Christian Churches of God

No. 156H

 

 

 

The Temple Calendar from Adam to Israel and the

Early Church

(Edition 2,0 20240418-20240418-20240428)

 

The history of God's Calendar (No. 156) as it was given to the patriarchs and the prophets from Adam to Christ and the church is critical to understanding what is required of the church and salvation.

 

 

Christian Churches of God

PO Box 369,  WODEN  ACT 2606,  AUSTRALIA

 

Email: secretary@ccg.org

 

 (Copyright © 2024 Wade Cox)

 

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http://www.logon.org and http://www.ccg.org

 

 

The Temple Calendar from Adam to Israel and the Early Church


Introduction

When God the Father created the earth and this solar system millennia ago He summoned all the Elohim as the Sons of God together under their Morning Stars to be present at the earth's creation and they shouted for joy and the morning stars sang (Job 38:4-7). The earth was created an elliptical spheroid and it remained that way. In other words, it was round. This carried with it a number of necessary limitations. To maintain its stability it had to rotate on its axis. Its rotation over time occupied a period of 24 hrs. Due to God's creation of the sun and moon the concepts of Day and Night were endemic to the day and the night preceded the day in the Bible record. 

 

Gen. 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

 

The sun and the moon were created and formed the determinants of the Month (from moonth) also, which involved the rotation of the Moon around the earth progressing from Dark New Moon to Full Moon and back to Dark New Moon at the next conjunction, which is a precise astronomical event.

 

The New Moon was the beginning of the month which was determined from the Conjunction of the Earth, Sun and Moon.  The month lasted for approx. 29.5 days and the two-month sequence consisted of approx. 59 days.

 

God appears to have formed the earth out of two celestial bodies forcing one into the other.   In this process God confined massive amounts of water into a formation within the earth which were referred to as the Fountains of the Deep.  So also was moisture retained in the windows of heaven (Gen. 8:2).

 

He then created a habitable environment from which He intended to create humans in order  to become Elohim as sons of God, as were the elohim present at the creation of the earth (see No. 001).

 

The universe was divided into areas under the four living creatures at the throne of God and there were the twenty-four elders as the teaching seraphim under the being we know as Jesus Christ (see Rev. chs. 4 and 5).

 

The Light Bearer or Morning Star in charge of this sector of the Universe was the Red Dragon we know as Satan (Azazel), the accuser of the human  brethren (see No. 223). He will be replaced by Christ as the New Morning Star with the Brethren of the Body of Christ under the Plan of Salvation (Nos. 001A; 001B and 001C).

 

Other Cycles

There were various cycles that were created over the period. The first was the 19-year time cycle.

 

19 Year Time Cycle

Every nineteen years the Calendar of the creation returns to a more or less reset position. However, it would be misleading to assume it is exactly nineteen years. It is not. It is 19 years plus two hours. Thus trying to calculate back to Christ's time is not simply a reset applying the same days. That is in error and the additional hours must be taken into account. Serious errors have been made in the COG’s use of this supposition. (See God's Calendar (No. 156); FAQs on the Bible Study -NT (No. 058) (see also No. 195C.)

 

The Solar Cycles

The sun was created so that there are variations in the solar minimums over an 11.1 year cycle.

 

Every 100 cycles there is a Global Warming event which increases the temperatures emanating from the sun that has the effect of increasing earth's temperatures and melting one of the caps. After 50 cycles it collapses back into a Mini-Ice Age which lasts for some 550 years and caps reform what was lost and the earth sea levels rise between 5-10 metres depending where the caps reform. If one is above water, the levels remain more or less as they are with the North Pole over sea. If the pole moves as it has done previously and goes over land, either in Canada or Russia, then water levels drop by anything up to 55 metres exposing more land masses than are lost with the forming of the caps. This has happened before this age. For example, with the Cartan Tool Technology occupants of the Continental shelves and the NW land areas between AU and Indonesia/PNG.

 

This is a known event to history and archaeology and is perfectly predictable and calculable astronomically. The unscrupulous politicians of the WEF and UN today are using this phenomenon and claiming that it is caused by man-made emissions. These unscrupulous Globalists are using uneducated people supporting the Greens and other communist Globalists. Once the people realise what has been done to them the parties will be disbanded and outlawed and many politicians and academics will be removed and some even executed.  The fraud is horrendous. 

