Calendar and Eclipse Interrelationships
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Calendar and Eclipse Interrelationships

Purpose:

TO EXPLORE AND RELATE THE FOLLOWING PROPOSITIONS WITH EMPHASIS ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE HEAVENS AVAILABLE TO THE EARLY CALENDAR MAKERS.

  1. That dissention in timekeeping arose soon after the Flood with Cush and Nimrod as the perpetrators. Separation from the authority of Noah and Shem demanded a separate timekeeping system.
  2. That the (Cush and Nimrod) changed from the intended lunar-solar system to a simpler, purely solar calendar. Twelve thirty-day months in a year, then a short five-or-six day wait for the beginning of the new year with no need for any intercalary month.
  3. That the present day Roman calendar originated in Egypt with Nimrod. The Egyptians oriented their temples toward the northeast for the June 21 sunrise, the solstice, which coincided closely with the mid-summer overflow of the Nile. They also discovered that Sirius arose just before the sun (heliacally) on this day.
  4. That the Arabs today use the 354-day, 12-month lunar calendar that has also degenerated from the early proper system. Egypt had gone the opposite direction preferring a solar calendar.
  5. That the Babylonians and others in the Tigris-Euphrates valley also used a solar calendar but tied it to the spring overflow of their river. For them the observance of the spring equinox was important and temples were thus oriented toward the east.
  6. That Jacob (and possibly Joseph) certainly brought the lunar-solar Sacred Calendar to Egypt. From that time forward the orientation of Egyptian temples was equinoctial, toward the east. Four types of years would be in use at this time in Egypt: A 365-day calendar year, a 360-day agricultural year +5 or 6 days, a Sirius year approximating 365.2564 (a siderial year) but continually changing because of the precession of the quinoxes, and finally the God-ordained lunar-solar calendar with its 19-year pattern.
  7. That a type of the Passover occurred in the offering of Isaac 430 years prior to the Exodus. Isaac had been selected on the tenth day of the month; they went a three-day journey, they "saw" the place. To see a place it must have a peculiar appearance. The geological formation at Golgotha is recognizable today 1900 years after the Crucifixion. It might have been recognizable as "the Place of, the Skull" 1900 years earlier in the time of Abraham. The offering of Isaac and the Crucifixion of Christ then both occurred at the same place and both on the same day of the year of the same lunar-solar Sacred Calendar.
  8. The Exodus was 430 years to the very day. Since 430 is not evenly divisible by 19 the date would vary slightly in the season if the lunar-solar calendar were used; but would vary 107 days if the 365-day Egyptian calendar were used. The offering of Isaac, the promise to Abraham, the Exodus and the Crucifixion should be the same time on the same calendar. Which calendar?
  9. That there were thus two basic calendars in Egypt, one originating with Osiris, the other having been brought in by Joseph or his father Jacob. Israel in Egypt may have used the Egyptian calendar as we today use the Roman calendar. Weeks were known by Jacob.
  10. Joseph married the daughter of the royal astronomer and himself held an even higher position. Imhotep (Joseph) was called the High Priest of Heliopolis. Pharaoh put Joseph over all Egypt so that "without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt." He was well acquainted with the Egyptian solar calendar.
  11. The calendar is a mathematical arrangement intended to keep the year in line with the seasons for religious and agricultural purposes and to provide for shorter periods, seasons, months, days. Equinoxes or solstices might serve equally well as beginning points for the year.
  12. The Egyptians, however, used the heliacal rising of Sirius to keep the seasons and calendar year in line. Their Sirius year very closely approximated the 365.25 Julian calendar year, about 11 minutes longer than the tropical year. The beginning of their astronomical Sirius year thus moved forward in the tropical year (the year of the seasons) 23 days in 3000 years, but 1 day forward in their too-short 365-day calendar year every 4 years.
  13. The Egyptians only later became aware of the precession of the equinoxes. The true sidereal year is not 11 but 20 ½ minutes longer than the tropical year. The westward precession of the equinoxes causes the stars to be displaced eastward from the First Point of Aries parallel to the ecliptic, and the celestial longitude thus varied while the celestial latitude (ecliptic system) remained the same. However, on the equatorial system both the Right Ascension and declination would change. And these changes on the latter system changed the calendar date and azimuth at which the star would rise heliacally. Other stars were used also by the Egyptians. Each would give a different reading because each was affected by precession differently. Temple alignments for the rise of each star were found faulty as centuries passed.
  14. The average date of Nile rise was equal to the tropical year, but the actual rise was different each year because of differing climatic conditions. Both Nile rise and Sirius rise were earlier for the southern cities, later for the northern cities near the mouth of the river, yet the crest and beginning day of rise moved at different rates, and the rates of both differed year by year.
  15. The daily change of the sun's amplitude (using terminology of the horizon system) near the equinox is much greater than at the time of the solstice, therefore the moment of the equinox can be determined with greater accuracy than the moment of the solstice. (Amplitude would also vary with the observer's latitude.)
  16. The one-degree-per-day eastward movement of the sun along the ecliptic is even more rapid than the change in the sun's amplitude at the equinox. The Egyptians made use of this fact in depending on the heliacal rising of Sirius to pinpoint the end of their astronomical year. While they used the 365-day calendar year, they held the correct length to be 365.25.
  17. That Egyptian astronomical records need not always be observations, but could be calculations into the past. The Maya Indians also have "records" which supposedly go back to 3113 B.C. Certainly Egyptian astronomers enjoyed calculating the movements of the heavens backwards as well as forwards, just as we do today.
  18. That in early Egypt the agricultural year had 360 days, divided into three seasons of 120 days each, each season again divided into four months of 30 days each, plus a five day waiting period to form the calendar year. Every fourth year-in additional day should have been added to agree with the 365.25 day Sirius (astronomical) year. The 1460-year Sothic cycle resulted from their failure to intercalate in the calendar; 1461, 365-day Egyptian years equal 1460 Julian years.
  19. The moon's rapid, thirteen-degree-per-day, eastward movement allows an even more accurate measurement of time. Astronomers might have closely determined the relative positions of the sun, moon and "stellar sphere" at the central moment of a lunar eclipse.
  20. The building of Stonehenge must have followed the discovery of the 56-year eclipse cycle, which implied a knowledge of both the 235-month Metonic cycle and the 223-month Saros cycle plus a knowledge of the regression of moon's nodes in 18.61 years (roughly 1/3 of 56).
  21. That by closely watching eclipses astronomers in the time of Joshua were attempting to put the Sacred Calendar on a more sure mathematical basis, having lost their use of the Egyptian observatory alignments.
  22. That the typical modern astronomy book is strangely silent with regard to the 19-year Metonic cycle, failing to describe it as either as eclipse predictor or as the basis for the Jewish (Sacred) Calendar. There is an occasional reference to a short eclipse cycle exactly one-fifth as long, and to an eclipse cycle of 76 years less 29 days, which with those 29 days is exactly four Metonic cycles and becomes thus an invaluable tool for calendar makers.
  23. Calendar reformers of today likewise ignore the beauty and accuracy of the 19-year cycle and instead refer in a derisive manner to a difficult and complicated system that the Jews follow. This same attitude persists in dealing with the seven-day week, the only unchanged unit remaining in the present Roman calendar. Their goal, to stamp out every last vestige of the God-ordained Way of keeping time and to substitute instead a totally pagan calendar!

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Publication Date: June 1967
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