God's Calendar vs Man's Calendar

*Update*: some Jewish friends have taken offense to this post, as I mention some non-Biblical things in the Jewish calendar. The point isn't to condemn the Jewish calendar, as it is much more Scriptural than the western calendar, but instead to point out the few places it deviates from the calendar God gave us in the Torah.

The secular western calendar in use today is very different from the Biblical calendar.

Unlike the western calendar, God's calendar doesn't have months named after false gods:

• January is named after the Roman god Janus.


• February is named after the pagan cleansing ritual known as februa.


• March is named after the Roman god Mars.


• April is named after the Roman sexual goddess Aphrilis, also known as Aphros or Aphrophdite.


• May is named after Maia, a Roman goddess of fertility.


• June is named after the Roman goddess Juno.


• July is named after the Roman emperor-worshipped-as-god, Divine Julius Caesar.


• August is named after the Roman emperor, Augustus, who, upon his death, was claimed to have joined the Roman pantheon as a god.

Only the remaining months, September, October, November, December, are neutral and secular in meaning, having their names derived from Latin numbers.

Also unlike the western gentile calendar, the Biblical calendar does not have days of the week named after false gods:

• Monday is named after Mona, the pagan Gemanic god.


• Tuesday is named after the Nordic god Tyr.


• Wednesday is named after the Germanic god Woden.


• Thursday is named after the Nordic god Thor.


• Friday is named after the Nordic god Frejya.


• Saturday is named after the Roman god Saturn.


• Sunday is named after the Germanic sun goddess Sunne.

In addition to the days of the week and most of the month names, the western gentile calendar also has many holidays named after false gods, or derived from a false god but have since been renamed.

• The Lent holiday is derived from the Babylonian god Tammuz, in which 40 days are spent weeping for his death.
  
  
• The Easter holiday, exactly 40 days after the beginning of Lent, is in honor of Tammuz' mother goddess, Ishtar. Easter is celebrated as Tammuz is resurrected back to life as the reincarnation of his father god, Nimrod.
  
  
• The Christ's Mass holiday (Christmas) is celebrated on December 25th as it was the birthday of Deus Sol Invictus, the "invicible sun" god of the Romans, a title given to the false gods Mithras, Sol, Elagabalus, and Mars. Some scholars suggest that Tammuz was also believed to have been born on December 25th.
  
  
• Most of the paraphernalia associated with the big holidays can be traced back to pagan origins. For example, Christmas trees, Yuletide, Easter eggs, and Easter rabbits in conjunction with these festivals are of pagan origin.

What about the Jewish Calendar?

Some folks think the Jewish calendar to be the Biblical calendar. Unfortunately, this is not quite so; the Jewish calendar in use today mostly Biblical, but also mixes some elements of the Babylonian calendar picked up during the Israelite captivity some 2600 years ago.

For example, the Jewish calendar kept today by modern Jews has month names taken from Babylonian paganism: the Jewish month of Tammuz is named after the Babylonian god Tammuz, who's worship is mentioned in Scripture as an abomination, and who's death was mourned for 40 days prior to the day of his mother goddess, Ishtar.

(As mentioned prior, to this day, Christians celebrate this pagan holiday in the form of 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter, replacing 40 days of weeping for Tammuz with 40 days of fasting for Jesus, replacing Ishtar Day with Easter Day.)

The Jewish year starts in the middle of the calendar on a Jewish holiday not found in Scripture, a holiday called Rosh HaShanah ("head of the year"), which may be Babylonian in origin. It should be noted that while Rosh HaShanah is not Scriptural, it is celebrated at the same time as the Scriptural Yom Teruah, and the two are often interchangeable in modern times.

Ironically, because the Jewish calendar is a mix of God's calendar and the Babylonian calendar, Jews are left with the uncomfortable reality that the "head of the year" falls in the 7th month of the calendar! Yes, it's true, Jews say "happy new year" not in the first month of the year, but half-way through the Jewish year!

Unlike the western pagan calendar, the day names in the Jewish calendar tell a better story: they are the same day names in God's calendar.

So What Is God's Calendar?

God's calendar is the calendar He gave to his people in Scripture. Unlike the western calendar, God's calendar is based around lunar cycles. It also utilizes agriculture and natural ripening of crops to determine seasons.

