God’s Calendar

and the

Sign of Jonah

How Jesus Truly Spent 3 Days And 3 Nights In The Grave

Bruce Armstrong & Bruce Harris

Central Highlands

Congregation of God

Published by

CENTRAL HIGHLANDS CHRISTIAN PUBLICATIONS

PO Box 236, Creswick, Vic  3363  Australia

Email info@chcpublications.net

Web Page https://chcpublications.net

Seventh Edition

Copyright © 1993, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2014, 2020, 2022

Revised 1 August

Permission is given to copy and distribute this document provided it is not altered and is copied completely.  Copies must be given away. We ask only that you notify us if you are making numerous copies.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Central Highlands Congregation of God version.

Distributed by:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for appointed times, and for days, and years.  And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.”

And it was so.

And God made two great lights and the stars: the greater light for ruling the day, and the lesser light for ruling the night.

Genesis 1:14-16

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees responded, and they said to Him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

So He answered, saying to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.  For just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Mankind be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

Matthew 12:38 to 40

Table of Contents

The Sign of Jonah and Our Saviour

We will start by exploring Jehovah’s calendar, as it forms the essential matrix that all the other components fit into.

Does the Bible Establish its Own Calendar System?

God gave His people a series of unique Holy days, which include the weekly Sabbath (Genesis 2:2-3 & Exodus 20:8-11) and the annual Great Sabbaths such as Passover/Unleavened Bread, Feast of the First-Fruits (Pentecost), Day of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, the Feast of Booths (also called Tabernacles) and the Last Great Day (Leviticus 23).

The dates of the annual Sabbaths are determined by God’s unique lunar-agricultural calendar.  The calendar is simple and distinct, requiring only direct observation of the crescent of the visible new moon after sunset to determine the start of each month and the ripening of the spring barley crop near Jerusalem to determine which visible new moon starts each new year.  We will show that the Bible sets out the basic rules of this calendar, and thus it is God who determines the dates of His annual Holy Days.  Our Christian Holy Days article reveals that these Holy Days outline God’s entire plan of Salvation and have deep significance for Christians.  This plan begins with the death and resurrection of God’s Son (Passover & Wave Offering), leading to Redemption, Obedience, Water Immersion (Week of Unleavened Bread), Immersion in the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), the Messiah’s Return and our Transformation (Day of Trumpets), Rebellion (culminating in Atonement), the Millennium of Peace (Feast of Booths), the Last Rebellion, the White Throne Judgement (the Last Great Day) and New Jerusalem in the Eternal Kingdom.

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees responded, and they said to Him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

So He [Jeshua] answered, saying to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Mankind be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.”    Matthew 12:38-40

Our research also found that the predecessor to the calculated calendar currently used by Judaism was only used in Jeshua’s time to support new moon observations.  That is, it was used to estimate new moon visibility on evenings when cloud cover prevented direct observation and to assist observers in locating the new moon on more favourable evenings.  We were convinced that if God’s calendar system could be determined from Biblical sources, we could be certain that the Messiah, as God’s Son, would have used only His Father’s Biblical calendar to determine the date for Passover.  Applying the Biblical calendar to these events would then resolve any disputes about their timing.

The Biblical Basis of God’s Calendar

Some of the scriptures that determine the Biblical basis of the calendar are:

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for appointed times, and for days, and years:  And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

And God made two great lights; the greater light for ruling the day, and the lesser light for ruling the night: he also made the stars.    Genesis 1:14-16

God tells us that He has made the lights in the heavens.  The King James translation says they are to determine the “signs and seasons”. However, the sun and the moon do not inherently determine our seasons.  Our seasons are caused by the inclination of earth’s axis relative to its orbit. The Hebrew word the KJV translates as ‘seasons’ - מוֹעֲדִ moade- literally means “appointed times”, as in the above translation.  But what are these Appointed Times?

‘These are the feasts of Jehovah, holy convocations which you will proclaim at their appointed times.    Leviticus 23:4

The same Hebrew word -moade- is used here, among many other places, to refer to the timing of God’s Annual Sabbaths.  This entire chapter of Leviticus details when these appointed times occur.

He appointed the moon for appointed times; the sun knows its going down.    Psalm 104:19

This passage confirms that the moon is used to determine God’s “Appointed Times”.

“This new moon is your beginning of new moons; it is the first new moon of the year to you.”    Exodus 12:2

God says the month (literally new moon, from חֹדֶשׁ chodesh as translated above) of the Passover is the first month of the year.  The “shall be” added in some translations does not exist in the Hebrew text, so this passage is merely restating the status quo, not changing the start of the year.

The warming of the weather in spring is of course what matures and ripens the grain, and is caused by the inclination of the earth as it revolves around the sun each year.  And though the increasing day lengths in spring are important, it is the ripeness of the barley that is critical to deciding which new moon crescent will begin God’s New Year.  The roles of the ‘greater light’ and the ‘lesser light’ in determining God’s Appointed Times given in God’s Word have now been established.  These events will be examined in more detail below.

The Day

The Biblical day is a solar day which runs from dusk to dusk (Leviticus 23:32).  For an agrarian society it is natural to end the day at dusk, coinciding with the end of the daylight hours.  Dusk is a logical and easily determined endpoint.  This method of defining a day goes right back to the first day of Creation.  God began creating in darkness, made light later in the day and completed that day at dusk (Genesis 1:1-5).

The New Moon

Determining the timing of each of God’s months requires the observation of a simple astronomical event which clearly marks the beginning of the month.  (Please note that none of the astronomical events mentioned in this article have anything to do with astrology or worship of the heavens.  These are both things that God specifically forbids—See Deu 4:19 and Isa 47:13.  The occurrences we are using are purely beautiful markers that God has given us so we can use His calendar.)

“God said: Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to separate the day from the night, that they may be for signs—for appointed times, for days and years, and let them be for lights upon the earth! It was so.” (Genesis 1:14-15).

“2320 חֹדֶשׁ chodesh {kho’-desh} from 2318; the new moon; by implication a month. Chodesh means ‘new moon; month.’ (1) The word refers to the day on which the crescent reappears.”  (The New Strong’s Expanded Dictionary of Words in the Hebrew Bible, p.81)

“2320 the new moon, the day of the new moon, the calends of a lunar month which was a festival of the ancient Hebrews.” (Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, p.263)

Here is its root (Hadesh): “2318 חַדֵּשׁ TO BE NEW, to be new, recent . . . to produce something new . . .also to polish a sword. Etymologists have well observed that its primary sense is that of cutting or polishing . . . and the signification of newness appears to proceed from that of a sharp polished splendid sword.” (Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, p.263)  The very word itself points to the scimitar-like appearance of the crescent sliver of the moon (i.e., sharp polished splendid sword). A dark conjunction is not “sharp,” nor “polished,” nor like a “splendid sword,” but these very well define the crescent moon.

As the average lunar cycle is about four weeks plus one and a half days long, the Annual Holy Days, such as Passover, fall on different days of the week from year to year as will be explained later.

Because sighting the new moon was vital to the entire calendar, God commanded that the first day of each month was to be marked by special offerings and the blowing of ceremonial trumpets. (See Numbers 10:10 and I Chronicles 23:31.)  Moses Maimonides, in his classic work Sanctification of the New Moon explains that sighting the new moon was an important ceremony in Jewish religious life.  The first chapter of his work, written about 1175 CE, clearly acknowledges that observation of the crescent new moon was initially the decisive element in determining the start of the month.  As time passed, calculations helped determine which evenings the new moon should be visible to assist observation.  As the power of the Jewish religious court grew, calculations were used to support or dispute the observations.  Eventually the court grew so self-indulgent that it actually ignored the observations totally and used its own calculated calendar to determine the timing of God’s Calendar, and thus set their own Holy Days.  As will be explained below, this final stage probably occurred several centuries after Jeshua of Nazareth was impaled.

Ezekiel 45:17 and Ezekiel 46:1 to 3 show that the new moon will continue to be important even during Jeshua’s Thousand Year Reign.

‘New Year’s Day’—When is Abib 1?

The annual part of God’s calendar, ie- determining which day marks the beginning of the New Year, is very different to the Gregorian calendar.  The Gregorian New Year day is determined almost solely by the solar cycle.  The number of days in the months have been chosen to make the length of a year almost exactly one solar year.

The new moon observations and annual searches for “Abib” that are conducted by Christians (https://abibofgod.com/) and Karaite Jews near Jerusalem confirm (or occasionally correct) the dates given by our calculations.  The Karaites (Heb. Bnei Mikra—meaning “Followers of the Scriptures”) are a Jewish sect which reject many of the Rabbinical traditions of Judaism.  Please note that the Karaites are, like us, very keen to follow the Biblical calendar, but they are not Christians at this time.

Timing of the Annual Holy Days

The way that God’s Holy Days mesh with His observational calendar are summarised in Leviticus chapter 23.  They are briefly examined here to illustrate how these Holy Days are central to the Impalement and Resurrection of Jeshua, our transformation and the establishing of God’s Everlasting Kingdom.  They are all explained in more detail in our Holy Day Service Transcripts.

The Last Supper

Curiously, the first ceremony on this list was by far the last to be instituted.  It is just under two thousand years old, and was instituted by Jeshua, our Messiah, during the evening beginning the Passover day on which He was sacrificed.  Read Matthew 26:1 to 27:31, Mark 14:1 to 15:20, Luke 22:1 to 23:25 and John 13:1 to 19:16 and you will know much of what happened that evening and into the next morning.  You will also know that Jeshua instituted the Footwashing Ceremony that evening, in which we all wash another person’s feet, and also gave us the Eucharist (Thanksgiving), spiritually consisting of Jeshua’s body and blood.

