By the way, this year, except for Pentecost which is always on the first day of the week, the Jews are observing the feasts on the correct month and the correct day I think but could be one day too early.

How if you and Dedication and those who view the Karaite method as Biblical provide the scripture in support of that view. Lord willing I will provide the scripture for the vernal equinox rule.

?? The Catholic Church set's their easter celebration after the equinox calendar, but what I seem to recall what I've read on the Jews... The majority of them their calendar is based on calculation. And they(well most of the Jews) have been using this system since their Babylonian captivity release(690?BC), not only since 70 AD.

However, the Bible teach to determine the start of the calendar via the ripeness of the barley, not the equinox. So I don't know how you can come to conclude with such assurance that the Karaites, who uses the barley ripeness method, that their fall Feast dates was a month too early as oppose to the Adventist having it right?

Insisting the Pentecost ALWAYS occurs on the first day of the week violates the most plain description of when it is to occur. If it is always on the first day of the week, then 50 days from the 16th of Abib is not always 50 days. Deuteronomy 16:9 is clear in its description of the feast of weeks. Gesenius, in his Hebrew Lexicon, says: "Sometimes a sabbath is nearly equivalent to a week." Then he quotes verse 16, and says: "Here the seven complete sabbaths are parallel to the seven weeks of Deuteronomy 16:9." The SDABC agrees, and all the references in the Adventist Pioneer Library also agree that Pentecost can occur on any day of the week. And I just received an email from an prominent SDA theologian and linguist again confirming Pentecost can occur on any day of the week.

Deu 16:9 Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn.

Lev 23:9 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Lev 23:10 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest:
Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.
. . .
Lev 23:15 And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
Lev 23:16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD.

How would a simple person, let's say a fifth grader, understand this?

This should be read along with this one:

Is there anywhere in scripture that the Sabbath does not mean the seventh day of the week?

Most excellent observation, Elle.
If someone wants people to take them and/or their position seriously, they must in turn take others and their position seriously. You don't have to agree with their position, but you must recognize that they have their reasons and evidences which, to them, are valid.

It's an aspect of legitimate scholarship.

The expression, "the morrow after the Sabbath' (Lev. 23:11)has sometimes been misunderstood as implying that the presentation of the so called first sheaf was to be always made on the day following the weekly Sabbath of the Passover week. This view, adopted by the Boethusians and Sadducees in the time of Christ and by the Karate Jews and certain modern interpreters, rests on a misinterpretation of the word "Sabbath". As in analogous allusions to other feasts int he same chapter, it means not the weekly Sabbath, but the day of the festival. The testimony of Josephus (Antiq 3.248-249) of Philo (Op. ii. 294) and of Jewish tradition, leaves no room to doubt that in this instance we are to understand by the Sabbath, the 15th of Nisan, on whatever day of the week it might fall. p.203-204 2002 edition

I said "this sabbath," not "the Sabbath." I said "this sabbath," with a small "s," not the Sabbath, with a capital. I never use a small "s" in writing or printing the Sabbath, but always a capital "S." The whole passage reads as follows:— {January 31, 1899 ATJ, ARSH 74.9}
The word "pentecost" signifies "the fiftieth day," and was always counted, beginning with the sixteenth day of the first month. It is also called "the feast of weeks," because it was seven complete weeks from the day of the offering of the first-fruits, which was the second day of the feast of unleavened bread, the sixteenth day of the feast of unleavened bread, the sixteenth day of the first month. On the fourteenth day of the first month, all leaven was to be put away from all the houses. They were to kill the passover lamb in the evening of the fourteenth; and with it, at the beginning of the fifteenth day of the month, they were to begin to eat the unleavened bread, and the feast of unleavened bread was to continue until the twenty-second day of the month. The first day of the feast—that is, the fifteenth of the month—was to be a sabbath; no servile work was to be done in that day. Ex. 12:6-8, 15-19; Lev. 23:5-7. Because of the putting away of the leaven on the fourteenth day, and the beginning to eat the unleavened bread on the evening of that day, it is sometimes referred to as the first day of unleavened bread; but the fifteenth day was really the first, and was the one on which no servile work was to be done. {January 31, 1899 ATJ, ARSH 74.10}
On "the morrow" after this fifteenth day of the month—this sabbath—the wave-sheaf of the first-fruits was to be offered before the Lord: and with that day—the sixteenth day of the month—they were to begin to count fifty days; and when they reached the fiftieth day, that was Pentecost. {January 31, 1899 ATJ, ARSH 74.11}

On the second day of the feast, the first fruits of the year's harvest were presented before God. Barley was the earliest grain in Palestine, and at the opening of the feast it was beginning to ripen. A sheaf of this grain was waved by the priest before the altar of God, as an acknowledgment that all was His. Not until this ceremony had been performed was the harvest to be gathered. {PP 539.4}

shabuwa H7620 = period of seven (days, weeks, years)

Usually translated as "week".

"Seven weeks H7620 shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks H7620 from such time as you begin to put the sickle to the corn. Due. 16:9

Or -- seven periods of seven shalt thou number....

Compare Levitcus 23:11-16
with Levitcus 25:8,11

And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years....A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you

The word "sabbaths" here does not refer to weekly Sabbath, but rather to a period of seven. Seven years in this case. Seven periods of seven = 49. Then on the 50th is the jubilee.

The same language is used in calculating the feast of weeks.

"And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, H7676 from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths H7676 shall be complete:"

So count seven periods of seven, in this case
seven times seven days -- 49 days, and the 50 day is the "feast of weeks".


Remember there are seven ANNUAL Sabbath days in the Jewish year, that were in addition to the regular 7th day Sabbath.
The first day of unleaven bread was one of these ceremonial sabbaths.

So basically you have

now count seven times seven days and arrive at 50 days after the ceremonial sabbath of unleaven bread.

According to Alfred Edersheim, a Jew, converted to Christianity, and one of the leading authorities of his time regarding the practices of Judaism --


At Jesus crucifixion the ceremonial sabbath (Nisan 15) and the seventh day Sabbath fell on the same date, causing some to become confused on this issue.

A.T.Jones (an Adventist preacher in the late 1800's) makes this statement: