in tents or temporary booths. It is here on earth where we will marry the Lamb of God at the “Marriage Supper of the Lamb” (Revelations 19:9).
NOTE:
I want to clarify that even though Messiah did fulfill the Spring Feasts to a certain degree, and at least partially fulfilled the Fall Feast of Atonements by shedding his blood for it to be applied at the Annual Atonements which will occur just before the vials of Judgments are poured out in the book of Revelations, when he fulfilled some the first time, and will still fulfill others even more in other ways, in the future. We know that all of the Annual Feasts or Appointments point to more future fulfillment since the Apostle Shaul (Paul) said that they are shadows of things to come as recorded in Colossians 2:16 & 17 & Hebrews 10:1 [KJV]. Even the prophet Jeremiah revealed in Jeremiah 16:14-16, & 23:3-8 that YHWH has a sort of Second Exodus planned for all of this people where he will bring them all back home to Israel from the North and all the other places on earth where they have been scattered to. He will reclaim such a great multitude of people back to himself and the land of Israel that people will no longer be talking about the first exodus where Israel was delivered from Pharaoh because that will seem like small potatoes to everyone. The first exodus happened at Passover when the death angel came through, and afterwards they lived together with YHWH in a camp full of tents or booths far from the persecution of Pharaoh. According to God, it will all happen again but on a much greater scale. This sort of “Second Exodus” will probably begin at Passover and end at Tabernacles. Also, it will be MANDATORY for all of the entire world to come to the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) after YHWH returns to earth and lands his feet on the Mount of Olives at the start of the Millennial Reign as recorded in Zechariah Chapter 14:14-16, & 23:3-8. This feast was required for all of God’s children in the Tanach (Old Testament), and like all of the feasts they were practiced in the Brit Chadasha (New Testament), and this feast will be practiced again in the Millennium. Why, then, have we quit in this current church age, and by whose authority?
SOME MESSIANICS & MOST JEWS CELEBRATE 2 EXTRA ANNUAL FEASTS FOR A TOTAL OF 9 FEASTS:
These two extra feasts fall in the winter after the fall feasts and are not commanded in the scriptures. They seem to only apply to the Southern Kingdom of Israel, known as Judah, because they commemorate significant past historical events which happened to the kingdom of Judah after the ten tribes of the Northern House of Israel had already been conquered and scattered among the Gentile nations of the world. In my opinion they are optional. The extra feasts are:
1. HANUKKAH or CHANUKKAH known as THE FEAST OF DEDICATION (of the temple).
Yahshua attended one of these celebrations according to John 10:22 & 23 [KJV], and because he did, many people are choosing to celebrate this feast also. Hanukkah celebrates the cleansing and rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem back to Yahweh, after it had been taken over by the Greeks, and polluted by the worship of a false God whose statue as an Idol had been erected on its grounds
2. PURIM known as THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS (Esther’s triumph over Haman).
FINDING A GOOD HEBREW CALENDAR:
If you go to a conservative Jewish website for calendar dates, they usually omit the Feast of Bikkurim for some reason, and add in Chanukah, Purim and a whole bunch of extra feasts most Westerner's have never heard of, including but not limited to, National holidays in the state of Israel. A Karaite (scripturalist) Jewish website will not even list Chanukah or Purim since you can't find them written in the Tanach (our Old Testament). I have resorted to getting my Hillel II fixed calendar in pdf format from Monte Judah’s website at www.lionlamb.net . So far his calendars are free and include all the important dates for Messianic worshippers without adding in dates that we would not be interested in. Other good sources for a Messianic calendar might be www.elshaddaiministries.us , or www.messianiccovenant.com
RE-CAP & OTHER RANDOM FACTS ABOUT THE FEASTS:
A) Each feast is called MOED in Hebrew meaning: A feast, appointed time, or appointment. Plural
of moed is MOEDIM moe-ed-deem.
B) Each feast is also called a MIQRA or MIKRA mik-raw meaning: A convocation, assembly, public
meeting, or rehearsal. The idea of an Assembly lets us know that people should not stay home and celebrate all alone on any of these feasts but should seek out a congregation. Surely Passover and Unleavened bread will happen again as our Messiah Yeshua returns for us during the rapture, so these are rehearsals or practices to get ready and stay ready for his return.
C) Just as the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) will "show us things to come" as recorded in John 16:13
[KJV], The Law, Holy Feast Days, New Moons and the Sabbath are "shadows" which also "Show us things to come" as revealed in Colossians 2:16 & 17 [KJV]. Hebrews 10:1 [KJV] has a better description calling them "Goodthings to come". You can't learn anything from these Feasts if you are ignorant about them, think they have passed away, don't practice them, or don't know the dates they fall on. While considering these appointed times of YHWH we should avoid making faulty conclusions about them when we focus on some of Shaul’s writings such as Chapter 2 of the book of Colossians, in verse 14 which seems to advise us NOT to keep “holydays, the new moon, or the Sabbath” of YHWH, and in verse 18 goes on to include “worshipping of angels” in this list of things NOT to do. However, as the chapter continues, it begins to describe these evil things as “rudiments of the world, “ordinances” of the world “as though living in the world”, which are after the commandments and doctrines of men?” in verses 20-22. Solving this dilemma is easy after we ask ourselves, when were YHWH’s holy days, new moon, or Sabbath which are listed in Leviticus Chapter 23, ever considered to be RUDIMENTS OF THE WORLD, or COMMANDMENTS AND DOCTRINES OF MEN? The truth is that the commandments of God which came from YHWH’s own mouth to Moses and to the Hebrews after they left Egypt and before the returned to the land of Caanan were not originally invented, designed, or derived from the world or the men in it, nor from men’s commandments or doctrines. At this juncture let me point out that the world and pagan religions also have their own holidays or holy days. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Pagan witches still have their own annual holidays, and the Roman Empire at the time that this book of Colossians was written was an empire steeped in Paganism with many Pagan gods whose chief Deity was Mithras, the Sun God. Have you ever heard Black Sabbath? This is another name for dates on a witchcraft calendar when witches meet together. Yes, they do have their own calendar which is partly calculated by the moon. Verse 23 of Colossians Chapter 2 goes on to list “neglecting the body” and not “satisfying” the flesh as another thing NOT to do which we all know happens in mainline churches in the 40-day season of Lent, just like the 40 days that worshippers of a false god named Tammuz practices. YHWH calls Sunrise Services to worship Tammuz one of many “Abominations” in Ezekiel 8:13-17. The king James version of Colossians 2:16 reads “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:” 17 “Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”. The word “is” in verse 17 appears in italicized font to indicate that it was not in the original text but was added by the translators to give it more clarity. But if you remove the word “is” which does not belong there, it reads BUT THE BODY OF CHRIST. Therefore the proper understanding of this part of the book of Colossians is that WE SHOULD NOT LET ANY PAGAN OR WORLDLY PERSON, JUDGE US ABOUT EATING OR DRINKING THE WAY THAT GOD WANTS US TO, OR ABOUT THE WAY WE KEEP ONE OF HIS HOLYDAYS, NEW MOONS, OR SABBATHS, BUT WE SHOULD LET PEOPLE IN THE BODY OF CHRIST JUDGE US ABOUT IT IF WE ARE FAILING TO DO IT ACCORDING TO YHWH’S COMMANDMENTS. Never let outsiders who keep a different set of holidays in honor to Pagan gods dictate policy to us, and don’t let them make you feel obligated to worship angels, or to deprive your body for some Pagan holiday or ritual that are outside of scriptural guidelines.
D) These yearly feasts are to be kept throughout all the generations of anyone wishing to become or
remain a part of Israel. We have already shown that the feasts are commanded to be kept and observed by every one of his people forever in Leviticus Chapter 23 [KJV]. For those of you who need proof that these feasts are for today's modern Christians because you think the Law is passed away, I would ask you to get a concordance and look up the word "Iniquity" and the word "Commandments" and you will find them listed quite a few times within the pages of the New Testament. There the word INIQUITY is often defined as lawlessness in the Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon and is presented as a bad thing. You will also find that the word COMMANDMENTS is also found several times in the New Testament and that it is a good thing to "Keep the commandments of God". You will notice that I did not say "the commandments of Yeshua (Jesus)" since some of you may not think God and Yeshua are in fact the same person. Commandments are the part of the law which have teeth in them and present direct requirements for all of us to comply with, and they make up the main part of the Law. I find it odd that we often call ourselves "Spiritual Israel", but we do it in a lop-sided fashion because we only accept their share of love, grace, and promises, from their covenant with YHWH, but reject most of their rules and instructions. However, when you get saved or born again after making Yeshua the Lord of your life, and he washes your sins away with his blood, you are no longer classified as a Gentile but have been merged together with Israel into "one new man" and are no longer separated as a stranger from "the commonwealth of Israel" and "the Covenants of Promise" according to Ephesians Chapter 2. You are grafted into the tree of Israel as a new branch according to Romans Chapter 11. This is important because the New (i.e.-Renewed Covenant) Covenant as foretold in Jeremiah 31:31-33, and was brought to us by Yeshua, does not apply to the House of Gentiles, but only applies to the House of Israel and the House of Judah. In order to get in on this covenant you have to allow yourself to be annexed to or grafted into Israel which can be described as YHWH's assembly of believers he has been collecting and adding to throughout several centuries. This annexation or grafting-in is what happens now in our engagement period and will be finalized when we, as the bride of Messiah, actually marry him at the marriage supper of the lamb - Revelations 19:7 [KJV]. The marriage makes us a part of his household, his nation, his covenants, his promises and his laws. This makes us Jewish in every possible way because he is also a Jew, especially in a legal sense. Since Judah is tribe of Israel, then we are part of Israel as well. No wonder Shaul calls us "joint-heirs with Messiah" in Romans 8:16 & 17 [KJV]. Anyone who has been baptized into Messiah or put on Messiah, are also one together in Messiah, and are therefore Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise - Galatians 3:27-29 [KJV].
E) These Annual Appointments with our creator are determined and managed by his calendar which he gave to Moses in Leviticus Chapter KJV] and are not connected to or related to the pagan holidays listed on the Gregorian Calendar, such as Easter, Christmas, Valentine's Day, or Halloween. Not only is every name of the week and some of the months of the man-made Gregorian Calendar filled with the names of pagan gods, but it also causes us to say their names in defiance of Exodus 23:13 [KJV]. The pagan holidays crowd out and steal time and energy from YHWH's Feast Days.
F) Apostle Shaul (Paul) expected us to know and keep the feasts as we can deduct from reading 1st
Thessalonians 5:1-7 [KJV] which would protect us from danger during "The Day of The Lord" which is coming upon the whole world. Notice here that Shaul reminded them that the travail of the destructive day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, but that his readers in Thessaloníki should not have to be overtaken with it because they are not in darkness since they are children of the light. Herein Elohim (God) lets them know that they are part of a privileged group that has been informed ahead of time so that they can be prepared when it arrives. It is my opinion that Shaul said this because he knew that they were feast keepers just as he himself was, and just as all followers of Yeshua were in his day. Please observe the scripture reference verses below:
“1st Thessalonians 5:1 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no needthat I write unto you. 2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. 3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and theyshall not escape. 4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. 5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. 6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. 7 For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.” [KJV]
One has to wonder why we have to "watch and be sober" like Shaul demands in verse 6. If we are totally saved in every single way, shape and form from the very moment after accepting Yeshua as Master and Savior, how is watching and being sober even relevant to us?
Notice the two words "TIMES" and "SEASONS" above in verse 1 [KJV]. These refer to the "SIGNS" and "SEASONS" listed in Genesis 1:14 which reads "And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" [KJV]:
● That word SIGN is Strong's # H226 representing the Hebrew word אות “oth”
meaning: A Signal, Mark, or Sign.
● That word SEASONS is Strong's # H4150 representing the Hebrew word מועד “moed”
meaning: An annual Congregational Appointment. Adding the letters "im" at the end
would extend the word to read "Moedim" making it plural as in "Appointments".
Ever since the time of Moses, practicing Jews along with all Feast Keepers, the Signs and Seasons or Times and Seasons are the way that certain things are always calculated such as the Yearly Calendar, days, nights, Annual Feasts, and the Sabbath Day. Likewise, these Times and Seasons are referred to in 1st Thessalonians 5:1-7 [KJV] and they are one and the same thing as the Signs and Seasons recorded in Genesis 1:14 [KJV]. They are to be used as signals to calculate Seasonal Appointments, Days and Years like the 7 Feasts of YHWH which we have been commanded to keep forever. If we are doing what we were commanded to do in Leviticus 23 [KJV], then we will not be caught like a thief in the night when The Day of The Lord finally comes. Anyone wondering how we can prove that the disciples of Yahshua and his followers in the New Testament Scriptures were in fact still keeping the Torah, weekly Sabbath and the Annual Feast Dates, I refer you to a CD series by Brad Scott of Wildbranch Ministries which he recorded in about 1983 entitled "The Church in the Book of Acts. He makes a pretty good case for it in this CD series.
There are lots of trumpets sounding off each year during each local celebration of the Feast of Trumpets. The Rapture and 2nd coming of our Messiah Yahshua are paired together with various trumpet blasts in the pages of the New Testament. Mark Biltz has a lengthy DVD series on "The Feast of The Lord" in which he claims that there are traditionally 100 trumpet blasts during this feast and the last one is known as "The Last Trump". However, a certain number like "100 trumpet blasts" cannot be verified by scriptures and I suppose it is found in the Talmud which is usually reliable for things like this, but not reliable when it comes to anything about Yeshua whom it usually refers to in a despicable manner as "Yeshu" (i.e.-let his name be blotted out). Because most of us believe that the rapture will occur on The Feast of Trumpets in some future year, we always try to stay ready to meet him in the air every year during the duration of this feast.
In 1752, Great Britain finally changed over to the Gregorian Calendar, and April Fool’s Day began to be celebrated in England and in the American colonies.
“Pranks and jokes are of course still popular on this day—not to mention the rest of the year.
“Pope Gregory XIII issued a papal bull, ‘Inter Gravissimus’ on February 24, 1582 that established the Gregorian calendar as the new and official calendar of the Catholic world. Since the Julian calendar had fallen ten days behind over the centuries, Pope Gregory XIII designated that October 4, 1582 would be officially followed by October 15, 1582. The news of the calendar change was disseminated across Europe. Not only would the new calendar be utilized but ten days would be ‘lost’ forever, the new year would now begin on January 1 instead of March 25, and there would be a new method of determining the date of Easter…
“In the era after the change, dates were written with O.S. (Old Style) or N.S. (New Style) following the day so people examining records could understand whether they were looking at a Julian date or a Gregorian date. While George Washington was born on February 11, 1731 (O.S.), his birthday became February 22, 1732 (N.S.) under the Gregorian calendar. The change in the year of his birth was due to the change of when the [start] of the new year was acknowledged. Recall that prior to the Gregorian calendar, March 25 was the new year but once the new calendar was implemented, it became January 1. Therefore, since Washington was born between January 1 and March 25, the year of his birth became one year later upon the switch to the Gregorian calendar. (Prior to the 14th century, the new year change took place on December 25.)” (geography.about.com).
God is not the author of confusion(I Cor. 14:33). The above statements alone demonstrate the confusion surrounding this holiday, through conflicting historical accounts involving the year the Gregorian Calendar was implemented.
"The first day of the Feast shifted during the lifetime of Rome ... it began around the middle of December ... and continued until January first. In its midst was December twenty-fifth, the day, as the Romans calculated, when the sun was at its lowest ebb ...." (E. W. Count's "4000 Years of Christmas", page 28.)
It was Julius Caesar, Emperor of pagan Rome, who instituted the New Year's festival on January first. In 46 B. C., Caesar adopted the Julian calendar. He transferred to the first January ALL of the customs surrounding the Roman Saturn god! (Sun God)
Finally Pope Gregory re-institutedthe ancient pagan Roman date of January first. He imposed it on the whole Western world in 1582 when his Gregorian calendar "reforms" were accepted. All Roman Catholic countries accepted this change AT ONCE! The beginning was with the Druid customs.
Rather than resist the influence of pagan customs, the Catholic Churchfathers compromised!
God Almighty does not compromise! Notice the warning to Israel as they conquered the pagan nations of the Promised Land:
Duet 12:30 -31 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyedfrom before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. 31 Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fireto their gods.
How many people are sacrificing their children today through pagan Holidays?
