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How Does The Biblical Year Begin? - Part 1

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robdavid
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How Does The Biblical Year Begin? - Part 1

Postby robdavid » Sun Jun 30, 2013 11:36 pm

From A Section Of My Brothers Book

Chapter 2 - How does the Biblical year begin?
The Romans start the year in January, in the dead of the winter, whereas the Orthodox Jews start the year in September - October according to the manmade rules of the Rabbis. But when does the Bible say is the beginning of the year?

Exo 12:2 This month (Aviv) shall be the chief of months for you. It shall be the first of the months of the year for you.

Very clearly the year begins in the spring when the Passover is celebrated. The first month of the biblical calendar is called Aviv. Now we know from Deut 16:9 that we must start our Shavuot count “when the sickle hits the standing grain;” or in other words when the barley is ripe. Notice it never states that barley is the parameter for the 1st day and beginning of the year, ONLY that it is the agricultural parameter for the beginning of the count to Shavuot. This point alone proves barley is not the parameter to start the year, but simply an earthy agricultural witness that the year has already begun. The biblical calendar is completely agricultural as where the Jewish calendar does not take any of these things into account.

There is another important part of Scripture that the current modern Jewish calendar does not also consider to the actual start of the year; this is the biblical precedent of waiting until after both the vernal equinox and the precession of the equinox, when the sun both passes the equator to start spring, and also passes from the 12th constellation back to the first one, to finish its full yearly cycle.

Scripture clearly tells us that we are to equate time by the celestial bodies in the sky.

Gen 1:14 And Elohim said, Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.
Psa 104:19 He made the moon for seasons (mo'edim); the sun knows its going down.

So we see that the calendar is a solar/lunar calendar made up of the Sun to rule the day; when it is sunset we start our new day, the moon to rule the month; when it finishes its full rotation and restarts itself at conjunction the new month begins, and a combination of the Sun and stars to rule the year.

Exo 34:22 And you shall observe a Feast of Weeks for yourself, the first fruits of the harvest of wheat; also the Feast of Ingathering (after) the turn of the year (Tekufah).

The word for turning of the year in Hebrew is Tekufah. This word actually means a revolution of the sun. This happens twice a year. Once when the sun passes the equator from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere in spring, and again when it passes back on the other side of the earth from the Northern hemisphere back to the south on about September 21-23, each year. Clearly you cannot start Monday in the middle of Sunday, and you can’t start January in the middle of December and likewise you can’t start your new year in the middle of winter of the previous year, before the vernal equinox comes and the changing from winter to summer. Also note in the original Hebrew, the word “at” is not in the original Hebrew but is added and actually the word “after” is more properly inferred from the original language. Let’s prove this point from the following scripture.

Lev 23:10 Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, When you come in to the land which I am giving to you, and have reaped its harvest, and have brought in the Omer, of the beginning of your harvest, to the priest,

The above scripture is speaking about the Feast of Firstfruits and the omer count to Shavuot. Very plainly from this scripture we see that this happens AFTER THEY HAVE REAPED THEIR HARVEST! So this shows conclusively a later time period rather than an earlier one as many years the harvest would not be completely ready before the equinox and that is why in Exodus 34:22 the word ‘after’ is better rendered than ‘at’ as the equinox is the dividing line between winter and summer, but one must wait until the New Moon arrives to actually start the first month of the year, Aviv, (Ex 12:2) and officially start the New Year.

Also look at:

Deu 16:13 You shall perform the Feast of Tabernacles seven days after you have gathered in from your grain-floor, and from your winepress.

Again we see that Sukkot is AFTER the harvest is not only ripe, but harvested. This takes anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks before one could go up to Sukkot and clearly delineates again a later feast ‘AFTER” the equinox and NOT before. As long as the year is properly started after the vernal equinox in the spring, then you will always have your fall harvest and Sukkot also align after the autumn equinox. Let’s also look at the following scripture to see the importance of waiting to start the biblical year till after the “tekufah” or the full rotation of the sun at the equinox.

