This observation is interesting too isn't it. You mentioned recently that the solar and lunar cycles align in the 2300 days. Here you also say the passover at the crucifixtion also aligns - both the solar and lunar. Have you tried to figure out why or what that might mean. The alignment occurs every 10 Jubilees less 3.5 years. Hmmm....

I have two questions about your calculation. The Julian day count does deal with the skipped days in 1582? Also, the adjutment for the time difference for the evening of April 26th would be to add two hour so that it would be 9:30 PM in Jerusalem?

Regarding the AB, I doubt now whether the solar part of the AB calendar was used by the ancient Jews to keep the feasts. The Qumran community used the solar part, but I have to say that there is more scriptural support of the lunar calculation of them. While I was looking into the tension between John and the synoptic gospels and some of Ellen White’s statements on the Thursday vs. Friday Passover, I thought a possible solution was the solar part of the AB, but I don’t think so. The feasts are lunar.

I think the answer to the Thursday vs. Friday Passover is that both were Passover days. It would have been difficult to slaughter and apply the blood of the lamb to the altar for tens of thousands of times in the space of a few hours in a relatively small area of the inner court. On the other hand, there is the provision that the lambs were set aside a few days early. Perhaps they could have been offered on any of the following days up to the afternoon of the 14th. There are several precedence’s for making allowances like that in scripture.

Yes.


Yes, it seems I made a mistake in the difference of time zone. I would say it would be risky to try to determine hours and minutes with absolute precision in such a long span of years, but the correspondence we seem to obtain is that, taking approximately the hour of the evening sacrifice in 1844 and going back 1813.5 years, we arrive at approximately the hour of the Passover supper, which began at sunset and extended to the first hours of Nisan 15.
It's a pity Juarez hasn't been participating here, since he is the expert in astronomy who can give you informed answers. I'm not sure I've given you his e-mail address. In case I didn't and you want to contact him directly, please try juarezroliveira@terra.com.br

I'm waiting to hear back from Juarez. I hope he contibutes here. He seems knowledgable in astronomy.

You raised a valid objection not long ago that the AB Calendar is of little use to Adventists unless it can be shown to support scriptural chronology, especially the twenty three hundred day prophecy. You noted that the AB can’t do that unless we know how it is intercalated. Below I’ll look into how to put it to use now and in scripture.

There are two background facts on the intercalation issue that I’ve noted earlier:

1) Juarez in his manuscript, CHRONOLOGICAL STUDIES RELATED TO DANIEL 8:14 AND 9:24-27, at page 91 and 92 points out that the ancient Jews marked the lunar months from the first new moon after the vernal equinox. This is in contrast to the modern Jews who mark the year from the new moon closest to the equinox rather than after it. The ancient practise tells us that the modern Jewish calendar is not the same as the ancient and it is evidence of the possible use of the AB Calendar in ancient Israel.
2) VanderKam notes in his book, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls, at page 102 (ebook version) that Julius Africanus reported that the ancient Jews and Greeks both intercalated three months in eight years. This is probably the strongest piece of evidence I’ve encountered so far that the Jews even of the second Temple period – that is, in Christ’s day – used the AB Calendar rather than the rabbinic calendar in use today which intercalates 7 months in 19 years. Eusebius Demonstration of the Gospel viii.2, 54.

The above facts give us some historical data that explains how the AB is intercalated.

I’ll look now at the text of the AB calendar itself. The description begins by saying that the calendar spans the whole of human history. In contrast to the Mosaic law which was temporary, this calendar is binding “to all the years of the world and unto eternity, till the new creation is accomplished which endureth till eternity.” Enoch 72:1, 2.

The primary laws of the calendar are 1) that the years are determined by the sun 2) that the solar year has 364 days 3) that the solar months begins at the vernal equinox and 4) that the 12 solar months all have 30 days so that the additional 4 days are counted at the end of the year. So far, all of this harmonizes with the calendar data in the flood account in Genesis 7 and 8.

