When Calendars Collide (and Confuse)
This has been a busy season for Life in Messiah’s staff as dozens of churches requested “Messiah in the Passover” seders this year. We delight to show from Scripture the connections between the Passover God instituted in Exodus and the Lord’s Supper where “the Lamb of God” gave new meaning to the unleavened bread and cup after the meal before offering Himself as our substitutionary sacrifice.
Sometimes the Christian “Holy Week” coincides exactly with Passover. Then what is called “Maundy Thursday” aligns with the first night of Passover on the Jewish calendar, followed by Resurrection Day the following Sunday.
But this year the calendars collided. On Palm Sunday, we were wishing our Jewish friends a “Happy Purim.” In synagogues around the world, the book of Esther was being read. Jewish children were dressing up in colorful costumes (the tradition of being “in disguise” to avoid the death sentence Haman had King Ahasuerus impose to annihilate his Jewish subjects) and “Purim spiels” (comedic retellings of God’s deliverance) were enacted. In churches, the Triumphal Entry of Messiah was preached and children were waving palm branches.
So how did it happen that Christians celebrated Easter on March 31 in 2024 when Passover doesn’t begin until the evening of April 22?
From the first century until 324 AD, followers of Messiah Jesus knew when to celebrate the Savior’s triumph over sin and the grave. They looked at the Jewish calendar and whenever Passover was celebrated, Resurrection Day would be the following Sunday.
But in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, the church leaders decided they would sever the connection to the Jewish calendar. The formula they concocted is still in force today: Easter is on the first Sunday (they got that right) after the first full moon following the vernal equinox (find THAT in your Bible!).
What we do find in the Bible is that God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years” (Genesis 1:14). The lights, of course, are the sun, moon, and stars.
Two systems were developed in the ancient world to keep track of years: the solar calendar and the lunar calendar.
The calendar used in most of the modern world today is based upon the Roman calendar Julius Caesar created in 45 BC. The Julian calendar follows the sun, based on 365¼ solar days in a year. The slight miscalculation in the “extra quarter day” was that 11 “extra” minutes were added annually.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII adjusted the year to 365.2425; we use the “Gregorian Calendar” today, with a “leap day” added in February every year divisible by four.[1] Gregory also moved the first month of the calendar year to January (named after the Roman god Janus) rather than March (namesake of the god Mars). Did you ever wonder why September through December bore “the wrong Latin number names” (septem = seven; octo = eight; novem = nine; decem = ten)? December was the 10th month when the calendar started in March; now it’s the “wrongly named” 12th month on our calendars.
The Jewish calendar differs from the Roman calendar in its basic approach to reckoning time. The Hebrew calendar is lunar (based on the cycles of the moon), but with adjustments for the solar year (the time it takes for the earth to revolve once around the sun). It is this difference that accounts for the way Jewish holidays seem to “move around” on our modern calendars. In either calendar, a year refers to the time it takes to complete the cycle of the seasons or, to be more exact, the time it takes to go from winter solstice to winter solstice or from vernal equinox to vernal equinox.
Roughly speaking, a "month" in both calendars refers to the time it takes for the moon to go from "new" to "full" to "new" again (which actually takes 29½ days).[2] The lengths of the months in the Jewish calendar alternate between 29 and 30 days. In this way, each month will begin on a new moon so the Hebrew calendar is in proper phase; e.g., the 15th always coincides with the full moon.
Doubtless Moses would have been familiar with the solar calendar from his time as a royal prince in Egypt. The Egyptians were world-class astrologers and worshiped the sun (one of their many gods), on which they had based their calendar well before the time of Moses.
As far as most common people were concerned, the lunar calendar likely was far less mysterious than the solar. (Anyone can tell if the moon is full, but typically only astronomers paid attention to the vernal equinox.) Under God's direction, the Jewish people used the lunar cycles to mark time on the calendar to which people could best relate visually.
In the course of a year, the moon goes through its phases 12 times, but with 11 days “left over” to complete a solar year. The Romans dealt with this by distributing the extra days among the twelve months (that's why some months have 30 days and some have 31). But since a Roman month (mensis in Latin) does not actually begin and end with any particular phase of the moon, a “month” no longer represents the lunar cycle. Religiously observant Jewish people still pay attention to the moon’s phases.
The discrepancy between the lunar calendar and the solar year (which controls the cycle of seasons), was adjusted by adding seven so-called intercalary months within a 19-year cycle: a second Adar (called Adar 1) is added in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19.[3]
To complicate things even further, the Hebrew year has two beginnings (not counting a third “year of the king” and fourth “new year for trees”[4]). According to Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23, the first month is in the Spring, but since the time of the Babylonian captivity the seventh month has also been regarded as the beginning of the year. The year beginning in the Spring is called the sacred year, and the year beginning in the Fall is the civil year.
