BIBLE
DIGEST - Number 79 January 1998
CALENDARS AND BIBLE CALCULATIONS
by Allon Maxwell
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“And God said,
"Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day
from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and
years and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light
upon the earth." And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the
greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he
made the stars also.” Genesis
1:14-16 RSV From the
Creation, God has invited us to use the Sun, Moon, and Stars, to measure
time. They are there, not only to give light, but are also to be used to
establish “seasons and days and years”. Over time,
men have devised many different calendars to measure time. It should be no
surprise to us that most of these have been related in some way, to the
relative movements of the Sun, and Moon, and Planet Earth, just as God
intended. Bible students
sometimes find themselves in a quandary as to which calendar is meant in
places where historical events are identified with a particular year, day, or
month, which is not related to one of our modern calendars. For those who do
find themselves wanting to relate past historical events to our modern
Gregorian calendar, there are many difficulties. It takes only a little
research to discover that there are many areas where “experts” differ in
their conclusions, and information is not nearly as reliable as we would like
it to be. The calendars
of ancient civilisations were not always in perfect harmony with the cycles
of the Sun, Moon, and Stars. In some civilisations, the seasons did not
always occur at the same time in the year. Records about the Calendars of
ancient civilisations are often incomplete, or more often, completely
lacking. Often the gaps have to be filled by speculative assumptions. Another
complication is that it is not absolutely certain that a solar year, or a
lunar month, have always been the same length as they are today. For
instance, there are many who speculate that there might have
been some sort of change at the time of Noah's flood. (However, it must be
emphasised that the key word in that subject is definitely “speculation”!) There are four
main calendars which are of interest to Bible Students. 1. THE SOLAR
YEAR AND THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR The Gregorian
Calendar replaced the earlier Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar. It
was introduced in Catholic countries in 1582, when a correction of 10 days
became necessary due to the slight inaccuracy of the Julian calendar.
(Britain and her colonies did not adopt it until 1752, by which time the
necessary adjustment was 11 days) The mean solar
year is actually 365.2425 days. The true solar year can vary from the mean by
several minutes. In practice the Gregorian calendar uses a 365-day year,
balancing the inaccuracy by adding an extra day every fourth year (leap
year). To further compensate, leap years are omitted at the turn of each
century, unless the century year is divisible by four hundred. Thus, the year
2000 will be a leap year, while century years like 1900 or 2100, are not leap
years. The Gregorian
Calendar is slower than the true mean solar year, by about
three days in approximately 10,000 years. 2. THE JEWISH
CALENDAR In any given
Jewish year, the current equivalent to a Gregorian Year can be calculated by
adding 3761. However, since the Jewish year starts around September/October
Gregorian time, it spans two successive Gregorian Years. The current Jewish
civil year is 5758 (calculated from creation) It begins 2 October 1997 and
ends 20 September 1998. The Jewish
Calendar of the Old Testament is mentioned only incidentally to other
subjects. It is clearly linked to both Lunar and Solar cycles but lacks
information about how the Lunar year was adjusted to the Solar year, to keep
it in step with the seasons and the harvests (which was necessary for the
proper observance of the annual festivals). The current
Hebrew calendar was brought back from Babylon by the exiles, when they
returned from captivity, in the sixth century BC. For centuries after that,
the religious leaders kept secret the details used for the calculation of the
annual adjustments. It appears that during that time, the rules were also
subject to controversy, contradiction, and variation, depending on who
interpreted them. In an endeavour to settle controversy, they were eventually
published in fourth century AD, in (more or less) the form which exists
today. But disagreement continued at least till the 10th century AD, about
the date of creation, and the proper years for adding the extra months. There is
considerable uncertainty about exactly how it was applied over the centuries
before it became “fixed”. Records are not available. Many of the factors
affecting decisions about when to start a particular month were quite
flexible. Lambs had to be mature enough for slaughter on 14 Nisan, the Day of
Preparation for the Passover. Crops had to be ripe enough for presentation at
the Feast of the Firstfruits on 16 Nisan, immediately following the Passover.
The Jews were very meticulous about such details of their religion.
