Good News
October 1957
Vol. VI, Number 10
Prove
God's CALENDAR Correct!
Prove all things! God
commands us to! Against what will we
check the NEW MOON dates of God's Sacred Calendar to be certain
they are correct?
by
Kenneth C. Herrmann
ALMANAC DATES for
the new moon sometimes disagree with those
on the Sacred Calendar. Here
is a point that has in years past
caused some church members to become upset, to begin to stumble.
One member will look for the first faint crescent of the new moon
in our western sky and actually see this "new moon" a day
or two
AHEAD OF THE DATE DIVINELY APPOINTED as indicated on our Sacred
Calendar. Another will
look on the Roman Calendar or in an
almanac. Are these
individuals justified in being skeptical of
our work in publishing this calendar?
Or have they failed to
read the instructions that go with it?
God-Given Oracles
How did the men
of Berea prove the words of Paul and Silas?
First -- and this is important -- "they listened with all
readiness of mind." They
paid close attention to the
instructions given. Then,
they "SEARCHED the scriptures DAILY
whether those things were so."
Again and again
they compared with God's Word to see if the
testimony of those men were true.
The Scriptures were the
standard against which the testimony of Paul and Silas would
stand or fall.
WITHOUT SUCH A
STANDARD to compare with, any attempt to prove
a thing becomes futile, subject to all the weakness and vanity of
human nature and subject to human misinterpretation. Think for a
moment! How would you
prove that a rug you bought was 9 by 12
feet? You would need a
ruler, a standard to measure by. How
would you know the ruler to be correct? The final word on the
matter would come from the Bureau of Standards in Washington
which keeps masters on hand for every weight or measurement.
Now how will you
check the new moons? Are you certain the
first day of the month is in the correct place or should it be a
day or two earlier? Where
is the master, the standard to go by?
Here is the
answer! What advantage did Paul have being a
Jew?
"Unto them [the Jews] were committed the oracles of God"
(Romans
3:1,2). Oracles are
communications from God. These must be our
final authority in the problem with regard to new moon dates.
The question now arises, where is the oracle which will solve the
problem of new moon dates? Is
the Jewish calendar such an
oracle?
WHO gave the
Jewish people their calendar? Suppose you
found
it to be the SAME PERSON who preached for 3 1/2 years, chose 12
disciples to be apostles and then gave His life on the cross, to
be resurrected three days later.
Would you be willing to hear
Him?
Notice Stephen's
testimony to the High Priest concerning Moses
and Christ, "This is he [Moses], that was in the church in the
wilderness with the angel [or messenger -- Christ] which spake to
him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the
lively oracles to give unto us" (Acts 7:38).
How to Prove It
Now consider
this:
The One who
became Jesus Christ spoke to Moses and Aaron (not
to the entire congregation) saying, "This month shall be unto
you
the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year
to you." These two
men were to instruct the people to use this
Sacred Calendar.
GOD gave the
Calendar. MAN is to USE it. Is man to stand in
judgment of God as to whether this divine communication, this
oracle, is proper or not? Hardly.
The knowledge of
the inner working of the Calendar was
retained by God's appointed physical priesthood until the year
360 A.D. In that year
the Jewish leaders published the
information for all to know, so the broken and scattered Jewish
nation (and Christians as well) would be able to continue the
observance of God's Feast Days in ACCORDANCE WITH THE NEW MOONS
AS CALCULATED FROM JERUSALEM.
Jerusalem was
always the point from which the new moons were
observed and sanctified. It
was the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court
in Jerusalem, that determined when the new moon was apparent.
And it was THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to notify the Jewish communities
of the beginning of the months.
However, by 360
A.D. when oppression and persecution
threatened the continued existence of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish
leaders took an extraordinary step to allow the scattered Jews to
keep the new moons, festivals and Holy Days always at the same
time. They then made
public the system of calendar computations
that hitherto had been an apparently guarded secret of the
priesthood.
