Green, Tx for the reply and all of the good data. I will come back to it tomorrow.

First I would like to adress Rosangela's post and I was hoping you were going to comment on it.
Do you agree with what she said?

Elle,

My post was right after Rosangela's post in response to her post.

Elle & Daryl,

My previous post was focused on the year, not the day. As regards the day, I am convinced that Jesus was crucified on the very day of Passover.

The Bible starts each day with the "evening" followed by the "morning" for that same day. Jesus ate the passover supper with His disciples in the evening of the same day in which He was to die on the cross.

It is clear from the Biblical record that Jesus could not have died in the evening of the next day, because He was already dead with sufficient time before sundown for His followers to place Him in the tomb before Sabbath. At the start of Friday evening, the start of Sabbath, He was resting in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb.

Jesus spoke of His death to come on the Passover.



Mrs. White also confirms this, if the Bible were not already sufficient.



Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Now (now that I have time), let me address more of the original post that began this discussion. For the sake of remembrance, here it is.



I was first exposed to some of these concepts as recently as last month. I had not before realized what the "mainstream media," so-to-speak, was sponsoring in terms of the chronology of events surrounding the life and death of Christ. There are now multiple websites and sources that all seem coordinated in teaching the same chronology, but perhaps the most prominent and artful among them is that of bethlehemstar.net. They have a website that is replete with references to both the Bible and astronomy. They find facts from any possible source to piece together a very persuasive argument for Jesus' birth and death years being later than we have traditionally taught.

Being one who likes to verify things before I either accept or reject them, I took a look. My cousin was urging the new find as being very interesting and compelling. So, at his behest, I began to read their materials.

My first impressions, upon looking at the site, were to notice that the color scheme and imagery on their pages seemed allusive to psychics and/or spiritism. But I shrugged that off to check the actual text of what they were saying.

As I began to read, at first it appeared that their facts were in good order and all agreed with the Biblical record. But then I stumbled upon some points that seemed amiss. I will present them for your own study.

1) They claim that the star of Bethlehem which led the wise men from the East to Jerusalem and then on to Bethlehem, according to all of the Biblical record, could have been none other than a "wandering star," aka a planet.

2) They claim the star "stopped" over Jerusalem and again over Bethlehem by slowing down over a matter of days or weeks until it appeared almost stationary.


It is hard for me to imagine that #2 could possibly be true, as it seems from the Biblical record that the star actually moved ahead of them and stopped, first at Jerusalem, then over Bethlehem. However, I think the stronger case is with #1.

Here are the texts to look at:



Draw your own conclusions, of course. But from my perspective, there would have been no such herald of our Savior's birth as a "wandering star!" The rest of their explanation also seems to fall short of the Biblical narrative.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Daryl, with these quotes are you saying that Jesus died on Nisan 14? Which according to our beliefs and other EGW quotes, that it was on a Friday? But according to Nasa accurate calculation of the New Moon, on AD31, Nisan 14th fell on a Tuesday.

Here is Nasa’s website so you can verify the data yourself : http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/phase/phases0001.html

Here is a handy simple calendar generator for anytime in CE showing the moon phase. Their moon phase are in sync with NASA’s data. So you can use it to see the calendar for 31 CE.
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=31&country=34

Below is the moon conjunction time and date for the years from 30AD to 33 AD :

Jesus Crucifixions Years Probability(Data in Julian Date)

................. Conjunction ...........
Year ........ Date -- Time(UT) -- Day ...... Crescent Visibility* .... Nisan 1 .... Nisan 14
30 ........... Mar 22 -- 17:46 -- Wed ................ Thu 23 ............ Fri 24 ...... Thu 6(Apl)
30 ........... Apr 21 -- 09:36 -- Fri .................. Sat 22 ............ Sun 23 ...... Sat 6(May)