Consequently, these festival constraints could be expected to make it fairly
certain that some corrections must have been applied to the Calendar, in
order to keep the Passover close to its correct place in the seasons of the
solar year. The Jewish
calendar is considerably more complex than the Gregorian. It uses
"lunar" months as the basis of calculations. However, since a lunar
month is not equal to an exact number of days, this approach makes all sorts
of difficulties for the Jews, and for ourselves also. The mean time
between two full moons, is actually 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.864
seconds. The “standard”
Jewish lunar year is 354 days, with 12 months. Ten of the months are of fixed
length, some 29 and some 30 days. The other two can both be alternately
sometimes 29, and sometimes 30 days, depending on the need to adjust the
length of the year slightly. If not
corrected on a regular basis, this would result in the seasons “moving”
within the year. For this reason, it is necessary in some years, to add an
extra month so as to keep the Passover in its proper place in the seasons. In
ancient times, it seems most likely that this need for the extra month would
have been determined by the requirement for the barley to be ripe before 16
Nisan. The current practice is to add an
intercalary month, 7 times in each 19-year cycle.
Thus 19 Hebrew calendar years total 235 lunar months. All of this
means that, depending on where it falls in the 19-year cycle, a particular
year can have 354, 355, 383 or 384 days. An average Jewish year
has 365 days, resulting in a “drift” of one day slower than the solar year,
each 216 years. (And it is slower than the Gregorian calendar by one day in
231 years.) This means that the Festivals are now celebrated some 8 days
later in the solar year, than when the calendar was first published in its
present form in 359 AD. The Jews have a
sacred year and a civil year. The sacred year begins in the month Nisan,
complying with God's decree in Exodus 12:2.
This is the month in which the Feast of the Passover occurs. The civil year
begins six months later in Tishri, the seventh month of the sacred year. This
is the month in which the Day of Atonement occurs. Because of the
regular corrections made to balance the current Jewish Calendar with the
Solar year, it is very close to the Gregorian calendar. However, precise
calculations to convert between the two, over long periods of time, must take
account of the minor differences described above. In ancient
times, the pattern for the application of the several adjustments is not easy
to determine. When looking backwards over long periods of time, it is
well-nigh impossible to calculate the exact Gregorian date and day of the
week for a particular Festival such as the Passover, (especially surrounding
the time when Jesus was crucified ..... more about that below.). 3. THE “PRE-FLOOD”
CALENDAR There are some
who speculate that the pre-flood movements of Earth and Moon in
relation to the Sun, were different to those we experience today. This
speculation is based on the Genesis record of the flood. In Genesis 7:11, Noah's flood began on the 17th
day of the second month and the ark came to rest 150 days later on the 17th
day of the seventh month. Genesis 8:4.
Many have concluded that Moses was speaking of 5 months each exactly 30 days.
They then extrapolate from this to claim that God's original
“creation year” was 12 months of 360 days. However, that
conclusion may be far too simple and speculative. It is certainly open to an
equally valid speculation, that Moses meant 5 months totalling
150 days, but only averaging 30 days each! For instance,
compare this with our Gregorian calendar, using the 5 months, 17 February to
17 July. They are not of equal length, but they do total 150
days from the seventeenth day of the second month, to the seventeenth
day of the seventh month! Co-incidence? Or is it possible that God is
trying to tell us something? Further, even
if a “standard” month was always 30 days, before the flood, there is nothing
at all in Genesis to tell us the length of either a “standard” year, or an
“average” year. And even if a “standard year” in Noah's time was always 12
months, totalling 360 days, that still does not allow for the probability
that the true solar year might have been exactly the same as
now, with the calendar requiring regular cyclical “adjustments” of some kind
(just as both the modern Jewish and Gregorian calendars do). There is
certainly no clearly written Biblical justification for transposing this assumed
“pre-flood” calendar to other events, either before or after the flood. The practice
remains firmly in the realms of speculation. 4. THE
"PROPHETIC" CALENDAR Apart from that
speculative conclusion just described above, there are a few prophecies which
are often linked to justify the use of a 30-day month and a 360 day year, to
measure the time period from start to completion. e.g., Daniel 7:25, Daniel
12:7, Revelation 11:2-3
& Revelation 12:14. But a problem
arises when some "interpreters" of prophecy loosely transpose this
"prophetic year", and at the same time, apply the year for a day
method to other prophecies, not always with clear
justification. It certainly
may be applicable in the few places where it is mentioned. However, it is by
no means as clear that it is valid to translate it to other prophecies, when
it is not specifically mentioned in those other places. THE “YEAR FOR A
DAY” METHOD A number of
prophecies speak of time periods of DAYS. However, literal days do not always
seem to be intended. Many Bible students turn to the “year for a day” method
of “interpretation”. This substitutes years in place of days, when it seems
more appropriate to consider a longer time span for the fulfilment. Based on
conclusions about a starting point, calculations are then made which try to
fit specific later events in history to the time period of the prophecy. (And
it must be admitted that some expositors seem to give the impression of
starting with a desired finish point and then working backwards, determined
to make it fit!) On a more
positive side, there is a reference in Numbers 14:32-35,
where God decreed a punishment of 40 years on Israel, one year for each day
in which they had spied out the land. And there is
another even more specific reference in Ezekiel 4:4-6,
where for one particular prophecy, a day is specifically stated by God to
represent a year of actual future time. But are we
justified in translating that to other prophecies? Some think so. Others
reject it. DANIEL'S
SEVENTY WEEKS AND THE “YEAR FOR A DAY” METHOD In the book of
Daniel there is a prophecy which refers to a time period of “seventy weeks”,
from start to fulfilment. The actual phrase used in the RSV translation Daniel 9:24, is “seventy weeks
of years”, Other translations (KJV, NASB, NEB) say “seventy weeks”.