Exo 23:14 Three times in the year you shall make a feast to Me.
Exo 23:15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I have commanded you, at the set time of the month of Aviv. For in it you came out from Egypt, and they shall not appear before Me empty.
Exo 23:16 Also the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. Also the Feast of Ingathering, after the going out of the year, at your gathering your work from the field.

In verse 16 we see the feast of Sukkot being called the “Feast of Ingathering ”. It is called this due to the fact of taking in or ingathering the harvest fruits for Sukkot. We also see that this feast happens after “the going out of the year” (the agricultural year) or after “the autumn equinox”. If you start your year in the winter before the vernal equinox you will also throw off the sequence of the rest of the Holy Days and will be keeping the Feast of Ingathering (Sukkot) in early September before the turning of the year (autumn equinox) and before the harvest has been gathered.

In years past when the Jewish calendar started incorrectly one month early I have shown pictures that the harvest was plainly not ready as summer was still present. It would have been inconceivable in biblical times that a pilgrim would come up to Jerusalem for Sukkot empty handed as all his harvest was rotting away on the ground after he was gone. Remember, for most of Israel with travel time they were gone from their homes for around a month at feast time. The harvest must be in first and then the pilgrim takes the harvest to Jerusalem to celebrate and worship with Yahweh the Provider of the Harvest. Clearly, Passover must be kept in its season (spring, not winter) from year to year and then Sukkot (Feast of Ingathering) will also be in its season after harvest.

Exo 13:10 Thou shall therefore keep this ordinance (Passover) in his season from year to year.

Also, look at this word Tekufah used in another scripture to clearly show it is relating to the equinoxes.

2Ch 24:23 And it happened, at the turn of the year, that the army of Syria came up against him;

Here, it is referring to spring and the turning of the year at the vernal equinox.

So the Bible conclusively shows the wording used “turning of the year” in several places in Scripture is related to the agricultural season starting at the vernal equinox in March and ending at the autumn equinox in September. The modern Jewish calendar does not take into account the turning of the seasons from after the vernal equinox occurs, but in some years such as 2013 starts the year in winter before the vernal equinox, to keep it in line with the Easter season and the old Julian calendar.

Their mistake is quite simple. Yahweh states, as we already have shown that “Aviv is the beginning of months to you (Ex 12:2). But according to the modern Jewish calendar they start the year in the 7th month and count back the days to Aviv and Passover. Then as long as Passover (and not the 1st day of the month of Aviv) falls after the vernal equinox, they will still start the year even though the first 2 weeks may still be in winter and still part of the old year. Again, their mistake is following the tradition of the Rabbis in starting the year in Tishri, the 7th month and not starting it in Aviv, the first month.
Why is it, according to the rabbinical Jewish calendar that Passover cannot come before the vernal equinox? It is because the Rabbis say you cannot have two Passovers in the same year.
Should the Tekufah of Tammuz extend till after the Succoth Festival, or the Tekufah of Tebeth till the sixteenth of Nisan, the year would be intercalated, so that the festivals might fall in their due seasons, viz., Passover in Spring, Succoth in Autumn.(Sanh 11b)

So there you have it, according to the Jewish calendar, they are saying that the vernal equinox IS indeed the beginning of spring and the New Year; that is why they will NEVER have Passover before the equinox. But as already quoted, Aviv 1 and not Passover on Aviv 14 should be the start of the year, according to Scripture. Nowhere in Scripture does it ever state that only Passover has to start in the New Year and the other 13 days of the new month of Aviv can still be in the Old year, back in winter. This is totally illogical.

The calendar they are using today is NOT the one used in the time of the 1st century when Yahshua the Messiah walked the earth, as even the Encyclopaedia Judaica openly admits that the modern Jewish calendar started in the fourth century by a Rabbi named Hillel the 2nd and was not completely codified until the earliest the 10th century AD.

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