Jewish-Christian relations and the LUNAR CALENDAR

Jewish-Christian relations and the LUNAR CALENDAR.
+ my Comments.

From Beginnings of Christianity: An Introduction to the New
Testament by Howard Clark Kee:
“Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian (37-100? CE) who
became a collaborator with the Romans when they invaded
and took over direct control of Palestine in response to the
Jewish revolt (67-70 CE), twice refers to Jesus in his Jewish
Antiquities.
L. H. Feldman, the translator of Josephus in the Loeb Classical
Library, has also produced a huge volume, Josephus and
Modern Scholarship (1937-1980), in which he provides
summaries and critical observations on more than thirty- five
hundred books and articles dealing with Josephus and his

writings. Section 23 of the work is devoted to the bearing of
Josephus's writings on the history of Christianity, of which a
major portion deals directly with the "Testimonium
Flavianum," as it came to be designated by scholars.
THE OVERWHELMING CONSENSUS IS THAT THIS
PASSAGE HAS BEEN INTERPOLATED BY CHRISTIANS.
Josephus's second reference to Jesus appears in Jewish
Antiquities 20.200, where he is dealing with the struggles for
power that characterized life in Judea prior to the revolt of 66
CE.”
Conclusion:
“Josephus also described the various voluntary groups within
Judaism at the turn of the eras, including not only the
Pharisees and Sadducees—who are mentioned in the New

Testament—but also a group called the Essenes.
The latter believed that God was directly active in human
life.
As noted above, they were convinced that the incumbent
priests were corrupt, that the temple was not where God
dwelt among his people, and that their group must call
their contemporaries to proper worship of God and
prepare them for the coming new age in which the
purified covenant people and the true temple would be
established.
These Dead Sea documents foster an apocalyptic view of
this new Jewish community, which claimed to be the true
covenant people and perceived the collaboration of the Jewish

leadership with the Hellenistic rulers (and later, with the
Romans) as evidence of corruption and actions contrary to
God's purpose for his true people.
Hence the members of the true People of God were to
withdraw to "the wilderness" in order to "prepare the way"
for the fulfillment of God's purpose for them.
There they were to live in complete obedience to the Law
and the Prophets.”
Christians 'DO NOT REALIZE HOW' MUCH THEY ARE
JEWS.
They carry the 'SOUL OF JUDAISM'.
They can't STAND BEING TOLD THAT, because they are
'proud to be Christians', but if there is no Judaism, there
is no Christianism.

“The claimed disclosure of the divine purpose to this chosen
community.
On entering the community they were to take an oath to
obey every commandment of Moses "in accord with all that
has been revealed to the Sons of Zadok, the Keepers of the
Covenant and the Seekers of his Will": the leaders of the Dead
Sea community.
They were to live "in the wilderness" by these precepts until
there would come to them the Prophet, the Messiah of Aaron,
and the Messiah of Israel—the royal and priestly messiahs.
In the Messianic Rule (IQsa) found among the scrolls, those to
be excluded from the "assembly of God" are the paralyzed, the
lame, the blind, and the deaf.
The War Rule (1QM) describes the eschatological conflict
with the powers of evil—Light against Darkness—which will

lead to the defeat of these evil forces and the vindication of
the People of God.
The agent through whom this triumph will come is "a star out
of Jacob" (Num 24:17-19).
The Midrash on the Last Days (4Q174) announced the coming
of two Messiahs: the Branch of David, and the Interpreter of
the Law. In the Qumran document 11Q, Melchizdek (building
on Gen 14:17-20) is portrayed as the head of the "sons of
heaven," who serves as God's agent of justice—a role that will
continue until the final eschatological judgment and the
defeat of Satan, the Prince of Darkness.

It is expected that this leader will denounce those who rebel
against God and that he will announce the coming of peace
and of the "anointed prince" and comfort those who mourn.
Clearly the aims of this Jewish movement as reflected in the
Dead Sea Scrolls—to redefine the covenant community and to
identify the messianic agents through whom the definition and
the actualization will occur—were shared by the early
Christians.
The resolution of these issues by the early Christians, however,
was radically different from that of the Qumran community.”