The days of the week are only given numbers, as in the Creation account: Yom Rishon (our Sunday) is Day One; Friday, Yom Shishi, is Day Six. The only “named day” is the seventh: Shabbat (from which we get Sabbath in English).
Only four months are named in Scripture:[5] Abib (Aviv), Ziv, Eitanim, and Bul. For example, in Exodus 12:2 God says, “This shall be the beginning of months for you” and the month is named “Abib” in Exodus 13:4. During exile in Babylon, the Hebrews adopted Babylonian names for all 12 months; Abib[6] is now Nissan, the “first month” in which Passover is always celebrated. The month preceding Nissan is Adar, when Purim is celebrated – except when an Adar 1 is added; then Purim is celebrated in Adar 2.
Confused yet? But wait, there’s more!
On the civil Jewish calendar (which begins with Rosh Hashanah on Tishrei 1 in the fall) we are in Year 5784.[7] This is based on Maimonides’ calculation[8] from the biblical genealogies[9] to determine God created mankind in the year 3761 BC (on our calendar).
If we haven’t lost you yet, perhaps now we will…. On the Gregorian Calendar we are in the year 2024 AD. Actually, in 525 AD the monk Dionysius Exiguus was the first to move away from dating the calendar by the Roman emperor’s rule.[10] AD (Anno Domini) refers to “Year of our Lord”; the BC[11] (Before Christ) was developed later to refer to the time before Jesus lived.
While we tend to think 1 AD must be the year of Jesus’ birth, we know that cannot be true historically. Herod the Great was the king of Judea when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Matthew 2 records the story of the magi who inquired of Herod concerning the whereabouts of the newborn “King of the Jews.” The evil king’s response to this perceived threat to his throne was to kill the baby boys aged two and younger in Bethlehem. Herod died in 4 BC,[12] so our calendars are off by at minimum four years – perhaps six, depending on how much “cushion” Herod baked into his calculation of the baby’s age. So we are at least in year 2028 if we’re truly counting from Jesus’ birth.
In the end, no one’s eternal destiny depends on which year it is, or if we use a solar or lunar calendar. At Life in Messiah, however, we do think it’s a pity that the Council of Nicaea decided to sever the celebration of Messiah’s resurrection from Passover. Consider this:
Jesus’ public ministry was inaugurated by John the Baptist’s declaration, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” (John 1:29).
Jesus ate a Passover meal on the first night of Passover and was crucified while lambs were slaughtered in the Temple on the second night.
Paul identifies Jesus as “Messiah our Passover also has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7).
The calendars may be confusing but the record is clear: “He is not here. He is risen, just as He said” (Matthew 28:6).
The gospel also is clear: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!” (Acts 16:31). And if we’ve got that right, everything else is secondary – whatever day or year it is.
Written by Wes Taber, Life in Messiah Global Ambassador
Have you spent much time learning about the Feasts of the Lord? Consider familiarizing yourself with Leviticus 23 and you can read more here.
Did you know that most Jewish people have two birthdays? One on the Gregorian calendar and one on the Hebrew calendar.
Endnotes:
[1] A further complicating adjustment is that when a year ending in 00 is also divisible by 400, we don’t add a leap day. Oh, and every now and again a “leap second” must be added to keep our clocks right. Thankfully, our smart phones take all this into account without us having to worry!
[2] One lunar month = 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3.5 seconds; a solar year = 365 days, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. See https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/calendar.
[3] A “calculated month” doesn’t necessarily correspond to the visible new moon because of how the moon orbits the earth. Rabbi Hillel II (c. 358 AD) established a fixed length of time for a molad (literally, “birth” of a month) at 29 days, 12 hours, and 793 “chelikim” (parts). Likewise, daylight varies by season, so observant Jewish people need to know if a molad (i.e., calculated) hour or a “seasonal hour” (based on daylight) is used to calculate daily prayer times or when to stop eating leaven on Nissan 14. See https://www.jewfaq.org/jewish_calendar_calculation.
[4] Tu b’Shevat is Israel’s “arbor day”; https://theconversation.com/how-the-ancient-jewish-new-year-for-trees-became-an-israeli-celebration-of-nature-198727.
[5] Other months in Scripture are only identified by number (see https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/987524/jewish/Why-Babylonian-Names-for-Jewish-Months.htm).
[6] Aviv is the still in use in Modern Hebrew; it means “springtime.”
[7] A handy “date converter” is found at https://www.hebcal.com/.
[8] https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/jewish-calendar.html.
[9] Bishop Ussher used a similar approach to calculate Anno Mundi (Year of the World) to be 4004 BC. The computations are not simply a matter of mathematics; https://biblearchaeology.org/research/biblical-chronologies/4508-ussher-explained-and-corrected.
[10] https://www.calendarr.com/united-states/bc-and-ad-their-meaning-and-differences/.
[11] Those who do not wish to reference the Lord Jesus when writing dates will substitute CE (Common Era) for AD and BCE (Before Common Era).
[12] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Herod-king-of-Judaea.