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These are thumbnail pictures of the first light of the
New Moon Crescent. Hold cursor over photo for a seond to see title. To enlarge: click on photo.
Even many
Rabbins themselves acknowledge that the present Jewish Calendar of Hillel 2 is NOT correct. They prefer to wait until
a new Sanhedrin is set up to make the necessary changes, rather than standing on the word of God as presented by Moses.
Nevertheless: they are practicing for the day that the Sanhedrin will make the official changes. Israeli New Moon Society The question for us is: Do we follow the tradfitions of those who REJECT our Lord and therefore also reject
His Father, Joh 8:19: or do we obey the Holy Scriptures? Acts 5:29.
WHY I DON'T USE THE RABBINIC CALENDAR
The Northern ten tribes were taken off the land by the Assyrians;
in stages beginning about 720 BC. Those who escaped to Judah were assimilated into Judah. Most of Judah was then removed
from the land by Nebuchadnezar about 586 BC. Those who were left in the land fled to Egypt where they were later destroyed
when Nebuchadnezar once more passed through the land and conquered Egypt.
During the time of Ezra and Nehemiah,
those who were willing were allowed to go back to the land and rebuild Jerusalem. See the 70 Weeks Prophecy. After Jesus Christ was killed and resurrected; Judah rebelled against Rome and Jerusalem was destroyed. The Temple
and the Sadducees and Mosaic Pharisees were also destroyed.
This left those who remained in Babylon, as the authoritative
voice in Jewish affairs. Over time these people had accepted much of Babylonian culture; including the Babylonian Calendar:
which they adapted to accommodate the Festivals of God.
The Biblical Calendar;
was in use until the destruction of Jerusalem. With the destruction of the Temple as the center of religious life and
the end of a functioning priesthood; Mosaic Judaism was slowly supplanted by the Rabbinic traditions developing in Babylon.
As time passed, the traditions of these sages were written out as a commentary on the Scriptures and presented as an Oral
Law [there had never been such a thing]. The people were taught that the commentary [the Talmud] had the same authority as
the Tanakh [writings of Scripture].
By their reasonings, as presented in this commentary; they have made the word
of God, of no effect. This is plainly seen in the Rabbinic Calendar. God said: begin the year in the spring, the
Passover season Ex 12:1-2; The Rabbinic Calendar begins the year in the Autumn as the Babylonians did. There are many
other differences as well.
This acceptance of the Babylonian Mysteries and relabeling them as Judaism
took hundreds of years. The present or modern Rabbinic Calendar was first published by Hillel about 350 AD.
This is a parallel to what happened as mainstream
Christianity was also seduced during the same period of history. See The Kingdom Messenger.
Some have asked: Don't the Jews know their own religion. I reply: I am not concerned with the religion
of the Jews; I am concerned about the religion of Almighty God. The two have seldom been the same thing through
history.
Read your Bible: The people were driven off the land for their rebellion against God! Neither Israel
nor Judah were concerned about obeying God throughout MOST of their history; with short periods of repentance. They
were concerned about doing what they wanted and then justifying their rebellion; by their reasoning and by substituting their
traditions for Holy Scripture.
For this reason God says: Deu 5:29: O that there
were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them,
and with their children for ever!
Someday that desire of God will be fulfilled: Jer 31:31:
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and
with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith
the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD,
I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
This will be accomplished by: Joel 2:28: And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;
MAY GOD SPEED
THE DAY!
The issue of the Biblical Calendar is clear. Will you
obey God? or will you cling to the traditions of men, based on the Babylonian Mysteries?
Joshua
24:15: And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day
whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the
Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Dictionaries define the word CALENDAR as; A means of measuring the passing of time by DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS and YEARS.
In the beginning 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 for years Gen 1:14. Thus God set in motion the means of
dividing and measuring time.
DAYS
The evening and the morning were the first day Gen 1:5;
the evening and the morning were the second day Gen 1:8. This formula is repeated for six times, revealing clearly
and unmistakably how a day is to be defined. In Deu 23:11 and Jos 8:29, the terms evening and sundown are used
interchangeably, revealing that the word evening is meant as sunset. Now, God made two great lights, one to rule the
day and one to rule the night Gen 1:16. The sun rules the day and when it sets it is no longer ruling, therefore
the day has ended and the night has begun. In the beginning there were no clocks, the lights of the heavens were man's
clock. All a person had to do, was to look up and see that the sun had set, to know that the day was over. God made
the things about measuring time, simple and easy.
WEEKS
And God blessed the seventh day, and
sanctified it Gen 2:2-3. On the seventh day God rested from His labours and spent the day with the man, whom He had
created. The seventh day was set apart for holy use at the time of creation, for Adam and ALL his descendants M'r
2:27. At the end of a seventh day, a new week begins. The eighth day always represents the beginning of a new cycle
of seven (let the reader understand). And so we have the week of seven days, ending with the end of the seventh day!
MONTHS
We worship God on the New Moon by acknowledging the New Moon and the beginning of a New Month.