 

The Medieval Warm Period

The last warm period was the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) from the tenth century CE to ca. 1450 CE when the Modern Ice Age occurred, and from which we are now commencing to emerge.  This will see the crisis of the Fourth Vial of the Wrath of God to deal with these frauds (see (Nos. 141A; 141B and 141E). 

 

The Roman Warm Period

The Roman Warm Period (RWP) was the previous Global Warming period and went from the Second Century BCE on to the end of the Fourth Century CE with the onset of the Dark Ice Age (390-400).  It began to be cold and ca 375 the Sun cults began to make an impact in the Mediterranean and the Christmas system and the worship of the Sun child and the Mother Goddess appearing at the Solstice. The 25 December system was introduced to Christianity from Syria.

 

The RWP can tell us an incredible amount regarding the knowledge of the world from the Second Century BCE. At that time the West Antarctic Basin was melted and the cartographers mapped the entire Atlantic in its correct longitudinal and latitudinal relationships. The maps were placed in the library at Alexandria. They remained there until the Muslims burned the library. The maps were taken to Baghdad and remained in the Caliphate until the Turkish navy issued the charts as the Piri Reis map in the Sixteenth century. A copy was republished by Cyrus Gordon in Before Columbus and is reproduced in Climate Change 2021 and the New World Order.  (No. 218C).

 

A great many things can be learned from the details in the above maps and the details of Professor Gordon's work in Before Columbus and elsewhere. We know for certain that there was significant transatlantic trade and we also know that there was trade from China to South America over the North Polar route as well as the Pacific. So also was there trade with Roman ships and there were timetables found in North America written in ancient Latin as the symbol for the numeral nine was the early form of VIIII and not the later IX. We also have proof that the Bar Kochba rebels went to North America and we have found their graves and coins and artefacts there.

 

The Antikythera Mechanism

©Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock

This 2,000-year-old mechanism, found in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in the early 20th century and then forgotten until the 1950s, is the first known computer in history. To be exact, it’s the first scientific calculator, with an intricate system of gears that can calculate with incredible precision—remember, it was built circa 200 BCE—the position of the sun, moon, and planets by entering the date. It’s a remarkable discovery of ancient engineering.

 

This shows us without doubt that the ancients had this capacity and hence the capacity to determine Longitude at 200 BCE

 

Latitude and Longitude

From the maps we can also determine a number of things. The first major element was that the measurement of the West Antarctic Basin had the Atlantic in its correct longitudinal relationship. That tells us that the cartographers at that time were far more advanced than was science under the Trinitarian Religious System based on Rome. 

 

They knew the earth was round and that in order to develop the measurement of longitude they knew the establishment of a day based in Europe of necessity required a commencement in the Pacific and they must have set a fixed system of measurement of the earth's circumference and its latitude in it set the relationship. All of these matters are important for our dealing with the Temple Calendar today.

 

The Trinitarian Religious system has constantly sought to portray the ancients as unenlightened morons and we know this to be a lie based on the lack of education of modern religious society. Modern religion declared Galileo Galilei a heretic because he said the earth was round and that he advanced the Copernican theory. He is still a heretic because of the nineteenth century doctrine of the infallibility of the pope. Our ancients understood this from the millennia before Christ. We will look at this below in determining the system regarding the calendar.   

 

We know that at the time of King David there was transatlantic trade between the Middle East and South America as the mummies in the Berlin Museum from Egypt all have evidence of cocaine and tobacco in their hair. The British Museum tested their mummies to attempt to disprove the theory, and whilst their mummies had no cocaine, all had tobacco residue. Transatlantic trade was thus proven to the beginning of Israel.  It was thus endemic among the upper classes at least and proves a highly significant maritime capability and we know for a fact that Solomon maintained a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea continually returning every three years (1Kgs. 10:22). This trade continued until Judah was destroyed and sent into captivity and the Bar Kochba rebels left Judea and settled in the Americas.  

 

The Zodiac and the Galactic Cycle

The Zodiac was invented to explain the astronomical progression and resulted in star gazing worship of the Stars and the Moon and the Sun which is forbidden by God in the Bible (Deut. 4:19; Jer. 8:2 (F024ii)). 

 

The larger cycle is the Galactic cycle or year which is 235 million years long. The sun requires this time to complete a revolution of the Galaxy. There is a lesser cycle that is developed over 22,000 plus years in which the polar system is determined. Our ancestors understood all of this.

