A Brief History of the Hebrew Calendar

Every year, from the home office, we get one of these God Holy Days five-year calendar. And so they are able to update when the feasts come. And of course, it's very handy to have them in your wallets, or ladies have also different types of pocketbooks. They can put them in. But since I came into church over 50 years ago, we've always had these Holy Day calendars.

And they're five years ahead. And so you can plan. You can look here, and it says 2023. You have Passover. It's April the 5th, with the evening previous, where we have Passover services. April 6th through 12th, Feast of Unleavened Bread. And then, sure enough, May 28th, Pentecost. Now, we take that for granted, that we can look and see all of these different feast days through the years.

And in Puerto Vallarta, my wife does them for the Spanish and the English brethren. So we have a big one. If you are a little bit challenged with a small print, so she makes one of these for those there at Feast of Tabernacles in Puerto Vallarta. And so it's very handy to have. But actually, that has not been the case over thousands of years. It's always been very tough for people to figure out when are the feast days, and how you can determine exactly when they fall on these days. Now, this is another important truth of God.

We should never take it for granted, because that's part of God's commandments, to present yourself during the feasts of God, like we're going to do tomorrow. It's not a suggestion. It's a commandment from God. He says that this is something that he established for people around the earth, actually.

Because if they were trying to follow God's way, they would come across these different feasts of God. So I'd like to give you a brief history of God's sacred calendar. I don't think I've ever quite done this the same way, but since we've been studying this for about four years, we finally, in the Doctrine Committee, got out this 150-page, document with a summary of, executives summary of about 10 pages and then about 140 pages worth of appendices that you can go and study. But it's very important to understand the basics of it, because God took a lot of time and effort for all of these feast days to happen at their times and seasons.

So I'd like to give you a bird's-eye view through the Bible of the history of God's calendar. As you know, 98% of Christians follow the Roman calendar, which is not found in the Bible, which was not authorized by God. That's why they can keep Christmas on December the 25th. It used to be the Roman festivity of Saturnalia, which was sort of Christianized. But anything that was pagan, you can't really make into Christian.

And so we have a world that has been deceived by Satan the devil. They don't realize the importance of keeping the calendar that is found in the Bible itself. And so let's take a look at this. And of course, we begin in the Old Testament and go over the main key scriptures about the calendar. And it's not boring. It's fascinating and inspiring. The way God set it up, He set up a heavenly clock where you can determine when it's going to be the next new moon. And you can determine it thousands of years ahead of time.

It's that precise. As a matter of fact, in the NASA, the National Autonautical Space Agency, which sends the rockets, they have to use the same heavenly clock to send all of these satellites and rockets.

And they can calculate ahead of time where these satellites are going to go because of God's laws are so steady. And so as I go through this, you'll see how much effort God has put into it for people not to forget and ignore something like this. So actually, the history of God's sacred calendar begins in Genesis 1.5. Right at the very start of the Bible, God starts out revealing His calendar. Notice what it says in Genesis 1.5. I'm just going to read the latter part of that.

It says, So evening and the morning were the first day. So He established here the duration of a day. It was going to be one full evening or the night portion. And then you would have the day portion, which it says here, evening and the morning were the first day. This makes perfect sense when people didn't have watches and clocks. How could you determine when to begin a new day? Well, God set it up that at the end of the daylight portion of every day is the end of that day. That's why it's talking about sunset.

That's the setting of one day and beginning a new day. So you have 12 hours approximately of daytime and you have 12 hours of nighttime. In God's calendar, it begins with those 12 hours of nighttime because people go to bed and they wake up and then they got 12 hours of daytime. Notice in John 11, verse 9, this nighttime and daytime were divided into 12 hours.

Jesus mentioned in John 11, 9, are there not 12 hours in the day? So they had already divided the day into 12 different hours, even during the time of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, it was the same way. So for the rest of the Bible, the time of the 24 hours at sunset is the end of one day and the beginning of the new day until the following sunset. 24 hours, which is the time for the earth to rotate on its axis. Notice in Leviticus 23, verse 32, we have an example here of when the day begins.

