Resurrection Sunday
When should the Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him), celebrate the resurrection of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ)?
Most people, who call themselves "Christians", celebrate a holiday of some sort in the Spring to commemorate the resurrection of the Man of Truth. The day that most of these groups commemorate the resurrection of the Man of Truth falls on a Sunday. They do not agree on which Sunday, or even what to call the holiday.
So we will call the day, that various groups commemorate the resurrection of the Man of Truth, "Resurrection Sunday". This will give the same generic name to a common event, that is observed on different days, by different groups, with different names.
Some of them use the Roman system, to determine when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. Some who use the Roman system, call Resurrection Sunday, "Easter", while others using the Roman system call Resurrection Sunday, "Passover".
The waters are furthered muddied by, who celebrate "Easter", doing so on the same day, that others using the Roman system, who celebrate "Passover". In some places where the Roman system is used, the words "Easter" and "Passover" are used interchangeably for Resurrection Sunday.
Other people who call themselves "Christians", uses one of the Jewish systems to determine when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday.
Various groups within Judaism, celebrate "Passover" based on different criteria. Broadly speaking, there is the Rabbinic system, that uses the Rabbinic calendar, and the Observation system, that is based on the facts on the ground in Israel.
Inside the Observation system, there is contention about what constitutes the conditions, that determine the day when the month "Abib", that contains "Passover" begins. Even when people determine what day "Passover" falls on using either of these systems, there is still disagreement over whether "Passover" should be celebrated at the beginning or the end of the day.
So there can be as much as a full month some years, between when "Passover" is celebrated by those who use the Rabbinic system and those who use the Observation system. This Jewish "Passover" does not fall on a Sunday most years, but it is used to determine "The Feast of Firstfruits", that does fall on a Sunday, which can also be thought of as Resurrection Sunday.
Yet others use the Greek system, to determine when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. Those who use the Greek system, only call Resurrection Sunday, "Passover". It is based on a completely different formula than the Roman system, so that Greek "Passover" almost always falls after Roman "Easter/Passover", sometimes by more than a month. Because of the confusion of "Easter/Passover" in the Roman system, sometimes people mistakenly call Greek "Passover", "Greek Easter", even though the Greeks call it "Passover".
Just to add to the confusion, the "Passover" that those using the Roman system are celebrating, is usually a few days after the Passover that Jews are celebrating. Just to tangle the whole mess a little bit more, the "Passover/Easter" of the Roman system, is actually not on the Passover of the Jewish system, but instead usually falls on "The Feast of Firstfruits" on the Jewish system. Part of the confusion arises from many Jewish people referring to three different holidays, that run together over an eight day period, collectively as "Passover".
Needless to say, this leads to a lot of confusion.
For example, in this year, 2016, most people who call themselves "Christians" in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, and parts of France celebrated "Easter" on March 27 as Resurrection Sunday, while those in the rest of Western Europe celebrated "Passover" as Resurrection Sunday on the same day. However, those who use one of the Jewish systems, will celebrate "Passover" on April 21, or April 22, and celebrate Resurrection Sunday as "The Feast of Firstfruits" on April 24. Lastly, those who use the Greek system, will celebrate Resurrection Sunday as "Passover" on May 1.
So those who call themselves "Christians", are using three different dates, in three different months, with holidays that have three different names, to celebrate the exact same event. What a tangled mess!
The first step to untangling this mess, is a little history, of how things got to be in such a mess to start with. We will begin by examining the calendar systems, used by these various groups to determine when Resurrection Sunday occurs.
Before there were calendars, people just went by lunar cycles, called months (from the word, "moon"). Each month started, the day after the moon went dark, and lasted until the moon went dark again. In like manner, a year was measured from one summer to the next. Since twelve months spanned an average of 354 days, some years contained 12 months and other years contained 13 months.
The original calendar was the Babylonian calendar. This was a lunar calendar. This calendar had 12 months per year, with alternating lengths of 30 and 29 days per month. There were 354 days in a year, regardless of the seasons. The Assyrians and Persians used this calendar was well. Even today, the Muslim calendar uses this purely lunar calendar, without any seasonal adjustment. That is why a Muslim holiday like Ramadan, can be in Winter one year, and be in Summer a decade later.
The Greeks used the Macedonian calendar, that improved upon the Babylonian calendar. This lunar calendar was based on the 19 year Metonic cycle, invented by the Greek astronomer and mathematician, Meton. This calendar used months, that started on the day after the calculated astronomical "New Moon" (Dark Moon), resulting in 12 lunar months per year, resulting in 354 day years like the Babylonian calendar. However, to ensure that the first month of each year always contained the Spring Equinox, Meton added a leap month, after the sixth month, in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, and 17 of the nineteen year cycle. Lastly, he added a leap month at the end of the 19th year of the cycle.
Julius Caesar found the Macedonian calendar hard to work with. In particular, he wanted a calendar system that could be used to make food rationing in the winter easier, by making it easier to calculate the number of days until barley, the first crop to ripen after winter, would be ready for harvest. So he had a solar calendar created, where the position of the Earth relative to the Sun, would be approximately the same each year, on the same date on the calendar. This solar calendar had months of alternating lengths of 31 days and 30 days, with the last month, February having 29 days. He knew that a solar year was approximately 365 and one quarter days, so every fourth year, leap year, there would be a leap day added to February, making it to be 30 days long. The first month of this calendar, March, also contained the Spring Equinox, but it set the Spring Equinox to March 21, because the Spring climate change began about three weeks earlier. So there were three months for each of the four seasons. This calendar was known as the Julian Calendar.
When Augustus became the Roman Emperor, the Roman Senate renamed the sixth month to August in his honor, just as they had previously renamed the fifth month to July, in honor of Julius Caesar. Augustus did not like that his month had one less day than the month of Julius Caesar, so he made August to have 31 days, changed the months after August to alternate between 30 days and 31 days, and changed February to have only 28 days in a normal year. He kept the leap day, so every fourth year, leap year, February had 29 days. Even though this modified Julian calendar would be more properly called the Augustan calendar, the name never stuck, and it is still referred to as the Julian calendar to this day.
