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The World Calendar is Coming!

Sabbaths + Feasts = 2 Calendars?

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The Calendar of the Passion Week

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The new world calendar is proposed for the end of 2017.

http://www.theworldcalendar.org

This calendar is the obvious choice to promote a world economy by fixing many nuisances caused by the present calendar.  Some features of the new calendar are:

• It will stabilize business and school schedules, because all years will be the same.
• Holidays (for example, Thanksgiving and Christmas) will always be on the same day. In today's calendar, there can be between 26 and 32 days between those two.  With the World Calendar, it will always be 31 days.
• Each year will begin on a Sunday, and end on a Saturday.
• Each quarter will contain exactly 91 days, instead of 89-92 as the present calendar.
• Printed schedules and calendars will not expire after one year like they do today.

Of course, 365.25 days is not evenly divisible by 7. But 364 is. So the world calendar will have a business year of 364 days, and the extra day, at the end of the year, will be a world holiday. It will not have a name other than "World Day". That is, it will not be a Saturday, or Sunday, or Monday; it will just be a special "World Day".

So imagine you are counting days by sevens and you get towards the end of the year: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, World Day, Sunday, Monday, etc. Now the day called "Sunday" is really "Monday", according to the seven-day cycle. It gets off by one day per year, except on leap years, which gets off by two days.  Most people will say, "So what? That's how it works." If the Pope, or your church, approves the new calendar, then you must still decide if they have the authority over such things. Does it matter?

If you are keeping a count of a seventh day Sabbath, what will you do? Imagine the world calendar is in place, and you have been keeping careful count of the days. Let's say your Sabbath was on Saturday on the old calendar, and now that same cycle falls on the day called "Monday". Your job requires that you work Monday to Friday. Are you willing to risk your job security by asking for Mondays off that year?

But this raises another issue. How can we be sure that "Saturday" in the present (Gregorian) calendar is the Biblical seventh day?  Let's look at some history to see if we should even be considering such a question.

The modern calendar began in 46/45 BC, when Julius Caesar, in consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, developed the Julian Calendar of 365.25 days. The big innovation was to separate the week from the lunar cycle and to make it a continuous cycle. It used an eight-day market week, with the days simply named "A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H". Certain types of events were allowed on certain days, called fasti.

By the time of the First Century AD, the seven-day week named after "gods" and "goddesses" of the solar-system was being used in Rome, and was starting to replace the eight-day week.

But the 7-day solar system week was:

1. Saturn's day (obvious in English)
2. Sun's day  (obvious in English)
3. Moon's day (obvious in English)
4. Mars' day   (Spanish: Martes, French: Mardi)
5. Mercury's day   (Spanish: Miércoles, French: Mercredi)
6. Jupiter's day   (Spanish: Jueves, French: Jeudi)
7. Venus' day   (Spanish: Viernes, French: Vendredi)

So Saturn's day was the first day of the week. However, the Jews and Christians were not using that calendar until the time of Constantine. Many people know that Constantine shifted the seven day week so that the Sun's day became first (since he worshiped Mithra, the sun "god"), and that he enforced his calendar upon the entire Roman Empire with the power of the military. (This was the famous Sunday Law of AD 321.) But that's not all he did. A big assumption is that he just replaced one day with the day next to it. Was there more to it? Yes, he replaced the Biblical calendar with a pagan one.

Constantine and the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 replaced Passover with Easter. On the surface, that may not seem to be much of a change. But it's not just a matter of replacing one day with another. It's a completely different system of calendation, since Passover is not computed using a Julian calendar.

Because of these changes which were being enforced by persecutions across the Roman Empire, the Jewish Sanhedrin met for the last time in AD 358, and modified the calendar to the form used by most Jews today.

Later in history, Pope Gregory modified Constantine's calendar slightly in 1582. (This was to fix a problem caused by the fact that the year is not exactly 365.25 days long, but 11 minutes shorter.) Like Constantine, the motivating factor was the date of Easter.  So the calendation system used today is Roman / Papal, and the question of when the Sabbath occurs is very important.

Is there anything that we can use as a sure reference to "calibrate" our calendar to?  A sign in the heavens, perhaps?

We know that the Bible says the seventh day is the Sabbath. We also know that the fourth commandment refers to the Creation account in Genesis as the basis for the Sabbath.

Exodus chapter 20 lists the "Ten Commandments". But when we look at the commandments as Moses repeats them in Deuteronomy chapter 5, we notice something unusual.  First, let us verify that they are the same commandments.  We will look at some and note the order.

So they are really the same Commandments. Now let's look at the fourth in detail.

So we see that the Fourth commandment in Deuteronomy does not mention Creation at all. Instead, it talks about the exodus from Egypt. When did the Almighty bring them out from Egypt with a mighty hand? 

We know that when they left Egypt was the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread, at night. We had always been taught that the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread is different from the seventh day Sabbath. But here they seem to be related, or even the same. They are linked by the Fourth Commandment as recorded in two different renderings.

• The Fourth Commandment in Exodus 20 clearly references the seventh day Sabbath based on Creation.
• The Fourth Commandment in Deuteronomy 5 clearly references the seventh day Sabbath based on the deliverance from Egypt, which occurred on the evening of the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread.

The Israelites left Egypt on the day after Passover (the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread) and it was the "fifteenth day of the first month".  Passover is the fourteenth of the first month of the year.  When does the first month begin?  It is the first new moon in the Spring.  All of the months in the Hebrew calendar start at the new moon.  The feastdays (Passover, Tabernacles, etc) are based on a lunar calendar. No one disputes this.  They may argue other points about the feasts and their significance, but no one disagrees that they are found by using a lunar calendar.

