I need to clarify/correct one or two things. The seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, if it always began on Sabbath, then it ended on a Friday rather than a Sabbath. The Feast of Booths in the fall though would begin and end on a Sabbath because it spans eight days.

Let’s say for now that is was possible that Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover week) was celebrated on fixed dates as in the Qumran calendar (I said earlier in the thread that I did not think it was, but I’m reconsidering it here) where does that leave us with the Passover sequence at the crucifixion of Christ? Does it pose more problems than it solves? Maybe, but maybe not.

What if the three synoptic gospels and John are both right – that the Passover meal could have been eaten both on Thursday evening and Friday evening? The AB calendar might allow for this because it has both a lunar and a solar month and therefore has two possible Passover dates. Physically it would have been difficult for all the Passover sacrifices to be offered at the temple for the thousands of families that came to celebrate it on a single day.

Another possibility: What if the Passover meal was calculated using the lunar calendar but the two weekly celebrations were fixed dates. Then we could have a one day gap between Passover and Unleavened Bread. This suggestion has some indirect support in the description of Ezekiel’s temple starting at Ezekiel 40. In that description all of the five single-day feasts – the Passover, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement and the single day, unnamed feast at the end of the Feast of Booths - are removed. Only the two week long feasts remain. However the offerings for the new month in Ezekiel’s temple have been ‘upgraded’ in their ritual – and the sin offering is removed!

I've mentioned before that I think Ezekiel's temple is a prophetic illustration of the work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary just before His return at the time of the latter rain. So what I'm saying in the paragraph above is that in the literal temple in Christ's day, the calendar appears to be based on both the lunar and solar months, but the changes in Ezekiel's temple may suggest that aside from the monthly offerings, which may be lunar or solar, the 30 day months are likely used for the two week long feasts and are likely fixed dates.

Rosangela, I’d like to present another argument or two to you in support of the idea that the 15th of the first Jewish month was always a seventh-day Sabbath.

The Qumran calendar is similar to the solar part of the AB calendar, but the Qumran always started the year on a Wednesday. This community appears to be a sect, with their own calendar, but what if the rest of Judaism had a similar calendar based on the AB and started their year on a Sabbath rather than a Wednesday? The result would be that the 15 of the first month would always be a weekly Sabbath and the sheaf would always be waived on a Sunday. In addition, in the seventh month the Feast of Trumpets and the beginning and ending of the Feast of Tabernacles would also always be on Sabbaths. So there is a symmetry between the Biblical feasts and the AB calendar – a good fit.

Now, if we look at Lev 23, and note that it says the sheaf is waved ‘on the morrow after the Sabbath’, we have a plausible explanation for what we had thought was an ambiguity in the text. That is, if the Sabbath is always the 15th, the phrase ‘morrow after the Sabbath’ can only be interpreted in one way because the first day of the Feast and the weekly Sabbath are always the same day. As a result those reading this in Moses day would have had no doubt what it meant.

Those travelling to the feasts would have also benefited from the first day always being a Sabbath. For those further away, it would mean they would have a full six days to make the journey and, if they lived within six days of the Holy City, they would not have to find lodging to rest over the Sabbath.

For me, the main remaining question in this scenario is, where does the lunar part of the AB calendar fit in. Even in the Quman community the lunar cycle was important. Perhaps only for the celebration of the New Moons?

The some of the other remaining questions I am working on are: Explaining the Thursday Passover in the Synoptics and reconciling it to this new possible calendar in 31AD, and; reconciling the AB calendar to Oct 22, 1844.

Regarding the Thursday Passover at the crucifixion and the possiblility of a one or two day gap between the celebration of the Passover and the first day of Unleavened bread, I suggested above a few posts back that it would have been hard for the Jews to sacrifice all of the thousands of Passover animals on the same day.

In Exodus 12:3 the law provides that the Passover lamb was to be selected and set aside on the 10th day and kept until the 14th. One of the reasons for this provision may have been to allow for a staggered slaughter of the Passover animals at the temple when the numbers grew too large to accomodate the crowds on a single day. When Solomon's temple was dedicated, just such a problem occurred. Solomon solved the problem in this case by dedicating a larger area for slaughter so that the sacrifice could be made on a single day. But in the case of the Passover, because of certain aspects of the ritual such as the application of the blood to the horns of the Altar, this may not have been permissible.