After a number of centuries, it became apparent that the Julian calendar had a subtle problem. The Spring Equinox would slowly, but surely, occur later on the calendar over time. This phenomenon is called Julian shift. By the time of Pope Gregory, around 1580 AD, the Spring Equinox was occurring around March 31, ten days late, due to Julian shift. So Pope Gregory, had the Gregorian calendar invented, by making the Gregorian correction, of not having a leap year in century years that were not evenly divisible by 400. For example, 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 was a leap year. He also had 10 days skipped in 1582, to return the Spring Equinox to occurring on March 21. The Gregorian calendar is the common calendar, used by the world today to conduct business, even though many places, will also use another calendar, for determining when religious holidays occur.
Before 70 AD, the Sanhedrin determined whether or not there would be a leap month, based on facts on the ground in Israel. This set the date for Passover. Due to the long distance that people traveled to attend Passover, from places like Rome and Babylon, they would typically forecast, which years would have leap months, a few years in advance. The exact details of how they determined this, are not known, but they kept historical data, about which years had leap months in the past, and probably used that data, as a basis for their determinations.
By 200 AD, most people who called themselves "Christians", consulted with their Jewish neighbors, to determine when the Jews were celebrating Passover, and used that date, to fix when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday, on the following Sunday, that they also called "Passover".
However, this all changed with the council of Nicaea in 325 AD. In this council, the False Church of Rome, decided that "Passover" should have a universal date among everyone, who called themselves "Christians", and the only rule that they agreed upon for deciding that date, was that it could not be based, on when the Jews celebrated Passover.
Not everyone who called themselves "Christians", went along with this decision, particularly those who did not belong to the False Church of Rome. For example, the congregations started by Saint Patrick, were reported, as still basing Resurrection Sunday on Passover, in 592 AD.
Eventually, the False Church of Rome settled on a formula, that defined "Passover" as the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. The Spring Equinox was always defined as March 21, even in years when it occurred on a different date. The Julian calendar was still in use at this time.
Not long after that, Hillel II introduced the Rabbinic calendar, that is still in use today. Jerusalem had been destroyed in 70 AD, and the Jews had been dispersed by the Romans throughout their empire in 135 AD. The Sanhedrin could no longer rely on the facts on the ground in Israel, to make adjustments to their forecasts. So he lead the Sanhedrin in creating a calculated calendar, that Jews could use, where ever they were scattered.
This Rabbinic calendar was based on the Macedonian calendar, with a few more adjustments of its own. The months were given Babylonian names, like "Nisan" for the first month, and the leap month was moved, to always occur at the end of each leap year. The leap years still followed the 19 year cycle of Meton, with years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 being leap years. Also, the beginning of the first month would be adjusted sometimes by a day or two, to make sure that special Sabbaths in the Feasts of Truth (Moedim aka Feasts of the Father of Truth) did not fall on the regular weekly Sabbath. This Rabbinic calendar is used by the Rabbinic system for determining the date of Passover to this day. So those who use this system, have "Passover" being celebrated on April 22 this year, and Resurrection Sunday is on the Feast of Firstfruits, April 24, this year.
The False Church of Rome continued to have the same date for "Passover", which was called "Easter" in the westernmost countries of Europe, even after the False Church of Rome split into Roman and Greek halves in the Great Schism of 1054 AD. However, because the Greek half did not recognize the authority of the head of the Roman half, Pope Gregory, when he made his correction in 1582, they continued to use the Julian calendar, instead of the Gregorian calendar, for determining the date of "Passover", until this day. For this reason, the Greek half of the False Church of Rome is using 3 APR as the date of the Spring Equinox, 13 days after the astronomical Spring Equinox, as the basis for calculating "Passover" this year. So those who are using the Roman system, Resurrection Sunday is on "Passover/Easter", March 27, this year, while those who are using the Greek system, Resurrection Sunday is on "Passover", May 1, this year.
Finally, since Israel became a nation in 1948, and the invention of electronic communications, it has been possible again, to determine the date of Passover, based on the facts on the ground in Israel. This calendar, based on observation of the conditions in Jerusalem, is the Observation calendar.
One of the problems with the Observation calendar is, that it is subject to weather conditions and other such phenomenon. For example, the first visible sliver of the New Moon for determining the first month of this year, was spotted in Perth, Australia and other points east of Jerusalem on April 8, but it could not be seen there due to hazy skies. It still could not be seen on April 9, but most who used the Observation calendar defaulted to April 9 as the first day of the first month, because they knew, that the time between new moons could not be more than 30 days. So strictly speaking, they still made a determination based on calculation, instead of observation. So, not all of those using the Observation system, did agree on exactly when Passover was, with some using Apr 22, while other used Apr 23. However, they still agree, that Resurrection Sunday is on the Feast of Firstfruits, April 24, this year.
So this explains why things are such a convoluted mess, but it does not really tell, when Resurrection Sunday should be celebrated. The best way to determine that, is to examine the holidays, that the Children of Truth celebrated in the Renewed Covenant (B'rit Chadashah aka The New Testament).
It has been noted, that the word "Easter", appears in English Bibles, so it is reasoned that the Children of Truth were familiar with Easter (Acts 12:4). However, the Greek word translated as "Easter" in this verse is actually "Pascha". "Pascha" is the Greek word for the Hebrew word "Pesach", which is called "Passover" in English. It was translated as "Easter", because that is what the English called Resurrection Sunday, which other people using the Roman system, called "Passover", as previously noted. So it was "Passover", that the Children of Truth were familiar with, not "Easter".
This is further confirmed by the preceding verse, which explicitly states, that this occurred during "The Feast of Unleavened Bread" (Acts 12:3). Years later, Paul the Jew (Shaul aka Saul aka The Apostle Paul) celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread with the almost completely Gentile congregation at Philippi (Acts 20:6). In like manner, half-Jewish, half-Gentile, congregation at Corinth was also in the habit of celebrating the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1 Corinthians 5:8).
