Dear John and Doves,
It is possible that the
Essenes created the Dead Sea Scrolls - there is research
that suggests this. This group existed from the 2nd
century B.C. to the 1st century A.D.
The Essenes celebrated the
changing of the seasons - these festivals included the New
Wheat, the New Wine, and the New Oil. All related to
the Jewish festival of Pentecost/Shavuot.
In the Old Testament,
grain, wine and oil are often mentioned together.
God promised the Israelites that if they kept the
commandments they will gather "grain, wine, and oil."
In Deuteronomy 14:2 The
Lord tells the Israelites about tithing - "You shall eat
in the presence of the Lord your God, at the place where
He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain,
your new wine, and your oil, and the firstborn of your
herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the
Lord your God always."
According to the Essenes,
the New Wheat festival took place fifty days after the
Shabbat following Passover (this is how Pentecost is
counted today). Fifty days after New Wheat is the
New Wine Festival. And fifty days after the New Wine
is the New Oil Festival.
Note the seven weeks plus
one day that divides these festivals. "Calendars,
with clusters of 7 weeks, can be found among ancient
Semite groups. This type of calendar is called a
pentecontad. Usage of such Pentecontac calendars
containing seven-week periods can be found among
Babylonian cultures: Jewish groups in exile....Its basic
unit of time-reckoning was the week of seven days.
Its secondary time unit was the period of fifty days,
consisting of fifty days, consisting of seven weeks - i.e.
seven times seven days - plus one additional day, a day
which stood outside the week and which was known and
celebrated as 'atsrah', a festival of conclusion or
termination - termination, of course, of the pentecontad
or fifty-day period. The year of this calendar
consisted of seven pentecontads."
http://www.essene.com/Church/SemitePentecontadCalendar.htm
Seven
Week Calendars
The Dead Sea Scrolls show
a variety of calendar systems - one had a fixed seven day
week, with fifty-two weeks in a year, with seven-week
cycles.
What they found in these
scrolls concerning this calendar was:
1) On the
twenty-sixty day of the first solar based month a barley
harvest festival was observed.
2) Seven calendar
weeks past the barley harvest festival (occurring on the
day immediately following the Sabbath Day on the fifteenth
day of the third solar based month) a festival of first
grain harvest was observed.
3) Seven calendar
weeks from the festival of the first grain harvest
(occurring on the day immediately following the Sabbath
Day on the third of the fifth solar based month) a
festival of new wine was observed.
4) Seven calendar weeks
from the festival of new wine (occurring on the day
immediately following the Sabbath Day on the twenty-second
day of the sixth solar month) a festival of new oil was
observed.
They discovered that using
this equinox based calendar of 'straight running weeks not
one of the seventh-week festivals (or 'fiftieth' day) was
skipped over' (as would happen with a lunar based
calendar.
The Bible tells us about
The Jubilee year - the year at the end of seven cycles of
shmita (Sabbatical years)...here we see seven cycles of
seven years (49 years) with a fiftieth year added to the
forty-nine. Jubilee means 'ram's horn' in
Hebrew. The Jubilee year was the year of setting
captives and prisoners free, forgiving all debts and
property being returned to the original owner.
Leviticus 25:11 "You
shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; You are not to
sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes
of its unpruned vines It will be a jubilee year for
you, and you must keep it holy...."
The Temple Scroll (the
longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls) Pentecontad tells the
Jews:
"You shall count seven
complete Sabbaths from the day of your bringing the
sheaf (of the wave-offering). You shall count
until the morrow of the seventh Sabbath. You shall
count fifty days. You shall bring a new
grain-offering...it is the feast of Weeks and the feast of
Firstfruits, an eternal memorial.
You shall count seven
weeks from the day when you bring the new
grain-offering...seven full Sabbaths shall elapse until
you have counted fifty days to the morrow of the seventh
Sabbath. You shall bring new wine for a
drink-offering.
You shall count from the
day seven weeks, seven times (seven days), forty-nine
days; there shall be seven full Sabbaths; until the morrow
of the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days.
You shall then offer new oil..." (link above to the Seven
Week Calendars)
In this Temple Scroll
there is much more information on the Biblical festival
calendar; there are two further "first produce" festivals
or Bikkurim festivals - the New Wine Festival and the New
Oil Festival.
The Festival of the First
Produce or Bikkurim is found in Leviticus 23:10-11 - that
tells us about offering the first produce fifty days from
the omer offering. This offering consists of two
loaves of baked bread from the first produce,
bikkurim. This festival celebrates the new wheat.
