FAQ - Lunar Weeks vs.Unbroken Cycles of Successive Weeks
For the Answers, please click on the Questions
Question 1: If the continuous weekly cycle did not begin at Creation, then when did it begin?
Answer:An unbroken continuous weekly cycle was first generated among the pagans in 600 B.C. The Julian calendar of 45 B.C., applied this same unbroken continuous weekly cycle to their new eight-day week. At the time of Christ Yahushua (Jesus) and the apostles, Rome's weeks were eight days in length, making it impossible for them to have followed that time sequence. This continuous eight-day week remained in place until the fourth century B.C., when Constantine officially changed the length of the week to seven-days, but kept the pagan unbroken cycling weekly system in place. Just as it had been for Julius Caesar and all that followed, Constantine too was committed to keeping the calendar free from any resemblance to that of the Jews.
Article Link: Amazing Evidence from AntiquityIn the mid-1st century B.C. Julius Cæsar invited Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, to advise him about the reform of the calendar, and Sosigenes decided that the only practical step was to abandon the lunar calendar altogether. Months must be arranged on a seasonal basis, and a tropical (solar) year used, as in the Egyptian calendar. "The Julian Calendar," Encyclopedia Britannica.
This change from the lunisolar to a fixed solar calendar occurred in Rome during the repressive measures which were enacted against ALL Jewish customs . . . during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. With the fall of the Nazarene headquarters...at Jerusalem, this new Roman calendar quickly spread throughout 'Christendom.' This new calendar not only replaced yearly festival dates such as Passover, but it also revamped the concept of the week and its seventh day. Iranaeus 2nd Century A.D.
"In the years following Clement of Alexandria's time, an ominous change started to take place that was to radically change the Christian concept of the Sabbath." Records the Encyclopedia Biblica: "This intimate connection between the week and the month was soon dissolved. It is certain that the week soon followed a development of its own, and it became the custom -- without paying any regard to the days of the month (i.e. the lunisolar month) . . . so that the New Moon no longer coincided with the first day of the month. Then, on page 4179 of the same encyclopedia, we read: "The introduction . . .of the custom of celebrating the Sabbath every 7th day, irrespective of the relationship of the day to the moon's phases, led to a complete separation from the ancient view of the Sabbath. . . Encyclopaedia Biblica, 1903 p. 5290.
The modern seven-day week came into use during the early imperial period, after the Julian calendar came into effect, apparently stimulated by immigration from the Roman East. For a while it coexisted alongside the old 8-day nundinal cycle, and fasti are known which show both cycles. It was finally given official status by Constantine in 321. Roman Calendar Encyclopedia, Days of the Week
A Profession Of Faith From The Church Of Constantinople in the year 325 C.E. (A.D.) Under The Emperor Constantine:
I renounce all customs, rites, legalisms. unleavened breads & sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all other feasts of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspersions, purifications, sanctifications and propitiations and fasts, and new moons, and Sabbaths, and superstitions, and hymns and chants and observances and Synagogues, and the food and drink of the Hebrews; in one word, I renounce everything Jewish, every law, rite and custom and if afterwards I shall wish to deny and return to Jewish superstition, or shall be found eating with the Jews, or feasting with them, or secretly conversing and condemning the Christian religion instead of openly confuting them and condemning their vain faith, then let the trembling of Gehazi cleave to me, as well as the legal punishments to which I acknowledge myself liable. And may I be anathema in the world to come, and may my soul be set down with Satan and the devils. Source: Parks, James The Conflict Of The Church And The Synagogue Athenaeum, New York, 1974, p. 397-398.
"The present Jewish calendar was fixed in the fourth century." Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Letter by Louis Finkelstein to Dr. L. E. Froom, Feb. 20, 1939. Regarding the present Jewish calendar.
Question 2:In the book Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 111, Ellen White clarifies that the week originated at creation, and has been preserved. That first week was a sample for successive weeks to the end of time. This seems pretty clear that the week is an unbroken chain of successive weeks since Creation. Your thoughts please?
Answer:This is a very good question. It appears that Ellen White believed in the unbroken cycle of successive weeks. She also adhered to all the other tenets of the Roman Gregorian calendar, a calendar/clock of man's devising that originated with Julius Caesar as a proactive plan to undermine the lunisolar calendar of Hebrew Scriptures. In the Lord Yahuwah's wisdom, He only revealed to her along with all the early Adventists the first step in the full disclosure. This was that the "seventh-day was the Sabbath." The second step, reveals that His holy seventh-day Sabbath could only be found by using the lunisolar calendar of Scripture, and was to be the message reserved for the remnant at the very end. This was the same calendar used in the Hebrew Sanctuary services. It was the one discarded by the Jews in the fourth century A.D., and had never had any connection to a successive weekly cycle.
