The True History of Messiah's Birth

By Daniel Gregg

The history here is divided into sections:

The December 25th Lie

Keep far from a false matter, and the innocent and righteous slay thou not; because I will not justify the evil (Exodus 23:7).

The Torah commands us to keep far away from something false (מִדְּבַר־שֶׁקֶר). Rome baptized the Roman gods and made them saints, and said you could still pray to them. Rome abolished the Sabbath and biblical feasts, and replaced them with lies they invented. The Roman Church then gained civil power from the Roman State in AD 380, and then used it to persecute, and slay the innocent and the righteous for the next one thousand five hundred years.

So you see, there is a definite connection between false religon and murder. In the Torah, keep far from a false matter is joined with the injunction not to slay the innocent and righteous. Because one leads to another. The Torah is from the Anointed one, Yeshua of Nazareth the only kindred Almighty Son. So this commandment comes from Him.

How would a husband feel if his wife cooked him a certain dish that her ex loved and then served him the favorite dessert of her ex. And then the husband finds this out and asks why she did it? She answers, "Oh I don't love him anymore." And he says, "Yes I realize that; you tell me you love me all the time and despise him, but you know I like paremesan chicken and chocoalte mousse. I don't like that other stuff. It reminds me of your ex." What if she comes back, "But it was your birthday? Am I forgiven since it was your birthday?" Then he says, "Why did you forget when my birth is, and why is today so close to your ex's birthday?"

When was Messiah Yeshua born? That is the question. If Christians knew when Messiah was really born, they would never celebrate his birth on December 25th or in the winter. Instead they would celebrate his real birthday, which fell on the biblical feast of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, into which his birth perfectly fitted, just as Messiah perfectly came at the Passover as the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, and just as the Holy Spirit came on the feast of Shavuot. If they realized that December 25 is a jealousy provoking competition with the real divinely-sponsored timing surrounding his birth, they would not support the lie. If they realized that December 25 came out of a Church that turned away from Scripture, and became the chief persecutor of those who held to Scripture, then they would never celebrate Yeshua's birth when that Church's tradition says. Religous Lies lead to murder. That is the spirit of Jezebel.

Many are loving a lie and hating the truth. But God's people are ignorant of the fact that they are loving a lie at the mouth of Rome, and hating the truth. Love and hate are not one's own feelings or motivations, but they describe actions towards others, and one should ask how the others feel. Do they feel loved or hated? Our first obligation is to love the Most High, and that is the first commandment. He does not want competition. It is written, "Ye shall not serve them, because I Yahweh (he who makes be) thy Almighty am a jealous God, attending to the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third ones, and the fourth ones, to those for hating me, and doing loving-kindness to a thousand [generations of] ones, to those for loving me and to those for keeping my commandments" (Exodus 20:5-6). So we must expose the lie in the competition. There is no chronological calculation anywhere in Scripture by which one can arrive at the date of December 25th. But matters are far worse than just a date.

December 25th is suspiciously near that time when in ancient Rome they had their most extensive pagan celebration, the Saturnalia (Dec. 17 to 23). Common elements include gift giving near the end of the feast (sigillaria), i.e. terracotta figurines, and wax candles, and sylvan decor, i.e. evergreen plants on doors, to honor Saturn as the god of agriculture and renewal, —a deity anciently welded together with the sun as a night-sky mirror of the same cosmic entity. The celebration included social role reversals, masters serving meals to slaves, and a mock king, excessive drinking and feasting, and public shouting. Compare this to electing a "Lord of Misrule" or a "Boy Bishop." The burning of wax candles and torches celebrated the light pushing back the darkness to welcome the rebirth of the sun. Before Sol Invictus, the cult of the sun was a sacrum gentilicum—a private, hereditary family rite belonging exclusively to the Gens Aurelia (the Aurelius family), who claimed literal, ancestral descent from the sun. Thus, long before the imperial state laws ever shifted, the common people possessed a definitive, culturally hardwired consciousness that this midwinter celebration was directly connected to the mechanics of the sun god.

Even before the promulgation of Sol Invictus as the top mono-theistic Roman god, the sun was a minor Roman god, an agricultural deity, referred to as Sol Indiges. Of course the Church did not enhance the rebranded parallels before the Great Persecution ended. They did so afterwards.

Rebranding Paganism

The Church, of course, after collective amnesia has set in regarding the old pagan forms, claims there is no connection. However, the Church has a history of rebranding old pagan customs into Christian terms. Rebranding is when a product becomes unpopular because of some defect or dislike of the buying public. So the corporation gives it a new name, and a different color, and a new advertising regime, and sells the same thing, keeping the same factories and assembly lines. Is that what the Church of Rome did to the old paganism? Just a rebranding of the same old forms and practices?

The Church customs are not just coincidental as to the form of paganism. But pagan custom has been carried over with theological modifications that acknowledge the worship of the true God, while keeping the external achitecture of the old custom. Please witness this priceless letter by Pope Gregory the Great as direct testimony on the policy of the Church, taken from Bede's Ecclesiastical History:

Bede's Copy of the Pope's Letter

CHAP. XXX. A copy of the letter which Pope Gregory sent to the Abbot Mellitus, then going into Britain. [601 A.D.] The aforesaid envoys having departed, the blessed Father Gregory sent after them a letter worthy to be recorded, wherein he plainly shows how carefully he watched over the salvation of our country. The letter was as follows: "To his most beloved son, the Abbot Mellitus; Gregory, the servant of the servants of God. We have been much concerned, since the departure of our people that are with you, because we have received no account of the success of your journey. Howbeit, when Almighty God has led, you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have long been considering in my own mind concerning the matter of the English people; to wit, that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let water be consecrated and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed there. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more freely resort to the places to which they have been accustomed. And because they are used to slaughter many oxen in sacrifice to devils, some solemnity must be given them in exchange for this, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they should build themselves huts of the boughs of trees about those churches which have been turned to that use from being temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer animals to the Devil, but kill cattle and glorify God in their feast, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their abundance; to the end that, whilst some outward gratifications are retained, they may the more easily consent to the inward joys. For there is no doubt that it is impossible to cut off every thing at once from their rude natures; because he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. Thus the Lord made Himself known to the people of Israel in Egypt; and yet He allowed them the use, in His own worship, of the sacrifices which they were wont to offer to the Devil, commanding them in His sacrifice to kill animals, to the end that, with changed hearts, they might lay aside one part of the sacrifice, whilst they retained another; and although the animals were the same as those which they were wont to offer, they should offer them to the true God, and not to idols; and thus they would no longer be the same sacrifices. This then, dearly beloved, it behoves you to communicate to our aforesaid brother, that he, being placed where he is at present, may consider how he is to order all things. God preserve you in safety, most beloved son. "Given the 17th of June, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our most religious lord, Mauritius Tiberius Augustus, the eighteenth year after the consulship of our said lord, and the fourth indiction."

The Torah Law forbids Rebranding Pagan Custom

When did this policy start? We have evidence that this kind of policy was known and understood just before Israel entered into the land of Canaan, because the commandment is given, "Be Guarded regarding thyself lest you be trapped [again to go] after them, afterwards of them being destroyed from before thy faces, and lest thou seek to their gods, according to the saying, "How did the nations serve these, their gods. Even I may do likewise, even I. Thou may not do likewise for Yahweh thy Almighty, because every abomination to Yahweh, which he has hated, they have done for their gods, because even their sons and their daughters they burn in the fire to their gods. Everything which I am making being commanded ye. It ye must watch over to do. Thou may not add upon it, and thou may not take away from it" (Devarim [Deuteronomy] 12:30-32).

