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The Romans start the year in January, in the dead of the winter, whereas the Orthodox Jews start the year in September – October according to the man-made rules of the Rabbis. But when does the Bible say is the beginning of the year?

Exo 12:2 This month (Aviv) shall be the chief of months for you. It shall be the first of the months of the year for you.

Very clearly the year begins in the spring when the Passover is celebrated. The Biblical Calendar is celestial as well as agricultural as where the Jewish calendar does not take any of these things into account.

There is another important part of Scripture that the current modern Jewish calendar does not also consider to the actual start of the year; this is the biblical precedent of waiting until after both the vernal equinox and the precession of the equinox, when the sun both passes the equator to start spring, and also passes from the 12^th constellation back to the first one, to finish its full yearly cycle. Scripture clearly tells us that we are to equate time by the celestial bodies in the sky.

Gen 1:14 And Elohim said, Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years.

Psa 104:19 He made the moon for seasons (mo’edim); the sun knows its going down.

So we see that the calendar is a solar/lunar calendar made up of the sun to rule the day; when it is sunset we start our new day, the moon to rule the month; when it finishes its full rotation and restarts itself at new moon the new month begins, and a combination of the sun and stars to rule the year.

Exo 34:22 And you shall observe a Feast of Weeks for yourself, the first fruits of the harvest of wheat; also the Feast of Ingathering (after) the turn of the year (Tekufah).

The word for turning of the year in Hebrew is Tekufah. This word actually means a revolution of the sun. This happens twice a year. Once when the sun passes the equator from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere in spring, and again when it passes back on the other side of the earth from the Northern hemisphere back to the south on about September 21-23, each year. Clearly you cannot start Monday in the middle of Sunday, and you can’t start January in the middle of December and likewise you can’t start your new year in the middle of winter of the previous year, before the vernal equinox comes and the changing from winter to summer. Also note in the original Hebrew, the word “at”is not in the original Hebrew but is added and actually the word “after” is more properly inferred from the original language. Let’s prove this point from the following scripture.

Lev 23:10 Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, When you come in to the land which I am giving to you, and have reaped its harvest, and have brought in the Omer, of the beginning of your harvest, to the priest,

The above scripture is speaking about the Feast of Firstfruits and the omer count to Shavuot. Very plainly from this scripture we see that this happens AFTER THEY HAVE REAPED THEIR HARVEST! So this shows conclusively a later time period rather than an earlier one as most years the harvest would not be completely ready before the equinox and that is why in Exodus 34:22 the word ‘after’ is better rendered than ‘at’ as the equinox is the dividing line between winter and summer, but one must wait until the New Moon arrives to actually start the first month of the year, Aviv, (Exo 12:2) and officially start the New Year. Also look at:

Deut 16:13 You shall perform the Feast of Tabernacles seven days after you have gathered in from your grain-floor, and from your winepress.

Again we see that Sukkot is AFTER the harvest is not only ripe, but harvested. This takes anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks before one could go up to Sukkot and clearly delineates again a later feast ‘AFTER” the equinox and NOT before. As long as the year is properly started after the vernal equinox in the spring, then you will always have your fall harvest and Sukkot also align after the autumn equinox. Let’s also look at the following scripture to see the importance of waiting to start the biblical year till after the “tekufah” or the full rotation of the sun at the equinox.

Exo 23:14 Three times in the year you shall make a feast to Me.

Exo 23:15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I have commanded you, at the set time of the month of Aviv. For in it you came out from Egypt, and they shall not appear before Me empty.

Exo 23:16 Also the Feast of Harvest, the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. Also the Feast of Ingathering, after the going out of the year, at your gathering your work from the field.

In verse 16 we see the feast of Sukkot being called the “Feast of Ingathering”. It is called this due to the fact of taking in or ingathering the harvest fruits for Sukkot. We also see that this feast happens after “the going out of the year” (the agricultural year) or after “the autumn equinox”. If you start your year in the winter before the vernal equinox you will also throw off the sequence of the rest of the Holy Days and will be keeping the Feast of Ingathering (Sukkot) in early September before the turning of the year (autumn equinox) and before the harvest has been gathered. Remember, that the harvest not only has to be ready, but it also has to be harvested, indicating a later feast than an earlier one, and if the feast was started in early September before the autumn equinox, not only would it still be summer, but the Sukkot harvest fruits of ingathering would not have ripened yet, nor would there have been enough time to harvest them once they did ripen.

