NT Bible Model:
Add 1 day 12 hrs to Astronomical New Moon time. Adjust for sunset.
See Historical update below.
Looking for a Jewish calendar and opened this page by mistake? Go here:
Colel Chabad calendar page
https://1.colelchabad.org/Calendar.htm
this is a well known Jewish site. Their spiel [or similar] gives:
Colel Chabad was established in 1788 by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, also known as the Alter Rebbe and the Baal HaTanya. ...
Colel Chabad works hand in glove with municipal Governments throughout Israel ...
Colel Chabad is by far the largest charitable organization of its kind in Israel, ...
חדשׁ
2320. chodesh, kho'-desh; from 2318; the new moon; by impl. a month:--month(-ly), new moon.
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.
For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, says the LORD; so shall your descendants and your name
remain.
From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the LORD.
Isaiah 66:22,23.
2024 proposed New Moon worship days according to the NT Bible Model
Data from www.timeanddate.com
Historical update
Late 2014 a search was undertaken using different new moon models to find the crucifixion date. 4 years were tried and a Friday date was obtained using
the Waxing Crescent approach. A Friday date was also obtained with the Beginning of the Dark Phase approach. But with the weight of historical quotes
supporting the Waxing Crescent, and given that we did find a Friday date using it, the safest conclusion to draw is clearly that it is the better choice
of the methods.
So the results of this search were twofold. We obtained a very likely date for the crucifixion of Christ. And we determined that the most likely new moon
worship day of the Bible is the waxing crescent.
From late 2011 through 2014 the NT Bible Model was used to approximate new moon worship days according to the beginning of the dark phase of the moon.
From 2015 the model has been used for the waxing crescent instead.
Proposal selection amendment/update for 2022 onwards
From Dec 2021:
This has no impact on the numerical value column where the 1.5 day adjustment has been used.
A recent quote note for my Search page yielded an alternative quote that very strongly supported the 1.5 day approach in the model construction.
According to NASA, a full moon technically only lasts for the moment when the Earth is directly between the sun and the moon. However, full moons appear to last for approximately three days.
https://www.reference.com/science/many-days-full-moon-last-588a1e5f7d59ab60
My Search page had concluded the full moon and new moon phases were the longest and equal in length. Which means this quote was supporting the astronomical new moon phase length being 3 days giving the end point at 1.5 days past the conjunction point.
And this did make me rethink about the associated method I had been using for the proposal selection process.
This was never clearly spelled out, but basically if the numerical value was within a 4, 5 or 6 hour overlap with the previous day sometimes I used it.
But this new quote strongly supported the day starting at the 1.5 day point with no previous overlap.
Also with the new moon pics I used on the Search page giving 2.0 and 2.8 as possible upper bounds I realized that the 1.5 day approach could more likely be used as the starting point for the new moon day. This is a subtle difference to how I had been selecting the proposed days so far and will take this approach from now on. There should be very little differences but it is possible some double days may become single and some single, double days.
I am also going to couple this with
a more laid-back approach
If a day ends in the early hours of the next day, the next day will be ignored. This may infuriate the purists but looking back over the previous years it appears that the results would be similar.
Also if the day starts not too far from where a sunset is we might just count the following day with the understanding most people will probably keep the days from the previous sunset anyway.
As before, with this simplified approach, it is recommended that each new moon day start at the previous sunset. New Moon days in the Old Testament times were kept from sunset to sunset. With or without a sunset column the day construct is simply implied.
Jan 2022/2024 amendment:
The Search page Crescent Visibility quote gives ridiculously low hours so a really laid-back approach would be to take the day if the numerical value falls before the sunset time along with the following day. So I am not going to worry if it is only 1, 2, or 3 hours before etc, just add the day.
Given we are using a numerical approximation this approach will be very reasonable and make the selection easier. And this should be the final amendment on this.
Notes:
Data obtained from
http://www.timeanddate.com/
http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/phasescat/phases2001.html
The Bible model is a little different to the current Jewish approach.
The Jewish approach of using Molad dates and times does not strictly follow the
true lunar synodic month through the year. The length of the synodic month
changes through the year and the Jewish calendar does not allow for
this and can actually get a little out of step. And some years it can get completely out of sync.*
The Jews are aware of these length discrepancies and readily admit them.
The NT Bible model approach uses a numerical value to follow the astronomical new moon date. As the synodic month length changes the position for the new
moon worship day adjusts accordingly.
The numerical value obtained was 1 day and 12 hours from the astronomical new moon date and time. This value was tested using the Jewish calendar for the year 2011 by adding the value to the astronomical new moon date and time. For every month tried the numerical approach was successful in landing on a Jewish Rosh Chodesh date. When the Jewish calendar had two dates in the same month the numerical value was successful in landing on one of them.
Also, according to the Bible construction for a day, New Moon worship days are from sunset to sunset.
The Jewish
approach of
using two chodesh dates when the numerical value falls near a sunset
time is here taken. At present Jerusalem times are being used but the
reason for this is purely geographical, not Jewish. If the command
from God was given to Moses then it is clear the location is
somewhere near the region of Palestine. Using Jerusalem times should
solve any problem here.
All the reasons for the
above [except Jerusalem] are given in my study
The Search for Chodesh
E-mail: chodesh [at] duck.com
Last revised: 6 Jan 2024.
Construction: 20 Nov 2011.
Note: calendar may update separately.
Page design/construction 2011.