Wheat was harvested in the
spring, grapes in the summer and olives in the late summer
or early autumn. The Torah tells us about the wheat
festival, but what about the grape and olive harvests?
That's where the Dead Sea
Scrolls and the Essenes come in. The Temple Scroll
notes three bikkurim festivals - wheat, wine, and
oil. The Temple Scroll rewrote the festival holiday
calendar to "harmonize Leviticus and Deuteronomy and to
lay out its understanding of the 'count fifty days till
the bikkurim' passage." If you refer to Leviticus
and Deuteronomy you will see the differences in these
festivals, even though they appear to be the same
festivals - the Essenes, essentially 'fixed' these
differences.
Counting through all of
the day/week/Sabbath requirements, we end up with:
The Wheat Festival is on
15 Sivan.
The New Wine Festival is
on 3 Av.
The New Oil Festival is on
22 Ellul.
For the New Wine Festival,
the Temple Scroll has this festival on the 3rd day of the
5th month. I came across several websites that
listed this New Wine Festival as Pentecost. This
would help explain why Peter said the men are not drunk
because the wine is new.
Here is one such site that
lists the festival, the Biblical month and date for 'The
Calendar Restoration/Noak's Calendar". Along with the
calculations for the 364 day year and calculations for the
Biblical dates.
https://biblecalendar.wordpress.com/pentacontad-wine/
Feast
of New Wine | The Bible Calendar
| # |
Feast of First
Fruits |
Biblical Month |
Gregorian Month |
Biblical Date |
"These festivals end only
three days before the first of the seventh month, which is
the Festival of Teruah (now known as Rosh Hashanah),
thereby sanctifying the entire spring and summer harvest
system with bikkurim festivals.
https://www.thetorah.com/article/how-the-temple-scroll-rewrote-the-festival-of-bikkurim
How
the Temple Scroll Rewrote the Festival of Bikkurim -
TheTorah.com
If the Tribulation Period
is to start with the Fall Feasts - Rosh Hashanah, and then
last 7 years to end with the Feast of Tabernacles -
starting the 1,000 years of peace, then the Rapture will
happen before Rosh Hashanah. The Wheat Festival, the
New Wine Festival, the New Oil Festival will all be
completed three days before Rosh Hashanah.
The New Wine
Festival, 3 Av, is July 24.
I recently watched Gary
Stearman of Prophecy Watchers interview Ken Johnson about
his new book "The Ancient Dead Sea Scroll Calendar: And
the Prophecies It Reveals. In the interview Ken
talked about the New Wine Festival and that this year it
is on July 24.
Here is the Prophecy
Watchers youtube video: June 11, 2020 Ken
Johnson: The Ancient Dead Sea Scroll Calendar
Note, if this is the
'correct' Pentecost date - then my letter about July 26
possibly being the correct Pentecost date and Luis Vega's
letter about July 20 being the correct Pentecost date -
all of these dates are awfully close to each other.
I think the difference is when the count begins.
Definitely a time period to be watching.
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/may2020/luisv531.htm
The New Oil
Festival, 22 Elul, is September 11.
Rosh Hashanah, 1
Tishrei, is September 19.
The way things are going
in the world, it's hard to imagine being here much
longer. The Rapture would certainly be a nice bonus
for the minions of Satan that are causing mayhem around
the world - ridding them of those pesky Christians.
This would also help with the 'depopulation' agenda of
Gates and the globalists.
Hopefully this is the
year! Because Jesus said this generation will not
pass until all these things be fulfilled...we're now
looking at a generation as 79 or 80 years, and not 70 or
less than 79. If Israel becoming a nation in 1948 is
the starting year for counting a generation. And the
psalm about 70/80 years is correct. 1948 plus 80
years is 2028. 2020 plus a 7 year Tribulation Period
puts us at 2027 - one year short of 80 years. 2021
plus a 7 year Tribulation Period puts us right at 2028 for
the end of the 80 years. I am hoping that are finite
human brains have at least this much figured out
correctly! We shall see.
Praying this is the year
of our Lord and Savior's return for His own.
Pray for the peace of
Jerusalem!
Maranatha!
Chance
On a side note:
Revelation 6:6 refers to
the wine and olive oil - "And I heard something like a
voice in the center of the four living creatures saying,
"A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of
barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the
wine."
I don't know how that
verse with reference to the oil and wine tie in to all of
this, but somehow I believe there is a connection. This
mention of wine and oil always seemed odd to me.