Bible Discussion Thread

The current Gregorian calendar all of western society uses was first implemented in October of 1582. It had never been used prior to that. And it actually took many centuries for it to fully replace the prior Julian calendar, which dated back to Julius Ceasar in 45 BC.

The Julian calendar was the first widely adopted calendar that approximated the Solar year cycle and that was adopted for both civil purposes and (the majority of) religious observances. However, the date for the observance of Easter is still based on a lunar calendar that more or less tracks with the Hebrew lunar calendar that still controls the observance of Jewish religious feasts.

Lunar calendars were used through most of human history. The lunar cycle is the reason we still divide years into months. The root word for month is the word for Moon in every language as far as I am aware.

Lunar calendars all try to maintain an approximate match between the 29.53059 day Lunar cycle and the 365.24255 day solar cycle.

The Hebrew Lunar calendar used alternating 30 day and 29 day months for an 364 day year during the typical 12 month year (these years can actually be 353, 354 or 355 days long). An additional 30 month known as first Adar is periodically added during leap years that occur 7 times during a 19 year cycle to maintain an approximate match between the lunar cycles and the solar year.

There is some evidence that the prophets and the pre-flood Era used a 360 day calendar year of 12 months with 30 days each to track time spans. This seems to fit Daniel and Revelation when they give the number of days that represent a 3.5 year period as 1,260 days (30 12 3.5 = 1,260). It also seems to fit the description of exactly 5 months between the beginning of the flood in the second month, on the 17th day of the month to the date the Ark came to rest in the 7th month, on the 17th day of the month as being 150 days long (5 30 = 150).

By the way, Rich, I admire that you undertook to study this difficult topic. It seems to involve math. Once you figure it out, please explain it to me in layman's terms. :)

One last thought, since God established his yearly calendar using the moon, it seems that Satan, through pagan practices, got the world to start using the sun.

Hi Rich.

I've been thinking about it. We just need to understand the clock that the LORD is using in order to ascertain the true time. As far as I can understand, God established several clocks. There is the day clock that operates sundown to sundown ( not midnight to midnight). There is the week clock operating from Shabbat to Shabbat. Then, there is the month clock, the sabbatical years clock, and then the prophetic weeks of years clock. All keeping track of time. "And in the fullness of time", says the Bible in many places. So, we know God has a clock and is keeping the time.

Hi Rich,

This is a HUGELY fascinating topic. This topic is so large, how to even begin researching? My mind really struggles to understand.

Let me pose a thought: The LORD says he put stars, moon, and sun in the sky for the tracking of seasons and time. Since God changes not, then he is probably still using his clock. He probably is not using the Gregorian calendar or any other. (Yes I know God is eternal and time is not a thing for him). But, probably the LORD is still using the calendar he gave to Moses. So, the first month of the year is always in the spring.

And, you've probably heard the concept that the sun is the minute hand and the moon is the hour hand. Then, there are the weeks of years in the Daniel prophecy. That's a whole other difficult "time" thing to understand.

Well, at least we do know that time is short. We can have school when we get to Heaven. Come LORD Jesus . Amen.

Hi Rich,

Interesting information.

For me, I think the best calendar is the one that most closely matches the amount of time it take for the earth to orbit the sun, which is scientifically a true year. In Genesis 1 it says that the sun, moon, and stars are to be used by us to determine seasons, days, and years along with "signs".

So neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars are used exclusively of the others to set our calendars. The sun gives us the number of days in a year and the seasons, the moon gives us lunar months which can be helpful for some things such as agriculture, the stars provide us with a yearly procession of the constellations that repeats in cycles (and depends on whether one is in the southern or northern hemisphere. The universe is amazing. The heavens are filled with wonder as we consider its vastness, containing billions upon billions of heavenly bodies, whether planets stars, suns, galaxies, and so much more.

Since the flood, it has taken us this long to explore outer space (we do not know if this happened prior to the flood or not). We are finding out so much that is really astounding about this realm. We marvel about the greatness of God and the glories of His creation. It declares His glory always whether we are aware of what is "out there" or not. Our earth is our home, where God determined man to live. We have been blessed with such an awesome place to exist here! So much beauty, diversity, order, and cohesiveness.

With all this said, I believe that keeping to a solar calendar is not any more or less spiritual or "right" than keeping a lunar one. But the solar is more scientifically accurate and we are free to use it as God says to in Genesis to determine "seasons, days, years. and signs.

Gigi, according to God, the moon sets the time.

Hadassah, Genesis 1:14 does not support that.

Hello Hadassah, give me a verse, please.

In examining the Scripture it is not a question of how you or I think is the best way to keep track of years. What matters is how did the Holy Spirit keep track of years through the authors He chose (which wasn't you or I), at least in terms of understanding what they wrote. Only after we understand their frame of reference can we accurately translate from their preferred frame of reference to ours.

Even today you can't understand dates correctly if you don't know the culture. Americans express dates as MM/DD/YYYY, but most European countries express dates as DD/MM/YYYY. If you don't determine the culture you are working with you will become confused very quickly, especially if the date you are provided is 01/05/2023 (January 5, 2023 to an American, but May 1, 2023 to most Europeans).

Satellites have been lost due to a failure to determine whether units were being provided and inputted in Metric or English units. Both standards work if the proper conversions are applied in the proper order, but they lead to disaster if the differences between them are not recognized before applying them.

What is always best is when each culture understands what the people from another culture are saying to each other in their own cultural frame of reference before we reinterpret it according to our preferred cultural frame of reference.

On the matter of the long ages of the Patriarchs, especially before the Flood, my belief is that the original creation of Adam and Eve on the sixth day was without genetic corruption and that the waters above in the heavens created on the second day provided protection from radiation that slowed the rate of adverse genetic mutations. As a result, aging and death were very slow.

However, the flood resulted in the waters above being condensed as rain due to volcanic activity that also resulted in the breaking up of the fountains of the deep. Genetic mutations increased and aging accelerated until a new equilibrium was reached.

Thank you RichFairhurst.

It is good to take culture and history into consideration when discussion time frames and other matters concerning time passage and determining dates. Good read.