The text is making two points about rebranding old pagan traditions. (1) Because the old pagan forms can trap people into following after pagan gods again. (2) And even if that is not a perceived risk: it reminds the Most High of the abominations of pagan competition. The Most High is Israel's husband now, and not the ex gods. And so the commandment has been given so that the customs of the nations should not be a snare to the faithful, and that Yahweh should not be reminded of the fealty of ex-pagans to their former gods. So following these customs offends the Almighty, and the Torah observant faithful should avoid them, and indeed imitate the divine point of view on dabbling in even the forms of ancient paganism.

Yet this letter from the Pope himself shows that the exact opposite of what was commanded to Israel has become the policy of the Church. Instead of shunning old customs, the forms are now embraced, creating emotional continuity for the converted pagans. Instead of having regard for divine emotions, they now have regard for the emotions of people with remaining contaminations in their hearts. For what seems right in a man's eyes is not right in the eyes of the Almighty. The attachments of the human heart can snare a person into erring toward the Creator.

The Scripture teaches that the faithful are to be set apart, to be holy. Holy means set apart. If the practices of the nations are copied, then those grafted into Israel are not being holy. This is where a subjective view of the heart contrasts with the objective view. Yeshua sees the objective make up of the human heart, but a person only sees a subjective view of their own heart. Yeshua sees all the contaminations, the ignorance, and the superstitions that make a heart unholy. Meanwhile the person is feeling holy if their religous leaders tell them it is ok, they can be holy and have affection for the old custom. But the true disciple of Messiah purifies himself from contamination, just as his blood cleanses us from everything we are unable to cleanse ourselves from.

How far back does this policy of Pope Gregory toward the Anglo-Saxon's go? If it is revealed in his letter to his missionary for England, then how many centuries before AD 601 did the Church conceal its policy? A mystery is a secret. Ancient Babylon was not a mystery. Their idolatry is legendary. But Mystery Babylon? That is concealed pagan practice or ritual under a new branding, the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig to make you believe it is a pretty lady. According to the text I quoted from in Deuteronomy, the practice of letting old forms get mixed into the worship of the Most High goes back to the beginning. Also, a study of ancient religion in Israel will reveal that true worship was often contaminated with pagan forms even when the heart of the people was subjectively right with the Almighty. Even then people thought they could properly worship the Creator with the customs of Baal.

What I am saying is that the people are not worshiping idols from their own point of view or God's, because salvation is granted short of purity. So long as a person does worship the true God, and does not knowingly worship false gods, then he is accepted. However, this does not mean that objectively the heart is completely uncontaminated from affections for customs introduced by the priests of Baal. Far from it, God's people are very contaminated with inappropriate unclean emotional cords with things that once honored false gods. The Most High wants us to depart from things that provoke his jealousy so that we may be a set apart people and receive his complete blessing.

When the truth comes along and people repent of their idolatry and turn to the living and true Almighty, the idolaters among them go underground. Idolatry is no longer popular, and so these people rebrand their customs in the name of Yahweh. And then they continue them, and it becomes a stumbling block and a snare to the truth and true worship. And sometimes it cannot be told whether someone is faithful or not! But the divine curse still rests on those who are idolaters of the heart even if they pay lip service to the true god while attempting to baptize practices they never turned from. There is no historical time limit on this. This is standard human behavior. It is nothing new under the sun. We are completely justified in extrapolating the policy outlined by "Pope" Gregory in his letter into the past, and back to the origins of the Church of Rome, and to all the gnostic cults that birthed it, and forward in time to all the offshoots that only half way reacted in disgust to it, separated from it, and did not realize the completeness of Rome's departure from biblical truth. It is proper to assume this was the policy all along when the Roman Church began to depart from the times and seasons of Scripture, and to substitute their own inventions in place of God's appointed times. We may justly conclude that they were accomodating the affections of former pagans, and telling them it was ok to celebrate in fashions they were used to.

Straw Men and Peaceful Compromises

It should be understood that I am using the word Rome here figuratively to represent the arguments of Mystery Babylon, which is also a figurative use of Babylon. Rome's apologetics do not just come from the Church of Rome. The same arguments are found in every denomination of Christianity. Even Messianic Judaism tries to baptize Christmas for Christians. So when I say the Roman Apologist, this is a title for our enemies, whom I do not need to name.

One Roman Apologist says:

"Some Hebrew Roots teachers have claimed that Christmas originated in ancient Babylon with Nimrod, Semiramis, and Tammuz. According to this teaching, Christians who celebrate Christmas are unknowingly participating in pagan worship. This accusation has caused arguments within families, damaged friendships, and left some believers feeling guilty about traditions they once enjoyed. But where did this teaching come from, and is it true?"

Let us dissect the tactics here. We are faced with a straw man, and then an emotional argument. First the straw man: December 25 came from the Church of Rome, which is Mystery Babylon. Mystery Babylon is not Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, nor ancient Assyria, nor Babel. The fallacy is equivocation. The Roman Apologist is imagining what our position is so that they can easily disprove it. But there is a connection to paganism. The connection is mysterious, veiled, or spiritually obscured from those without eyes to see it. Philosophies and ideas are cross-cultural. Detecting the influence is an art, and not a science. It is the art of finding the common pattern that links two eras and their matching practices.

But apologetics is the practice of painting your opponent into a logical contradiction by dogmatic means, while using technical loopholes to escape from arguments based on pattern recognition. So long as the Roman Apologists are committed to their dogmas, they are never going to see or understand the argument based on pattern recognition, other than to deny the pattern matches or matters.

For this reason, our apologetic is simply to focus on the fact that December 25 is a lie by establishing that Tishri 1 is the truth. Then we can exhort everyone to keep far from a false matter, and remind everyone that those who invented the false matter also have the blood of the saints to answer for. And if I should throw in some pagan parallels, it will not be the straw men the Roman Apologist sets up.

Second, I turn to the emotional argument. This is where the Roman Apologist weaponizes dissension, and makes it a crime to dissent because it divides. But whether division is morally permitted or not is entirely dependent on what is true and what is false. I repeat the guilt trip argument, "This accusation has caused arguments within families, damaged friendships, and left some believers feeling guilty about traditions they once enjoyed" (Roman Apologist). Ooh, that's bad. First off "This accusation" refers to the straw man argument. You have to realize the Roman Apologist is framing the emotional appeal under the straw man. But really he means any argument that would make Christians feel bad about Christmas, including the right one—it is a lie.

Yeshua said, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be the members of his household" (Matthew 10:34-36), and "For from now on there will be five in one household divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law" (Luke 12:52-53). "For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies are the members of his own household" (Micah 7:6). But they say, "This accusation has caused arguments within families, damaged friendships, and left some believers feeling guilty about traditions they once enjoyed" (Roman Apologist). The only arguments that make people feel guilty are arguments they believe are true when they are practicing the opposite. Otherwise, what they are feeling is opposition, and human pride never likes opposition. Having your pride hurt by someone close is not the same as feeling guilty. I do agree that there needs to be moderation in making arguments, but this is not the same as choosing for yourself not to believe or practice a lie. The real opposition with family comes about when someone says, 'I'm not going to do that.' That's not an argument. It is simply exercising freedom of conscience not to participate. And believe me, if a follower of Yeshua decides not to practice the lie, then the pride of those who do practice it will be hurt, and that is where the real hatred is. But there are some Christians who just disagree, but neither feel guilty nor nurse hurt pride, and choose to allow the faithful person to differ in practice. There is hope for that person. Though deceived they might be saved. But truth is the great revealer of hearts when a war happens.

