Good point.

On a different topic, I'm studying Thiele's book, The Mysterious Number of the Hebrew Kings. He's a thorough scholar, but the main weakness I see so far is that he assumes different methods of tracking time were used by the same writers of scipture in Kings and Chronicles. Part of his theory is that the system of tracking the reigns for Isael's kings were inclusive so that the first year of one king was also the same year as the deceased king while he believed that in Judah, there were usually no overlapping years - most of the time.

The problem with that system is that it assumes there is no inspired calendar and no inspired method of reckoning periods of time such as a reign. But it seems to me that a sciptural principle for time reckoning does exists - that is, that part of a unit, for instance, a day, is taken as a full unit in time computation. So when Christ says he would be in the tomb three days, it means you count from Friday and include Sunday. If there is an inspired calendar and reckoning, then an inspired writer who is aware of it would reckon time by that standard regardless of how time is reckoned in the surrounding nations.

But, his work is good, and if there is an inspired calendar, then I'm hoping that the evidence he analyses may make it possible to synchronize it with other ancient and modern secular calendars including our own. At any rate, it's interesting material.

I studied Thiele's book last spring and found it pretty interesting but my concerns stay the same - it is a good resource but has the shortcomings I mentioned in my last post.

Recently I also had another look at the flood account in Genesis 7 and 8. I have to say; I'm convinced it is the strongest evidence for the calendar of the Astronomical Book found in the Book of Enoch as being the true Divine/Biblical calendar. To recap, here is where my understanding on this topic is now:

1) God does have a Divine calendar that marks all events on earth. For example, He knows and has marked the dates of the first and second Advents of Christ on His calendar.
2) The calendar of the Astronomical Book (called the AB calendar on this thread) is a faithful and accurate description of that calendar. Of course, God has not marked all the events of the future on the calendar for us.
3) Unlike the Gregorian Calendar (the one used by western nations today) which is solar, this calendar is luni-solar and also prophetic with the base year being exactly 360 days, the lunar year exactly 354 days and the solar year 364 days. The latter two years are intercalated periodically with the lunar intercalations occurring every third, fifth and eighth years and the solar intercalations every eight years.
4) The calendar that was used by certain Jews shortly before the time of Christ by a community called Qumron, is identical or almost identical to the AB Calendar. It is described in the famous Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered shortly after WWII.
5) The modern Jewish calendar is fairly close to the AB calendar in determining lunar dates.
6) The Karaite calendar is also fairly close to the lunar aspect of the AB Calendar.
7) The account of the flood provides the best evidence that this calendar was used not only by the Jews but also the patriarchs, but there are several other passages that give us clues that this is the divine calendar.

Regarding the main features of the AB Calendar, the solar aspect is almost identical to a calendar proposed in our day for global calendar reform and which we will probably hear of much more during the Mark of the Beast crises. This reformed calendar follows the AB calendar in creating a year of exactly 52 weeks, months of exactly 30 days and a year of exactly 364 days. The reformed calendar hasn’t been accept though because to keep it synchronized with the year, it adds a ‘blank’ day or days that in effect create a week of eight or nine days once each year and thus destroys the weekly cycle. In contrast, the AB calendar intercalates one or two complete weeks every eight years. And of course unlike the AB Calendar, the reformed calendar is strictly solar.

Biblical evidence supporting the AB calendar includes the following:

1) The flood account records two 150 day periods and contains five dates. Most scholars, including Isaac Newton, agree that the first two dates, ‘the seventeenth day of the second month’ and ‘the seventeenth day of the seventh month’ mark the beginning and the end of the first 150 day period when the ‘waters prevailed’ on the earth – Gen 7:24. This is proof that the Biblical month contains 30 days. The second period of 150 days is described in Genesis 8:4 as the time when the waters decreased. The final three dates in the account are the 1st day of the 10th month when the tops of the mountains were first seen again, the 1st day of the new year when Noah took the roof off of the ark, and the 27th day of second month when Noah and his family and the animals came out of the ark. This part of the narrative is describing the stages of recession of the water and the drying of the earth. Since the second 150 days covers this period the only dates that can apply are the 1st of the tenth month to the 27th of the second. The first period establish a solar month of 30 days. This second period is the key that allows us to know the length of the year in days because it tells us how many days to add given a solar month of 30 days. The easiest way to think of it is to say, if the year had 12 months of 30 days for a year of 360 days and none were added at the end, then 150 days would extend from the first day of the tenth month to the first day of the third month – five months of 30 days. But since the 150 days of drying ended four days earlier on the day before Noah left the ark, the Biblical year has 364 days. And this agrees with the AB calendar. The solar year of the AB Calendar has 364 days.
2) The account of the flood can’t be harmonized with the lunar Jewish or Karaite calendars. It is not possible to have 5 complete lunar months of 150 days because a lunar month is about 29.5 days long. So this period is 2.5 days too long to be harmonized with those calendars.
3) But the lunar aspect of the AB calendar can be harmonized with the flood account. In the AB calendar the lunar portion is not used to mark time. It is used to mark the new moons.
4) The Jewish and Karaite calendars also can’t be harmonized with the prophetic reckonings of scripture. The AB calendar’s base year is 360 days with the lunar year being 6 days less, or 354 days, and the solar year 4 days more or 364 days. It is probably no coincidence that this is the case. The solar cycle points to man’s relationship to God and the first four commandments. The lunar cycle points especially to human spirituality and man’s relationship with man. The last 6 commandments apply to this aspect. Both aspects are governed guided by God in humanity by the prophetic spirit, and so the basis of the Divine calendar is the 360 day year. This is the prophetic aspect of the AB Calendar. This is especially important to Adventists who correctly attach importance to the prophetic year which always has 360 days. All the end time prophecies of Daniel and Revelation contain years of 360 days and months of 30 days.