Passover

The first annual observance mentioned in Leviticus is Jehovah’s Passover, which is “on the fourteenth day of the first month, between the evenings” (Lev 23:5).  It is not a Great Sabbath as the other annual Holy Days are, meaning work can be done during it.  It is also uniquely described as happening ‘between the evenings’, which by Jewish tradition is regarded as the time between mid-afternoon and dusk, and it was during this time on this day that they sacrificed their Passover lambs as God commanded them to do (Exodus 12).  This was the day that Jeshua, the Lamb of God (John 1:29, Revelation 5:6-13) was impaled and the time that He died was the moment that the sacrificing of the lambs began (Luke 23:54).  God also calls this the Day of Preparation, as the lambs were slaughtered and food made in preparation for the First Day of Unleavened Bread, as recorded in John 19:14 & 31, Matthew 27:62 and Mark 15:42.  The meaning of Passover and the other Holy Days are discussed in more depth in our Holy Day Service series and the Christian Holy Days document, which also shows from Scripture that God’s Holy Days were actually instituted before the Earth was created and are still in force today.

Unleavened Bread

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a week-long feast which begins at dusk after the Passover (Lev 23:6 to 8, Exodus 12:14 to 20).  Sometimes the entire feast, including the preparation day, is referred to as the Passover.  The night beginning this first day of Unleavened bread is to be a night of solemn observation.  It is a memorial of the night that all of the first-born of the Egyptians died when the angel (God’s representative) of death passed over and even more, it reminds us that we are spared from eternal death by partaking of the body and blood of the Lamb of God (Exodus 12:42, John 1:29, 1 Cor 11:24).  And note this carefully: if any Israelites had refused to kill their lamb and paint its blood on their doorway, their firstborn would also have died, just like the Egyptians.  If we refuse to keep God’s Holy Days, why should we expect Him to give us everlasting life?

The First Day of Unleavened Bread was important to the Israelites for at least 430 years before the Exodus Passover.  This was the day on which God and two angels dined with Abraham and God promised to establish His covenant with Isaac, who was born to Sarah on this date exactly one year later (Gen 17:21, Exodus 12:40-41).

The Last Day of Unleavened Bread corresponds with the Soph (Red) Sea crossing, in type showing us how if we keep walking with Jeshua, one day we will be completely free from sin, as the Israelites were at last free from their Egyptian slave-masters.  The first and last day of this feast are holy convocations on which no work is to be done aside from simple food preparation, ensuring everyone can devote their time to worship and learning.  Thus the great days are the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the first month of God’s calendar. Extra significance is added to this feast by considering the fact that the new season’s crop could not be harvested or eaten until after the Wave Offering during the Feast.  This reflects on a physical level how we as Christians should also feed on the body and blood of Jeshua and walk in newness of life on a spiritual level.

Wave Offering

The Wave Offering falls on the day after the weekly Sabbath (ie Sunday) during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:9 to 14).  During the year that Joshua began to occupy the Promised Land, the Wave Offering fell on the day after Passover, thus allowing them to begin eating the new season’s crops the day after Passover (Jehoshua 5:10 to 12).  As the Wave Offering falls on the Sunday during Unleavened Bread, it varies from the 15th to the 21st of the first month as the day of the week of Abib 1 varies.

The day of the Wave Offering is not a holy day in itself so normal work, such as harvesting the barley and cooking can proceed after the Wave Sheaf has been offered.  If the Wave Offering coincides with one of the annual great days of Unleavened Bread only sufficient work is allowed to provide food (eg new season’s barley) for the day.  It was at the time of the Wave Sheaf Offering that the resurrected Jeshua (the beginning of God’s Harvest) ascended to his Father (John 20:17).

The Feast of Weeks

Leviticus 23:15 to 22 outlines this feast, also known as the Feast of Harvest (Exodus 23:16) or First-fruits (Num 28:26) or Pentecost (Greek for ‘count 50’ Acts 2:1).  It occurs on the fiftieth day from the day of the Wave Offering.  This is the Sunday seven weeks and a day after the Sabbath near the start of Passover/Unleavened Bread.  Leviticus 23:21 confirms that the Feast of Weeks is to be kept on the “selfsame” day, which is Sunday the 50th day.

It is linked to the first month of the year by this counting method and is therefore part of the beginning of God’s Plan of Salvation as noted in the Christian Holy Days booklet.

This holy day was when the Holy Spirit was first placed into Jeshua’s disciples and is still kept by the true Christian church (Acts chapter 2).

Day of Trumpets

This Great Day is the first day of the seventh month (Ethanim, also called Tishri) according to God’s calendar (Leviticus 23:23 to 25).  It marks the beginning of the next phase of God’s Plan of Salvation; Messiah resurrecting his faithful followers and returning to overthrow Satan and his servants to prepare the world for His righteous Kingdom (1 Thessalonians 4:16).  All of the remaining Holy Days fall in this month, indicating that they are all related, and that they complete God’s Plan of Salvation.

Day of Atonement

This holy day (annual Sabbath) is kept on the 10th day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:26 to 32).  The war against Satan is over.  He and all of his servants have been defeated (Revelation 19:11-20:3).  Atonement shows how Satan’s sins are finally placed back onto his own head.  It is also a special time that sinners can seek God’s mercy and become part of Jeshua’s Millennial Kingdom on earth.

Feast of Booths

This Feast runs from the 15th to the 21st day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:33 to 44).  Booths is a celebration of God’s kingdom ruling on earth under Jeshua the Messiah’s leadership for one thousand years of peace and plenty (Revelation 20:1 to 6).  The week celebrates the growth of that Kingdom and God’s People.  The first day (the 15th) is a Great Sabbath.  This Feast also marks the completion of the harvest in Israel.

The Last Great Day

The “eighth day” of the Feast of Booths is the final annual Holy Day, falling on the 22nd day of the seventh month.  It marks the White Throne judgement by God in which all the unrepentant sinners are destroyed and Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire (Leviticus 23:36, Revelation 20:7 to 10, 1 Corinthians 15:22 to 24).  Then begins the fullness of Jehovah God’s eternal Kingdom for all His children, starting with New Jerusalem coming down to Earth (Revelation 20:11 to 22:21).

These are the instructions for God’s Biblical calendar.  Simple, direct observations can confirm all dates for those living in Israel.  Jerusalem has been chosen as the focal point at which observations of the new moon should be made as it is where God chose to have His Palace/Tabernacle built and it will become the spiritual capital of the entire world (1 Kings 8:1 to 12; Zechariah 14:16 and Revelation 21:1 to 11).

Determining the Calendar Dates for Various Years

However, how can one determine the dates of God’s calendar when your location or especially when the year you wish to inquire about makes direct observation impossible?  This is a serious problem when trying to apply God’s calendar system to events that happened almost two thousand years ago.  Is it possible to calculate the visibility of the new moon and the maturity of the barley crops in ancient Israel?

Calculation of the New Moon

When we first attempted to discover the actual time of Jeshua’s impalement, we began by using the average length of the lunar cycle to determine the time of the sun-moon conjunction.  We then estimated the probability of seeing the new moon by considering the time of day the conjunction occurred.  We later discovered that this is basically the method used to determine the traditional Jewish calendar.

We slowly discovered that the visibility of the new moon was mainly determined by the difference between the sun and moon’s setting times, the distance apart they were in the sky, the height of the moon above the horizon at civil dusk and how much of the moon was illuminated.  To find these things required accurate calculations of the positions of the sun and the moon as viewed from a specific location on earth.

Calculating the position of the sun and thus its setting time is fairly simple, as it is a massive body with a very predictable motion.  However, accurately calculating the position of the Moon is not an easy matter.  Such a calculation was only crudely possible at the time the Rabbinical Jews developed the current version of their calculated calendar.  Many factors affecting the position of the moon have only been understood during the last two hundred years.  To determine even the most important orbital and gravitational influences on the moon’s position requires calculations hundreds of lines long.  One mistake can make the entire calculation meaningless.

Calculation of Abib 1

Is there a mathematical alternative to the observations of ripening barley and other indications that the Wave Offering is immanent that  are available to determine the beginning of the new year?

In springs with unusually early harvests, new moons seen as early as the 8th of March can become Abib 1, as happened in 2019.  Most years, the barley will not be ready for the Wave Offering that early, so the next new moon will become the first month of the new year.  This situation means that the Wave Offering can occur from the 24th of March to the 12th of May, which coordinates well with the spring harvesting of the traditional winter barley crops.  Most years the New Moon is seen in late March or early April and there is no doubt as to which New Moon is Abib 1.  Our calculated calendar shows two sequences for years where it is possible to have an early or a late harvest in Israel, adjusting the calendar by the omission or addition of a thirteenth month preceding Abib.  But the calculation itself cannot tell us which of the two dates is correct.  Detailed weather information can indicate which of the two dates is more likely as spring progresses, but local examination of the ripeness of the barley is the only certain method.

Thus the Biblical lunar-agricultural calendar can be determined by astronomical calculations for most years, but some years God can alter the dates with crystal clear skies or haze, clouds and unusual weather.  As all the Biblical Annual Holy Days are dated from the new moons of the first and seventh months (Abib and Ethanim), this calendar yields the dates of all the Holy Days.

The program has enabled us to accurately calculate the positions (and thus the setting times, visibility, etc) of the sun and moon on the evenings that would have determined the start of Abib 1 in the year of Jeshua’s impalement.  We thank God for providing His unique calendar system which can be used to precisely determine the time of the Impalement, and many other Biblical events, even thousands of years later.

Our formula calculates the Visibility Number (VN) as the difference between the sun and moon setting times plus the percentage of the moon illuminated times 27, plus the altitude of the moon at sunset times 5.5, minus the altitude of the sun at moonset times 5, all divided by 1.7.  If the VN is above 100, the new moon is likely to be seen.  This formula thus balances the four main factors influencing the visibility of the new moon.  The software can be downloaded from our website at https://chcpublications.net/  It includes a verification section that allows you to set up the calculations for your own location so you can check the accuracy of the calendar’s predictions and see some beautiful new moons.