In years past when the Jewish calendar started incorrectly one month early I have shown pictures that the harvest was plainly not ready as summer was still present. It would have been inconceivable in biblical times that a pilgrim would come up to Jerusalem for Sukkot empty handed as all his harvest was rotting away on the ground after he was gone.

Remember, for most of Israel with travel time they were gone from their homes for around a month at feast time. The harvest must be in first, and then, the pilgrim takes the harvest to Jerusalem to celebrate and worship with Yahweh the Provider of the Harvest.

Clearly, Passover must be kept in its season (spring, not winter) from year to year, and then, Sukkot (Feast of Ingathering) will also be in its season after the harvest.

Exo 13:10 Thou shall therefore keep this ordinance (Passover) in his season from year to year.

Also, look at this word Tekufah used in another scripture to clearly show it is relating to the equinoxes.

2nd Chron 24:23 And it happened, at the turn of the year, that the army of Syria came up against him;

Here, it is referring to spring and the turning of the year at the vernal equinox. So the Bible conclusively shows the wording used “turning of the year” in several places in Scripture is related to the agricultural season starting at the vernal equinox in March and ending at the autumn equinox in September. The modern Jewish calendar does not take into account the turning of the seasons from after the vernal equinox occurs, but in some years, such as 2013, the year started in winter before the vernal equinox to keep it in line with the Easter season and the old Julian calendar.

Their mistake is quite simple. Yahweh states, as we already have shown that “Aviv is the beginning of months to you (Exo 12:2). But according to the modern Jewish calendar they start the year in the 7^th month and count back the days to Aviv and Passover. Then as long as Passover (and not the 1st day of the month of Aviv) falls after the vernal equinox, they will still start the year even though the first 2 weeks may still be in winter and still part of the old year. Again, their mistake is following the tradition of the Rabbis in starting the year in Tishri, the 7^th month and not starting it in Aviv, the first month.

Why is it, according to the rabbinical Jewish calendar that Passover cannot come before the vernal equinox? It is because the Rabbis say you cannot have two Passovers in the same year.

Should the Tekufah of Tammuz extend till after the Succoth Festival, or the Tekufah of Tebeth till the sixteenth of Nisan, the year would be intercalated, so that the festivals might fall in their due seasons, viz., Passover in Spring, Succoth in Autumn. (Sanh 11b)

So there you have it, according to the Jewish calendar, they are saying that the vernal equinox IS indeed the beginning of spring and the New Year; that is why they will NEVER have Passover before the equinox. But as already quoted, Aviv 1 and not Passover on Aviv 14 should be the start of the year, according to Scripture. Nowhere in Scripture does it ever state that only Passover has to start in the New Year and the other 13 days of the new month of Aviv can still be in the Old year, back in winter. This is totally illogical.

The calendar they are using today is NOT the one used in the time of the 1^st century when Yahshua the Messiah walked the earth, as even the Encyclopaedia Judaica openly admits that the modern Jewish calendar started in the fourth century by a Rabbi named Hillel the 2^nd and was not completely codified until the earliest the 10^th century AD.

It is generally accepted that certain elements of the calculated Jewish calendar, commonly in use today, were codified in approximately 358 C. E. by the (president of the Jewish Sanhedrin), Hillel II. (Encyclopaedia Judaica)

Let me add some historical proof to dogmatically show that the calendar that the Jews used in the first century AD was one that started in spring and not fall and the year did NOT ever start before the vernal equinox or the precession of the equinox. There are 12 constellations in the sky and the sun goes through each one approximately every 30 days. After it has gone through the 12^th and starts back in the first one, then the New Year can start.

The Jewish historian Josephus referred to this in Antiquity of the Jews when he stated

“the year had now begun as the sun was now in the constellation of Aries.”

This is right at the time of the vernal equinox. We see also in the 19th Psalm that there is more to determine the proper observation of time than just the new moon.