 

The Re-creation

The earth remained a functioning planet for a few hundred millions of years (and not billions) (see Creation etc. (B5) and Creation v. Evolution (B9).  Some nine hundred thousand years ago the Elohim in charge of this planet, Satan, aware of the Plan of God (No. 001A), began to experiment with humanoids. He had already prepared the earth using the Reptilian system to develop the conditions for mammalian life. Modern science states that there was a great problem with these pre-Adamic humanoids. The near extinction happened sometime between 930,000 and 813,000 years ago so the researchers wrote in their study and the population bottleneck lasted for what they believe was 117,000 years. None of these populations were successful. Also. the DNA evidence is lacking and does not support any evolutionary thesis. Satan and the fallen Host created the early hominids and then the Neanderthals and then the Cro-Magnons. These hominids appear to be failed experiments. Certainly the pre-Adamic creation will not be in the First Resurrection (No. 143A) and see also (No. 143). See also The Nephilim (No. 154).

 

Around 13,000 years ago the planet became tohu and bohu or waste and void (Gen. 1:1) for whatever reason. God did not create it in chaos or without form and void in the beginning (Isa. 45:18). The earth remained that way and the One True God who created the earth then sent the elohim under the being we know as Jesus Christ to re-furbish the earth. This is referred to in John 1:1-18.

 

This was accomplished over a seven-day period and the heavens were cleared of the damages so that they might provide light and be the signs for the determination of the times and seasons and the Calendar over the days and years.

 

Gen. 1:13-14 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. 14And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,”

 

The text in v. 15 also shows that God had made the stars as well as the Sun and Moon and their visibility was obviously impinged upon during the tohu and bohu of Gen. 1:1.

 

Gen. 1:16-19 And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, 18to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

 

The Sabbath Days were established on the Seventh day of the re-establishment under the Elohim. This act was to establish the week as the plan, or sequence, of the creation and the creation was to follow this plan as a sequence of seven thousand years from then on to the Rule of Satan over the Six thousand years and the Rule of Messiah for the Seventh Thousand year period (see Rev. Ch. 20) and the 100 Years of the Great White Throne Judgment. 

 

Gen. 2:2-3 And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. 3So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had done in creation.

 

Many references are made to ‘this day’ - an indication that it is a specific day and not another. God also determined in what day the Year would begin.  That was on the First Day of the New Moon of Abib as determined from the Conjunction. This knowledge was given to Adam and continued through the patriarchs to Noah (Gen. 8:13) and on to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The understanding of the Calendar was then restored to Israel by Christ as the Angel of the Presence through Moses (Acts 7:30-53; 1Cor. 10:1-4) after the 430 years in Egypt.

 

Rosh Hashanah and the Seventh month as the beginning of the year was a Babylonian heresy introduced by the Chaldeans and Sumerians/Assyrians and the Sun Worshipping system in the Middle East (see also below).

 

Exo. 12:2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.

 

So also was the current numbering of the Jewish years another Babylonian heresy adopted by Judaism seemingly to justify the dropping of the 50th jubilee year to a 49 year jubilee which is contrary to Lev. 25:10-11.

 

Exo. 16:1-5 And they departed from Ælim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Ælim and Sina; and on the fifteenth day, in the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt, 2all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron. 3And the children of Israel said to them, Would we had died smitten by the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and ate bread to satiety! For ye have brought us out into this wilderness, to slay all this congregation with hunger. 4And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread upon you out of heaven: and the people shall go forth, and they shall gather their daily portion for the day, that I may try them whether they will walk in my law or not.  5And it shall come to pass on the sixth day that they shall prepare whatsoever they have brought in, and it shall be double of what they shall have gathered for the day, daily.

 

This act of the Manna was a specific reinforcement of the Calendar such that the Sabbath was reinforced as were the New Moons and other aspects of the Calendar structure such that Israel was in no doubt as to what days of the Calendar were Holy Sabbaths.

 

Enforcement of the Calendar under Christ

Num. 15:32-36 And the children of Israel were in the wilderness, and they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath-day. 33And they who found him gathering sticks on the sabbath-day brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel. 34And they placed him in custody, for they did not determine what they should do to him. 35And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Let the man be by all means put to death: do ye all the congregation, stone him with stones. 36And all the congregation brought him forth out of the camp; and all the congregation stoned him with stones outside the camp, as the Lord commanded Moses.

