Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Charlie White <c97white AT yahoo.com.au>]

Michael

This is my second request to you. I am almost certain
your computer clock is not correct. I get your e-mails
a day late and it is very annoying. I am also sending
to group who may or not be able to confirm what I am
saying.

Sorry

Charlie


 --- Michael Banyai <Banyai AT t-online.de> wrote: 
> Karl Randolph wrote:
> 
> > What did Josephus know about the Hebrew calandar?
> We have indication that it had ceased to be used 500
> years before Josephus. Even in Tanakh, the
> post-exilic writings named the months according to
> Aramaic names, indicating that the Hebrew calandar
> was already then not being used, let alone centuries
> later. That will also explain why for your claim
> that most historical mentions of Hebrew religious
> feasts don’t coincide with the first and seventh
> months.
> > 
> > As for the time of the year for the Exodus, we
> have numerous references that it was about the time
> of harvest in Egypt. But I think it would be hard to
> prove anything tighter.
> 
> Josephus knew only vaguely that the feasts of the
> 1-st and the 7-th month have pertained to the New
> Year celebrations of two different calendars. The
> first of the holly year (according to my opinion
> regulated first by the heliacal rising of Sothis,
> later on by the summer solstice, a couple of days
> apart), the second one to a business calendar (once
> corresponding according to my opinion to the
> Egyptian civil calendar - shorter by 1/4 day than
> the astronomic calendar). That´s all he knew. The
> rest was a combination of this knowledge with the
> contemporary calendaristic practice.
> 
> 1.
> 
> Take for example Zechariah 8.18 (prophecies made
> 520-518 BC):" The fast of the fourth month
> (Passover), and the fast of the fifth (destruction
> of the temple) and the fast of the seventh
> (Pentecost), and the fast of the tenth
> (Tabernacles)".
> 
> My assertion is easy to test on this and several
> other cases. 
> 
> The behaviour of the "business" calendar as
> previously described is to slip by 1 day every 4
> years comparatively to the astronomical calendar,
> say to the "holly" observational (solar) calendar.
> On this scheme it is easy to roughly retrieve the
> date both calendars have superposed once one has a
> statement concerning with which month of the civil
> calendar did the first month of the solar calendar
> overlap. Here we have both: the statement that the
> month Abib in the period 520-518 BC was close to the
> babylonian (lunar) month Ab (with the similar name)
> July-August, and this permutated postion of the
> feasts.
> 
> One can make a rapid reckonning, that an overlap of
> the civil calendar and solar calendar ought
> according to Zechariah have occured roughly
> 9*120+20(the epagomenes)years before Zechariah. That
> is 1100+520=cca.1620 BC.
> 
> 
> 2.
> Take the example of Maccabees 2.1.19:"And now keep
> the festival of the booths in the month of Chislev"
> Macc. 2, 1,9
> certainly a confusing statement for the Diaspora
> Jews, therefore corrected a couple of lines later by
> a later Alexandrine gloss:"on the twenty-fifth day
> of the same month, which was Chislev. They
> celebrated it for eight days in the manner of the
> festival of the booths, remembering how not long
> before, during the festival of the booths, they had
> been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild
> animals." Macc. 2, 10, 5-6. Of course, for the
> Diaspora calendar, the 7th month was Tishri, and it
> was hard to understand the fact, that according to
> the original Hebrew calendar the 7th month fell more
> than 2 months later. This is however a late
> Alexandrine gloss, trying to clear the apparent
> contradiction, since Maccabees 2,2 expands on this
> matter in length giving further examples, all
> concerning in fact the same festival in the 7th
> month of the old Hebrew calendar. These are two
> different festivals indeed, but what we have to
> retain is that 124 BC the festival of booths occured
> (partly) in Chislev.
> 
> Once more we can rapidly reckon the date before the
> writing of Macc. 2 (that is 124 BC). Because Chislev
> is a lunar month its position could vary by as much
> as a month and thus enhance the sliping effect of
> the calendars. Thus in the extreme 124+1460 (a full
> calendar cyclus)+ at least 9*4 years (as much as to
> achieve at least the last day of the booths to fall
> into the next  month) = this is at least 1620 BC.
> But probably even somewhat more depending on the
> month Chislev.
> 
> 3.
> 
> Take the celebration of Succoth at the time of
> Salomo and Jeroboam I in the 8-th month, Bul.
> 
> Thus, the Temple of Salomo should have been finished
> "In the month Bul, that is the eighth month..." I
> Kgs. 6: 37, whereas its inauguration was in the 7th
> month, at Succoth.This statement represents a
> problem, easily solved if - at least during the
> inauguration year of the temple - Succoth was held
> in the eighth month.The inauguration date of the
> Bethel temple by Jeroboam I shows the same anomaly:
> "For on the fifteenth day of the eighth month,
> Jeroboam instituted a feast like the feast kept in
> Judah" I Kgs. 12: 32. As no biblical high feast
> specific to the eighth month is known, one must,
> once again, to accept an unusual 8th month date for
> Succoth, at least for a while during the 10th
> century BC.
> 
> Rapidly reckoning once more: date of Jeroboam cca.
> 920 (I am assuming actualy a higher date than
> Thiele) + 5*120+20 years (the epagomenas)=1540 BC.
> The actual date we are looking for must be higher
> than 1540 since Jeroboam was towards the end of the
> 120 years cyclus as Succoth occured in the month
> Bul, this having happened already once previously in
> the reign of Salomon. So we would have actually at
> least 1540+40=1580 BC (if we take into acount the
> reign of Salomon).
> 
> 4. 
> 
> This all coresponds to the timespan of the judges
> resulting from the addition of the data bringing a
> reconstructible datum for the Exodus to 1622 BC.
> Further similar reckonings are possible on basis of
> Esra, etc, but this becomes simply boring. It is
> most probable that the complete cyclus was fulfilled
> during the revolt of the Maccabees, about 162 BC, as
> one was expecting in Judea the End of Times. A
> complete cyclus takes 1460 years. Thus 1460+162=1622
> BC. 
> 
> Desolated for so much calculus.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Bányai Michael
> Stuttgart
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