The Gregorian calendar named after Pope Gregory is the one most widely used world wide by most countries today.
It was introduced on February 24 with a papal bull, and went into effect in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years differently. So as to make the average calendar year 365.2425 days long, more closely approximating the 365.2422-day ‘tropical’ or ‘solar’ year that is determined by the Earth’s revolution around the Sun.
There were two reasons to establish the Gregorian calendar. First, the Julian calendar assumed incorrectly that the average solar year is exactly 365.25 days long,. An overestimate of a little under one day per century, and thus has a leap year every four years without exception. The Gregorian reform shortened the average (calendar) year by 0.0075 days to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes.[3] Second, in the years since the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325,[b]
The excess leap days introduced by the Julian algorithm had caused the calendar to drift. Such that the (Northern) spring equinox was occurring well before its nominal 21 March date. This date was important to the Christian churches because it is fundamental to the calculation of the date of Easter. To reinstate the association, the reform advanced the date by 10 days:[c] Thursday 4 October 1582 was followed by Friday 15 October 1 1582.
The catholic church was in charge
.[3] In addition, the reform also altered the lunar cycle used by the Church to calculate the date for Easter. Because astronomical new moons were occurring four days before the calculated dates. It is notable that whilst the reform introduced minor changes. The calendar continued to be fundamentally based on the same geocentric theory as its predecessor.[4]
The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe and their overseas possessions. The Gregorian calendar, like the Julian calendar, is a solar calendar with 12 months of 28–31 days each. The year in both calendars consists of 365 days, with a leap day being added to February in the leap years. The months and length of months in the Gregorian calendar are the same as for the Julian calendar. The only difference is that the Gregorian reform omitted a leap day in three centurial years every 400 years and left the leap day unchanged.
Wikipedia
Previous Calendars
The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts of Oriental Orthodoxy as well as by the Berbers[1]. Whereas the Gregorian calendar is used in most parts of the world.
This calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the earlier Roman calendar, a largely lunisolar one.[2]. It took effect on 1 January 45 BC, by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandria.
The Julian calendar has two types of years: a normal year of 365 days and a leap year of 366 days. They follow a simple cycle of three normal years and one leap year, giving an average year that is 365.25 days long. That is more than the actual solar year value of approximately 365.2422 days (the current value, which varies), which means the Julian calendar gains a day every 129 years. In other words, the Julian calendar gains 3.1 days every 400 years, while the Gregorian calendar gains 0.1 day over the same time. For any given event during the years from 1901 through 2099, its date according to the Julian calendar is 13 days behind its corresponding Gregorian date (for instance Julian 1 January falls on Gregorian 14 January).
The Roman Calendar
The ordinary year in the previous Roman calendar consisted of 12 months, for a total of 355 days. In addition, a 27- or 28-day intercalary month, the Mensis Intercalaris, was sometimes inserted between February and March. This intercalary month was formed by inserting 22 or 23 days after the first 23 days of February; the last five days of February. Which counted down toward the start of March, became the last five days of Intercalaris. The net effect was to add 22 or 23 days to the year, forming an intercalary year of 377 or 378 days.[5] Some say the mensis intercalaris always had 27 days and began on either the first or the second day after the Terminalia (23 February).[6]
According to the later writers Censorinus and Macrobius, the ideal intercalary cycle consisted of ordinary years of 355 days alternating with intercalary years, alternately 377 and 378 days long. In this system. The average Roman year would have had 366+1⁄4 days over four years, giving it an average drift of one day per year relative to any solstice or equinox. Macrobius describes a further refinement whereby, in one eight-year period within a 24-year cycle, there were only three intercalary years, each of 377 days (thus 11 intercalary years out of 24). This refinement averages the length of the year to 365.25 days over 24 years.
If managed correctly this system could have allowed the Roman year to stay roughly aligned to a tropical year. However, since the pontifices were often politicians, and because a Roman magistrate’s term of office corresponded with a calendar year, this power was prone to abuse: a pontifex could lengthen a year in which he or one of his political allies was in office, or refuse to lengthen one in which his opponents were in power.[7]
How confused can we be
If too many intercalations were omitted, as happened after the Second Punic War and during the Civil Wars, the calendar would drift out of alignment with the tropical year. Moreover, because intercalations were often determined quite late, the average Roman citizen often did not know the date, particularly if he were some distance from the city. For these reasons, the last years of the pre-Julian calendar were later known as “years of confusion”. The problems became particularly acute during the years of Julius Caesar’s pontificate before the reform, 63–46 BC. When there were only five intercalary months (instead of eight), none of which were during the five Roman years before 46 BC.