Thus, all Jews
(and Christians) throughout the world could
know when the new moon would occur according to Jerusalem time
and consequently they could celebrate the same day all over the
earth in unity.
It should
be obvious now how to prove all things. Check
them
against the Oracles of God. What
are these Oracles preserved by
God through the Jewish people?
Three: The Scriptures, The
Sabbath, and The Calendar.
It was God's
prerogative to give these communications and
commands. It was God's
responsibility to see that they were
preserved down to our time. It
was God's judgment that a
stiffnecked, rebellious, unchanging
Jewish people should be
given the assignment to preserve His Calendar, His Sabbath, His
Scripture. With God
behind them you may be sure that they
carried out this task.
It is our
responsibility as God's people to search out these
Oracles, to study and obey them.
Do the Jews Obey?
The matter of
whether the Jews have obeyed these Scriptures,
rested on this Sabbath, kept the correct days in the correct
manner on this Calendar, is an entirely different question.
There is no need
to follow the Jews in their rebellion.
Stephen continues, "Our fathers would not obey, but thrust him
from them and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt." In
rejecting Moses, they rejected Christ whom he represented.
If you
reject Moses today, if you reject the Oracles given
through Moses, you also reject the One who sent him. The
overwhelming majority of those of you who read this had ancestors
who did reject Moses and Christ as their leaders and were
condemned to die in the wilderness.
The real reason
now becomes apparent why it is so hard for us
to turn our hearts and minds to the true way that God has given
to us. We have inherited
this same stiffnecked rebellious
nature. Why not get back
to the truth and then remain firm in
it.
We Answer the Questions
Doesn't the faint
crescent of the new moon become visible at
an earlier time to the observer in California than to an observer
in Jerusalem?
Yes, it does and
for a number of reasons.
Mainly that the
day travels from east to west across the
globe. A day starts on
the eastern coast of China or Australia
(or even earlier with the islands just to the west of the
International Date Line). It
requires 24 hours to make a
complete circuit arriving once more at the International Date
Line. The moment of
sunset thus travels westward across the
earth. It would occur in
Jerusalem 10 hours earlier than in
California, which is 10,000 miles farther west.
This 10 hour
difference would allow the moon to move 5 degrees
eastward through the background of stars away from the sun's
position. The crescent
of the new moon could thus be seen one
day earlier by California observers about 40 per cent of the
time. What are God's instructions?
If the people of Jerusalem,
where God's permanent headquarters are to be, cannot see this
crescent of the moon following sunset, then the entire world east
and west of that city must delay beginning the month till the
following sunset.
This is the
ordinance as it was given by God. We are not
free
to begin earlier because of the way we see it.
Another 6 hour
difference as to the date for the new moon is
introduced by the practice of delaying the ending of a day till
midnight. Your almanac
and Roman calendar "new moon" dates
follow this pagan practice. This
factor alone would shift the
date of the new moon one day earlier 25 per cent of the time.
Yet this pagan source is the one that many of you have used to
check God's Sacred Calendar. Isn't
it time we shift our
allegiance to God's Oracles and away from the customs and
terminology of the heathen?
Still another
factor makes this crescent of the new moon
visible earlier in California.
Just as the path of an eclipse
of the sun moves from west to east across the earth so the moment
at which the crescent would become visible (if the observer's
time were just after sunset) also moves from west to east across
the globe and for the same reason.
Up to 6 1/2 hours are
required for this moment to cross the earth.
Thus while the
day comes to us from the east, the month (or
the moment the month might begin) sweeps across the earth from
the west. It is natural
for the western observer to want to
begin his month too early. But
it is GOD'S CALENDAR and HIS
MONTH based on that calendar that we ought to follow.
A Difference in Latitude
Another question:
Does one's latitude also make a difference
in his ability to see this crescent of the new moon in the west
just after the sun goes down?
Yes, this also
affects the problem on all except two days of
the year, the day of the spring equinox (March 21) and of the
autumnal equinox (September 23).
On these two days
the sunset line runs straight north and
south on the surface of the earth from south pole to the north.