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8:64 The same day did the king hallow the middle of the court that [was] before the house of the LORD for there he offered burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings: because the brazen altar that [was] before the LORD [was] too little to receive the burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings. 1 Kings

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Rosangela, the parallel passage in II Chronicles to I Kings 8:64 is also interesting:

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7:7 Moreover Solomon hallowed the middle of the court that [was] before the house of the LORD: for there he offered burnt offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the brazen altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offerings, and the meat offerings, and the fat.
7:8 Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt.
7:9 And in the eighth day they made a solemn assembly: for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days.
7:10 And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away into their tents, glad and merry in heart for the goodness that the LORD had showed unto David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people.

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When the temple was dedicated Solomon, under the inspired instruction left by King David that has been lost, dedicated the alter for a week. This is similar to the dedication of the alter in the Mosaic temple and Ezekiel’s temple. It would be good to study the parallels, and I may come back to this, but for now, notice where the week appears to fit in: In verse 10 above the people leave on the 23rd of the month. In Lev 23 we see that the final assembly at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles is the 22nd. So the week of dedication for the alter appears to be the week before, the 8th to the 14th. If the AB calendar was used, that would mean the dedication went from Sabbath to the following Friday. This is the same pattern in the 70 week prophecy – a week of years in that prophecy runs from the Sabbatical year as year one and runs until the Friday year. I think I learned this from an historian quoting Tertillian who tells us that the year before the destruction of Jerusalem, 69 AD was a Sabbatical. That would confirm that the 490 years began and ended on a Sabbatical – 457 BC and 34 AD respectively.

The main aspect of the AB calendar I’ve not been able to harmonize so far is the Oct 22, 1844 date. The numerical date can probably be reconciled, but the week day is incompatable with the solar part of the AB calendar. Jaurez shows in his book that in 1844, the Day of Atonement was a Wednesday, Jerusalem time. In the AB calendar, if the solar part is used, the Day of Atonement is always a Monday if the year starts on a Sabbath. If the year started on Monday then the Day of Atonement would always be a Wednesday but that would undo the 'fit' of the week long Feasts.

One of the interesting things about the dedication of the altar in Solomon’s temple is that it appears to span the week in which the Day of Atonement fell. If you read both passages in Kings and Chronicles that describe the event, it seems likely that the 14 days of feasts were consecutive and if that is so, the Day of Atonement would have fallen about in the middle of the week while the altar was being dedicated. There is a problem with that however: It would not be lawful for the priests to perform the Day of Atonement ritual at the altar because the altar could not be used to make the Atonement until it was sanctified for the full seven days. Yet the Day of Atonement had to have been kept and it likely was kept after the week of dedication. So this appears to be another example of where a single day feast does not appear to align with Karaite or Rabbinical reckoning, similar to the Passover Thursday at the crucifixion. Again, the solution seems to be that the week long feasts and certain other feasts are calculated using Solar months, while the other feast days may be based on the lunar month.

Going back to the counting of the seven week cycle, I mentioned earlier that the 490 years of Daniel 9 start on a Sabbatical year and follow the same pattern as in the literal weeks of Pentecost. Pentecost came on the day following the seventh Sabbath. The same pattern can be seen in the Jubilee cycle: The year after the seventh Sabbatical, year 50, was the Jubilee. The Jubilee was unique in that it was a special Sabbatical, and also year 1 of the next Jubilee cycle: both the last year of the old cycle, and the first year of the new.

A lot of what I've posted on this thread has been my own thinking out loud rather than any firm conclusions. I've taken that approach because this is a discussion forum.

It may seem odd to some of you that I'd devote this much attention to the topic, but I'm going on past experience in studying Ezekiel's temple. After I'd invested a lot of effort looking into that topic there were times when I wondered if it was really worth it, but looking back now, I don't have any doubt that making a systematic comparison between the Mosaic tabernacle, Solomon's temple and Ezekiel's temple was well worth the effort. There is still so much more to learn on that topic - areas that I know I do not understand well - but I have a better overview: I'm better equipped now to look at specific aspects.

I still have my doubts at times that this topic merits all the attention I've been giving it, but I usually come back with a positive answer. If we understand the sacred calendar better, we will understand prophecy better, including last day events. We will never have all the details mapped out for us because God will test our faith, but if we understand prophecy better and the divine calendar, then, like the early Adventists on Oct 22 1844 we will be in a better position to understand why things unfold they way they do.