For these reasons, the last years of the pre-Julian calendar were later known as “years of confusion”. The problems became particularly acute during the years of Julius Caesar’s pontificate before the reform, 63–46 BC, when there were only five intercalary months (instead of eight). None of which were during the five Roman years before 46 BC.
Caesar’s reform was intended to solve this problem permanently, by creating a calendar that remained aligned to the sun without any human intervention. This proved useful very soon after the new calendar came into effect. Varro used it in 37 BC to fix calendar dates for the start of the four seasons, which would have been impossible only 8 years earlier.[8] A century later, when Pliny dated the winter solstice to 25 December because the sun entered the 8th degree of Capricorn on that date.[9] This stability had become an ordinary fact of life.
How the switch from Roman to Julian was done
The first step of the reform was to realign the start of the calendar year (1 January) to the tropical year by making 46 BC 445 days long. Compensating for the intercalations which had been missed during Caesar’s pontificate. This year had already been extended from 355 to 378 days by the insertion of a regular intercalary month in February. When Caesar decreed the reform, probably shortly after his return from the African campaign in late Quintilis (July), he added 67 more days by inserting two extraordinary intercalary months between November and December.
The Julian months were formed by adding ten days to a regular pre-Julian Roman year of 355 days, creating a regular Julian year of 365 days. Two extra days were added to January, Sextilis (August) and December, and one extra day was added to April, June, September, and November. February was not changed in ordinary years, and so continued to be the traditional 28 days.
The effect of the bissextile day on the nundinal cycle is not discussed in the sources. According to Dio Cassius, a leap day was inserted in 41 BC. To ensure that the first market day of 40 BC did not fall on 1 January, which implies that the old 8-day cycle was not immediately affected by the Julian reform. However, he also reports that in AD 44, and on some previous occasions, the market day was changed to avoid a conflict with a religious festival.
This may indicate that a single nundinal letter was assigned to both halves of the 48-hour bissextile day by this time. So that the Regifugium and the market day might fall on the same date but on different days. In any case, the 8-day nundinal cycle began to be displaced by the 7-day week in the first century AD, and dominical letters began to appear alongside nundinal letters in the fasti.[31]
Due to the confusion about this period, we cannot be sure exactly what day (e.g. Julian day number) any particular Roman date refers to before March of 8 BC, except for those used in Egypt in 24 BC which are secured by astronomy.
The Jewish Calendar
The Jewish calendar is luni-solar, based on lunar months of 29 days alternating with 30 days. An extra month is intercalated every 3 years, based on a cycle of 19 years. Dates of the Jewish calendar are designated AM (Latin anno mundi,”the year of the world”) and BCE (before the Common Era).
The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a month); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year). These three phenomena are independent of each other, so there is no direct correlation between them. On average, the moon revolves around the Earth in about 29½ days. The Earth revolves around the sun in about 365¼ days, that is, about 12.4 lunar months.
The civil calendar used by most of the world has abandoned any correlation between the moon cycles and the month. Arbitrarily setting the length of months to 28, 29, 30 or 31 days.
The Jewish calendar, however, coordinates all three of these astronomical phenomena. Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29½-day lunar cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar cycle.
The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date. They would declare the Rosh Chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell people when the month began.
Very Irrational
The problem with strictly lunar calendars is that there are approximately 12.4 lunar months in every solar year. So a 12-month lunar calendar is about 11 days shorter than a solar year. And a 13-month lunar is about 19 longer than a solar year. The months drift around the seasons on such a calendar: on a 12-month lunar calendar. The month of Nissan, which is supposed to occur in the Spring. Would occur 11 days earlier in the season each year, eventually occurring in the Winter, the Fall, the Summer, and then the Spring again. On a 13-month lunar calendar, the same thing would happen in the other direction, and faster.
To compensate for this drift, the Jewish calendar uses a 12-month lunar calendar with an extra month occasionally added. The month of Nissan occurs 11 days earlier each year for two or three years. And then jumps forward 30 days, balancing out the drift. In ancient times, this month was added by observation: the Sanhedrin observed the conditions of the weather, the crops and the livestock,
And if these were not sufficiently advanced to be considered “spring,” then the Sanhedrin inserted an additional month into the calendar to make sure that Pesach (Passover) would occur in the spring (it is, after all, referred to in the Torah as Chag he-Aviv, the Festival of Spring!).
