Finding 1/1 

The mystery of the first day of the first month (1/1) has been sought after by many, from all cultures & religions, in order to honor properly YHWH & his festivals. The Qumran scrolls is the greatest manuscript discovery of modern time. Thanks to them, the reconstruction of the original Calendar is now being made possible. Gathering all the textual clues from the complete canon of biblical books, as found in Qumran, can now unveil how to find the 1st day of the 1st month (1/1) of the year:

Rosh Hashana according to Jewish Traditions

According to the Talmudic civil calendar, which was finalized in the 4th century AD by Hillel II, the Jewish luni-solar year begins in the month of Tishri, in the fall. 

Paradoxically, the month of Tishri is not the first month: it is the 7th month. Indeed, Jewish traditions admit that the 1st month of the year is actually placed around the Spring equinox.

Thus, the Tishri-year begins with Tishri 1, while at the same time Tishri 1 remains the first day of the 7th month.

The year starting in the fall, the Jewish New Year, called "Rosh Hashanah" or "head of the year", is celebrated on the 1st of the Tishri-year. However, according to Torah, the month of Aviv is to " be for you the head of the month of the year" (Exodus 12:2), bringing the Rosh Hashana to the 1st day of the Nisan-year (even in a luni-solar context).

Rabbinical culture continues however, to this day, to celebrate "Rosh Hashanah" in the fall season.

The Nisan-year therefore stands in opposition to the Tishri-year. However, because the number of months in the Jewish calendar continues to be calculated from Nisan, the controversy of the 1st biblical month is minimized into a partial agreement: Whether it be the "Nisan-year" or the "Tishri-year", both Jewish traditions agree to place the 1st biblical month and Passover in the Spring.

Some Christians, due to their dissatisfaction, began to experiment with independent calculations. Others believed that the Jewish calculation should continue to be used, even if their calculations were wrong.

The controversy among Christians was forcefully put to an end in 325 CE by the Council of Nicea, when it was decided to abandon the former custom of consulting the Jewish community, and to approve an independent calculation for the dating of the Passover. From 325 CE on, the Christian Passover was to be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring equinox, a rule imposed to all Christians, even with ruthless violence to the Christian groups that disagreed with the new method.

However, none of these Christian fractions ever doubted that Passover, or the beginning of the year, had to occur in the Spring season.

Abib and the Agricultural Cycle

Exodus 13:4   

“On this day in the month of Abib, you are about to go forth.

Exodus 23:15   

You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed.

Exodus 34:18  

“You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened. Seven days you shall eat unleavened, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt.

Deuteronomy 16:1   

“Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to YHWH your ALHYM, for in the month of Abib YHWH your ALHYM brought you out of Egypt by night.

The “month of Abib” appears in Hebrew as “ba-khodesh ha-abib” בחדשׁ האביב, the word “khodesh” חדש literally meaning “renewal”, and to be translated as "month".

Because the ancient hebrew word "abib" אביב (pronounced "aviv" in modern Hebrew) is immediately preceded by the word "khodesh", it is intimately connecting the 1st biblical month to the grain harvests.

The word "abib" אביב means "ears of grain" or "fresh heads of cereal". As an appellation, "the month of Abib" can be translated as "the month of the barley", for this word is mostly interpreted as referring to the ears of "barley". The word "abib" could also have been used in the broad sense of the term, to mean "ears of grain", potentially referring to other cereals. 

There are two types of barley: 

1. "Fall Barley", which is sown in the fall, ripens during winter and is harvested in spring; 

2. “Spring Barley”, which is sown in the spring, ripens during summer and is harvested in the fall. 

As winter grains are planted in the fall, they ripen during the winter, and they are harvested in late spring or early summer.

Because of this agricultural nuance, some say that the start of the biblical year may be justified also in the fall. To complicate the matter, the harvest calendars of wheat and other grains can largely change over time, and differ with climates, soils or even regions of the world.

Yet most experts do agree that "Abib" is, without much of a doubt, referring exclusively to Spring Barley, as it is a type of grain that can be harvested earlier than all others grains in the year. Therefore, because barley ripens faster than the other grains, it is assumed to be the first and earliest harvests of the year. With handfuls of early grains, unleavened breads could be prepared in early Spring for Passover. The 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread would immediately be followed by the first agricultural pentacontad of Firstfruits, around the barley harvest, which occurs on the "day after the Sabbath", on the 26th of the 1st month.

Qumran Calendrical Document C (4Q326) 

On the 26th (day) in it:] feast of the Gr[ain after the Sabbath.

The next grain harvest, most likely wheat, would be celebrated 50 days later, during Shavuot, also called the Festival of Weeks.