Dionysus or Dionysos is the Greek god of wine and he represents not only the intoxicating power of wine, but also its social and beneficial influences. He was also known as Bacchus. He is the patron deity of agriculture and the theater.
 God of Wine/Agriculture |  God of Time |
Cronus was Father Time because of his association with the destructive power of time. There’s even an interpretation saying that his eating his kids symbolizes time devouring everything, in the end.
Another symbol of New Year's celebrations are equally pagan! It is the familiar figure of a white-haired man carrying a scythe. What does he represent? The ancient Greek god Cronos. It is from the name "Cronos" we derive our "chronograph" which measures time.
Among the Greek gods, Cronos originally cut a swath of HUMAN SACRIFICE with his sharpened scythe! The "silent reaper" anciently "reaped" little children in CANNIBALISM! This Greek rite of human sacrifice was adopted by ancient Rome, where human sacrifice was practiced at least until 300 A. D.
When Does God Begin the New Year?
Remember! The Lord Jesus, who created the Universe, He set the heavenly bodies in their places at Creation. It is by His "clock" that time is determined.
The earth's rotation regulates the length of a day -- the lunar phasesindicate the length of a *month. (New Moon) And the orbit of the earth around the sun dictates the length of a year!
Only the Father and Jesus has the AUTHORITY to set the date of the beginning of the New Year!
God's calendar year begins in the spring -- NOT in the middle of winter! Notice what the Lord told Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt."
Ex 12:1-2 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
Ex 34:18 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.
The Hebrew month Abib overlaps the months of March-April on the Roman calendar in use today.
The first month of God's calendar is called, in the Bible, "Abib". It means the month of "green ears." Later, the Jews called it "Nisan" -- a Babylonian word having the same meaning.
God placed the beginning of the year in the early spring to mark the beginning of the seasonal harvests. The two annual harvests in Palestine foreshadowed God's Plan for the twofold SPIRITUAL harvest of souls to be born into His Kingdom.
Your Bible speaks of a great false religious system which will "think to change times and laws”. This system has deliberately thought to change the beginning of God's calendar year in an attempt to hide God's Plan for the salvation of mankind! But man has no authority to change God's "clock."
Dan 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. (1260Years)
Rev 13:3 -4 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. 4 And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
Rome itself, the head of the empire, and which was built on seven mountains, designed by the seven heads of this beast: and this head was
And his deadly wound was healed; by the setting up of ten kingdoms in it, the kings of which gave them to the beast, to Antichrist, the pope of Rome, and so the empire came to have an head again, a governor, though of another kind: some choose to understand this of the wound which Antichrist received at the Reformation, by Luther, Calvin, and others, which has since been healing, Pope/Church recovering itself again in some countries where it was driven out, and which, it is thought, will be entirely healed before his destruction: all the world wondered after the beastwhich expresses the large extent of Antichrist's dominion, which reached to all the Roman empire, yea, to all kindred's, tongues, and nations,
Rev 13:7 -9 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindred's, and tongues, and nations. 8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
The Pope boasts of, the true church, is actually the mark of the beast, or of Antichrist; and is his followed, by those who admire his power and authority, his grandeur, pomp, and riches, his signs and lying wonders, his pretended *infallibility(Never being Wrong) and holiness, his stock of merits and unwritten traditions, his skill to interpret Scripture, and his power to forgive sins, and the like: they went after him, obeyed him, embraced his doctrines, attended his religion and worship with wonder and amazement.
Satan, has deceived the world into believing the New Year begins on January first!
Do you think God has changed His mind about compromising with paganism?
Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
Mali 3:6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
The same punishment is for anyone or any nation that forsakes God's laws which are in the Bible, and turns to the customs of paganism.
Does it make any difference if YOU continue observing pagan customs -- like New Year's? IT could be harmful.
New Year's celebration began in Babylon 4,000 years ago. It is practiced today by almost all.
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
But God Almighty has sent His ministers to warn this world
Isa 58:1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
I pray that people will Listen to God’s word now.
The History of the Creator’s Calendar
By reviewing the history of the Creator’s Calendar one can appreciate the importance of the true calendar of the Creator, YHVH. In exploring the Creator’s calendar and its history it is discovered that the New Moon days, Sabbath days, and the appointed Feast of the Creator are linked together. The Creator set His Appointed Feasts, New Moons, and Sabbath days in a calendar format that does not change. This will be demonstrated by the immense amount of Scripture concerning the calendar that is collected in the Bible today, beginning at creation and moving forward to eternity.
In examining the history of the Creator’s calendar one must keep in mind that the Sabbaths, New Moons, and Appointed Feasts walk hand in hand. Also upon closer observation of the Scriptures it can be demonstrated that by history and by the Scriptures that the calendar of our Creator is a Luni-solar calendar.
As with all recorded history everything has a beginning. The Creator’s calendar has its beginning in Genesis chapter one (verses 14-18). Now in reading Genesis 2:1-3 it is found that the very next act that Elohim did was rested on the Sabbath day. It is recorded, “thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day Elohim ended His work which he had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. An Elohim blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it” because that in it He had rested from all His work which Elohim created and made.”
A Biblical Month in Scripture
The Beginning of every month starts with New Moon Day beginning on the 1st followed by four complete sets of weeks which end on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th days of the month. The month will be explained more fully upon reading further.
From the beginning of creation down to the time of Abraham, the patriarchs kept the Creator’s Calendar. Note that, before there ever was a Hebrew Nation, Abraham kept the Creator’s commandments, statutes, and judgments. YHVH describes Abraham as keeping His requirements in Genesis 26:5, “Because that Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” Abraham is a rare example in Scripture for before there was a difference between Hebrew and Gentile Abraham honored the Creator’s appointed times and kept His commandments. Today the Creator should continue to be honored and His appointed times kept.
It should be noted that in Mark 2:27 that the Messiah stated, “…the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Just as Abraham did in the past so should everyone be honoring the Creator, whether one is Hebrew or Gentile. Everyone should rejoice and worship before Him on His appointed times.
Saturday, (or dies Saturni – the day of Saturn) was the very first day of the week, not the seventh. As the god of agriculture, he can be seen in this preeminent position of importance, holding his symbol, a sickle. Next, on the second day of the pagan planetary week, is seen the sun god with rays of light emanating from his head. Sunday was originally the second day of the planetary week and was known as dies Solis. The third day of the week was dies Lunæ (day of the Moon – Monday). The moon goddess is shown wearing the horned crescent moon as a diadem on her head. The rest of the gods follow in order: dies Martis (day of Mars); dies Mercurii (day of Mercury); dies Jovis (day of Jupiter); and dies Veneris (day of Venus), the seventh day of the week. (Nashville, Tennessee: Southern Publishing Assoc., 1972), p. 10 & 11. Ibid., p. 5.)
In searching textbooks and history many examples are given of this change and how it was done and who it was done by. One example is in TheUniversal Jewish Encyclopedia Vol. 5, p 410, “Sabbath and New Moon (Rosh Hodesh), both periodically recurring in the course of the year. The New Moon is still and the Sabbath originally was, dependent upon the lunar cycle.” This is of further proof that Romanism did attempt to change Sabbath. (emphasis is added)
Who do you Worship?
Every individual must search out the Scripture to see what is true and what is false. The Creator’s Calendar is true. In a world that is dominated by false calendar systems one must stand out and be a separate people holy and true to the Creator.
It is up to each and everyone to make a decision. Will truth be followed or will falsehood be followed? All should do as it is written in Acts 5:29. “We ought to obey Elohim rather than man.” Each person will have to give an account to the Creator one day for the decisions that were made. It is up to each and everyone to follow Him and keep His commandments. This includes keeping His Calendar and His Appointed Times of worship.
In Mathew 13:24-30 the Messiah stated that those that are wicked will be gathered as the tares and those that are righteous will be gathered as the wheat. Be careful of which group you are found in. The calendar you keeps determines who you are worshiping.
Who do you worship? Who do you serve?
As Joshua said to the people so should we all declare, “As for me and my house, we will serve YHVH.” Joshua 24:15
Ancient Calendars
To fully understand New Years Day requires a basic understanding of the calendar. The following information about calendar systems was obtained from, "World Book Encyclopedia" 1979 volume 3 "Calendar" except as noted.
Most ancient calendars compromised between the lunar and solar years, some having 12 months and others 13.
The Babylonians used a lunar calendar which was adjusted periodically to compensate for the lunar and solar differences by adding an extra month to their years at irregular intervals. When astrologers discovered that the calendar had run badly out of step, they decreed an "intercalary" month. This was done about three times in a cycle of eight years.
Egyptians were the first to adopt a solar calendar. Each month was thirty days having twelve months per year. At the end of the year the extra five days were added to the last month. This did not count for the quarter day (365 ¼ days per year) so even their calendar became out of sync over time. Their calendar was first developed around 4236 BCE (1).
The Romans borrowed their first calendar from the Greeks, having ten months in their calendar as is derived from the last six months being named numerically. Their names were
No. Name Modern Name 1.
Martius March 2. Aprilis April 3. Maius May 4. Junius June 5. Quintilis July 6. Sextilis August 7. Septembre September 8. Octobre October 9. Novembre November 10. Decembre December
Sixty plus days every year were simply not included in the calendar.
Julian Calendar
The Julian (second Roman Calendar) originally began with Martius (March). Julius Caesar adjusted the calendar ignoring the lunar cycle in recalculating the calendar. He divided the year into twelve months having 30 or 31 days each except February (the last month) which had only 29. He ruled that the year 46 BCE would have 445 days to correct the calendar for accumulated errors. That year became known as "the year of confusion."
According to tradition, Augustus moved a day from February to August to make August as long as July. Traditionally, cultures add or remove days or months in the end of their calendar to adjust for solar to lunar variations in the calendar. This is why February was selected to be the short month.
Gregorian Calendar
This calendar was designed to correct the errors of the Julian calendar. Pope Gregory XIII corrected the calendar for the difference between solar and lunar by ordering 10 days dropped from October. The dropped days were from October 5, 1582. It became October 15. This procedure restored the next equinox to its proper date. To correct the Julian calendar’s error regularly, the pope decreed that February would have an extra day in century years that could be divided by 400, such as 1600, 2000 but not in others, such as 1700, 1800, and 1900.
Hebrew Calendar
According to tradition, the Hebrew calendar has been in effect since creation, 3,760 BCE. The Hebrew calendar contains 12 months of alternately 29 or 30 days having a leap month (Veadar) added 7 times in 19 years to offset errors in the solar/lunar variant. (This is the most precise over time.) The names of the months are as follows;
| Rel. No. | Civil No. | Modern Name | Gregorian Name (Roughly) |
| 9. | 1. | Nisan or Abiv | March/April |
| 10. | 2. | Iyar | April/May |
| 11. | 3. | Sivan | May/June |
| 12. | 4. | Tammuz | June/July |
| 1. | 5. | Ab | July/August |
| 2. | 6. | Elul | August/September |
| 3. | 7. | Tishri | September/October |
| 4. | 8. | Heshvan | October/November |
| 5. | 9. | Kislev | November/December |
| 6. | 10. | Tebet | December/January |
| 7. | 11. | Shebat | January/February |
| 8. | 12. | Adar I | February/March |
| X | 13. | Adar II (Leap Year) | February/March |
Originally, G-d instructed Moses which day and month were to be the beginning of the calendar. It starts in the spring and ends in the fall. Basically, the months after the seventh month were ignored because of the agricultural society. The calendar always began in the spring and ended in the fall. This way there was never a need for the calendar to be adjusted. Later men began to count the winter months causing a need for closer observance of times and the need to adjust the calendar.
Seven Day Week
The seven day week was created by G-d (3). While in Egypt, Israel was forced to keep an eight day week which caused them to lose which day was the Sabbath. After the exodus, G-d clearly revealed the Sabbath to them and re-established the seven day week .
Since the exodus, the Hebrew and Roman/Gregorian calendars have always had seven day weeks. The weekly calendar has never been adjusted. The first day of the week has always been the first day (Sunday) since the Exodus.
New Year Days
New Year's day is the first observance in the Gregorian calendar. It is based on the beginning of the year which starts at a most inconvenient time and date. Midnight is the time when most of us are in bed asleep. Dead of winter is no time to be out celebrating. Travel conditions are hazardous. Adding intoxication and sleepiness makes New Year celebration a very dangerous time to be out of the house.
Looking forward to the coming year is the focus and everyone is making "new years resolutions", often not having anything to do with G-d or faith.
New Year's Day Symbols
New Year's day symbols are limited to champagne bottles, party horns and noisemakers, and singing "Auld Lang Zyne."
Rosh Hashanah
The Jewish New Year begins at evening in the month starting the fall season, usually in September. In the Bible it is called Shofarot or trumpets (4). Temperatures are mild and the time of day is early evening. Observers spend the day in synagogue joyfully sounding trumpets and praying. The year has just ended, the fall harvest has been gathered and everyone is preparing for the end of year festival Sukkot (tabernacles).
Prayers of thanksgiving are offered to G-d for His great supply during the year. Our faith is the center of attention. During the prior month we focus on the past, resolving inter-community disputes and seeking forgiveness when needed. After the Hebrew new year we focus on our relationship with G-d asking His forgiveness for our transgressions.
For more information see Rosh Hashanah in our Holy Days document.
Saint Valentine's Day
Observed February 14th in memory of Saint Valentine a Catholic priest who was beheaded during persecution. Traditionally people exchange valentines cards. Often there are illusions to love between those exchanging cards. The origins of this day go back long before the "Christian" era. Cupid (see symbols) was always seen with bow and arrow. He is a fictitious character is derived from the great hunter Nimrod (5).
Saint Valentines Day Symbols
Hearts (representing love) and Cupid (6) with bow and arrows representing the love angel. According to legend Nimrod stole the hearts of women including Semiramis, his mother who became his wife (7).
Purim
The feast of Purim (8) is commanded in the Tanakh (Old Testament) . It is the remembrance of G-d’s deliverance of the Jewish people from the plans of wicked Haman. Purim is a time of costumes and joy as the children drown out the name of Haman as the Magilla (the scroll of the book of Esther) is read. It is traditional to eat Hamentashen (cookies shaped in the form of Haman’s hat). The celebration tends to get rather noisy. I am not aware of any pagan festivals coinciding with Purim.
Easter
The holiday called Easter (9) has come to be known as the Christian day of observance of the resurrection of Jesus. It is considered to be the "most important holy day of the Christian Religion." The day Easter is observed is difficult to calculate. At one time I thought it was the first Sunday after Passover. I found this not to be true. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21 (10). It cannot come before March 22 or after April 25. In 1997 its arrival would be on April 27 if it followed Passover. Consequently, Easter precedes Passover by almost four weeks this year arriving on March 30th.
The name "Easter" only appears once by error in the Bible, Acts12:4 (KJV only). This is a mistranslation of the Greek word Pascha which is derived from the Hebrew Pesach. Elsewhere and in all other translations the word is rendered into English, Passover.
Easter was originally a spring festival of sexuality and fertility (11) known as Astorith or Ishtarti. The festival was called Ishtar and in modern days is known as Easter. There were also other near eastern cultures who worshipped the same goddess. The pronunciation of her name varies from culture to culture. Observance of Astorith’s festival was marked with rabbits because of their rapid and vast reproductive characteristics. Eggs (12) are also important because it is from the fertilized egg that offspring is produced.
Just as in it's ancient counterpart, Easter eggs have patterns painted in the shell using bright colors. The time of observance was early in the morning as the sun rose "from the dead" (13).
On Shrove Tuesday (14), children in Denmark and Norway trim birch branches with gay paper streamers. They "beat" adult members of the family with these "Lenten birches" until they receive "payments of hot cross buns."
Children in Finland perform this ritual on "Holy Saturday" and receive Easter eggs.
Easter Symbols
- Easter Sunday Sunrise (15) service
- Easter Eggs (16)
- Easter bunnies (17) (Christian connection unknown)
- lamb (18 )
- three crosses (19) (Remembering Jesus' exicution with two thieves)
- hot cross buns (20)
- new clothes (remembering the new born state of believers)
- Easter ham (eluding to supposed cleansing of food)
Traditional symbols are;
Passover
Passover (21) comes from the observance of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. In it we remember the deliverance by G-d’s outstretched hand and our journey to the promised land. The exodus took place about 1450 BCE. For more information on Passover, see our document Chag HaMatza.
