ABIB VS. VERNAL EQUINOX ......... YOU DECIDE

This is a short comparison of Abib and Vernal Equinox.....very confrontational.
This was produced bu YAIY. You can go to there website for more info. Below that a brother sent me a message from Nehemia Gorden. It has some links to check out. This is must reading



Abib

Early ears (Lev 2:14) Hebrew: #24 Abib
Ex 9:31;12:2; 13:4; Duet 16:1 “observe Abib” (one calendar based on agriculture and moon: “Month of Abib,” Deut 16:1; Ex 34:18
Ps 104:19 Moon for seasons
Abib instructed as a calendar
No astrologers needed in ancient Israel to determine an equal day and night
Yahweh can change the Appointed Times (moeds) by changing the weather: Ex 9:29; Ps 135:6-7; Jer 10::13; Zech 10:1; 14:17-18.

Abib defined:

“Also if you bring a grain offering of early ripened (Abib) things (barley in the case of the new year: Ex 9:31; 12:2; 13:4) to Yahweh, you shall bring fresh heads of grain roasted in the fire, grits of new growth, for the grain offering of your early ripened things,” Lev 2:14. NASU
“Observe the month (new moon) of Abib (early ears of barley), and keep the Passover unto Yahweh thy Elohim: for in the month of Abib Yahweh thy Elohim brought thee forth out of Egypt by night,” Deut 16:1


Vernal Equinox

Equal day and night
Suggested Hebrew word: #8622 Tequphah
1 Sam 1:20 (9-month gestation period) Ex 34:22 Cycles of Pentecost and FOT; Ps 19:6 Sun rotates and runs its coarse; 2 Chron 24:23 End or close of the year
Gen 1:14-16; Ps 136:8-9 “sun rules day, moon rules night” (one calendar based on sun and moon?
“Pagan Calendars” “Lunisolar”)
Josh 10:12-14; 2 Kings 20:8-11 Sun for signs
Nisan showed pagan influence on Judah during and after their captivity (Neh 2:1; Est 3:7)
Astrologers needed to determine spring, summer, and winter equinoxes
Unless the fixed pattern (Jer 31:35) of the sun or moon’s coarse is changed, no controlled change can be made.

Vernal equinox defined:

the time when the sun crosses the plain of the earth’s equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth and occurring about March 21st.”
— Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (emphasis mine)


www.yaiy.org
YAIY Quick Study Sheet


This is the e-mail I received from Brother Y

Will the Real Equinox Please Stand Up

Last week we found Aviv barley in the Land of Israel and the new moon on Wednesday night was the New Moon of the Aviv marking the beginning of the Biblical year. I discuss the biblical evidence for the role of the Aviv barley in the Biblical calendar at:

http://www.karaite-korner.org/abib.shtml

Some people object that the true indicator for the beginning of the Biblical year should not be the Aviv barley but the Vernal Equinox, the day which marks the beginning of Spring. They base this on an anachronism in their interpretation of the biblical Hebrew word Tekufah ("circuit"). An anachronism is erroneously placing something from a later time period into an earlier one. For example, speaking about telephones in ancient Rome is an anachronism. Interpreting the Biblical Hebrew word "Tekufah" as meaning "equinox", a meaning it never had in Tanakh times, is an anachronism. I won't go into too much detail here about the word Tekufah as I have done so in the past. For more information on this topic please see:

http://www.karaite- korner.org/ abib_faq. shtml
http://www.karaite-korner.org/abib_and_tekufah.shtml
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/karaite_ korner_news/ message/220
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/karaite_ korner_news/ message/124

Today I want to point out another anachronism in the application of the vernal equinox by those who claim it has a role in the Biblical calendar. Specifically I want to ask the question: If we are really required to use the vernal equinox for the biblical calendar, then which equinox? The problem is that there was no reliable way to calculate the timing of the Vernal Equinox in antiquity. Today modern astronomers have worked out with a high degree of accuracy the exact timing of the Vernal Equinox. The prerequisite for determining the true equinox was discovering the exact length of the solar year. According to modern astronomers a solar year is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds and this year the equinox falls out on March 21, 2010. Easy, right? Not so fast. The true value of the solar year was not known until modern times.

Fear not, say advocates of the equinox, Moses had secret astronomical knowledge learned at the court of Pharoah. This secret knowledge supposedly included the exact calculation to work out the true timing of the Vernal Equinox. If Moses had this secret knowledge it was unfortunately unknown to later Jews. The early Rabbis mention the Vernal Equinox but they did not have a way of reliably calculating it because they did not know the true length of the solar year. There were actually two contradictory opinions about the length of the solar year and both were wrong. According to Rabbi Samuel the solar year was 365 days 6 hours whereas Rabbi Ada reckoned the solar year to be 365 days 5 hours 55 minutes 25.4 seconds. The difference between these two values may sound trivial but they result in the Vernal Equinox falling out on different days, neither of which is the correct day! For example, this year the Equinox of Samuel falls out on April 8, 2010 whereas the Equinox of Ada is March 28, 2010. As already mentioned, the true Vernal Equinox is March 21, 2010 - 7 days before the Equinox of Ada and 18 days before the Equinox of Samuel. Which one of these three values did Moses supposedly use: the Equinox of Ada, the Equinox of Samuel, or the true astronomical value only worked out in modern times? If this knowledge was known to Moses then why was it unknown to every other ancient civilization including the Jews? Did God really intend for us to wait for the advent of modern astronomy to know the true timing of the biblical feasts? Or did he set out a simple system that ancient Israelite farmers could easily follow by looking at their crops as they grew in the fields? It seems to me this is what the Creator was talking about when he said: "Observe the Month of the Aviv" in Deuteronomy 16:1. No need for secret astronomical knowledge; just a simple way to track the solar cycle relevant to an ancient farming society.

As a side note, the Vernal Equinox is generally calculated today as a moment in time not as a day. This year the Vernal Equinox was March 20 at 7:32pm Israel time. In the Hebrew reckoning, the day begins at sunset and this was well after sunset presumably making March 21 the day of the Vernal Equinox. But not so fast with this either! The ancients defined the equinox as the day on which daytime and nighttime were of equal length as we can see from the following quotation from the Jerusalem Talmud (Berachot 2c 1:1): "On both the Vernal Equinox and Autumnal Equinox the day and the night are equal". So when would that be for observers in the Land of Israel, March 20 or 21 this year? Considering that they did not have accurate clocks in ancient times, this would be no small feat to figure out, which is why both Samuel and Ada got it wrong. If you look at TimeAndDate. com for the day on which the daytime and nighttime are equal in Jerusalem you get a surprising result: March 16 or 17! On March 16 there was 11h 59m 12s of daytime and on March 17 there was 12h 01m 09s. So is the "Biblical" equinox March 16 or 17 based on day lengths in Jerusalem? Or March 21 as if Moses lived at the equator? Or March 28 or April 8 based on the ancient values of the year?
Check the Jerusalem day lengths in March 2010 for yourself:
http://www.timeandd ate.com/worldclo ck/astronomy. html?n=110& month=3&year= 2010&obj= sun&afl=- 11&day=1

Nehemia Gordon
Jerusalem, Israel