Leviticus 23, verse 32, talking about the day of atonement, when of God's feasts. When does it begin and when does it end? Leviticus 23, verse 32, it says, It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, talking about the day of atonement, and you shall afflict your souls on the ninth day of the month at evening, at sunset, from evening to evening, that's from sunset to sunset, you shall celebrate your Sabbath.

So again, even if you're stuck in an island somewhere, you can still know exactly when the day ends and when a new day ends. Just put a little notch on one of those palm trees or something, you can count the days. It's good to remember in Matthew chapter 20, let's go to Matthew chapter 20. It shows here in Christ's day, they were counting days according to the hours of the day. Not only that, but the day portion was divided into four parts.

Each one was a three-hour segment. Notice in Matthew chapter 20 in verse 1, the parable of the workers in the vineyard. So I'm going to read here Matthew 20 verses 1 through 9. It says, Christ said, For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now, when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius, that's a silver coin that's basically worth a day's worth of work, a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyards.

And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. So here you have to understand that it's not talking about the Roman way of counting time, which starts at midnight, the a.m. and p.m. Now, here it's starting at sunrise, where you have 12 hours, and it's divided into four parts.

So you have actually what we would call 6 p.m. is actually the beginning of the day, and it starts with zero. And then at three hours afterwards, which it's talking about here, it would be 9 a.m. That's the way this person was hiring these workers. Notice that he hired these, verse 5. And again, he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour and did likewise. So the sixth hour is actually from 6 a.m. till 12 p.m., which in the Bible is the sixth hour from sunrise, three hours later.

It's three, and then it would be six hours later. From the sunrise, it would be 12 p.m. So he hired some at 12 noon. And then he said he went to the ninth hour and hired some. What is the ninth hour? That's 3 p.m. in the afternoon. Verse 6. And about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing idle and said to them, why have you been standing here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. Well, we've seen some of that. Workers that are trying to get hired day after day, they're out there in one of these different stores, and some get hired very late in the afternoon.

As in this case, the eleventh hour would have been 5 p.m. So they actually only started, they only worked one hour from 5 to 6 p.m. because that was the end of the day. And he said that I will pay you accordingly. Verse 9, it says, and when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. They received a full day's wage for just one hour of work. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more, and they likewise received each a denarius. So he gave each one a day's wage. Whether they worked at 12 hours from 6 a.m. all the way to 6 p.m. or just one hour.

And this is typical of human nature. And when they had received it, they complained against the landowners, saying, these last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day. But he answered one of them and said, friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your I evil because I am good? So the last will be the first and the first last, for many are called, but few are chosen. So here he's using an analogy of when a person is called in life. Some are called very early and they have to persevere for decades in the church. And they're going to receive eternal life. Just like a person who comes in at the latter part of their lives and they are faithful, and even if they just have a few years left, they will receive eternal life as well. God is merciful. He's not requiring the same amount of effort and time in this Christian life.

Although it's important to also mention that there are going to be different rewards. It's not just eternal life, but also how you're going to be rewarded according to what you did with God's Spirit. But eternal life is like that one denarius. Everybody's going to be able to enjoy eternal life. The second scripture in the Old Testament is just a little further in Genesis 1.14.

Genesis 1.14, let's read it. Then God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night. Let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years. Here's the first time God uses the term moedim, which has to do with appointed feasts or festivals. The word study dictionary mentions this is a masculine noun meaning an appointed time or place.

It can signify an appointed meeting time in general, a specific appointed time, usually for a sacred feast or festivals. In the Good News Bible translation, it says to show the time when religious festivals begin, moedim. God is organizing all of our solar system in such a way that it marks time so we can calculate when God's feasts begin. That's very important. That's why God has here the basics of the calendar that he wants his people to follow.

In Psalm 81 verse 3, you can just use this as a reference. It says, Below the trumpet at the time of the new moon, at the full moon, on our solemn feast day. So the moons are all coordinated and measured so that these feast days all fall at their season and at their time.