Other pagan festivals fall during this time of year due to the proximity to spring.
Return to Table of Contents
Shavuot
Fifty days after the "Ohmer" is waved before the L-rd, a special Holy day comes. The name is Shavuot meaning weeks.
The Greek name for this festival is Penticost meaning fifty. There is disagreement between traditional Jews and some Messianic Jews as to when the Ohmer was waved. Messianic believers count the Ohmer from the weekly Sabbath (25) that falls within the feast of Matza (unleavened bread). Traditional Jews count it from the first day of Matza which is an annual Sabbath (26).
Shavuot is when G-d gave us the Torah (27).
No known pagan festivals occur during Shavuot.
Fourth of July
There are apparently no pagan origins to the fourth of July celebrations. It is celebrating the victory and independence from England.
Any pagan day occurring on the same day are purely coincidental.
Rosh HaShannah
See New Years and Rosh HaShannah above.
Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur is the most solemn day of Judaism and originates in the Torah. It is observed through fasting and prayer. In it we seek G-d’s forgiveness for our sins and cast ourselves on His mercy.
As far as I know, there are no pagan festivals coinciding with Yom Kippur.
Sukkot
Sukkot is the feast of tabernacles or booths and originates in the Torah. It is observed by building a sukka in the back yard and eating and or sleeping under the sukka for seven days. It reminds us of the time our forefathers spent in the wilderness while leaving Egypt and going to the promised land. For more information on Sukkot, see our document on Holy Days.
There are no pagan festivals coinciding with Sukkot.
Halloween (28)
Halloween is celebrated on October 31st. It developed from an ancient "New Year" festival and festivals of the dead.
In the CE 800’s, the Catholic church established All Saints’ day so that people could continue a festival they had celebrated before becoming Christians. The Mass that was said on this day was called Allhallowmas. The evening before became known as All Hallow e’en, or Halloween.
Trick or treating is the primary activity for most children. They dress in costumes and masks and go from door to door saying "trick or treat." The neighbors, to avoid having tricks played on them, give the children such treats as candy, fruit, and pennies.
The Celtic festival of Samhain is the source of the present-day Halloween celebration of over two thousand years ago. Celts lived in Great Britain and central and western Europe. Their new year began on November 1st. Samhain was observed in honor of the pagan god of death, after whom the feast was named. The Celts believed that Hamhain allowed the souls of the dead to return to their earthly homes for this evening.
The Druids built a huge new year’s bonfire of oak branches, which they considered sacred. They burned animals, crops and human beings as sacrifices. The families would then light their hearth fires from the new year’s fire. During the celebration people wore costumes made of animal heads and skins. They told fortunes about the coming year by examining the remains of the animals that had been sacrificed.
The Romans conquered the Celts in CE 43 and ruled what is now Great Britain for about 400 years. Two Roman festivals were combined with the Celtic festival of Samhain. One of them called Feralia, was held in late October to honor the dead. The other festival honored Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. Apples probably became associated with Halloween because of this festival.
Regarding All Saints’ Day, World Book Encyclopedia says that "the people made the old pagan customs part of this Christian holy day."
Halloween customs among the Celts in Ireland were to beg for food in a parade that honored Muck Olla, a pagan god. The leader of the parade wore a white robe and a mask made from the head of an animal.
In Scotland, People paraded through fields and villages carrying torches, They lit huge bonfires on hillsides to drive away witches and other evil spirits.
In Wales, every person marked a stone and put it into a bonfire. The people believed that if a person’s stone was missing the next morning, he or she would die within the year.
The ancient Druids celebrated with bands of children roaming through the farming communities demanding treats. When the farmer cooperated and the children were satisfied with the bribe, they would light a carved lantern, usually from pumpkin or gourd and leave it at the property to keep evil spirits away. When the children were dissatisfied with the bribe, they would pronounce curses on the family and farm.
Halloween Symbols and Customs
- Jack-O-Lanterns (Carved pumpkins or gourds)
- Ghosts, Goblins, Witches and Devils
- Costumes (The more gruesome the better)
- Dunking for Apples
- Hay Rides
- Bonn Fires
- Trick Or Treating
- Frightening People
- Haunted Houses
Traditional Halloween symbols and customs are;
Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving Day apparently has no pagan origins. The pilgrims who came first to America offered a big feast to the L-rd for His salvation. Turkey (a biblically approved meat) is served along with the bounty of the harvest of summer.
Any pagan holidays coinciding with Thanksgiving day are purely accidental.
Christmas (22)
- Luke 2:8 Shepherds keeping their flocks in the field at night. Could not do this in the winter time because of night time temperatures.
- Luke 1:26 Yeshua conceived 6 months after John the immerser was conceived.
- Zacharias received word of his son to be before Sivan 18. This was his time to serve. Luke 1:5 course of Abia (30)
- It took about three to four days to get home.
- John would have been conceived on or about 23rd of Sivan.
- 6 months later would be around the 15th of Nisson. Would place his birth about Tishiri 15 or the first day of Tabernacles.
- Yeshua started his ministry at age 30. His ministry was 3 ½ years. He was executed at Passover when He was 33 ½ years old. Count backwards from Passover ½ year. You come to the 15th day of the 7th month which is the 1st day of Sukkot.
- The 8th day of Sukkot (Shimini Atzeret) is also called Yom Brit Milah (day of circumcision). Yeshua was circumcised in the 8th day. Luke 2:21
- Important Messianic events are marked by G-d’s festivals. Why would Yeshua’s birth be any different?
- Passover - Yeshua’s sacrifice
- First Fruit - Yeshua’s resurrection
- Pentecost - Falling of the Holy Spirit
- Rosh haShannah (Trumpets) - His second coming foretold.
One of the middle ages sources for Christmas is Saturnalia, a Roman festival honoring the Roman god Saturn, the lord of harvest. The festival began on December 17, and lasted for seven days. It was customary for all schools and businesses to close for Saturnalia.
On the second day of the festival, many families offered sacrifices of young pigs.
The last days of the festival were spent visiting and exchanging presents. Some of the gifts were little clay images called sigillaria, which means small images. These were placed under the idol to Saturn. There are many stories for the source of the Christmas tree.
In post flood days the celebration for tree worship was founded by Semiramis who purportedly found her son Nimrod in an evergreen tree while she was still a virgin . She started the custom of bringing a green tree into the home in observance of Nimrod’s birthday. She carved up her husband who had died and sent his body parts all over her kingdom. Anyone who refused to observe Nimrod’s birthday was threatened with the same fate.
Another version says that Semiramis turned into a tree which was worshipped as the mother of god.
G-d commanded His people to avoid such practices (Jeremiah 10:1-5 (KJV)).
The Yule log comes from worshipping Thor. It was said that the log had magical powers and was lit in the fireplace on the eve of the winter solstice. People would burn a huge log and keep parts of it for lighting the fire for the next years observance and to protect the house from fire and lightening.
The Messiah was not born in the winter during a pagan festival. The following information was gleaned primarily from the "Companion Bible" by Zondervan, original copyright by The Bullinger Publications Trust.
Sunday (31)
Sun worship was an ancient practice carried out by many people. The Romans named the first day of the week "Sunday" in honor of the Sun god. In order to assist in converting pagans to the "Christian" faith, the day was accepted as the primary day of worship.
Constantine ordered the change (32) from Saturday (Sabbath) to Sunday in the second century CE. He wasn’t even a believer in this "cult". He was bent on destroying the Jews. He burned part of Rome and blamed it on the Jews. He then issued an edict that all who worship on Sabbath would be executed in the games at Rome. Because gentile "Christians" felt no obligation to keep the Sabbath or holy days, they soon ceased observing them because of Paul’s teachings.
Sunday is called "Little Easter" (33) because in it the "resurrection of the Lord" is remembered every week. As was pointed out in the section on Easter, People rise early on Easter Sunday to arrive at an appointed place to watch the sun rise. They tell us this is to remember the resurrection of the Son of G-d.
Sabbath
When Israel came out of Egypt, G-d instructed Moses that no work was to be done on the seventh day of the week. Because Egypt had an eight day calendar, the L-rd had to show them which day was the Sabbath. He did this by sending "mannah" on every day but the Sabbath. On the day before the Sabbath, double the mannah fell. On all other days if one picked more mannah than could be used, it turned to maggots and stank. On the Sabbath however, the mannah kept until it was all eaten. (Exodus 16:11-30)
Sabbath begins and ends at sundown. We can see this even in the book of Genesis were the "evening and morning were the first day." (Gen 1,2) etc. etc.. Keeping the Sabbath marks us as being worshipers of the true G-d of creation (34).
Return to Table of Contents
Footnotes
1. BCE; Before the Common or Christian Era.
2. Genesis 1,2
3. See "The Sabbath" also Exodus 20:8-11
4. Leviticus 23:24
5. Genesis 10:8,9
6. Cupid or Eros who purportedly produced the "winged ones", the son of Venus. Also Nin or Ninus "the son"
7. Semiramis also called Rhea the great goddess mother of Ninus who was also her husband. Layard’s "Nineveh and its Remains" Volume ii. page 480
8. Esther 9:28
9. Easter also called Ishtar and Astarte.
10. World Book Encyclopedia
13. In honor of Bel, Baal or Dios the sun god.
15. In honor of Nimrod who was Bel, Baal or Dios the sun god
16. Representing new life (was a fertility symbol in ancient cultures)
17. Christian meaning unknown (was a fertility symbol in ancient cultures)
18. Representing Jesus the lamb of G-d.
19. The earliest form of the cross was worship of Tammuz, another name for the sun god. The Egyptian "Ankh" or "Tau", symbol of eternal life is one of the earlier developments of this symbol of Tammuz.
20. The Cross is the symbol for sun worship (Tammuz note 19) and the round bun is the same symbol.
21. Exodus 12:1-14
22. World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 "Christmas"
25. Lev 23:16 This causes Shavuot to always fall on Sunday, the first day of the week.
26. I believe this is a reactionary move based on a looser interpretation of Lev 23:16
27. "The Jewish Holidays" by Strassfeld, page 69
28. World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 volume 9, "Halloween"
30. The Companion Bible Appendix 179 (Parallel Datings, Etc.)
31. "World Book" Encyclopedia 1979 volume 18, page 784 Mythology and Sun Worship
33. The New Golden Bough
34. Exodus 31:13,17
God’s Calendar and His Sabbaths According to the Bible
Part One
The development of our modern Gregorian calendar
In order to piece together God’s prophetic plan an understanding of God’s calendar is needed, because this is the calendar by which He has planned His future events but first we need to understand why our modern Gregorian calendar’s origins are pagan and is not God’s calendar.
The Gregorian calendar is named after Pope Gregory the thirteenth (b.1502 – d.1585), which came about because in 1582 this Pope over saw the amendment of the older Julian calendar in order to bring it into very close alignment with the astronomical solar year of 365.25 days, as by then it was 11 days out of sync.
The older Julian calendar was named after Julius Caesar (b.100BC – d.45BC) which came about because in 46BC he over saw the amendment of the even older Roman Republic calendar, that the first century BC Greek astronomer and mathematician Sosigenes (d.31BC) was employed to amended and bring it into relative alignment with the astronomical solar year.
The even older Roman Republic calendar was called the ‘Fasti Antiates Maiores’ or ‘Calendar of Permitted days of the Greater Antiates Peoples’ which had been used in Rome since at least 173BC and perhaps as far back to 738BC when king Romulus, the first purported king of Rome ruled over Rome (Reign 753BC – 716BC).
Shown in the picture below are fragments of a Roman Republic calendar that date to between 84 and 55BC, which were discovered in 1915 in the ruins of Nero’s villa at Antium (Anzio) near Rome and is now housed in the Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme Museum in Rome. More than 200 other fragments of this Roman Republic calendar have been found so far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar
Below is a recreation of what this Roman Republic calendar looked like. It has abbreviated names of the months arranged across the top, preceded by the letter K for ‘Kalends’ which means ‘the first day of the month’ and from where the word calendar comes from.
Unlike our modern calendar it does not have a seven day week but instead has an eight day week that are called Nundina, as labelled from A to H and a further letter denoting what was permitted on those days for the ruling classes. I will come back to this eight day week in a moment but as can also be seen there are thirteen months with a total number of days listed at the bottom of each month, with a total of 382 days per year.
This was because this type of calendar was based on the lunar cycle, which was a common type of ancient calendar derived from the ancient Greeks, Babylonians and Hebrew lunar calendars. The extra thirteenth intercalary month was added every two or three years after the month of February, to keep it in relative alignment to the solar year as 12 lunar months only have 354.37 days per year. The origins of the names of these months are all Roman and pagan as seen in the table below:
| Month | From the Latin |
| January | Januarius, in honour of the Roman two faced god Janus. |
| February | Februarius, in honour of the Roman festival of general recompense and purification that occurred on the ‘ides’ when the moon was full. |
| March | Martius, in honour of the Roman god of war Mars. |
| April | Aprilis, in honour of the goddess Apru (Aphrodite) whose festival was on the first of the month. It’s also derived from the Latin ‘Aperio’ meaning to open, as it’s when the earth opens to produce new fruits. new fruits. |
| May | Maius, in honour of the Greek goddess Maia. |
| June | Junius, in honour of the Roman goddess Juno. |
| July | Julius, in honour of Roman emperor Julius Caesar but it was originally called Quintilis which is Latin for five. |
| August | Augustus, in honour of Roman emperor Augustus Caesar but it was originally called Sextilis which is Latin for six. |
| September October November December | The rest of the months: September, October, November, December are derived from the Latin words for the numerals 7, 8, 9, and 10. |
As can also be seen the last six months were originally numbered from five to ten, which some believe points to an older ten month calendar that originally did not account for the rainy winter period but this theory has never been conclusively proven. The most likely explanation however is because most other ancient lunar calendars began the year when the vernal equinox occurs in March (or when the harvest of the first grain crops begin, notably barley in the spring around March or April). The reason why the lunar Roman Republic calendar started in January rather than March has been conjectured about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#cite_ref-28
However, the most likely reason, was because King Numa Pompilius (b.753BC – d.673BC), who become the second king of Rome in 715BC, highly venerated the pagan god Janus. History records that one of his first acts as king was to construct a temple to Janus at the foot of the Argiletum road in the centre of Rome and it’s claimed to be his most famous architectural achievement. Having secured peace with Rome’s neighbours he kept the doors of this temple shut for the rest of his reign and this was apparently the only time this was done in all of Rome’s history. It is this dedication of King Numa to Janus that points to why he is credited with altering months eleven and twelve in around 713BC, to become the first months of January and February of the calendar year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numa_Pompilius#cite_ref-LivyAb_a_10-1
This is substantiated by Roman historian Plutarch (b.46AD – d.119AD) in his book written in the early second century:
The parallel lives. The life of Numa. Chapter 18:2-3
2 But Numa, estimating the extent of the inequality at eleven days, since the lunar year had three hundred and fifty-four days, but the solar year three hundred and sixty-five, doubled these eleven days, and every other year inserted after the month of February the intercalary month called Mercedinus by the Romans, which consisted of twenty-two days. 3 This correction of the inequality which he made was destined to require other and greater corrections in the future. He also changed the order of the months. March, which had been first, he made the third month, and January, which had been the eleventh under Romulus, he made the first month; February, which had been twelfth and last, thus became the second month, as now. But there are many who say that these months of January and February were added to the calendar by Numa,
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Numa*.html#ref:calendar
However, by the first century BC the Roman Republic calendar had become hopelessly confused, not only because the intercalary thirteenth month was difficult for everyone to keep up to date with, in an ever growing Roman Empire, every time it was added but it was further compounded by political manoeuvrings. For instance the chief high priest, the Pontifex Maximus of the college of Pontiffs, had the authority to delay the thirteenth month in order to extend the term of a particular magistrate or public official, or visa versa.