Development of the Rabbinical Calendar

As we discussed earlier, calculations are only essential for people living away from Jerusalem or for learning the time of past or future new moons.   For those living in Jerusalem, determining which month is Abib can be decided by looking at the maturity of the local barley crop.  If the barley will be ripe enough to harvest for the Wave Offering, looking for the new moon after sunset for two or occasionally three days after the next sun-moon conjunction will reveal the 1st of Abib.  They do not need either a computer program or a priesthood to tell them when Abib 1 begins, though the calculations can help them find the New Moon crescent in the sky.

A calculated calendar only became necessary after the Jews were removed from Jerusalem and dispersed throughout the Roman Empire.  Other reasons for the Jewish religious leaders to institute a calculated calendar were power and convenience.  Establishing themselves as the calendar authorities gave them power over the people, and supposedly even God, as they appointed themselves as the arbiters of the timing of the Holy Days.  Convenience stemmed from the fact that using a predetermined calculated calendar would allow precise future event planning as it dictated when the various new moons and their Holy Day festivities would occur.

There is not a single word in the entire Bible about how to set up or use a calculated calendar.  Adherents of the rabbinical calendar sometimes claim that Romans 3:2 gives this calendar its authenticity as the verse says that the “oracles of God” were entrusted to the Jews.  The word oracles is translated from the Greek word logion.  It literally means utterance in English, and is derived from logos, which means Word.  It is obvious that the utterances of God are preserved for us in the Bible.  It is also obvious that as the Bible speaks only of an observational calendar, therefore the oracles, or utterances, of God only endorse the use of an observational calendar.  To claim that any calculated calendar, including both ours and the rabbinical calendar, has been authorised by God is blasphemy.

Some Jewish sects reject the ‘traditional’ rabbinical calendar even today.  They hold to observation as the only scripturally correct method of determining the new moons and Holy Days.  They feel that the rabbinical calendar is an insult to God.  They have sound reasons for this concern.  This quotation from the Shabbat 10b (part of the Mishna, written during the first two centuries CE) shows the arrogance that some Rabbis assumed in setting their calendar:

“Rabbi Pinhas and Rabbi Hilkiah said in the name of Rabbi Simon: Each year, all of the ministering angels appear before the Holy One, praised be He, and ask, “Lord of the Universe! When does Rosh Hashanah occur this year?” And He answers them, “Why do you ask me? Let us inquire of the earthly court.” . . .

“Rabbi Hoshayah taught: When the earthly court decrees “Today is Rosh Hashanah,” the Holy One, praised be He, tells the ministering angels, “Set up the court room, and let the attorneys for defence and prosecution take their places, for My children have stated ‘Today is Rosh Hashanah.’” But if the earthly court should reconsider and decide that the following day should be declared the first of the year, the Holy One, praised be He, tells the ministering angels “Set up the court room and let the attorneys for prosecution and defence take their places on the morrow, for My children have reconsidered and decided that tomorrow is to be declared the first of the year.”

Jehovah God decrees His Holy Days, NOT fallible man!  And note that when this rubbish was written, well after the Anointed was impaled, the rabbinical Jews were still not fully committed to a fixed calculated calendar as there would have been no possibility of ‘reconsidering’ when Rosh Hashanah fell.  Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Trumpets which occurs on the 1st of Ethanim, the first day of the seventh month.  Rosh Hashanah means ‘head of the year’, signifying that by this time the Jewish idea of a ‘civil year’ beginning on the 1st of Ethanim was well established.

Accuracy of the Rabbinical Calendar

Tables 1 and 2 compare the rabbinical dates with our accurate astronomical calculations based on Biblical principles and actual observations.  The results show that for one of the twenty years examined the rabbinical calculation starts the year one month too early.  We do not have barley data to confirm the 1999 Abib.

If you compare this table with astronomical “new moon” calculations, please remember that what is now called the astronomical new moon is actually only the earth-moon-sun conjunction.  Though we begin by calculating the conjunction, it is  which evening the new moon crescent will first be visible to an observer with good eyesight in Jerusalem that is critical.  Thus, if the new moon is visible on the evening of 29 March, 1998, the first day of the first month (1 Abib) is given as 30 March because the day extends from dusk on the twenty-ninth to dusk on the thirtieth, thus including all the daylight hours of 30 March.

The 2008 data is a clear example of the inaccuracy of the rabbinical calculations.  Tables 1 & 2 show us that the rabbinical calculations predict that the new moon will be seen on the evenings of the 5th of April and the 29th of September.  However, accurate astronomical calculations reveal that the moon will set 36 minutes before the sun on the 5th of April and 11 minutes before the sun on the 29th of September.  The new moon cannot be seen until it is lagging well behind the sun in setting time, making observation of the new moon on both these dates totally impossible.  In both cases, the new moon was not seen until two evenings later.

Table 1:  Comparison of Dates for Abib 1

Given by the Biblical and traditional ‘rabbinical’ calculations and Observed Abib 1. Dates in brackets are less probable dates for days when the visibility of the new moon crescent is borderline.  The Observed Abib 1 is the day following the evening when the first new moon crescent is seen after Aviv barley has been confirmed.  Observations were compiled from the Israeli New Moon Society, Brian Convery et al (https://abibofgod.com/) and Nehemia Gordon (Karaite).  * indicates a postponement due to a cloudy/hazy day and the -- means no observation reports.

Comparing these Abib results, and ignoring 1997 for which we don’t have observation results, show that the traditional rabbinical calendar correctly calculates only seven of the twenty-eight 1st of Abib dates (only 25% right).  Four of the years were out by an entire month (Two were a month early and two a month late).  Our Biblical calculated calendar fares much better: 25 of the 28 Abib 1 dates were proven correct, and of the three wrong, two ‘visible crescents’ and one ‘probably visible’ crescent were not seen due to overcast or hazy conditions (at least 89% right).

Table 2:  Comparison of Dates for Ethanim 1

Given by the Biblical and traditional ‘rabbinical’ calculations and Observed New Moon.  Dates in brackets are less probable dates for days when the visibility of the new moon crescent is borderline or years where two months are options for Abib.

Comparing these Ethanim results, and ignoring 1994 and 2022 for which we don’t have observation results, show that the traditional rabbinical calendar calculates only two of the twenty-seven 1st of Ethanim (Day of Trumpets) dates correctly (only 7% right).  Three of the years were out by an entire month (One was a month early and two a month late).  Once again, our Biblical calculated calendar fares much better: 24 of the 27 Ethanim 1 dates were proven correct (89% right).  Of the three that were wrong, the one ‘visible’ crescent that was not seen was due to overcast conditions, while the two borderline possibilities were seen due to excellent conditions.

The data indicates that the Rabbinical calendar does manage to select its Abib month fairly well, but it lacks the flexibility needed to allow for early and late springs.  And it starts most of its months one day or even two days too early, showing that its ability to calculate the visible new moon is very poor.  This means that Rabbinical Jews only rarely observe God’s Holy Days on the correct dates.

The inaccuracies of the rabbinical calendar are partly due to the rudimentary knowledge of the moon’s motion when their calendar was being developed.  Sadly, now that much better calculations (and better yet—direct observation) are available, Judaism has rejected accuracy in favour of tradition.

Apart from the crudity of the rabbinical calculations, another error in their calendar arises from the fact that they only calculate the conjunction time for the seventh month.  The date for Abib 1, the real start to the Biblical year, is not directly calculated and is only determined by subtracting 177 days from Ethanim (Tishri) 1.  Oddly enough, this makes Abib 1 right more often than Ethanim 1, due to the fact that the actual difference averages about 177.18 days, so it provides an extra 4.3 hours to see the crescent.

The Jews themselves also recognize the deficiencies of the rabbinical calendar as shown in this quote from Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972; p.47):

“the present [calendar] system was expected to be replaced again by a system based on true values more akin to the earlier Jewish calendar in which new moon and intercalations were proclaimed on the basis of both observation and calculation.”

Origin of the Rabbinical Calendar

Curiously, some Christian organisations accept the rabbinical calendar as being authoritative.  One example is United Church of God, who claims that the rabbinical calendar calculation was the main method of determining the date of the Annual Holy Days during Jeshua’s ministry and continues to use Worldwide Church of God’s faulty calendar (See Footnote 38, page 41 on the dodgy WCG calendar).  There is some evidence that basic calculations were occasionally used then, but were only used to assist with and collaborate direct observation.

The existence and official use of the current rabbinical calculated calendar at the time of Jeshua of Nazareth is denied by every authority on the calendar that we have read.  The most optimistic historians place the beginning of the current Jewish calculated calendar at 359 CE.  They claim that Hillel II introduced the calendar at that time.

However, Samuel Poznanski (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, 1908 Ed., Vol 3, pp 118-120) says this about their claim:

“the tradition, which stands quite alone, is confronted with grave objections. Of these the following two are of special weight: (1) The supposed calendar is never referred to in the Talmud, which received its final redaction at the end of the fifth century. Nothing whatever is said there about the length of the month, or the nineteen-year cycle, or anything else of the kind. (2) . . . Moreover, from the earliest post-Talmudic age we have dates which cannot be reconciled with the regular calendar in use today.”

“In point of fact, everything goes to indicate that the calendar, like all other productions of the kind, passed through a developing series of forms, and that it assumed its final shape in the schools of the official representatives of Judaism (called Geonim) in Babylonia. To the period of the Geonim, say the 7th and 8th cents., likewise belong two tractates relevant to the subject. One of these is entitled Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, and contains almost all the elements of the modern calendar (caps. 6-8), but it shows so many instances of self-contradiction that we must assume the presence of various interpolations. . .”