Always the feast of trumpets has to be on that new moon. It cannot be any other time of the year. So that moedim, that sacred time, that appointed time, you can calculate because it's always going to be that new moon. You can't see anything until you see this faint sliver starting there. In Psalm 104 verse 19, in the easy reading version, I'm going to read it. It says, Lord, you made the moon to show us when the festivals, again the word moedim, begin. And the sun always knows when to set. So it's just like a heavenly clock. And basically, the months of the years, you have 235 of these months of the year that have to do with a lunar cycle. And in 235 times, it ends up being a 19-year time cycle when astronomically, the sun, the moon, the stars, they all come back into their same configuration. So you're able to calculate things through time that way. And it's so precise, and NASA already, because they do all of these calculations with astronomy and mathematics, they said, using the Hebrew calendar, that they calculated, and it is accurate for a thousand years of these lunar cycles, with only a variance of one hour. So out of a thousand years, you only have one hour difference that you adjust. And that is far better than any type of man's calendar, except for, of course, the ones that NASA finally do with computers. But this is a very precise calendar that you have. Let's look at the third instance in the Bible, Genesis 2, 2-3. This is a calendar as well. It says, And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. So here God constitutes the Sabbath day. It is a cyclical calendar to mark the weekly rest days and sacred assemblies. So this started even here before civilizations arose, Adam and Eve were created on that sixth day, and on the seventh day God established this cycle of week after week, and that cycle has not been interrupted until today. The seventh day is a cycle that continues in time. It is holy time. It's separate from the other six days of the week. He says here he sanctified it, which means set it apart for holy use. So that made a big impact in my life, because until I was 17, I'd never kept the Sabbath in my life. I thought Sunday was the holy day, and when I proved to me that the Sabbath was holy, I started keeping it. And that was just something that was a conviction. I have to respect God's Sabbath day. And you know what? After I did that, the doors to understanding spiritual truth opened up. And it was a test commandment. I was working Saturdays at a hospital, and I had to just give my job up and started obeying God. I got to be right with him first, because it is the fourth commandment. It is a sin not to keep the Sabbath day. Now that, of course, is between you and your Creator and God, but it is a sin not to keep the Sabbath day holy. So let's go to the fourth instance. In Genesis 5, verses 3-5, it says, And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years, and he had sons and daughters. So he multiplied. Basically it says that he had thirty-five sons and about twenty-three daughters. And so pretty soon you have over fifty children, and those children have children. And so it was multiplying very rapidly on the earth.

Verse 5, So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Well, the question is, how did people know it was nine hundred and thirty years if there wasn't a calendar? You had to be able to mark time. You had to be able to know when was your birth date, and when that rotation of the sun came back on that day, and you celebrated your first birthday, and then the second one. So it was the same way. Here the Bible clearly says there was a yearly calendar in effect.

So let's go to Genesis 7.11. This is the fifth instance. Genesis 7 verse 11. Here we're introduced to something new in the Bible. It says, in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month. So this, now the month is introduced in the Bible.

The term here, kodesh, in the Hebrew, means a new moon, and by extension, a month. So here you're calculating one month after another, from the new moon to a new moon. That's basically almost 30 days long. And here Noah was in the ark, and it mentions here, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were open. And so again, Noah had to be calculating this, because he knew how long they were in the ark for a year.

And again, there was a calendar. It wasn't the Roman calendar. It wasn't the Egyptian calendar. It wasn't the calendar that the pagan people used in those days. It was God's calendar that was being respected. The sixth verse is in Exodus, the next book over, Exodus 12, verse 2.

Here God is leading Israel out of Egypt, and he says in verse 2, This month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. So basically he's saying, you were in Egypt, the Egyptians had their own calendar, but God says, I'm not going to use an Egyptian calendar. I'm going to use the calendar that I inspired Adam and Noah and all of these men and Abraham to keep. And so he's saying, this is the beginning of months.

