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Old 12-30-2012, 05:36 PM   #41
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I can tell I'm out of my league because I thought the Christians chose Sunday as a rest day to be different than Judaism with maybe a vague nod at the resurrection. It apparently turns out that this has some obscure messianic reason.

It seems to me that if this is true, it would be an advantage to have Sunday at the start of a wall calendar since one could put in a longer notation about the upcoming end of days and have it all contained in one line. I reflected on the American calendar during my recent trip to Europe and thought this was one clear superiority that Americans had over the Old World.

Therefore I will stay out of that discussion but think that a further word about Psalms 81:3 (or 4) is called for.

Quote:
Blow the horn on the new moon, on the full moon for our feast day. (Psa 81:4 TNK)
Quote:
Blow the horn at the new moon, at the full moon for our feast-day. (Psa 81:3 JPS)
Quote:
תִּקְע֣וּ בַחֹ֣דֶשׁ שׁוֹפָ֑ר בַּ֜כֵּ֗סֶה לְי֣וֹם חַגֵּֽנוּ׃

(Psa 81:4 WTT)
JPS translates this (KSH Kaiseh) as full moon in both 1917 and 1985 editions. But many other translations (both Christian and Jewish) say something like "in the time appointed" as in KJV.

The only other occurrence of KSH is Proverbs 7:20

Quote:
He took his bag of money with him And will return only at mid-month. (Pro 7:20 TNK)
Quote:
He hath taken the bag of money with him; he will come home at the full moon.' (Pro 7:20 JPS)
Quote:
צְֽרוֹר־הַ֭כֶּסֶף לָקַ֣ח בְּיָד֑וֹ לְי֥וֹם הַ֜כֵּ֗סֶא יָבֹ֥א בֵיתֽוֹ׃
(Pro 7:20 WTT)
(Seems like an interesting story)

It turns out that there is some debate over when a month starts (New Moon or Full Moon) and Psalm 81 is used to justify a start at the full moon. This doesn't make much sense to me. It does seem that the verse is talking about blowing the shofar on both the full and new moon. Some commentators say the full moon applies to Passover and Shavuout, the idea of blowing it during any full moon apparently freaks them out.
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Old 12-30-2012, 08:09 PM   #42
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The Hebrew word for 'moon' is ירח 'ye'rey'kah' and is not interchangable with the Hebrew word for 'month'.

The word often 'translated' as 'new moon' or 'month' is the Hebrew word חדש 'chodesh' which is actually just the Hebrew word for 'new' or to 'renew' (1Sa 11:14, 2 Ch 15:8, Job 10:17, Psa 51:10 etc)

There is no word 'moon' to be found in any of these verses about the 'month', the word 'moon' is only being inserted into these verses by a reading influenced by the following of rabbanical Jewish traditions.

The חדש 'chodesh' is simpy a repeated 30 day count, and contrary to 'Jewish tradition', does not normally correlate to the actual reappearances or phases of the physical and visable moon.

The chodesh Hebrew 'month' is an invariable 30 day (720 hour, 43200 minute, 2592000 second) count that has little more correlation to the appearances of the actual moon as constituting a 'month', than is an English 'month' slavishly hooked to the cycles of the moon.
(Or the length of your own 'foot' must be slavisly observed as being the Standard English 'foot')

This ancient seven day 'week', thirty day 'month', three hundred sixty day 'year', and 'Jubilee' cycle count of eighteen hundred days, begins at a unique conjunction of celestial events, and does not track with nor readjust at every sight of the 'moon' nor brain fart interpretation, observation, or call made by 'authorative' Jewish teachers.
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Old 12-31-2012, 08:07 AM   #43
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It turns out that I confused Sukkot with Shavuot in my previous post.

There seems to be universal agreement among both Christian and Jewish translators that Chodesh means new month. Obviously the context is important.

Psalm 81:3

for example:

Sound the ram's horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast; NIV

Blow the ram's horn at new moon, and again at full moon to call a festival!
NLT

Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. ESV

Blow the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day. KJ 2000

I noticed the difference looking at the Chabad Tehillim Ohel YY with English

and the Artscroll
Book of Psalms With an Interlinear Translation

Where they do not translate KSH as full moon, instead using something like the KJV.