Julius Caesar put a stop to all of this when he implemented his Julian calendar in 46BC, which had twelve fixed months every solar year, however, the eight day week of the old Roman republic calendar continued to be used with the new Julian calendar, as recorded by Roman Historian Cassius Dio (b.155 – d.235AD) who mentions that it had continued to be used during the first century AD, when he mentions ‘Market day’ that was held every nine days. Market day was held on day eight of the week, as denoted by the letter ‘H’ and the Roman way of counting was was inclusive, so that it was held every nine days. This is in his book written between 202 to 229AD:
Roman History Book 48 Chapter 33:4
In the year preceding this, men belonging to the order of knights had slaughtered wild beasts at the games in the Circus on the occasion of the Ludi Apollinares, and an intercalary day had been inserted, contrary to the rule, in order that the first day of the succeeding year should not coincide with the market held every nine days—a clash which had always been strictly guarded against from very early times.
https://lexundria.com/dio/48/cy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar#cite_ref-33
Therefore the seven day week that we use today must have been introduced into the Julian calendar some time after 46BC. Many people, including Christian’s, believe that the seven day week must have been introduced from the Bible by the Jews or Christian’s, so that today we are using the original week as begun at creation but there is no evidence of this.
Instead the evidence from history shows that the Roman’s had been subjugating and persecuting the Jew’s, and when Christianity began the Romans did the same to them. Therefore there is no way that the Roman’s were going to take on board the seven day calendar week from either of these obscure sects, who the Romans were subjugating and killing in their tens of thousands; from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. So where did the seven day week we currently use come from?
As you may realise these were by no means the only calendars used in history, in fact hundreds of calendars from history have been discovered all over the world, each with varying lengths of weeks and months, and calculated using a variety of methods. All these calendars throughout history competed for supremacy, with the most accurate easy to use and popular calendars becoming more widely used, or calendars which were used by the majority winning out over other calendars used by the minority.
In the first century AD another calendar made its way to Italy, this was the seven day week planetary calendar. Shown in the picture below is a stone carving of this calendar that’s called a Parapegma. It was found in 1930 at the baths of Roman Emperor Titus (b.39 – d.81AD) in Rome, that were constructed between 79 and 81AD and is now housed at the Museum of the Roman Civilization in Rome. There are holes in this stone calendar for placing sticks in, so that the day of the week, the date and the month can be marked.
https://dayology.com/2017/03/24/the-trajans-baths-parapegma/
Above is clearer line drawing that shows each of the seven days were named after the seven planetary gods and goddesses that the Roman’s worshipped. The Roman worship of these and other god’s was strong, in the picture below is a silver and gold Roman worship statuette of the Gallo-Roman goddess of protection Tutela, that dates to 150 to 220AD and is on display at the British Museum. She is seen as supporting these same seven gods of the planetary week as seen from left to right; Saturn (the eldest of the gods who ruled over agriculture), Sol (sun), Luna (moon), Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. (Along with Castor and Pollux on her wings and Diana and Apollo in her left hand).
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1824-0424-1
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1824-0424-1
Cassius Dio also reported on this planetary calendar being used throughout the Roman Empire during his time in the second and third century AD, stating that it had been a recent adoption from Romanised Ptolemaic Egypt and was based on astrology; as shown by the twelve signs of the Zodiac and the seven heavenly bodies representing the days of the week. Cassius goes onto also explain two methods the Romanised Egyptians used to order the days of week, from their understanding of the order of the seven visible classical planets (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), as seen from the Earth. Cassius Dio’s references to this can be found in his 229AD book:
Roman History Book 37 Chapters 18 & 19
18 The custom, however, of referring the days to the seven stars called planets was instituted by the Egyptians, but is now found among all mankind, though its adoption has been comparatively recent; at any rate the ancient Greeks never understood it, so far as I am aware. But since it is now quite the fashion with mankind generally and even with the Romans themselves, and is to them already in a way an ancestral tradition, I wish to write briefly of it, telling how and in what way it has been so arranged. I have heard two explanations, which are not difficult of comprehension, it is true, though they involve certain theories. For if you apply the so -called “principle of the tetrachord” (which is believed to constitute the basis of music) to these stars, by which the whole universe of heaven is divided into regular intervals, in the order in which each of them revolves, and beginning at the outer orbit assigned to Saturn, then omitting the next two name the lord of the fourth, and after this passing over two others reach the seventh, and you then go back and repeat the process with the orbits and their presiding divinities in this same manner, assigning them to the several days, you will find all the days to be in a kind of musical connection with the arrangement of the heavens. 19 This is one of the explanations given; the other is as follows. If you begin at the first hour to count the hours of the day and of the night, assigning the first to Saturn, the next to Jupiter, the third to Mars, the fourth to the Sun, the fifth to Venus, the sixth to Mercury, and the seventh to the Moon, according to the order of the cycles which the Egyptians observe, and if you repeat the process, covering thus the whole twenty-four hours, you will find that the first hour of the following day comes to the Sun. And if you carry on the operation throughout the next twenty-four hours in the same manner as with the others, you will dedicate the first hour of the third day to the Moon, and if you proceed similarly through the rest, each day will receive its appropriate god. This, then, is the tradition.
https://lexundria.com/dio/37/cy
https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/days/7-days-week.html
The days of the pagan planetary seven day week, originally named after the Greco-Roman gods associated with the seven classical planets, were later rendered into their Germanic interpretations based on indigenous deities, from which we then get their Anglicised names; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as shown below.
| Week Day | Planet | Greco-Roman Deity | Latin | GermanicName | Old English |
| Saturday | Saturn | Cronus-Saturn | dies Saturnī | Zaterdag | sæterndæg |
| Sunday | Sun | Helios-Sol | dies Sōlis | Sun | sunnandæg |
| Monday | Moon | Selene-Luna | dies Lūnae | Moon | mōnandæg |
| Tuesday | Mars | Ares-Mars | dies Martis | Tiwaz | tiwesdæg |
| Wednesday | Mercury | Hermes-Mercury | dies Mercuriī | Wodanaz | wōdnesdæg |
| Thursday | Jupiter | Zeus-Jupitar | dies Iovis | Þunraz | þunresdæg |
| Friday | Venus | Aphrodite-Venus | dies Veneris | Frige | frīgedæg |
In further substantiation that our current modern week is pagan and not Biblical is how on the pagan planetary Parapegma calendar Sunday (Sol), as depicted by the rays of light coming from Sol’s head, is the second day of the week rather than the first and that Saturday is the first day of the week rather than the seventh! This is of course assuming the day of Saturn was some how meant to also be the Sabbath just because they sound vaguely similar? But this makes no sense considering they have no real connection other than the day of Saturn was the most venerated day, just as the Sabbath is, but even if that assumption is true then of course the day of Saturn is on day 1 on the pagan planetary calendar, that our current modern week is based upon, rather than on day 7!
This fact along with the fact that all the days are based on the seven classical planets and their associated pagan gods, rather than anything from the Bible, conclusively proves the current seven day modern week of the Gregorian calendar used around the world does not originate from God’s Biblical seven day week.
However, we must also therefore understand how Sunday (Sol) became revered on the pagan planetary calendar over and above Saturday (Saturn). This came about because of the increased popularity of the worship of the Syrian sun god ‘Sol Invictus’ (The unconquered Sun) which was the official sun god religion of the later Roman Empire and the patron of soldiers in the third and fourth centuries AD. On 25th December 274AD the Roman Emperor Aurelian (b.214 – d.275AD) made Sol Invictus an official religion alongside the traditional Roman cults. This god was favoured by emperors after Aurelian and appeared on Roman coins until 387AD.
Eventually the planetary seven day week became ubiquitous throughout the Roman empire and on the 7th March 321AD Rome’s first Christian Emperor Constantine I (b.272 – d.337AD) who had also been a solider and a Sol Invictus worshipper, decreed that Sunday would be observed as the Roman’s official day of rest, forcing all Christians to also rest on this day, by declaring:
“On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed in the country.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus#cite_ref-34
Constantine’s position on religions traditionally practiced in Rome evolved during his reign. At first his coinage and other official motifs until 325AD had affiliated him with the pagan cult of Sol Invictus. He also encouraged the construction of new pagan temples and accepted traditional additional sacrifices but by the end of his reign he had begun to order the pillaging and tearing down of these Roman temples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity#cite_ref-EusebiusSchaff_55-0
However, despite the official adoption of Sunday as a day of rest using the planetary seven day week calendar used under Constantine’s edict, the Nundial eight day week continued to also be used within the Roman Empire until at least the late fourth to early fifth century, as they ‘competed’ for supremacy, as according to James Ker, in his 2010 book ‘Nundinae’: The Culture of the Roman Week’, Pheonix, Vol. 64, No. 3, p. 360 – 385.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nundinae#cite_ref-FOOTNOTEKer2010364_46-0
This is also substantiated by Pierre Brind’Amour in his 1983 book ‘The Roman Calendar: Chronological Research’ p.256-275.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week#cite_ref-31
As the popularity of the planetary seven day week in the Roman Empire increased, with Sunday becoming its venerated day, due to Sol Invictus sun worship, even Christian’s adopted it as the day to worship on and the first specific notation of Christians gathering on Sunday is by Justin Martyr (b.100 – d.165AD) a gentile of Roman decent, who recorded this in his book written between 155 to 157AD.
‘First apology of Justin’ Chapter 67.
“But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn; and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun.”
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm
Justin Martyr’s comments clearly shows his assumption that the pagan seven day planetary calendar is also the Biblical week.
Another record of Christians worshipping on Sunday was made by Christian author Tertullian (b.160 d.220AD) who admitted that early Christians of his persuasion prayed eastward to the sunrise on Sunday just as pagans did and that pagans held Sunday as their rest day just as he did, in his 197AD book.
Ad Nationes I, Chapter 13
Commentary: ‘Tertullian now turns to the pagan charge that the Christians worship the sun and conduct their main worship service on Sunday. Once again there are similar trends in pagan practice. The pagans who disapprove of deviating from one’s own ways should acknowledge that in fact they have borrowed this inclination in favour of the Sabbath from the Jews. Pagans and Christians again stand under the same condemnation.’
Tertullian: “Others of kinder disposition imagine that the sun is the Christian god. They have observed that when we pray, we face to the east and we rejoice on the day of the sun. Do you do anything less than this? Do you not sometimes cause your lips to quiver toward the rising sun as an act of adoration? It is most definitely your preference to single out Sunday, the seventh day from the sequence, to refrain from bathing, at least until evening? This is also your designated day for leisure and festivity. By doing this you depart from your traditional practices in favour of alien religions. The Jewish festivals are the Sabbath and the feast of purification. And the Jews also have the rite of the lamps and of fasting with unleavened bread and prayers at the seashore — all of which are alien to your gods. Now to return to our subject, you who deride us for sun worship and Sunday worship, see how close you are to us. We are not far removed from your Saturn and your Sabbath.”
http://www.tertullian.org/articles/howe_adnationes1.htm
Again however, like Justin Martyr, Tertullian is also assuming the seven day planetary calendar is the same as the Biblical seven day week but as we have seen the origins of the planetary calendar are pagan and that the day of Saturn, as day 1 of the planetary calendar, does not match the Sabbath, that is day 7 of the Biblical calendar.
Even the Jews in the Roman Empire were eventually allowed to rest on the day of Saturn, as recorded by Cassius Dio.
Roman History Book 37 Chapter 16:5
They have also another name that they have acquired: the country has been named Judaea, and the people themselves Jews.
Roman History Book 37 Chapter 17:3
– the day called the day of Saturn, on which, among many other most peculiar observances, they undertake no serious occupation.
https://lexundria.com/dio/37/cy
So we see references to Christians recognising Sunday as the first day of the week by at least 157AD and shows the popularity of the pagan planetary seven day week, which originally had Sunday as its second day. So why did Christians worship on the wrong day using an unbiblical pagan calendar?
There are a couple of logical reasons, firstly most of them would have had no knowledge the planetary seven day week was any different to the Biblical week, as shown by the assumptions made by Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Cassius (and even like most Christians today do). After all most converts to Christianity in the Roman Empire had been using, or were at least aware of the planetary seven day week and would have had no reason to object to using it, especially as most people were illiterate and had little or no access to the very rare, hand written historical records and the very rare biblical texts (In Hebrew and Greek) that might have helped them know about their different origins.
Secondly, Christians were being persecuted over the first few centuries and therefore had to obey the Roman way of life; “When in Rome do as the Romans do”. If they didn’t they ran the risk of being put to the test of having to burn incense to the pagan Roman deities and if they failed to do that they would usually be executed, often in the arena with wild animals. Besides, even if a Christian did somehow find out they were worshipping on the wrong day, it is not a salvation issue anyway and they would have been more focused on the Great Commission of telling others about Jesus whenever it was safe enough to do so.
For example, even though the Jewish apostles Peter and Paul would have know the Roman calendar was pagan, when they came to Rome, they instead preached about the Good news of Jesus’ resurrection rather than which day was really the Sabbath, as this was a very minor issue in comparison. This is also why this issue is not specifically written about in the Bible, similar to how it not often mentioned today within Christianity.
In fact one of the earliest references to any Christian voicing there concerns over this issue was not until the fifth century when there were enough devotees to Sol Invictus that the Christian theologian Augustine (b.354 – d.430AD) found it necessary to preach against it, although this was only to do with the day the sun god ‘Sol’ was supposed to be born, the 25th December and recognising that God had created the sun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus#cite_ref-8
Further more to all this evidence there is absolutely no evidence that Jesus or the Jews of His time ever used this Romanised Egyptian pagan planetary seven day week calendar, let a lone the Julian calendar, as used by their Roman oppressors.
In addition the Biblical calendar that Jesus, Mosesand the Israelite’s had been using, had existed for over 1500 years prior to the Julian calendar’s introduction and over a 1000 miles away from Rome too, in Israel. Yet in the Bible we often read about God’s original calendar, this Biblical calendar is revealed from scripture in part two below.
Part Two
God’s Calendar
The Hebrews had been using a calendar from at least when Moses left Egypt and which goes back even further to the flood, for example we read in Exodus:
Exodus 12:1-2
1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.
And in Genesis:
Genesis 7:11-12
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month, on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
This calendar given by God is completely different to the Julian and Gregorian calendars and its pagan planetary week. Firstly none of the days have names but were simply numbered by God, even the months were originally only numbered by God, although later they were given some Hebrew and Babylonian names by the Israelite’s themselves. Below are the names of these month as found in scripture (except for the months traditionally known as Tammuz and Av):
Month Hebrew name Babylonian name
1 Aviv Nisan
2 Ziv Lyyar
3 – Sivan
4 – Tammuz
5 – Av
6 – Elul
7 Ethanim Tishri
8 Bul Heshwan
9 – Kislev
10 – Tevet
11 – Shevat
12 – Adar
From scripture we can find out how this calendar was organised. God’s day begin just after sunset and ends the following day just after sunset:
Genesis 1:5
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.
This is confirmed elsewhere, where it describes a day as being from evening to evening but never from morning to morning:
Exodus 12:6
Literal Standard Version
And it has become a charge to you, until the fourteenth day of this month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel has slaughtered it between the evenings;
Numbers 9:5
Literal Standard Version
and they prepare the Passover in the first [month], on the fourteenth day of the month, between the evenings, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that YHWH has commanded Moses, so the sons of Israel have done.
Leviticus 23:32
It is a day of Sabbath rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your Sabbath.”
The months on God’s calendar actually begin with the sighting of the new crescent moon which was a rest day when there was a new moon feast as shown in 1 Samuel:
1 Samuel 20:18 + 24-27
18 Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon feast. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty.
24 So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon feast came, the king sat down to eat. 25 He sat in his customary place by the wall, opposite Jonathan, and Abner sat next to Saul, but David’s place was empty. 26 Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, “Something must have happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean, surely he is unclean.” 27 But the next day, the second day of the month, [Day 2] David’s place was empty again. Then Saul said to his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal, either yesterday or today?”
This is confirmed in Ezekiel 46:
Ezekiel 46:3
On the Sabbaths and New Moons the people of the land are to worship in the presence of the Lord at the entrance of that gateway.
After New Moon Day there were 6 days of work followed by the first Sabbath.
Leviticus 23:3
There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of SABBATH rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a SABBATH to the LORD.
This seven day week is also confirmed as beginning and ending at sunset, between two evenings:
Exodus 12:8
In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.
As a lunar month is on average 29.53059 days long the sliver of the new moon is seen again on either days 30 or 31, at which point the monthly cycle begins again and that day then becomes day 1 – New Moon Day. Months therefore alternate between 29 and 30 days in length and Sabbaths therefore fall on day’s 8, 15, 22 and 29 each lunar month. Throughout the Bible there are many places where Sabbaths are shown to fall on one of these 4 days and never on any other day of the month (with the exception of the Day of Trumpets which is the seventh new moon of the year and the Day of Atonement). Then the process begins over again with the sighting of the next new moon which is either one or two days later after day 29. Therefore Sabbaths are not on a continuous ‘rolling’ seven day cycle like it is on the pagan Julian/Gregorian calendars. Below are some examples from scripture where Sabbaths fall on one of the four days of the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th Jesus died on the 14th Aviv (Preparation day) Just before the 15th as it says in Luke 23.
