Lost In Time?

Did you know that time as defined by the Creator of all is not calculated according to the Gregorian calendar?  In fact, using the Gregorian calendar to keep track of time likely has put you on a different time line from the Creator, Yhwh.

What?  Let me explain.  The Roman calendar is not the same calendar used by those who faithfully recorded the scriptures.  The Hebrews, also called Israelites for all twelve tribes, or Jews after the one still-identifiable tribe of Judah, kept time according to what was recorded by Moses in the Torah (the first five books of the “old testament”).

For starters, the Christian method of calculating days begins at midnight, 12 a.m.  However, according to the creation account found in Bereshit (Genesis), the entire night was first and then the day, so the two in that order comprise one day.  At sundown, a new “day” begins…the night hours and then the daylight hours which comprise one day.  For the Jews worldwide, now as well as 1,000’s of years ago, a day begins at sunset.

Even the beginning of years, for Christians, does not follow the biblical method.  The beginning of the year, according to the Torah, does not begin in January, named after Janus the two-faced god of the Romans on the Gregorian calendar, but in the month of Abib (which roughly corresponds to late March early April on the Roman/Gregorian/Christian calendar).  The month of Abib is the month that the children of Israel were led out of captivity in Egypt and marked the beginning of the year.  The time of year in which the month of Abib falls is spring and  corresponds to the harvest of the barley crop according to the Torah.  It is the month in which the Passover was instituted.

Ex 12:1-4

Now Yhwh spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, "This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: 'On the tenth day of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household…

Ex 12:6-8

Now you shall keep it [the lamb] until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight [the end of the day]. And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 

Ex 13:3-4

And Moses said to the people: "Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand Yhwh brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. On this day you are going out, in the month Abib.”

Ex 34:18

"The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.”

Deut 16:1-3

"Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to Yhwh your Elohim [mighty one], for in the month of Abib Yhwh your Elohim brought you out of Egypt by night. Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to Yhwh your Elohim, from the flock and the herd, in the place where Yhwh chooses to put His name [which is Jerusalem]. You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.

Knowing the history of how time has been reckoned is important for an accurate understanding of what is written in the scriptures and in the gospels and letters of the “new testament.”  Without understanding how the Jews of 2,000 years ago kept time, you might end up thinking that the Jewish messiah was hung on a tree on Friday (named after Frigga goddess of the sky) and raised from the dead at “dawn” on Sunday, or dies solis, “sun’s day,” the day of the invincible sun, a pagan Roman holiday.

For more information on calendars and the reckoning of time, any good encyclopedia can furnish a great deal more information.  There is not much excuse for having a wrong understanding of how time was and is measured by the Jews.  To persist in a lack of knowledge in this area will lead you to incorrect conclusions about what was written in the pages of the gospels, the acts of the Jewish apostles, and the letters of the apostles to their brethren and fellow believers.  A thorough study of “time” would be a great starting point in finding out what you may be overlooking or misunderstanding in the scriptures and/or the later writings of the Jewish apostles.