Mark,

- I’ve examined the new moon reports of five years in the archives of the karaite korner and verified that poor weather conditions occur just three or four times in a year at the most but even when the sky is cloudy it is sometimes possible to see the new crescent. Thus in 1988 they couldn’t spot the new crescent twice, in 1999 twice, in 2000 once, in 2001 all new crescents were visible, and in 2002 twice.

- The writings of a non-canonic prophet apply to a specific time and circumstance, using principles that are already contained in the Bible. The writings of Ellen White, for instance, apply just to the last-day church.

- At the time the Jews arose as a nation astronomy was intimately associated with religion. Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and others studied the heavens because they worshipped the heavenly bodies. Astronomy was associated with astrology and numerology. It would be only natural that God would want to preserve His people from this form of idolatry (see Deut. 17:2-5; Jer. 10:2). The celestial luminaries were indeed celebrated in the Scriptures as works of God, but the appeal to them for practical purposes was reduced to a minimum. It was later, through Babylonian and Hellenic influence, that the Jews eventually got familiar with more advanced astronomical concepts.

- As to the prophetic reckoning, I don’t think the 360-day year mentioned in biblical prophecies has any relationship with the 364-day year of the AB calendar.

The modern Karaites will tell you what rules they follow if the weather is bad. They have some means. I've never asked them, but I would not be surprised if it is in their faq on the Karaite Korner.

Regarding the 360 day year, the scholars I've read so far ignor that aspect of the AB calendar, but it is there at Enoch in different places where the solar months always have 30 days and the manuscripts from Qumran confirm it. One 'mishmarot' fragment I noticed cross references not only the lunar and solar months with the priestly cycle, it also crossreferences the the 30 day cycle leaving out the intercalated seasonal days, just as in the Biblical prophecies and the biblical time reckoning of the flood.

They consult modern astronomy programs. If the moon is "potentially visible" but not sighted because of poor weather conditions, they celebrate New Moon Day, although the moon was not sighted. When modern astronomy can't say with certainty whether the New Moon will be visible or not, they go by raw observation. If the moon is not seen (because it is cloudy for several days in a row), they go by the rule that the maximum length of a month is 30 days.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/karaite_korner_news/message/73

What you posted is reasonable for what they believe. There are no surprises there.

I decided not to put too much reliance on Queens because they need to spend their time with their students and staff. I'm reading J VanderKam's 'Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls,' 1998. VanderKam is a professor at Notra Dame which is about 40 miles south of our Andrews University. He is also one of the scholars responsible for manuscripts from Qumran cave 4, the only cave, I think, with manuscripts that have not been released to the public or to any other body. (The fact that after this many years some of the manuscripts have not been released has caused some fowl play theories to begin to circulate. I'm not concerned with that. There is a large amount that is available for study - the majority of it.)

I would recommend VanderKam's book for anyone interested in this. VanderKam does not take the Bible as an inspired book, but his book is clear and his approach is objective. One of the things he points out is that from the earliest history of the Jews, there is Biblical evidence that they used some kind of system to accurately track long periods of time. Rosangela you suggested above that the Jews in slavery were likely primative in their astronomy. The text below however indicates that even in slavery, they kept a calendar that was capable of computing time over a period of 430 years without missing a single day.

quote:

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12:40 Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, [was] four hundred and thirty years.
12:41 And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

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The above text is significant for two other reasons as well. First, it is given in the context of the Exodus when the first Passover was Divinely decreed. In the first two verses of the same chapter it says:

quote:

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12:1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
12:2 This month [shall be] unto you the beginning of months: it [shall be] the first month of the year to you.

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Putting verse 40 with the verses just above that tell us the Jews were driven out of Egypt on the night of the Passover, that is, the start of the 15th Hebrew day, we learn that Jacob and his 11 sons entered Egypt on the 15th day of the first month, 430 years earlier.

The second, more important aspect is that verse 40 implies a pre-existing calendar that is now being augmented in verse 1 forward to include the sacred feasts of the Hebrews. If that is true, then the method of tracking time in the Divine calendar is independent of the feasts.

Mark,

In my opinion you are inferring too much from that verse. The Bible is not referring to a human reckoning, but to a divine reckoning.