"In the mid-1st century B.C. Julius Caesar invited Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer, to advise him about the reform of the calendar, and Sosigenes decided that the only practical step was to abandon the lunar calendar altogether. Months must be arranged on a seasonal basis, and a tropical [solar] year used, as in the Egyptian calendar." The Julian calendar, Encyclopedia Britannica.
Article Link: Amazing Evidence from AntiquityQuestion 3:Haven't the Jews preserved the knowledge of when the true Sabbath comes?
Answer:Certainly many have believed this, but that does not make it true. Only those faithful to the Lord Yahuwah are rewarded with the preservation of the holy oracles of truth. At the time of Christ, the Jews as a nation rejected Him as the promised Messiah. Forty Years later they went into captivity under the rulership of Roman law. In the fourth century, it was the Jews themselves, who set aside the Hebrew lunisolar calendation altogether, under the intense persecution by the papal power. This led ultimately to a schism in Judaism. It was the rabbinical sect which, predominates today that followed the leadership of Hillel II, tying their calendar to the spring equinox and to the unbroken cycle of successive weeks. In 1844, their Day of Atonement was Sept. 23.
The Karaites (also known as Caraites) were an opposing sect who denounced the Talmud and the oral traditions, insisting upon a return to a strict keeping of the Mosaic law. "A fundamental part of [their] reform was the abandonment of the fixed rabbinical calendar as contrary to the Mosaic regulations, together with reinstatement of the original form of lunisolar calendation" (L. E. Froom, Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1948, Vol. II, 197-198.)
October 22, 1844, the antitypical Day of Atonement, was ultimately discovered by the Millerites with the aide of the Karaite Jews.
Article Link: Amazing Evidence from AntiquityQuestion 4:As a Seventh-day Adventist Pastor, locating which day was the Sabbath during the seven-day march around Jericho, has always been a mystery. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Answer:The calendar to locate the Jericho march may have a bearing on when Sabbath fell. We know that for seven calendar dates/or days in a row the Israelites put on their entire battle garb, assembled in formation for marching, and then marched around Jericho. We know that on the seventh-day of marching, they marched a full seven times around the city, followed by plundering and killing all the people old and young, except Rahab and her family. This is hard to conceive that Yahuwah would instruct Israel to do either the marching or the plundering and killing, on His sacred and holy seventh-day Sabbath.
What are the alternatives and what is the compelling evidence? The first option is that it was possible that Yahuwah led the Israelites to begin their march either on the 30th day of the month of Abib or on New Moon day of the month of Iyar. The 30th day is the day between the last seventh-day Sabbath of the month ending, and New Moon day of the next month. The first day of the week is the day following the New Moon day. Either way, there would be seven days in a row for marching without marching on the sacred hours of the seventh-day Sabbath. The only sticky wicket here is that the New Moon day is also a sacred worship day.
The second option is that all the marching and blowing trumpets could easily have taken place after sunset, during the dark portion of any calendar date, following the Wave Sheaf offering on the 16th of Abib. The reason this is entirely possible is that it has been discovered that the sacred hours of the Sabbath were the "daylight" hours only. In this way Israel could have marched around Jericho thirty calendar dates in a row, by marching at night, and would have never actually marched on a holy seventh-day Sabbath or a holy New Moon day.
Question 5:In the first volume of Spirit of Prophecy, p. 85, Ellen White appears to state that there has been a continuous weekly cycle that has continued since the first week of creation. Isn't this evidence that the Creator's time-keeping and weeks are in harmony with Rome's unbroken-cycle-of-successive-weeks and therefore the Sabbath cannot be defined by lunisolar calendation as beaconed by the New Moon?
Answer:This is an excellent question. It is no secret that Ellen White followed an unbroken-cycle-of-successive-weeks, as she also believed and kept the entire Roman Gregorian calendar/clock system for years, months, weeks, days, and hours.
She consistently believed and taught that the seventh-day of the Roman weekly cycle was indeed "Saturday," the seventh-day Sabbath of creation. This is exemplified in the Spirit of Prophecy quote below that will be discusses at length.
Perhaps you are not aware that Ellen White also proclaimed that Christ's death on Passover the 14th, was according to the old Jewish calendar, and not the Roman calendar at all. This statement defines a paradox of outrageous proportions, regarding which calendation is in harmony with creation. Certainly, the calendar Christ Yahushua (Jesus) died according to, was the one in harmony with the Sanctuary, its holy appointed Feasts, as well as Creation. What ever calendar He died according to is the same calendar we are to faithfully keep, as it alone bears the seal of the Creator for weeks, months, days and years (Genesis 1:14-18; Ezekiel 46:1).