Sound the shofar on the New Moon, on the appointed time for the day of our festival.

This translation follows Rashi, Ibn Ezra, etc but these guys were quite possibly using inferior references -

What is Keseh in Psalm 81:4?

Quote:
Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Radak understood keseh to mean "the appointed time", connecting the word keseh (spelled here with a he at the end) to the word keseh (spelled with an aleph at the end) in Proverbs 7:20. However, the two words are not only spelled differently, they are hapax legomena, and so it is not clear what the exact meaning of either word is. However, Metzudat Zion points out that sometimes the letters he and aleph are switched; moreover, Ibn Ezra and Meiri seem to have the word keseh in Psalms spelled with the letter aleph, as in Proverbs
.

I've been searching JStor but haven't been able to find anything more recent than 1917 or so. I'm not sure why this is, maybe they've taken things as far as they could.

The Sabbath and Festivals in Pre-Exilic and Exilic Times

is the best discussion I've seen on this.
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Old 12-31-2012, 09:42 AM   #44
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Quote:
Psalm 81:3
Click on link . Click on Interlinear. There is no word translatable as 'moon' in Psalm 81:3
Anyone, no matter who they might think they are, adding in, or reading the word 'moon' into this text is violating the Scripture.
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Old 12-31-2012, 11:29 AM   #45
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Quote:
Originally Posted by semiopen View Post
I can tell I'm out of my league because I thought the Christians chose Sunday as a rest day to be different than Judaism with maybe a vague nod at the resurrection. It apparently turns out that this has some obscure messianic reason.

It seems to me that if this is true, it would be an advantage to have Sunday at the start of a wall calendar since one could put in a longer notation about the upcoming end of days and have it all contained in one line. I reflected on the American calendar during my recent trip to Europe and thought this was one clear superiority that Americans had over the Old World.
It is a good observation you made but I see it different and here is why.

The significance of the seventh day that took form in Gen. 2 is evidence of the everlasting day wherein evening did not follow because the everlasting light will have arrived. It foreshadows Rev.22:5 where a lamp is no longer needed because the celestial light has arrived for those who die in the Lord of Rev.14:13 and shall find rest from their labors for their good works accompany them.

My bolding above is to show purpose with presense that is historic after the Son was born unto us, who stabilized time and brought future into the present, that heretofore was like yin/yang going around in circles much like a dog chasing its own tail, totally indifferent to the effect of the moon that is, always was, and always will be an illusion we see.

So then to arrive on the seventh day is to come full circle in Gen.2 where this everlasting day is the real light that was created first (Gen.1:3) so this light would give shine to the sun by day and to the moon by night(1:15), but must be prior to us before we can see.

It so is that light is life, and life is in truth that was before light (1:2)* so that light could take form in the created 'to be.' From this follows that in the light of common day we see only shadows by day so that the night can be dark, while in reality, we are the light in the created to be and will know it first hand when we are, and that is why Sunday should be the seventh.

The arrival the seventh day brought heaven to earth via the son, who so is the true light made manifest here on earth.

To make Sunday the seventh day of the week so confirms the arrival of the Messiah and to make it the first day of the week is to deny it.


*Chaos is needed for order 'to be,' and so all we are really doing is 'live to expose' the other side of the sun that makes us look to see, i.e. the truth that we are as the substance of light, and this substance is only what is real.
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Old 12-31-2012, 11:30 AM   #46
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar View Post
Quote:
Psalm 81:3
Click on link . Click on Interlinear. There is no word translatable as 'moon' in Psalm 81:3
Anyone, no matter who they might think they are, adding in, or reading the word 'moon' into this text is violating the Scripture.
Anyone includes all Christian translators, I was just trying to clarify your singling out the Rabbis.

Do you have any references for your opinion about this?
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Old 12-31-2012, 12:25 PM   #47
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Quote:
Originally Posted by semiopen View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar View Post
Quote:
Psalm 81:3
Click on link . Click on Interlinear. There is no word translatable as 'moon' in Psalm 81:3
Anyone, no matter who they might think they are, adding in, or reading the word 'moon' into this text is violating the Scripture.
Anyone includes all Christian translators,
Obviously.