“But like the stars in the vast circuit of their appointed path, God's purposes know no haste and no delay. Through the symbols of the great darkness and the smoking furnace, God had revealed to Abraham the bondage of Israel in Egypt, and had declared that the time of their sojourning should be four hundred years. ‘Afterward,’ He said, ‘shall they come out with great substance.’ Gen. 15:14. Against that word, all the power of Pharaoh's proud empire battled in vain. On ‘the self-same day’ appointed in the divine promise, ‘it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.’ Ex. 12:41. So in heaven's council the hour for the coming of Christ had been determined. When the great clock of time pointed to that hour, Jesus was born in Bethlehem” (DA 32).

God had a precise reckoning of the 430 years according to His promise; this doesn’t mean that the Israelites also had a precise reckoning of this time. In the same way that the great clock of time pointed to the precise hour of Jesus’ birth, but we humans don’t know the day, the month, or even the year in which Christ was born.

Not to mention several other problems involved here. The promise of God to Abram says 400 years, Ex. 12:40,41 and Gal. 3:16,17 say 430 years. Ex. 12:40 says that "the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years", while Galatians says that "to Abraham and his seed were the promises made... [and] the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect." That is, the law came 430 years after the promise made to Abram, so the meaning of the passage of Exodus cannot be that the israelites remained 430 years in Egypt.

It is true, Roseangela, there is more than one interpretation on the starting point of the 430 years of Ex 12:40. I don't want to get sidetracked with that issue. The point I am making is that the verse implies that the Jews were capable of precise time keeping. Of the many dates in the Bible I can't think of any other than future prophecies that are divinely revealed. You gave the example of the birth of Christ. That was a prophecy without a specific date. But, as a rule of interpretation, we should take historical data in the Bible as coming from known facts unless the context indicates otherwise. Why? Because God works through His people where possible.

But suppose you’re right, that the reckoning is one that the liberated Hebrews were oblivious to at the time. Does that change the import of the verse? If you are correct that actually adds more weight to my point which is that the verse strongly suggests a pre-existing Divine calendar. And the same inference should be drawn form the consentration of dates at the flood – that is, that a Divine calendar was in operation from the dawn of creation and that the dates of the flood, whether Noah was aware of it or not (the text implies that he was), occurred when mentioned in that calendar.

So, the answer to the question in the title of the thread is 'yes' IMO. I've said already that I think it is the AB calendar, but I'm open to other suggestions. In the mean time, I've given some of the reasons and I'll continue to post the evidence.

As a start, Rosangela has raised the objection that the 364 day cycle of the AB calendar would make it quickly go out of sync with the seasons. The Qumran scrolls however show that this community used the calendar sucessfully over a long period of time. There are some hints of how it was intercalated to keep it in sync, but scholars have not figured out the exact mechanism yet. They agree though that it was used effectively in daily life.

Another conclusion they have drawn is that the Qumran community tracked the phases of the moon as faithfully as they did the solar months. The main departure that these Jews made from scripture and their fellow Jews was in basing their feasts on the solar rather then the lunar portion of their calendar. But there are more primary sources on calendars outside of that community that I expect will help me to figure out how it worked.

The account of the flood tells us that in ancient times, the months used for reckoning time all had 30 days. The Bible prophecies that speak of months also all have 30 days. Since these two Biblical facts are the only evidence in the Bible regarding the length of the month in divine reckoning, we have no choice but to use this as our starting point to gain insight into the divine calendar. From here, we observe that twelve months of 30 days yields a 360 day year, again in agreement with biblical prophecy.

Is there any calendar that uses a 360 day year that might shed light on how the Biblical reckonings work? The only one I am aware of is the AB calendar. Scholars agree that in the AB calendar there is such a year indicated. The 360 day year in the AB calendar is in addition to the 364 day solar year. This year, although it receives the shortest amount of description actually turns out to be the most important. It is the base year that the lunar year of 354 days and the solar year of 364 days are compared to. It is the standard for the calendar.

In the AB calendar, the relationship between the three types of years is consistent for an 8 year cycle. The calendar implies that lunar months are intercalated in the third, fifth and eight years. There is some evidence for this practise in antiquity. VanderKam notes in his book at page 102 (ebook version) that Eusebius quotes Julius Africanus as saying that the Jews and Greeks both intercalate three months in eight years. This is probably the strongest piece of evidence I’ve encountered so far that the Jews even of the second Temple period – that is, in Christ’s day – used the AB calendar rather than the rabbinic calendar in use today which intercalates 7 months in 19 years. Eusebius Demonstration of the Gospel viii.2, 54.