Greg, thank you so much
for commenting on my post, and for the recommendation of Jack
Langford’s book about the Pentecostal Rapture of the Church.
Concerning the calendar
issue and the correct counting to Pentecost, I agree that it
is very difficult to understand and accept the original Hebrew
calendar that was practiced centuries ago. By the way, the
only Bible translation (in English) that has a precise
rendering of the Hebrew words about the counting to Pentecost,
is the Fenton Translation.
[It appears that
most English translators, motivated by Jewish tradition and
preconceived ideas stemming from the Catholic Whitsunday,
failed to translate ONE little Hebrew word! What is that word?
It's the word "MIN."
The beginning of
verse 16 (in Leviticus 23), in the Hebrew, is
"AD-MIN-MOCHORATH." The word "MIN" is a preposition which,
when combined with other words, means "FROM."
The Hebrew word
"AD" is a preposition, adverb or conjugation that has many
uses for describing TIME, SPACE or DEGREE. Ignoring the word
"MIN," the translators render "AD" as "EVEN UNTO" -- however
there is a major problem with this! The phrase "EVEN UNTO"
deals with SPACE, while all of the measurements in verse 16 --
"the morrow," "the seventh Sabbath," and "fifty days" all deal
with TIME, not SPACE! Therefore, the English translation for
"AD" as "EVEN UNTO" is in error and CANNOT be correct since it
deals with "SPACE" and not "TIME."
According to the
Koehler and Baumgartner Lexicon the word "AD" can have the
following meanings:
"LATER IN THE
FUTURE, count fifty days (AD has a future tense).
AND then count
fifty days (AD can be a conjunction).
JUST BEFORE
counting fifty days, count seven weeks."]
In regard to your
observation about the 40 days Jesus walked in Judea after His
resurrection and Pentecost, there are authors who affirm that
Jesus was seen during 40 days, but there were other dates that
Jesus was not seen, which would count at least another 12
days. This would go beyond the traditional 50 day
Spring Pentecost counting. This contradiction doesn’t happen
if one takes into account that the true Pentecost is in Summer
(by the end of the 4th month), that is, seven
Sabbaths after Passover plus 50 days.
Links: http://www.lunarsabbath.info/id4.html
https://www.hope-of-israel.org/countsab.htm
Of course I don’t know
which year the Lord is coming to take His Church, and it would
be inappropriate to set any date, but I still believe that if
the 50th day after seven lunar Sabbaths after the
16th day of Abib falls on the 29th
day of the 4th Hebrew month (“Tammuz”).
And on the following day, Pentecost is commemorated.
If there isn’t any extra day in the four month, then the date
would be the 1st of Av (which happens to be August
2nd in the Gregorian Calendar in the case of 2019).
A day nobody cares anymore because Pentecost has been changed
by modern methods of counting, invented by men.
I sincerely thank you
again for your thoughtful and kind reply.
In Christ,
Eliane B.