We go to God in prayer and thank Him for His gift of life and time and another month; and we do some extra study in our
Bibles. In the coming Kingdom; all shall come before God (probably in some kind of official service) on the New
Moons. Is 66:23. Paul tells the Collosians NOT to allow anyone to condemn them for observeing Sabbaths and New Moons,
Col 2:16.
It is so very inconsistent that many in the Church of God justiify the observence of the Feast of Tabernacles
by quoting Zech 14:16: And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against
Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.
They then go on to ignore what Isaiah has to say, Is 66:23 And it shall come to pass, that from one new
moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. One would
think that the next verse would open their eyes: Is 66:24 : And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of
the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die (not perish but shall eat them up, ie maggots that
turn into flies), neither shall their fire be quenched (put out, it shall burn until all fuel (bodies) is consumed);
and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.
They are NOT CONSISTENT in their thinking. Now the citizens
of Colosse were Gentiles who had never before observed the laws of God. They began to observe what Paul had instructed!
Would the Apostle Paul have instructed them to do something that was unnecessary? or contrary to scripture? Why did
he encourage them to continue observing New Moons in the face of objections by others, if he thought that observation was
unnecessary? David wrote that He appointed the Moon for seasons Psalm 104:19 and special Burnt Offering were to
be made on the New Moons 1 Ch 23:31, Ezra 3:5. The New Moons were NOT Sabbaths or Holy Days but they were consecrated
as natural divisions of time appointed by Almighty God.
At the conjunction of the moon there is no light at
all. On most of our published "Christian" (sanctified by the Roman Pontiff) calendars the date of the conjunction
of the moon is marked as the new moon, since this is how astronomers reckon things. A day or two later the first visible
light from the moon can be seen. Over the next two weeks, the moon appears to grow bigger, fuller and rounder until
it is completely full, A FULL MOON. After this event the moon begins to shrink, getting a little smaller each day, until
about two weeks after the full moon there is again no visible moon at all, this is called the conjunction. If we were
to search the sky we would see nothing of the moon at all. Then a day or two later we would see the first visible light
of a NEW CRESCENT MOON.
Why a new moon? Because the day before there was no moon! We are now
seeing something NEW in the night sky. This new light is the beginning of a month, the beginning of a NEW cycle.
The moon waxes and wanes throughout the month, until it finally disappears and the month ends, even as the day ends when the
sun disappears over the horizon. Later, when a NEW LIGHT, A NEW MOON appears in the sky; a new month begins! How
awesome and simple! It is only necessary to look up and acknowledge the light in the night sky to discern when a new month
begins!
Since all days begin at sunset, the first day of each month also begins at sunset. Therefore
the observance of the New Moon must take place directly after sunset, for the beginning of the day and the beginning of the
month both start at sunset. If a New Moon were to be observed in the morning, then the new month would begin at the
next sunset. Otherwise we would have the new month beginning in the middle of a day! The new month BEGINS with
the SUNSET starting the first COMPLETE day after the New Moon is observed. Otherwise, one could be polluting a High
Holy Day (The Feast of Trumpets) for a full half day without knowing it. A High Holy Day CANNOT begin in the middle
of a day and it CANNOT begin before the New Moon beginning the month is OBSERVED! Such a Holy Day must begin like ALL
other days, AT SUNSET!
WHEN DOES NEW MOON BEGIN
In our round world the question arises; When
does the new moon begin? Are we to observe it in Jerusalem or somewhere else? The answer is that God made the
heavens our calendar, at creation. Wherever the new moon is observed by the naked eye, without aids, such as telescopes
or binoculars, that is where the new moon begins on the planet's surface. Whenever and wherever a new moon is seen,
that moment begins the new moon day! As the earth turns, that New Moon will become visible in each new time zone. It
is true that the New Moon can be seen near the equator sooner (perhaps as much as a day) than in more Northern and Southern
latitudes, therefore we make our primary observation at Jerusalem.
YEARS
God said to Moses;
this month shall be the first month of the year to you Ex 12:2. During this first month the early harvest shall begin
Lev 23:5-14 and Deu 16:9. The year begins with the first visible light of the first crescent moon of the first month.
The year consists of twelve months, therefore at the end of the twelfth month the year ends and a new year begins. Thus
bringing to a completion the seasons and completing one revolution of the earth around the sun. Because the twelve
months do not add up to a complete solar year there is a loss of about ten days a year, of the lunar year over the solar year.
If this were allowed to continue without any correction, the end of the twelfth month would quickly fall behind the solar
year, throwing the spring holydays out of the spring harvest season. Therefore a thirteenth month is intercalated
every few years to bring the lunar back into line with the solar year.
This addition of a thirteenth month
is essential to maintain the holydays in their proper seasons. The thirteenth month should be added whenever the spring
harvest in Judea will not be ripe enough to begin reaping by the day of the Wave Offering on the day after the Sabbath
which comes after Passover. Note; the Wave Offering is to be made during the week of Unleavened Bread, therefore, if Passover
falls on a Sabbath, the Wave Offering is to be made on the First Day of Unleavened Bread. This is because the next day
after the Sabbath, occurring one week later, would fall outside of the feast of Unleavened Bread.