“In the 7th and 8th centuries, again, Judaism in the East was disturbed by the rise of various sects, many of which refused to recognize the existing calendar. One of its outstanding assailants was Anān b. David, the founder of Karaism (2nd half of 8th cent.), who abandoned the method of computation, as being repugnant to Scripture, and reinstated that of lunar observation. . .”

“The importance attached to the recognition or repudiation of the then existing calendar may be gauged by the fact that the official circles of Judaism were free to intermarry with the Isawites, who actually recognized Jeshua and Muhammad as prophets, but not with the Karaites, the ground of distinction being simply that the former received the calendar while the latter did not.”

“. . . the Karaites . . . reverted in all respects to the ancient practice of determining the time of new moon by observation, and intercalating a 13th month when required by the state of the crops, ie, the ripening ears (ʼAbīb).”

“. . . Nor do the modern Karaites recognize the so-called dehiyoth, ‘displacements’.”

Maimonides claims that these displacements are designed to average out the inbuilt errors in the rabbinical calculated calendar.  The truth is that the real reason for this practice is that the Jews decided it was too difficult to have two Sabbaths in a row.  As the Karaites point out, there is absolutely no Biblical support for these ‘displacements’.  The Karaite practice of observing the Wave Sheaf Offering and Feast of Weeks on Sundays is accepted by the United Church of God (UCG).  This practice results in having two Sabbaths in a row (the seventh-day Sabbath followed by Pentecost) and contradicts the Rabbinical calendar.  Obviously it is possible to have two Sabbaths in a row.  It also opens up this question for UCG—If the Karaites are right about this aspect of the Holy Days, could they also be right in insisting on direct observation of the new moon and ripening barley as the only scripturally approved method of determining the timing of God’s Holy Days?

However, when direct observation is not possible, surely the most accurate calculations available should be used.  Our calculated calendar simulates actual observation of the new moon in Jerusalem as exactly as we can.  When any observational data conflicts with the formula we use to predict visibility, the process is re-examined to increase its accuracy.  As only God has the authority to set the dates for His Holy Days, and He reveals these appointed times using His greater and lesser lights (Gen 1:14-18), any calendar system which does not match with the observations of the new moon crescent is useless.  On this requirement the rabbinical calendar fails miserably.

The calculations shown in Table 3 reveal the day of the week and the date of the Passover in the year of Jeshua’s impalement.  However, the usefulness of the calculated Biblical calendar is not limited to only this critical issue.  It is a powerful key that can unlock the exact time of many biblical events.  It can also help us determine the true time of God’s Holy Days today, so we can keep Jehovah’s Holy Days, not man’s.

THE SIGN OF JONAH

Our original interest in the timing of God’s Holy Days arose from our attempt to find out if Jeshua actually spent three days and three nights in the tomb as He said He would:

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees responded, and they said to Him, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

So He [Jeshua] answered, saying to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.  For just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Mankind be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.    Matthew 12:38 to 40

As the Good Friday-Easter Sunday tradition only allows a maximum of two nights and one day in the tomb, it actually denies that Jeshua kept the “Sign of Jonah”, and thus teaches that He is a liar and cannot take away our sins.  Did He keep this “Sign”, or is Jeshua the Messiah a fraud as these disguised opponents of Biblical Christianity are really implying?  And if Jeshua did keep this Sign, is this yet another of the times that the ‘Little Horn’ spoken of in Daniel 7:8 has tried to change?

But first: why was the Sign of Jonah three days and three nights?  Why not two days or four days or even five days?

The three days and three nights were required because that was the minimum time that must pass before one was accepted as truly dead in Hebrew culture, as shown in this quote from Jewish Law, the Burial of Jesus, and the Third Day by Richard Carrier:

The idea that the soul rests three days in the grave before departing is also casually assumed in the Midrash Rabbah on Ruth [III:3 (43-44)] and Ecclesiastes [I:34 (41-42)]. Confirming this belief is a passage in the Semahot, which says:

   One may go out to the cemetery for three days to inspect the dead for a sign of life, without fear that this smacks of heathen practice. For it happened that a man was inspected after three days, and he went on to live twenty-five years; still another went on to have five children and died later. (8.1)

Thus, it was considered possible for a soul to reunite with its body within three days, but no more, for sometime on the third day the soul realized the body was rotting, and then departed.[23] Thus, a resurrection on the third day reverses the expectations of the Jews.

Though the last sentence should read “after the third day”, the point is clear: Jeshua needed to be dead for at least three full days (72 hours minimum) before His resurrection would be accepted as a miracle.

Jeshua also used this principle when He resurrected his friend Lazarus, related in John 11:1 to 45.  Jeshua deliberated delayed going to help Lazarus until he knew that he would have been dead for over three days by the time he got there.  Unlike the earlier resurrections He had performed, when He raised Lazarus back to life no one could dispute that a mighty miracle had happened.  And it was precisely because of this resurrection that the chief priests and Pharisees, usually enemies, got together and agreed to murder Jeshua (John 11:46-53).

Two Sabbaths?

Jeshua’s body was finally placed in a new tomb carved into the rock (the heart of the earth) just before the First Great Day began at dusk.  But this was not a simple thing.  Roman practice was to leave those being impaled on the stake for several days as an ongoing reminder that it was not wise to offend them.  But Jehovah had given the Jews a contrary law in Deuteronomy 21:22-23: they must remove any such body and bury it before the end of the day so their land was not defiled.

The following night and day were the second day of the Week of Unleavened Bread.  Normal work was permitted on that day.  The article suggested, as the Bible confirms, that this was the day on which the Anointed’s followers went out and bought the oils, spices and linen required to anoint Jeshua’s corpse properly, as Mark 16:1 says they purchased these items after the Sabbath.  They then had to prepare and blend the oils and spices before they could anoint Him.  By the time they had it all ready to use, the weekly Sabbath was about to begin, so the actual anointing had to be postponed again (As Luke 23:56 says, they prepared their ointments and then rested on the Sabbath).  The second night and second day (Thursday night until dusk on Friday) had now passed.  Also, the disciples knew that the guards protecting the tomb would prevent them from unsealing the tomb and packing their ointments around Jeshua until the three days had passed as Matthew 27:62 to 66 reveals, so there was no point in going to the tomb until the three days had expired.

As the new ‘day’ beginning at dusk was the normal weekly Sabbath, the Anointed’s followers once again waited while the third night and the third day passed (Friday night and Saturday).  Interestingly, the Sabbath is the day of rest, and Jeshua rested on this Sabbath in the sleep of death.

Clearly, two Sabbaths—one an annual Great Sabbath and the other a weekly Sabbath—separated by a day must have passed while Jeshua was in the grave.

The three days and three nights in the tomb were fulfilled as dusk approached near the end of this weekly Sabbath.  Did Jeshua rise then, or did He wait and rise at dawn the next morning as is commonly taught?  Indeed, John tells us that:

Now on the first day of the Weeks Mary Magdalene came to the burial house in the early morning while it was dark, and she saw the stone removed from the tomb.

Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jeshua loved, and she told them, “They have taken our Lord from the burial house, and I do not know where they put Him.”    John 20:1 and 2

However, how could we be absolutely certain which year was the Impalement year and confirm that the Passover preparation day really did fall on a Wednesday that year?

The table shows Julian dates for the WCG calculations, and proleptic Gregorian dates for the others.  Julian dates are 2 days earlier than Gregorian dates during the first century CE.  The day of the week remains the same as both systems refer to the same day.  The papal Gregorian calendar was designed to match with the Julian calendar during the third century CE, which marked the first official enforcement of the Roman Catholic methods of determining Easter and the Sabbath (Dan 7:25).

Table 3:  Dates of the Passover Sacrifice (Preparation Day)

During the Time of Jeshua the Messiah’s Impalement

All that remained was to confirm the actual year of the Impalement. Once again the Bible contains the information required to determine the year, in this case through two different but interlocking methods.

Tiberius Caesar’s Fifteenth Year

One method provides the year by a reference to John the Baptist in Luke 3:1 to 3, which tells us that in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, God called John out of the wilderness and instructed him to ‘preach a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins’.

The fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar is the key to establishing this date.  Tiberius became Emperor on 17 August, 14 CE, on the death of Augustus Caesar.  The Jews at that time used a system of counting regnal years that began and ended on Day of Trumpets.  This was their ‘civil’ calendar; its origins are probably linked to the fact that the Year of Jubilee began during the seventh month (Lev. 25:8-17).  However, Abib 1 was still recognised as the beginning of their religious calendar. Using this reckoning, the first “year” of Tiberius’ reign ran from 17 August, 14 CE until 13 October, 14 CE, the date of the Day of Trumpets that year.  The second year of his reign ran from 13 October, 14 CE until 3 October, 15 CE, which was the Day of Trumpets on those years.

This series continued until we reach the fifteenth year of his reign, which by Jewish reckoning ran from 19 September, 27 CE until 7 October, 28 CE. Note that John began preaching during Tiberius’ fifteenth year, not after his fifteenth year.

John probably began preaching on or just after the Day of Trumpets, an ideal time for his message as the days between the Day of Trumpets and Day of Atonement are a traditional time of reflection and repentance among the Jews.  If Jeshua was baptised by John within 52 days after this Day of Trumpets, He still had enough days left to fulfil His three and a half year ministry before He was impaled, as the three and a half years are sometimes represented as 1260 days in prophecy. (This time period fulfils the time that Daniel says must pass (the middle of the week of years) before the Messiah was cut off (see Daniel 9:26 & 27 below)).