 

This was Christ as the Angel of the Presence that commanded the man to be stoned to death and he enforced that throughout the Temple system in Israel and the priests and prophets continually. It is beyond question that God, through Christ, will reinstate the Calendar including the New Moons and Sabbaths on pain of death when he returns to restore Israel and the Faith in and for the Millennium (Isa. 66:23-24) (see F023xvi and F023xvii). David used a Temple Calendar calculated in advance by the astronomical schools in Israel in Issachar (1Sam. 20:5) and it was the astronomers of Issachar that came to proclaim him King (1Chr. 12:23-40, esp. verse 32; No. 159B).

 

False arguments justifying calendars other than the Temple Calendar

The greatest single fiction was the lie given by Judaism that there was an oral tradition that regulated the function of the written Laws of God in the Bible. This false doctrine cost Judah its place in Israel and saw it dispersed and punished. The greatest advocates of the false doctrine appear to be not Jews at all but rather the Ashkenazi (YDNA R1a), and Canaanite and North African (YDNA E3b and E1a) converts to Judaism with their traditions (see No. 212E).

 

Observation

To enable the Pharisaic and Rabbinical forgeries of the Calendar an observation system was introduced after the fall of the Temple in 70 CE.

 

This was to enable Postponements of the Calendar which the rabbis later enshrined in the Hillel system. The Churches of God never condoned this system, nor did it use it until the Twentieth Century (see also Nos 156, 195B).

 

This devious practice also resulted in the commencement of the Karaite Heresy based on observations and the introduction of the crescent moon based on observations derived from the Babylonian heresies of the Sun and Mystery Cults (Origin and Basis of the Karaite Heresy (No. 156C)).

 

Tides

The phases of the moon were also reflected in the tides and all fishing and maritime movement were determined by them, and the New Moon at the conjunction was perfectly understood and used in both the Temple Calendar and in the maritime and fishing industries (see also 156-156H).

 

Sunday Sabbath

Another completely fraudulent argument was that the declensions of the Sun in Hezekiah's reign (2Kgs. 20:9-11; see also Job 9:6-9; Ps. 104:19) lost a day and so Sunday is the true Sabbath. This argument comes from protestants who cannot bear to think that they are totally dependent on the doctrines of Baal worship and their adoption of those doctrines and festivals by the Church in Rome in the Second Century CE for those false doctrines. This will place them all in the Second Resurrection and they simply are in denial over their heresies. These people use the text in Joshua 10:13 to justify the movement of the Sabbath Day. The insane argument fails to take into account that the practice of the Temple system remained exactly the same and continued the same under Christ and the Apostles and the Churches of God for centuries and they rejected Hillel in their entirety when it was issued in 358 CE as utter heresy, as did the pseudo-Christian churches also.  Also, a telling point is that never once has the Trinitarian system raised this issue as a defence of Sunday worship, believing it to be absurd.

 

Calendar at Jerusalem

One of the recent reactions in justification of keeping Hillel in Judaism and the Sardis system of the Churches of God is that the determination of the Calendar based on the New Moons at Jerusalem is a man-made decision and thus can be ignored and Hillel kept. So also EENT is the basis of the beginning of the Day which they declare is a man-made decision. Nothing could be further from the truth. As we can tell from the texts and the historical records of the Temple period and afterwards that day could not be declared to start until at least three mainstream stars were visible in the night sky. That did not include the planets Venus and Mars etc. That is a requirement that is described by EENT.

 

Sunset

Sunset was only invoked by Judaism in commencing the Sabbath so that there was an approximate hour added to the Sabbath day making 25 hours ending at EENT in order to “build a wall around the Torah.” Sunset is not the legal end of the Day.

 

We see above that the calendar was determined from the Garden of Eden based on Jerusalem at its centre from Adam to Noah and then with Shem at Jerusalem (see No. 128). So also was it the case under Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and then under Israel during the Temple priesthood and under Christ and the Church. We know from the record that the ancients knew the earth was round and a calendar based on the Garden of Eden and Europe and the Middle East required an international date line in the Pacific simply because the earth was round, and not flat, as the Trinitarians later declared through ignorance, or malicious stupidity. 

 

These arguments are advanced by people who simply cannot admit they have been deceived and cannot repent to save their positions and very lives. They simply use them to be admitted or retained in a social club rather than follow God and the Faith in Truth.

 

The Temple Calendar at the Time of Christ and the Church. (taken from a New Moon Message 1/11/30/120).