Quote:
Originally Posted by semiopen
I was just trying to clarify your singling out the Rabbis.
I do not single out Rabbis. The reading of 'moon' into these texts began with the traditions and teachings of Judaism adding on to the words of Elohim;
Quote:
'How do you say, We are wise, and The Law of יהוה is with us? Behold, the false pen of the Sofrim has worked falsely.'

'Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.'
The Christians ignorantly followed this erronous 'new moon' reading introduced and advocated by Judaisim.

Quote:
Originally Posted by semiopen

Do you have any references for your opinion about this?
I have the TaNaKa texts.

And the fact that not one of these verses giving the 'translatation' as 'new moon' have the Hebrew word for 'moon' anywhere in them.
It is an unwarranted and incorrect interpolation.

The חדש 'chodesh' 'month' once unburdened of centuries of wonky Jewish rabbinical traditions, will be found to be an exacting STANDARD 30 day count and cycle of exactly 720 hours, or 43200 minutes, or 2592000 seconds.
'A threefold cord is not quickly broken.'



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Old 01-04-2013, 07:06 AM   #48
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Have to admit that calendar shit confuses me but somehow I get caught up in it.

Why is a minute divided into 60 seconds, an hour into 60 minutes, yet there are only 24 hours in a day?

Quote:
As early as 1500 B.C., the Egyptians had developed a more advanced sundial. A T-shaped bar placed in the ground, this instrument was calibrated to divide the interval between sunrise and sunset into 12 parts. This division reflected Egypt's use of the duodecimal system--the importance of the number 12 is typically attributed either to the fact that it equals the number of lunar cycles in a year or the number of finger joints on each hand (three in each of the four fingers, excluding the thumb), making it possible to count to 12 with the thumb.
So the Egyptians invented 12 hour days where the hours weren't fixed length around the time of the exodus (as news headlines would say).

Quote:
The concept of fixed-length hours, however, did not originate until the Hellenistic period, when Greek astronomers began using such a system for their theoretical calculations. Hipparchus, whose work primarily took place between 147 and 127 B.C., proposed dividing the day into 24 equinoctial hours, based on the 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness observed on equinox days. Despite this suggestion, laypeople continued to use seasonally varying hours for many centuries. (Hours of fixed length became commonplace only after mechanical clocks first appeared in Europe during the 14th century.)
Quote:
Hipparchus and other Greek astronomers employed astronomical techniques that were previously developed by the Babylonians, who resided in Mesopotamia. The Babylonians made astronomical calculations in the sexagesimal (base 60) system they inherited from the Sumerians, who developed it around 2000 B.C. Although it is unknown why 60 was chosen, it is notably convenient for expressing fractions, since 60 is the smallest number divisible by the first six counting numbers as well as by 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30.
All these numbering systems are used to avoid fractions. Seven is more difficult to understand, my guess is that it is the first least cooperative number. Seven was very important in the Middle East, however the origin of the Week is not clear.

Quote:
Evidence of continuous use of a seven-day week appears with the Jews during the Babylonian Captivity of the 6th century BC.[2]
Which is basically what I've been saying here. This makes sense when looking at Judges, Samuel, Kings, etc as being at least partially pre-exilic.

My problem with a fixed 30 day cycle is that it quickly diverges from the Lunar Cycle. The bible itself is unclear whether the old guys used a lunar or solar calendar (or any calendar at all), so maybe the fixed 30 day cycle has some merit.

Regarding minutes and seconds, etc

Hebrew Calendar Studies:
Why Divide Hours into 1080 Parts?


Quote:
All of the divisors of 1080 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 27, 30, 36, 40, 45, 54, 60, 72, 90, 108, 120, 135, 180, 216, 270, 360, 540, and 1080.

All of the divisors of 360 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120, 180, and 360.

Of all of the above divisors, only 1, 2, 3, and 5 are prime numbers.

The number 1080 derived from prime numbers = 23 × 33 × 5.