From Dating the Passion: The Life of Jesus and the
Emergence of Scientific Chronology (200-1600) (Time,
Astronomy, and Calendars) by C. Philipp E. Nothaft:
“Notwithstanding the problems posed by the Passion
chronology, the presence of implicit lunar calendar data
(14 or 15 Nisan) along with a clearly attested weekday
(Friday) in the four Gospels.
Since the calendar at that time was based on the sighting
of the new moon crescent.
Moreover, astronomical calculations can only show that the
moon was visible on a particular day, but never whether there
was an actual sighting (which could be prevented by adverse

atmospheric conditions), let alone if the Jewish authorities at
the time really deemed it fit to ‘sanctify’ the new moon for
this exact day.
In addition, 3 April, AD 33, was the date of a partial lunar
eclipse that may have been visible over Jerusalem during
the evening of the crucifixion.
It is conceivable that the memory of this phenomenon
influenced certain passages in the Gospels and the Acts of the
Apostles, which record a “darkness” during the crucifixion
(Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44–45) and a “moon
turning to blood” (Acts 2:20).

Implicit in the latter is a powerful typological image,
according to which Christ, as the sacrificial Lamb of God,
was slain on the same day as the Passover lamb.
This notion is already present in the Pauline epistles (1
Corinthians 5:7), where Jesus is directly identified with
the Passover lamb.
It also helps explaining why, during the first three centuries of
Christian literature, the day of Christ’s crucifixion was
commonly associated with 14 Nisan, the day of
preparation for Passover.
FROM THE SECOND CENTURY ONWARDS, however,
Christian communities in ROME AND ELSEWHERE began to
put greater emphasis on the weekday of the resurrection,

making it binding practice to celebrate Easter on the
SUNDAY that followed the Jewish Passover.

While this step helped TO EMANCIPATE THE
CHRISTIAN PASCH from its JEWISH PREDECESSOR,
the fact remained that 14 Nisan was a full moon date in the
Jewish calendar.
FOR CHRISTIANS WHO HAD CONVERTED FROM
PAGANISM, THIS CREATED SOMETHING OF A
PROBLEM.
Ever since the Julian reform of 46/45 BC, the Roman calendar,
which was used by most subjects of the empire in everyday
affairs, had been PURELY SOLAR, with an average year
length of 365.25d.”

You can understand why I said in ANOTHER
TEXT/VIDEO that the Christians had INSERTED THE
LUNAR ELEMENT in 'a SOLAR CULT'.
“It was thus only natural if the Julian calendar became the
framework for the emerging Christian liturgical year, with
the birth of Jesus ending up on 25 December, THE
TRADITIONAL ROMAN DATE OF THE WINTER
SOLSTICE.
Yet the question remained how Easter, as a date tied to
the moon, could be accommodated within this framework.
In this context, it is striking to observe that some Christian
communities reacted to the problem by redefining 14 Nisan as
the 14th day of the first month in their local SOLAR

CALENDAR, thereby divorcing the remembrance of the
crucifixion from the full moon.

The fifth-century church historian Sozomen reports that the
Montanist sect of Asia Minor used to set Easter on April 6 or
the Sunday thereafter, following a solar calendar whose first
month of spring began on 24 March, while from Epiphanius of
Salamis we learn that certain groups from the same region
always celebrated the Pasch on 25 March.
For all others, who wanted to retain the LUNAR NATURE of
14/15 Nisan, it was necessary to keep track of the
JEWISH PASSOVER.
As long as the lunar months were determined empirically, it
was impossible to foretell with any certainty the date of
Passover, FORCING CHRISTIANS TO AWAIT THE
RESPECTIVE DECISIONS OF THE JEWS.

This ongoing dependency of Christian liturgy upon JEWISH
CALENDATION must have been a continuing source of
UNEASE FOR THE YOUNG CHURCH, especially in times
and places where CHRISTIANS WERE EAGER TO
EMANCIPATE THEMSELVES FROM THE SYNAGOGUE.
Given such circumstances it was difficult, if not impossible, for
the church to retain its desired goal of UNITY by celebrating
Easter on the SAME DATE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
It is thus no surprise if Christians, from the early third century
onwards, were no longer prepared to “walk in blindness and
stupidity behind the Jews,” as it was put by the anonymous
North African author of the De pascha computus (243), the
earliest preserved treatise on Easter reckoning.