Psa 19:1-6 The heavens declare the glory of Elohim; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of His chamber, and rejoices as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and His circuit (Tekufah) unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

The question of exactly what the connection is between the times and the seasons may well be understood in the term for line, which connotes connection, and certainly would include more than a simple sunrise/sunset repetition, particularly in the light that is their line, the line of the heavens and firmament, not just the line of the sun. The line mentioned in Hebrew thought is always circular and not linear.

While the daily rotation of the earth provided the smaller connecting circuit, the returning of the sun each year to the same point at the vernal equinox was the greater connecting circuit. From the earliest times there was an understanding of the geometry of the earth, and that the sun in its transit across the equatorial line created the equinoxes. This astronomical event precludes any artificial man-made rules. Let us look at another scripture that shows this same concept.

Deut 11:11 But the land which you are entering to possess it is a land of hills and valleys, drinking water from the rain of the heavens; 

Deut 11:12 a land which Yahweh your Elohim cares for; the eyes of Yahweh your Elohim are constantly on it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

When you read this scripture in Hebrew, it is once again showing a circular pattern, not a linear one. Yahweh’s eyes are always on the land of Israel in a never-ending circular pattern, which is physically manifested by the “tekufah” or circuit of the sun, portrayed yearly with the start of the New Year at the vernal equinox.

That the learned men of old understood that Aviv 1^st always fell AFTER the vernal equinox is crystal clear. The debate of when Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were properly kept hinged on this single event.

“Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, mentions that the Jews had kept the Passover properly up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. But after the destruction of the city they ‘err in reckoning the beginning of the month, which is first amongst the months of the year, on the fourteenth day of which, being accurately observed, AFTER the equinox, the ancients celebrated the Passover according to the Divine Command: whereas the men of the present day now celebrate it BEFORE the equinox, and that altogether through negligence and error, being ignorant how they celebrate it in their season…” Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VI, p. 280.

It is recognized that the calendar followed during the time of Yahshua Messiah was regulated by the priestly lineage, the Sadducees, who never started the New Year until AFTER THE VERNAL EQUINOX for reckoning the month of Aviv. As a matter of fact it is stated in Jack Finegan’s Handbook of Biblical Chronology that when Solomon built the Temple of Yahweh at Jerusalem that it was made specifically so that the sun would shine directly through the Eastern Gate on both the vernal and autumn equinoxes.

Also, during the time of the Elephantine letters of the Jews in Diaspora in Egypt, never once did they start the year before either the precession of the equinoxes or the vernal equinox. This is important as these letters are starting from the 5^th century BC around 495BC. This was less than 100 years after the fall of Solomon’s Temple and written around the same time period of Ezra and Nehemiah, and it is extremely telling that these people only one generation removed from Solomon’s Temple NEVER once started the year before the vernal equinox.

Look at the following quoted excerpt from: Kenneth F. Doig, New Testament Chronology, (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990).

“Many of these legal documents include the required Egyptian civil year date. Double-dated documents including the Hebrew dates of the Elephantine Jews cover the period 471 to 402 BCE. This included evening to evening days and a New Year beginning in Nisan (Aviv) only after the Vernal Equinox. Almost all of the datable documents can be referred back to a Nisan (Aviv) beginning only after the Vernal Equinox each year.”

When the Jews went into Diaspora after the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 AD they systematically changed the method of calculation and at some point even started to keep the Passover itself in winter.

“They blessed on the 23^rd of Nissan and thus the whole nation announced that tekufat Nissan begins on the 23^rd of Nissan! Therefore, Pesach of that year they celebrated in the winter tekufa, disobeying the positive, explicit biblical commandment to “keep the spring month.” They also disobeyed the explicit words of Chazal, who said in Rosh Hashanah 21a, “Rav Huna bar Avin sent to Rabba: If you see that the tekufa of Tevet extends to the sixteenth of Nissan, intercalate this year and do not hesitate, as is written: ‘Keep the month of spring’.”

Once Hillel the second centralized the calendar in 359 AD, the ancient method of always calculating the first day of the New Year Aviv after the vernal equinox was no longer used and exchanged for a calculated calendar based on the new moon closest to the equinox.