This places the time of Jeshua’s anointing (and thirtieth birthday-Luke 3:23) in the autumn of 27 CE and His impalement at the Passover of 31 CE.  However, there was a slight possibility that Jeshua was not baptised by John until a year later, as the Bible does not specify how long John had been preaching when Jeshua was baptised.

The Seventy Weeks

This prophecy is the second method of determining year of Jeshua’s impalement. The three and a half years of Jeshua’s ministry, the Wednesday impalement and the rise of the papacy (the only Desolator who began just after Christ’s resurrection and will continue until the end of this age) were all prophesied hundreds of years earlier:

“Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal (confirm) vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.

“Therefore know and understand, that from the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem to Messiah the Prince, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.  The streets will be built again, and the defences, even in times of affliction.

“And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah will be cut off, but not for Himself.  And the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed by the people of a prince to come.  And its end will come with an overflow, and until the end will be war, for desolations are determined.

The Destruction of Jerusalem

Perhaps surprisingly, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army under Titus is also linked to Jeshua’s impalement and death.  Just as Jeshua was cut off during the 70th ‘week’ of the prophecy given to Daniel, Jerusalem, with most of its occupants, was cut off in the fortieth year after Jeshua’s death.  Forty is often used in the Bible as a time of testing and trial, such as Israel condemned to 40 years wandering in the wilderness and Jeshua spending 40 days in the desert.  This was done in an incredibly accurate manner.  Jeshua was murdered in Jerusalem on the Passover in 31 CE.  The Jewish people said that Jeshua’s blood was to be on them and their children (Mat 27:25).  Jehovah God, in His mercy, gave them forty years to repent.  Many did, and became Christians.  But the rest only grew in their evil, eventually stoning Stephen to death and persecuting the other Christians in Jerusalem (Acts 6:7 to 8:4).  Jeshua, before He died, gave them this warning:

“But when you see that Jerusalem is surrounded by armies, then know that its destruction is near.  Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are within it flee, and do not let those who are in the villages enter her.  For these are the days of vengeance, that everything which is written may be fulfilled.    Luke 21:20-22

The Three-Strand Cord

So let us combine these three witnesses to the year of Jeshua’s impalement: The Tiberius calculation gives us 31 CE with a possibility of 32 CE.  The seventy week calculation gives us 31 CE with a possibility of 30 CE.  The 40th year destruction of Jerusalem gives us 31 CE.  The most probable year in all three systems is 31 CE, and the only year possible when the three are combined is 31 CE.  This means that the chronological information given in the Bible and history confirms a Wednesday Impalement in 31 CE.  This also means that it actually denies the possibility of a Friday impalement in the year 30 CE.  Nor is the 33 CE Friday date given by the rabbinical calculation a possibility.

The Mark of Jehovah God

The Friday impalement-Sunday resurrection doctrine is a fraud instituted and maintained by a corrupt, paganised church.  It actually denies that Jeshua fulfilled the Sign of Jonah.  To restate this: the Friday crucifixion teaches that Jeshua is a failure and is disqualified as anyone’s Saviour.  So where did this demonic doctrine come from?

It took three centuries and the might of the Roman empire to drive the surviving observers of God’s Passover and Sabbaths underground or into the wilderness.  In Constantine and pope Sylvester I we have the first incarnation of the Beast and his False Prophet working together.  Are we overstating this?  Do you know what the Mark of God and the Mark of the Beast are?  First, let Jehovah tell you what His Mark is:

“It will be a sign to you on your hand and a reminder between your eyes, that Jehovah’s instruction may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand Jehovah brought you out of Egypt. You will therefore keep this statute in its season from year to year.    Exodus 13:9-10

Jehovah and His Son

Jeshua means “Jehovah Saves”.  But if so, why didn’t Jehovah die on the post for us Himself?  For one simple reason: Jehovah is the self-existent, eternal Creator.  No one created Him.  He has always existed, is self-sustaining and will continue to exist forever (Isaiah 46:9-10).  He cannot die, for if Jehovah died, everything would cease to exist, as He has both created and sustains everything (Isaiah 42:5).

But He has a beautiful plan which began with the creation of His Son, a true son who was ‘born’ directly from Jehovah, similar to how Eve (Chavvah) was ‘born’ directly from Adam.  Jeshua is made from the same ‘God-spirit’ as His Father.  Jeshua helped his Father create the universe.  The difference between them is this: Jeshua was a finite being, because he had a beginning. He owed his existence to his Father, His life was sustained by His Father and he could die without taking down the universe with him (Dan 7:9-14).

But like his Father, Jeshua is also unique.  He is the “only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).  No one else will ever be born directly from the Father.  In this way Jeshua is also an “Alap and Tau, the First and the Last” like His Father (Rev 22:13).  Jeshua had to grow in wisdom, learning from His Father.  His greatest trial was submitting to death by Impalement.  In this act, Jehovah offered up His Firstborn, fulfilling what He had prophesied through Abraham and Isaac and at the Passover in Egypt.  And one of Jeshua’s rewards for doing so was that He was given life within Himself.  Now Jeshua is self-sustaining, just like His Father (John 5:17 to 34).  Again, Jeshua is unique in this.  Can you see why He is called the “express image of the Father”, making Jeshua also God, but not the Only True God (Col 1:13-19, I John 5:20, John 20:28)?  Here are a few of the dozens of supporting Scriptures:

Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah! Deuteronomy 6:4

. . . yet for us ours is one God, the Father, for everything is from Him, and we are in Him; and one Lord Jah—Jeshua the Messiah—for all is through Him, and we are also in His hand.    1 Corinthians 8:5 & 6

Let this mind be in you which was also in Messiah Jeshua, who, while He was in God’s form, did not consider the extortion that He was the equal of God, but He stripped Himself and He took the form of a servant, and was in the form of a child of man and was in nature as a man.

And He humbled Himself and He was obedient unto death, even the death of the stake.    Philippians 2:5-8

Jeshua . . . said: “My Father, the hour has come.  Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, because You have given absolutely everything to Him.  He will give everlasting life to them.

“And these things are everlasting life: that they will know You, because You alone are the God of Truth, and He whom You have sent; Jeshua the Messiah.”    John 17:1-3

Jeshua agreed to his Father’s plan before anything else was created.  He would one day have to die to redeem the yet-future fallen creation.  Then he helped his Father Jehovah create everything else (John 1:1-18).  The entire Sign of Jonah, indeed the entire plan of salvation, is built upon the death and resurrection of our creator—God’s true Son.

Chaldean and Hindu Trinities from The Two Babylons by Hislop.  Typical pagan trinities comprised the Father, Mother and Son.  The Mother was often represented by a dove, as Romanism sometimes represents Mary.

In this they again deny both the Father and the Son (even while still using versions of their names), and once more we have a bizarre perversion of the truth promoted by the “church” of Rome and for a time enforced—brutally—by Constantine.  And so we see another of the deep corruptions of the Great Apostasy.

All of this brings us to another aspect of the Sign of Jonah: The people of Nineveh repented of their lawlessness when Jonah preached Jehovah’s message to them and decided to walk in Jehovah’s way (Jonah chapter 3).  You too must decide: Who will you believe and obey?  Jehovah God’s Word or Satan’s servants—the Popes and the various pseudo-churches that are their unfaithful ‘children’ (Revelation 17:1-18)?

As this document demonstrates, Jeshua the Messiah did in fact fulfil the Sign of Jonah, the primary proof of His identity as the Son of God and our Saviour.  The key to this knowledge has been God’s Biblical Calendar.

But for completeness, let us examine some Scriptures that are claimed to negate the Wednesday Impalement, and then examine Table 4, pages 61 to 63 which summarises all of these arguments.

The “Difficult Scriptures”

The Road to Emmaus

The First Day of the Week

Mark 16:9, in the NKJV reads: “Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.”

This appears to support a Sunday resurrection.  But there are two problems with the above translation, which result in this verse when corrected: “But after He rose, early on the first day of the week He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons.”

The problems are these: The Greek word for rose is in the second aorist form, which is normally translated in the past tense.  The commas are not in the original Greek and have been placed in most translations to make it appear that Jeshua rose from the dead on Sunday morning, rather than showing that Sunday morning was the time when He appeared to Mary.  The Aramaic confirms this, showing that the sun rose then, not Jeshua.

Parts of Three Days and Three Nights

Can the Sign of Jonah Mean Parts of Three Days?

We have heard people claim that scripture shows that part of a day can be counted as a full day.  If so, parts of three days could be counted as if they were three full days.

But is this what the Bible teaches? Let us see how God defines a day:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.  And there was evening and there was morning: Day One.    Genesis 1:5

And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying: “Also the tenth day of this seventh new moon will be the Day of Atonement.  It will be to you a sabbath of sabbath observance, and you will afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the new moon at evening, from evening to evening, you will celebrate your sabbath.”    Leviticus 23:26-27, 32

But let us indulge those that have their own definitions of a day for a while and see if they can prove their definition from the Bible.  But why do they even want other definitions? -to make their strange Crucifixion-Resurrection scenarios work.  The Friday crucifixionists claim that any part of a day is equal to an entire day.  The typical Friday scenario is this: Jeshua died on Friday afternoon, so that makes the entire day of Friday the first day and even Thursday night becomes the first night.  Friday night is the second night, and Saturday daytime is the second day. Then Saturday night is the third night and Sunday is the third day.  At least they are sort-of using Biblical days which go from dusk to dusk.  So their claim is that at most 38 hours, if we include the time from when Jeshua died until he was placed in the tomb, is really 72 hours.

Wow!  I cannot see my boss agreeing to this definition on payday, and I don’t believe any of these people would agree to it either if they were my boss.