In Leviticus 8 and 9 there is a description of the dedication of the altar and priesthood. The dedication of the priesthood is more prominent but there are indications in the text that the altar was dedicated at the same time. And during the dedication of these, on the eighth day, the Priests make an atonement for themselves and the people that is similar to that made on the Day of Atonement, but also has some important differences. So above when I suggest that the Day of Atonement must have been kept later, I am probably mistaken. In this case, the atonement was more likely the eighth day of the dedication. That would harmonize better with the types because the sanctuary was brand new that Solomon had built and would not have required the Day of Atonement cleansing – no sin had been transferred to it yet by the daily ministry.

Rosangela, I did some analysing of the texts the Karaites use to say that the moon is the only scriptural timekeeper. As you might have guessed, my conclusions are different from theirs.

Regarding the Hebrew words for month or months, the main word used (about 261 times out of 269 times in the OT) implies a connection to the new moon. Hebrew scholars tell us that the word for month is related to a root meaning ‘new’. The interesting thing however is that the same word for month is used in Genesis at the description of the flood where the month has 30 days. This is our first clue that the Hebrew word for month can be applied to non-lunar months in the bible.

The other Hebrew word for month is much less common in scripture. It occurs about 8 out of 269 times in the OT. It is not related to the word ‘new’ but is related to the word ‘moon’, and I was interested to learn that it is used in three ways: Three out of the eight times it is used to name a particular month. (The main Hebrew word above is used in the same way but more often.) Three times it is used in the same way as the other Hebrew word, for example, to say that an event took place over the span of one month. But two of the times it is used to describe a ‘full month’, apparently meaning 30 days. See Deuteronomy 21:13 and 2 Kings 15:13. The main Hebrew word is never used in this way.

The conclusions I’ve come to are that 1) both Hebrew words for month can be used to indicate a month of 30 days, 2) that it is not clear if the less common word can include a solar month, probably not, but that 3) the more common word can refer to either a lunar or solar month.

That the more common Hebrew word can refer to either a lunar or solar month tends to be confirmed when this word is translated ‘moon’ rather than ‘month’ in scripture. In every case where the same word is rendered ‘moon(s)’, 19 times, it is always preceded by the word ‘new’. This suggests that the word ‘new’ in front of the common word for ‘month’ or ‘moon’, is needed to distinguish or clarify that a lunar month is intended rather than a solar month.

The phrase ‘new moons’ occurs 11 times in OT scripture and each time it is used to describe the sacred holidays. Most, if not all of the times this phrase appears, the phrase ‘set feasts’ or ‘appointed feasts’ appears with it. The Karaites teach that the terms ‘set’ and ‘appointed’ mean ‘set by the moon’ and cite Psalm 104:19 as proof of this.

However, regarding Psalm 104:19, “He appointed the moon for seasons, the sun knows its going down”, NKJV, the text implies that both the sun and the moon have a timekeeping role, and this is confirmed in the creation account in Genesis and in other texts. The phrases ‘set feasts’ and ‘appointed feasts’ are usually juxtaposed to the phrase ‘new moons’. An alternative, and in my view, more likely reason for distinguishing the ‘new moons’ from the ‘set feasts’ is that while the timing of the new moon varies from year to year, the timing of the feasts using the solar calendar was ‘set’ or ‘fixed’ at the same time every year. This tends to be supported by the fact that the 11 texts referring to all of the sacred holidays consistently break them down into three classes – the Sabbaths, determined by the weekly cycle, the New Moon feasts, determined by the lunar cycle, and the ‘set feasts’, determined by the solar cycle.

This scenario would explain why the Qumran community was concerned with both the lunar and solar cycles: the former was used to celebrate the New Moon feasts, while the latter was used to celebrate the ‘set feasts’. The New Month feasts in the solar calendar of Quman are conspicuous by their absence. Being the highly devout community that the people of Qumran were, it is inconceivable that they did not follow the Mosaic law requiring the New Months to be celebrated. The most likely reason that comes to mind for the absence of the New Month feasts from their solar calendar is that these holy days were logged on their lunar calendar, possibly using the ‘mishmarot’ cross-referencing system referred to earlier in this thread. I’ll look into that more.