Luke 23:54-56
54 It was Preparation Day, and the SABBATH was about to begin. 55 The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the SABBATH in obedience to the commandment.
Jesus rose on the 16th Aviv (the day of First Fruits) the day after the 15th which was a Sabbath as shown in Matthew 28.
Matthew 28:1
After the SABBATH, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
In Leviticus 23 God instructed Moses that the 15th and 22nd of the 7th month would be Sabbaths:
Leviticus 23:39
“‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days; the first day is a day of SABBATH rest [Day 15], and the eighth day [Day 22] also is a day of SABBATHrest.
God told Moses the 15th of the first month after leaving Egypt would be a Sabbath followed by the day of First Fruits:
Leviticus 23:4-16
4 ‘These are the LORD’S appointed festivals, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times: 5 The LORD’S Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. 6 On the fifteenth day of that month the LORD’S Festival of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. 7 On the first day [Day 15] hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. 8 For seven days present a food offering to the LORD. And on the seventh day [Day 21] hold a sacred assembly, and do no regular work.’ 9 The LORD said to Moses, 10 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain your harvest[The first grain of the barley harvest]. 11 He is to wave the sheaf before the LORD so it will be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the SABBATH [Day 16]. 12 On the day you wave the sheaf, you must sacrifice as a burnt offering to the LORD a lamb a year old without defect, 13 together with its grain offering of two-tenths of an ephah of the finest flour [Made from the new grain of the barley harvest] mixed with olive oil, a food offering presented to the LORD, a pleasing aroma, and its drink offering of a quarter of a hin of wine. 14 You must not eat any bread, or roasted new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God [Day 16]. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. 15 ‘From the day after the SABBATH [Day 16], the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. 16 Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD. [The first grain of the wheat harvest]
So here it shows God is naming day 15 of the first month as a Sabbath and day 16 was called the day of First Fruits, when a sheaf of the new barley harvest was waved before the LORD and an offering of fine barley flour was burnt on the altar of incense in the temple.
However, from the above scriptures the fifty day count up to Pentecost (Shavuot in Hebrew) although counted as fifty actual days up to day 6 of month 3, as traditionally practised by present day Jews, should actually be counted to the day after the seventh full Sabbath, which is day 9 of month 3 and is the day after the actual seventh Sabbath on God’s lunar-solar calendar. This is an important point that is discussed further in chapter 2.
Also, in Exodus chapter 16 it can be determined that a Sabbath in the second month after leaving Egypt fell on day 22 of that month and therefore shows that God’s calendar and his Sabbaths are most certainly linked to the phases of the moon on days 8, 15, 22 & 29:
Exodus 16:1-26
1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim, and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim, and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’S hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from Heaven for you. The people are to go out each day, and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day [Day 21] they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.” 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening [Day 16]you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, 7 and in the morning [Also day 16]you will see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” 8 Moses also said, “You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening, and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD.” 9 Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.’ ” 10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud. 11 The LORD said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘In the evening [Beginning of day 16] you will eat meat, and in the morning [Also day 16] you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’ ” 13 That evening [Day 16] quail came, and covered the camp, and in the morning [Also day 16] there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’” 17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed. 19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” 20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. 21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22 On the sixth day [Day 21], they gathered twice as much, two omers for each person, and the leaders of the community came, and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the LORD commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of SABBATH rest, [Day 22] a holy SABBATH to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left, and keep it until morning.’ ” 24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a SABBATH to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the SABBATH, there will not be any.”
So here it shows God names day twenty-two of the second month after leaving Egypt a Sabbath (four times to be sure). This was not a feast day that God was initiating, otherwise it would be listed with the others in Leviticus. Also, as it’s known that the new moon festival was held on day one of every lunar month, it can be determined, with certainty, that God’s calendar had four Sabbaths every lunar month, on days 8, 15, 22, and 29 with six days of work preceding each Sabbath.
It can also be determined from scripture that Aviv is calculated each year by the need for the barley to be ripe enough for it to be made into fine flour, so that it can be offered as a burnt offering. The need for the barley to be ripe is confirmed again in Exodus when Moses mentioned that the seventh plague, the plague of Hail, happened when the barley was ripe:
Exodus 9:18 + 31
18 Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now.
31 (The flax and barley were destroyed, since the barley had headed and the flax was in bloom. 32 The wheat and spelt, however, were not destroyed, because they ripen later.)
This shows that it was the beginning of spring in the month the Jews call Aviv, which literally means ‘young barley’ or ‘spring’. According to various verses in Exodus chapters 9,10 and 11, the hail occurred five days before the first Passover:
Exodus 9:33-35
33 Then Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He spread out his hands toward the LORD; the thunder and hail stopped, and the rain no longer poured down on the land. 34 When Pharaoh saw that the rain, and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. 35 So Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not let the Israelite’s go, just as the LORD had said through Moses.
Exodus 10:1-4
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children, and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.” 3 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 4 If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow.
Therefore the day after the hail was the plague of locusts, which was the eighth plague:
Exodus 10:13 + 16-19
13 So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the LORD made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts;
16 Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you 17 Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the LORD your God to take this deadly plague away from me.” 18 Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD. 19 And the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which caught up the locusts, and carried them into the Red Sea.
Pharaoh again refused to let the Hebrews go, so on the same day Moses prayed and the plague of three days of thick darkness happened. The ninth plague:
Exodus 10:20-22
20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. 21 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt, darkness that can be felt.” 22 So Moses stretched out his and toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days.
After these three days, Pharaoh refused to let the herds go with the Hebrews, this was now five days since the hail. Pharaoh then says:
Exodus 10:28-29
28 Pharaoh said to Moses, “Get out of my sight! Make sure you do not appear before me again! The day you see my face you will die.” 29 “Just as you say,” Moses replied. “I will never appear before you again.”
But before Moses leaves, he gives a warning about the final tenth plague:
Exodus 11:1 + 4-5
1 Now the LORD had said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely.
4 So Moses said, “This is what the LORD says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. 5 Every first born son in Egypt will die.
So the barley was ripe just five days before day 15 of Aviv, when the Israelites left Egypt. Then God confirms that the month of Aviv was to become the first month of the new year in Exodus chapter 12:
Exodus 12:1-2
1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.
This tells us that God was changing which month of the year would now be recognised as the first month of the religious year. Present day Jews believe Tishri, now month seven, was originally the first month of the year and this is also shown in the Bible too:
Exodus 34:22
“And you shall observe the Feast of Weeks [Shavuot/Pentecost], of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering [Tabernacles] at the year’s end.”
Although God had set the religious year to start from the month of Aviv, the civil new year continued to begin from the month of Tishri (as it always had done), which now became month seven; in fact Tishri means ‘beginning’. As lunar months are on average 29.53059 days long and in order for the Jews to determine when the new month began, the Sanhedrin (the highest Jewish court judges) would need two witnesses to testify they had sighted the first sliver of the new moon within a days journey from Jerusalem on day 30 of the month. If it was not sighted then the next day would automatically be declared new moon day. It’s not clear from scripture what the Israelites did when there was an extra thirtieth day but as it was not a Sabbath and as everyone was looking out for the new moon, it may have been a day to go about one’s business as usual, similar to other work days.
New moon day was not a Sabbath either, except on month seven, although even then it is actually called a Shabbathon (Strongs 7677) rather than a Shabbath (Strongs 7676). New moon day was a rest and feast day, so no work could take place on these days and in the evening there would be a celebratory feast. There was also a reward for the first two witnesses who could correctly report the sighting of the new moon to the Sanhedrin, in the form of a grand meal. The first two witnesses who reached the temple gates with the news would be called up by the High Priest who would shout, “Come up here.” This was a prophetic foreshadowing of what will happen with the Two Witnesses in chapter 11 of Revelation:
Revelation 11:12
Then they heard a loud voice from Heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to Heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.
Christians too should be looking out for the first signs of the coming of our Lord Jesus, as He too will have his reward with Him.
Revelation 22:21
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done”.
As there are only 354.36 days in twelve lunar months an extra thirteenth month, called Adar II, would be added whenever it was judged by the Sanhedrin that the barley was not going to be ripe enough to be made into fine flour, for the day of First Fruits held on day 16 of Aviv. This was determined at the end of month twelve, Adar I and if it wasn’t ripe enough the extra month, Adar II, was added. Then the whole yearly cycle would begin again with the sighting of the next new moon, which would begin the month of Aviv; month 1.
In the book of Ezekiel there is further evidence that this intercalated thirteenth month was being used. This is revealed in the following scriptures:
Ezekiel 1:1
In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. 2 On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin, 3 the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the Lord was on him.
So this was on day 5, month 4, year 5 of the exile of King Jehoiachin.
Ezekiel 2:7
You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious.
Ezekiel 3:15
I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Aviv near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—deeply distressed.
So this was now on day 12, month 4, year 5 of the exile of King Jehoiachin at the earliest.
Ezekiel 4:1
“Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it. Build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel. 4 Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel. 6 After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.”
This totals 430 days.
Ezekiel 8:1
In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign Lord came on me there.
Notice Ezekiel is now sitting in a his house rather than lying on his side (most likely outside where everyone could see him) and this was on day 5, month 6, year 6 of the exile of King Jehoiachin.
Between day 12, month 4 of year 5 and day 5, month 6 of year 6, there is 1 year, 1 month and about 22 or 23 days depending on the length of a lunar month, this comes to at least either 435 or 436 days using God’s lunar calendar, with an extra thirteenth intercalated month added for that year, (354+29+30+22=435).
However, if Ezekiel was using a calendar with only 12 months per solar year then there would have been 1 year, 1 month and 24 days at most (using a 31 day month), which means there would only be 421 days at most between those dates, (366+31+24=421).
Therefore Ezekiel could only have been using a lunar calendar with its intercalated thirteenth month, which is further proof from scripture that God’s calendar described in the Bible is a lunar calendar.
God’s lunar-solar calendar was similar to the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek lunar-solar calendars. This was because originally all calendars were copies of God’s calendar but as time went by people tried to ‘improve’ on God’s calendar by trying to do away with the need for visually sighted observations of God’s creation and instead use repeating mathematical cycles that fitted into the solar year. While this seemed more convenient it meant that eventually the true Sabbath and the importance of God’s prophetic feast days were lost, as the Roman Julian/Gregorian calendar won out over the minority used Israelite lunar-solar calendar. Below shows God’s lunar-solar calendar as revealed from the scriptures. Please click on the image to view or print as a PDF:
God’s Calendar
Furthermore, God’s calendar is not the same calendar the Jews use today, they currently use a revised version of God’s calendar which uses the seven day planetary ‘rolling’ week system of the Julian/Gregorian calendar, instead of God’s lunar Sabbath weeks. This was due partly to the destruction of Jerusalem, its temple and their priests way of life in 70 AD by Roman general Titus (b.39 AD – d. 81 AD) and also later under the Roman Emperor Hadrian (b.76 AD – d. 138 AD), after he’d put down the Jewish Simon Bar-Kokhba (d. 135 AD) revolt of 135 AD and expelled the Jews from living in or near Jerusalem under pain of death. This prevented the Jews from making visually sighted new moon observances from Jerusalem which are needed for calculating when God’s lunar months begin. Emperor Hadrian also made an anti-religious decree forbidding Sabbath observances.
Finally in 363 AD Roman Catholic Canon number 29 was issued at the Council of Laodicea prohibiting observance of the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday within the Roman empire altogether, while encouraging Christians to work on Saturday and rest on the ‘Lord’s Day’ Sunday. The fact that the Canon had to be issued at all is an indication that adoption of Constantine’s decree of 321 AD was still not universal, not even among Christians and it also importantly indicates that Jews in the Roman empire were observing the Sabbath on Saturday, even though this was the first day of the pagan planetary week rather than the seventh day on God’s lunar calendar and that they had therefore practically forgotten God’s real Sabbath.
In response to all these anti-Jewish laws and persecution a new Jewish calendar was created in 359 AD by Sanhedrin Rabbi Hillel II who was the president of the Sanhedrin in Israel. Hillel’s calendar was based on the fixed nineteen year Metonic cycle of 235 lunar months (named after Greek mathematician Meton of Athens, fifth century BC), that closely approximated God’s visually sighted new moon calendar. This repeating 19 year mathematical lunar calculation approximates the timing of each new moon sighting from Jerusalem which allows Jews to celebrate their feasts on the same day no matter where they are living around the world but it is only accurate about half of the time for the feasts compared to the visually sighted new moon months and approximately only one-in-seven times do the Sabbaths on God’s calendar, coincide with the Friday-Saturday ‘Sabbath’ on the Julian/Gregorian pagan planetary rolling week. Hillel’s calendar is still used to this day.
I hope this helps you to see that the Sabbath is not on Sunday or Saturday but can actually be on any day of the seven day planetary rolling week system of the pagan Julian/Gregorian calendar.
Part Three
The Sabbath
All of this means that the Sabbath can occur on any day of the Julian/Gregorian calendar, whether a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, etc., (which are all Roman Pagan names, for example Saturday is named after the Roman god of agriculture called Saturnus) and therefore most Christians and Jews are currently not worshipping God on the day He ordained as Holy but most are instead completely unaware of it; especially the Seventh Day Adventists who hold to strictly worshipping God on Saturdays. This also includes Muslims who worship on Fridays on this pagan Julian/Gregorian calendar, rather than their own similar lunar-solar calendar which was used by Muhammad and his followers in seventh century Arabia.
The fourth commandment: ‘Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy’ has virtually been forgotten, a command more important than murder for example, which is the sixth commandment and both were punishable by death! Jesus kept the correct Sabbath day holy; so… Should we also try to follow Jesus and keep the correct Sabbath day holy?
Well, even before Jesus came, God seemed to be getting a bit tired of His people trying to keep His Feasts and Sabbaths. The prophet Isaiah in the eighth century BC warned the northern half of Israel about this shortly before they were conquered by the Assyrians:
Isaiah 1:13-14
[The LORD says] 13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. 14 Your New Moon feasts, and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
This was because their hearts were far from God:
Isaiah 29:13
The LORD says: “These people come near to me with their mouth, and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Soon the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered and most of its inhabitants were taken as slaves, while the land was then resettled by foreigners who later became known as the Samaritans. Later still in the sixth century BC the southern half of Israel was conquered by the Babylonians, who destroyed Solomon’s grand temple and again many Jews were taken into captivity. However, after seventy years the Jews in Babylon were allowed back to Israel where they then rebuilt the temple and restarted the feasts and festivals. So by the time Jesus arrived He was fully adhering to all of these set feasts and Sabbaths. However, after His death and resurrection, we read from the Apostle Paul:
Colossians 2:16
Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.
This expresses the fact that we are now not under the law and instead the laws should be in our minds and written on are hearts, as was always intended by God:
Jeremiah 31:33
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds, and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people”.
This therefore sounds like we should perhaps pay even closer attention to the laws. After all, Jesus kept the law and is noted as saying:
Matthew 5:21-22
21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgement.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or will be subject to judgement. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of Hell.
Although we are saved by our belief in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and God’s Grace which supersedes the law, we should still use the ten commandments as our guide as to how to live. We are not dependent on them but it will prosper us if we adhere to them. Equally, if we break these laws then we will face the consequences. For example, murder could well result in a person going to prison etc and Paul also states:
1 Corinthians 9:21
To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.
Jesus also gives us a simple instruction as to how to keep all of the laws; The Golden Rule:
Matthew 22:36-40
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
However, Jesus here was still quoting from the law as these are two of the 613 Old Testament laws found throughout the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah. Ten of these laws were the commandments given to Moses by God on mount Sinai and the extra 603 laws were later written in the Torah as well:
Deuteronomy 6:5
Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.
And:
Leviticus 19:18
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.