The question of the Bible Feasts, New Moons and Sabbaths as part of the Fourth Commandment is one that is attacked using incorrect translations or omissions of the Jewish philosopher at Alexandria, Judaeus Philo.

 

Philo included the ten feasts of Israel under the one commandment, namely the Fourth Commandment. That is precisely the position of the Church (see the paper Law and the Fourth Commandment (No. 256)).

 

Since the fall of the Temple, the Jews and the Trinitarian Christians have done their utmost to trivialise and negate the Calendar of God. The matters that are attacked most are the day of worship on the Sabbath, which has been unlawfully changed from Sabbath to Sunday, and the New Moon, which forms the determination of the Calendar itself. This Calendar and the New Moons are attacked by the Jews who have adopted a pagan Babylonian system that is tied to an incorrect 19-year time cycle with fixed intercalations which bear no resemblance to the Temple system in use until its destruction in 70 CE and that was followed by Christ and the Church from its formation. For example, the Hillel Calendar, which is followed by the Armstrongite ministries, is intercalated in the Sacred Year 2008/2009, as it is also in the 2024 sacred year, when there is absolutely no reason to do so other than it is the year of intercalation set down by the Babylonian system. That system was operational from Babylon for over 500 years before Christ and was not accepted by the Church but was introduced by Jewish Rabbis at Babylon in 344 CE and adopted by Hillel II in 358 CE (and modified in the Eleventh and Twelfth centuries). This blasphemous heresy was introduced to the Churches of God by Herbert Armstrong in the Twentieth century, and until that time no member of the Body of Christ had ever observed such a calendar. To do so is heresy.

 

The matter of Sabbath and Sunday was addressed in the Sabbath Message 27/10/30/120.

 

Those in CCG will be aware that we took the UCG ministry to task for their handling of the issue of the New Moons in the paper Commentary on the UCG Doctrinal Paper: Should Christians Observe New Moons? (No. 124). See also Open Letter to the UCG Council of Elders (No. 159B).

 

The issue of the position of Philo was discussed in that paper and a quote was used from Colson’s work.  What we now find is that some people are misusing another text of Philo which is discussed here and added to the section of paper 124 that concerns Philo simply to demonstrate further that the UCG, PCG, LCG, and a host of others are not only wrong they are also wilfully ignorant and lead their people into unrighteousness.

 

The text in the Commentary states:

“We know from the evidence of Philo that the conjunction was used to determine the New Moon. The Bible provides other evidence from which we can make inferences and deductions. Philo says:

“This is the New Moon, or beginning of the lunar month, namely the period between one conjunction and the next, the length of which has been accurately calculated in the astronomical schools.” (Judaeus, Philo, The Special Laws, II, XXVI, 140, Treatise by F.H. Colson, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1937.)

 

UCG quotes Philo here but then fails to make the obvious conclusions or look for other evidence that supports what he has to say or how that affects the calendar. They start with Maimonides determining the crescent as the correct position and then go back over 1200 years to Philo (writing in the time of the Temple period of Alexandria), who says the exact opposite of their premise concerning Maimonides.

So, the astronomical schools are acknowledged to be in existence by Philo, who is an impeccable authority on Judaism up to the Christian period. The ancients calculated the length of the month quite accurately. The conjunctions were calculated in the astronomical schools, and there was no need for witnesses in observation. UCG was forced to acknowledge Philo in this document, but only after they have established this false position with Maimonides, so they can maintain their erroneous position. They could have, and should have, started with Philo and established that there was no such system. So UCG have already contradicted themselves in their own paper in their first two references. These astronomical schools were obviously extremely important.

Philo shows that the Temple calendar was based on the conjunction and not on observation. However, the comment is left hanging as it were. No mention is made of the text in Josephus, which shows that the New Moons were kept during the Temple period. Josephus, in his
Wars of the Jews, shows that it was regarded by the priesthood on a level with the Sabbath, and the High Priest robed and officiated in the Temple on both the Sabbath and the New Moon, as well as on the Feast days (W.J., 5:5:7). The New Moon was thus treated on the same level as the Sabbath and the Holy Days of the Feast. UCG could have and should have quoted that reference as well, and that would have substantiated what Philo was saying in the first century. So, we have a witness in the first century who was alive at the time of the Temple, and two witnesses who saw the Temple (and saw it destroyed) and knew what its system was. Two Jewish witnesses at the end of the Temple period wrote on the Calendar and established that the New Moons were determined by conjunction by the astronomical schools, and that they were used as a day of worship on which the High Priest formally robed. As mentioned, he did that only on Sabbaths, New Moons and Feasts.”

