Q. I have read the announcement that the [2018] New Year will start a few days before the equinox. But why? I learned from you (two years ago) that the Israelites waited for the New Year's New Moon until they saw the sun rising true east. Are there new insights? Sorry for bothering, and thanks for your help.

A. Let me first explain how the Creation Calendar determined which years had 12 months and which had 13 months. It all comes down to determining Aviv (since this will naturally include an extra lunar month every 2-3 years in something called the Metonic Cycle).

As I was writing this down to explain this to the people who were asking about 12 /13 month years (and this years Aviv), I rechecked the calendar and saw that there was a RC happening 3-4 days before .

Two years ago, we had the question about if Aviv is always the first Rosh Chodesh after the equinox or the one closest too it. That particular year, there was a Rosh Chodesh the day before the equinox. Since by observation, that particular new moon / Rosh Chodesh morning would have looked like the sun was (just about) rising in the true east (and after a lot of discussion and prayer), we came to the conclusion that in that case, even though it was a day or so before the equinox, it was the correct Aviv. For me, from a practical programming point of view, I was presented with a problem - within how many days before the equinox would a Rosh Chodesh still be considered Aviv? If we simply say the closest Aviv to equinox, what do you do if the equinox is almost the say time / distance between New Moons - which would be determined Aviv then? How would you know by observation which one of those two would be closer and be Aviv?

As I was writing the reply to these people, I was confronted again with these question, and the question if the calendar was correctly determining Aviv for the coming year. I started cross-checking as much data as I could (both astronomical and historical), trying to see if there was anything that could help clarify how to determine Aviv.

I found two or three articles that described how historically, before the Jews used a set formula to decide which years had 12 months and which years had 13, the Jewish Council would determine when a 13th month was by determining which new moon would be Aviv. Pesach (passover) and Chag haMatzah (Unleavened Bread) (which happen with the full moon) always had to fall on, or after, the Equinox, to ensure they were spring feasts. So, if a New moon happened up to 14-15 days before an Equinox, it would be considered Aviv, otherwise they would keep it as a 13th month and keep the next month as Aviv.

Another thing that came up was that the ancient Jewish historian Philo wrote commentary about the symbolism that the major feasts always happened around / in the months of the equinoxes - the spring equinox in the month of Aviv with Passover / Unleavened bread and the Autumn Equinox in the 7th month with Yom Teruah (Trumpets), Yom haKippurim (Atonements) and Sukkot (Tabernacles).

With the way the calendar was calculating at the time of checking, the equinoxes weren't falling in either the 1st or 7th months. When I made the adjustment though (if a New moon happened up to 14-15 days before an Equinox, it is cosidered Aviv), not only did the Equinoxes fall in month #1 (Aviv) and month #7, but I noticed the Summer solstice fell in the 4th month with Shavu'ot (Weeks) (All 3 major feasts - the feasts when all Israelite men were required to assemble before YHWH in Jerusalem - happened in the same months as the major solar markers!)

It was after a lot of prayer that I came to believe the 2018 calendar dates needed to be corrected. I know a lot of people use and rely on the calendar, and I don't take it lightly - I know it stresses out people when there are mistakes, and I don't want people keeping moedim at the wrong times because of mistakes on my part. After realising that the calendar was making this mistake, I began working flat out, trying (by Father Yahweh's grace) to get a temporary fix up that would fix for all the immediate known calendar problems - both the New Year and Rosh Chodesh bugs - as quickly as possible. With hundreds of lines of code to work through though (and where my old work was tangled compared to what I know and how I work now), its was hard finding what is causing some of the bugs. Father Yahweh was incredibly gracious and faithful during the process, and the corrected calendar is now available online, with improved location input and local time zone considerations.

I still intend to do a full rebuild of the calendar, but that will need more time. Yahweh willing, I was hoping to build it flexible enough that people with different questions / convictions about the calendar would be able to change settings to see the differences it makes in the calendar. (e.g. 1st rather than 2nd day Dark day as Rosh Chodesh, people doing sunset to sunset, Rosh Chodesh by Crescent etc), that all who want to honour Father Yah but may disagree about some of the details, may be blessed to do so.

Shalom!

This page was created on 19 March 2018 Last updated on 19 March 2018

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