Is Today's Jewish Calendar The One God Gave To Moses?
Genesis 7:11 states that on the second month, the seventeeth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. Genesis 8:3,4 states that after 150 days the waters abated and the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month upon the mountains of Ararat. From the second to the seventh month we count 5 months. This means that each month was 30 days long as Moses understood it when he wrote the book of Genesis.
The month of the Israelites, from the fifteenth to the eighth century before the present era, was equal to thirty days, and twelve months comprised a year; there is no mention of months shorter than thirty days, nor of a year longer than twelve months. [Bold added for emphasis.
HWS] That the month was composed of thirty days is evidenced by Deuteronomy 34:8 and 21:13, and Numbers 20:29, where mourning for the dead is ordered for "a full month," and is carried on for thirty days. The story of the Flood, as given in Genesis, reckons in months of thirty days; it says that one hundred and fifty days passed between the seventeenth day of the second month and the seventeenth day of the seventh month. The composition of this text apparently dates from the time between the Exodus and the upheaval of the days of Uzziah
The Hebrews observed lunar months. This is attested to by the fact that the new-moon festivals were of great importance in the days of Judges and Kings. The new moon festival anciently stood at least on a level with that of the Sabbath. As these (lunar) months were thirty days long, with no months of twenty-nine days in between, and as the year was composed of twelve such months, with no additional days or intercalated months, the Bible exegetes could find no way of reconciling the three figures: 354 days, of twelve lunar months of twenty-nine and a half days each; 360 days, or a multiplex of twelve times thirty; and 365¼ days, the present length of the year.
Besides getting the right understanding of the courses in the temple wrong at the beginning of the article this explains the different civilizations and how they all had 360day years, just like the 360 degrees of a circle.
http://www.hshideaway.com/chap19.html
The reason for the universal identity of time reckoning between the fifteenth and the eighth centuries lay in the actual movement of the earth on its axis and along its orbit, and in the revolution of the moon, during that historical period. The length of a lunar revolution must have been almost exactly 30 days, and the length of the year apparently did not vary from 360 days by more than a few hours.
Then a series of catastrophes occurred that changed the axis and the orbit of the earth and the orbit of the moon, and the ancient year, after going through a period marked by disarranged seasons, settled into a "slow-moving year" (Seneca) of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds, a lunar month being equal to 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.7 seconds, mean synodical period.
As a result of repeated perturbations, the earth changed from an orbit of 360 days duration to one of 365¼ days, the days probably not being exactly equal in both cases. The month changed from thirty to twenty-nine and a half days. These were the values at the beginning and at the end of the century of "the battle of the gods." As a result of the perturbations of this century, there were intermediary values of the year and the month. The length of the year probably ranged between 360 and 365¼ days, but the moon, being a smaller (or weaker) body than the earth, suffered greater perturbations from the contacting body, and the intermediate values of the month could have been subjected to greater changes.
Plutarch declares that in the time of Romulus the people were "irrational and irregular in their fixing of the months," and reckoned some months at thirty-five days and some at more, "trying to keep to a year of 360 days," and that Numa, Romulus successor, corrected the irregularities of the calendar and also changed the order of the months. This statement suggests the question: Might it not have been that during the period between consecutive catastrophes the moon receded to an orbit of thirty-five or thirty-six days duration?
If, in the period of confusion, the moon actually changed for a while to such an orbit, it must have been an ellipse or a circle of a radius larger than before. In the latter case, each of the four moon phases must have been of nine days duration. It is of interest, therefore, to read that in many sagas dealing with the moon, the number nine is used in measures of time.
A series of scholars found that nine days was for a while a time period of many ancient peoples: the Hindus, the Persians , the Babylonians,the Egyptians, and the Chinese. In religious traditions, literature, and astrological works, seven days and nine days compete as the measure of the months quarter.
Therefore, and in view of the vast material from many peoples, we conclude that at one time during the century of perturbations, for a period between two catastrophes, the moon receded to an orbit of thirty-five to thirty-six days duration. It remained on such an orbit for a few decades until, at the next upheaval, it was carried to an orbit of twenty-nine and a half days duration, on which it has proceeded since then.
These "perturbed months" occurred in the second half of the eighth century, at the beginning of Roman history.What is more, we have actual dates like "the 33rd day of the month," cited in the Babylonian tablets of that period.
When the month was about thirty-six days and the year between 360 and 365¼ days, the year must have been composed of only ten months. This was the case.
According to many classical authors, in the days of Romulus the year consisted of ten months, and the time of Numa, his successor, two months were added: January and February. Ovid writes: "When the founder of the city [Rome] was setting the calendar in order, he ordained that there should be twice five months in his year. . . He gave his laws to regulate the year. The month of Mars was the first, and that of Venus the second. . . But Numa overlooked not Janus and the ancestral shades [February] and so to the ancient months he prefixed two."
Not only was the year divided into fewer than twelve months, but also the zodiac, or the path of the sun and the moon across the firmament, at present consisting of twelve signs, at one time had eleven and at another time ten signs. A zodiac of fewer than twelve signs was employed by the astrologers of Babylonia, ancient Greece, and other countries. A
Jewish song in the Aramaic language which is included in the Sedar Service refers to eleven constellations of the Zodiac.
In the middle of the eighth century the calendar then in use became obsolete. From the year -747 until the last of the catastrophies on the twenty-third of March, -687, the solar and lunar movements changed repeatedly, necessitating adjustments of the calendar. Reforms undertaken during this time soon became obsolete in their turn, and were replaced by new ones; only after the last catastrophe of -687, when the present world order was established, did the calendar become permanent.
Some of the clay tablets of Nineveh found in the royal library of that city contain astronomical observations made during the period before the present order in the planetary system was established. One tablet fixes the day of the vernal equinox as the sixth of Nisan: "On the sixth of the month Nisan, the day and night are equal." But another tablet places the equinox on the fifteenth of Nisan. "We cannot explain the difference," wrote a scholar. Judging by the accurate methods employed and the precision achieved in their observations, the stargazers of Nineveh would not have erred by nine days.
In the astronomical tablets of Nineveh "three systems of planets" are extensively represented; single planets are followed in all their movements in three different schedules.
When the cataclysm of the 23rd of March, -687 brought about another disturbance in the length of the year and month, the new standards remained uncertain until they could be calculated anew in a series of investigations.
From the time of that catastrophe until about the year -669 or -667, no New Year festivals were observed at Babylon."Eight years under Sennacherib, twelve years under Esarhaddon: for twenty years . . . the New Years festival was omitted," says an ancient chronicle on a clay tablet. According to cuneiform inscriptions, in the days of Sargon II a new world age began, and in the days of his son Sennacherib another world age.
What do we have in the Bible to back up these "upheaveals"????
Huh?