Greed and the Flesh

The reason behind Rome's evolution into a state church exercising civil power to punish dissent is simple human greed. It is the quest for influential power and money. Constantine exempted the clergy from taxation. Anything that threatened their clerical positions, like real truth, became a monetary threat. This is the exact problem that the Protestant reformers noticed, but then when they got power themselves just began to repeat. The message of the Church was changed to tickle the ears of its converts, and so the money flowed to the bishops in due proportion to the compromises. The compromise had become so extreme that the Church was threatened by anyone pointing it out or teaching the faithful to observe the biblical times and seasons. Therefore, to protect their revenue stream, the Church united with the Roman State around AD 380 (The Edict of Thessalonica) and began to pass laws with civil penalties for anyone teaching the truth about the way God wanted his people to serve him. This reign of terror over the true faithful lasted right through the 1500s and into the 1600s, and did not die out in its last gasps until the 20th century (e.g. blue laws enforcing Sunday business closure).

When Rome was confronted, or is confronted now, after its civil powers of prosecution have been castrated, with the charge of compromise, it immediately pivots to saying that its practices are not pagan, because their hearts are toward the true God, and because every thing they do is explained in Christian terms. They bank on the collective amnesia of the true history to cover up where they picked up their customs and changes from. But we should not fool ourselves. A Church that allows prayers to "the Saints", and christened all the ancient Roman gods for every walk of life into Saints days, and Saints vocations, and Saints protections from this or that threat in daily life, should not be believed a scintilla when they claim that their appointed times and customs associated with them were not derived from rebranded pagan customs.

Did you notice in the Pope's letter how he justifies letting pagan influence continue? He pretends that Deuteronomy 12:30-32 never existed, says the exact opposite, and then proceeds to claim that the sacrifices of ancient Israel were remnants of paganism, that God did not yet see fit to prohibit, and that therefore he permissively allowed. This opinion is commonly met with in the anti-Torah Church. Yet when we look at the internal posture of latria (adoration reserved for God alone) as expressed through the adoration of the Eucharist displayed within a sunburst monstrance, it surely appears to be a rebranded form of sun worship.

John Chrysostom's Infamous Antioch Sermon

Then we come to the sheer lie of the chronological timing of the Church's manmade seasons. When we see the true biblical chronology, then the jig is up, and the claim is exposed for the lie it is. In AD 386, in Antioch, on December 25, John Chrysostom delivered his defense of the date, right about the time the Church was getting the Roman State to persecute anyone who disagreed with the party line of the Catholic Church. He was, believe it or not, arguing against the January 6 date of the Eastern Orthodox. He claimed that Zechariah in Luke 1 was the High Priest serving on the Day of Atonement. John's argument was that the Luke timeline measures 15 months from the day of atonement, i.e., a year and three months, and ends up back at December 25.

However, we know he wasn't the High Priest. And we know who was. We know from Jospehus that Simon son of Boethus was appointed the High Priest in the 14th year of Herod (24 BC) because he wanted to marry his daughter Mariamne II. We also know that Simon was dismissed from his job by Herod when Antipater's poison plot to murder the king was revealed, because his daughter Mariamne II knew of the plot and said nothing. See my charts. So long as Mariame II was Queen in good standing, Herod would never dismiss her father from his position. It would be a scandalous insult to the very powerful Alexandrine family of Mariamne. So, Simon was High priest until after Zechariah's visitation with the Messenger in the Temple in 3 BC. The poison plot was revealed in the spring of 2 BC just after Antipater left for Rome. Simon was also fired because of the rebellion of the Pharisees against Caesar's census. Herod wanted someone who could convince the Jews to cooperate with Augustus' decree. So Zechariah was not the High Priest!

The next pillar of John the "Golden Mouth"'s theory was that the altar of incense was in the Most Holy Place, and therefore it was the day of atonement. However, the altar of incense was never put in the Most Holy Place. John Golden Mouth had not been reading the Torah. The altar is in the Holy Place only. No doubt he got the wrong location from the Alexandrian Letter. Now in 3 BC, Tishri 10 was on Sept 21, but this was the Sabbath when division 18 switched out with division 19. But Luke says he was from the eighth division. Nevertheless, John the Golden mouth counts 6 months to March 25 for the conception of Jesus. That is stretching 6 months past the breaking point John. And from March 25 he arrives at December 25th nine months later. That is also stretching it, because it is more than the gestation period. And that is how he arrived at December 25. It is more than likely, however, that he had December 25 in mind, and went looking for a way to justify it. My point is that it was all built on lies. But how did he know to target Decemeber 25 in the first place? Let us find out what superstition produced December 25th.

Integral Age Theory—Judaism's Platonism

There was a superstitious belief embraced by Christians and Jews, traceable to Greek philosophic principles, that a prophet is fated to die on the same calendar day that he was conceived on. The concept is called "integral age theory." The philosophy originates in the Platonic theory of time, in which important events and beings recycle or circle back to their point of origin. It is grounded in a theory that all movement in what humans call time, is grounded in a timeless eternity (i.e. where time does not exist, but only an infinite present moment). The more in harmony a being is with the universe, the more likely that being will correspond to the mathematical perfections the Greeks ascribed to reality. This is essentially a deification of eternity and mathematical intervals of perfection.

Therefore, if important dates were not fated to circle back in a geometric loop, it was viewed as a flaw. Christ, of course, met the definition of what should be flawless, and so they had no choice given to them by the philosophy. They had to apply perfect symmetry to his life. This kind of service to mathematics itself is rooted in intellectual idolatry. And since Plato had nothing higher to credit the existence of the universe, it was his god. Even if the Platonic Ideal was not god to Jews or Christians, they profoundly walked in into the customs dictated by the philosophy.

I am going to offer a theory as to how this played out with December 25. But it must be kept in mind that I am illustrating the principle they followed and am not saying this is exactly how it happened. However, it fits. And it appears most probable to me. The history of chronological experimentation in the early Church, after it rejected the history-based no nonsense view of history in Torah, and bowed to the the Platonic Ideal of Hellenistic religion, was very messy. Scholars were experimenting with various dates and systems trying to achieve the perfect harmony. This was like Johannes Kepler trying to explain the celestial mechanics with geometric shapes. It was chaotic, and not a designed-from-the-get-go achievement. It had to interact with the syncretistic aims of various branches of the Church and the cults influencing it also.

The Eastern January 6 and Western December 25

The Church came up with two pairs of dates for the crucifixion and Messiah's birth. The first pair was invented in the East, and adopted by the Eastern Church, April 6 for the crucifixion and January 6 for the birth. The second pair was invented in the West, March 25 for the crucifixion and December 25 for the birth. The eastern view came about first. It is my opinion that the western view was a reaction to it. Eventually, the western calendar system defeated the eastern calendar system, and Rome outlawed it by AD 380, although certain elements of it were liturgically redefined so as to be acceptable in the Western Church, and the Eastern Church was compelled to accept December 25. Each set of dates is separated by exactly 9 Roman months, and the crucifixion date is assumed to be the conception date also.