This outspoken WILL TO EMANCIPATION gave rise to the
development of lunisolar cycles, adapted for the Julian
calendar and specially designed for the calculation of the
moveable feast days.
While several varieties of such cycles were proposed
during late antiquity, they were all based ON THE SAME
INSIGHT that, after a given number of years, the Easter
full moon was bound to return to the same Julian
calendar date as in some previous year.
The interval between two such years comprises both a whole
number of Julian years (365.25d) and a whole number of
lunar months (29.5306d).

The ratio between both periods has to come as close as possible
to the decimal fraction contained in the excess of twelve lunar
months compared with a Julian year, which is 0.3685 (365.25 ÷
29.5306 = 12.3685). The latter can be approximated using the
following common fractions: 3/8 (0.3750); 4/11 (0.3636); 7/19
(0.3684); 31/84 (0.3690).
As can be seen from these values, the most exacting approach
will be to intercalate seven lunar months in every 19 years, i.e.
to equate 19 Julian years or 6939.75d with 12 × 19 + 7 = 235
lunations.
Moreover, since 235 lunar months are one day in excess (12
lunar years of 354d + 7 embolismic months of 30d + 4.75
Julian leap days = 6940.75d) over 19 solar years, one lunar day
will have to be dropped at the end of each 19-year cycle.

To medieval computists, this mechanism was known AS THE
‘LEAP OF THE MOON’ OR SALTUS LUNAE.
While the 19-year cycle or enneacaidecaëteris was by far the
best possible approximation to astronomical reality within
reasonable length and eventually emerged as the sole standard
of Easter reckoning in East and West, alternative cycles, based
on luni-solar ratios of 3/8 (octaëteris) and 31/84 (Supputatio
Romana), were also in use during late antiquity and sometimes
competed with the 19-year cycle, which was championed by
the Alexandrian church since the late third century.
Given the many different flavors of lunisolar calendation, it is
easy to overlook that the chief purpose of these devices was to
calculate a Jewish date—the 14th of Nisan, which in Christian

usage BECAME REFERRED TO AS THE ‘EASTER FULL
MOON’.
At first glance, it would seem that Easter cycles did not fulfill
this objective very successfully. Since the Jewish calendar of
the Mishnah followed empirical criteria, the Christian Easter
full moon was bound to deviate from 14 Nisan, as it was
observed by the Jews, in many years.
Christian writers from the fourth century onwards are often
found polemicizing against the calendar of contemporary
Jewry.
A prominent early example for this stance is a lost tractate On
Easter by Peter, the patriarch of Alexandria from ca. 300–

310, which is fragmentarily preserved in the seventh-century
Chronicon Paschale. Peter accused the Jews of regularly
celebrating their Paschone month too early, which in his
mind was a violation of the rules once established by Moses.
As he saw it, the Jewish calendar had changed for the worse
after the destruction of the Second Temple, whereas his church
still preserved the legitimate reckoning, which had been
observed at the time of Jesus.
The discrepancies, which Peter and other authors are found
complaining about, seem to have mainly arisen from the ‘rule
of the equinox’, which was an element characteristic of
Alexandrian (and later Western) Easter reckoning.

According to this rule, the Easter full moon cannot fall earlier
than 21 March, the supposed date of the vernal equinox.
If the Jews disregarded this rule in Peter’s time, they were
bound to celebrate Easter a month earlier on many occasions.
Sacha Stern has recently confirmed this picture by showing
that before the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish
Passovers tended to fall in April rather than March,
presumably in order to give pilgrims enough time to reach
Jerusalem.
By contrast, the available evidence for the fourth century
points towards Passovers’ being celebrated in March and hence

often ahead of the equinox.
As a result, those Christians who insisted on following the
Jews instead of observing the Alexandrian rules would in
many cases have celebrated on a different date than the
mainstream church.
Their practice was condemned at the Council of Nicaea (325),
as can be inferred from a letter sent by Constantine the Great
to Syrian and Palestinian bishops, but apparently lingered on
in parts of the East, as can be seen from the fact that John
Chrysostom and an anonymous Anatolian homilist still felt the
need to inveigh against dissenters in their own communities as
late as 387.