And unlike the western calendar and the Jewish calendar, God's calendar does not have any months or days named after false gods.

According to Scripture, here are the days of the week we are to use:

• Yom Rishon (יום ראשון), "First Day"
  
  
• Yom Sheni (יום שני), "Second Day"
  
  
• Yom Shlishi (יום שלישי), "Third Day"
  
  
• Yom Revi (יום רבעי), "Fourth Day"
  
  
• Yom Hamishi (יום חמישי), "Fifth Day"
  
  
• Yom Shishi (יום ששי), "Sixth Day"
  
  
• Yom Shabbat (יום שבת or more usually שבת), "Sabbath"

In God's calendar, a new day doesn't start at midnight. Rather, the day starts at sundown and ends at sundown. Thus, the Biblical sabbath starts Friday at sundown and lasts until Saturday at sundown.

The names of the months are equally as simple as the days, Torah simply calls them "First Month", "Second Month", etc. The first month also goes by the name HaAviv or HaAbib in the Torah, meaning the month of "the aviv (ripe) barley", indicating that finding naturally ripe barely in the land indicates the beginning of the first month. God's calendar has 12 months typically, but a 13th month is inserted if barley is not naturally ripe by the end of the 12th month in Israel.

In God's calendar, there are holidays which God calls "My appointed times" (Lev 23), eternal landmarks in time we're commanded to remember all our generations. There are 7 Feasts of the Lord, (7 being a Hebrew number of completion), 8 if you count the weekly Sabbath (8 being a number of new beginnings). Here are the holidays God instituted, listed in the order they occur:

• Passover - 1st month, day 14. This year, Passover will fall in April in the western calendar.
  
  
• Unleavened Bread - 1st month, day 15, the day after Passover. This is a 7 day-long festival. We see Messiah and his apostles celebrating this Feast and the Passover in the gospels.
  
  
• First Fruits - 1st month, first day of the week following Unleavened Bread.
  
  
• Weeks - Also called Shavuot or Pentecost, falls 7 weeks after First Fruits. In the New Testament, we see the apostles celebrating this Feast of the Lord in Acts 2. This is the last Feast of the Lord occurring in the spring.
  
  
• Teruah - Also called Feast of Shofar Blasts, Feast of Trumpets, Feasts of Shouting. This is the first feast occurring in the fall. It falls in the 7th month, day 1.
  
  
• Atonements - Also called Judgments, called Yom HaKippurim or Yom Kippur in Hebrew, this feast occurs 9 days later: 7th month, day 10.
  
  
• Tabernacles - Also called the Feast of Booths, Tents, and Dwellings, this feast occurs 5 days later: 7th month, day 15.

Additionally, God calls the Sabbath day, the 7th day, a weekly feast, a feast that has been in existence since the time of creation.

All of these Feasts of the Lord have symbolic meaning, with special commandments given to us detailing how to commemorate these eternal Feasts of the Lord.

Messianic Jews and some wise Christians have suggested these feasts of God have special meaning because Messiah fulfilled some of these.

For example, the first 4 feasts -- all which occur in the spring -- were fulfilled in real-time by the Messiah: his betrayal coming the very night he was celebrating Passover with his disciples (becoming the sacrifice Passover lamb), his death during Unleavened Bread (the unleavened/sinless one being buried for 3 days), his resurrection on First Fruits (becoming the first fruits from the dead), his sending his spirit to the disciples while they were celebrating Weeks.

Likewise, we look forward to the last 3 feast which remain unfulfilled, so we speculate. We speculate that Yeshua the Messiah will return on Teruah, the day of shofar blasts; New Testament prophecy confirms Messiah will return with the blast of the shofar. 9 days later, on Atonement/Judgments we speculate is when he will judge the nations per prophecy in the Tenakh and New Testament. 5 days after that, on Tabernacles, he will tabernacle and dwell with us, the Prince of Peace bringing us lasting peace.

Want to learn more about God's calendar? Michael Rood, a Messianic Israelite gentile, has written an excellent article explaining the western calendar, the Jewish calendar, and the Creator's calendar: The Creator's Calendar.

He also has a podcast teaching on the subject:




Shabbat shalom, fine blog readers, and may the Lord use this to increase your understanding of his appointed times with humanity.