A year with 13 months is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me’uberet (pronounced shah-NAH meh-oo-BEH-reht). Literally: a pregnant year. In English, we commonly call it a leap year. The additional month is known as Adar I, Adar Rishon (first Adar) or Adar Alef (the Hebrew letter Alef being the numeral “1” in Hebrew). The extra month is inserted before the regular month of Adar (known in such years as Adar II, Adar Sheini or Adar Beit).
This calendar also used a leap/intercalary year
Note that Adar II is the “real” Adar, the one in which Purim is celebrated. The one in which yahrzeits for Adar are observed, the one in which a 13-year-old born in Adar becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Adar I is the “extra” Adar. If a birth or death occurs in Adar I during a leap year, it is observed during that month in a leap year. And during the regular Adar in non-leap years.
In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle, so that the lunar calendar realigns with the solar years.
Judaism 101
Why these calendars do not align with Scripture
All these calendars use the equinox and the solar year to balance or align their calendars to avoid being out of season. Yet none of them use the equinox to begin the year. The Roman and Catholic calendars all have their year beginning in the winter on January 1. The Scripture tells us that the First month of the year is also the beginning of Spring and has the Passover 14 days later. Neither does The Jewish Calendar, because it relies on the moon to determine the first month of the year. This does not align with the equinox.
And the Lord/Almighty spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying.
2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.
Exodus 12 v 1-4
Historian Philo in Moses puts down the beginning of the vernal equinox as the first month of the year. Attributing the chief honour, not as some persons do to the periodical revolutions of the year in regard of time,. But rather to the graces and beauties of nature which it has caused to shine upon men. For it is through the bounty of nature that the seeds which are sown to produce the necessary food of mankind are brought to perfection.
And the fruit of trees in their prime, which is second in importance only to the necessary crops, is engendered by the same power. And as being second in importance it also ripens late; for we always find in nature that those things which are not very necessary are second to those which are indispensable. (223) Now wheat and barley are among the things which are very necessary; as, likewise, are all the other species of food, without which it is impossible to live.
Historians confirm the scriptures
But oil, and wine, and almonds are not among necessaries, since men often live without them to the very extremity of old age, extending their life over a number of years. (224) Accordingly, in this month, about the fourteenth day of the month, when the orb of the moon is usually about to become full, the public universal feast of the passover is celebrated.
Which in the Chaldaic language is called pascha; at which festival not only do private individuals bring victims to the altar and the priests sacrifice them. But also, by a particular ordinance of this law, the whole nation is consecrated and officiates in offering sacrifice. Every separate individual on this occasion bringing forward and offering up with his own hands the sacrifice due on his own behalf.
This was also confirmed by Josephus according to Andrew Gabriel Roth in his book wheel of stars.
New Moon vs Month
In hebrew the words for month and moon are completely different. The word for month is Chodesh H2320 and the word for moon is Yerach H3394.
The Jewish calendar was influenced by the Babylonian calendar during the captivity. This is why the moon was used to begin months and the scriptures was translated to say new moon instead of new month.
The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with years consisting of 12 lunar months. Each beginning when a new crescent moon was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset, plus an intercalary month inserted as needed by decree. The calendar is based on a Sumerian (Third Dynasty of Ur) predecessor preserved in the Umma calendar of Shulgi (c. 21st century BC).
The year begins in spring, and is divided into 12 months. The word for “month” was arḫu (construct state araḫ). The chief deity of the Assyrians is assigned the surplus intercalary month. Showing that the calendar originates in Babylonian, and not later Assyrian times.
During the 6th century BC Babylonian captivity of the Jews, the Babylonian month names were adopted into the Hebrew calendar.
wikipedia.org
This was deliberately done to seek to justify the use of a luni/solar calendar.
According to the book of Jubilees:.
- And on this account he ordained them for himself as feasts for a memorial for ever, and thus are they ordained.
- And they placed them on the heavenly tablets, each had thirteen weeks; from one to another (passed) their memorial, from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, and from the third to the fourth.
- And all the days of the commandment will be two and fifty weeks of days, and (these will make) the entire year complete. Thus it is engraven and ordained on the heavenly tablets.
- And there is no neglecting (this commandment) for a single year or from year to year.
- And command thou the children of Israel that they observe the years according to this reckoning- three hundred and sixty-four days, and (these) will constitute a complete year, and they will not disturb its time from its days and from its feasts; for everything will fall out in them according to their testimony, and they will not leave out any day nor disturb any feasts.