If Jeshua had only said that He would rise the third day and there was clear Bible evidence that this dubious part-day equals full-day counting method was valid, then perhaps this scheme might work.  However, Jeshua also said that He would be “in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.”  How can anyone really count a day (daytime Sunday) and a night (Thursday) when they are also admitting that Jeshua was not in the tomb for any part of either of those times?  It is absurd.  God is precise, this is anything but!

A Thursday impalement can be fitted into this format, and uses a slightly more plausible redefinition: any part of a half-day counts as a full half-day.  For example, a few minutes in the tomb at the end of Thursday counts as the entire day-time part of Thursday.  Likewise, they leave Jeshua dead in the tomb most of Saturday night but count it as a full night.  Voila, three days and three nights!  But what has really happened?  The Thursday impalement only allows for two nights, two days, part of another night and at most one-fourth of another day if we ignore the requirement for Jeshua’s body to be in the tomb.  The total time is a maximum of 62 hours, ten hours short of the Sign of Jonah and clearly falling short of the “after three days” of Matthew 27:63.  Nor does it meet the Hebrew requirement of a minimum of 72 hours to prove he was truly dead, and therefore had to be miraculously resurrected.  Only the Wednesday Impalement-Sabbath Resurrection meets all of these criteria.

The Wednesday, Thursday and Friday Impalement scenarios are compared in Table 4, pages 61 to 63.

But to complete the analysis we will also look at the scriptures which Thursday and Friday crucifixionists claim prove their part-day equals full-day counting methods.

Rehoboam

The claim is frequently made that Second Chronicles 10:3-12, where Rehoboam says in verse 5 for the people to come back to him “after three days” (in the KJV and NKJV) and yet in vs 12 they come back on the third day, proves that a part day is equal to a full day.  The claim is entirely based on a mistranslation of vs 5.  If you compare this phrase with its equivalent in Jehoshua (Joshua) 3:2, you will find that “after” in Jehoshua comes from קְצֵה -qatseh (Strongs 7097).  This word does not exist in 2 Chr 10:5.  All Rehoboam really said was “Come back to me in three days”, just as they did.  The ESV, HCSB and YLT translations all have it translated correctly.  This passage does not support either the Thursday or Friday Impalement scenarios.  Is it wise to corrupt Jeshua’s Great Sign for nothing more than an obvious mistranslation?

Jonah

The claim is made that the account of Jonah does not require three full days and three full nights.  Is this so?  The scriptures say:

Now Jehovah had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah.  And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.    Jonah 1:17

This is exactly what Jeshua said.  Although the account does not say that Jonah spent precisely 72 hours in the belly of the fish, there is nothing anywhere in the book of Jonah to indicate that the period of time Jonah spent in the belly of the fish was not 72 hours, just as Jeshua was the same length of time in the heart of the earth.

While we are talking about Jonah, it is good to notice the symbolism of Jonah being “in the belly of the great fish”: he was entombed, meaning he was totally surrounded by the belly of the fish, just as Jeshua was totally surrounded by the earth (literally rock) while he was enclosed in the tomb.  Belly in Matthew 12:40 is translated from the Greek κοιλια, (koilia) with the meaning of “hollow”, again matching well with a tomb carved as a hollow in the earth.

Esther’s Fast

It is claimed that Esther’s Fast, in Esther 4:15 to 5:1, proves that part days are counted as full days.  Indeed, three days of fasting, night and day, were called for.  And Esther did go before the king on the third day.  But does this prove part days are counted as full days?  Let us look closely at the account.

Esther calls the fast and then says that “My maids and I will fast likewise, and so I will go to the king,”.  She does not say that ‘I will go to the king after the fast’, but rather “so I will go to the king”.  She is saying she will go to the king while everyone is still fasting.  Verse 5:1 tells us that she went to the king on the last day of their fast.  Though this verse does not specify the exact time she went to the king, I suspect that it would have been just before the fast was to end.  In this way she would be approaching the king at the time her people’s prayers were reaching a crescendo before God.  Certainly if it was me in her place, that is the time I would choose.

This idea is supported by the fact that the fast was specified as lasting for three days, night and day.  This suggests that the fast began at dusk that day, allowing time for Mordecai to inform all the Jews in Sushan of the fast and setting definite beginning and end points.  The fast then went for the next three nights and their following days.  Her approach to the king near the end of the third day would then occur as the fast approached 72 hours.

So we see that the time of Esther’s approach to the king does not prove that their fast was not a full three days and three nights long.

The Egyptian Servant

In 1 Samuel 30:11-13 the servant tells David’s men that he had not eaten for three days and three nights.  Then he tells David that he had been abandoned “for I have been sick three days”.  This is simply the same formula Jehovah used during creation week (three days and three nights means three full days) and does not even suggest, let alone prove, that part of a day equals a full day.

Heart of the Earth

Another desperate attempt to justify the Friday impalement is to claim that ‘the heart of the earth’ actually refers to Jeshua being under Satan’s power.  (Luke 4:5 to 6 show that Satan is presently ruler of this earth, though even so he can only do what Jehovah allows.)  This time period supposedly begins when Satan has Jeshua arrested in Gethsemane.  Even if we were to accept that Jeshua was still under Satan’s power while He was dead (which we do not accept—see Ecclesiastes 9:5 & 12:7), this idea only converts Friday into a full day from a part day and adds Thursday as a new part night. It still only amounts to three nights and two daylight periods.  It does not fulfil Jeshua’s three days and three nights.  Nor are there any scriptures that support the concept that Satan is somehow the “heart of the earth”.  The closest to this idea we can find is that Satan will be imprisoned in the earth in the Abyss for a thousand years (Rev 20:1 to 3).  But that has not happened yet, and he will be powerless then anyway.

Conclusion

As summarised in Table 4, only the Wednesday Impalement and Sabbath Resurrection are consistent with all of the relevant Scriptures, have a viable Preparation/Passover Sacrifice Day in the year 31 AD, which history and the Bible identify as the year of the Impalement, satisfy Hebrew criteria for a miraculous resurrection and have been faithfully observed and taught down through the centuries by the children of God.

Table 4: Comparison of Impalement-Resurrection Scenarios                     62

Wednesday Impalement (Crucifixion) - Sabbath Resurrection

This Table shows how Jeshua fulfilled all of the time-related constraints involved in His Impalement and Resurrection.  They are threefold: Jeshua must rise from the dead on the third day/in three days (Matthew 20:17-19, Mark 10:34, Luke 24:46); He must spend three full days and nights in the tomb (the Heart of the Earth -Matthew 12:38-40) and He must rise after three days (Matthew 27:63).

If Jeshua was impaled, killed and placed in the tomb at the end of Wednesday afternoon and was resurrected at the end of the Sabbath day, He has thus been raised from the dead on the third day, which was the Sabbath.  Likewise, as the Sign of Jonah specifies the time in the tomb, the above scenario precisely fulfils the Three Days and Three Nights.  And as the passage in Matthew 27:63 only refers to the time that Jeshua will be dead, that runs from 3 PM Wednesday to near 6 PM on the Sabbath.  This is more than 72 hours, so He also rose after three days.

All three constraints have been fulfilled, confirming Jeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah and Son of God.

Thursday Impalement (Crucifixion) - Sunday Resurrection

With the same threefold constraints as in the Wednesday-Sabbath Table, it can be seen that even if part-days are accepted as if they were whole days, Jeshua was still raised before the third day began.  He could not fulfil the full three days and nights required for the Sign of Jonah, as He would only spend about 59 hours in the tomb, not the entire 72 hours.  Likewise He could not fulfil the requirement to be raised after three days, as at most He was only dead for 62 hours.  The Thursday Impalement scenario fails all three of the criteria the Scriptures place on these events.

This confirms that Jeshua (Jesus) was NOT impaled on a Thursday.

63

Friday Impalement (Crucifixion) - Sunday Resurrection                                      64

With the same threefold constraints as in the Wednesday-Sabbath Table, it is obvious that Jeshua was raised before the second day dawned, let alone on the third day.  This constraint was not met.  Moreover, He could not fulfil the full three days and three nights required for the Sign of Jonah, as He would only spend about 35 hours in the tomb, less than half of the entire 72 hours.  Likewise He could not fulfil the requirement to be raised after three days, as at most He was only dead for 38 hours.  The “Good Friday Impalement/Crucifixion—Easter Sunday Resurrection” scenario fails all three of the criteria the Scriptures place on these events.

This confirms that Jeshua (Jesus) was NOT impaled on a Friday.

https://chcpublications.net    Permission is granted to reproduce these tables.

Dates of God’s Holy Days to 2040

The following Tables 5 & 6 (pages 65 to 68) give the calculated dates for God’s Holy Days from 2019 to 2040 CE.  These calculations are secondary to actual observation of the New Moon and Abib barley near Jerusalem for each year.

The Holy Days begin at dusk on the previous evening and finish at dusk on the given dates in the Tables for Israel and countries to their west as far as the International Date Line (IDL).  The Holy Days begin at dusk in Israel and move westward around the entire world with the dusk until it reaches Israel again, so NO countries begin their Holy Days before Israel.  Man’s incorrect placing of the IDL means that the Annual Holy Days and seventh-day Sabbath are observed most of a day later than Israel for countries west of the IDL and east of Israel when using conventional IDL-based time zones and dates.

Jeshua’s new Covenant replaced the animal sacrifices with the sacrifice of Himself, and replaced the Levitical priesthood with the new priesthood consisting of all His followers, with Jeshua as our High Priest.  The sacrifices were taken away, but the sacred times remained.  The Levites offered sacrifices every day (Numbers 28:3-8), with special sacrifices on the weekly Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10) and on the annual Sabbaths (Leviticus 23).  These were all replaced by Jeshua’s one sacrifice (Hebrews 4:1 to 10:39).