Rosangela said earlier in the thread that the Karaite Calendar is the one that God gave to Israel as a temporary measure. This is how she reconciles the time reckoning of the flood which can't be lunar with the clearly lunar reckonings of the feast days. If the Jewish/Karaite Calendar was temporary, then we have no basis for calculating the Day of Atonement in 1844. And we have no basis for calulating the unfulfilled aspects of the fall feasts - the feast of trumpets, the complete fulfilment of the Day of Atonement and the feast of booths.

The better view is that Moses who described the flood in detail on the calendar and who also gave the Jews their calendar used the same calendar to describe both the flood and the feasts. So rather than a new calendar being given to the Jews, it was simply the same one used by all of the patriarchs but more detail was added at the time of the Exodus when the annual feasts were added to the lunar part of the calendar.

Rosangela cited some commentaries that suggest the flood account offers support for the existence of the lunar year - that the lunar and solar years differ by about 10 days. This is reading into the account the opposite of what it suggests in an attempt to harmonize it with the lunar feasts of the Jews. It requires us to treat the two 150 day periods as being round figures. This is not consistent with the accuracy of the Bible and of Moses. Granted, there are round figures given in the bible in different passages, but in the flood account where exact dates are used, the time 150 day periods are also to be understood as being precise.

If we have the starting date of the 2300 days, we have the finishing date. You just add 2300 solar years to the starting date.


The feast of trumpets came before the Day of Atonement, so if it does have a fulfillment at all, this fulfillment has already occurred.
As to the “complete fulfillment of the Day of Atonement and the feast of booths”, how do you plan to calculate them?

If you add the solar years you do come to 1844 but to calculate the day and month you have to use a calendar as the Millerites did. If you say the Karaite calendar expired at the cross, a reasonable and valid position since you think it was part of the Mosaic law, then you don't have a calendar for calculating the exact date.

But if the AB calendar is used which is not part of the Mosaic law but was used by the patriarchs before Moses, the Jews as documented by the DDS, the flood account etc, then you have a calendar that covers the full span of history and all time prophecies can be calculated by it.

Let's take the one feast that everyone agrees is in the future - Tabernacles. If the Karaite calendar is temporary we have no scriptural way to calculate the date of that feast. That position is in effect an admission that our use of the Karaite calendar in 1844 was wrong. But if there is a scriptural way, and there must be because the Sabbath and New Moons will be celebrated in heaven, then there must be a scriptural calendar.

Since the Sabbath is not temporary there must be a divine calendar as I've said.

So, the AB calendar is the answer to your last question. Calcualting the Sabbath isn't an issue because that cycle was never lost. How do we use it to know the true New Moons today. We have to do research like the Millerites did, but do an even better job to establish the probable intercalation method. We may not be able to establish it with a high level of certainty, but it may be possible. I've offered some suggestions.

Whatever calendar brings us to October 22, 1844 would be that calendar, would it not?

We can reach the right conclusion - like Oct 22 - using a mistaken method. I'm saying the date is right but the calendar used by Miller is unscriptural. In this case it gave the right result, but the Karaites themselves tell us that in 1844 they celebrated the Day of Atonement one month earlier than the Millerites calculated it.

The AB Calendar, if we knew exactly how to use it, would give the right result in 1844, at the crucifixion and in prophecy in general because the evidence shows it to be the scriptural calendar. While I don't have complete proof of it in terms of showing how it was used, it's clear from the flood account that there was a pre-exodus calendar that is not part of the Mosaic law.

Mark,


No. Taking the date of the crucifixion (day/month/year), it’s possible to calculate the starting and finishing date (day/month/year) of the 2300-day prophecy, just by adding solar years. This is what Juarez does.


Why on earth would we need to calculate the date of a feast which will occur in heaven?

The karaites in 1844 were following the rabbinical calendar, not the karaite calendar. The exact date of the Day of Atonement according to the karaite calendar in 1844 is virtually unknown, since we don’t have a crop report from Jerusalem in that year.


That’s the problem. You affirm that a given calendar is the divine calendar, but you don’t prove it and you don’t know even how to use it!