During ancient
times the people in Judea had no problem looking out at their fields and determining the ripeness of their crops. As
migrations occurred it became very difficult for people who lived many thousands of miles away to receive timely information
on the state of crops in Judea. This problem was solved by the observation that crops in Judea ripened around the spring
equinox. Since crops were never ripe enough before the spring equinox, the Wave Sheaf could not be harvested and offered
before the equinox. A thirteenth month was added whenever it was determined that the Wave Sheaf offering would fall
before the equinox.
Today, with e-mails, web sites and telephones it is incredibly easy to contact someone
in Judea and determine the state of the crops there. This fact along with the equinox rule makes the determination of
intercalated years simple and easy.
While these observations are easy in a dry desert climate. They are difficult
in areas subject to much rain, fog, smog or bright city lights. Yet, in todays world, there should be no difficulty
in setting up official church observers in various cities around the world, so that these events may be seen regardless of
local conditions. In fact, the date and timing of the first visible crescent of the new moon may be calculated and known
beforehand, requiring only confirmation by observation. The same may be said of sunset times and harvest dates as well.
Throughout the ages various priesthoods have tried to make the simple calendar of God's word appear complex and incomprehensible
to people. This was to create an atmosphere of dependence on the priests for information; on when to plant and
harvest and when to keep annual celebrations pleasing to God. This has been true of virtually all cultures. They
try to conceal the truth, that God's ways are simple and really very easy to understand.
Because the word
calendar is not mentioned in the bible, there are those who declare that there is no biblical calendar and that all people
must rely on the calculated Rabbinic calendar. We have shown that there most definately are biblical instructions on
the calculation and measurement of the passage of time. We DO NOT need to RELY upon those who reject our Messiah for
information on how to please our God, through observing His feasts on their proper days. Instead WE NEED TO RELY UPON
THE WORD OF OUR GOD! If we would only observe the new moons, as scripture indicates is God's will, we would NEVER
have lost track of God's way of measuring time. We would NOT have become so lost and confused about something so
simple. New moons are NOT holydays, they are signs of the natural division of time and should be observed as such.
The calendar information discussed above was in use in Judea before and during the time of Christ. The modern calculated
Rabbinic calendar with it's reliance on Molads (the average moon conjunction times), postponements and complex rules was
first published by Hillel 2 in the fourth century AD. IN FACT, this was the Babylonian calendar, learned in Babylon
by the captive peoples and slightly modified to accommodate religious holydays! This Hillel 2 calendar completely ignores
the word of God as recorded by Moses in the Torah. Those researchers who base their studies on the premise that the Hillel
2 calendar was in use during the time of Christ and earlier will be in error in their conclusions.
The fact
is, Hillel 2 was not even of the same branch of the Pharisees that lived in Judea at the time of Christ. Those Mosaic
Pharisees were destroyed during the Roman rebellions in the first century. Hillel 2 came from the Hellenic Pharisees
and his ideas had been moulded by the Babylonians (see the SEAT OF MOSES page). In terms of research, any astronomical
observatory can calculate moon phases, equinoxes and sunset, moonset times back for thousands of years. Making the determination
of months and years in history relatively easy.
It is a general principle that God keeps things simple and
straightforward where-as men complicate matters. Brethren, it is time to RETURN TO OUR GOD and look to HIM for
understanding on ALL SPIRITUAL MATTERS!
FESTIVAL DATING
These dates are based on the most likely day that the new moon may be observed in the
first and seventh months. While every effort has been made to assure accuracy, these dates are subject to confirmation
by the observation of the new moon. We will publish observation data for the first day of the first and seventh months
in our CURRENT EVENTS page. As the first day of the seventh month is a Holy Day we recommend that the date we provide
and the next day as well be taken off work, just in case the new moon is not observed on the expected date. Anyone desiring
to volunteer as a new moon observer should feel free to contact us, please be sure to provide your location.
Spring harvest and New Moon data will be provided on our Editorial and News pages as soon as it is available.
All dates are calendar dates, beginning at sunset ending the previous day.
Over time we have found certain complications.
For example the new Moon is often observable a day or so earlier from points near the equator. Since the law will go
forth from Jerusalem and God wants to focus our attention on Jerusalem as the future capitol of the World; Jerusalem will
be our vantage point. This is made possible, by this age of modern communications and will make certain that all God's
people will observe the Festivals together on the same day.
The potential visibility date at Jerusalem can be easily
calsulated and made known yrears in advance; it can be confirmed by observation. Even the Rabbins are waiting for a
new Sanhedron to correct their Calendar. See the Israel New Moon Society. The question for us is; do we follow
some unconverted Christ rejecting Rabbi to tell us how to worship our God, or do we listen to God's Word?
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