Latitude thus makes no difference in sunset time on these two
days. Sunset would be
six o'clock (sun time) for everyone. (The
fact that standard time is commonly used for an entire time belt
and is based on mean solar time would mean that the time shown by
our clocks might vary up to 50 minutes and in certain localities
over an hour from sun time.)
During the summer
months the sunset line curves toward the
northeast with a portion of the north Polar region in continual
sunlight. During the
winter months the sunset line curves toward
the northwest with a portion of the north polar region in
darkness 24 hours a day. (These
statements are for the northern
hemisphere only. The
conditions are reversed south of the
equator.)
The moment at
which an observer at any point on the earth
might see the crescent of a new moon and want to begin his month
varies widely. Even the
factor of whether the moon is north or
south of the ecliptic, slightly affects the ability of the
observer to see the crescent, especially in the extreme
latitudes.
Conjunction or Crescent
A third question:
Is the new moon noted on the Roman calendar
or in an almanac or astronomy book the same term as the new moon
on God's Sacred Calendar? Not
at all. The term "new moon" from
these secular sources refers to the conjunction (or molad) of the
sun and moon rather than the visible crescent which could first
be seen about six hours later.
The astronomer's
"new moon" is the moment an eclipse of the
sun might occur. (The
moon is usually above or below the sun
rather than in front of it. Thus
eclipses do not occur at each
of these "new moons".) But remember that this conjunction
occurs
at least 6 hours before any observer anywhere can see the new
moon crescent with his eyes.
God's new moon on
the other hand is the beginning day of a
month, a day that begins at sunset at least 6 hours after this
conjunction. Both the
conjunction and sunset must be calculated
for the Jerusalem area not for our local area. Then the first
day of the new month moves west across the earth.
Delay for Preparation
A fourth
question: Isn't the first day of God's Sacred
Calendar sometimes delayed for special reasons?
Yes. One reason for delaying the beginning of a month
is to
prevent the day of Atonement (Annual Sabbath) from falling on a
Friday which is a preparation day.
Another is to prevent any of
the autumn annual festivals from falling on a Sunday. All feasts
which follow Pentecost represent the SECOND PART of God's Plan.
They must not fall on Sunday which would represent the FIRST part
of God's Plan which began 1300 years ago.
Timed for the Future
A final question:
Don't the Jews themselves admit that the
computation of the length of the month and length of the year
upon which this Sacred Calendar is based are not quite in perfect
accord with the present day figures provided by the very exacting
measurements of our modern astronomers?
Yes, this is
true. It would be more surprising if it were
not
true. There are slow
accumulative changes in the length of the
month and year over centuries of time.
This minute
variation which makes 13 Sacred Years slightly
longer than 19 astronomical years is a very important clue to
chronology. But that
subject is too long for this article! This
variation, however, does not affect the mathematical calculation
of new moons.
Is it unusual
that the One who planned the Sacred Calendar
should be one step ahead of both the
astronomers of the time of
Moses and the present twentieth century? With a perfect
understanding of the movements of the heavens as well as the
needs of man, God looked forward over a six thousand year period
and prepared a Calendar that would keep in harmony with the
heavens throughout the entire time.
It was this
system that was restored to the children of Israel
as they were being freed from bondage and it is this system that
is preserved for us today by God through the Jewish people.
No need exists
for any change or alteration in the Sacred
Calendar prior to Christ's return and we look for no such change
from the Jewish people. The
published dates of the Jews and of
our Sacred Calendar which cover the entire twentieth century are
absolutely correct, God's people will continue to follow them.
Now We Ask You Questions
Now it is our
turn to ASK YOU TO PROVE ALL THINGS. Have YOU
already proved that the Sacred Calendar which we publish is
identical with that preserved by God through the Jewish people?
Are the ministers
in the Church of God able, in due time, to
clear up puzzling questions and seeming contradictions about the
calendar? Do they
"read in the book of the law of God
distinctly, and give the sense and cause the people to understand
the reading?"