I will take up the Western Church track first, even though I believe it to be a case of false prophets stealing words from one another (cf. Jeremiah 23:30). The Eastern Church invented a prophetically false idea, and the Western Church copied the same idea, but matched up their own dates to it. In both Churches the choices proved to be syncretistically useful. Whether this came about by divine curse, pagan influence, or deliberate engineering in the churches is not something to be proved as to the exact combination of influences. Objectively, however the result happened, it proved syncretistically advantageous for the Church one-upping the pagans.

Hippolytus' December 25 Invention

I will begin with Hippolytus of Rome, since his theory supplies the definitive foundation. This dates back as far as 202-204 AD in his first published work, Commentary on Daniel. This may have been floating around in his mind or his oral teaching for quite some time before. It may be a fresh reaction to the Eastern Church theory, or there may be in between steps. However, for our purposes this is a relative black box, and thankfully, we do not have to definitively decipher it. Hippolytus advanced December 25 as the birth date. On the statue of Hippolytus, The Canon advances April 2 as the conception date. In The Chronicon, he advances March 25 as the date of the world's creation. He appears to have two theories of the conception and gestation, one starting on March 25 and the other starting on April 2.

Hippolytus was a very influential, highly educated, and mathematically adept Roman Christian. He is considered an antipope. He had a very large following and his arguments were so persuasive that his theory became the default view of the Western Church. The contradictions in the theory would be obvious to anyone equally skilled as Hippolytus in Alexandrian astronomy and mathematics. But these were all swept under the rug of rhetoric, academic prestige, and the persuasive success of the theory. There was simply no one with both the skill and the winsomeness to prevail against him. The Tables of Dionysius in AD 525 could have been used to refute him, but no one noticed, or to put it another way, no one of any consequence noticed. Finally, it was noticed by Bede in the 8th century (De temporum ratione, AD 725), and overturned when Bede proposed March 25, AD 34. Next, let us show the details of the foundational theory.

Hippolytus used an eight-year lunar intercalation scheme to find dates in AD 29 and 2 BC. This was a custom designed oktaeteris lunar table. Using it, he found March 25, AD 29. This is marked as the crucifixion date on a Friday. He then found April 2, 2 BC on a Wednesday, marking this as the definitive conception date; consequently, his system placed the Nativity exactly nine months later on Wednesday, December 25, 2 BC.

This was an elegant and highly persuasive result. Wednesday, the fourth day of the week, was the day the sun and moon were created on. December 25 was the legal date of the Roman winter solstice, and March 25 was the legal date of the Roman spring equinox. Furthermore, the conception date he proposed was very persuasive. It also fell on a Wednesday, matching the creation of the luminaries. And finally, by his oktaeteris, the 14th of Nisan in 2 BC was on April 2, i.e. the day of the Passover. Therefore, he could argue that Christ was conceived and died on the same lunar day. Also of great elegance, is that someone in Rome had noticed that Luke 2:6 speaks of a perfect gestation period, 265.5 days, which is close enough to the distance between April 2 and December 25. Based on his reputation and skill just about everyone believed him.

Hippolytus placed the crucifixion in AD 29, dated as the 15th year of Tiberius, and when the two Gemini were consuls in Rome. But Hippolytus had made a diabolical calculation error by using his oktaeteris, because it drifts off target by 1.5 days every eight years, making it no better than a Ouija board for finding correct lunar dates one hundred or more years back. Hippolytus' calendar dates were independent of his oktaeteris, but his lunar dates were not.

All his lunar dates were wildly wrong. Thus when he placed the crucifixion on Friday March 25, AD 29, the Roman date was right, but it was nowhere near the 14th day of Nisan! That Roman date corresponded to Second Adar, day 20. That is a week late in the lunar month, and also puts the day before the beginning of the year! The firm Sanhedrin rule was that the Passover may not occur before the spring equinox, because it would be in the old year. The Wednesday, April 2, 2 BC date for the putative 14th of Nisan also suffers the same fate. This Roman date corresponds to the 26th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. Finally, as regards Wednesday, December 25, 2 BC, this day was actually a Thursday.

His followers obviously believed him. And not only his followers, but the whole Western Church! Hippolytus' errors targeting the year of the two Gemini are completely unique. The 14th of Nisan in AD 29 was on Monday, April 18, and the second Passover was on Tuesday, May 17. There is no theory of the Passion that would ever target this year based on the correct Hebrew calendar, nor for that matter under any alternate calendar reconstruction. Anyone who thinks that March 25 was the crucifixion date in that year is depending solely, squarely, and only on Hippolytus' theory. The date is like a bomb taggant. It points right back at its manufacturer.

Anyone who cites the year of C. Rubellius Geminus and C. Fufius Geminus (AD 29) is walking in the teaching of Hippolytus. Who are they? Tertullian in his treatise Adversus Judaeos (Against the Jews), stated that Christ suffered under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulate of the two Gemini, in the month of March, on the eighth day before the Kalends of April (March 25). While they were contemporaries, it is almost certain that the bomb taggant flowed from Hippolytus to Tertullian. Next is the official Chronography of 354 AD. Also Lactantius (c. 300 AD). Also Saint Augustine of Hippo (c. 400 AD); and also Q. Julius Hilarianus (c. 397 AD). And who spoke against the two Gemini in the West? Jerome (347-420), after translating Eusebius from the East in 380. Prosper of Aquitaine (c. AD 390–455), after reading Jerome's translation of Eusebius. But because Augustine endorsed the two Gemini, Jerome's alternative timeline failed to dislodge the consensus. No one successfully dismantled the error until Bede in the eighth century.

Let's review here the sheer number of lies that were used in the December 25th structure adopted as the default position by the Western Church keeping in mind Keep far from a false matter, and the innocent and righteous slay thou not" (Exodus 23:7). (1) AD 29. This requires a one year ministry. This is a lie. It was four years long. AD 29 does not have a suitable Passover date for a Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday crucifixion chronology; another lie; Hippolytus' date on March 25, AD 29 is a week out of align with the middle of the lunar month; another lie. (2) April 2, 2 BC. The claim that this is Nisan 14 is a lie. The combination of AD 29 and 2 BC also contradicts Luke 3:1; another lie. (3) The claim that December 25, 2 BC was a Wednesday; another lie. Lies, lies, and lies, all the way down.

We have to consider that the persuasiveness of this December 25 theory was based on the perceived value of cosmic alignments so attractive in a culture saturated with Platonic astrological philosophy. Hippolytus, in that context, could certainly claim that divine fate had aligned the seasons with Christ, and he would be believed. While the Church has been forced to modify its dates in the face of implacable historical contradictions, almost all of the cosmic alignments that persuaded the false date in the first place have disappeared, except for the December 25 date itself, and the annoying proximity to Saturnalia. The Church told one fraudulent story, and now it is constantly revising its narrative yet keeping the original conclusion of the lies: December 25. Furthermore, even here there is no cosmic alignment, because that was pagan Rome's legal definition of the solstice. It was not in fact the solstice as marked in heaven.

Christmas on January 6

The January 6 date for the birth of Christ was originally derived from a Passion date of April 6, AD 30, which was calculated from data supplied by Alexandrian lunar ephemerides derived from Babylonian system A. And then the Integral Age Theory was applied. The data supplied the syzygy dates of the lunar conjunction double dated in the Egyptian wandering calendar and with base dates for a series in the Roman calendar, from which a translation period to first visibility could be applied. The syzygy date for AD 30 landed on March 22, at about 8 p.m. A translation period of 22 hours was taken as sufficient for first visibility on the evening of March 23, and sunset March 23 to sunset March 24 was taken to be the first day of the month of Nisan. The more complex calculations of lunar speed were overlooked. As a result, the 14th day of the month was accounted to be April 6, AD 30.