However, some commentators tell us that a literal rendition would be “seventy
sevens”. The NIV translation uses this latter term. In Hebrew, it
seems that this term can mean either a week of days,
or a week of years, depending on the context. The Jews did use
language this way. Exodus 16:29,
specifically refers to a week of seven literal days. On the other hand, Leviticus 25:2-4, refers to a “sabbath week” of
seven years; and Leviticus 25:8
to a Jubilee of seven Sabbaths of years. Daniel does not
clearly specify whether he means literal weeks of days, or weeks of years.
However, the translators of some modern versions (RSV for instance) and most
commentators, are agreed that in this place, the context clearly requires years. Many use this
particular reference to support use of the “year for a day” method in other
places in Daniel. THE MILLENNIUM
FOR A DAY THEORY This one uses
“millennia” in place of “days” for the prophecy in Hosea 6:1-3. In this case it is suggested
that Hosea is prophesying about the restoration of Israel in the third
millennium from the time of the prophecy. This is
sometimes loosely justified by quoting Psalm 90:4
and/or 2 Peter 3:8, “With the Lord,
one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”. In another
application of this theory, the seven days of the Creation week are claimed
to represent seven millennia, as the time allotted for the completion of
God's plan with Creation. This present era is predicted to terminate 6000
years after creation, to be followed by a “sabbath millennium” of 1000 years. CALCULATING THE
AGE OF THE EARTH FROM THE BIBLE RECORDS There have been
many attempts to calculate the age of the earth, using the time periods
listed in various places. Many of the genealogies give ages of men when their
sons were born, or when they died. The lengths of the reign of various kings
are another source of input data. However, while
this can result in useful approximate totals, there are a number of factors
which affect the absolute accuracy of any such calculation. The main
problem is the Jewish method of reckoning numbers, which counts parts of
years as whole numbers. i.e. A man might be born in the 500th year of his
father’s life. However the first year of his father's life might have been
only the last month or so of the then current calendar year. The birth might
have taken place very early in the 500th year. Both would be counted as years
by Jewish reckoning, but they would actually total less than one year of
calendar time .....not two! Obviously such errors might be
multiplied. The same
difficulty applies to the lengths of the reign of the kings. Another factor
is that some dates are not mentioned at all and require speculative
assumptions to fill the gaps. Such as some of the periods in history when
Israel was ruled by the judges. One of the
best-known calculations of the age of the earth, was made by Archbishop
Ussher in 1650AD. Ussher dated creation at 4004BC. But there have been many
attempts by others, which produced considerably different results. For example,
the Jewish calculation dates Creation at 3760BC. CALCULATING BY
THE “YEAR FOR A DAY” METHOD Whilst it seems
fairly clear that, for some prophecies at least, we are meant to use this
method, there are considerable difficulties in deciding reliable starting
points in history, and which calendar should be used. For things
Jewish, it would seem valid to use the “standard” Hebrew Calendar for such
calculations. (Including regular cyclical adjustments to conform with the
solar year) Other factors
which may need to be resolved are: 1. Is
there any possible validity for the use of the “Prophetic” calendar instead
of the Hebrew? 2. Have
we read enough of the relevant history to be personally certain of our facts?