Most calendars today use two different systems for the Feasts and the Creation Sabbaths:

• The feasts (Passover, Trumpets, Tabernacles, etc) are based on a Lunar Calendar.  (Actually, a Luni-Solar calender, since it restarts in the Spring.)
• The Creation seventh day Sabbath is based on a Solar Calendar with a continuous seven-day cycle.

Is this correct? Because of the two systems, the Creation Sabbaths can fall anytime relative to a Feast.  For example, in a week-long feast like Tabernacles, a Creation Sabbath can fall on any day of the feast, and it will be different every year.  This seems rather disorganized.  And why would the Passover be announced by a sign in the heavens (the full moon), but the Creation Sabbath be left up to people's counting?  Genesis 1:14 states:

And Psalm 104.19 gives more details:

The word rendered "seasons" here (Strong's #4150) refers to the worship days.  So what would happen if the Creation Sabbath was based upon the same sign (the Moon) as the rest of the feasts?

• All the feasts would always have the Creation Sabbath at the same place every year.
• The Sabbath of Unleavened Bread, which is the 15th of the month, would be a Creation Sabbath, as implied in Deuteronomy 5.15.
• The Feast of Tabernacles would always start on a Creation Sabbath, and the day after the seven day feast would also be the Creation Sabbath.
• The New Moon would begin the month, and start the weeks.
• The Creation Sabbaths would be announced by the phases of the Moon. (First Quarter, Full, Third Quarter, Dark)

In summary, everything would line up nicely if all the feast days (including the Creation Sabbath), used the same calendar. The monthly calendar would look like this:

The format of the Biblical Month.

(NM = New Moon,  W = Work day, S = Sabbath)

W	W	W	W	W	W		NM S
							1
2	3	4	5	6	7		8
9	10	11	12	13	14		15
16	17	18	19	20	21		22
23	24	25	26	27	28		29
							(30)

Note: Moon phases are approximate, and are shown for the Northern Hemisphere; If you're south of the Equator, they are reversed.

The month begins with New Moon day.  This is a special day. It is not a full work day but is a worship day, but it is not a full Sabbath.

It is interesting to note that in the Scriptures, the words "New Moon" and "Sabbath" often occur together.  Does this mean something? 

The Creation Sabbaths follow the New Moon day at seven day intervals. They are announced by the phases of the Moon, which are: First Quarter, Full, Third Quarter, Dark. The 15th day of the month is always the Full Moon. Thus, the lights in the heavens show the feast days, including the Creation Sabbaths.

Have you ever wondered about how the seven-day march around Jericho relates to the Sabbath? How did they march seven days, in offensive battle readiness, and not violate the seventh day Sabbath? Of course, one could reason that they were obeying a direct command from YHWH, so if he told them to wear armor, carry weapons and torches, and conduct a military campaign on Sabbath, then that's what they should do. But is there a better explanation? After all, we know that YHWH was constantly trying to emphasize the importance of keeping the Sabbath, not trying to confuse the issue.

Perhaps they started on the New Moon day, had a seven day march, and then rested on the eight day of the month, which is the Sabbath. In fact, the "Book of Jasher", which is not Scripture but does contain historical information, even says that they started the march on the first of the month, the new moon day.

Let's look at a well-known story, that of Yeshua healing a blind man on the Sabbath. This healing infuriates the Pharisees, and they accuse him of violating the Sabbath. John 7:2 says that it was the Feast of Tabernacles, and John 7:37 says that on the last great day of the feast, Yeshua announced that he was the source of living water. Then in John 7:53 we read that everyone went home (for the night) and the next verse, John 8:1, says that Yeshua went to the Mount of Olives. The next verse says that in the morning they all went to the temple. The actual healing and the reaction of the Pharisees is the subject of John chapter 9.

First, we must note that the Feast of Tabernacles is a seven-day feast.

Next, we notice that it starts on the fifteenth of the month, which is a Sabbath, lasts for seven days, and then the next day, the eighth day, which is the twenty-second of the month, is also a Sabbath.

The Feasts of the Seventh Month: Trumpets (first), Atonement (10^th), and Tabernacles (15^th to 21^st).

(NM = New Moon,  W = Work day, S = Sabbath)

W	W	W	W	W	W		NM S
							1
2	3	4	5	6	7		8
9	10	11	12	13	14		15
16	17	18	19	20	21		22
23	24	25	26	27	28		29
							(30)

Note: Moon phases are approximate, and are shown for the Northern Hemisphere; If you're south of the Equator, they are reversed.

This is exactly what we see in the Gospel of John. Note that the Jews today, following Hillel's calendar inspired by Constantine's persecutions, have to add an extra day (a Sabbath at the end of the seven-day feast), to make this work, and they also will have a "Saturday Sabbath" floating somewhere in the middle of the Feast.

For a detailed discussion of the correspondence between the calendars of the Feasts and Sabbaths, showing:

• the harmony which arises from them using the same calendar for both
• the disorganization caused by having two different calendars

see the article: Sabbaths + Feasts = 2 Calendars?

The calendar declares the times in which business is conducted; the days in which one can buy and sell, and also to rest. The present calendar is based upon, in this order:

1. Julius Caesar, the first Roman Emperor, who desired to rule the world.
2. Constantine the Great, who combined Paganism and Christianity into a church-state military unit.
3. Pope Gregory, who exercised his authority as the head of that union.

Is Pope Francis about to introduce this calendar reform as part of his solution to stabilize a faltering world economy? Once the change comes, you will be forced to make a decision regarding the day of worship. But today you may have seen new evidence that your assumptions about the calendar may not be what is revealed by Scripture and history.