If the more complex calculations had been done, an elite Alexandrian Astronomy expert probably would have said that April 7 was the more probable date for the 14th of the month. And modern calculations bear this out. April 6 was actually not possible. But like many things, certain details were not checked because integrity was not the main goal of those seeking the date. How they might exploit it was. The wanted to avoid Jewish Torah linked calculations. They wanted artificial symmetry. They wanted a fast way to one-up rival sects. They wanted to co-opt the local pagans.

Who were they who sought this date? They might not have calculated it; perhaps someone they learned from, however, did. It was the Gnostic sect of the Basilidians that framed this as the crucifixion date, because from it they would count exactly nine Roman months forward to arrive at January 6, where they put the baptism of Jesus. Because of their theology, they also made this date his spiritual birth date as the Son of God. That is, they regarded him as a mere man before his baptism, and as a man with God dwelling in him spiritually afterward. This is a wholly unorthodox view, and is not the same as acknowledging that the Son himself is the Almighty Son.

This Basilidian calculation based on the Integral Age philosophy was entirely successful even if they were not that successful. History shows that the whole Eastern Church adopted the January 6 date. There are several other reasons for its success. One was a fortuitous pagan Egyptian feast, and the other was an entirely too coincidental calendar used in Asia Minor. Just who allowed or arranged these coincidences, we do not know. But a number of spiritual parties are suspected.

As the Basilidian January 6 date rippled outward from their sect into the wider Alexandrian public, it found immediate, fertile ground because of an ancient Egyptian winter solstice festival. On the night of January 5–6, Alexandrian pagans gathered at the temple of the goddess Kore to celebrate her giving birth to the god Aion (the personification of Time and the Cosmos). Simultaneously, Egyptians celebrated a festival marking the miraculous springing of water from the Nile River. The mainstream Church realized it could not stop the local population from partying on January 6. By adopting the Basilidian date but re-framing it as Christ’s physical birth (Aion) and His baptism in water (the Nile), the orthodox Church successfully swallowed the pagan festival whole.

In 8 BC, the Maceonian Calendar in Asia Minor was converted by the Romans to a solarized Macedonian Calendar. The former lunar month of Artemisios was locked with its first day on March 24, that very day which calculation in AD 30 showed to be Nisan 1. As a result, the 14th day of the month of Artemisios always landed on April 6!

Now in the period following the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the Asia Minor Church, under the influence of the teaching of John, kept the Passover on the 14th day of the lunar month—disregarding the Roman fixed Aretemisios. However, after the Bar-Kochba revolt, in the period from AD 150 to 200, the sect of the Montanists rose up. We may define them as Orthodox in theology, but otherwise like crazy Charasmatics with an ascetical leaning. And they became the majority, pushing the original disciples of John into a much smaller minority. What they did was adopt the solarized 14th of Artemisios as the date for the Pascha. And this was always April 6. And this was all the more reason for all other Christians in the East to adopt April 6 and January 6. And finally, to be a Jew following Jewish customs this time was a virtual death sentence.

Here is the final icing on the January 6 cake. January 6 is considered, by a different interpretation of the beginning of the year, the rebirth of the sun. Whereas December 25 was in theory supposed to be the shortest day of the year, but only legally so, it was January 6 that finally saw sunrise at dawn finally reverse itself with a slightly earlier sunrise. This is due to the equation of time in conjunction with the northern hemisphere. The sun varies from its average depending on what point of the elliptical orbit the earth is on during the year. While the day length is longer, the latest sunrise in on January 5!

For this reason, the feast of Kore celebrated January 6 as the rebirth of the sun. The Church capitalized on this. January 6 was named the "Theophany" or "Epiphany" (meaning Manifestation or Appearing). It was when the light dawned anew. The pagan rite the Church baptized with its theology as the "sun of righteousness rising with healing in his wings." Doubling down, Epiphanius writes that they said: "ταύτῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ σήμερον ἡ Κόρη (τουτέστιν ἡ παρθένος) ἐγένησε τὸν Αἰῶνα” (Panarion 51.22). "At this very hour today, Kore (that is, the Maiden) gave birth to Aion."

When the Western Church finally gained the ascendency over the Eastern Church, it was able to convince, (or more correctly persuade with the legal force of the Roman State behind it) the East to decouple the birth date from the baptism. The Eastern Church agreed to adopt the Roman December 25th as the birth day, and the Roman Church accepted January 6 as the baptism date. And so were born the 12 days of Christmas, with the count down to Epiphany beginning on December 26th, and ending on January 6, where the sun/son is manifested anew. Thus was grandly betrothed the tradition of the Eastern Church to the tradition of the Western Church. The legal marriage was in AD 381 at the Council of Constantinople, and the marriage was consummated by the council of Tours in AD 567. And if anyone should object, speak now or forever hold your peace. No one did, because the Edict of Thessalonica in AD 380 had shut them up before the marriage.

The Truth Strikes Back

We have seen here how the Church constructed everything on an incredible string of lies. As it is written Our fathers have inherited lies. And Keep far from a false matter, and the innocent and righteous slay thou not (Exodus 23:7).

So, what were the real weekdays in these years? For AD 30, April 6 was on a Thursday, and this was actually the 13th day of the lunar month. If they had had modern astronomical software, they would have found that April 7 was the 14th of the moon falling on a Friday.

In the 8th century, Bede discovered that the year of the Passion was AD 34. He writes, "Indeed, the .. Church testifies that it holds this same faith by the very inscriptions which it is accustomed to write annually upon its wax candles, where, recalling the time of the Lord’s Passion to the memory of the people, it always displays a number of years thirty-three years fewer than Dionysius places from His Incarnation. Finally, in the 701st year from His Incarnation according to Dionysius, in the 14th indiction, our brethren who were then in Rome reported that they saw and copied down what was written on the wax candles in the church of Holy Mary on the Nativity of the Lord in this manner: 'From the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, there are 668 years.' Therefore, since the Paschal cycle revolves in 532 years (as we mentioned above), add to these [532 years], 33 years—or rather 34 years, so that you may reach that very year in which the Lord suffered—and they become 566. This, therefore, is {the matching year of the cycle the same as} the year of the Lord’s Passion and resurrection from the dead. (De Temporum Ratione, Chapter 47).

To explain Bede, we need to know that the 532-year cycle was constructed from the 19-year cycle for the moon's phases, and a 28 year cycle for weekdays repeating on the same Roman calendar days. That is, 19 x 28 = 532. Dionysius Exiguus constructed his original Paschal tables for a 95-year block spanning the years AD 532 to AD 626. The math is to find the same year in this block that matches 668 years from the Passion. For any given year Anno Domini one must add 532 to it to find which cycle year it is. So one adds 34 to 532, resulting in AD 566. One will look in the table for the year AD 566, because its weekdays are equivalent to AD 34.

Since the number 668 was recorded on the candles in AD 701, the year AD 701 equals year 668 of the Passion. To find year 1, reduce both sides of the equation by 667, and you have AD 34 = 1 of the Passion. Because Bede and everyone else believed that the 15th day after the new moon should be March 25, Bede accepted an inclusive counting of the 668 years, i.e. AD 34 + 668 — 1 = AD 701. He rejected an exclusive counting, i.e. AD 33 + 668 = 701 (where AD 34 is still year 1).

