Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary
A Sectarian Calendar
"Galatians 4:10 Days you are carefully watching, and months, and times, and anniversaries" (DLT: torahtimes.org).
comment: the context shows a connection of these times with idolatry. The Dead Sea Scroll sect, otherwise known as Essenes, used a radically different calendar than normal Judaism. They built a calendar of 364 days in a year with four quarters lasting 91 days each. The first day of each quarter landed on the fourth day of the week, causing all of their holy days to miss the regularly appointed times by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem. If there was an analogue to the Catholic Church in Judaism, the Essenes were the archetype. They were not so obscure that they could not have upset the congregations in Galatia, and their sectarian literature reflects superstitious ideas concerning lucky and unlucky times. The Essenes were even known to try to interpret the forces of nature in their time setting. The setting up of unbiblical calendars was nothing new to Israel. Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month for the express purpose of drawing Israel away from the divinely ordained worship in Jerusalem. For similar reasons, the Church maintains and enforces the tradition of Christmas and Easter, which clearly compete with the biblical Passover and Yom Teruah (Day of Trumpets), on which Yeshua was born. And lately, a large group of so-called Torah observant people as been swept away by the lunar Sabbath heresy, in which the Sabbath is said to follow the phases of the moon instead of the biblical creation week. So nothing is new under the sun. People who misunderstand the gospel regularly make up their own idolatrous version of righteousness and ignore the fixed seasons that God ordained for His own worship. (DLC: torahtimes.org)
Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary: (http://www.torahtimes.org/translation/gal0410.html)
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