The Truth About the Calendar
The Visible Crescent?
By
Jamie McNab
Part Two of Three Parts
For
other articles, audio sermons and Bible Studies, visit our web site at: www.t-cog.net
In Part One we looked at some of the
alternative calendars being “marketed” to God’s people today. We saw what the
Bible does, and does NOT say, about new moons and new years. We looked briefly
at church history. We saw that Mr. Herbert Armstrong had thoroughly looked into
this subject as far back as 1940. We continue in Part 2 to look at how
impractical it would have been for God’s people—especially over the past 2,000
years—to have kept a VISIBLE CRESCENT!
Part 2 is the content of a letter written to a
member of God’s church who wished for additional clarification of the calendar
topic.
You've asked in your e-mail if I can let you have proof of God's
Holy Day calendar. That's what I call a challenging question!! There are all
sorts of people out there who have "proof" of “their version" of
God's calendar. I think the last time I counted, I came to over a dozen different
calendars -- all claiming to be the original Biblical Holy Day calendar.
Some people, like Herbert Solinsky, have spent DECADES studying the calendar —
only to have fundamental disagreements with other very sincere "church
scholars" who have reached an entirely different opinion. It all
reminds me of 2 Tim 3:7, "Ever learning, and never able to come to the
knowledge of the truth"!
I am enclosing a copy of an article I wrote for one of the recent Church
of God Newsletters (this now appears as Part One of this series).
It sets out, as clearly as I can, why we accept the calendar maintained by the
Jews.
Despite what some may say, the Bible itself does NOT give adequate
information from which to develop a working calendar -- and that is a FACT.
Compare the incredible amount of detail given in the Bible about LEPROSY (over 110
verses in Lev 13-14 alone!!), with the almost non-existent, and rather
unclear, references to "new moons" and "the beginning of
months". God could have made it crystal clear in the scriptures if
He had wanted to. He chose not to, and yet He did leave us a standard -- an
authority over the calendar -- as I hope my paper makes plain.
Probably the main alternative to the calculated new moon of the
Jewish calendar is the visible crescent new moon. This point is
explained at some length in Part One, where hopefully I show that you
can't prove a visible crescent from the scriptures.
It seems to me, however, that even common sense shows that a visible
crescent is simply NOT POSSIBLE as a measure of the commencement of the new
month. A visible crescent, by definition, has to be VISIBLE -- it has got to be
SEEN. Historians will explain how witnesses had to appear before the Sanhedrin
in ancient times to confirm that they had seen the new crescent -- at
which point the Jewish leaders would allegedly make the new month
"official". Well, that might be very convenient for those Jews living
in Palestine -- but makes life rather tricky for those Jews living in Egypt,
Ethiopia, Russia, Spain and so on! Without the benefit of telephones, faxes and
e-mail -- how are they supposed to know when a new month has begun? Bonfires,
and fast horseback riders, have been suggested, but come on -- if you are over
2,000 miles away from Jerusalem, you probably wouldn't find out for a week or
longer! It is totally impractical! It couldn't work.
In some parts of the Diaspora, the Jews tried
keeping TWO Holy Days at a time, so that at least ONE of them might be right!
In fact the custom still exists among the Jews to this day. (Though, strangely,
they don't double up on the Day of Atonement -- I wonder why?!!).
Consider also the true Church of God in Britain back in the first and
second centuries. As begotten members of God's family, they were certainly
keeping the Holy Days. How could they know for certain when the crescent moon
had appeared over Jerusalem 4,000 miles away? What about the Church down through
the centuries, through its various eras? What about the early Church of God
in the USA back in the 1600's? How could they determine when the visible
crescent had appeared over Jerusalem? Don't forget, the Jews had long since
been driven out of Palestine, so there was in fact nobody there to look
for the crescent, anyway! And certainly no way to tell people thousands of
miles away.
But some will no doubt say that nowadays COMPUTERS allow us to work out
the times of the visible crescent. So let's just ignore the
"inconvenient" problem of how the Church figured God's Holy Days over
the past 1,900 years when it didn't have effective access to Jerusalem, and
didn't have Pentiums and Lap-tops. Let's revert to the visible crescent, even
though IT COULD NOT HAVE WORKED for most of God's people since the time of
Christ. Well -- what about the computer calculations of a visible crescent? Are
they foolproof? Guaranteed? Can those who want to "observe" a
"visible crescent" actually rely on a computer program? As far as I
can tell, the answer is a big NO!