The moon is secondary in the AB Calendar, but only in the sense that the sun determines the start of the lunar year. The text tells us that the moon falls behind the sun by 30 days in 3 years, 50 in five etc., showing that the standard year is solar and that the beginning of the lunar year is determined by the sun. So the intercalation method based on historical data and the text is that every third, fifth and eighth years a lunar month is added and at the end of the eighth year the lunar and solar cycles are realigned, the lunar by adding about two days to bring it back to the observed new moon and the solar by adding either one or two weeks to realign it with the equinox.

Regarding the details of the solar intercalation, the calendar is silent about intercalating beyond the eight year period. From that we infer that realigning the solar part by actual observation was mandatory every eight year cycle similar to the mandatory monthly observations of the Karaites but 99 percent less frequently. And, although the 8 year observation is manditory there is no rule against precalculation of longer periods. If they were accurate projections, the observed 8th equinox would agree with the predicted.

With the above information the calendar could be used today. The only instrument needed would be a simple tool to measure the altitude of the sun - a sextant is the modern name of the tool I think.

The AB Calendar helps to perserve the weekly cycle more easily than modern calendars by specifying a solar year of exactly 52 weeks.

Regarding intercalation, over the eight year solar cycle if the first year of the cycle happened to fall on the first day of the week, a Sunday, this would mean that by the end of the cycle the year would end about 12 days before the first day of the nineth equinox. How should this be intercalated, with two full weeks or with one? The AB doesn't say but only infers that as much time is added as is necessary to make the new year begin at or after the equinox, the principle being that the new year cannot start before the days start to exceed the length of the night.

Any comments? Next I'll test my intercalation method against the known dates of the 2300 days and other scripture. I'm not sure how long that will take before I post again.

For reference, here is the intercalation passage in the Astonomical Book.


Earlier in the thread I noted that the base year of the AB Calendar is the 360 day year.



This passage from chapter 75 is corroborated by the intercalation rules in chapter 74 quoted above. In the first part of the passage it says the days of the sun in the year exceed the days of the moon by six days per year. Since the lunar year in this calendar has 354 days, this passage also confirms that the base solar year is 360 days. (354 + 6 = 360) Notice that the same passage also confirms the longer 364 day solar year. My conclusion is that AB calendar is based on the 360 day year and that it marks time on the solar side with the 364 day cycle and on the lunar side with the 354 day cycle and these two cycle are intercalated according to the above passage in the third, fifth and eighth years and intercalated and realigned in the eighth.

I hope to have material on the application of the calendar to the 2300 days soon.

Rosangela, what is the average spring date for the Karaites for the New Year and the Passover from historical records. If the New Year is occasionally before the equinox this is evidence that the ancient Jews did not follow Karaite reckoning. When I was young we had many sever winters. My memory of the climate is that it’s only been in the last 40 years, maybe less, that there’s been a noticeable change. Have you consulted with a meteorologist who’s studied climate change on the probability of having no early springs?

If the Karaite New Year is often before the equinox then we have evidence from the records that Juarez cites that the Karaite calendar was not used in bible times. Consulting a meteorologist would help confirm if it is reasonable to assume late springs anciently. There may be evidence that could suggest what the weather in that time was actually like. At a minimum we can compare the Karaite New Years of the first half of the 20th century before global warming with the equinox.

Mark,

The are no historical records, but just scattered information. More details here:

http://www.pickle-publishing.com/papers/karaite-reckoning-1844.htm

After the karaites abandoned the observational method in the 1800's, they continued to follow the rabbanite 19-year cycle until the 1990's, when Nehemiah Gordon started to observe again the barley crops.

I posted some of Juarez's material regarding the ancient custom. He relied on it so it was more than scattered information - to him it was evidence. At Bob's site he quote's an author that says the harvest was normally a month later so that most Jews can't offer the waive shief because they celebrate it too early, but the same author also says the harvest could have been before the equinox in a warm year.