Exactly what He said has happened
- But if they do neglect and do not observe them according to His commandment, then they will disturb all their seasons and the years will be dislodged from this (order), [and they will disturb the seasons and the years will be dislodged] and they will neglect their ordinances.
- And all the children of Israel will forget and will not find the path of the years, and will forget the new moons, and seasons, and sabbaths and they will go wrong as to all the order of the years.
- For I know and from henceforth will I declare it unto thee, and it is not of my own devising; for the book (lies) written before me, and on the heavenly tablets the division of days is ordained, lest they forget the feasts of the covenant and walk according to the feasts of the Gentiles after their error and after their ignorance.
- For there will be those who will assuredly make observations of the moon -how (it) disturbs the seasons and comes 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 sabbaths and feasts and jubilees.
- For this reason I command and testify to thee that thou mayst testify to them; for after thy death thy children will disturb (them), so that they will not make the year three hundred and sixty-four days only, and for this reason they will go wrong as to the new moons and seasons and sabbaths and festivals, and they will eat all kinds of blood with all kinds of flesh. Jubilee 6 v 28-38
More clarification on month vs moon
The calendar described in the book of Jubilees is clearly one with a predetermined amount of days in each month and in each week. Every quarter there was 91 days each month had 30, 30 and 31. Clearly this was not based on the sighting of the moon. Since the appears every 29 days approximately. It is quite obvious that the insertion of the words new moon in the translation of the book of jubilees and in the scriptures was meant to validate the mistranslation of the word month for moon. In order to mislead and confuse us with regards to the calendar. The moon actually regulates the seasons and determines seed time and harvest and the moon and the stars rules the night.
The New Moon Calendar was the official calendar of the Greeks. And when “Alexander the Great” conquered the Middle East in the 4th century BCE, the Lunar Calendar was introduced . And was gradually accepted by most of the people, except for the Hebrew people. In 172 BCE, King Antiochus appointed Menelaus, as Jerusalem’s High Priest. To introduce the Greek way of educating the young people, and to completely Hellenize the Hebrew people.
He also sent a Senator from Athens to give the Hebrew people an ultimatum. To forsake the Laws of their God Yah and follow the Kings orders or to be put to death,.so most of the Hebrew people followed the Kings orders to save their families, and many were put to death. King Antiochus forced the Hebrew people to celebrate the “Birthday of the Month,” every month, at the time of the moon’s first visibility.
Kings and Religions used calendars to control the people
In 167 BCE, King Antiochus returned to Jerusalem after his second campaign in Egypt, and he immediately banned the Hebrew religion and the Enoch Calendar, and prohibited all religious practices. He dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem to Zeus, the Lord of Heaven (Baal Shamen). And ordered the Hebrew people to worship Zeus and to participate in the festival honoring Dionysus, who was Zeus’ son, (who was called Bacchus by the Romans), and Dionysus/Bacchus was known as the “dying and rising god” as he was “twice born.” This festival, called Bacchanalia, was held on March 16th and March 17th to pollute the Hebrew Spring.
Equinox Day and New Year’s Day. When King Antiochus began sacrificing swine and making abominable offerings in the Temple, this began the Maccabean revolt
https://enochcalendars.webs.com/enochcalendar.htm
The Hebrew people were forced to abandon their faith.
1 Maccabees 1:41-51 Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, 42 and that each should give up his customs. 43 All the Gentiles accepted the command of the king. Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath. 44 And the king sent letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the cities of Judah; he directed them to follow customs strange to the land, 45 to forbid burnt offerings and sacrifices and drink offerings in the sanctuary, to profane sabbaths and feasts, 46 to defile the sanctuary and the priests,
47 to build altars and sacred precincts and shrines for idols, to sacrifice swine and unclean animals, 48 and to leave their sons uncircumcised. They were to make themselves abominable by everything unclean and profane, 49 so that they should forget the law and change all the ordinances. 50 “And whoever does not obey the command of the king shall die.” 51 In such words he wrote to his whole kingdom. And he appointed inspectors over all the people and commanded the cities of Judah to offer sacrifice, city by city.
They were forced to celebrate the sighting of the moon each month as the birthday of the moon.
2 Maccabees 6:7 On the Monthly Birthday Celebration, the king had the Jews taken, under bitter constraint, to partake of the sacrifices; and when the feast of Dionysus came, they were forced to walk in the procession in honor of Dionysus, wearing wreaths of ivy.