Bede continues: "For just as the 533rd year aligns with the first year [of the cycle], so the 566th year aligns with the 34th year through all the concordant paths of the sun and the moon. And therefore, having opened the cycles of the blessed Dionysius, if you find the 566th year from the Incarnation of the Lord, and find in it the 14th moon on the 9th of the Calends of April [March 24] on the fifth day of the week [Thursday], and the Lord’s Easter Day on the 6th of the Calends of April [March 27] on the 17th moon, give thanks to God, because He has granted you to find what you were seeking, just as He promised. For no Catholic is permitted to doubt that the Lord ascended the cross on the 15th moon on the sixth day of the week [Friday], and rose from the dead on the first day of the Sabbaths—that is, the Lord’s Day [Sunday]..."

We will find, upon inspection of the actual situation that the calendar looked like this:

Month: I AVIV, AD 34   4173 A.M. Sab. Cyc: 1. Jub. Cyc: 8 Cycle No: 85
Q1: 1.501 A Q2: -0.493 G LG: 102m W: 1.068' AL: 20.8 AV: 20.8
New Moon calculated for longitude: 35.17 and latitude 31.77
Location of calculations: Jerusalem Author: Daniel Gregg

        I        II        III       IV         V        VI        VII
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~█████▀▀▀▀▀▒▒▒▒▒
                                            │   1     │   2     │   3     │
     AVIV/NISAN                              │New Moon │         │         │
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~█████▀▀▀▀▀▒▒▒▒▒
     │   4     │   5     │   6     │   7     │   8     │   9     │  10     │
     │         │         │         │         │         │         │         │
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~██╫██▀▀▀▀▀▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~█████▀▀▀▀▀▒▒▒▒▒
     │  11     │  12     │  13     │ 14      │  15     │16-0-1   │17-1-2   │
     │         │         │         │Passover │Passover │ Sheaf   │         │
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~██╫██▀▀▀▀▀▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~█████▀▀▀▀▀▒▒▒▒▒
     │18-1-3   │19-1-4   │20-1-5   │21-1-6   │22-1-7   │23-1-8   │24-2-9   │
     │         │         │         │7thULB   │         │         │         │
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒
     │25-2-10  │26-2-11  │27-2-12  │28-2-13  │29-2-14  │
     │         │         │         │         │         │




   │   SUN   │   MON   │   TUE   │   WED   │   THR   │   FRI   │   SAT   │
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒
                                           │ MAR 11  │ MAR 12  │ MAR 13  │            
                                           │  356    │  357    │  358    │  21 Jachin
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒
   │ MAR 14  │ MAR 15  │ MAR 16  │ MAR 17  │ MAR 18  │ MAR 19  │ MAR 20  │
   │  359    │  360    │  361    │  362    │  363    │  364    │  365    │  22 Gamul
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒
   │ MAR 21  │ MAR 22  │ MAR 23  │ MAR 24  │ MAR 25  │ MAR 26  │ MAR 27  │
   │  366    │  1      │  2      │  3      │  4      │  5      │  6      │  23 Delaiah
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒
   │ MAR 28  │ MAR 29  │ MAR 30  │ MAR 31  │ APR  1  │ APR  2  │ APR  3  │
   │  7      │  8      │  9      │  10     │  11     │  12     │  13     │  24 Maaziah
~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒▒▒~~~~~▒▒▒
   │ APR  4  │ APR  5  │ APR  6  │ APR  7  │ APR  8  │
   │  14     │  15     │  16     │  17     │  18     │  					1 Jehoiarib

Bede states, the "14th moon [is] on the 9th of the Calends of April [March 24], on the fifth day of the week [Thursday], and the Lord’s Easter Day on the 6th of the Calends of April [March 27] on the 17th moon, give thanks to God, because He has granted you to find what you were seeking, just as He promised." If we count backwards from April 1, as the Romans would do for the "9th of the Calends of April," counting inclusively, such that April 1 = 1; March 31 = 2; and so on, till March 24 = 9, then you will have March 24, AD 34. This is why [March 24] is given in [] as the equivalent of the "9th of the Calends of April." Now look at the corresponding number of days after the new moon in the Torah calendar above, and you will see that Aviv or Nisan 14 was on the same Wednesday as March 24. Why does Bede say the fifth day of the week?

Bede says the 5th day of the week, because the 14th day of the moon is reckoned following sunset on March 24, which technically according to the Torah reckoning is the 5th day of the week, since the high Sabbath begins at sunset, and indeed, because all Jewish civil days in the post-Temple era begin at sunset. However, in the Torah, for the purposes of the Passover sacrifice, the 14th day starts at dawn and ends at dawn on the 15th. Therefore, it is quite right to refer to the evening of March 24 as the fifth day of the week here. It also makes it the 15th day of the month.

However, Bede is being excruciatingly clever here. He is allowing the casual reader to believe that March 24 is equal to Thursday, when he knew it most certainly was not. This allows the reader to think that March 25 was a Friday, which it most certainly was not. This is a double entendre on his part. He knows the weekday math of the Julian calendar places March 24 on Wednesday, and March 25 on Thursday. But he states that the time between sunset March 24 and midnight starting March 25 is the fifth day of the week. If the reader is not a scholar knowing that the fifth day is often stated by scholars according to a Jewish reckoning, then they mistakenly think the fifth day goes with March 24 during the daytime, and believe that March 25 is the sixth day in the daytime. So Bede has the liturgically oriented laity right where he wants them, on Friday March 25, AD 34.

But a scholar comes along and says the math puts March 25 on Thursday, and then Bede agrees that the math shows that, but also says the Church is liturgically right. This reflects the cognitive dissonance between the scholarly computists and the liturgical teaching of the Church. It was widely known among scholars of the time that the tables of Dionysius did not allow the age of the moon to land on any correct day from AD 29 to 34. In fact, the tables show the wrong age of the moon for March 24 in AD 34 (or the equivalent year AD 566). Those tables put the 14th day after the new moon on March 21, and indeed even Bede's own extension of the tables shows the 14th day after the new moon on March 21! And what will Bede say about this? He will say to the scholars that that is what the computations showed, but per article of faith, the 24th of March was the 14th, and the 25th of March was the 15th. And he tells the scholars that the computations put the 24th on Wednesday, but he allows the people to believe that this is liturgically Thursday, and that the 25th is liturgically Friday.

Why does Bede speak so cleverly? It is because he knew that speaking the plain truth would invite charges of heresy. Indeed, he had already been charged with heresy for using Jerome's shorter Hebrew-based chronology when the Church wanted to use Jerome's Latin translation of Eusebius with the longer Septuagint (LXX) numbers.

When did the Church start counting years since the Passion? The most likely explanation is that as recorded in the book of Acts there were many priests who became obedient to Messiah. And these priests were in the habit of counting priestly divisions. Is it too much to ask if they introduced a standard Jewish inclusive count of years from the Passion to the Church of Rome? No, it is not, because the first Christians there were Jews. So a count of years from the Passion was transmitted to Rome, and survived the transition of the faith from following the Torah to rejecting the Torah. This is why in the year AD 701, the candle numbering tradition stood at 668, and pointed to the correct year of the Passion.