It might seem odd, that the Gentile Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant were celebrating the same holidays as unbelieving Jews. The reason for this begins by understanding the name, that they identified themselves by. The Children of Truth called themselves, "Christians", as confirmed by Peter the Jew (Cephas aka Simon aka Simeon aka The Apostle Peter), in his epistle (1 Peter 4:14-17). This word "Christian" that he wrote, literally means "Christ follower (Messiah follower)".
Simply put, these Gentile Children of Truth identified the Man of Truth, as their one and only Rabbi, and they were determined to follow him, by doing what he did (Matthew 23:8-10). Since their Rabbi celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread, then they also celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Matthew 26:17).
In order to understand, exactly what the Feast of Unleavened Bread has to do with Resurrection Sunday, it necessary to examine the Feast of Unleavened Bread a little more closely. In order to understand the Feast of Unleavened Bread, it helps to understand the calendar of the Book of Truth (The Bible), which we will call the Biblical calendar. Like many things, the best place to begin, is at the beginning.
The very beginning of understanding any calendar, is understanding the structure of a day. On the Biblical calendar, evening and morning are joined together as one calendar day (Genesis 1:5). The period without sunlight is called nighttime and the period with full sunlight is daytime. There are two transition periods when it is neither nighttime nor daytime. These are guard bands that provide complete separation between the time of no sunlight and the time of total sunlight. The transition from daytime to nighttime, that begins at sunset, and lasts about an hour to nightfall, when all sunlight is gone, is evening. The transition from nighttime to daytime, that begins about an hour before sunrise, daybreak, and lasts until sunrise, when total sunlight begins, is morning. Since the evening begins each calendar day, and evening begins at sunset and ends at nightfall, then the transition from one day to another begins at sunset and ends at nighttime. So sunset is typically used to mark when one day ends and another begins.
However, that is not totally correct, because the evening that comes at the end of a day, can also be regarded, as being the last part of that day (John 20:1-19). The evening is technically the midpoint of the transition is between daytime to nighttime, when the light of the day, and the darkness of night, have became even. So the last half of the evening, that ends with nightfall, is the start of a day, and the first half of the evening, that follows sunset, is the end of a day. For this reason, some Rabbis use a 25 hour day for the Sabbath, where the Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday, and ends at nightfall on Saturday, just to be safe. In reality, evening is a guard band between days, that is more of a grace period to account for human frailty. So people should strive to get everything done by sunset on Friday, but have a little grace if something unexpected causes them to be a few minutes late.
The next thing to understand on the Biblical calendar, is the structure of a month, which is either 29 or 30 days. The Hebrew word for "month", "Chodesh", also means "new moon" or more literally "renewed moon". Each month starts when the moon is made new. The period from one new moon to the next varies from 29.26 to 29.80 days, so a month on the Biblical calendar will either be 29 or 30 days. In the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law), the first day of the new month was to be marked with the blowing of trumpets over the sacrifices (Numbers 10:10).
The moon is made new, strictly speaking from an astronomical point of view, about one second after it becomes completely dark. The moon is completely dark only at the moment of conjunction, when the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun, in its orbit. The moon at the moment of conjunction is called the dark moon. The crescent of the new moon becomes visible as early as twelve and half hours after the dark moon, under near perfect conditions, such as appearing as large as possible, because it is at the point nearest the Earth in its orbit, known as perigee, is well above the horizon, the skies are clear, and the viewer has excellent eyesight.
However, there is nothing in the Book of Truth, that says the moon is made new, when the crescent is first observed in Jerusalem, or anywhere else. The fact is, that the moon is made new, whether anyone observes it or not, like in the case of the new moon, that was not observed on either the twenty-ninth day, or thirtieth day in Jerusalem this year, due to hazy skies, that was referenced earlier. So if the moon goes dark one night, it is certain, that the moon is new the next night, whether the crescent is observed or not, and a new month on the Biblical calendar has began. It would be even more accurate to say, that the a new month begins on the Biblical calendar, on the evening after the moon goes dark.
The next thing to understand on the Biblical calendar, is the structure of a year, which is either 12 or 13 months. The year begins with the month, that the Father of Truth passed over the homes with the blood of a lamb on their door, when He killed the firstborn throughout the land of Egypt (Exodus 12:1-13). This is the month of Abib, which literally means "the green ear of grain", meaning the month that the barley becomes ripe (Exodus 13:3-5). The first month of the year is the month, when the barley will be ripe enough to be roasted and eaten, on the Feast of Firstfruits (Leviticus 2:14).
Since twelve months are usually 354 days, occasionally a thirteenth month, a leap month, has to be added, to ensure that the barley will be ripe enough to be offered on the Feast of Firstfruits. This can be checked by squeezing a grain of barley between the thumb and forefinger, in the land of Israel. If no liquid comes out, then it will be ripe enough. It can also be reliably calculated by determining, if the Feast of Firstfruits would occur at least eleven days after the Spring Equinox, in Jerusalem. If it would, then it is the first month of the new year, otherwise it is a leap month, and the new year will begin on the first day of the next month.
So in summary, a day begins at evening, a month begins on the day when the moon is renewed, and the year begins with the month, when the barley will be ripe enough to be offered at the Feast of Firstfruits. So an explanation of the Feast of Firstfruits is needed.
The first step to understanding the Feast of Firstfruits, is the repeating cycle of seven days, that define the regular Sabbath. The Father of Truth rested from His work of creation on the seventh day, so He set it apart as different than the other days, because He ceased from that work (Genesis 2:1-3). In the same way, He gave the seventh day of each week as a Sabbath, a day for people to rest from their normal work, by ceasing from that work (Exodus 20:8-11). The Father of Truth did not set aside a day of ceasing, the Sabbath, because He was tired, but because people need a day to rest each week, by ceasing from their work (Mark 2:27). People enter into the rest that the Sabbath was made for, when they cease from their own work, like the Father of Truth ceased from His work (Hebrews 4:10).