Therefore, we should be trying really hard to be as excellent as possible to God, as well as one another but if we fail, and we all do, then it’s okay, because it’s by our belief in Jesus as our Saviour that makes everything right with God. Therefore the Sabbath and God’s calendar is still relevant to us today and if we really knew why this was then we would see why it was the enemy, Satan, who brought about this whole calendar confusion. We have ended up with the pagan Roman Catholic Julian/Gregorian calendar on which is celebrated Jesus’ death at Easter, which is a pagan religious festival named after Queen Ishtar (Semiramis) who was Nimrod’s Queen and own mother! Nimrod and Ishtar began the false Babylonian mystery and sun worshipping religion which included infant baby sacrificing. More is explained about Nimrod in chapter 13). This Roman calendar also celebrates Jesus’ birth on the pagan day that celebrated sun worship; ‘Sol Invictus’ which means ‘unconquered sun’ and was also supposed to be the day Ishtar’s son Tammuz was born.
Whether we acknowledge God’s calendar or not, God is still using it and He sets His prophetic plans by it, if we ignore it then we will not be ready for when He has planned His prophetic acts to happen. However, just to be clear Paul tells us how to consider any of these special days:
Romans 14:5
One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.
Therefore I suggest the following:
1. Be as excellent as possible to God and others every day.
2. Be aware of God’s calendar and when His Sabbaths and Feasts really are. Although they currently still hold to a Friday-Saturday Sabbath; TorahCalendar.com is a useful website to help with this, a link to there site can be found here along with all the calendars to 2030 detailing when the Feasts, New moons and Sabbaths will be: https://guidetothebible.wordpress.com/sabbaths-from-now-till-2030/
3. Take one day off in every seven, any day you like, just to rest and not to work. You will feel better and be more productive.
4. If you wish to honour God on the correct Sabbath, without having to take the day off work, why not try fasting, it doesn’t have to be a total fast of all food, you could just decide to skip a meal or eat only fruit, or even to just not watch non-Christian TV for example.
However, as said God’s original calendar is starting to be recognised by some Christians and Jews. In the year 2000 a Jewish American called Nehemia Gordon (b.1972) began to coordinate Aviv barley searches and new crescent moon sightings from Jerusalem. He is now the co-founder of the World Karaite Movement, a Karaite revival group in Israel. Karaites believe that the divine commandments handed down to Moses by God were recorded in the Torah and therefore do not accept the written collections of the oral traditions in the Jewish Midrash or Talmud Rabbinical writings. Some Christians have recognised the importance of his work in relation to the re-establishment of God’s calendar in the land of Israel and how it connects with end time prophecy.
For sometime orthodox Jews have been preparing to rebuild the original temple and restart Jewish worship and sacrifices. Founded in 1987 The Temple Institute based in Jerusalem emphatically states on their website that their ultimate goal is to see Israel rebuild the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, in accordance with the Biblical commandments. In addition, halfway between Jerusalem and Jericho in Mitzpe Yericho, is a school for teaching and training Cohanim and Levite priests in how to serve in the yet-to-be-built third temple.
In order to fulfil the Biblical commandments the priests in the temple will have to celebrate God’s Sabbaths and feast days on the correct Biblical days as God originally instructed Moses. However, currently most Jews around the world still use the calendar created by Hillel II in 359 AD but as this calendar is only accurate around half of the time for the new moon and feast days and approximately only one-in-seven times for the Sabbaths, then in order for the priests to worship God on the correct days all of the time they will need to use God’s original calendar. World events are beginning to shape up to fulfilling one of the Bibles most famous prophesies:
Daniel 9:25
He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice, and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.
It’s widely believed amongst many Christians that these scriptures refer to the third temple that will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and the Anti-Christ’s actions in the last days:
Daniel 7:25
He will speak against the Most High, and oppress his holy people, and try to change the set times and the laws. The holy people will be delivered into his hands for a time, times and half a time, [Three and a half years].
I believe God’s calendar will be re-established at the temple and it is these ‘set times’ that the Anti-Christ will try to change. Mankind’s enemy, Satan, has always tried to hide God’s calendar and His reckoning of time. The reason why is because for Christians this calendar and particularly His set feasts are of the utmost importance, as they have a specific purpose which is discussed in the next chapter.
This all said there are a minority of Christians who are aware of these facts and some of whom are today trying to teach about it, such as Bible Scholars John D. Keyser and Robert-Aaron Richmond for example. If you would like to know more about how the Sabbath is calculated you can view further studies on this by these and other Bible scholarS.
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Boniface VIII put forward some of the strongest claims to temporal, as well as spiritual, power of any Pope and constantly involved himself with foreign affairs. In his Bull of 1302, Unam Sanctam, Boniface VIII proclaimed that it "is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff" |
All around us is a controlling force many have no idea exist. We live in an invisible prison where most of the world is unaware and are unable to break free because they do not see, nor do we recognize the bars. This system, this prison, led by Satan and manipulated through the hands of Rome has been created to yoke the world. These bars are designed to take freedoms from the individual for the sole purpose of gaining worship. This process has been going on for thousands of years and will one day very soon come to an end.
We urge each of you to understand the prison in which you are confined to without your knowledge nor consent.
This statement of Unam sanctam by Pope Boniface VIII in 1302 was originally put into place to govern the insane as Rome believed they were not able to gain salvation outside the Holy Church of Rome.
It is this self made "law" of the Roman Catholic church which later gave credence to the notion of every human on earth requiring a Certificate of Live Birth, or registering the birth of every child on the face of the earth. This eventually has evolved to what we have today where every child born now becomes a ward of the state at birth.
In a nut shell, the Vatican claims to own Your Soul - ALL Birth Certificates of all countries are registered and held in the belly of the Vatican - October 27, 2011
The Marriage License also evolved from this same train of thought of 1302.
Why were these measures put into place? It is the Roman Catholic church who makes the claim that no human is capable of salvation without the involvement of the Holy Church.
Again, please understand what/who we are dealing with here . .
They have given themselves the title of God on this earth and they believe they have the right to control your destiny. I know and understand what you are thinking, the Roman Catholic church has no right or jurisdiction over my body, thoughts or my life, right? Well if this is the case, and you are reading this article, I would guess you do not have a birth certificate, and if you are married, you do not have a marriage license either . . Is this correct? You see, just as every soul in this world, you and I are in the same prison. This is why Scripture tells us in Hosea 4:6, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge . . It is our Creator's will we know what Babylon is so we might be able to make the decision to come out of her.Revelation 18:4
A point which serves as a reference or base for the measurement of other quantities.
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/datum_point
We will be using the concept of a datum point in areas through this site. The main datum point we are focusing on at this time is the point of creation and just what system of calendation was in place at that time. It is our desire to understand how and why it has been replaced.
Remember, The Sabbath was made for man . . It is the total of the fourth commandment, it is the one that brings glory to our Creator at a specific time He has ordained at creation. (It is the third commandment of the Roman Catholic church because they changed the laws. Remember, they are responsible for changing both times and laws.)
Is This Information Right For Me? Does It Really Matter?
Our Creator's Sabbaths are not in harmony in any way with the Gregorian calendar man follows today. This is one reason Scripture tells us the whole world is wondering after the beast. Revelation 13:3 You will need to make adjustments in your work schedule, but it is the most important topics you will ever share with any one of your friends.
You see, just like the sport fan spends time with his/her favorite sport, so must we spend time with the favorite one in our life. This is what the Sabbath is all about, not just setting aside any day of the week as some believe and have been taught in so many churches today. We must first recognize it is our Creator who has established the rules here.
He has, from creation, ordained a very specific day as His Sabbath. Again, this is not the seventh day of the week the world follows, (from the Gregorian calendar). We're talking about the seventh day of the calendar He has established in the heavens: Psalms 89:37 as His days and years. Genesis 1:14 He designed at creation an everlasting covenant with His people. Isaiah 24:5
We need to mention at this point, we at Sabbathofthebible.com do NOT worship the moon, the sun nor anything of the heavens or this earth. Exodus 20:4 We worship only the Creator of the heavens and earth and the Creator only. Revelation 14:7
I know this concept is new to most who read this article, but it is the faithful witness of the moon which beckons our Sabbaths. This is the way He designed it at creation, this is why we are called lunar Sabbatarians and may be why we are called a peculiar people.
Remember, the only day our Creator will be available to receive your worship, is on the Sabbath day He has set aside. The Gregorian Saturday is not His Sabbaths, nor is the first day of the week Rome calls Sunday. No, not any day Rome has set aside. It is Rome who has changed the times and laws of our Creator.
Please ask yourself these questions, "Why would our Creator wish to worship on a day Pope Gregory of the Gregorian calendar has called his Sabbath/Sunday?" Scripture warns us against the beast power changing times. Daniel 7:25
Many Saturday keepers believe and say their Saturday Sabbath is only in harmony with the Gregorian calendar. Do you really believe for one moment our Creator's Sabbaths would be in harmony with a Saturday, pagan named Sabbath? This is the same beast power He has so adamantly warned us against?? Daniel 7:25, Revelation 18:4 This is beyond ludicrous! Yet many believe this to be true. Our Creators Sabbaths are on His terms, Period.
His Sabbaths are beckoned by the lights of the heavens. Genesis 1:14 His Word refers to them as the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and the 29th of each month. Isaiah 55:8-9 This warning He has given us pertains to ANY pagan named day of the week. This also includes Saturday, Friday or any other pagan named day of the Gregorian week.
Here is a warning from Exodus 23:10-13 in the context of the seventh day Sabbath:
Now does that verse sound like our Creator might at all use the pagan named week days of Rome to usher in His Sabbaths? Not A Chance !!
In 321 C.E., Constantine the Great, made three changes to the Roman 8 day Julian Calendar: (1) he dropped the 8th day known as “Market day” turning the Roman civil 8 day Julian Civil Calendar into a Roman 7 day Civil calendar, and (2) he made “Sunday,” which was the 2nd day of the Roman Julian weekly cycle, the official worship day throughout the Roman empire for both Christians and pagans alike, and (3) he made “Sunday” the new official perpetual “Market Day” during the remaining 16 years of his reign (between 321 C.E. to his death on May 22, 337 C.E.).
It remained intact until the Church of Rome pressured Charlemagne, King of the Franks (768 – 814) and Holy Roman Emperor (800 – 814), to drop the practice of holding “Market Day” on Sunday at sometime during his 46 year reign -- which lasted overall from 768 to 814. Up until that point in time, there is no historical/ archeological evidence that could confirm Papal claim that the Church of Rome ever changed the Roman “Saturday to Friday” weekly cycle to the “Sunday to Saturday” weekly cycle that we are all familiar with today.
In fact, as far as authentic historical documents from 45 B.C. to Sept. 30, 1582 are concerned, there is NO known historical/archeological evidence to corroborate either the claim of James Cardinal Gibbons that the Church [i.e., the Church of Rome] changed the day of Worship from “Saturday” to “Sunday” more than 1000 years before ever there was a Protestant, nor that lends support to the assertions by the Rev. Peter Geiermann, C.S.R., in his catechistic book entitled The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (copyright 1910 by Joseph Gummersbach, blessed by Pope Pius X on the 25th of January 1910 via Cardinal Merry Del Val, published by B. Herder Book Co, 15 and 17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo., and London, W. C. 33 Queen Square, in 1937, Twelfth Edition, page 50) where he states that
“We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 336), transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday.”
Many SDAs, who have no knowledge of what the Roman Calendars during the 1st Century B.C.E/C.E. looked like -- or of the fact that ALL of the Roman weekly cycles during those two centuries in both Roman calendar constructs known to have been operating throughout the Roman Empire from 45 B.C.E. to 81 C.E. and onward until 351 C.E., (and as far as can be determined from historical sources, up until Sept. 30, 1582) -- quote that statement by the Rev. Peter Geiermann published in 1910 as proof that the Catholic Church changed the Sabbath from what it alleges to have been “Saturday” the alleged 7th day of the week, to “Sunday,” the alleged 1st day of the week. But as I stated previously, there is no corroborating evidence from the 4th Century C.E. that any such Catholic Church Council ever took place that year.
Sylvester I, was Bishop of Rome from 31 January 314 to 31 December 335. As he died on Dec. 31, 335 C.E. he obviously did not preside over the “alleged,” but as yet unproven Council of Laodicea of 336 C.E.
He was succeeded by Pope Mark or Marcus (Birth Unknown – October 7, 336) who was Bishop of Rome or Pope from January 18, 336 to October 7, 336. As the successor of Sylvester I (who had reigned 21 years), Mark's time as the bishop of Rome lasted less than a year. There is no record of his ever presiding over the “alleged” council of Laodicea in 336 C.E.
The Bishop of Rome that followed Mark was Julius I, who was Pope from February 6, 337 to April 12, 352. There is no way that Julius I could have presided over the “alleged” Council of Laodicea in 336 because he didn’t even become Bishop Rome until Feb. 6, 337, the same year that Constantine the Great died on May 22 , which was two years after the death of Bishop Sylvester I on Dec. 31, 335 C.E. There was NO Council of Laodicea held at any time anywhere in 336 C.E. That there was, and that the Sabbath was changed from an “alleged” Saturday to Sunday at that time, is mere false and as yet unproven Papal propaganda.
Note the following vitally important facts related to the differences between the True Biblical Lunar-Solar Calendar versus the counterfeit Roman Gregorian Calendar that all Saturday Sabbatarians in the 21st Century are currently using:
1). NO Roman calendar that has ever existed has ever had a single year with only 48 weeks in it.
2). NO Roman calendar that has ever existed has ever had a single year with 13 months in it.
3). NO Roman calendar that has ever existed has ever had a single name of any of the Biblical months mentioned in it. Make a mental note of that fact.
4). NO Roman calendar that has ever existed has ever had the 7th day of its week cycle designated as “the Sabbath.”
5). NO Roman calendar that has ever existed has ever had any of the Biblical Feast Days mentioned on it from 45 B.C.E. to the 1st Week of Oct., 1582, and as far as I know, NOT UNTIL sometime during the 20th Century did any of the Biblical Feast days get mentioned on the Gregorian Calendar due to Western Nations becoming pluralistic multi-faith, international communities.
Now the religious festival days of many world religions and other national groups are mentioned on the Gregorian Calendar: days observed by the Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Chinese, the Orthodox Christians, the Baha’i, the Buddhists, the Hindus, as well as certain Catholic holidays, etc.
NONE of those holidays honored by Muslims, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Chinese, the Orthodox Christians, the Baha’i, the Buddhists, the Hindus, existed in the 19th century on the Gregorian Calendar. This is a new 20th century practice reflecting the ecumenical mindset and a predisposition to the coming New World Order, no doubt.
6). None of the names of the months found in a Roman calendar exist anywhere in the Bible. Make a mental note of that fact.
7). No Roman calendar month has 29 days in it (except in a Roman Leap year, an event that occurs only once every 4th Roman yearly cycle, which adds a day at the end of the 2nd Roman month of February), and no Biblical month has 28 or 31 days in it. Make a mental note of this fact also.
8). 5 Roman months in most years have “5 consecutive Saturdays” in them, some-thing that is totally impossible in the Biblical Lunar-Solar Calendar which ONLY has 4 consecutive weeks and 4 consecutive 7th day weekly Sabbaths per month -- NEVER 5 per month.
9). Very few Roman Gregorian months have something called the New Moon on day 1 of the month, and even then, it does not correspond to the Biblical New Moon Day but to the Conjunction Day when NO Lunar Phases can be seen from earth.
Side Note: I have stated this fact over and over. The True New Moon is at the Beginning of the Month; while the
traditionally acceptednew moon, the Dark Moon, the Conjuncted Moon occurs in the Middle of the month;
therefore the Dark Moon cannot be the 'Head,' or Rosh Chodesh of the Month.
Rather, it is, and always has been, the Full Moon that points us to the true, and Biblical New Moon Day.
(emphasis NGY)
10). For the Gregorian Calendar to be the authentic Biblical Calendar the 1st day of every month would have to be a Biblical New Moon Day all 12 months of the year -- and the 1st of the 4 weekly Sabbaths per month would have to line up with what ever day the Biblical New Moon fell on and occur exactly 7 days subsequent to the Biblical New Moon Day. This NEVER happens on a Gregorian Calendar. If you are looking for the Biblical New Moon Day on a Gregorian Calendar you will not perceive it by mere observation of its monthly layout. It must be derived by systematic calculation relative to the Conjunction Day.
