Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 29/08/2004 10:14, Michael Banyai wrote:

> ...
>
> It is however obvious, that the moon calendar was NOT the main calendaristic 
> feature for the Hebrews. All mentions of month lengths in the Bible without 
> any exception are of standard 30-day months. There is not a single case of a 
> 29-days long month ...

What is your evidence here? Which Bible verses tell us that the month 
was 30 days long, or mention the 30th day of even one month? Technically 
you may be correct, because all of zero is zero. But you need a lot of 
example of 30-day months to come anywhere near proving that *all* months 
were thirty days, rather than about half of them.

...

> What a coincidence, that Jeroboam I did instate a feast like the one in 
> Jerusalem in this same later month. He probably did so to make it easy to his 
> citizens to visit Jerusalem a month before and return in time to observe the 
> feast at Beth-El later on. Should he want to create concurence to Jerusalem, 
> this would have functioned by tying the people to Beth-el, and rendering it 
> impossible to visit Jerusalem too for the same feast at the same time. So far 
> I understand, the pilgrims have indeed ceased to come to Jerusalem, after 
> this feast was held in Beth-El. How curious...
>  

A bit later King Baasha of Israel found it necessary to close the border 
between Israel and Judah, perhaps precisely to stop northern pilgrims 
visiting Jerusalem, 1 Kings 15:17.

> And how strange that not any voice polemics against the Israelite malpractice 
> of not attending the jewish feasts at their right time.
>  

The polemic is right there in the passage that reports this feast, 1 
Kings 12:33, "on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month 
that HE ALONE HAD DEVISED". But really the prophets were more concerned 
that this feast was idolatrous than about the timing.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/