The next step to understanding the Feast of Firstfruits, is the special Sabbaths. The word "Sabbath" does not mean "seventh". You do not count to seven in Hebrew like this: one, two, three, four, five, six, Sabbath. Sabbath means "ceasing", because on a Sabbath, people are to cease from their normal work. Certain holidays on the Biblical calendar are also a Sabbath, regardless of which day of the week they fall on. For example, the day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month, can fall on any day of the week, but it is also a Sabbath (Leviticus 16:29-31). So every week ends with a regular Sabbath, but there are also special Sabbaths, that fall on certain days of certain months, that can fall on any day of the week, that are called "High Days" (John 19:31).
The next step to understanding the Feast of Firstfruits, is the relationship of the Feast of Firstfruits to Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Passover always occurs on the fourteenth day of the first month (Leviticus 23:5). The Feast of Unleavened Bread always begins on the Fifteenth day of the first month, and lasts for seven days, with the first and last days being special Sabbaths (Leviticus 23:6-8). The Feast of Firstfruits occurs on the day after the regular Sabbath (Saturday), which is a Sunday, that follows the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:9-11).
It is certain that the regular Sabbath is being referred to, instead of one of the special Sabbaths of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the day of the month would have just been given, to make it completely clear, like when the day of the month was given for the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, even though it always occurs the day after Passover (Leviticus 23:5-6). So it is the Sunday, that follows the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that begins the day after Passover, when the barley grain must be ripe enough, to offer as the firstfruits of the land of Israel.
So Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits are all clumped together in a normally eight day period, in the first month of the Biblical calendar, that always occurs in the Spring. Firstfruits always occurs on a Sunday, that usually occurs during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Now, we are ready to show why the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant, celebrated Resurrection Sunday during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The Passover lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread on Passover (Exodus 12:8). For this reason, Passover is referred to as the first day of unleavened bread, even though it occurs the day before the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Mark 14:12).
So "the Feast of Unleavened Bread" came to sometimes be used to refer to the entire eight days, including Passover (Matthew 26:17). For the same reason, the entire eight day period, that includes the Feast of Unleavened Bread, is sometimes referred to as "Passover" (Luke 22:1). Sometimes the fourteenth day of the month is called "the day of preparation", so that "Passover" really refers to the Feast of Unleavened Bread (John 19:31-42). On the Rabbinic calendar in use today, Passover is seven days long, which is really the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
So "the Feast of Unleavened Bread", that the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant used to observe Resurrection Sunday, could have included Passover, and could have alternatively been called, "Passover". This would seem fitting, because just as the Passover lamb is eaten without leaven, so also the Man of Truth was sacrificed without sin (Hebrews 4:14-15).
It was during the celebration of Passover, when the Man of Truth told the Children of Truth, that the unleavened bread represented his body, that would be broken for them, and the wine represented his blood, that would be shed, to bring about the Renewed Covenant (Luke 22:15-20). So it was the death of the Man of Truth, that they were to make known, by eating unleavened bread and drinking wine in his memory, every time they celebrated Passover (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
The Passover lamb was to be roasted whole for Passover (Exodus 12:5-9). To this day, the Greeks roast a lamb whole for "Passover", their name for Resurrection Sunday, because that is what they say, the Apostles of Truth told them to do, to remember the death of the Lamb.
The Man of Truth is the lamb that takes away the sins of the Children of Truth (John 1:29). The Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant observed Passover, because the Man of Truth, is their Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7). The Gentile Children of Truth have participated in the better Passover. They recognized, that they will be passed over, when the Father of Truth brings death to the Children of Lies for their sins.
So the Man of Truth has made it possible, for sin to be completely taken away from the lives of the Children of Truth, when he died for them (Romans 6:4-11). Therefore the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for a complete week, because they were committed to living a life, that was completely free from sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). They recognized that removing the leaven for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that immediately follows the Passover, was really about removing the sin, that immediately follows taking the deal, that was made possible by the death of the Man of Truth.
The Man of Truth rose from the dead, on the day after the regular Sabbath, a Sunday, that followed the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is the Feast of Firstfruits (Matthew 28:1-7). So, the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant celebrated the Feast of Firstfruits, which normally occurs during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the Man of Truth was the firstfruits of those, who will be raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20). The Feast of Firstfruits, that always falls on a Sunday, where the raising of the firstfruits, foreshadowed that the Man of Truth would be more than a dead Jesus, is the real Resurrection Sunday!
So, the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant used Passover to commemorate the death of the Man of Truth, the Feast of Unleavened Bread to mark that his death took away their sin, and the Feast of Firstfruits to celebrate his resurrection from the dead. They greeted each other with "Happy Firstfruits!" on Resurrection Sunday!
Easter, and other such so-called Christian holidays, that include traditions that come from idol worship, were never celebrated by the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant. They celebrated the Feasts of Truth found in the Law of Truth, that form the greatest play ever. Since, they were known as "Christians", then the Feasts of Truth are the real Christian holidays. These real Christian holidays were not only celebrated by the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant, but were also part of Celtic Christianity, in its original form. These are the holidays, that Christians are suppose to use to celebrate everything about the Man of Truth, including Resurrection Sunday!
However, the resurrection of the Man of Truth is nothing to celebrate, until you come into the House of Truth. The resurrection of the Man of Truth only guarantees judgment for everyone, who does not come into the House of Truth (Acts 17:30-31). You come into the House of Truth, when you follow the Man of Truth, by doing what he commands, because you believe, that the Father of Truth resurrected him from the dead (Romans 10:9). All who come into the House of Truth, will be resurrected to eternal life, just like the Man of Truth was resurrected, on Resurrection Sunday (1 Corinthians 15:20-23)!
Come into the House of Truth!