Once the calendar is perverted so are the feasts
The Dionysus/Bacchus festival is still celebrated to this day, and it’s called Mardi Gras, and it includes the “Bacchus Parade.” The date of this celebration was later changed to be on the day before “Ash Wednesday,” and the name “New Year’s Day,” (March 17th), was later changed to be called “St. Patrick’s Day,” and it is the “Welcome Sign” of the First Day of Spring, with its Festivals of Green clothes, Green hats, Green food, Green drinks,
King Antiochus took away the freedom of the Hebrew people to worship Yah, and forced them to honor Zeus (god) and his son Bacchus (son of god). This happened in exactly 350 years, as the book of Daniel stated; from the time King Darius began his reign in 520 BCE to the time King Antiochus enforced his Hellenization policies on the people in 170 BCE. The Jubilee Timing is 350 years, (Time = 100, Times = 200, ½ Time = 50), or 7 Jubilees. King Antiochus died 1,335 days after he dedicated the Temple to Zeus and 1,290 days after he sacrificed swine on Yah’s Altar:
Daniel 7:25 He will say commands against that of the Most High, And harass the holy ones of the Most High. His intent is to change the times and laws. And they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Daniel 7 v 25
Daniel 12:11-13 And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away and the abomination that makes desolate set up. There shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12 Blessed is he that waits and comes to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.13 But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.
Daniel 12 v 11 – 13
The Book of Jubilees was written during this time and it preserved the Enoch Calendar. It warned the Hellenistic Jews to guard themselves against keeping the Athenian Calendar that begins the year on the first New Moon after the Summer Solstice.
The writers of the Book of Jubilees feared that if the Hebrew people observed the Athenian Calendar and King Antiochus’ monthly New Moon Birthday Festival that begins the Greek months,. That they would forget the Enoch Calendar and Yah’s months that end the year on the Spring Equinox. That is the Sabbath Day, and it sets the 7th Day Sabbaths. They would lose track of their Sabbath Day and forget their monthly Festivals on the 1st Day of each Solar Month,. And forget the Annual Feast Days, as they are all on Fixed Days every year, based on the Spring Equinox that ends the year:
New moon is really a pagan celebration of the birthday of the moon
The Birthday of the Month Festival was observed by most of the Hebrew people because they feared King Antiochus. After the death of King Antiochus, in 164 BCE, some of the Hebrew priests tried to restore the Solar Calendar. But the Greek New Moon influence was all around them. Later, in 359 CE, Hillel II introduced the fixed calculated New Moon Calendar that is based on the conjunction of the earth, moon, and sun, and this Lunar Calendar has been used by Jews and others to this day. To determine the 1st Day of the Months and the Annual Feast Days. However, the term “New Moon” (yareach chadash יָרֵחַ חָדָשׁ) is Not Written anywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Scriptures only use the word “month” (chodesh חֹדֶשׁ) and it pertains to a Solar Month.
The translators mixed up a few of the Hebrew words due to vowel point errors, like CHODESH חֹדֶשׁ which means either “month/s” or “new month” and the word CHADASH חָדָשׁ which means “New.” They also confused the word YERACH יֶרַח which means “Month,” as in a “Complete Month,” with the word YAREACH יָרֵחַ which means “Moon,”. And this is where the translation error of New Moon came into the various books and bibles, as it was commonly known that the Hebrew people observed the New Moon and kept a New Moon Festival every month.
When we do what is not written we loose our way
However, observing the New Moon is not commanded in the Torah, nor is the term “New Moon” ever mentioned in the whole Tanakh when you look at the original Hebrew text. And the word moon (yareach) is only mentioned THREE times in the Torah, of which two times are warnings not to worship or serve the moon:
And lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the Moon and the stars, even all the host of the sky, and be drawn away to worship and serve them, which YHWH your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
Deuteronomy 17:2-5 If there be found in the midst of you, within any of your gates which YHWH your God gives you, man or woman, who does that which is evil in the sight of YHWH your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods, and worshiped them, or the sun, or the Moon, or any of the host of the sky, which I have Not commanded.
4 and it be told you, and you have heard of it, then shall you inquire diligently; and, behold, if it be true, and the thing certain that such abomination is done in Israel, 5 then shall you bring forth that man or that woman, who has done this evil thing, to your gates, and that man or the woman you shall stone to death with stones.
deuteronomy