And he called this month in the following chapter, Exodus 13, verse 4. It says, on this day you are going out in the month Abib, which means green sprigs or shoots, because the barley harvest was the first one that appeared. It had to be in the springtime. And so the first month is when the green sprigs of the barley harvest, they were already starting to grow. And so God has in mind that everything has to be in their seasons.

Passover can't be in the fall. It can't be in the summertime. It has to be at the beginning of the spring season. So it's the introduction to the feast days and the annual Sabbaths that we have. It mentions... It says in verse 7, This is why we keep the days of 11 bread, because they're part of God's sacred calendar. They're right here in the Bible.

He's saying, you will do this. If you are my people, you're not going to be keeping pagan feasts or the pagan calendars with their false gods. God is cleaning us from all deceit, from all these false teachings. And that takes us to Leviticus 23 verse 2. This is the next book. Leviticus 23 verse 2. This is where God explains each one of the feast days that are to be kept.

Leviticus 23 verse 2 says, To speak to the children of Israel and say to them, the feasts, which means the Moedim of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are my feasts, my Moedim, my appointed times. That's why tomorrow is God's appointed time. It's not man. The Egyptians had their own calendars, and they would have certain days for their own gods and the Babylonians. And then you had the Syrians, and you had the Persians, and then the Greeks, and then the Romans. But God's people have always kept these feasts holy.

They've never switched. And that's part of God's revelation to us. He has a sacred calendar in the Bible. They are to be kept in their seasons. They cannot be out of their seasons. So there has to be calculation. There has to be ahead of time where you know these feasts. That's why we have these pocket calendars, because each one of these feast days is in their appointed time. And here God spells it out. Notice in verse 4, here He uses the term Moedim again. These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.

It's something that has to be respected. On the 14th day of the first month at twilight, at sunset, is the Lord's Passover. And on the 15th day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread. To the Lord, seven days you must eat unleavened bread. So you have these eight days. One is the Passover and then seven days of unleavened bread every year. And since the term here in the first month, it's actually saying, in the new moon you count 14 days.

From the new moon, that's the Passover. And then the 15th, it's the first day of unleavened bread, you look up in the sky, it's a full moon every time. And you do the same thing for the feasts of tabernacles. You have the feasts of trumpets. That's on the first day of the month. What does the month mean? New moon. Because the clock starts with the appearance of the moon.

All the way until it fades out, month after month. And so we have the first day of trumpets, which is on the new moon. Then on the ninth of the evening, we have the Day of Atonement, which is the tenth day from the ninth in the afternoon, in the evening till that following. And then we have the feasts of tabernacles on the fifteenth, which is right at the middle of the month.

And so you have, of course, what they call the quarter moon. And then they have the full moon. And then it starts dwindling again. The waning moon. And then it goes into the moon disappears. This is a cycle that has continued. That's why the feasts of tabernacles. So many other brethren look up and they say, okay, it's the fifteenth, the first day of the tabernacles. And they look up and it's full moon. Beautiful. Everything in its time.

We don't determine the days it's God that determines these days. Now, He has used the priests in the Old Testament to proclaim these feasts, to determine them. Notice we go to the... Before we finish, I do want to go to Leviticus 23 verse 10 because we count the day of Pentecost as well. So tomorrow is one of these biblically instructed feast days. These are instructions in the Bible. And so let's look at Leviticus 23 verse 10. It says, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land which I give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before you to be accepted on behalf on the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it.

And then it says in verse 15, and you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. That's Pentecost. Actually, Pentecost means counting 50. And so it's the same comes from this scripture in verse 16. So the church has to make sure all of these things are done in its order according to God's instructions.