Most people, who call themselves "Christians", celebrate a holiday of some sort in the Spring to commemorate the resurrection of the Man of Truth. The day that most of these groups commemorate the resurrection of the Man of Truth falls on a Sunday. They do not agree on which Sunday, or even what to call the holiday.
So we will call the day, that various groups commemorate the resurrection of the Man of Truth, "Resurrection Sunday". This will give the same generic name to a common event, that is observed on different days, by different groups, with different names.
Some of them use the Roman system, to determine when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. Some who use the Roman system, call Resurrection Sunday, "Easter", while others using the Roman system call Resurrection Sunday, "Passover".
The waters are furthered muddied by, who celebrate "Easter", doing so on the same day, that others using the Roman system, who celebrate "Passover". In some places where the Roman system is used, the words "Easter" and "Passover" are used interchangeably for Resurrection Sunday.
Other people who call themselves "Christians", uses one of the Jewish systems to determine when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday.
Various groups within Judaism, celebrate "Passover" based on different criteria. Broadly speaking, there is the Rabbinic system, that uses the Rabbinic calendar, and the Observation system, that is based on the facts on the ground in Israel.
Inside the Observation system, there is contention about what constitutes the conditions, that determine the day when the month "Abib", that contains "Passover" begins. Even when people determine what day "Passover" falls on using either of these systems, there is still disagreement over whether "Passover" should be celebrated at the beginning or the end of the day.
So there can be as much as a full month some years, between when "Passover" is celebrated by those who use the Rabbinic system and those who use the Observation system. This Jewish "Passover" does not fall on a Sunday most years, but it is used to determine "The Feast of Firstfruits", that does fall on a Sunday, which can also be thought of as Resurrection Sunday.
Yet others use the Greek system, to determine when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday. Those who use the Greek system, only call Resurrection Sunday, "Passover". It is based on a completely different formula than the Roman system, so that Greek "Passover" almost always falls after Roman "Easter/Passover", sometimes by more than a month. Because of the confusion of "Easter/Passover" in the Roman system, sometimes people mistakenly call Greek "Passover", "Greek Easter", even though the Greeks call it "Passover".
Just to add to the confusion, the "Passover" that those using the Roman system are celebrating, is usually a few days after the Passover that Jews are celebrating. Just to tangle the whole mess a little bit more, the "Passover/Easter" of the Roman system, is actually not on the Passover of the Jewish system, but instead usually falls on "The Feast of Firstfruits" on the Jewish system. Part of the confusion arises from many Jewish people referring to three different holidays, that run together over an eight day period, collectively as "Passover".
Needless to say, this leads to a lot of confusion.
For example, in this year, 2016, most people who call themselves "Christians" in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, and parts of France celebrated "Easter" on March 27 as Resurrection Sunday, while those in the rest of Western Europe celebrated "Passover" as Resurrection Sunday on the same day. However, those who use one of the Jewish systems, will celebrate "Passover" on April 21, or April 22, and celebrate Resurrection Sunday as "The Feast of Firstfruits" on April 24. Lastly, those who use the Greek system, will celebrate Resurrection Sunday as "Passover" on May 1.
So those who call themselves "Christians", are using three different dates, in three different months, with holidays that have three different names, to celebrate the exact same event. What a tangled mess!
The first step to untangling this mess, is a little history, of how things got to be in such a mess to start with. We will begin by examining the calendar systems, used by these various groups to determine when Resurrection Sunday occurs.
Before there were calendars, people just went by lunar cycles, called months (from the word, "moon"). Each month started, the day after the moon went dark, and lasted until the moon went dark again. In like manner, a year was measured from one summer to the next. Since twelve months spanned an average of 354 days, some years contained 12 months and other years contained 13 months.
The original calendar was the Babylonian calendar. This was a lunar calendar. This calendar had 12 months per year, with alternating lengths of 30 and 29 days per month. There were 354 days in a year, regardless of the seasons. The Assyrians and Persians used this calendar was well. Even today, the Muslim calendar uses this purely lunar calendar, without any seasonal adjustment. That is why a Muslim holiday like Ramadan, can be in Winter one year, and be in Summer a decade later.
The Greeks used the Macedonian calendar, that improved upon the Babylonian calendar. This lunar calendar was based on the 19 year Metonic cycle, invented by the Greek astronomer and mathematician, Meton. This calendar used months, that started on the day after the calculated astronomical "New Moon" (Dark Moon), resulting in 12 lunar months per year, resulting in 354 day years like the Babylonian calendar. However, to ensure that the first month of each year always contained the Spring Equinox, Meton added a leap month, after the sixth month, in years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, and 17 of the nineteen year cycle. Lastly, he added a leap month at the end of the 19th year of the cycle.
Julius Caesar found the Macedonian calendar hard to work with. In particular, he wanted a calendar system that could be used to make food rationing in the winter easier, by making it easier to calculate the number of days until barley, the first crop to ripen after winter, would be ready for harvest. So he had a solar calendar created, where the position of the Earth relative to the Sun, would be approximately the same each year, on the same date on the calendar. This solar calendar had months of alternating lengths of 31 days and 30 days, with the last month, February having 29 days. He knew that a solar year was approximately 365 and one quarter days, so every fourth year, leap year, there would be a leap day added to February, making it to be 30 days long. The first month of this calendar, March, also contained the Spring Equinox, but it set the Spring Equinox to March 21, because the Spring climate change began about three weeks earlier. So there were three months for each of the four seasons. This calendar was known as the Julian Calendar.
When Augustus became the Roman Emperor, the Roman Senate renamed the sixth month to August in his honor, just as they had previously renamed the fifth month to July, in honor of Julius Caesar. Augustus did not like that his month had one less day than the month of Julius Caesar, so he made August to have 31 days, changed the months after August to alternate between 30 days and 31 days, and changed February to have only 28 days in a normal year. He kept the leap day, so every fourth year, leap year, February had 29 days. Even though this modified Julian calendar would be more properly called the Augustan calendar, the name never stuck, and it is still referred to as the Julian calendar to this day.