Or are we merely exercising the “gift of credulity”, in taking another man's
word about the History? 3. Is
the starting point of our “base historical data” reliable? 4. Can
we arrive at an end point which can be reliably confirmed? 5. How
do we know our sources are reliable? Who says so? And how do we prove that?
Or are we amongst all those other gullible and credulous people who simply
regurgitate the mistakes of others? If we are not
meticulously honest about this we might find ourselves repeating another
man's errors! CALCULATING THE
DATE OF THE CRUCIFIXION PASSOVER- A NEAR IMPOSSIBLE CALCULATION? The consensus
of the gospels is that the crucifixion took place on the Preparation day for
the Passover feast, when the Passover lamb was sacrificed. (This would have
been 14 Nisan). It also seems clear that for that year, the Passover
coincided with the Jewish weekly Sabbath. This would settle Friday as the
Crucifixion Day. If only we knew
for certain how the calendar rules were applied around that time, it would
seem to be a fairly simple matter to calculate the date of the Crucifixion,
by finding a year in which the afternoon of 14 Nisan fell on a Friday. Another way
would be to determine the date of the new moon for the first day of Nisan, by
astronomical calculations, and then extrapolate to 14 Nisan. However,
neither of these can guarantee absolute certainty. The application of the
Hebrew calendar in the first century AD is not adequately
documented. There is no way to be certain about exactly when extra months or
days were added to the calendar. And there is also uncertainty about how
reliably the calendar was followed at particular times in Jewish history. Further, it
appears that, at that time, the actual sighting of the New Moon was the real
determining factor in setting the start of the month. In the event of cloudy
conditions, a special committee of the Sanhedrin made an arbitrary decision,
which while self-correcting over a year, could easily result in occasional
errors of a day for any month during the year. For all these
reasons, while it may be possible to calculate an acceptable correlation
between a particular Jewish and Gregorian year, there is great difficulty in
determining the same correlation for a particular day and month for that
year. For a Passover around the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, according
to some authorities, it is virtually impossible. I have in my
possession no less than three different computer programs, all
of which claim to be able to apply the rules of the Jewish calendar, to the
calculation of the date of the Passover in a particular year. (Including
those around the probable time of the Crucifixion.) For all three, the answer
appears in an instant. Alas ..... all
three give different dates, and/or days of the week, for the crucifixion! WHEN WILL JESUS
RETURN? - THE DEFINITELY IMPOSSIBLE CALCULATION! Over the
history of the Church, many have claimed to be able to calculate the date of
the return of Jesus. Most have used one version or another of the calendar
information above, in conjunction with prophecies which mention time periods.
And many have been led astray by those claims. Matthew 24:4-5, Matthew
24:23-24 By these false
claims, the cause of Christ has been exposed to great ridicule amongst
unbelievers. Associated with
many of these mistaken predictions, there are records of people who sold
houses and possessions, or left employment as the time approached, and then
went to wait at a nominated location. In my childhood my parents told me of
one family who, in expectation of the immediate return of Jesus, purchased
goods on credit, not expecting to have to pay! And in the early years of this
century, in Sydney, Australia, at least one man sought to make commercial
gain, by selling tickets to grandstands specially constructed to view the
event! Of course, they
were all wrong. Some made a big impact on many people, at the time. But only
a fraction of them are recorded in the written history of the many false
prophets, predicted by Jesus! Jesus Himself said
“Of that day and hour no one knows, not even the Angels of
heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only”. Matthew 24:36 And Jesus also said, “It is not for
you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has fixed by His own authority”
Acts 1:7 Nowhere in
Scripture has Jesus changed that warning! CAREFUL! -
THERE IS NO YEAR “ZERO”! One of the
common errors of calculating dates which span BC to AD, is associated with
the fact that there is no year zero. One simple calculation
will suffice to show where the problem lies. Adding 10 years
from partway through BC5 brings us to the same place in the year AD6 .....not
AD5! Look at it this
way ..... April BC5 plus 5 years comes to April AD1. April AD1 plus 5 years
comes to April AD6. Beware the
trap! Many “private interpretations” fall down at this point! DECIDING WHICH
CALENDAR TO USE In Biblical
terms, calendars are important to those who feel a need to calculate dates
for past and future historical events. Equally, for others who speculate
about the meaning of a number of Old and New Testament prophecies, and
especially those who use the “year for a day method”, the credibility of the
result depends on selection of the correct calendar. For many, the
choice seems to fluctuate between the four described above (and sometimes inaccurate
variations of those methods!) depending on which happens to suit the
desired result and the expediency of the moment! Lest we join the many false
prophets, we do need to be totally honest and very prayerfully objective
about our assumptions. Better not to
prophesy at all, than to be dogmatic and then be found wrong. This paper does
not presume to tell you which calendar to use for your own study of prophecy.
