Thank you to the authors for all of their research and their clarification of contentious issues surrounding the Hebrew calendar. I do not know how I came to have this information and would appreciate knowing how to contact the authors. In the meantime I am posting it on the website as it is a valuable source of information to all who seek to keep the weekly and annual Sabbaths of God.
The Calculated Hebrew Calendar Made Simple
© Dwight Blevins
Carl D. Franklin
January 30, 2014 May 30, 2015 March 13, 2016
Introduction
We live and work in a very complex world. Among the seven billion people living on earth today, there are those who have sent machines into the universe to skirt the rings of Saturn and to rove and map the surface of Mars. Others have developed computer technology so incredibly minute as to be viewed only by a microscope. And by use of nanotechnology, man dreams of computers so small as to float about unseen amid the molecules of air.
In this busy and complex world, God has given us the Appointed Times to be days of festive worship and rejoicing. But for many, the calculated Hebrew Calendar is so complex that it has led to wrangling debates ending in frustration. Such things ought not to be. It is possible, in simple terms, to understand the workings of the calendar.
Like most of you, and like the world renowned newscaster, Bill O’Reilly, I’m a simple man among simple folks. By early childhood I came to realize that I am a being of average intelligence, unable to traverse many mountaintops in this difficult and complex world. By age ten I understood that I would never be able to conquer the heights of the future by a direct approach, going over the top; therefore I must search for ways around, though they be many times longer, to surmount the heights that rise before me.
Seventeen years in the writing, like a trip around the rings of Saturn and back, I have circled the heights of the Hebrew Calendar, exploring its complexities. Had I not taken this journey, I would never have arrived at the doorstep of simplicity. Now, finally, I can explain in simple terms how the Hebrew Calendar works.
In essence, all the calculations of the Hebrew Calendar have been reduced to a few simple pages. All arguments and opinions heretofore are pretty much null and void. They are water under the bridge of time.
Zechariah 4:7 and The Four Corners of Time
Every calendar in the history of man has attempted to measure time by either the solar or the lunar cycle. The Hebrew Calendar is a lunisolar calendar, meaning that it is based on the lunar cycle and aligned with the seasons of the solar cycle.
How can we know the Hebrew Calendar is accurate when there are so many variables? There are twenty-four hours in each day, but the divisions of the day are equal at only two points in the year. The months are no rock of stability as they are based on the lunar cycle, which is not a fixed period of time. The moon wobbles about, expanding and contracting its course with a variance from about 29.25 to 29.8 days, making an average of 29.53 days for a lunar cycle.
The solar year is 365 calendar days, but the solar cycle is actually 365.2425 days. The lunar year is also fractured. If it is to be aligned with the sun for maintenance of the seasons, it must be measured in rotations of 12 and 13 months, resulting in common years of 354.36 days (29.53 x 12) and leap years of 383.89 days (29.53 x 13).
In view of these astronomical facts, it may seem that there is no absolute standard by which to measure time in whole numbers. This is what some may think, but it is not the case.
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