Sir Isaac Newton discovered this same discrepancy between the Roman calendation and the old Jewish calendar, specifically with regards to the crucifixion date. As a result of his in depth mathematical prowess, the Catholic Church was forced to change the recorded year of the crucifixion to A.D. 33, just so the crucifixion would fall on a Friday, with a Saturday rest in the tomb, and a Sunday resurrection. This is history. It simply cannot be both ways, or Rome would never have changed the recorded year of the crucifixion. Refer to article, "The One Unanswerable Objection."
In all of her writings and even following the vision recorded in Early Writings, p. 255, Ellen White, never produced a "thus saith the Lord" that "Saturday" is the true and holy seventh-day Sabbath. All that was shown her was that the "seventh-day" is the Sabbath. Since there is nothing in either Scripture or her writings that proclaims "Saturday" to be the seventh-day Sabbath of the Creator, in the context of a "thus saith the Lord," the evidence should be acquired by all for a close inspection. The evidence, while shocking, will feed the soul of the humble truth seeker.
It has been determined by some that the quote in question below provides support that the seventh-day Sabbath of Scripture cycles without end. This would place it in harmony with the Roman Gregorian calendar in contrast to weeks that are ruled and beaconed by the moon as stated in Scripture. Let's look at the weight of evidence.
In order to fully understand what this paragraph is saying and what it is not saying, it is important to take it point by point. Therefore, I have added numbers to assist in discussing each point.
Point by Point Analysis and Evidence:
Point 1 Ellen White is describing what was shown her in vision regarding the first week of creation. The Creator performed everything He made in six literal days, and rested on the seventh day. Then in the last words she clarifies that the week of creation is just like every other week. Her inspired position was that each day of creation was not equal to 1000 or even a million years as some have tried to harmonize the seven literal days of the creation week with the theory of evolution. Rather, she is clarifying that "weeks" according to the Creator and Scripture are made up of two components- six literal work days that are followed by a holy seventh-day Sabbath, making a Biblical week a total of seven literal days. The scenario presented in this first point, perfectly applies to both the Roman continuous-weekly-cycle and the Biblical lunar week.
Point 2 defines that it was the Creator, during the first week of creation, who defined the parameters of the weekly cycle. It was to be the prototype for all weeks to come.
This sentence does not actually say that weeks are to cycle one after another in an unbroken fashion forever. While it alludes to Ellen White's personal belief that the weeks of seven days cycle without end, every detail also applies to the Biblical lunar calendar as well. The model given for the cycle is merely seven days, six for work and the seventh as the Sabbath. The Biblical lunar weeks start fresh every single month with the insertion of the New Moon day, according to the Creator's ordained lunar design. The term "successive weeks" here defines all the cycles of seven days to follow thereafter, to the close of time. But no reference is made as to how they were to cycle.
An assumption has been made by all, that the week is to cycle without end, and the calendar used is the Roman Gregorian. This comes from our preconditioning that all weeks follow in line, one after the other, as we have been groomed to believe, simply because this is the case with Roman Gregorian Calendation (Revelation 13:3). But this week cycle is only one calendar system's model of cycling weeks. This is not the case of the "weeks" found in the Biblical calendation system. What system does the Bible promote and what does it look like?
Scripture promotes only one calendation model for years, months, weeks and days. This calendation model was strictly lunisolar. According to Ezekiel 46:1, and a "thus saith the Lord," there are three kinds of days that never overlap that are beaconed by the New Moon (see explanation below).
- New Moon days
- Seventh-day Sabbaths
- Six working days
The lunisolar time system was reclarified to Moses prior to the Sanctuary system being established. So it was that the Sanctuary was based upon the preestablished lunisolar time system and not the other way around, as many claim. All the holy appointed feast days, including the seventh-day Sabbath were founded upon lunisolar units of time as beaconed by the New Moon (Leviticus 23:2-4). Its years begin in Spring on New Moon day. Each month begins on New Moon day and is always 29 or 30 days in length. Each week is defined by six literal work days and followed by a seventh-day Sabbath as established by the creation model. There are four weeks in each and every lunar month. The lunar week does not cycle without end, as the New Moon Day was divinely ordained to refresh or restart the cycle of weeks each and every month. Therefore, the cycle of weeks is broken each and every month on the first day of the month. Is it any wonder that there has been an agenda to eliminate the holy appointed Feast days in Scripture along with the entire Sanctuary service model, as these testify to our Creator's lunisolar time-keeping system?
Point 3 declares "the generations of heaven and earth" to have occurred in the time span of six work days and resting on the Sabbath. Each day was declared a generation, because in it He generated something new upon this earth.
Point 4 establishes that the seventh-day of the first week the Creator rested from creating, and blessed that day as a holy day of rest. He then set it apart for the use of mankind to rest and worship.