Barley was never a measure for calculating Aviv 1, as it would be clearly evident in Diaspora that one could not ever start the New Year or observe Passover, as it would be impossible in Diaspora to know when barley is ripe in Israel, and the growing season for barley is different all over the world. People who mistakenly use Exo 9:31 to equate barley to the beginning of the year, fail to recognize that at the time of this scripture Israel was still in Egypt where the barley growing season runs from planting in August to harvest in early February, which is totally contrary to Israel’s growing season of planting in late October/November to harvest in late March early April.

This fact clearly shows that barley can not be the parameter for equating Aviv 1, as it would have been impossible to properly date Aviv 1 and the Passover date from Diaspora. Also, if ripe barley in Israel is the only method to calculate the year how were years calculated before 1447 BCE when Israel entered the Promised Land? Clearly Noah calculated months (Gen 7:11) and was not using barley to know when the year began and couldn’t’ have seen barley while inside the ark.

Gen 8:13 And it happened in the six hundred and first year, at the beginning, on the first of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked. And, behold! The face of the earth was dried.

Gen 8:14 And in the second month, on the twenty seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

Also, even to the barley hunters themselves there is no clear concise method for calculating what Aviv Barley is to them? Some use cultivated barley as where some will only count wild barley, and some even determine Aviv to mean green ears and will use green barley as Aviv.

Do you realize what a difference this makes and how it would manipulate the true biblical calendar? The command to bring the firstfruit offering to Jerusalem for the waving of the Omer by the priest was to come from each Israelite’s firstfruit grain of their own field. If someone was not calculating cultivated barley, then it would negate the whole command of bringing their firstfruit, as wild barley growing somewhere would not be your firstfruit offering.

Now on the other hand if barley is being taken from the most southern region that has grown in asphalt, (as asphalt will prematurely ripen barley) then Aviv may be called prematurely too early. Also, it is not fully agreed upon as to what percentage of barley needs to be ripe to call the new month Aviv.

If barley and the firstfruit omer on the feast of firstfruits is a direct reflection of Yahshua as the firstfruit born from the dead to Yahweh, then it stands to reason that there would have to be representation of barley throughout Israel and the harvest would have to be more than 50 to 60% harvestable by the feast of firstfruits.

And yet many years one team of barley hunters will say it is Aviv and one team will say it is not. This clearly shows why Yahweh would never leave His sacred Holy Day calendar to be dependent on man’s intervention as even if the person’s heart may be right all humans are fallible to human error, and Yahweh couldn’t allow His calendar to be manipulated by human error as it would force believers to incorrectly keep Passover and Yom Kippur on the wrong days, which would violate our very covenant agreement.

The biblical calendar NEVER states that barley is the parameter for the first day of the New Year, as the tekufah (equinox) divides the year from winter to summer, and the first New Moon after the equinox divides the last month of the old year to the first month of the New Year after the equinox occurs. Barley is not needed for day one of the New Month Aviv, but is needed for the firstfruit omer offering, which could be up to 20 days later. And if you wait until after the equinox, according to scripture, you will always have ripe barley for the omer ceremony anyway.

If the very barley experts cannot even agree with each other than how could such an arbitrary subject like barley be the very parameter for the Biblical calendar worldwide? And let’s remember that only in the last 10 to 20 years or so have people even been doing the barley inspections. So if ripe barley in Israel is the parameter to start the Biblical calendar in which you cannot keep Passover without, how would people living in the Diaspora have known when the barley was ripe in Israel before the Internet age and telephones? How would someone living in New York know if there was ripe barley found in Jerusalem?

Since the Passover is a requirement to keep for covenant believers, then Yahweh would have made the calendar in a way that anyone living anywhere in the Diaspora worldwide could know the beginning of the new year without human intervention. With the equinox anyone in the world no matter where they live can know the day of the equinox, and then, you simply wait for the next new moon and that is day one of the new year.

Yahweh clearly stated in Gen 1:14- that the moon, and sun and stars are for calculating days, and months and years. It says nothing about barley. The sun, moon and stars were given to calculate time, barley does not calculate time.

Barley as well as other harvest fruits are simply an earthly sign to the heavenly calendar, but they do not signify the start of the year, the biblical tekufah, or in English, the equinox, does according to scripture. a confirmation that the new year has indeed begun. (In the mouth of two witnesses let everything be confirmed).