Now look at the rest of Bede's numbers. The 27th of March lands on the Sabbath in AD 34. This is the resurrection day. As Bede puts it on "una Sabbatorum, id est, die Dominica resurrexerit a mortuis," "one of the Sabbaths, that is, on the Lord's Day he rose from the dead." Now, liturgically they believed this was Sunday. But the text says it is the Sabbath. And liturgically, Bede writes that no Catholic is allowed to believe that the crucifixion happened on any other day than the 15th, on March 25.

Bede goes on to tell us that the Christians of Gaul (France) celebrated the Passion on the 8th of the Calends of April every year. This was March 25th. This is a solarized version of Nisan 15 from AD 34. This is just like the keepers of the 14th of the moon in Asia Minor. They kept the Pascha with the Jews, until the Torah was outlawed. Then the Montanists took over and made the Pascha on April 6, because this was the 14th day of the month in the solarized Macedonian Calendar (Artemisios). Over in Gaul, when the Torah was outlawed, the Gauls settled on March 25 as the anniversary of the first day of Passover. Knowing the truth now, this was obviously connected to the actual 15th of Nisan in AD 34. It should be noted that when the Quartodecimans keep the Paschal feast, this was according to the Roman timing of the day, the 14th extending to midnight. According to Jewish timing, this was night beginning the 15th of the month.

From December 25 to March 25 and back again to March 25, AD 34

What inspired December 25? What is the truth behind the error? The truth is that it was the Passion date in AD 34, because then the first day of Passover fell on March 25. Christians misundertood the Synoptic phrase, "On the headmost day of unleavened bread, when they killed the sacrifice." This refers to the 14th of the Month, but they misundertood this and took it to mean the 15th. In any case, the 15th of the month was March 25 that year, and the first day of Passover. Messiah just died on March 24. But the misunderstanding sets up a divinely inspired trap. Because they did not understand Passover, even when John corrected them, they used March 25 for the crucifixion date. They were trapped by Rome. Rome made this day the spring equinox, or had done so long before. By using the Integral Age philosophy, they projected December 25th as the birth dates, assuming again that March 25th was the conception date. So the trap was set, and what sprung it was their proclivity to believe in mathematical and cosmic alignments of their own invention rather than the appointed times set forth in Scripture.

So December 25 is a witness to March 25, the first day of Passover in AD 34! And now the trap comes back for its revenge. The candle custom in Rome, where they numbered the years from the Passion also comes back to AD 34! The Christians in Gaul celebrating the Pascha on March 25 every year comes back to AD 34. And finally, the actual astronomy for Nisan 15 on March 25 comes back to only AD 34, and no other year. The truth points straight to a Wednesday crucifixion and a Sabbath resurrection. Every historical argument made by the Church for December 25 is based on March 25! And the only basis for March 25 is in AD 34. It matters not that the Church has changed its narrative, now that astronomy has blown their narrative to pieces. The fact is that they argued one way at first, and then changed it later. This proves the original argument was a lie. And now they have just rearranged the lie.

For AD 34, things are indeed interesting. March 25, AD 34 landed on a Thursday, according to modern calculation. But because they erred in selecting the 15th for the crucifixion instead of the 14th, the previous day March 24th, a Wednesday, was the actual date of the crucifixion, and three days and three nights lead us directly to dawn on the weekly Sabbath. Not to go into too much digress here, but the Anchor Bible Commentary has a famous or infamous remark, depending on who you talk to that mia sabbaton could mean either Saturday or Sunday.

So in reckoning from 6 April, AD 30 or 25 March, AD 34, and adding 9 months for gestation, assuming that the death day is the conception day, per Hellenistic philosophy of integral age theory they came up with January 6 and December 25 for the birth date. Church scholars took two independent tracks, used the same philosophy, and ended up with a matching pair of dates. The December 25th date took over the Roman tradition, and the January 6 date took over the eastern tradition. And then their two theories crashed into each other, and the two traditions went into theological war mode with each other! And the argument was, who lined up with Platonic Philosophy better. Rome, of course. But it was the Zechariah fraud of John Chrysostom, and the equinox and solstice correlation that won the day for Rome, as well as some other things, like the fact that the Church could co-opt the Roman Saturnalia with December 25. To be more fair, the January 6 date also co-opted the pagan celebration of Kore, and to be fair this connection was retained. It was just redined as Epiphany at the conclusion of Rome's calendar war with the East.

Witchcraft by the Numbers

Now I will explain why this sophistry of both the western church and the eastern church was divination. Divination is generally understood by Christians to mean predicting the future by omen reading, usually by unscientific means or spiritual means connected to the demon world. However, this definition is too narrow. False prophets did not just predict the future, but they taught things out of their own hearts, that they did not receive from the Most High, and they often justified these teachings based on faith in a pseudo-science. Casting oracle bones and spinning a planisphere until the equinoxes line up is the same intellecutal error. A castor of oracle bones was not just reading the future. It could be used for receiving a message about a current reality (or supposed one) having nothing to do with the future. Spinning a mathematical model of the heavens until it lines up with assumptive rules made up by the human heart to derive meaning, i.e. messages from the apparent harmonies is the exact same practice as ancient divination. Sometimes the spell castors were just humans acting out of their own heart, and the messages they get are intellectually appealing. But at other times the demons actually do answer and give valid intel on something that that is actually happening that a human cannot observe. The ambiguity of which is which opens up the prophet with no integrity to manipulation by malevolent spiritual forces. That is, dabbling in the pseudo-science is the same as summoning the spirits to enslave and take control of the minds, destiny, or outcomes discovered by the practitioner. This is so dangerous that the Scripture commands that no diviner shall be found among you.

Even to this day divination in the broad sense is rampant among us. For example, equal-letter Bible Codes. Or reading the shapes of paleo-Hebrew letters. Or Gematria. Or forecasting lucky and unlucky days. Or extracting divine messages from the pseudo-linguistic utterances of Charismatics. Or Christians dabbling in astrology and reading messages from the stars. The star of Bethlehem pageantry is not an excuse, because this is validated by Scripture. It is not an excuse to start practicing reading the stars for messages. It is one thing for Messiah to publish his horoscope in Revelation 12 to silence the liars. It is forbidden to publish horoscopes of your own making. I have even seen Messianic Scholars recognize the star of Bethlehem, and then go off the track with the imaginations of their own hearts in the rest of the Zodiac. There is also Bibliomancy, blood moons, prophetic portals for auspicious prayer days. It is one thing to get a message from God because he does something or delivers it. It is divination to invent your own messages. I am reminded of another type of divination, "Number in Scripture," i.e. computing the number codes of words in the new-made covenant to extract messages from them. And so on. You should understand the principle here by which any system of divining information may be designed. If the path of the information is unhistorical or humanly manipulated by unscientific rules, then it is divination. It opens the user to spiritual attack and spiritual enslavement.

So is December 25th pagan? Yes and no. Those observing it need not be judged as pagans, but the derivation of the date is based on a pagan philosophy that uses mathematical assumptions about fates and symmetry derived from Platonism. When we set this up against the true Tishri 1 date of Messiah's birth, it is no contest. Now Christmas, of course, has become much more than just the date. There are all the customs associated with it. Often the claim is made that the Church just copied pagan customs. This is not always true. Let us investigate the origin of the sol invictus feast.