31 ........... Mar 11 -- 22:19 -- Sun ................ Tue 13 ............ Wed 14 ...... Tue 27(Mar)
31 ........... Apr 10 -- 11:32 -- Tue ................ Wed 11 ............ Thu 12 ...... Wed 25(Apl)


32 ........... Mar 29 -- 20:00 P-- Sat ................ Sun 30 ............ Mon 31 ...... Sun 13(Apl)
32 ........... Apr 28 -- 07:00 P-- Mon ............... Tue 29 ............ Wed 30 ...... Tue 13(May)


33 ........... Mar 19 -- 10:38 T-- Thu ............. Fri 20 ........... Sat 21 ...... Fri 3(Apl)
33 ........... Apr 17 -- 19:09 -- Fri ................... Sat 18 ............ Sun 19 ...... Sat 2(May)

*Crescent Visibility probability data is figured out with Roy Hoffman’s software (highly accurate) which is used by those who publish Feast calendars like the Karaite Jews http://www.karaite-korner.org/holiday_dates.shtml and Scott Arrington http://3rdangelfarmandpublishing.com/. They use Roy Hoffman software to plan moon sithing and to know the probability of sighting the first cresent.

Roy Hoffman’s software can be downloaded for free. http://sites.google.com/site/moonsoc/ I have done that just yesterday and I’m starting to get familiar with it.



Daryl and GC, as you can see, according to the astrological data, it was impossible that Jesus died on 31 CE for Nisan 14 fell on a Tuesday March 27th or on Wednesday 25th of April that year.

Nissan 14th only fell on a Friday Apl 3, 33 CE.

Elle,

I'm afraid you have fallen victim to some misinformation. I would encourage you to verify the facts of your table above by at least two other websites, to see if they give the same data. When I have looked for calendars online for those years, I have found a different set of facts. There is a lot of misinformation out there. I've even found a calendar that purports to say that the Jewish "Sabbath," the one called a "high day" in the Bible, the regular seventh-day Sabbath, fell on a "Thursday" for our calendars, of April 26. That kind of "data" is simply bogus. People are just making stuff up as they wish for whatever purposes they might have.

Take a look at the data at the following site, for example:

http://www.judaismvschristianity.com/Passover_dates.htm

Almost any source of information on it that I have found shows that Passover fell on a Friday for the year 30 AD. That is where I would look for the answer, with the discrepancy between 30 & 31 AD being that of a calendar reckoning.

By the way, I know something of how difficult it is to create an accurate date calculator software. There have been changes to the calendar at various times for different countries which affect the ability to predict ancient dates. None of the changes involved a restructuring of the week, but taking 10 days out of the calendar in 1582 (or whenever it was per the country at time of acceptance of the new calendar) really messes up the sequence for earlier dates. Remember Y2K? Computer programmers don't always do the job correctly--even for such simple matters as dates, not to mention that their job is made more difficult by special events such as extra leap days certain centuries and not others.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

GC, my information source is NASA. Historical moon conjunction or other moon phases can be accurately calculated today. NASA's data is accurate.

Elle,

I was not talking about the moon phases. I don't know if that part is accurate or not. I was talking about the calendar data. None of the four Gospels mentions the moon with respect to the passover or crucifixion. But days of the week with respect to passover are mentioned.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

The answers I'm coming to are that the Passover was on the day after the full moon. That should open up some dates that would have been missed if one thought it should be the day of the full moon itself. I'm also finding that Passover may have been on Nisan/Abib 15, not 14. Probably the 14th of Abib/Nisan was the full moon that people often are looking for, but they need to remember that it was the next day that was the Passover.

NASA certainly would have little interest in accurately finding a Passover. They may be able to help us with moon phases, if that will help us. But it is still left with us to interpret what relationship, if any, may have existed between the phase of the moon and the Passover in a given year.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

GC, Nisan 1 fall on the day of the sighting of the first crescent of the new moon. NASA's data of the moon conjunction date and time tells us when it occurs in those years. With that info, we then know what day Nisan 1st and Nisan 14th falls on.