Hi Gino, John and Doves,
Gino, I'm with you on this calendar
question. The Jewish calendars seem to have been many
- from a 360 day calendar to a 365 calendar where certain
years have an added month, from solar to lunisolar.
The Essenes used their own too.
RE:
Chance: 06.04.23: the feasts and the calendars
I have often wondered if the Jews had the Third
Temple in use today, would their High Priest feel
comfortable entering the Holy of Holies that ONE day each
year, the Day of Atonement? If he was wrong - he's be
struck down. Which calendar would they use? How
would they determine the start of a new year? The
start of each month? What if they were off by one
day? Which day was the true Day of Atonement?
Hebrew 9:7 "But only the high priest
entered the second room, and then only once a year..."
"The Holy of Holies was the innermost chamber
in the wilderness tabernacle, a room so sacred only one
person could enter it, and then only one day out of the
entire year....the Holy of Holies could be entered only by
the high priest on the annual Day of Atonement or Yom
Kippur."
Starting
with Aaron in the group of High Priests that are "From the
Exodus to Solomon's Temple" to the final group of High
Priests during the "Heroidian-Roman Period" - who
definitely used a different calendar by then than Aaron's
group of High Priests.
Looking
at the list there are some 30 High Priests in the
Herodian-Roman Period - from 37 BC to 70 AD - most only
serving a year or two. Why so many High Priests in
this last time period?
The
First Temple "saw only 18 High Priests throughout its 400
years, over 300 served during the Second Temple's 420
years. Several were righteous, and their combined
service accounts for over 141 years."
"The
ascension of Antiochus IV Epiphanes to the Seleucid throne
in 175 BCE marked the beginning of the end of true High
Priesthood." It was during this time that "the
practice of buying the High Priesthood from the
government" began. This explains the
extremely high number of Kohen Gadols (Chief Priests -
the "supervisor of the House of God") during this era
since most died when they entered the Holy of Holies on
Yom Kippur. Many of those High Priests
were ignorant of the requirements of their position, and
some were outright Sadducees who scorned accepted
religious practice. "
Gino, I
agree with you, the Pharisees and Essenes had different
calendars and the Sadducees did their own thing and "scorned accepted
religious practice." They probably couldn't care
less what 'day' it was on the religious calendar.
As I
wrote in a previous letter, "It just seems crazy that the
Jewish calendar has been so 'lost' - and we have to try
and figure out so many aspects of their calendar."
And
today we stumble around trying to find the correct day of
Pentecost!
Pray for
the peace of Jerusalem!
Maranatha!
Chance