It's interesting that one of the church historians, F.F. Bruce, in his book, New Testament History, said this during the time of Christ's day. This was the reckoning of the Sadducee and party in the first century A.D. In the phrase, the morrow after the Sabbath, which we just read Leviticus 2315, they interpreted the Sabbath as the weekly Sabbath. While the temple stood, their interpretation would be normative, which means the rule for the public celebration of the festival, which has to do with Pentecost. And so during Christ's time, the Sadducees were the ones that were in charge of the temple. They were the ones that regulated these things, not the Pharisees. The Pharisees had another way to count Pentecost, but that was not the rule. It was the Sadducees that had it set up, and that's the way the church keeps it. From the Sabbath of the wave sheaf offering, you count seven Sabbaths, and then you come to Pentecost, which is tomorrow. Notice in Numbers chapter the next book over, Numbers 10.10. Is this getting too dense? No? No? Complicated? I hope it. We're going to be kind of... This is a bird's eye view. Numbers 10.10. God says to His people, Also in the day of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, again, Moedim, and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, and they shall be a memorial for you before your God. I am the Lord your God. He's saying, this has my stamp of approval, but I'm just instructed. And so it was the priests, the ones that would blow the trumpets, and they would announce to the people that this was the feast that was coming up, and during those feast days, they would sound the trumpet of gathering God's people at the time. Now, we're doing this in the 21st century. They were doing it during Moses' day. It's been going on for thousands of years, and people faithfully continue to keep these feast days, as God commanded. And this continued on to the New Testament times. The feast days never changed. In Deuteronomy 17, there's a principle here that's important for all of you to remember. If somebody comes up and says, well, I want to develop my own calendar.

And people have done it. Deuteronomy 17, verse 8, God is giving instructions. In verse 8, it says, A matter arises, which is too hard for you to judge between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates. So there are all kinds of issues. Then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses, and you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them. They shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses, and you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you, according to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgments which they tell you, you shall do, you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left hand from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. Now the man who acts presumptuously decides to disregard what is said, and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel, and all the people shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously. Somebody says, well, I want to make my own calendar. I want to do it my way. Well, God has people that He has set up in this way, and as long as they're faithful and doing God's will, you see that they're keeping God's commandments, we have a duty to support them and to follow their instructions, and that has to do with this calendar that was being carried out. The rest of the Old Testament, the calendar is respected and never forsaken. You see at the time of Nehemiah, they're in Nehemiah 8. They actually have the first day of the Feast of Trumpets that they meet together, and then they keep the Feast of Tabernacles. In Nehemiah 10, verse 29, all the people that had come back from Babylon that wanted to obey God, they made a covenant with God, keeping the Sabbath day, keeping the Holy Days, and they made a covenant that they said, cursed if I break this covenant with God. And they were faithful from that time of Ezra and Nehemiah, all the way to the time of Christ, they were keeping God's Holy Days and Sabbaths. And so let's look in the New Testament. In Luke, chapter 2, maybe it's a little more interesting getting into the New Testament now. Luke, chapter 2, verse 41, talks about Jesus' parents here. His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover, and when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the Feast. And so Jesus Christ, this is the calendar that he respected. He didn't design his own. No, it's the same one that God gave in the Old Testament. Now he's keeping it.

In John 7, you can put that down as a reference, it talks about him keeping the Feast of Tabernacles. In John 13 through 17, five chapters in the book of John, which talk about the Passover, the last Passover that Christ held. And that's basically a fifth of the entire Gospel of John has to do with one night, Passover night, the washing of the feet, the sermon that he gave after they partook of the bread and the wine. And then we come to Acts chapter 2, which we'll be talking about more tomorrow. Notice, were they keeping these Feasts? You bet they were. Acts chapter 2, verse 1, says, when the day of Pentecost had fully come. And that phrase means it was fully counted, and this was the fiftieth day. They were all with one accord in one place. You didn't have different calendars and different people doing their own things. No, this was the same calendar that was kept in the Old Testament. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven and a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues. That means other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. So the church was keeping Pentecost when they received God's Spirit. What has changed? That's why tomorrow we're keeping Pentecost. Who knows what God is going to do? Because He's the one that's in charge of these things. Another scripture that is important. Let's go to Hebrews 7. I know I'm going rapidly, but at least giving you a bird's eye view of this subject. Hebrews 7. This is important because in the Old Testament it was the priests, the Levites, that had the charge of how they administered things. Notice what it says in verse 11 of Hebrews 11. It says, It says, There is also a change of the law. Of who is administrating now? God's feasts, sabbaths. Verse 13.