Likewise, and of great importance on this subject, most recently the true Gilgal was found in Israel and the place is in the shape of a sandal, with the foot of the sandal in a perfect circular pattern in which the priests would circle within the sandal on Holy Days in worship to the one true Elohim, whose heavenly bodies circle throughout the year in showing His sovereignty over His creation. Look at the following scripture:

Exo 23:14 Three times in the year you shall make a feast to Me.

The word for feast here is “chagag” which means

H2287חגג, cha^gag, khaw-gag’

A primitive root (compare H2283, H2328); properly to move in a circle, that is, (specifically) to march in a sacred procession, to observe a festival;

Also, there are 12 constellations on the ecliptic circle called the mazzaroth in Scripture in which the sun passes through another constellation every 30 days and then, when it passes the vernal equinox it resets itself in the first constellation again to start the New Year.

Even the Jewish historian Josephus tells us that “the year can now start because the sun is in Aries”. Also look at the following quote from the historian Philo:

Here are several other quotes from Philo about the yearly cycle of the sun, moon and stars as biblical markers of time.

“They were also created to serve as measures of time; for it is by the appointed periodical revolutions of the sun, and moon and other stars, that days and months and years are determined. (On Creation 1:59-60)

Moses puts down the beginning of the vernal equinox as the first month of the year, (Philo on Moses 2:222).

Then the twelve stones on the breast, which are not like one another in color, and which are divided into four rows of three stones each, what else can they be emblems of, except the circle of the mazzaroth? For that also is divided into four parts, each consisting of three animals, by which divisions it makes up the seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, distinguishing the four changes, the two solstices and the two equinoxes, each of which has its limit of three signs of this mazzaroth, by the revolutions of the sun, according to that unchangeable, and most lasting, and really divine ratio which exists in numbers (Philo on Moses 2:124)

Clearly, the ancient records tell us that ancient Israel understood the circular pattern of the heavenly bodies and how it was connected to worship toward Yahweh each cycle of each year. They also understood the plan of salvation that is told throughout the year through the 12 constellations of the Mazzaroth that represents the 12 tribes of Israel and the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Yahshua Messiah.

In order to understand the Biblical Calendar one must understand the circular pattern of worship at feast time due to both the Holy Days being connected to the yearly cyclical pattern of the agricultural cycle and the circular pattern of the heavenly luminaries, the sun, moon, and stars. It has always been understood from biblical times that the equinox is the dividing point of the year and the growing cycle.

In contrast, history shows us, and it is no secret, that the modern Jewish calendar is based from a 4^th century Rabbi and it was not codified for several hundred years after that and it is not based on the original Hebrew calendar from Scripture. Even in the Talmudic writings of the 2^nd to 4^th century it clearly states that the Passover must be in spring and not winter.

The modern Jewish calendar also has 4 postponement rules, so that if the Holy Days happen to fall on a certain day of the week that is not convenient to keep them, then they simply postpone the Holy Day (in some cases up to 2 days) to the next day that is acceptable to the Rabbis.

UNBELIEVABLE! “This cannot be true”, some will say; but it is true. In Rabbinical Judaism it is taught that the Rabbis have the authority from heaven to change the Torah and even Holy set apart appointments of Yahweh. The Talmud also states that Yahweh is only one of 70 Rabbis and must submit to the will of the other Rabbis. Let me list the 4 postponement rules that the current Jewish calendar uses when the Holy Days fall on inconvenient days of the week.

U.S. Naval Observatory summarizes the four dehiyyot [postponements] as follows:

(a) If the Tishri molad falls on day 1 [Sunday], 4 [Wednesday], or 6 [Friday], then Tishri 1 is postponed one day.

(b) If the Tishri molad occurs at or after 18 hours (i.e., noon), then Tishri 1 is postponed one day. If this causes Tishri 1 to fall on day 1, 4, or 6, then Tishri 1 is postponed an additional day to satisfy the postponement rule (a).

(c) If the Tishri molad of an ordinary year (i.e., of twelve months) falls on day 3 [Tuesday] at or after 9 hours, 204 halakim [at or after about 3:11 a.m.], then Tishri 1 is postponed two days to day 5, thereby satisfying the postponement rule (a).