Before or After the Equinox ?

Today, Jewish, Christians and theologians agree unanimously that the beginning of the year & the Feast of Passover must occur AFTER the heavenly & earthly signs of Spring.  For instance, if in the land of Israel the barley have not yet ripened, and the trees have not yet blossomed with seasonal flowers—it is sufficient reason to delay the Jewish 1st month Nissan by adding a second month of Adar. 

Placing the beginning of the year too early would indeed compromise the agricultural feasts. For instance, there would be little value in celebrating the feast of the barley without having been able to complete the barley harvest. Therefore, placing the start of the year too early, before the Equinox, was a practical error that the ancient cultures most likely didn't want to do. 

The beginning of the year and Passover is to never fall before the equinox, but instead always after the sun crossing the heavens by the divide. 

As soon as spring is there, favorable conditions to plant development meet. The solar light and radiation stimulates plant growth as well as the multiplication of leaves. Plant life coming back can be explained in particular by the increase in temperature and brightness.

The sun's rays provide the necessary energy to warm the earth and enrich it. Plants of all kinds wake up, trees form buds and various plants start growing flowers. Moreover the Earth testimony is not limited to its plants...

When Spring comes, the animals too start to wake up. Those who have migrated return, those who have entered hibernation come out, insects resume their active lives again ... All of nature calls for the renewal of the life cycle, the reappearance of the living, the return of the love season, and over-all reconstruction,… The Earth bears witness, it's the start of the year, the 1st month!

Why is it that the equilux event does not occur the same day than the equinox?  It is the sunlight refraction through the atmosphere taht makes it so. Since the light appears above the horizon before the sun physically rising, the daylight mathematically equals the night, before the sun crosses the celestial equator at the equinox.

If the equilux and the equinox are different from each other, they are however widely confused by most. The proponents of the equilux insist on the advantage to be more precise than equinox, indicating the exact period of equal hours of day and night. Yet for its critics, the equilux remains a contemporary and quite elusive phenomenon.

Indeed, the equilux of the same year will vary in dates depending on where it is computed, since its measurement is strongly influenced by the geographical position of the observers, and their latitude in relationship to the earthly equator. For instance, the day of the equilux for a person situated in Russia will be different than the equilux day for another person in the US... It is therefore impossible to establish a common equilux date for everyone. The astronomical equinox, however, is an event occurring on the same day for all people where-ever they are on Earth.

The equilux can only be measured today by sophisticated clocks that allow us to accurately measure the exact hours and minutes of daylight in specific locations. Without these devices, the equilux cannot be calculated. In ancient civilizations, finding the exact number of hours of daylight didn't seem to be their priority. Finding the day when the season changed, was more useful to them.

We also know that ancient cultures had access to instruments, which allowed them to measure the angle of the sun relative to the celestial equator. When people of ancient times used these tools, it was to observe the equinox. They understood what they observed through these devices to be "the day being equal to the night", since the minute-to-minute nuances of the equilux is not physically distinguishable.

Therefore, Henock when referring to "the night being equal to the day" is not referring to modern-day equilux computations, but the natural experience of feeling that day and night is of equal length during the Equinox.

To identify the precise days of the equinoxes and soltices (without "astronomical" calculations), the old navigators of the 16th century AD used sundials, or built one in a rudimentary way by placing a stick in the sand or a nail in a board.

The existence of such instruments for measuring the equinoxes and solstices is also attested in ancient Greek sources. It is said that, since Anaximander (6th century BC), Greek physicists have known how to recognize event projections from the sky. The Greek historian and geographer Herodotus (-480 to -425 BC) is also frequently cited on this subject:

"Knowledge of the sundial and of the gnomon and of the twelve divisions of the day [would have come] to Greece from Babylon". 

Further back in time, Babylon had very likely received it from the Hebrews. Indeed, Persian and Arabian traditions ascribe the invention of astronomy to Adam, Seth and Enoch. Some scholars suggest also that astronomy and cosmology were most likely used by the forefathers of the Hebrews before the flood. Historian Flavius Josephus says Seth, son of Adam, and his offspring preserved ancient astronomical knowledge in pillars of stone. Through out the greatest ancient cultures, the geometry of time was read through the glare of the sun. On the earth, the gnomon & its shadows were used to reveal its secrets.

The equinox continues to be calculated today by individuals, using sometimes very simple sundials. Without the help of the Gregorian calendar or any astronomical observatories, they are able to find the exact date of the equinox. The interpretation of the shadow of the gnomon projected on the dial, is said to be very simple: the sun changes its position on the sky, the gnomon’s shadow moves. In the northern hemiplane, the shadow is in a positive inclination in spring and summer,  in a negative inclination in autumn and winter, and in an exactly zero inclination, i.e. in a straight line, at equinoxes.

