42 She WATCHTOWER. about every third year. In every cycle of nineteen years they had seven such lunar years of thirteen months. The years of thirteen months in such a 19-year cycle were the 3d, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th.* THEOCRATIC METHOD *t The method of calculating Nisan 14 of each year for the Memorial celebration by Jehovah’s witnesses, the method we follow now, was simply stated in the Watchtower issue of March 15, 1907, page 87, under the heading “The Date of the Memorial Supper”. It states: “As we all know, the Jews used the moon more than we do in the reckoning of their time. Hach new moon represented the beginning of a new month. The new moon which came closest to the spring equinox was reckoned the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, and beginning the fifteenth day of that month the [seven-day] feast of Passover lasting a week was celebrated.” In that year of 1907 the new moon nearest the spring equinox came ahead of it. How do we know? Because the passover date, which comes on the 14th day of that moon or month, fell only 7 or 8 days after the spring equinox, or on March 28. As the Watchtower article said: “The date of this celebration this year of [1907] will fall on March 28 after 6 p.m., because at that hour begins the fourteenth day of the month Nisan, according to the Jewish reckoning.” 22 Another case of where the new moon began before the spring equinox was in the year 33 (A.D.). * Writes Mark P. Lindo, the Dutch prose-writer of HEnglishJewish descent, of the last century: “The Jewish year is luni-solar, for although the months are lunar, our calculations being founded on the lunar cycle, every 19th year we come to the same date in the solar year. The [19-year] cycle contains 235 lunations, which we divide into twelve years of 12 months, and seven (termed Embolismie) of 13 months. The celebrated mathematician Meton of Athens, who flourished B.C. 432,...made the same division of time, but by making every third year embolismic, the 18th and 19th were both of 13 months; by our arrangement the solar and lunar years are better equalized.... The embolismic year is formed by the introduction of an intercalary month, immediately after Adar, which is called Ve-adar, or Second Adar.... The reason of the introduction at that period is that the Passover may be kept in its proper season, which is the full moon of the vernal equinox, or after the sun has entered Aries; it is indifferent at what period of it the full moon happens, but it must be kept while the sun is in that sign. That a time was fixed for its observance is shown in Numbers 9: 2, ‘Let the children of Israel also keep the Passover at its appointed season.’...In the embolismic years [namely, the 3d, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th of the 19-year cycle], Adar has 30 [days}, and the intercalary month Ve-adar 29.” See The Watch Tower of February 1, 1908, under the heading “The Passover in the First Month”, pages 35, 36. As at the end of 19 years the moon returns to have her changes on the same days of the solar year and of the month on which they happened 19 years before, it follows that by the use of a eycle consisting of 19 numbers, the various changes of the moon for every year may be found out without using astronomical tables, See “Date of Paschal Full Moon”, showing the “Golden Number,” in any comprehensive almanac, such as The World Almanac and book of facts, published in New York. 11, 12. How do we calculate Seripturally when Nisan 14 falls? Brooxtyy, N. Y. Since Jesus was killed Friday afternoon, April 3, he celebrated the Mémorial supper Thursday night, April 2. Hence the new moon that year began before the spring equinox; it began on Thursday, March 20. Thus is demonstrated that the Scriptural method was to reckon the passover night counting from the new moon nearest to the spring equinox, and not always from the first new moon beginning after the spring equinox. (See footnote.*) 18 Since Jesus instituted the Memorial supper on the night of the passover supper, or the night of Nisan 14, then by ascertaining when Nisan 14 falls this year of 1948 we learn the night when the memorial of Christ’s death must be celebrated Theocratically. * We must be guided by Jerusalem time. The new moon nearest to the 1948 spring equinox occurs Wednesday, March 10, at about 11:40 p.m. This moon would not be visible in the southwest heavens until about 30 hours later,t or not before 5: 40 a.m. of March 12. It would therefore not become visible to the inhabitants of Jerusalem before the early hours of March 12. Hence it would be proper to begin the first day of the month Nisan the following night, March 12. Since Nisan 1 begins the night of March 12, then Nisan 14 would begin the night of Thursday, March 25, 1948. The noon becomes full that same day of March 25 at 5:34:52 a.m., or about 5:35 a.m., at Jerusalem. Accordingly, March 25, Thursday, after 6 p.m. or sundown, will be the proper time for the members of the “body of Christ” to observe the Memorial as Jesus commanded them to do on Nisan 14 more than nineteen hundred years ago. From this our readers will see we do not observe the 19-year cycle of the Jews, which cycle was adopted by the Jews several centuries after Christ for calculating the date of their months and holidays. Followers of Christ are not under the Mosaic law covenant, * Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 3 (edition of 1863), under the heading “Year”, says on page 1804: “It is certain that the [Jewish] months were lunar, each commencing with a new moon.... According to the observations of modern travellers, barley is ripe, in the warmest parts of Palestine, in the first days of April. The barley-harvest therefore begins about half a month or less after the vernal equinox. Each year, if solar, would thus begin at about that equinox, when the earliest ears of barley must be ripe. As, however, the [Jewish] months were lunar, the commencement of the year must have been fixed by a new moon near this point of time. The new moon must have been that which fell about or next after the equinox, not more than a few days before, on account of the offering of the first-fruits.” It is also likely that the ancient Israelites determined their new year’s day in the spring by the risings and settings of the sun and other stars which were known to mark the right time of the solar year. + Says Jas. Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (1898), Volume 1, page 411: “It is possible, by adding so many hours (not less than about 30) for the crescent [moon] to become visible, and by taking the first sunset after that, to know when each month ought to have begun.” 13, 14. How do we calculate Nisan 14 for this year of 1948?
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