Simplified Calendar Rules of Chronology by OP Armstrong; Dec 2014 : rev’d jan25/15
Many dates of bible chronology deal with years
between 4000BC and 1000AD. During this
interval, Gregorian date of spring equinox is
March 21st, column-a. By Gregorian reform of
Julian’s calendar, Easter stays after the spring
equinox. The Gregorian reform made no change
to year number. In this period, Gregorian autumn
equinox is 22September. The 1st full moon (15th
lunar day) after the two equinox is typically a
Hebrew Holy day. In spring is Passover, 15
Nissan. The autumn Holy day is 15 Tishrei. The
Julian date of equinoxes is variable, col-g, in
Table. To see if a proposed or calculated
Passover date is correct: “Passover falls after
the equinox, “official” spring. But also spring-like
conditions needed to be evidenced”. So
Passover should be near or after March 21st,
Gregorian. Many programs can interchange
Gregorian dates to Julian or Calculated Hebrew
Calendar (CHC). Caution!; some programs call
Astronomical years (AY) as Gregorian years.
Maybe a program calls BC years negative, i.e.
4BC= -4. If AY is used, input a year zero. Julian
and Gregorian calendars have the same year
(BC or AD) & no year zero. Chronology dates
without specification, are likely Julian, col-g.
AY’s use year zero, so -4 becomes -3AY. Vice
versa -1399AY is 1400BC, proleptic Julian or
Gregorian. An alternative is to check by Julian
Day number, col-d above. Each day has only
one JD#. The above checks should be applied to
the CHC also. For the CHC develops an error of
about 1day per 330 years. But some CHC
routines will not determine Passover for BC
years. When using CHC routines for BC years
understand that true Nissan14 by Moses was 14
days into the 1st new moon after spring equinox,
col’s b & f, above. Ve’adar can be AKA 2-Adar or
Adar-ll or Adar-Sheini or Adar-Bet, 29days. 1
Simplified Calendar Rules of Chronology by OP Armstrong; Dec 2014 : rev’d jan/15Blow the trumpet at New Moon‘Blow the trumpet at the time of the new moon &at the Full Moon, on our solemn feast day, for thisis a statute for Israel, a law of the God of Jacob.’ ‘..And at start of months, you shall blow thetrumpets .. (as) a memorial .. Before your God.Alas, this memorial has been lost in the CalculatedHebrew Calendar, CHC. These months, or newmoons, were aligned to the principle ordinates byHoly Days of Spring and Fall Equinox by ordinatesof the Tabernacle: North, South, East, and West.How so? The root word for years (8141) is ‘shanah’(8138) meaning, ‘fold, duplicate, do again, repeat,return’. This is explained by the Equinox diagrams.At only 2 times in a year does sun rise due east andset due west. At these spring and autumnequinoxes' or feasts, one may precisely mark oralign a yearly shadow. The spring equinox markedthe sacred new year and autumn equinox markedprofane or civil new year. Twelve lunar months of28.5 days are less than a solar year. Thus additionof extra days is needed to match lunar and solarcalendars. The extra days are best added after Fallbut before spring equinox. Failure to properly‘return’ or ‘align’ the year start produces adifference between CHC and the new moon, pg3.
On average the CHC gets further out of step with thetropical year by roughly one day in 216 years. Oneproposed solution is the Rectified Hebrew Calendar. 2
Simplified Calendar Rules of Chronology by OP Armstrong; Dec 2014: rev’d jan/15Review of Calculated Hebrew CalendarDue to errors in the CHC, any critical Jewish lunardates should be verified. This can be done via arobust program like “Kalendis”, that will showboth new moon age and Hebrew day of week.Some examples are provided in page 1 Tablecolumns b and f. A more comprehensive review isby this graph. Between years 2017 and 2025, themean offset is about one day. But the variancefrom mean is +2 day and -1 day. The total varianceis from -6 to +72 hours. The average offset of 26hours roughly corresponds to Hebrew new moonbeing one day after astronomical new moon.However a precise lunar age is needed for anydetailed work.The Hebrew calendar of scripture between theTabernacle and the First Temple era was dividedinto 12 lunar months in one Solar Equinox year. Inscripture is found no mention of a 13th month.However from a calendar view, the CHC of addinga leap month, Adar-1 of 30 days, about every 3year is likely the only feasible solution to mesh uplunar & solar years. The counting of seven dayweeks is shown by feast of Pentecost; count 7weeks and on 50th day. Pentecost also served as areminder about Jubilee and the 50th Sabbath year.
3
Some Jewish sects and some Torah compliant Christians still insist upon use of an observational or Moon sighted Hebrew calendar.
4
Simplified Calendar Rules of Chronology by OP Armstrong; Dec 2014 : rev’d jan/15
Sundry means to see annual solar events. Only Equinox events are minimally affected by the polar precession.
Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of theheavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be forsigns and seasons, and for days and years;
Mayan EquinoxSerpent Shadow
5
Simplified Calendar Rules of Chronology by OP Armstrong; Dec 2014 : rev’d jan/15
Required Orientation most likely done without magnetic compass but by observation of sun
Christ as type of tabernacle, 12 disciples representing the 12 tribes orientated in the 4 directions, NESW
Orientation verifiable at both spring and autumn feasts
Simplified Calendar Rules of Chronology by OP Armstrong; Dec 2014 : rev’d jan21/15
Marking required Tabernacle
alignments by Equinox Alignment
of gnomon shadow by timed
marks of that day. On the
equinoxes these points form a
straight East-West line a distance
from the gnomon base equal to
the extension of the equator line to
the baseline; otherwise a
hyperbola results.
W E
S
N
GnomomSeasonal Solar Trace
6
Simplified Calendar Rules of Chronology by OP Armstrong; Dec 2014 : rev’d jan25/15This review looks at days of season change for
Equinox compared to Solstice. There exist a long
term change of seasons due to changes in ecliptic
and earth rotation axis. However this review finds
for about 7000 years between about 4000BC and
3000AD the change of equinox is minimal.
Especially when Equinox is compared to the
Solstices.
This is indicated by the charts on right. The top
chart of season length was looked at in terms of
rate of change and absolute change. The equinox
rate of change is about half as much as the solstice.
These rates are also seen in absolute magnitude. If
one looks at the net sums then there exist a slight
change in rotation time about the sun. But if looked
at over a few millennia, these changes are minor.
7
The second chart shows driftof spring equinox for about1400 Gregorian years. Theindicated variants are morelikely related to calendar jitterthan astronomical effects.For the 1st chart indicatesunder 2 days in 7000 yearsdrift for the Equinox. Inconclusion selecting start ofsolar years around theEquinox is more repeatablethan using solstice points.