by lovelylil 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Nissan 14 on the Jewish Calendar is April 19th this year. Then WHY is the WT observing the memorial in March?
I've noticed the last several years (4 since I left) that the WT's memorial date is never actually on Nissan 14, but that the date for the memorial seems to be picked based upon when the "pagan" Easter celebration of Christendom is observed. Whats up with this? Lilly
Because the Society does not follow the official (rabbinic) Jewish calendar. They follow what they believe would have been the calendar as it existed in the first century AD. Of course, this is hypothetical. We do not know precisely when the metonic cycle was adopted into the Jewish calendar and when it was normative. The Society assumes the shift from observation to fixed calculation occurred as late as Hillel in AD 358. But this ignores the use of calculation in the Greek (Seleucid) calendar, that was in use during the Hasmonean era, and the fact that there was calendrical disunity in the Second Temple period -- including the use of an entirely different solar schematic calendar. So it is certainly possible that the Society is right that the Temple authorities used observation to determine the calendar in the first century AD, but neither do we know for sure if alternative approaches or calendars were used as well.
thanks Leo.
Nissan 14 for the society is ALWAYS the first full moon (seen in Jerusalem) after March 21 (spring equinox) that's how they calculate this date
First\second century head of the Smyrnan church, Polycarp of Smyrna, celebrated it on Nisan 14. Other churches, such as Rome under Polycarp's contemporary Anicetus, always did it on the following Sunday. Anicetus once visited Polycarp and deferred to him out of respect in this. Quartodecimanism has an ancient history therefore, but lost out to the Roman tradition in the West.
That said, I am not at all sure JWs reckon the 14th of Nisan correctly.
Burn
Hmm, does that mean they are consulting the moon and the stars for confirmation of a date?
Hmm, does that mean they are consulting the moon and the stars for confirmation of a date?
Seeing that our calendrical reckoning is based on astronomical phenomena, I do not understand the thrust of that question?
Burn
It was a dig at their admonishments to not read your horoscope.
"Consulting the moon and the stars." Well put. And we know who the moon god is, don't we?
"Scriptures do specifically mention the waving of the firstfruits in connection with the Passover ceremony. This tie-in is actually the only direct Scriptural basis for confirming the season of the year because the spring equinox is not referenced. To ignore the tie-in with the first grain harvest would seem to do violence to the original requirement, which becomes significant as a type of Christ’s resurrection on Nisan 16 in 33 A.D. Its omission might seem to seriously undermine the Scriptural support for the timing of the Passover celebration." http://www.heraldmag.org/2005/05ma_10.htm