(d) If the first molad [the Tishri molad] following a leap year falls on day 2 [Monday] at or after 15 hours, 589 halakim [at or after about 9:32 a.m.], then Tishri 1 is postponed one day to day 3 [Tuesday].

Remember also as already shown, that the modern Jewish calendar starts the year incorrectly from Tishri and NOT from the biblical Aviv. The main points of postponing Yahweh’s sacred set apart days is so a Holy Day and in particular the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) will not fall on a Friday or Sunday, which the Jews conceive as a burden due to the Sabbath day next to it.

In addition, they will not allow the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles to fall on a Sabbath due to a ritual that Jewish tradition used to perform in beating willow branches, which they believe would be breaking the Sabbath day. So instead of changing their man made tradition, they just postpone the Holy Day to another day.

Nowhere in Scripture does it ever state that any man has the authority to change Holy time. There is a man coming (the anti-messiah) who will attempt to change times and laws and is strictly condemned for doing so (Dan 7:25). Very clearly, Scripture tells us to keep the Passover on the 14^th day of the first month! PERIOD! When the new moon occurs, then on the 14th day from that time, you are to keep the Passover. NOWHERE does Scripture ever even remotely suggest about postponing Yahweh’s Holy Appointments.

The fact that Judah’s job was to preserve the written Torah did not give them liberty to change any part of it. Anyone who even changed one word of Scripture was under a curse.

Deut 4:2 You shall not add to the Word which I command you, nor take from it, to keep the commandments of Yahweh your Elohim which I command you.

Also, you must remember the 4 postponement rules mentioned above WERE NOT IN FORCE in the first century in the days of Yahshua, and I will quote straight out of the Jewish Mishnah to prove that point conclusively.

It is from the Mishnah that we learn that a Holy Day could occur on any day of the week (Dansby’s translation) such as is given on p. 125, #6: On a Festival-day next to the Sabbath, whether before it or after it, a man may prepare two Erubs…”

Still with the Mishnah, on p. 146 #10 we learn that the 16^th Aviv may fall on a Sabbath; pp. 197, 201, 213 show that the old calendar is not in harmony with the present-day Jewish calendar. In fact p. 509 #7 shows that the Day of Atonement could fall on a Friday, the day before the weekly Sabbath. This is in direct opposition to the modern Jewish calendar which has postponements rules so the Day of Atonement cannot be either before or after the weekly Sabbath.

Scripture is very clear. Yahweh created the Sun and moon and stars to tell us the timing of His Holy Days. No man has the authority to change that. To postpone the Feast of Trumpets for a day is no different than postponing the Sabbath for Sunday. There is no scriptural basis for either.

Without a doubt from Scripture we are to start the year in spring after the vernal equinox and not in winter before it; thus, the next new moon after the equinox was the beginning month of Aviv, thus always occurring in the spring. If the 12th month of the year (Adar) fell early enough to allow another new moon to occur before the vernal equinox, it necessitated adding a 13th month and waiting until the vernal equinox was observed as the beginning of spring and the New Year. This addition of an intercalary month always kept the 1st month of the year after the vernal equinox!

The year is an astronomical event determined by the sun! It is the point at which the revolution of the earth around the sun comes to complete its cycle. The sun determines the year! And that returning point is the vernal equinox.

Determining Passover after the beginning of the New Year, i.e. after the Vernal Equinox, then setting Aviv 1st before the vernal equinox, would be allowing Passover to be in the New Year, but setting Aviv 1st before the year ends, i.e. before the circuit of the sun is complete at the vernal equinox is still in the winter of the previous year, which is not Aviv. That is the reason for intercalary years, i.e. the addition of an extra month, so that the first new moon after the year begins, after the vernal equinox, is Aviv.

It is by the shadow of the sun that one can determine the day of the equinox as was done in biblical times with sundials. There have been many ancient sundials found right near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and it is even stated that Solomon built the Temple so that the sun would shine through the eastern gate only on the day of the equinoxes, the dividing point of the winter and summer and the old year and New Year. Then the next new moon after the equinox is Aviv, the beginning of months. How simple Yahweh’s Biblical Calendar really is.

(For more info please see our Book called “The Biblical Calendar for a free download at www.coyhwh.com in the book section)