Point 5 defines that a "week" cycle is made up of seven literal days. Ellen White clearly assumed along with everyone else that the week cycled without end. But no where will you find a "thus saith the Lord" for this, as it is not in harmony with Scripture, the Sanctuary's lunisolar time system or any of the appointed holy days. But it must be stated again, that nothing in this statement is in opposition to the weeks beaconed by the Biblical lunar calendar. This defines her as a prophet in spite of her own personal assumptions. Many things she wrote about were a result of her educated and personal opinion. She correctly states that six work days and a seventh-day Sabbath have been preserved in this same format as that of the creation week. She establishes the foundation of this format as being from creation, and that it has been carefully protected and preserved through recorded Bible history.
Notice that Ellen White does not say that the "week" has been preserved by the Jews, by the Muslims, or by the Catholics and their man-made Roman Gregorian calendar. Rather, she makes a clear and unambiguous statement that the "week" is preserved and sealed within the context of the recorded historical Hebrew Scriptures. Bible history is what reveals the facts that the Biblical calendar was lunisolar and the moon was created to regulate worship times (Psalms 104:19, Genesis 1:14-18). As a result of this, it is the Biblical calendar that is the standard bearer for time according to the heavenly Father. It is in harmony with the "principles that rule in the heavens" as established by our creator for time-keeping upon earth. This is none other than the ordained time system of the Sanctuary, also known as the old Hebrew calendar. The reason it is known as the old Hebrew or Jewish calendar is because at one time they were the bearers of the oracles of the Creator's truths. They have since given up their rights to this title, as they gave in to Roman pressures to accept their calendar methods. The lunisolar calendar time-keeping system belongs to the Creator. He fixed all time to the moon. It is the Roman calendar weeks that float through the lunar phases, because man-made calendation is not fixed to anything tangible in the heavens, other than the sun. This is why it is known as a solar calendar. This is not what was ordained by the Creator in Genesis 1:14-18.
The Heavenly Father simply did not leave His sacred oracles of truth solely in the hands of the Jews after their rejection of the Messiah, as many have believed. The Jews have demonstrated themselves to be unfaithful repeatedly, and as early as the fourth century they gave up the lunisolar calendation principles altogether, under the intense pressures of Rome. See Historical Statements below.
The Ellen White Calendation Paradox:
The significance of this is that the Jewish month as defined by any encyclopedia is a lunar month. The first day of a Jewish month was the New Moon day. All Biblical calendar dates were counted from the New Moon Day. This is precisely how the 14th of the Jewish month of Abib was always Passover. The four week cycle begins the day following each New Moon day. As a result the 14th of the month was always the 6th day of the week as well as the night of the full moon. The full moon is opposite of the New Moon and the half way point of a 30 calendar.
Notice below how Ellen White correctly ties in the 14th calendar date to the Jewish month. In addition, she defines that it is the same day and month that had been kept since the Exodus.
With this said, her quote in question from Spirit of Prophecy Vol. 1, p. 85, still supports the weekly cycle of the lunar month. It is just that she, and all those reading it have perceived it to be in accordance with their preconditioned, Roman calendar view that the "week" cycles unbroken, without end.
"There is no excuse for anyone in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people [such as a Saturday Sabbath], is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation."
Councils to Writers and Editors, p. 35
Scripture's Evidence:
By using a word picture of the East gate being opened or closed, the heavenly Father defines the holiness attributed to each of the three kinds of days. Since it is impossible to have a gate both opened and closed at the same moment, He uses this brilliant description as a method to clarify His calendation "principles that rule in the heavens." By default, these principles can never be in harmony with Roman Gregorian calendation, or weeks that cycle without end. The reason being the Roman calendation system floats through the lunar phases each month, causing both work days and Saturday's to fall on New Moon days. The calendation system presented in the verses below cannot be harmonized with calendars that have weeks that cycle without end.
"For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me," says the LORD, "so shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me," says the LORD. Isaiah 66:22-23
He appointed the moon for seasons [mo'eds - feasts, which include the seventh-day Sabbath]; the sun knows its going down. Psalms 104:19
It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky." Psalms 89:37
Historical Statements:
The connection of the Sabbath with lunar phases, however, was (later) discarded by the Israelites . . . The New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia, p. 135-136.
Under the reign of Constantius the persecutions of the Jews reached such a height that . . . the computation of the calendar [was] forbidden under pain of severe punishment. The Jewish Encyclopedia, "Calendar."
The modern seven-day week came into use during the early imperial period, after the Julian calendar came into effect, apparently stimulated by immigration from the Roman East. For a while it coexisted alongside the old 8-day nundinal cycle, and fasti are known which show both cycles. It was finally given official status by Constantine in 321. Roman Calendar Encyclopedia, Days of the Week.
Refer to article, "Amazing Evidence From Antiquity."
Refer to Word Study, Exodus 12:1-3 "Years are to be Divided by Lunar Months."