11). In most Gregorian 52 week yearly cycles, the Gregorian yearly cycle has 4 weeks too many that correspond to nothing in the Biblical Lunar-Solar Calendar. In the 5 Gregorian months that have 5 consecutive Saturdays in them, the 1st Saturday in each of those months DOES NOT correspond to a legitimate weekly Biblical 7th day Sabbath! This makes a total of at least 9 Saturdays per Gregorian yearly cycle that CANNOT POSSIBLY BE a genuine Biblical 7th day weekly Sabbath even were the Gregorian “Saturday” the true Biblical Sabbath -- which is not the case most of the year!
The problem is, worship services conducted on days that the Creator has not specifically designated for that purpose do NOT honor Him because they are the fruit of rebellion against His revealed worship days as portrayed in His Worship Manual located in Leviticus 23. Those extra NON-EXISTENT “assumed” worship days are presently located on a Calendar system that He never authorized anyone to follow. This calendar system is that of His Spiritual Enemy Organization on earth -- Papal Rome -- the Biblically described Antichrist System (predicted more that 3500 years ago by the Hebrew Prophet Daniel in Dan. 7: 25) which would think to change “Times” = the Creator’s “set times of worship” and the LAW = the Moral Law. Therefore, those who continue to walk in lockstep with the Papal System -- following its bogus, counterfeit calendar for their worship practices -- will NOT be SEALED in this final generation because they are NOT following the LORD but Papal Rome on these worship issues.
12). There is NO mention of Friday, Saturday or Sunday anywhere in the Bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21. This is because the Bible is written NOT from a Roman calendar’s weekly cycle perspective, but from a Biblical Lunar-Solar Calendar perspective. Friday, Saturday or Sunday are Roman Calendar weekday constructs totally foreign to the Word of God! Christians have erroneously come to believe that they are mentioned in the Bible ONLY because the only weekly cycle they have ever known since the 1st week in Oct., 1582 is the Counterfeit Papal Roman Gregorian Calendar’s bogus “Sunday to Saturday” weekly cycle, (which did not exist in Roman Calendar history until that 1st week in Oct., 1582), coupled with the 3 levels of false Papal calendar propaganda on the Sabbath versus Sunday issue.
13). The Biblical 4th Commandment demands that people work for 6 days -- which is immediately followed by the 7th day Sabbath. This is based on the Creator’s Template of working 6 days and resting on and blessing the 7th day of Creation Week. Ever since the Papal Gregorian Calendar was launched during the 1st week of Oct., 1582, all of Christendom -- as well as worldwide Jewry -- have both been following a bogus 5 day work week which goes from Monday to Friday with Saturday and Sunday operating as worship days. Neither Saturday as the alleged Biblical 7th day Sabbath by the various “Saturday Sabbatarian Church systems,” nor “Sunday” by the majority of the rest of Christendom (the Catholics, the Orthodox and the numerous Protestant Church systems) can be designated by them as “the Christian Sabbath” of the New Law! Neither can qualify as the true Biblical 7th day Sabbath because neither of them immediately follow a literal 6 day work week that the 4th Commandment of the Decalogue requires!
It is important for all Christians to note (especially the 7th day Sabbatarians who insist on an endless cycle of weeks end to end with no breaks between the weeks, which they assume can be interpreted to mean that we simply have to work six days in a row and keep the following day as the Sabbath in a perpetual endless series of 7 day cycles in a manner that is totally divorced from or independent of the 29 or 30 monthly or lunar cycles), that YEHOVAH God -- who gave the Moral Law and the Covenant to Moses from Mt. Sinai -- had previously given them a concrete object lesson as to how His Divinely established 7 day week cycle and its weekly 7th day Sabbath was to be kept. This is clearly demonstrated and recorded in Exodus 16 in detail and is shown to be the case again in John 19.
He clearly placed His 7 day weekly cycle, at the end of which comes the weekly 7th day Sabbath, within the context and framework of a Lunar Monthly cycle construct -- as is clearly shown or demonstrated within the contents of both Exodus 16, in the Old Testament, and John 19 in the New Testament.
Hence, the True Biblical weekly 7th day Sabbath can ONLY be located from within a Lunar monthly context. It cannot be correctly located in any system that is a perpetual endless cycle of end-to-end weeks which allegedly -- according to 7th day “Saturday Sabbatarians” -- operates outside of the Creator’s template of a lunar monthly context. This causes the 4 weekly 7th day Sabbaths per month NOT to be located relative to the position of the Biblical New Moon Day -- the 1st day of every Biblical monthly cycle – a process which, in the True Biblical Calendar, causes the 1st weekly 7th day Sabbath to ALWAYS OCCUR on the 8th day of the Biblical month.
To insist that it must fall on the 7th day of the Biblical month would cause it to fall on the 6th regular work day of the 7 day Biblical weekly cycle and NOT on the 1st Biblical weekly 7th day Sabbath timeslot -- which means that the 7th day of the Biblical month does not correspond to either the Creator’s Creation Week Template, nor to the contents of the 4th Commandment of the Decalogue. The same argument applies to the 7th day of the Gregorian Calendar’s weekly cycle, because it does not follow the Creator’s Template of 6 work days followed by a 7th day Sabbath based on the inherent Biblical Lunar Calendar construct.
14). There would have to be 6 months that have 29 days and 6 months that have 30 days -- and NO months with 28 or 31 days in them -- with the 1st month of its yearly cycle beginning with a 30 day month and every other month being a 29 day month. The Gregorian Calendar does not follow this procedure either, nor does any Roman Calendar that has ever existed from 45 B.C.E. to our present year 2012.
15). The Gregorian 52 weekly yearly cycle can line up with the Biblical 52 year cycle only once every 3rd year when the Biblical Calendar has a 13 month 52 week yearly cycle – and even then, the only similarity is the exact number of 52 weeks per year! All other Biblical years have only 12 months and a 48 week cycle. Therefore, in every year within a 3 year cycle that is NOT a Biblical Leap Year, the Gregorian Calendar has 4 weeks too many. This means that if “Saturday” was the legitimate Biblical 7th day Sabbath, there would be 4 Saturday Sabbaths too many per year in most Gregorian yearly cycles since the Gregorian yearly cycle has a perpetual 12 month cycle with a perpetual 52 week yearly cycle in it every year since 45 B.C.E. to the present time. This is something that the Biblical yearly cycle only has had once every 3rd Biblical year, which is a Biblical Leap Year and which year has a 13 month yearly cycle to achieve that 52 week 13 month yearly cycle – something that the Gregorian Calendar or any Roman Calendar has NEVER had throughout Roman Calendar history.
16). Add to that the problem that from 45 B.C.E. to Sept. 30, 1582, “Saturday” was ALWAYS in the 1st day position of every single weekly cycle -- and NEVER in the 7th day of the week position where it has always existed since the 1st week on Oct., 1582 in the Papal Gregorian Calendar “Sunday to Saturday” weekly cycle. Both positions for “Saturday” in the history of Roman Calendation clearly show that “Saturday” CANNOT possibly be the true Biblical 7th day Sabbath because it would be mutually exclusive and self-contradictory to have the same day located in two diametrically opposite time slots or ends of the Roman 7 day Weekly Cycle at two different times in the history of Roman Calendation.
17). One has to explain why the Saturday Sabbatarian Churches systematically worship on every one of the 52 times per year that “Saturday” appears in the 7th day position of each Gregorian monthly cycle, when there are 9 “Saturdays” per the Gregorian yearly cycle that DO NOT CORRESPOND to the True Biblical 7th day Sabbath -- even if we were to assume that “Saturday” was and is the True Biblical weekly Sabbath!
They have to explain just whom they are worshipping on during those 9 days that the Creator has NEVER designated as worship days in His Worship Manual located in Leviticus 23, where all of His worship days are preset as to their timing on His Biblical Calendar construct. If anyone assumes that they are worshipping the Creator of the Universe on any day that DOES NOT FALL on the weekly/yearly time slots that He has specified in His Worship Manual located in Leviticus 23, they are definitely NOT worshipping the Creator of the Universe but a false god – Satan – the god of this world. It was Satan who prompted pagan Rome to set up its bogus “Saturday to Friday” weekly cycle from at least the Republican Period from 84 B.C.E., and continued on in the Julian Calendar format from 46-45 B.C.E. to 321 C.E. -- and onward from 321 B.C.E. to Sept. 30, 1582 as a 7 day Julian “Saturday to Friday” weekly cycle. Papal Rome then set up its bogus “Sunday to Saturday” weekly cycle during the 1st week of Oct., 1582.
18). 7th day Sabbatarian “dual calendar observers” – (i.e., those who perpetually keep “Saturday” on the Papal Gregorian Calendar as the weekly 7th day Sabbath -- yet also keep the Biblical yearly religious festivals with their year Holy Convocation Sabbaths -- but who also inconsistently ignore the Biblical New Moon Day as the 1st worship day and as a non-commercial day per month and who refuse to admit that the Biblical weekly 7th day Sabbaths are all Lunar Solar weekly Sabbaths) are consistently or systematically observing the 9 Saturdays per Gregorian yearly cycle even when they cannot possibly correspond to the True Biblical 7th day Sabbath in all years that do not correspond to a Biblical Leap Year.
The only reason they do this is that their reasoning is inconsistent, illogical and emotionally based on the false concept that the Papal Gregorian “Sunday to Saturday” weekly cycle is the true 7 day weekly cycle set up by the Creator from Creation Week -- which simply is NOT TRUE. They would not do this if they were correctly applying the Biblical principle that the 1st weekly 7th day Sabbath falls exactly 7 days subsequent to where the Biblical New Moon Day occurs relative to the Gregorian Calendar that we have all been using since the Gregorian Calendar came on the scene during the 1st week of Oct., 1582. This is because if they were following that Biblical principle relative to the Biblical New Moon Day, they would realize that it is totally impossible to consistently observe the Papal Gregorian “Saturday” as the weekly 7th day Sabbath.
The Biblical New Moon Day makes that practice TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE, whether one lived in the 1st Century B.C.E./ C.E. when “Saturday” was located in the 1st day position of every Roman Calendar weekly cycle, or whether they are living in our 21st Century C.E. and systematically keeping “Saturday” in the 7th day position of the Gregorian Calendar’s bogus “Sunday to Saturday” weekly cycle.
By trying to keep two mutually exclusive calendars that operate totally differently -- a pagan one for the weekly 7th day Sabbath versus the Biblical one only for the yearly Festivals and their associated Holy Convocation Sabbaths -- they are trying to fuse a profane calendar of pagan origin with the sacred Biblical calendar and, in doing this, they are offering up the equivalent of “strange fire” before the LORD. This He will never accept. In so doing they are walking in direct disobedience to His Divine worship directives all mapped out for humanity in His Worship Manual in Leviticus 23 -- obnoxiously and stubbornly choosing to make their own choice as to which calendar(s) they are going to follow for which Biblical worship days they are going to keep!
They may loudly and piously proclaim themselves to be “Commandment-Keepers,” but they are deceiving themselves and others on these issues and are either too proud or too spiritually blind to see it and/or to admit it.
Nobody is a true "Commandment-keeper” who is categorically and willfully refusing to observe all of the worship days outlined by the Creator in His Worship Manual in Leviticus 23, either because they find it inconvenient to do so in the work-place, or because they stubbornly refuse to admit the validity and authenticity of the inherent Biblical Lunar-Solar Calendar System. This would include ALL of the 7th day Sabbatarian “Naysayers” -- whether they are in the standard “Saturday” Sabbatarian 7th day Sabbath Camp, or in the Hybrid-Gregorian/Lunar-Solar calendar keeping branch of the Lunar-Solar Calendar Camp -- who are systematically trying to refute the Biblical concept of the Lunar calendar based weekly 7th day Sabbaths and who NEVER observe the Biblical New Moon Day as a Worship Day (as is clearly shown to be the case in Ezra 3:1-3, 6-8) and as a Non-Commercial day when NO work for financial gain is to be done (as is shown in Amos 8:5).
Though the New Moon Day is the 1st worship day of the Biblical month, it is not to be confused with the weekly 7th day Sabbath. Certain things are permitted to be done on New Moon Day (when it is not a Holy Convocation Day) that is NOT permitted to be done on the weekly 7th day Sabbath.
The ONLY New Moon Day in any Biblical yearly cycle that is also a Holy Convocation Day is Tishri/Ethanim 1 -- otherwise known as the Feast of Trumpets or Shoutings. On that particular New Moon Day NO WORK WHATSOEVER is to be done, just like on the weekly 7th day Sabbath! Very few among the Lunar-Solar Calendar camp practice the New Moon Day correctly! Practically NOBODY in the traditional 7th day “Saturday” Sabbatarian groups keep the Lunar-Solar weekly 7th day Sabbaths -- nor do they keep the New Moon Day as the Word of God prescribes in passages like Ezra 3:1-3, 6-8.
So, how can any of them proudly and loudly, piously, and self-righteously go about proclaiming that they are “Commandment Keepers” when they NEVER knowingly keep the True Biblical weekly 7th day Sabbath (which is totally based on the LORD’s Lunar-Solar Calendar and NOT on the counterfeit Papal Gregorian calendar system), and NEVER observe the Biblical New Moon Day properly as the LORD requires it to be kept. Some of them decry the keeping of the yearly Biblical Religious Festivals -- with their accompanying yearly Holy Convocation Worship Days -- as “Damnable Heresy.”
So who is the true Heretic here? The one who obeys the LORD’s Divine Directives concerning all of His Worship Days outlined in His Worship Manual found in Leviticus 23, or the one who refuses to do so for whatever reason: social, political, religious, or an emotional attachment to a belief system that doesn’t teach the truth on these issues? Peer pressure, or the fear of going in want and of not being able to provide the basic necessities of life for themselves or their family are also factors if he or she complies with the Divine Directives on these issues outlined in Leviticus 23.
Don’t say “it doesn’t matter.” It does matter to God whether we adopt the customs of the heathen. He tells us to “Learn not the way of the heathen” (Jeremiah 10:2). Regardless of how much you claim to love God, if you make excuses for disobeying Him by worshiping these pagan gods you don’t love Him!
A Pagan Roman Feast
The New Year’s festivities that had originated in Babylon found their way to Greece and finally to Rome. The Romans called it “Saturnalia” — in honor of Saturn. Among them it was extremely popular — a time of revelings, drinking bouts, orgies — finally ending in HUMAN SACRIFICE!
“The first day of the Saturnalia shifted during the lifetime of Rome … it began around the middle of December … and continued until January first. In its midst was December twenty-fifth, the day, as the Romans calculated, when the sun was at its lowest ebb ….” (E. W. Count’s “4000 Years of Christmas”, page 28.)
It was Julius Caesar, Emperor of pagan Rome, who instituted the New Year’s festival on January first. In 46 B. C., Caesar adopted the Julian calendar. He transferred to the first of January ALL of the licentious customs surrounding the Roman Saturnalia!
Accepted by “Church Fathers” But how did such a thoroughly pagan day ever insinuate itself into the modern “Christian” calendar?
Read the answer from church history — about 375 A.D. This is the period Emperor Constantine imposed “Christianity” on the Roman world.
Saturnalia
“There were many immigrants into the ranks of the Christians by this time,” writes Earl W. Count. “The Church Fathers discovered to their alarm that they were also facing an invasion of pagan customs. The habit of Saturnalia was too strong to be left behind. At first the Church forbade it, but in vain” (page 31).
Rather than resist the influence of pagan customs, the Catholic Church fathers compromised!
“The Church finally succeeded in taking the merriment, the greenery, the lights, and the gifts from Saturn and giving them to the Babe of Bethlehem …. The pagan Romans became Christians — but the Saturnalia remained!” (E.W. Count, page 31.)
Modern Christians have gone A STEP FURTHER!
Rather than present a gift to Yahshua (the Christian Messiah) on the day they falsely assume to be his birthday, the world is busily trading presents among themselves! The “Messiah” has been not only forgotten during the pagan celebration of Christmas, but is not so much as toasted amidst the partying of New Year’s Eve! Furthermore, to celebrate pagan holidays [worship of Roman gods] claiming it is in honor of the messiah, is literally cheating on God and saying “I’m cheating on God in honor of Him”- Does that make any sense?!
During the Middle Ages many of the ancient Roman customs were maintained and augmented by the incoming heathen rites of the Teutonic peoples. It was during this period that the customary yule log and mistletoe were added to the popular New Year’s festivities. The yule log is a carry-over from the bonfires of sun-worship, and mistletoe is a parasite used in Druid rites as a symbol of sex-worship!