The Qumran Sundial 

In Judea, the discovery of a small stone sundial at Qumran is further evidence of the use of such instruments in the 1st century by the Hebrews.

Most agree that, because of its central cavity to hold a small stick, the primary function of object was to be a sundial, the prominent rings certainly indicating the season. The dominant hypothesis, like in in the trinogométric study the disc of Qumran from Paul Davaradan, the disc was designed to measure the solstices and equinoxes, as well as certain equinoctial hours. At noon, at the latitude of Qumran, the shadow of the gnomon at the summer solstice would be very short, reaching only the inner ring. At the equinoxes, it would be longer, reaching the broad ring; and at the winter solstice, the shadow would extend to the outer ring. Others, like Barbara Thiering, suggest that this type of sundial was also used in parallel as an odometer.

While the purpose of a traditional sundial is obvious, it remains unclear how the one found in Qumran worked exactly to its full potential.

The current elements however suffice to conclude with assurance that, from the earliest times, an observer in Jerusalem was able to notice when days were becoming equal to nights, and mark the equinox at the end of the biblical year, with a sundial in hand.

The initial attempt to retrieve in which week day the first of the year felt was performed by Annie Jaubert of the University of Sorbonne (Paris), through the Book of Jubilees. She noticed that the Book of Jubilees had placed the Feast of Shavuot between the 1st and 16th of the 3rd month, with a high certainty of having occurred on the 15th. 

Simultaneously, the same Feast is placed on the day after the weekly Sabbath, Sunday, in Leviticus. With these two elements, she was able to trace back the 1st of the year to fall on a Wednesday (Sunday 3/15 - 75 days = Wednesday 1/1)

Jubilees 44:1-5

44:1 And Israel took his journey from Haran from his house on the head of the third month (...)

44:4 And he celebrated [on the fifteenth of it] the harvest festival of the first−fruits with old grain, for in all the land of Canaan there was not a handful of seed [in the land], for the famine was over all the beasts and cattle and birds, and also over man. 

44:5 Then on the sixteenth YHWH appeared unto him, and said unto him, 'Jacob, Jacob'; and he said, 'Here am I.' (...)

Leviticus 23:15

'From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks.

Her conclusions were confirmed by the calendrical information retrieved among the Qumran scrolls. 

Among the scrolls, were found elements that proved that the Original Calendar was irrevocably linked to the 7-day week cycles, feast days always falling on the same weekly days. 

For instance, Passover, which is commanded to occur on the 14th day of the 1st month in Leviticus 23:5, would fall, year after year, on the 3rd day of the week (Tuesday):

Qumran Mishmarot A - Fr.4 iii & iv & v

“The first year: its feasts. On the third (day in the week of) Meoziah: the Passover.”(...)

“The third (year): its feasts. On the third (day) in (the week of) Abiah: the Passover.”

“The fourth (year): its feasts. [On the third (day) in (the week of) Jaki]m: the Passover.”

“The fifth (year): its feasts.] On the third (day) in (the week of) Immer: the Passover.”

Correspondingly, the same Feast of Passover can be found in Torah pinned to the calendar date of 1/14.

Lev 23: 5 

“In the first month, the fourteenth day of the month between the two evenings is the Passover onto YHWH”

When looked at simultaneously, one can easily count back from the 14th to the 1st, and find the confirmation that 1/1 always falls on the 4th day of the week (Wednesday): 

Tuesday 14/1 - 14 days = Wednesday 1/1.

Hence, solid evidence from the Qumran scrolls put an end to the calendrical controversies, placing the 1st day of the 1st month, year after year, on the 4th day of the week (wednesday), Passover on the 3rd day of the week (tuesday), Pentecost on the 1st day of the week (sunday), etc.

The Creation week:

In the Creation week, on the fourth day, God created the luminaries, starting the heavenly clocks that would give the rythms to the earth from there on. The sun was given the rythm to complete its mean cycle in 365.24219 days, in order to return to the same position in the cycle of seasons. The moon was set to average 12 lunaison cycles in 354.367056 days. The constellation rotation and the stars around the Noth Star(from the northern hemiplane standpoint) move in the sky slightly faster than the sun, the position of the stars in the sky changing by nearly one degree every 24 hours of solar time. For example, the bright star Sirius in the night sky will appear to have moved westward by one degree 24 hours later. Therefore, over the course of a month, the position of the stars at a given time will shift by roughly 30 degrees. Over 12 months, the position of the stars will shift by 360 degrees. The astronomical origins of the Calendar are furthermore interwoven in the creation pattern of 7 days, making YHWH's Septenary Calendar unique and unmatched by all other solar, lunar or stellar calendars. It is the only Calendar in the world that is able to synchronize the days of the week with its time fabric, aligning perfectly each calendar date to the same week day. It holds the signature of the Creator, as it articulates perfectly around the 7-day Creation week.