After a number of centuries, it became apparent that the Julian calendar had a subtle problem. The Spring Equinox would slowly, but surely, occur later on the calendar over time. This phenomenon is called Julian shift. By the time of Pope Gregory, around 1580 AD, the Spring Equinox was occurring around March 31, ten days late, due to Julian shift. So Pope Gregory, had the Gregorian calendar invented, by making the Gregorian correction, of not having a leap year in century years that were not evenly divisible by 400. For example, 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but 2000 was a leap year. He also had 10 days skipped in 1582, to return the Spring Equinox to occurring on March 21. The Gregorian calendar is the common calendar, used by the world today to conduct business, even though many places, will also use another calendar, for determining when religious holidays occur.
Before 70 AD, the Sanhedrin determined whether or not there would be a leap month, based on facts on the ground in Israel. This set the date for Passover. Due to the long distance that people traveled to attend Passover, from places like Rome and Babylon, they would typically forecast, which years would have leap months, a few years in advance. The exact details of how they determined this, are not known, but they kept historical data, about which years had leap months in the past, and probably used that data, as a basis for their determinations.
By 200 AD, most people who called themselves "Christians", consulted with their Jewish neighbors, to determine when the Jews were celebrating Passover, and used that date, to fix when to celebrate Resurrection Sunday, on the following Sunday, that they also called "Passover".
However, this all changed with the council of Nicaea in 325 AD. In this council, the False Church of Rome, decided that "Passover" should have a universal date among everyone, who called themselves "Christians", and the only rule that they agreed upon for deciding that date, was that it could not be based, on when the Jews celebrated Passover.
Not everyone who called themselves "Christians", went along with this decision, particularly those who did not belong to the False Church of Rome. For example, the congregations started by Saint Patrick, were reported, as still basing Resurrection Sunday on Passover, in 592 AD.
Eventually, the False Church of Rome settled on a formula, that defined "Passover" as the Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. The Spring Equinox was always defined as March 21, even in years when it occurred on a different date. The Julian calendar was still in use at this time.
Not long after that, Hillel II introduced the Rabbinic calendar, that is still in use today. Jerusalem had been destroyed in 70 AD, and the Jews had been dispersed by the Romans throughout their empire in 135 AD. The Sanhedrin could no longer rely on the facts on the ground in Israel, to make adjustments to their forecasts. So he lead the Sanhedrin in creating a calculated calendar, that Jews could use, where ever they were scattered.
This Rabbinic calendar was based on the Macedonian calendar, with a few more adjustments of its own. The months were given Babylonian names, like "Nisan" for the first month, and the leap month was moved, to always occur at the end of each leap year. The leap years still followed the 19 year cycle of Meton, with years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 being leap years. Also, the beginning of the first month would be adjusted sometimes by a day or two, to make sure that special Sabbaths in the Feasts of Truth (Moedim aka Feasts of the Father of Truth) did not fall on the regular weekly Sabbath. This Rabbinic calendar is used by the Rabbinic system for determining the date of Passover to this day. So those who use this system, have "Passover" being celebrated on April 22 this year, and Resurrection Sunday is on the Feast of Firstfruits, April 24, this year.
The False Church of Rome continued to have the same date for "Passover", which was called "Easter" in the westernmost countries of Europe, even after the False Church of Rome split into Roman and Greek halves in the Great Schism of 1054 AD. However, because the Greek half did not recognize the authority of the head of the Roman half, Pope Gregory, when he made his correction in 1582, they continued to use the Julian calendar, instead of the Gregorian calendar, for determining the date of "Passover", until this day. For this reason, the Greek half of the False Church of Rome is using 3 APR as the date of the Spring Equinox, 13 days after the astronomical Spring Equinox, as the basis for calculating "Passover" this year. So those who are using the Roman system, Resurrection Sunday is on "Passover/Easter", March 27, this year, while those who are using the Greek system, Resurrection Sunday is on "Passover", May 1, this year.
Finally, since Israel became a nation in 1948, and the invention of electronic communications, it has been possible again, to determine the date of Passover, based on the facts on the ground in Israel. This calendar, based on observation of the conditions in Jerusalem, is the Observation calendar.
One of the problems with the Observation calendar is, that it is subject to weather conditions and other such phenomenon. For example, the first visible sliver of the New Moon for determining the first month of this year, was spotted in Perth, Australia and other points east of Jerusalem on April 8, but it could not be seen there due to hazy skies. It still could not be seen on April 9, but most who used the Observation calendar defaulted to April 9 as the first day of the first month, because they knew, that the time between new moons could not be more than 30 days. So strictly speaking, they still made a determination based on calculation, instead of observation. So, not all of those using the Observation system, did agree on exactly when Passover was, with some using Apr 22, while other used Apr 23. However, they still agree, that Resurrection Sunday is on the Feast of Firstfruits, April 24, this year.
So this explains why things are such a convoluted mess, but it does not really tell, when Resurrection Sunday should be celebrated. The best way to determine that, is to examine the holidays, that the Children of Truth celebrated in the Renewed Covenant (B'rit Chadashah aka The New Testament).
It has been noted, that the word "Easter", appears in English Bibles, so it is reasoned that the Children of Truth were familiar with Easter (Acts 12:4). However, the Greek word translated as "Easter" in this verse is actually "Pascha". "Pascha" is the Greek word for the Hebrew word "Pesach", which is called "Passover" in English. It was translated as "Easter", because that is what the English called Resurrection Sunday, which other people using the Roman system, called "Passover", as previously noted. So it was "Passover", that the Children of Truth were familiar with, not "Easter".
This is further confirmed by the preceding verse, which explicitly states, that this occurred during "The Feast of Unleavened Bread" (Acts 12:3). Years later, Paul the Jew (Shaul aka Saul aka The Apostle Paul) celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread with the almost completely Gentile congregation at Philippi (Acts 20:6). In like manner, half-Jewish, half-Gentile, congregation at Corinth was also in the habit of celebrating the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1 Corinthians 5:8).