Yes, we're under the priesthood of the Melchizedek priesthood, which is Jesus Christ, our high priest. In His ministry, they're not priests, but they are under Christ who is the high priest. So we administer these responsibilities for Pentecost. We've got to organize everything for you. We have to have everything ready according to what God tells us to have a holy convocation. That's part of the responsibility of the ministry. I don't go to a rabbi and say, we're going to be meeting. I'm sorry. That rabbi no longer doesn't have the authority. He's not under the priesthood of Jesus Christ. We are. Notice what it says in Hebrews 13 and verse 17. Paul, speaking here, he says, Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. So again, just like in Deuteronomy 17, we're not supposed to be presumptuous. We're not supposed to take responsibility that has not been given to us.

And as I wind down here, Revelation chapter 14 and verse 12, God's people are going to be keeping these feasts and Sabbath days until the return of Jesus Christ. I'm going to read it from the Good News Bible, Revelation 14, 12. It says, This calls for endurance on the part of God's people, those who obey God's commandments and are faithful to Jesus. So the church would be a commanded keeping body of believers, and that includes keeping the Sabbaths and the feast days, the annual Sabbaths. So again, it's not rocket science to see what does God expect us to do. I mean, he's got it written down here. He doesn't have an alternative Bible to choose from. And so this is what God is asking us. I want to explain to you how we came to the knowledge of how they calculated the times, because during Christ's Day, it was a Sanhedrin with the priests, Levites. They were doing all the calculations. And after the destruction of the temple, they were scattered. But the Sanhedrin actually was reconstituted in this town of Tiberias on the lake of Galilee. And they continued doing the calculations and announcing it to the Jewish people and to the Christians who were keeping the feast days. I want to read a quote from Dr. Irv Bromberg, professor at the University of Toronto, Canada. He says, in AD 558, the Roman emperor Constantius II, Constantine's son, wanted to prevent Christians from determining when to celebrate the Passover by asking Jews when will be the date of the Passover, or the Nisan 14. See, the Jews were still doing the calculations. God never gave the church that responsibility that the Jews, having the oracles of God, which means God's Word, has to do with the Sabbaths and the Feasts. And so, Constantius outlawed new moon announcements by the Jewish Sanhedrin with the intent of quashing or stamping out the Hebrew calendar. Hylo ben Jehuda, Hylo II, as it's known in history, the second-last president of the Sanhedrin, his son was the last, this was in 358 AD, responded by promulgating the fixed arithmetic Hebrew calendar, no doubt hoping it would only be a temporary measure. So when they saw that the Roman soldiers, the emperor, they were going to destroy what they had in the Sanhedrin, they're in Tiberius, they revealed the calendar calculations that have been done over centuries before. Because it was a closely held secret by the ruling priests and those in charge.

He says, the release of the fixed arithmetic calendar rules had to be carried out in a hurry. Otherwise, Jewish communities would not have known when to observe these days, God's holy days. When the Romans later realized that their attempt to stamp out the Hebrew calendar had failed, they raided the Sanhedrin headquarters in Tiberius, confiscated all property and records. After that raid, the Sanhedrin ceased to exist. It's from the book Seasonal Drift of the Traditional Hebrew Calendar. So we have that information back in the fourth century. We have all the ways to make sure that it's being done properly. John Chrysostom, which was a Catholic bishop in 386, just 30 years afterwards, he complains that there are Christians that are still keeping these days, these holy days. He says, what is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us, one after the other, and in quick succession, the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Tabernacles, the fasts, talking about atonement. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. He says many. He doesn't say all. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals, and others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the church right now. Talk about the Catholic church. So, brethren, we are keeping the calendar as it was revealed based on the biblical principles. And so, to make a long story short, that's how we have our pocket calendars that we use today.