Genesis 1:14-19     

And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Jubilees 2:8-9    

 … and on the fourth day he created the sun and the moon and the stars, and set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon all the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And Elohim appointed the sun to be a great sign on the earth for days and for shabbathot and for months and for feasts and for years and for shabbathot of years and for jubilees and for all seasons of the years.

The Key that Unlocks the Riddle 

If one incertitude had remained, it was to specifically pin point on which 4th day of the week, after the Spring Equinox, was 1-1. It was assumed with confidence that 1-1 would fall on the first wednesday that followed the spring equinox.

That assumption was confirmed with the amazing discovery of the Qumran scrolls.

Mishmarot A (4Q320) Fr. 1 i

..... ‘(After the sun is) viewed crossing the heavens by the divide, from the east to west, from waking in morning, on the 4th (day) of the week, under (the service of priest) Gamul, is the 1st of the 1st month, the head of the year.

This passage clearly establishes the relationship of the observation of the equinox ("crossing the heavens by the divide") with the first day of the year. It also confirms that the 1st day of the year can only be placed on the 4th day of the week to start the year. These few lines put an end to all controversies concerning the beginning of the year, establishing with certainty that the first day of the first month is to be established immediately after the event of Equinox is witnessed in the Heavens. 

The Temple Ceremonies

The Temple Scroll (11QT=11Q19-21, 4Q365a, 4Q524)

On the first day of the [first] month [the months (of the year) shall start; it shall be the first month] of the year [for you. You shall do no] work. [You shall offer a he-goat for a sin-offering.] It shall be offered by itself to expiate [for you. You shall offer a holocaust: a bullock], a ram, [seven yearli]ng ram lambs [without blemish] … [ad]di[tional to the bu]r[nt-offering for the new moon [kadash], and a grainoffering of three tenths of fine flour mixed with oil], half a hin [for each bullock, and wi]ne for a drink-offering, [half a hin, a soothing odour to YHWH, and two] tenths of fine flour mixed [with oil, one third of a hin. You shall offer wine for a drink-offering,] one th[ird] of a hin for the ram, [an offering by fire, of soothing odour to YHWH; and one tenth of fine flour], a grain-offerin[g mixed with a quarter of a hinof oil. You shall offer wine for a drink-offering, a quarter of a hin] for each [ram] … lambs and for the he-g[oat] …

IX (1QS x, 4-12)

… at their renewal there is a great day for the Holy of Holies and a sign for the opening of the everlasting mercies at the beginning of the seasons for all ages to come. At the beginning of the months for their seasons and on the holy days according to their rules for remembrance in [their] seasons, I will bless Him [with the offering of the l]ips according to the precept [en]graved for ever. At the beginning of the years and at the completion of the circ[uit of their seasons, when they ful]fil their determined precept on the day decreed for one to follow another, the seas[on of early harvest the summer, and the season of so]wing the season of grass, the seasons of the ye[ar]s thei[r] weeks [and at the beginning of] their weeks the seasons of jubilee. And during all my existence the [en]graved precept shall be on [my tongue as a fruit] of praise and a po[rtion] of my lips. I will sin[g] with knowledge and all my music is for the glory of GOD.

XIII [This is what you shall offer on the altar:] (…) On the first day of the [first] month, [the months (of the year) shall start; it shall be the first month] of the year [for you. You shall do no] work. [You shall offer a he-goat for a sin-offering.] It shall be offered by itself to expiate [for you. You shall offer a holocaust: a bullock], a ram, [seven yearli]ng ram lambs [without blemish] … [ad]di[tional to the bu]r[nt-offering for the new moon(original text?), and a grain offering of three tenths of fine flour mixed with oil], half a hin [for each bullock, and wi]ne for a drink-offering, [half a hin, a soothing odour to YHWH, and two] tenths of fine flour mixed [with oil, one third of a hin. You shall offer wine for a drink-offering,] one th[ird] of a hin for the ram, [an offering by fire, of soothing odour to YHWH; and one tenth of fine flour], a grain-offerin[g mixed with a quarter of a hinof oil. You shall offer wine for a drink-offering, a quarter of a hin] for each [ram] … lambs and for the he-g[oat] … X