The number 360 derived from prime numbers (omitting one power of 3 since 360 is 1/3 of 1080) = 23 × 32 × 5.
Quote:
On page 25a of the Talmud Bavli tractate Rosh HaShanah, Rabban Gamliel is quoted as saying "Thus have I received a tradition from the house of my father's father: the rebirth of the Moon is not less than twenty-nine and half days, two-thirds of an hour, and seventy-three parts from the previous one." That is, 29 days, 12 hours, 40 minutes, and 73 parts. Expressed in terms of days with an exact fractional remainder that equals:
Quote:
29 + 13753/25920 days
My Rabbi went into a riff about how exact this number is and how amazing Jews were for figuring this out but left out this part -

Quote:
This exactly matches the figure that was published by Ptolemy in his voluminous astronomy text, Almagest (literally "The Great Book", the name assigned to it by Arab translators centuries later), but Ptolemy cited Hipparchus as the source for the mean duration of the lunation (average interval between successive matching lunar phases).
Of course, a problem with the lunar month is

Change in period of lunar month

Quote:
The moon is gradually moving away from the earth. As it does so, the lunar day gets longer. The mechanism for this is the tides, which are slowly slowing the earth's rotation, thus making the days here longer. Conservation of angular momentum for the earth/moon system requires that the energy lost by the earth goes somewhere; it goes into raising the orbit of the moon.
As the calendar link states:

Quote:
In the era of Hillel ben Yehudah, who is said to have established the traditional fixed arithmetic Hebrew calendar around Hebrew year 4119, the MSM was only a few milliseconds shorter than the traditional molad interval, but today the MSM is almost 3/5 of a second shorter, or 9/50 of a part.

At the time of the Exodus from Egypt, traditionally given as Hebrew year 2448, the mean synodic month was about 2/5 second longer than the traditional molad interval.

It seems certain that the Babylonians were the astronomers who originally determined the traditional length of the mean lunation interval, but that interval was about 1/4 second too short for their own era, possibly due to rounding its duration to the nearest barleycorn.

Although, as mentioned above, Ptolemy cited Hipparchus as the source for his sexigesimal value for the lunation length, we have no existing hardcopy of any such work by Hipparchus. That interval was accurate for the era of Hipparchus, which was the same era as the Maccabees in Israel.
Interesting how the Exodus, the Exile, and the Hasmoneans all play into this.
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Old 01-04-2013, 08:27 AM   #49
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Interesting essay on when and how the religion of Judaism arrived at their particular present 'Jewish' calendar.

However to be honest, I must be clear that I am not Jewish, and I do not follow these innovations, inventions, or practices of medieval Jewish rabbis.
Reading some of the declarations that appear in these links, I wonder that these inventors ever even bothered to consult the Torah, rather than only the sayings of one another, or ever took these matters to their Elohim in prayer for the gift of understanding.
But I'm not here to savage the religion of Judaism, and I have much compassion for the Jewish people for all that they have suffered to bring them to this day. Their fathers built up their traditions under the pressures of their times and troubles, and it is only natural that they should labor to preserve and to honor those traditions, even as all other ethnic and religious institutions do theirs.

But the foundation of my work is laid out upon different and enduring principals, its working bases, its standards, and ultimate goal, far different than the aims and goals of the now present Jewish institutions.

Although I live in the flesh a life in present society that is subject to religious and social customs imposed by the Christian religion upon humanity under the pervasive Gregorian Christian calendar that presently predominates and regulates this age, I regard it as nothing more than a corrupt and filthy rag that in time mankind will cast away as the despicable invention of the corrupt and evil men of a corrupt and evil religion.

My eyes are set upon a far different calendar, that one to which in the observing of ha' Layil Shemorim, I beheld in a vision, and now hold in a dream of what is to come, it is clear in sight, of a day to come when all men everywhere will look upon that self-same pattern and its measures, and shall all at the last plan, measure, build, and finish perfectly to the same measures, and the scant measure shall no longer anywhere be found.

My measuring reeds have been cut to size. Three they are, All of their divisions, the great and small are inscribed. They do not move nor change.
The line, the level, and the plummet, Obeying the Builder's Rule, lay the foundation enduring, they do not bend to obey the wills of men, neither will they ever shift nor lie to suit any man-made traditions.


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Old 01-04-2013, 09:26 PM   #50
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
To be 'crunchy', to make up their minds.
I like my Peter Pan Creamy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sotto voce View Post
do people observe special days precisely because they are weak and miserable?
I eat my PB&J on Wednesdays and Fridays and I don't think this makes me weak or miserable.
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