It might seem odd, that the Gentile Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant were celebrating the same holidays as unbelieving Jews. The reason for this begins by understanding the name, that they identified themselves by. The Children of Truth called themselves, "Christians", as confirmed by Peter the Jew (Cephas aka Simon aka Simeon aka The Apostle Peter), in his epistle (1 Peter 4:14-17). This word "Christian" that he wrote, literally means "Christ follower (Messiah follower)".
Simply put, these Gentile Children of Truth identified the Man of Truth, as their one and only Rabbi, and they were determined to follow him, by doing what he did (Matthew 23:8-10). Since their Rabbi celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread, then they also celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Matthew 26:17).
In order to understand, exactly what the Feast of Unleavened Bread has to do with Resurrection Sunday, it necessary to examine the Feast of Unleavened Bread a little more closely. In order to understand the Feast of Unleavened Bread, it helps to understand the calendar of the Book of Truth (The Bible), which we will call the Biblical calendar. Like many things, the best place to begin, is at the beginning.
The very beginning of understanding any calendar, is understanding the structure of a day. On the Biblical calendar, evening and morning are joined together as one calendar day (Genesis 1:5). The period without sunlight is called nighttime and the period with full sunlight is daytime. There are two transition periods when it is neither nighttime nor daytime. These are guard bands that provide complete separation between the time of no sunlight and the time of total sunlight. The transition from daytime to nighttime, that begins at sunset, and lasts about an hour to nightfall, when all sunlight is gone, is evening. The transition from nighttime to daytime, that begins about an hour before sunrise, daybreak, and lasts until sunrise, when total sunlight begins, is morning. Since the evening begins each calendar day, and evening begins at sunset and ends at nightfall, then the transition from one day to another begins at sunset and ends at nighttime. So sunset is typically used to mark when one day ends and another begins.
However, that is not totally correct, because the evening that comes at the end of a day, can also be regarded, as being the last part of that day (John 20:1-19). The evening is technically the midpoint of the transition is between daytime to nighttime, when the light of the day, and the darkness of night, have became even. So the last half of the evening, that ends with nightfall, is the start of a day, and the first half of the evening, that follows sunset, is the end of a day. For this reason, some Rabbis use a 25 hour day for the Sabbath, where the Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday, and ends at nightfall on Saturday, just to be safe. In reality, evening is a guard band between days, that is more of a grace period to account for human frailty. So people should strive to get everything done by sunset on Friday, but have a little grace if something unexpected causes them to be a few minutes late.
The next thing to understand on the Biblical calendar, is the structure of a month, which is either 29 or 30 days. The Hebrew word for "month", "Chodesh", also means "new moon" or more literally "renewed moon". Each month starts when the moon is made new. The period from one new moon to the next varies from 29.26 to 29.80 days, so a month on the Biblical calendar will either be 29 or 30 days. In the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law), the first day of the new month was to be marked with the blowing of trumpets over the sacrifices (Numbers 10:10).
The moon is made new, strictly speaking from an astronomical point of view, about one second after it becomes completely dark. The moon is completely dark only at the moment of conjunction, when the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun, in its orbit. The moon at the moment of conjunction is called the dark moon. The crescent of the new moon becomes visible as early as twelve and half hours after the dark moon, under near perfect conditions, such as appearing as large as possible, because it is at the point nearest the Earth in its orbit, known as perigee, is well above the horizon, the skies are clear, and the viewer has excellent eyesight.
However, there is nothing in the Book of Truth, that says the moon is made new, when the crescent is first observed in Jerusalem, or anywhere else. The fact is, that the moon is made new, whether anyone observes it or not, like in the case of the new moon, that was not observed on either the twenty-ninth day, or thirtieth day in Jerusalem this year, due to hazy skies, that was referenced earlier. So if the moon goes dark one night, it is certain, that the moon is new the next night, whether the crescent is observed or not, and a new month on the Biblical calendar has began. It would be even more accurate to say, that the a new month begins on the Biblical calendar, on the evening after the moon goes dark.
The next thing to understand on the Biblical calendar, is the structure of a year, which is either 12 or 13 months. The year begins with the month, that the Father of Truth passed over the homes with the blood of a lamb on their door, when He killed the firstborn throughout the land of Egypt (Exodus 12:1-13). This is the month of Abib, which literally means "the green ear of grain", meaning the month that the barley becomes ripe (Exodus 13:3-5). The first month of the year is the month, when the barley will be ripe enough to be roasted and eaten, on the Feast of Firstfruits (Leviticus 2:14).
Since twelve months are usually 354 days, occasionally a thirteenth month, a leap month, has to be added, to ensure that the barley will be ripe enough to be offered on the Feast of Firstfruits. This can be checked by squeezing a grain of barley between the thumb and forefinger, in the land of Israel. If no liquid comes out, then it will be ripe enough. It can also be reliably calculated by determining, if the Feast of Firstfruits would occur at least eleven days after the Spring Equinox, in Jerusalem. If it would, then it is the first month of the new year, otherwise it is a leap month, and the new year will begin on the first day of the next month.
So in summary, a day begins at evening, a month begins on the day when the moon is renewed, and the year begins with the month, when the barley will be ripe enough to be offered at the Feast of Firstfruits. So an explanation of the Feast of Firstfruits is needed.
The first step to understanding the Feast of Firstfruits, is the repeating cycle of seven days, that define the regular Sabbath. The Father of Truth rested from His work of creation on the seventh day, so He set it apart as different than the other days, because He ceased from that work (Genesis 2:1-3). In the same way, He gave the seventh day of each week as a Sabbath, a day for people to rest from their normal work, by ceasing from that work (Exodus 20:8-11). The Father of Truth did not set aside a day of ceasing, the Sabbath, because He was tired, but because people need a day to rest each week, by ceasing from their work (Mark 2:27). People enter into the rest that the Sabbath was made for, when they cease from their own work, like the Father of Truth ceased from His work (Hebrews 4:10).