The sighting of the first thin visible crescent is not just a matter of
calculating how much of the moon will be visible, and whether the sky will be
dark enough to make it out and so on. The visibility is also affected by such
things as temperature and humidity, which vary by the day and hour and cannot
be predicted. If you go by the visible crescent, then, to be absolutely
sure, you must physically observe it with the human eye (or would God allow
binoculars? Once again the Bible is silent!).
Following are two quotes, one from the Royal Greenwich Observatory in
England, and one from the US Naval Observatory, which explain the difficulty of
any computer providing a perfect calculation of a visible crescent (emphasis
added):
ROYAL GREENWICH OBSERVATORY
"It is NOT POSSIBLE to predict accurately the dates on which the
new crescent Moon will first be seen each month since there is no
collection of reliable, fully documented, observations that can be used to
establish the conditions that must normally be satisfied at the time of first
visibility.
“The simplest basis for prediction is that the Moon should be more than
a certain age (measured from the time of astronomical new moon) at the time of
sunset at the place concerned.
“It is, however, better to use the true elongation (the angular
separation) of the Moon from the sun at this time, rather than the age. The new
crescent is not normally visible until the Sun is below the horizon and so it
is desirable to take into account the altitude of the Moon during twilight. The
chances of seeing the new crescent depend slightly on the distance of the Moon
from the earth, being greatest when the Moon is closest (i.e. at perigee). The
local conditions, especially the height of the observer above sea level and the
character of the surrounding surface, are important, and even when the sky
is free from cloud there can be considerable variations in clarity of the
atmosphere from day to day.
“The visual acuity of the observer is also significant. It must
be realised too that there are considerable variations in the astronomical
conditions with both longitude and latitude on the earth so that even if the
weather conditions were good everywhere, the dates of the first sightings would
differ from place to place. Predictions can, therefore, only be valid, for
restricted areas. Under ordinary conditions, the first sighting will not occur
until the age of the Moon exceeds about 30 hours, but a few reliable reports
are known of sightings, under very good conditions, when the age has been only
20 hours or even less. It is unlikely that the new crescent will be visible
unless the elongation exceeds 10 degrees and the Moon exceeds 5 degrees when
the Sun is 3 degrees. It is interesting to note that the new moon can always be
seen 30 days after the previous one and in half the cases it can be seen 29
days after, because the length of the synodic month is 29.53 days...
“Since it is clear that any prediction of the date of first visibility
MUST BE UNCERTAIN, it is necessary to decide
whether to prefer an early prediction that could not be substantiated
by direct observation if conditions prove to be good, or a late prediction that
could be vitiated by an observer on the previous day. The simple rule that this
Office recommends is that the age of the Moon should be 30 hours at the time of
sunset at the place concerned, but this rule is not so reliable in middle and
high latitudes."
US NAVAL OBSERVATORY
"Under optimal conditions the crescent moon can be sighted somewhat
less than 15 hours after astronomical New Moon. Usually, however, it is not
seen until it is more than 24 hours old. Often it is not seen for more than 48
hours... But despite these advances we still CANNOT PREDICT THE EXACT TIME or
geographical location at which the young crescent will first be spotted."
And so we see that even scientists and astronomers, with the benefit of
modern computer technology, are unable to GUARANTEE a predicted visible
crescent! So HOW would the church members in fifth century Britain, or 18th century America,
possibly calculate the exact time of the visible crescent over Jerusalem, MANY
THOUSANDS OF MILES away?? Yet they certainly couldn’t SEE it themselves. And
they couldn’t wait for a telephone call from a friend in Judea, to let them
know the crescent had been sighted!
So HOW DID THEY KNOW when to keep Passover and the other Holy Days?
Simple—go find the nearest Jew, and ASK HIM what the date is! God’s True Church
has always relied on GOD’S FAITHFULNESS. God did not leave us without an
accurate calendar for nearly 2,000 years.
Let’s be sure to HOLD FAST to what we have been given!
For
other articles, audio sermons and Bible Studies, visit our web site at: www.t-cog.net