This article addresses aspects of the calendar system God put in place to identify weekly sabbaths and feasts that he created for humans to participate in.
The Weekly Sabbath is the seventh day of the week where days are numbered 1 through seven.
We do not have a calendar from the first seven days of creation. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary that the days of the week we have are rightly numbered. Therefore, Saturday is the seventh day of the week.
Of course, by God’s time system days start in the evening. Therefore, the word Saturday refers to the daylight part of the day such that Saturday starts at evening Friday and runs to right before evening on Saturday,
Reportedly under God’s system the New Moon identifies the start of each month. In Exodus 12:2 right before God brought the Israelites out of Egypt God told them that New Moon would be the beginning of months for the nation.
Yet, there are writings that say God uses a 364-day calendaring system based on the sun not the moon. Two of these writings are the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. The reference section contains a link to my article on the 364-day calendar.
There are at least two ways folks use the New Moon to determine what they consider to be the biblical calendar for weekly sabbaths and annual feast.
One way is to use the New Moon to determine when the month begin but have the days of the week, 1 through 7 the same for each week, month, and year so that the daylight portion of the Sabbath is always on a Saturday on the Gregorian Calendar.
Another method uses the New Moon to determine when the month begins and then count seven day increments from that new moon to define the Sabbath. That means the Sabbath will be on different Gregorian Calendar days of the week dependent on what Gregorian Calendar day of the week the New Moon comes in. For example, for November and December 2024 we have:
- New moon of November 1, 2024 which is a Friday (Thursday even to Friday even); so 1st Sabbath is November 6-7 which is Wednesday even to Thursday even.
- A variation of that is to not count the New Moon Day as a day of the week so that the 1st Sabbath would be November 7-8 which is Thursday even to Friday even. In this approach the Sabbath always fall on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of the month.
- For December 2024, New moon is December 1st which is a Sunday (Saturday even to Sunday even); so 1st Sabbath is December 6-7 which is Friday even to Saturday even.
This article explains how to determine the date for each biblical feast using The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Moon Toolset.
Diagrams illustrating information discussed below are found at the end of this document.
On modern day American calendars moon phases are indicated using four symbols: (1) All Black, (2) Part Light to Left, (3) No Black, (4) Part Light to the Right.
All black for a moon phase means end of moon cycle which is actually the fourth quarter.
The date on which this all black symbol occurs is labeled “New Moon”. However, it acutally means no visible moon light at all.
A symbol with part light to left means 1st quarter.
A symbol with no black/darkness at all means full moon which is 2nd quarter.
A symbol with part light to the right means 3rd quarter.
The waxing crescent is the first occurrence of detectable light before 1st quarter.
Hence for calendar purposes the symbol all black actually means new moon to follow at next sign of light.
Let us use Texarkana, Arkansas as an example location for October 2024.
To determine new moon for a given month go to Moon Phases for Texarkana Arkansas to determine projected moon phases dates based on NASA.
Note date of “New Moon” for October 2024 in the “New Moon” column, then go to NASA Daily Moon Guide and ensure the date obtained from the previous step is selected.
Then increase the date until at least 1% of light shows in the “Current Phase” item which gives the waxing crescent. That will give day 1 for the month of interest based on using waxing crescent to determine new month. But note that some groups increase the date until an amount greater than 1% of light shows which would mean the date for the day 1 of the month would differ.
See the following diagrams that indicates the information used to determine that Day 1 of the seventh month is October 3 formed from eve of October 2 to eve of October 3, 2024 since Hebrew days starts in the evening at sunset.
This yields Day of Atonement of October 11th eve to 12th and Feast of Tabernacles as October 16th eve to 23rd.
That makes October 23 eve to 24th the 8th day which is designated a sabbath like the 1st day (Leviticus 23:39).
These corresponds to the Hebrew calendar at hebcal.com and chabad.org
Additional Information:
Using waxing crescent to determine start of month as it is visble to naked eye depends on location and weather condition
But just assume sufficiently perfect weather and perfect location for NASA and other public institutions to derive their data.
In historical astronomy, before the advent of high-powered telescopes and space travel, both scientists and laypeople would often refer to the new moon as the first appearance of the waxing crescent moon. Today, astronomers sometimes use the term “dark moon” to refer to the period when the moon is in conjunction with the sun and the Earth and is invisible to the naked eye. The term “dark moon” is used to avoid confusion due to the ambiguity of “new moon” terminology.
Let’s first look at the astronomical conjunction. A lunar conjunction is when the sun, moon and earth are directly in line. Because the sun is behind the moon, no sunlight is reflected from the lunar face. The moon is a total blackout during a conjunction. No part of the moon can be seen in an astronomical conjunction.
The average wall calendar portrays the conjunction with a large black dot and calls it a “new moon.” But in reality it is a “no moon.” It is invisible, and a “no moon” conjunction is not what the Bible means by a new moon, which we will see.
NASA new moon is actually a no moon or full moon where there is no moon as it is complete blackness some say whereas the biblical new moon is a visible part of the moon.
The Bible uses the same Hebrew word for both “new moon” and “month.” Therefore, the new moon is linked to and sets the beginning of the month. But on our Gregorian wall calendars the “no moon” conjunction floats all over the 12 calendar months. Modern calendars completely ignore the Biblical way of setting the first day of the month by the visual new moon, even though the word “month” is derived from the word “moon” and should be oriented to the moon as it was intended by the Creator.
Historically, new moon spotters in Israel watched for the thin crescent to establish the beginning of each month. Once seen they reported their sighting to the calendar court authorities of the Sanhedrin. Note what one authority says, “Originally, the New Moon was not fixed by astronomical calculation, but was solemnly proclaimed after witnesses had testified to the reappearance of the crescent of the moon,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 12, p. 1039.
The switchover from watching for the first visible crescent to calculating conjunctions to determine the month’s beginning came with Hillel II’s calendar revisions in the 4th century C.E. “By the middle of the fourth century, the sages had established a permanent calendar and the public proclamation of the New Moon was discontinued” (Ibid).
The biblical sighting seems to be based on when the moon is first seen after not been seen though that is not necessarily known for certain.
https://yrm.org/biblical-new-moon
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/moon-phases/en
https://sciencing.com/dark-moon-vs-new-moon-5082.html
Book of Enoch and Jubilees 364-Day Calendar