In a similar manner, the ministry of death for sin that was part of the Instructions for those governing Israel has been replaced by the ministry of Mercy: calling sinners to repentance, forgiveness and a new life of righteousness as servants, friends, siblings—and eventually spouses—of the Messiah (Joh 13:16, Joh 15:15, Mat 25:44, Rom 8:15-19, 2Co 11:2 & Rev 19:1-9).

                             Table 5: Calculated Dates for Jehovah God’s Spring Holy Days                           66

Abib 1 is not a designated Holy Day, but it is “New Year’s Day” in God’s Calendar and determines the dates of the Spring Holy Days.  Abib 1 should be confirmed by observation of the crescent New Moon and the maturity of the barley the previous evening in Jerusalem.  Dates in brackets are alternative dates if the New Moon is not seen on the expected date.  Alternative months can occur if the barley harvest is early (E) or late (L).  The first day and last day of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost are Annual Sabbaths.

People living east of Israel and west of the incorrectly positioned International Date Line should observe the following day for each of the above dates, including the weekly seventh-day Sabbath (See The International Date Line and God’s Sabbaths at https://chcpublications.net/IDL-Sabbath.pdf)                 67

                              Table 6: Calculated Dates for Jehovah God’s Autumn Holy Days                          68

Trumpets, Atonement, the First Day of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day are all Annual Sabbaths.  Ethanim 1 should be confirmed by observation of the crescent New Moon the previous evening in Jerusalem.  Dates in brackets are alternative dates if the New Moon is not seen on the expected date.  Early or Late months are selected by when the barley will be ripe for the Wave Offering that year.

People living east of Israel and west of the incorrectly positioned International Date Line should observe the following day for each of the above dates, including the weekly Sabbath.  This delay allows the New Moon to be observed in Israel before the New Moon is ‘declared’ in these regions.

Copyright 2020     Central Highlands Christian Publications

                                         Permission is granted to reproduce these Tables                                           69

Another article, Christian Holy Days, unlocks the Christian meaning of the Biblical Holy Days, which reveal God’s Plan of Salvation.  Table 7 summarises their meaning.

Table 7: Christian Meaning of the Biblical Holy Days

Appendix: The Church of God in the Wilderness

Various names were given to them as they spread or relocated, including Albigenses and Vaudois.  In the 1320s Walter Lollard, one of their preachers, travelled to England and established their faith there, which spread throughout Britain and Germany.  It seems probable that their teachings inspired John Wycliffe to translate the Bible into English.  Eventually some of their teachings were accepted by the Reformers who came out of the Roman Catholic church, sometimes resulting in a more tolerant society for them.

When North America opened up to European settlement, many fled there with the more sympathetic Protestants as it promised to be a land where they could worship Jehovah without persecution.  This, and much more, is explored in Dugger and Dodd’s A History of the True Church.

Some Other Resources Available from https://chcpublications.net/

Publications

The Holy Bible CHCoG Translation - This translation from the original Hebrew and Aramaic is accurate and readable, giving you a clear understanding of how the New and Old Covenants are interlocked and God’s message to you.

Everlasting Life is God’s Gift - Does the Bible teach that you have everlasting life?  If not, how can you receive God’s gift of immortality?

Annual Holy Day Service Transcripts – Take a deeper look at the significance of Jehovah God’s Holy Days, which reveal His beautiful Plan of Salvation.

Jeshua the Messiah: Is He the Son of God or Part of a Trinity? - Explores the relationships between God the Father, our Lord Jeshua, the Holy Spirit and us.

Books of Moses - Fact or Fiction Series - Are the miracles recorded in Genesis and Exodus our true history?  Do the facts support Special Creation or the Big Bang & Evolution scenarios?  What about the Flood, Babel and the Exodus?

What is God’s Name? - How can we know what God’s Name is and how to Pronounce it?  Does the Bible teach us to use God’s Name?

The Ten Commandments – What are God’s Ten Commandments? How do they guide us in our relationships with God, our family and our neighbours?  Shows how obedience to Jehovah’s Instructions would result in true civilization.

Seventy Years in the Church of Rome – Charles Chiniquy, an ex-Catholic Priest, reveals many of the corruptions and perversions of Catholicism.

The Sabbath in Scripture - Has God’s Seventh-day Sabbath been ‘done away with’?  What does the Sabbath mean, and does God want us to keep it?

Sex, God and Families - Pamphlet exposing the dangers of sexual immorality and outlining the benefits of following God’s sexual principles.

Eastern Meditation and Jeshua the Messiah - Recounts the experiences of a CHCoG member who became a Christian while practising Eastern Meditation.

Spirit, Soul and Body - Take a deeper look at the Bible’s teachings about the composition of human beings and the roles of our soul and spirit.

The Catholic Chronicles - Keith Green covers: Eating the Flesh of Deity, What is Transubstantiation? The Sacrifice of the Mass? Salvation According to Rome?

Unclean Animals and Food - What does the Bible teach about clean and unclean animals?  Does the New Covenant allow us to eat unclean meat?

Radiocarbon Dating - Shows how changes in radioactive carbon levels can drastically alter radiocarbon dates.  Not heavily technical.

Software

Calculated Biblical Calendar - Calculates dates of Annual Holy Days, Crucifixion, Flood, Creation: allows you to test the new moon visibility locally.

Radiocarbon Dating - Calculates the effects that changes in the geomagnetic field, radiocarbon/carbon ratios, etc have on radioactive carbon dating.

Free Library

We have a large range of Christian and Creationist literature, CDs and DVDs that are available for borrowing within Australia.  Please contact us for our list.

1 To fulfil the Sign of Jonah, Jesus had to fulfil ALL the parts of this Sign.  “Merely” being resurrected was not enough; He had to fulfil the entire three days and three nights in the grave as well.  And beyond that, His resurrection was unlike any other recorded in Scripture: He was the first to be raised in an eternal spirit-based body (The First-Fruit).  All others, such as Lazarus, were resurrected back into their earthly bodies, which then aged and died.

2 Jehovah is the One True God’s name, as shown in our What is God's Name? article.  Most English translations follow the anti-Biblical traditions of the Rabbinic Jews and substitute the titles LORD or GOD for Jehovah’s actual name.

3 Commonly translated as Jesus Christ: Jesus is Greek for Jeshua’s actual Hebrew/Aramaic name יֵשֻׁוּע , which means “Jehovah Saves”.  Jeshua, as He was God’s Son, was filled with the Holy Spirit all of His life, but His public Anointing is recorded in Luke 3:21-22 and John 1:29 to 34.  Messiah משׁׅיחׇא and Christ are respectively Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek for Anointed.

4 See also Mat 16:4 and Luke 11:29

5 Messiah is Hebrew for the Anointed.

6 See Luke 22:1 to 13, which shows Jeshua instituting the Last Supper on the evening beginning the preparation for Passover.  Some claim that this meal was the Passover lamb, but that idea is based on mistranslations.  Here is Luke 22:7-9 correctly translated from the Greek:  Then came the days of the unleavened bread when the Passover must be sacrificed.  And He sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare for the Passover for us, that we may eat.” So they said to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare?”  The meal they ate that night was in the room they had made ready for them to eat the Passover in the following night.  Only Jeshua knew that He would be dead the next night, and thus unable to eat the Passover with them.  John 18:39 confirms that Jeshua was impaled (crucified) on the Passover.  John 19:31 tells us the legs of the criminals were broken to hasten their death, so they would not be suffering on their crosses on the Great (Solemn) Sabbath, which was when the Passover lambs were eaten and commemorates the night the Death Angel passed over in Egypt (Exodus chapters 7 to 15).

7 Contrary to some sources, Abib does NOT mean ‘green ears.’  Barley can show immature green ears for two months or more, and is too vague to be used to determine when the barley will be ready to harvest.

8 This is shown in Jehoshua (Joshua) 5:10-11, where they were only allowed to eat the new grain from the day after the Passover, indicating the Wave Offering was first offered on the morning of the day after the Passover that year.

9 Despite this, and the utter lack of scriptural and historical support for a calculated calendar based on the conjunction to start each month and on the vernal equinox to start the new year, such a calendar has been promoted.  You can learn about this conjunction calendar, and why it is useless, in https://chcpublications.net/Calendar_Challenge_Challenged.pdf

10 Expanse was “dome” in the translation that Brian used.  Expanse is a more accurate translation.

11 Torah תּוֹרָה  is Hebrew for Instructions.  Torah is commonly translated as Law, which is only one aspect of God’s Instructions.

12 Tenak is a Hebrew word which refers to the Hebrew (Old Covenant) Scriptures.

13 That the new moon means the visible crescent was muddied by  astronomers who, relatively recently and inaccurately, decided to call the earth-moon-sun conjunction the new moon.  This invisible dark conjunction is never called the new moon in the Bible.

14 Which also shows that they were not using a calculated calendar, as that would result in one clear preknown date.

15 The Biblical Hebrew also has specific words for the moon (יָּרֵחַ yareach— used 26 times) and month (יֶרַח yerach—used 13 times).  These words confirm that God has deliberately chosen to use chodesh (new moon) extensively to remind us that the new moon determines his month.  As one example, 1 Kings 6:38 uses both words to refer to a month: “And in the eleventh year, in the month (yerach) of Bul, which is the eighth new moon  (chodesh), the house was finished”.

16 Lunar cycles can vary by as much as plus or minus seven hours.

17 The Islamic calendar is a strictly lunar calendar with each year only 12 lunar months long.  As a result, their calendar year begins about 11 days earlier every year.

18 Other signs also confirm Abib, such as the arrival of migratory birds and the budding of grape vines and fig trees.

19 The heads must be filled with firm kernels that can be roasted (parched) and eaten on the day of the Wave Offering (Lev 23:14).  Soft kernels filled with milky material can not be milled nor roasted properly, as the contents will shrivel up.