The next step to understanding the Feast of Firstfruits, is the special Sabbaths. The word "Sabbath" does not mean "seventh". You do not count to seven in Hebrew like this: one, two, three, four, five, six, Sabbath. Sabbath means "ceasing", because on a Sabbath, people are to cease from their normal work. Certain holidays on the Biblical calendar are also a Sabbath, regardless of which day of the week they fall on. For example, the day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month, can fall on any day of the week, but it is also a Sabbath (Leviticus 16:29-31). So every week ends with a regular Sabbath, but there are also special Sabbaths, that fall on certain days of certain months, that can fall on any day of the week, that are called "High Days" (John 19:31).
The next step to understanding the Feast of Firstfruits, is the relationship of the Feast of Firstfruits to Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Passover always occurs on the fourteenth day of the first month (Leviticus 23:5). The Feast of Unleavened Bread always begins on the Fifteenth day of the first month, and lasts for seven days, with the first and last days being special Sabbaths (Leviticus 23:6-8). The Feast of Firstfruits occurs on the day after the regular Sabbath (Saturday), which is a Sunday, that follows the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:9-11).
It is certain that the regular Sabbath is being referred to, instead of one of the special Sabbaths of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the day of the month would have just been given, to make it completely clear, like when the day of the month was given for the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, even though it always occurs the day after Passover (Leviticus 23:5-6). So it is the Sunday, that follows the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that begins the day after Passover, when the barley grain must be ripe enough, to offer as the firstfruits of the land of Israel.
So Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits are all clumped together in a normally eight day period, in the first month of the Biblical calendar, that always occurs in the Spring. Firstfruits always occurs on a Sunday, that usually occurs during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Now, we are ready to show why the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant, celebrated Resurrection Sunday during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
The Passover lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread on Passover (Exodus 12:8). For this reason, Passover is referred to as the first day of unleavened bread, even though it occurs the day before the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Mark 14:12).
So "the Feast of Unleavened Bread" came to sometimes be used to refer to the entire eight days, including Passover (Matthew 26:17). For the same reason, the entire eight day period, that includes the Feast of Unleavened Bread, is sometimes referred to as "Passover" (Luke 22:1). Sometimes the fourteenth day of the month is called "the day of preparation", so that "Passover" really refers to the Feast of Unleavened Bread (John 19:31-42). On the Rabbinic calendar in use today, Passover is seven days long, which is really the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
So "the Feast of Unleavened Bread", that the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant used to observe Resurrection Sunday, could have included Passover, and could have alternatively been called, "Passover". This would seem fitting, because just as the Passover lamb is eaten without leaven, so also the Man of Truth was sacrificed without sin (Hebrews 4:14-15).
It was during the celebration of Passover, when the Man of Truth told the Children of Truth, that the unleavened bread represented his body, that would be broken for them, and the wine represented his blood, that would be shed, to bring about the Renewed Covenant (Luke 22:15-20). So it was the death of the Man of Truth, that they were to make known, by eating unleavened bread and drinking wine in his memory, every time they celebrated Passover (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
The Passover lamb was to be roasted whole for Passover (Exodus 12:5-9). To this day, the Greeks roast a lamb whole for "Passover", their name for Resurrection Sunday, because that is what they say, the Apostles of Truth told them to do, to remember the death of the Lamb.
The Man of Truth is the lamb that takes away the sins of the Children of Truth (John 1:29). The Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant observed Passover, because the Man of Truth, is their Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7). The Gentile Children of Truth have participated in the better Passover. They recognized, that they will be passed over, when the Father of Truth brings death to the Children of Lies for their sins.
So the Man of Truth has made it possible, for sin to be completely taken away from the lives of the Children of Truth, when he died for them (Romans 6:4-11). Therefore the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for a complete week, because they were committed to living a life, that was completely free from sin (1 Corinthians 5:6-8). They recognized that removing the leaven for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that immediately follows the Passover, was really about removing the sin, that immediately follows taking the deal, that was made possible by the death of the Man of Truth.
The Man of Truth rose from the dead, on the day after the regular Sabbath, a Sunday, that followed the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is the Feast of Firstfruits (Matthew 28:1-7). So, the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant celebrated the Feast of Firstfruits, which normally occurs during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because the Man of Truth was the firstfruits of those, who will be raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20). The Feast of Firstfruits, that always falls on a Sunday, where the raising of the firstfruits, foreshadowed that the Man of Truth would be more than a dead Jesus, is the real Resurrection Sunday!
So, the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant used Passover to commemorate the death of the Man of Truth, the Feast of Unleavened Bread to mark that his death took away their sin, and the Feast of Firstfruits to celebrate his resurrection from the dead. They greeted each other with "Happy Firstfruits!" on Resurrection Sunday!
Easter, and other such so-called Christian holidays, that include traditions that come from idol worship, were never celebrated by the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant. They celebrated the Feasts of Truth found in the Law of Truth, that form the greatest play ever. Since, they were known as "Christians", then the Feasts of Truth are the real Christian holidays. These real Christian holidays were not only celebrated by the Children of Truth in the Renewed Covenant, but were also part of Celtic Christianity, in its original form. These are the holidays, that Christians are suppose to use to celebrate everything about the Man of Truth, including Resurrection Sunday!
However, the resurrection of the Man of Truth is nothing to celebrate, until you come into the House of Truth. The resurrection of the Man of Truth only guarantees judgment for everyone, who does not come into the House of Truth (Acts 17:30-31). You come into the House of Truth, when you follow the Man of Truth, by doing what he commands, because you believe, that the Father of Truth resurrected him from the dead (Romans 10:9). All who come into the House of Truth, will be resurrected to eternal life, just like the Man of Truth was resurrected, on Resurrection Sunday (1 Corinthians 15:20-23)!
Come into the House of Truth!
Labels: Biblical Calendar, Easter, First Fruits, History, Passover, Resurrection
posted by The House Of Truth @ April 24, 2016
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