Hello John and Doves,
Last week, in my Dove's
letter, I mentioned Ken Johnson and his book "The Ancient
Dead Sea Scroll Calendar And The Prophecies It
Reveals". 14 June 2020 "The Dead Sea Scrolls, The
New Wine Festival and Pentecost"
http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/june2020/chance614-7.htm
The
Dead Sea Scrolls, The New Wine Festival and Pentecost
There is much
information on calendars in this book - but I'm most
interested in the calendar the Essenes used.
"The Essenes taught that
the calendar was a completely solar
calendar that started with the Spring Equinox. This
was handed down from the beginning of time and used to
calculate all the Jewish festivals in the tabernacle and
temple. When the Exodus from Egypt occurred, which
is the first month of spring, God told Moses: "This
month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it
shall be the first month of the year to you." Exodus
12:2 The Essenes taught that the original calendar
was still in use when King David reigned, and that he
wrote fifty-two songs, one for each Sabbath. The
Sabbath songs have the dates in them showing which Sabbath
it was and what the solar date was for each of the
Sabbaths."
Their calendar was made
up of 24 hour days, weeks were of seven days each, and
years were 364 days long. There were 52 weeks per
year. So all of the holidays/festivals fell on the
same day every year (same day of the week/same month of
the year). The Spring Equinox is always on a
Tuesday, so every year starts on a Wednesday and every
holy day falls on the same day of the week.. Ex.
Passover is always on a Tuesday - 14 Abib (Nisan); the
Barley Harvest First Fruits Festival is on Sunday - 27
Abib - followed by the first day of counting the Omer; and
the Summer Solstice is on 30 Sivan, the day before 1
Tammuz; the Festival of the New Wine is Sunday - 3 AV; the
Festival of New Oil is Sunday - Elul 22.
Ken Johnson writes in
his book that keeping the start of every year as close to
the Spring Equinox as possible will keep the Essenes
calendar 'in tact' without adding any leap days, leap
weeks, etc. "This self-correcting method would keep
the seven-year cycle intact and allow a drift of only up
to a maximum of three days before or up to a maximum of
three days after the Spring Equinox."
In the Ancient Book of Jubilees, there is a
prophecy about an error made in replacing the solar
calendar with a lunar calendar: "For there will be
those who will assuredly make observations of the moon -
how it disturbeth the seasons and cometh in from year to
year ten days too soon. For this reason the years
will come upon them when they will disturb the order,
and make an abominable day the day of testimony, and an
unclean day a feast day, and they will confound all the
days, the holy with the unclean, and the unclean day
with the holy; for they will go wrong as to the months
and sabbath and feasts and jubilees. For this
reason I command and testify to thee that thou mayest
testify to them; for after thy death thy children will
disturb them, so that they will not make the year 364
days only, and for this reason they will go wrong as to
the new moons and seasons and sabbaths and
festivals..." Ancient Book of Jubilees 6:36-38
In the Ancient Book of Enoch 72:32, "On that
day the night decreases to nine parts day and nine parts
night, and the night is equal to the day and the year is
exactly 364 days long."
The historical account
of the Israelites continues with the Levite priests mixing
in pagan practices into the Temple worship. This
angered God and He exiled the Israelites into
Babylon. After 70 years the Persian King Cyrus
defeated the Babylonians and freed the Jews - the
Israelites returned to their homeland. Ezra and Nehemiah
taught God's laws and restored worship in the
Temple. Eventually the Persian Empire was conquered
by the Greeks.
The Greek Empire split
into four parts - two parts took sections of Israel - the
Seleucid Empire (the area of modern Syria) and the
Ptolemaic Empire (the area of modern Egypt). During
this Grecian Era the Jews were required to become like
Greeks. During this time period, The Grecian calendar was
used - it was a lunar calendar or 354 days per calendar
year. This was unacceptable to God - as now the
festival days for the rituals may not occur on the proper
day of the calendar.
Temple rituals still had
to follow God's rules and laws. They still had to occur on
the required days.
The High Priests' robe
had alternating bells and pomegranates all the way around
the bottom hem. Over this robe the High Priest wore the
Ephod and the Breastplate. The bells were necessary for
those who awaited his return from the Holy of Holies -
they listened for the sound of the bells as he went about
his rituals on the Day of Atonement in the Holy of
Holies. A rope was tied around his ankle and if he
incorrectly did the ritual, he would die...then his fellow
temple workers could pull him out without entering the
Holy of Holies and risk dying themselves.