It merely describes some of the available alternatives, and lists some of the
difficulties which must not be ignored. For what it is
worth, I presently think that unless there are obvious
compelling reasons otherwise, the default choice should be to use a Hebrew
lunar calendar, which periodically adjusts to the correct length of a solar
year. Over long periods of time, give or take a few days, that will prove to
be almost the same as using the Gregorian calendar. And I might
occasionally have yet another dabble with the “year for a day” method, just
to see what pops up! But ..... my
major conclusion about choosing a calendar to use? It isn't always
easy ..... And sometimes it doesn't seem possible to be definite at all! WHY SHOULD IT
ALL BE SO APPARENTLY DIFFICULT? Does God
sometimes deliberately give information without the key to unlock its
meaning? Indeed, it
seems that He does! 1.
There are future things, for which
no man (not even Jesus!) knows the “times or the seasons”.
Acts 1:7
But there is
also another more hopeful side to the matter!
INSPIRED INTERPRETATION,
OR PRIVATE? Of course, it
isn't always enough to have correct information about which calendar to use!
Peter tells us that it requires the same Holy Spirit to understand a
prophecy, as it did to inspire it in the first place. Without the Holy
Spirit, men can only produce “private interpretations”! 2 Peter 1:20-21 We may also
say, reverently, that it requires the same Holy Spirit to recognise some of
the many cleverly contrived private interpretations from uninspired men, for
what they really are. And it takes
the same Holy Spirit to know that sometimes God has not yet opened our own
minds to understand the interpretation, at all! Getting that
right, requires far more than mere academic ability! CONCLUSION This study
began when our midweek Bible class decided to take a fresh look at some of
the fulfilled prophecies of the Book of Daniel. But that led immediately to
another question. Why might one calendar be more preferable to another, when
trying to come to grips with the Seventy Weeks Prophecy of Daniel Chapter 9?
We still haven't completed the study of the prophecy itself. But at least we
now have some of the background information. Now we have to decide what to do
with it! But first, we
have to answer some new questions about the history. And second, we have to
wade through the pros and cons of the mass of conflicting interpretations,
from historicist and futurist sources. And third,
we have to allocate it a priority alongside what we see as other more
essential kingdom issues. I personally don't expect any of that to
happen overnight! And I certainly don't want to “prophesy” about when it
might come to pass! I certainly
don't want to discourage anyone from prayerful search to
understand things God has written. But I do see a
need for many people who are writing the current crop of books and articles
on prophecy, to be a lot more careful. And I do want to sound the obvious
warning about the mass of confusion that surrounds this subject. “Of making many books there is no end, and much
study is a weariness of the flesh.” Ecclesiastes 12:12 How true that
is! Countless books have been written on the subject all different! And it
seems that almost every Bible College has its own different “flavour”, often
depending on who the resident professor is for that year. They can't
all be right! How important
it is that we humble ourselves to accept that our own feeble attempts to
understand, may run far ahead of God! If we are not careful about that, we
will produce just one more, amongst the many other uninspired and merely
“Private Interpretations” that have plagued the Church for all its history. How important
it is that we remain sensitive to God's Holy Spirit, both to be taught, and
also, often, to know only that we do not yet know! 1 Corinthians 13:12 The most
important thing of all, is that we should first pursue the goal
of loving Jesus and obeying Jesus. Only that guarantees that we
will receive the same Holy Spirit by which the prophecies were first
inspired. John 14:15-17, John 14:26 & Acts 5:32 And if the Holy
Spirit is our teacher, then perhaps we can learn to be honest with ourselves
about the difference between things that we do know beyond question, and
those other things which God has not yet fully revealed to us. Our most
important conclusion? Our
greatest need is to get those priorities in their correct order! |