20 Jewish tradition was that the “premier sheaf” that was to be waved could be cut as soon as the Sabbath ended, so they would have the night to transport it to the high priest.

21 Despite this delay, the Rabbinical calendar assumes the crescent will become visible barely six hours after the conjunction.  As we will show later, the Rabbinical calendar is wrong far more often than right.

22 Our original program was written in BASIC on a Commodore 64 computer in 1985-86, used all of its available RAM and took almost a minute to run.

23 Using new moons after the equilux (the day which can have exactly 12 hours of sunshine), which is usually about March 17 in Jerusalem is a bit better, but it is also too late for many of the earlier springs.

24 A similar calendar is also used by the Colorado Springs Church of God (USA), which we later discovered had independently developed their Bible-based calculated calendar before us.

25 Pg 3-4, of the Yale Judaica Series, 1956

26 See Arthur Spier’s The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar (1981) and Solomon Gandz’s The Problem of the Molad (1951) for confirmation on this.

27 The booklet, The Crucifixion was not on Friday was a rewrite of a Radio Church of God (later called the Worldwide Church of God (WCG)) article in the Mar-Apr 1942 Plain Truth magazine, available at http://www.herbert-armstrong.org.  A.H. Lewis was teaching this in 1865 (Biblical Teachings Concerning the Sabbath and the Sunday, 2nd Ed, pg 57).

28 In both the Greek and Aramaic manuscripts.

29 The Coptics, and others including the early Methodist Church (beginning in the 1760s), claim they fast on Wednesday because that was the day when the Sanhedrin decided to kill the Lord.  But John 11:43-12:1 shows that this decision was made weeks before Jeshua was killed and the day of the week was not given.  The truth is that the fast commemorates the Wednesday on which the Sanhedrin actually had Jeshua condemned and killed.

30 The Didascalia Apostolorum, written around 200 CE, records how Jeshua held his Last Supper on Tuesday night and was arrested later that night.  It also shows that the Great Apostasy was already well advanced, as they then try to twist this into a Friday crucifixion (See Pg 94 of Gibson’s 1903 translation).  Justin Martyr (First Apology, Chapter LXVII) claimed a Friday crucifixion, revealing how vigorously this perversion was being distributed.  Numerous sources showing knowledge of Jeshua’s Passover (and the seventh-day Sabbath) among God’s People are given at http://www.giveshare.org/HolyDay/wednesdaycrucifxion.html and in A History of the True Church by Dugger and Dodd, available at https://chcpublications.net/History_True_Church.pdf

31 It is likely that this was part of the same process used by Joseph to anoint his father in Egypt after he died.  Contrary to most translations, Jacob and later Joseph were anointed, not embalmed (Genesis 50:2-3, 26).  Unlike the Egyptians who tried to preserve the bodies of their dead, the Israelites instead allowed their flesh to decay and then collected their bones and kept them in a box called an ossuary.  It seems that the wealthy families used the spice ointments to both accelerate the decomposition of the skin and flesh and to reduce the smell of the decay, giving them clean bones to put into the ossuary.  Genesis 50 indicates that this process only took forty days, rather than the year that was required for poorer people who could not afford the spices.  The new tomb and the spices were part of how Jeshua was buried “with the rich” as prophesied in Isaiah 53:9 (also 2 Chron 16:14).

32 The fact that they arrived at the tomb while it was still dark suggests that the anointing they were planning to do to Jeshua’s body was a slow process that was going to require a very long day of work.  Another ancient Israelite tradition says that the compounded ointments were not applied until the body had been dead for the full three days and three nights just in case the person was not truly dead, so Nicodemus’ aloes and myrrh were probably a pre-treatment to delay the body’s deterioration until the actual anointing was done after the three days.  Jeshua refers to this process as ‘myrrhising’ the body in Mark 14:8 in the Greek.  But none of this was necessary, as Jehovah had promised His son Jeshua that He would not allow His body to deteriorate while He was dead (Ps 16:10, Acts 2:22-31).

33 From the ‘legal’ point of view, Jeshua had died at 3 PM Wednesday and the tomb was sealed and not opened until about 5AM on Sunday, the day of the Wave Sheaf Offering, so he had, according to the priesthood’s reckoning, been confirmed dead for 86 hours, way beyond the required 72 hours.

34 Also in Hos 6:1-3 and Psm 16:10.  In celebration of Jeshua’s resurrection late on this Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the early Christians called this the Great Sabbath and rejoiced on it each year.  In the Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean Churches, this day is still celebrated and is known as Joyous Saturday, though they have forgotten why it is a Joyous day.

35 In the Aramaic Peshitta.  The Greek translations have on the third day.

36 Please grasp this: Jeshua did NOT rise from the dead on Sunday.  He was already raised on the Sabbath.  Sunday worship does not honour the Messiah’s resurrection nor Jehovah as our Creator.

37 Note that the resurrected saints did not receive their final spirit-based bodies at this time.  Like Lazarus, but unlike Jeshua, they needed to have their tombs opened so they could get out of them.  It is also probable that they were not actually resurrected until Jeshua was, otherwise they would have starved in their tombs waiting for this evening to arrive.

38 Possibly Mary could not recognize Jeshua because his beard had been cut off and his face had been badly beaten by the guards and soldiers (Isaiah 50:5-7; 52:9-53:12, Mat 26:67, Mat 27:30, John 20:27) or more likely because He was now so healthy He looked nothing like the battered body they buried.

39 The WCG, using the scriptures and historical records, recognised that Jeshua was crucified on a Wednesday in 31 CE.  But the rabbinical calculated calendar (RCC) claimed the Passover was on Friday that year.  Instead of admitting that the entire RCC was wrong, they decided the RCC method of intercalating (adding a 13 month) was wrong and invented their own method for dates prior to 142 CE that gave them a Wednesday crucifixion.  As noted above, some Churches of God still use their mangled RCC.  Others, like Christian Biblical Church of God, instead use the typical RCC and play with history to move the crucifixion year to 30 CE (and then falsely claim observation supports a Wednesday Passover that year too).

40 The 23rd of April is within the ‘normal’ range of dates for the Preparation, but is towards the later end of that range.  The fact that the weather was still very cold at night, as shown by the men huddling around a fire in the High Priest’s courtyard in John 18:18, confirms that it was not a year with an extremely warm spring which would have been required to ripen the barley  a month earlier.

41 Using biblical days, the 31 CE eclipse occurs at the beginning of the First Day of Unleavened Bread, while the 33 and 34 CE eclipses span both the end of the Preparation Day and the beginning of the First Day of Unleavened Bread.  These are typical times for the full moons to occur during the first month.

42 This is referring to the sacrificial Death of Jeshua, our Messiah, who died precisely after three and a half weeks (years) into the 70th week (year) of this prophecy (31 CE), on a Wednesday (on the Passover preparation day that year) in the middle of the week.

43 The desolator is the papacy, as it is the only abomination which has continually attacked Jehovah’s children from just after the death of the apostles until today, and will continue to do so until the return of the Anointed.  Mat 24:15

44 Compare this with Hebrews 4:8 to 10:39, esp 10:12—Jeshua brought an end to the sacrifices and Levitical priesthood.  He did not end the Holy Days themselves, which are part of God’s Instructions and remind us of all that our Father—Jehovah God—has done and will do for us.  Our article Free to Obey God explains this clearly.

45 The end of the 70th week was in the autumn of 34 CE.  This was when Stephen was stoned to death (Acts 7:1 to 8:5).  Until then, Jeshua Messiah was still only working with the Israelites.  After that, salvation was opened up to all nations (Acts 10).

46  Date on the Roman Julian Calendar.  It was the 12th of April on the Proleptic Gregorian Calendar.  The Passover dates were determined with our Biblical Calculated Calendar, and not with today’s Rabbinical calendar.

47 Irenaeus identifies Sixtus as the first bishop to reject the Biblical Passover (quoted in Eusebius, Church History, Bk 5, Chap 24, Sect 14).  The abominations had begun and have been maintained and even expanded by all of the popes who followed Sixtus.

48 Eusebius, Church History, Book 5, Chapter 24

49 When the Great Tribulation begins, those who refuse to observe the pope’s Easter and ‘holy days’ will be excluded from the monetary system (second beast of Rev 13:1-18).  Those who refuse to bow to the world dictator and his false prophet (the pope) will be executed (Rev 20:4).

50 Please read our Jeshua, Son of God and Spirit, Soul and Body articles for many more details.

51 See The Two Babylons by Hislop—on our website.  Also note that the apparently trinitarian formula in I John 5:7-8 that appears in the KJV is a fraud that was added to these verses about 1300 CE.

52 As translated from the Aramaic by Paul Younan.  The Greek translations make it appear that this is the third day, while the Peshitta shows that this conversation occurs after the third day.

53 To be fair to those believing in a Thursday crucifixion, they claim that this account supports their case.  However, this passage cannot repair the numerous other fatal flaws in a Thursday crucifixion.

54 Jeshua also confirms that the daylight part of a day is 12 hours long in John 11:9, so by extension an entire day is 24 hours.

55 This is confirmed by Allix, who reports this as the belief of the Waldenses themselves, on pg 197 of his Some Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont, 1721 Ed.

56 The Pontifex Maximus (Greatest Master) was the head of the pagan Roman religion who claimed the right to set the times of the religious calendar.  In 375 CE Roman Emperor Gratian refused to accept this role as he had embraced Christianity.  Within 70 years, pope Leo I—who had no such scruples— eagerly took this pagan role as his own.

57 These still-future events are foreshadowed in God’s Autumn Holy Days (Col 2:17), and there is evidence that some, perhaps many, of these Waldenses observed these Biblical Feasts too.

58 History of the Ancient Christians Inhabiting the Valleys of the Alps, J.P. Perrin, 1847 Ed.