Christian writers in the Latin West, by contrast, had little
exposure to these kinds of polemics, which mostly stem from
the Greek East.
A general lack of available sources on the Jewish calendar
other than the Old Testament soon led to a situation where
early medieval scholars ceased to differentiate between the
biblical calendar of the Hebrews and the calendar of the
Jews that they may or may not have encountered in their own
time.
Instead, they went on to by and large identify Jewish lunar
months with the lunations of the Alexandrian 19-year cycle,
sometimes following an assumption that this cycle had
already been revealed to Moses at Mt. Sinai.

The construction of new Easter cycles virtually ceased after
the mid-fifth century, although debates over the acceptance
of particular cycles continued well into the early medieval
period, especially on the British Isles, where the Celtic churches
long upheld specific computational traditions that separated
them from Rome.
This apparent halt in technical development, however, did not
lead to the kind of intellectual stagnation one might expect.
Hundreds of surviving manuscripts from the seventh to the
tenth century testify to the importance of the computus—
the reckoning of Easter—to scientific learning and
monastic education in this period, making it clear “that
almost every person educated in a monastic school was

taught at the least the basics of this science.”
Authorities such as Dionysius Exiguus, whose 95-year Easter
table became the basis for most of subsequent medieval
computistics, had provided the necessary information for
finding the date of Easter, but they generally remained
silent on points such as the exact position of the embolismic
months in the Julian calendar, the date of the ‘leap of the
moon’ or the exact sequence of ‘full’ and ‘hollow’ months in
the lunar year.

This early medieval tradition of computistical textbooks
reached its acme with De temporum ratione, written by the
Northumbrian monk Bede the Venerable in 725, who became
the foremost authority for Western computistics and Christian
chronology until the Gregorian reform of the calendar in
1582.”
THE CHRISTIAN SEES HIMSELF as the Owner of the
West, While with his SPLITS and Quarrels he has created
ONLY DESOLATION in the West. Until the Christian
Nazism, which almost finished to finish Europe of its
Young population.

It would take a 'Reformer' WITH A HUGE PAIR OF
BALLS TO SAVE THE WEST; and to start Dismantling
CHRISTIANISM 'POINT BY POINT'; Re-educating THE
YOUTH population, undermining the Church; instilling the
pagan spirit, or at least a Spirit that is no longer Messianic
and MILLENNIALIST.
TO BREATHE LIFE BACK INTO THIS WESTERN PEOPLE.
BUT I DON'T SEE THE 'WEST DOING THAT'.

Although the lunar element is present and HIDDEN IN
BROAD DAYLIGHT, Christians HAVE NO IDEA of their
—Jewish Origin—.
CHRISTIANS always COMPLAIN about the Jews but are
really jews.
If the Christian Westerner were not passive and RESIGNED
LIKE THE JEW, THEY WOULD NOT LET THEMSELVES
be destroyed AS THEY LET THEMSELVES BE
DESTROYED 'PSYCHOLOGICALLY'.
The Christian is a “Jew at heart”.

He does not like it and SEEKS EMANCIPATION, but
emancipation comes WITH THE WILL TO TAKE HIS
'DESTINY IN HAND'. What the Christian refuses to do
'SINCE THE FALL OF ROME'.
And the fact that 'He tried to exterminate' every last JEW
IN EUROPE does not change the fact that he is a Jew.

Jewish-Christian relations and the LUNAR CALENDAR

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (16)

Similar to Jewish-Christian relations and the LUNAR CALENDAR

Similar to Jewish-Christian relations and the LUNAR CALENDAR (20)

More from Periodic Reset Of Civilizations

More from Periodic Reset Of Civilizations (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Jewish-Christian relations and the LUNAR CALENDAR