In the last decade, the Church has seen increasing controversy about its use of the Hebrew calendar to celebrate God’s commanded Holy Days. Historically the Church has used the calendar preserved by the Jewish community. Some have contended that the Jews have not properly preserved the calendar, and have altered it by human tradition since the time of Jesus and the Apostles. Is this true? Do we have a Biblical basis for concluding that the calendar we now use is substantially the same as that used by Jesus and the Apostles?
Faced with this issue many years ago, Mr. Herbert Armstrong concluded that Romans 3:1–3 showed that the calendar, along with the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, was among the oracles of God. As such, he concluded, the Church should use the same calendar that the Jews had preserved, including its “postponements”— the four rules that determine which day should be pro- claimed as the first day of Tishri, the date from which all other days of the year are calculated. In recent years, how- ever, some critics have asserted that the postponements represent a fourth-century rabbinical invention, and were not used at the time of the Apostolic Church.
In years past, the Church has published several articles explaining the basic principles and workings of the calendar. This brief article does not seek to duplicate that information, but is simply meant to answer the question of whether or not we can prove that the current calendar rules, including postponements, were in use during the time of Christ. The answer is that we can! Here is how.
From the Bible we can clearly prove that for Jesus to be in the tomb three days and three nights as He said, the crucifixion must have been on a Wednesday. Clearly then, whatever year Christ was crucified must have been one in which Passover came on a Wednesday and the first holy day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the High Day Sabbath of John 19:31) occurred on a Thursday. During the range of years that are possible for the crucifixion to have taken place, only two could have had Wednesday Passovers. One is 30AD, when the Passover would have fallen normally on a Wednesday. The other is 31AD, in which Passover would only have been on Wednesday if the current rules of the Jewish calendar (including the postponement rules) had been in effect. Can we know for sure when the crucifixion occurred?
The answer is a resounding “yes”—and the key is contained in scripture. In Daniel 9, the prophet recorded that 70 “sevens” (literal Hebrew) were determined upon the people of God. From the going forth of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, should come, would be 69 weeks. The Messiah would be cut off in the midst of the 70th week. This prophecy of a three-and-a-half year ministry is confirmed by a careful study of the gospel accounts.
Christ was crucified in the spring, so His ministry must have begun in the fall to accommodate the half-year. If Christ was crucified in 31AD, He was baptized by John the Baptist in the fall of 27AD. But if He were crucified in 30AD, He would have been baptized in the fall of 26AD. Which was it?
The 69 prophetic weeks from the decree until the Messiah’s appearance would equal 483 years. The decree was the one recorded in Ezra 7 issued by Artaxerxes in his seventh year and delivered to Jerusalem by Ezra in the fifth month of that year. So the question is simple, when was the seventh year of Artaxerxes?
A reliable source for dating the reign of Artaxerxes is a book entitled Babylonian Chronology 626 B. C. to A. D. 75 (Parker and Dubberstein, Brown University Press) which is based upon translations of ancient Babylonian documents and inscriptions. This book clearly dates the accession of Artaxerxes after the death of his predecessor, Xerxes, in 464BC. After taking the throne in July-August of 464BC, Artaxerxes completed his “accession year”— also credited as the final year of Xerxes’ reign—then in the fall of 464BC began the first year credited to his own reign. We should note that the vast majority of credible extra- Biblical scholarship agrees with this 464BC date. To accept any other date introduces problems with other aspects of historiography, so we can comfortably accept this date, agreed upon by scholars who have no agendas in the calendar and postponements controversies.
To find the end-date of the 69 weeks prophecy, we must understand whether the Biblical account figured the years of Artaxerxes using a spring-to-spring reckoning or a fall-to-fall reckoning. If figured spring-to-spring, then Artaxerxes’ first year began in April of 464 and ended in April of 463. His seventh year would have been from the spring of 458 to the spring of 457. This would mean that Ezra brought the decree in the late summer of 458BC. The 69 prophetic “weeks” would thus end in 26AD.
Spring-to-spring reckoning was the standard practice in Babylon. In ancient times, some nations started their new year in the spring, while others started in the fall. Here, spring-to-spring reckoning and fall-to-fall reckoning refer to the way in which a king’s reign was counted. Judah and Israel at different times used both methods for figuring the reigns of kings. The different methods were used for different purposes as well; the religious year always began in the spring, but the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee year were reckoned from the fall (Leviticus 25:8–9).
Did the author of Ezra- Nehemiah, traditionally one book in the Hebrew scriptures, use the spring-to-spring manner of reckoning? Or did he figure the king’s reign fall-to-fall? If he used a fall-to-fall system, Ezra’s arrival would be dated in the late summer of 457BC. That would put the Messiah’s appearance in 27AD and the crucifixion in 31AD.
Can we know for sure which method of reckoning the Biblical author used? Can we determine whether the crucifixion took place in 30AD or 31AD? Absolutely!
Notice Nehemiah 1:1. Here is described news that Nehemiah received in the month Chislev (ninth month, corresponding to December) during the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Then in Nehemiah 2:1 we learn that the king noticed his sad countenance in the month Nisan (first month, corresponding to April) during the 20th year of Artaxerxes. Do you see the significance of this? In the following spring, four months after the news delivered in Nehemiah 1:1, the king was still in his 20th year! This conclusively proves that the author of Ezra-Nehemiah used a fall-to-fall reckoning! If a spring-to-spring reckoning were used, then Nisan would have been counted as the beginning of the 21st year of the king’s reign.
Here is conclusive proof from the Bible that 457BC is the proper date to begin the count from the decree of Artaxerxes. This means that Christ was crucified in 31AD. The only way that the Passover of that year could come on a Wednesday, as the Gospel accounts clearly show that it did, was that the current rules of the calendar, including postponements, were used by the Sanhedrin during the time of Christ and the Apostolic Church. By accepting the current Jewish calendar as our standard, we are following the example of Jesus Christ, Himself, and that of the early Church!