 

In addition to this quote there is another text dealing with the New Moons and their determination that deals with the exact day of the New Moon and which is being misquoted so as to contrive to commence the New Moon on the day after the conjunction. Another erroneous interpretation commences the month a day before the conjunction. These interpretations are made impossible if we use both the quotations of Philo.

 

In dealing with the Feasts under the Fourth Commandment we read Philo to say:

THE SPECIAL LAWS, II*
{**Yonge's title, A Treatise on the Special Laws, Which Are Referred to Three Articles of the Decalogue, Namely the Third, Fourth, and Fifth; About Oaths, and the Reverence Due to Them; About the Holy Sabbath; About the Honour To Be Paid to Parents.}
....

Yonge's translation includes a separate treatise title at this point: On the Number Seven. His next division begins and ends with roman numeral I (= X in the Loeb). The text follows the Loeb numbering.
X. (39) The next commandment is that concerning the sacred seventh day, in which are comprehended an infinite number of most important festivals. For instance, there is the release of those men who by nature were free, but who, through some unforeseen necessity of the times, have become slaves, which release takes place every seventh year. Again, there is the humanity of creditors towards their debtors, as they forgive their countrymen their debts every seventh year. Also there is the rest given to the fertile ground, whether it be in the champaign or in the mountainous country, which also takes place every seventh year. Moreover, there are those ordinances, which are established respecting the fiftieth year. And of all these things the bare narration (without looking to any inner and figurative signification) is sufficient to lead those who are well disposed to perfect virtue, and to make even those who are obstinate and stubborn in their dispositions more docile and tractable. (40) Now we have already spoken at some length about the virtue of the number seven, explaining what a nature it has in reference to the number ten; and also what a connection it has to the decade itself, and also to the number four, which is the foundation and the source of the decade. And now, having been compounded in regular order from the unit, it in regular order produces the perfect number twenty-eight; being multiplied according to a regular proportion equal in all its parts, it makes at last both a cube and a square. I also showed how there is an infinite number of beauties which may be extracted from a careful contemplation of it, on which we have not at present time to dilate. But we must examine every one of the special matters which are before us as comprehended in this one, beginning with the first. The first matter to be considered is that of the Festivals. [Yonge's translation includes a separate treatise title at this point: To Show That the Festivals Are Ten in Number. This "treatise" begins with Roman numeral I (= XI in the Loeb), enumerates each of the ten festivals individually, and extends through Loeb number 214. The text follows the Loeb numbering.]
XI. (41) Now there are ten festivals in number, as the law sets them down.
The first is that which any one will perhaps be astonished to hear called a festival. This festival is every day.*
The second festival is the seventh day, which the Hebrews in their native language call the sabbath.
The third is that which comes after the conjunction, which happens on the day of the new moon in each month.
The fourth is that of the passover which is called the passover.
The fifth is the first fruits of the corn--the sacred sheaf. [Note the Wave Sheaf is one of the Ten]
The sixth is the feast of unleavened bread, after which that festival is celebrated, which is really
The seventh day of seventh days.
The eighth is the festival of the sacred moon, or the feast of trumpets.
The ninth is the fast.
The tenth is the feast of tabernacles, which is the last of all the annual festivals, ending so as to make the perfect number of ten. We must now begin with the first festival.

*[Note: regarding the first festival above refer to 2Chron. 8:13.]

 

We notice here that in the introduction in dealing with the third Feast, namely the New Moon, Philo uses the term which has been rendered after the conjunction and some others have rendered as following in the sense of “according to” or “as determined by” the conjunction. However, he qualifies this matter by saying: which happens on the day of the New Moon in each month. The text is thus quite clear that the New Moon is the day on which the conjunction occurs. In the later explanations, Philo then goes on to state that the month is from one conjunction to the next as determined in the astronomical schools, as was quoted above.

 

There can thus be no error. The New Moon is on the day of the conjunction as determined by the astronomical schools from Jerusalem. To postpone the New Moon as is done by Judaism is to postpone all the festivals and make them of no value. It is simply thumbing one’s nose at God and His Laws. On the New Moon hang all the subsequent festivals.