As Teutonic customs were added, the date of New Year’s celebrations was temporarily changed to March 25, to coincide with the Germanic spring rites of fertility.
Finally Pope Gregory re-instituted the ancient pagan Roman date of January first. He imposed it on the whole Western world in 1582 when his Gregorian calendar “reforms” were accepted. All Roman Catholic countries accepted this change AT ONCE! Sweden, Germany, Denmark and England, the strongholds of Druid customs, finally acquiesced to Rome in the 1700’s!
Janus, the two faced Roman god of the New Year- The month of Januray was named after the pagen god Janus
The Modern Attitude of Compromise
Today, New Year’s Eve has become a time for people to wallow in excesses of liquor! The modern attitude seems to be, “have a wild time on New Year’s Eve, and turn over a new leaf on New Year’s Day!”
New Year’s resolutions are empty and meaningless, usually trifling matters of jest! Few people make a lasting change. If you want to make a change DON’T WAIT UNTIL JANUARY TO DO IT, do it NOW! Most people seem to have convinced themselves that God is out of the picture for good. That God is not concerned with their modern revelings, drunken parties, promiscuous behavior! Even church ceremonies “ushering in the new year” is an abomination and is still worship of the Roman god of the new year, Janus whether you like it or not.
What does God have to say about New Year’s? Does He condone observing a pagan festival? practicing pagan customs in the name of Christ? God Labels New Year’s Celebrations “PAGAN”!
God Almighty does not compromise! Notice the Eternal’s stern warning to Israel as they conquered the pagan nations of the promised land:
“Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou INQUIRE NOT AFTER THEIR GODS, saying ‘How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.’ THOU SHALT NOT DO SO UNTO THE ETERNAL THY GOD: for EVERY ABOMINATION to the Eternal, WHICH HE HATETH, have they done to their gods ….” (Deut. 12:30-31.)
Janus, the Roman New Year god
What were the customs God hates and condemns in Deuteronomy? What are those pagan rites that are an ABOMINATION to Him?
Greek God of WINE!
Theodor H. Gaster writes concerning the familiar “New Year’s babe”:
Pagen god Dionysus
“Actually the New Year babe is FAR OLDER than he looks. In ancient Greece, it was customary at the great festival of Dionysus to parade a babe cradled in a winnowing basket. This was taken to symbolize the annual (or periodic) rebirth of that god as the spirit of fertility!” (New Year.)
Who was this Dionysus?
None other than Bacchus — the god of wine! In his honor the Greeks held a festival called the “Festival of the Wine-Press” at the time which corresponds to our months of January-February!
Today more alcoholic beverages are consumed during the “holiday season” than at any other time of the year! New Year’s Eve is noted for its licentious, wild, and wanton partying. People are deceived by riotous pagan holiday spirits — for the most part emanating from liquor bottles — all the while calling it “Christian”!
“Father Time”
Another symbol of New Year’s celebrations is equally pagan! It is the familiar figure of a white-haired man carrying a scythe. What does he represent? The ancient Greek god Cronos. It is from the name “Cronos” we derive our “chronograph” which measures time.
Among the Greek gods, Cronos originally cut a swath of HUMAN SACRIFICE with his sharpened scythe! The “silent reaper” anciently “reaped” little children in horrible episodes of mythical CANNIBALISM! This Greek rite of human sacrifice was adopted by ancient Rome, where human sacrifice was practiced at least until 300 A. D.
No wonder God Almighty warns the pagan New Year’s celebration is AN ABOMINATION to Him! See Deuteronomy 12:31.
Strange as it seems, the professing Christian world praises and practices customs and days of pagan origin — thinly cloaking them in “Christian” sounding names! You too, may have accepted these vain traditions of men, never realizing they are PAGAN TO THE CORE!
The Christian bible says”In VAIN do they worship me,” said Yahshua “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men!”
It is possible to WORSHIP GOD — and still do it ALL IN VAIN!
“Full well YE REJECT THE COMMANDMENT OF GOD, that ye may keep your own tradition,” He continued, “… making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered!”
Many people will confess, when forced to, the pagan origin of these days. But they stubbornly REFUSE to stop observing them! God is their Judge! Don’t you make this mistake!
When Does God Begin the New Year?
Remember! It is God Almighty who created the Universe. He set the heavenly bodies in their courses at Creation. It is by His “master-clock” that time is determined.
The earth’s rotation regulates the length of a day — the lunar phases indicate the length of a month. And the orbit of the earth around the sun dictates the length of a year!
But ONLY God has the AUTHORITY to set the date of the beginning of the new year!
God’s sacred calendar year begins in the spring — not in the middle of a dead winter! Notice Exodus 12:1-2, “And the Eternal 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 TO YOU.“
The first month of God’s sacred calendar is called, in the Bible, “Abib”. It means the month of “green ears.” Later, the Jews called it “Nisan” — a Babylonian word having the same meaning.
It was in the month of Abib or Nisan that Israel came out of Egyptian captivity under Moses (Ex. 34:18). The Hebrew month Abib overlaps the months of March-April on the pagan Roman calendar in use today.
God placed the beginning of the sacred year in the early spring to mark the beginning of the seasonal harvests. The two annual harvests in Palestine foreshadowed God’s Plan for the twofold SPIRITUAL harvest of souls to be born into His Kingdom.
Your Bible speaks of a great false religious system which will “think to change times and laws” (Dan. 7:25). This system has deliberately thought to change the beginning of God’s calendar year in an attempt to hide God’s Plan for the salvation of mankind! But man has no authority to change God’s “master-clock.”
Satan, however, has cleverly deceived the world into believing the new year begins on January first!
Why National Captivity?
The very same pagan practices God condemns in the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament) are being perpetuated in our modern world today!
The very same festivals of paganism adopted by ancient Israel have become an integral part of this modern society!
The reason God Almighty took ancient Israel into captivity is because they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them!”
What was the result of Israel following the customs of the heathen nations around them?
“Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight …. and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight …. SO WAS ISRAEL CARRIED AWAY OUT OF THEIR OWN LAND TO ASSYRIA UNTO THIS DAY!“
Israel NEVER returned as a nation to the land of Palestine!
Israel was lost! Its true identity was concealed until modern times! Now there is proof that the lost ten tribes of ancient Israel (supposedly) migrated throughout Africa and were sold into slavery during the Atlantic slave trade (this is to be verified).
Deut 28:45-48- All these curses will come upon you and pursue you and overtake you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you will not have hearkend to the voice of Yah your God amid gladness and goodness of heart when everything was abundant. So you will serve your enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, in nakedness and without anything and he shall put a yoke of iron around your neck until he destroys you.
Modern Paganism Will Be Punished!
Do you suppose God has changed His mind about compromising with paganism?
“For I am the LORD, I CHANGE NOT!” warns the Eternal Yah in Malachi 3:6. This same reminder is repeated in Hebrews 13:8.
Speaking to the modern nations of Israel today, Almighty God says, “As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Eternal God; Go ye, serve ye every one his idols and thereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me: but POLLUTE YE MY HOLY NAME NO MORE with your gifts and with your idols” (Ezek. 20:39).
In other words, God is saying, “Be pagan if you insist; but quit calling it a tribute to Him.”
God continues to warn modern Israel against the holidays of paganism, in Hosea 2:11:
“I will also cause all her mirth to cease, HER feast days [days THE PEOPLE chose], HER new moons [marking the beginning of the pagan New Year], and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.” Notice that these were Israel’s feast days — those Israel had acquired from the pagan nations around them — NOT those God had originally instituted through His Torah! “And I will visit upon her the DAYS OF BAALIM, wherein she burned incense to them …” (verse 13)!
The very same punishment awaits any nation today that forsakes God’s law as revealed in His Torah, and turns to the customs of pagan nations — observing pagan days of worship!
Does it make any difference if YOU continue observing pagan customs — like New Year’s? IT CERTAINLY DOES! God says so!
What You Should Do
According to the Christian bible, God Almighty prophesies a final revival of Babylonian religion in great power just before He cuts short man’s misrule of this earth.
New Year’s celebration began in Babylon 4,000 years ago. It is practiced today by almost every people on the face of the earth. Satan has indeed deceived the whole world!
But God Almighty has sent His ministers to warn this world — to cry aloud, and spare not, and SHOW HIS PEOPLE THEIR SINS (Isa. 58:1). Punishment will not be forever withheld!
May God help you to HEED THIS WARNING, and FORSAKE THE PAGAN PRACTICES of this modern world! Come out from among her (BABYLON) while there’s still time and REPENT!
Julian Calendar was introduced by the pagan Roman Emperor named Julius Caesar on 46BC. It was the calendar used by the Catholic Church until 1582. Protestants continued its usage until 1700s, when they initially rejected Gregorian Calendar. But since Julian Calendar was already out of sync by 11 days with seasons, they just swallowed their pride and adopted the Catholic-made Gregorian Calendar.
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Julian Calendar days were usually associated with pagan feasts. The names of days and months were even named after pagan gods (e.g. Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, etc.). This is the Calendar used by protestants for 200 years before the switched to the Gregorian Calendar.
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The Catholic-made Gregorian Calendar
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The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar that’s based on a 365-day typical year, with each year being divided into 12 months. However, these months are of irregular lengths. That’s because 11 of them either contain 30 or 31 days, with February being the exception. The second month of the year has 28 days during the common year. But, every four years or so, there’s a leap year that gives February an extra — or intercalary– day.
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Additionally, the days of the year in the Gregorian calendar are broken into seven-day weeks. The 7-day week cycle was originated from the Babylonian Calendar, in reference to the phases of moon. It was observed then that moon changes its phase every 7 days. The weeks are numbered from one to 52, with the occasional 53 weeks. In most of the world, it’s the standard to start each week on Monday. There are, however, a couple of outlier countries, like the United States and Canada — that kick off their weeks on Sunday.
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The more advanced leap year formula makes the Gregorian calendar far more accurate than the Julian and Hebrew Calendars. Nevertheless, it is not perfect either. Compared to the tropical year, it is off by one day in year 4909. However, before that time arrives, mankind will have abundant time to devise a mode of correction.
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Recent Gregorian calendar reforms have failed.
Since the Gregorian is not perfect, there have been many attempts to reform the calendar, so that’s more accurate. Additionally, technology continues to push the calendar to evolve. But, all of these attempts to redesign the calendar have failed.
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Catholic Adoption of the Gregorian Calendar
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Catholic states such as France, the Italian principalities, Poland, Spain (along with her European and overseas possessions), Portugal and the Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire were first to change to the Gregorian calendar. Thursday, 4 October 1582, was followed by Friday, 15 October 1582, with ten days skipped. Countries which did not change until the 18th century had by then observed an additional leap year (1700), necessitating the dropping of 11 days. Some countries did not change until the 19th or 20th century, necessitating one or two further days to be omitted from the calendar.
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Protestant Adoption of Gregorian Calendar
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As expected, protestant churches couldn’t swallowed their pride but rather continued to use the inaccurate and pagan-made Julian Calendar for 200 years more. It wasn’t until 1700 that the Protestant countries Germany switched over, and England held out until 1752.
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Through enactment of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, Great Britain and its colonies (including parts of what is now the United States) adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, by which time it was necessary to correct by 11 days. Wednesday, 2 September 1752, was followed by Thursday, 14 September 1752. British citizens did not react kindly after a Law from the Parliament advanced the calendar from September 2 to September 14, 1752. The Americans like Benjamin Franklin welcomed the change, writing: “It is pleasant for an old man to be able to go to bed on September 2, and not have to get up until September 14.”
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Protestant Churches in Europe and in USA then were not ashamed to embrace a Catholic-made calendar and introduced it to their folds. They even omitted any acknowledgement to Pope Gregory XIII nor the Catholic Church, when they started using it.
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Orthodox Churches
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Orthodox countries clung to the old Julian calendar until today, and their national churches have never embraced Gregorian Calendar. That is why their Easter Sundays are not the same with the Catholic Church.
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Late adopters
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Most countries adopted the Gregorian calendar hundreds of years ago. But, there were a few stragglers. Slower to embrace the change were China (1912), Bulguria (1916), Russia (1917), Greece (1923), and Turkey (1926). Most recently, Saudi Arabia replaced the lunar-based Hijri Calendar with the Gregorian in 2016. Although the country was 434 years late, they always say it’s better late than never.
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Gregorian Calendar is Everywhere
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The Gregorian Calendar has been utilized by almost all countries. It is mostly used in every electronic gadgets that we have (e.g. computer, phone, watch, etc.). This calendar is already built-in to these devices in order for them to sync with the global date and time standards. Therefore, if protestants don’t want to utilize whatever things made by Catholics, then they should throw out their gadgets now and start to make their own calendar.
Pagan Origin?
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Some non-Catholic cults will not use Gregorian Calendar because for them, it has a pagan origin (i.e. from pagan Julian Calendar). Instead, they will just use the already old and less accurate Hebrew Calendar, without knowing that it has a pagan origin too. The Hebrew or Jewish Calendar was actually patterned from the pagan Babylonian Calendar, which is short of 11 days per year. That is why a 13th month or intercalary is added every 2 to 3 years to reallign them back to the season.
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The names of the months of Hebrew Calendar was even named in honor for pagan gods. For example, the 4th month of the Hebrew Calendar is named as “Tammuz”, after the pagan god Tammuz (Eze.8:44). Thus, these bunch of hypocrite non-Catholics has to stop using Hebrew Calendar (which has pagan origin too) or they start making their own calendar.
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CONCLUSION
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The original goal for inventing the Gregorian Calendar on 1582 was to fix dates for the Easter Sundays. Early protestants had hard time accepting the Gregorian Calendar because for them it was Catholic’s plot to let them return to the fold. But since the Julian Calendar was already 11-days out of sync from season on 1700, they have no choice but swallowed their pride by adopting the Catholic-made Calendar. Nowadays, several late emerging anti-Catholic cults (e.g. INC, ADD, BAC, SDA, JWs, Mormons, and thousands more…) have openly been attacking the Catholic Church while hypocritically enjoying the benifits of a Catholic-made calendar. These bunch of hypocrite Catholic-haters should therefore make their own calendar (if they can), and not rely to what the Catholic Church had made (whom they accused as a “pagan religion”).
Number of Lost Days Varied
The papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 decreed that 10 days be skipped when switching to the Gregorian calendar. However, only five countries adopted the new calendar system that year—namely, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and most of France.
Since the discrepancy between the Julian calendar year and the astronomical seasons kept growing over time in the centuries that followed, more days had to be skipped in countries that switched to the Gregorian calendar in later years.
The US, Canada, and the UK dropped 11 days in 1752; Japan cut the year 1872 short by 12 days; and some countries, such as Russia, Greece, and Turkey, switched calendars as late as the early 20th century, so they had to omit 13 days (see table).
Switch Took More Than 300 Years
In total, more than three centuries passed until the Gregorian calendar had been adopted in all countries, from 1582 to 1927. The table below shows when the calendar reform occurred in some countries, including the first and the last.
Gregorian Calendar Introduction Worldwide
Calendar Chaos
The delay in switching meant that countries followed different calendar systems for a number of years, resulting in differing leap year rules.
In the Gregorian calendar, most years that are evently divisible by 100 are common years, but they are leap years in the Julian calendar. This meant that the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were leap years in countries still using the Julian calendar at the time (e.g., Greece), while in countries that had adopted the Gregorian calendar (e.g., Germany), these years were common years.
Double Leap Year
Sweden and Finland even had a “double” leap year in 1712. Two days were added to February, creating February 30, 1712 after the leap day in 1700 had erroneously been dropped, and the calendar was not synchronized with either the Julian or the Gregorian system. By adding an extra leap day in 1712, they were back on the Julian calendar. Both countries introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1753.
Many Variations
In some non-western countries, the calendar reform took on many different guises to accommodate differing cultural and historical contexts. For example, Japan replaced its lunisolar calendar with the Gregorian calendar in January 1873 but decided to use the numbered months it had originally used rather than the European names.
The Republic of China (1912-1949) initially adopted the Gregorian calendar in January 1912, but it wasn’t actually used a due to warlords using different calendars. However, the Nationalist Government (1928-1949) formally decreed the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in China in January 1929.
Conversion between Julian and Gregorian Calendars
Currently, the Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. So, to convert from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, add 13 days; to convert in the opposite direction, subtract 13 days.
The gap between the two calendar systems will increase to 14 days in the year 2100.
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