In the Zohar, it is
written, "A chain was tied to the feet of the High Priest,
when he entered The Holy of Holies, so that if he dies
there they will take him out, since it is forbidden to
enter there."
If they couldn't hear
the jingling of the bells for some time, they would assume
the Lord had killed the High Priest due to some 'breach of
protocol' and they would pull him out of the Holy of
Holies with the rope that was attached to his ankle.
In Leviticus 10:1-2, we
see that two High Priests were killed due to a 'breach of
protocol" - "Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu each took his
own censer, placed fire in it, covered it with incense,
and brought it into the Lord's presence as unauthorized
fire that he had never prescribed for them. So fire came
out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and
they died before the Lord."
In the Talmud is a
record of the High Priests up to the destruction of the
Temple in Jerusalem. The record shows that there
were 18 priests during the time of Solomon's Temple (400
year period). But during the time of the second
Temple (a 420 year period) there were over 300 High
Priests. Something was going terribly wrong on the
Day of Atonement when these High Priests entered into the
Holy of Holies. It would be doubtful they were all
doing the ritual wrong as that was specifically spelled
out for them and could be easily corrected after a death
before the next Day of Atonement. And the High
Priests before these '300' during the Second Temple period
were able to do the rituals correctly as were those of the
420 years before them, during the First Temple period! If
they were unable to figure out the correct day for the Day
of Atonement - that was an automatic death sentence for
the High Priest.
The Talmud
states: "...after the righteous priests the last
three hundred did not live past one year (passing beyond
the veil died)."
"This seems to be saying that any
high priest who tried to perform the ritual of Yom
Kippur on the wrong day or in some other wrong way,
died when they tried to do it...Part of doing the
ritual in the proper manner was to do them on the
proper dates. This could not be done if everyone
was forced to use the Greek calendar system."
(quote from Ken Johnson's book).
The second Temple period
began under Ezra, during self-rule under the Persians -
the Second Temple was built in Jerusalem, the Knesset
Hagedolah (Great Assembly) was established as the
religious and judicial body of the Jewish people.
This Greek calendar was
a lunar calendar and started with the new moon of October
of each year. A leap month was added six
times in nineteen years around the spring equinox.
And a leap month added in the nineteen year cycle
around the fall equinox.
Compare
this to today's Hebrew calendar which is both a solar
calendar in years and a lunar calendar in months or a
lunisolar calendar - keeping the lunar months
approximately equal to one solar year: "...the
Hebrew calendar goes by a 19-year cycle that
includes leap years in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th,
17th and 19th years of the cycle, meaning in
those years, an extra month is added to the Jewish
calendar to keep it aligned with the solar
calendar." This extra month is Adar II - the
thirteenth month of the Jewish calendar.
So, we can see how
closely, even today, the Jewish calendar follows the Greek
calendar.
and we can see how the
Jewish calendar of today does not match with the calendar
that the Essenes used. There is much evidence
showing that the Essene's calendar is the 'correct'
calendar or at least closest to the 'correct calendar' of
the Bible.
As far as the modern
Jewish calendar goes - for the beginning of their months
they use a calculated 'new moon' - we know that the Jewish
people today do not follow the sighting of the new moon
for their months; they do not look for the Abib barley,
sometimes their new year starts in March, sometimes in
April; and they have a Jewish New Year on the 1st of
Tishrei, seventh month, yet the Biblical New Year
commanded by God is 1 Nisan, first month, and Pentecost
(the Feast of Weeks, a High Holy Day) is now a set date -
6 Sivan (who needs to count)!
Would any future High
Priest even know which day is the true day of Day of
Atonement? Entering the Holy of Holies might give
one pause....
They've lost track of the
Jubilee Year (the 50th year - the year at the end of seven
cycles of Shemitah); they don't know when to start
counting for the Shemitah years (final year of a seven
year cycle).
The Essene calendar, to
me, seems much more user friendly. One of the days
on this calendar is the Festival of the New Wine - see my
other letter to Doves for information on this day and a
possible connection to Pentecost and the Rapture.
Seems the calendar of God
has been lost by many.
Which calendar is
correct? Certainly not any man-made one!
Pray for the peace of
Jerusalem!
Maranatha!
Chance
.