 

Yonge’s translation lacked part of 140 and the texts of 142-144 (which is supplied here) and explains the timing and the theology behind the New Moon and why it runs according to the conjunction and the New Moon day is the day of the conjunction.

 

THE THIRD FESTIVAL
XXVI. (140) Following the order which we have adopted, we proceed to speak of the third festival, that of the new moon. First of all, because it is the beginning of the month, and the beginning, whether of number or of time, is honourable. Secondly, because at this time there is nothing in the whole of heaven destitute of light. (141) Thirdly, because at that period the more powerful and important body gives a portion of necessary assistance to the less important and weaker body; for, at the time of the new moon, the sun begins to illuminate the moon with a light which is visible to the outward senses, and then she displays her own beauty to the beholders. And this is, as it seems, an evident lesson of kindness and humanity to men, to teach them that they should never grudge to impart their own good things to others, but, imitating the heavenly bodies, should drive envy away and banish it from the Soul.{17}{sections 142-144 were omitted in Yonge's translation because the edition on which Yonge based his translation, Mangey, lacked this material. These lines have been newly translated for this volume.} (142) The fourth reason is that of all the bodies in the heaven, the moon traverses the zodiac in the least appointed time: it accomplishes its orbit in a monthly interval. For this reason the law has honored the end of its orbit, the point when the moon has finished at the beginning point from which it began to travel, by having called that day a feast so that it might again teach us an excellent lesson that in the affairs of life we should make the ends harmonious with the beginnings. This will happen if we hold the reins on our first impulses with the power of reason and do not permit them to refuse the reins and to run free like animals without anyone in charge of the herd.
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book28.html

Note, as we said above, Yonge does not have the full text of 140 as Colson does, and does not have 142-144, which appear to have been lost or removed to obscure the exact nature of the New Moons. However, the earlier section above still leaves no room for doubt as to when it was and how it was determined. Those who follow the Hillel Calendar and argue for its adoption are without excuse and disobey God. Their worship services are as rags.

 

Christ and the Calendar

This Calendar was kept by Christ and the Apostles and the entire Church of God all over the world for centuries. They also kept the Sanctification Process (Nos. 077; 241) for the Cleansing of the Temple (No. 241B) and the Fast for the Simple and Erroneous (No. 291) which was mandated by God through Ezekiel. The church did not fall into error until the 20th Century in what are referred to in Rev. Ch. 3 as the Sardis and the Laodicean churches or eras. They also kept the New Moons as Sabbaths for 1900 years and we know that also from the last records of the Thyatiran system which shows they kept the Temple Calendar and did not keep Hillel at all (see The Sabbatarians in Transylvania by R, Kohn (1894) tr. T. McElwain and B. Rook with a foreword by W. Cox, CCG 1998). 

 

The most important thing to realise is that Christ kept the Temple Calendar meticulously from Jerusalem as determined by the ancients. It was the God of Ps. 45 that gave the law of Eloah to Adam and the patriarchs and then to Moses and Israel at Sinai and in the wilderness as the Angel of the Presence (Acts 7:30-53; 1Cor. 10:1-4) and the Elohim of Israel (Ps. 45:6-7; Heb 1:8-9) which was Christ. 

 

The Hillel calendar was not issued until 358 CE and was not finalised until the Eleventh and the Twelfth Centuries (see Nos.  195; 195B and 195C).  The Churches of God for all the above reasons have rejected the Babylonian system of the Pharisees and the Hillel system for 1900 years. Keeping it now for social reasons is spitting on your baptism and forfeiting your place in the First Resurrection.

 

Final Restoration

Every single Jew that fails to keep the New Moons and Sabbaths and every single member of the Churches of God that also fails to keep the Temple calendar, including the New Moons, and keeps Hillel, like the Jews, will be put to death as will the world in general that refuses to repent (Isa. 66:23-24). Judah was warned under Messiah and they refused to repent (see the Sign of Jonah (No. 013)) and because of their disobedience, they were disbursed for over 1900 years. They were warned again in the Holocaust for 1260 days from 1941-1945 with the loss of six million dead with many of the churches killed because they were not keeping the faith correctly. Now they are about to be placed under the Second Holocaust and they will repent over the 1260 days of the Witnesses. So also will the Churches of God in Sardis and Laodicea repent of Hillel and the Roman system, or die in their entirety.  See also The Great Tribulation (No. 141D_2) and Four Hundred Years of Abraham's Legacy (No.  212J). The choice is ours to make.