Historical research has shown that the Roman feast for the birth of the invincible sun came after the Church came up with its March 25 to December 25 symmetry. So we cannot properly say that the date was chosen to coincide with the feast, at least not by humans. However, this is not a matter of human cause and effect, or selfish syncretism by clerics that wanted to be permissive and gain more pagan converts. It is a matter of spiritual enslavement and vulnerability in combination with the Master of the spirit world, Satan. Satan and the fallen angels at his command are really demigods, the real spiritual forces behind false gods. While humans are inventive and imaginative out of their own hearts, the devil is at work channeling and molding idolatry to serve his purposes, because he is the prince of the power of the air and the master of all the kingdoms of the world that do not submit to Messiah, and he is also master of all the pagans who submit to him. And he can use them as he wishes for his own ends.

So Satan simply planned the convergence. When the Church stumbled at the feet of Hellenistic chronological philosophy, of their own choosing, because they rejected Torah, they became vulnerable to spiritual attack. When the Church thought that having such a proximate alternative to the Saturnalia that looked much like it and grafted on customs from it, Satan acted. On December 25th, AD 274, Emperor Aurelian officially announced Sol Invictus (the "Unconquered Sun") as a primary state deity. The Church stumbled, and Satan took advantage. Aurelian also established the Pontifices Dei Solis, an elite senatorial college of priests, elevating the sun god's priesthood to the highest echelon of Roman civic religion. He inaugurated the Agon Solis, a state-sponsored series of quadrennial athletic games and chariot races to honor the deity. He also placed the deity Sol Invictus on imperial coinage. December 25 became Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of the sun.

It was as if divine judgment had allowed Satan to pounce. The Most High cannot defend a lie, December 25, so the devil moved in. The Almighty let the devil co-opt December 25. At the end of his reign Aurelian planned an empire wide persecution of Christians, because refusal to worship the Roman gods was considered political treason. It disrupted the unity of the empire. Aurelian was assassinated at the last moment.

Not long after Aurelian, Diocletian launched what is known as The Great Persecution (AD 303-313). It was the first effective empire wide persecution, systematically prosecuted by the imperial bureaucracy. It lasted longer than any previous, a full decade. It targeted the entire Church infrastructure, texts, buildings, leaders, and the laity. It aimed for total institutional erasure. It was executed by four escalating edicts to choke out Christianity. The fourth edict in AD 304 commanded every single inhabitant of the empire—men, women, and children—to gather in public squares to offer collective sacrifices and libations on pain of death or forced labor in the mines.

But lest the Church of Rome revel in surviving persecution, their survival was a complete disaster for the intergrity of the Church, and it was not according to the words of Messiah. For Yeshua said, "When you are presecuted in one place, flee to another." Sabbath keeping Christians, i.e. those with respect for Messiah's Law, the Torah Instructions, are most sensitive to the efforts of others to enslave them, because the Sabbath is a celebration of freedom from slavery. The remnant faithful were busy fleeing to the edges of the Empire. They fled first from pagan Rome, to Britania, and then to Wales, and then afterward from the very Church which compromised with the Roman State when Christianity became the official religion. But I say this was a complete disaster for that Church, because the victory codified and put civil enforcement into the syncretistic compromise with pagan customs birthed in Rome. These faithful Christians were a positive influence on the pagans on the fringes of the empire, and taught them, and gave them the courage and tools to unify and resist Rome. Their history was unwritten, and Rome wrote only its version of history, stealing the sucess of the faithful that had fled.

The AI frames it this way, "This total migration of the unyieldingly faithful underscores the supreme irony of the imperial victory. While the compromised hierarchy back in Rome celebrated their newfound dominance, the institutional Church had effectively signed its own spiritual death warrant, trading the pure instructions of the Creator for the temporary favor of the Caesar. By legally enforcing the Sunday calendar shift and codifying the Sol Invictus winter solstice rituals into the state religion, the mainstream Church formalized a syncretistic trap that would bind future generations for over a millennium. They mistook political power for divine favor, completely blind to the fact that the true, living body of believers had already abandoned the imperial temples. The uncompromised remnant, scattered across the dangerous edges of the earth, carried the true spark of liberty in their exile. Lacking the wealth and stone monuments of Rome, they left their mark not on church buildings, but on the very tribes that sheltered them—infusing a raw, moral backbone and structural intelligence into the frontier perimeters that would ultimately shatter the power of the Roman beast. Though the ink of the Roman scribes was deployed to erase their footprints from history, the survival of the text itself ensures that their multi-generational legacy of flight, freedom, and fidelity stands as an unbroken witness against the solar deception."

Because the Great Persecution went on for ten years, it forced millions of Christians into a sustained crisis of faith. Thousands surrendered their scriptures to be burned (earning them the derogatory name traditores, from which we get the word "traitor"), while others purchased forged sacrifice certificates or openly capitulated. The sheer volume of Christians who folded under a decade of pressure created massive, bitter schisms within the Church (like the Donatist controversy) that lasted for centuries after the violence ended. Eighty to ninety percent of Christians compromised in one way or another with Rome. The persecution revealed the evil fruit of the Church's submission to pagan Platonic ideas of time and the divine nature. The apostacy was so great that afterwards schisms developed even over the question of who held faithful and who did not. In those days, it would be better to be a torah observant Christian in the forests of Germania, or in the mountains of Wales with a trading relationship with the pagans there than to live anywhere near Rome, or to have anything to do with that worldly Church.

Again, the AI has a way with words, "This profound internal collapse exposed the raw spiritual vulnerability of a compromised faith. By forcing millions to choose between physical survival and covenant fidelity, the adversary’s decade-long dragnet laid bare the rot that had already settled into the foundations of mainstream Christendom. Those who re-entered the temples after the edicts of toleration were not a triumphant army of saints, but a fractured, guilt-ridden population of traditores who had successfully preserved their flesh by surrendering the Word of the Almighty. The resulting Donatist schism and its multi-century civil wars proved that the enemy no longer needed imperial executioners to divide the body; the deep wounds of institutional compromise, lingering resentment, and theological legalism would keep the mainstream believers warring against themselves for generations. The worldly Church had effectively traded its scriptural anchor for a seat at the Caesar's table, leaving the true, uncompromised remnant completely isolated along the frontiers of the earth—far safer in the wild forests of Germania or the misty peaks of Wales, keeping the true Sabbath alongside peaceful pagan tribes, than anywhere within the shadow of Rome's solarized imperial trap."

Since it was believed that Messiah died on March 25th (it was actually March 24, AD 34), it was deemed according to the superstition that he must have been born on December 25th, which is a long nine months later. That is close to a gestation period, but only close. It is greater than a gestation period. But in ancient astrology and Hellenistic numerical superstition, close was often good enough, even though Hellenistic perfectionism sought to have perfect symmetry.

This whole unscientific method of correllation of human events with numbers and movements of the calendar is the stuff of astrology, numerology, and other pseudo-sciences, such as might be used for divination, omen reading, etc. Ancient Greek, and Pagan Rome were full of it, not to mention Persia and Babylon. The Assyrians saw a lunar eclipse and they had to do the substitute king ritual. All made up hocus pocus, because that is what the pagan gods wanted. They wanted myth and superstition to prevail, because that is how they controlled people and isolated them from the truth, which true knowledge and true science based on the actual words of God would deliver them from. Every now and then the ancient gods would manipulate events and perform some demigod sized sign to make it seem like they controlled the whole heavens. Meanwhile they put the people that followed them into a host of superstitions that kept them in line, and ignorant.

Jeremiah 10:2: "Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens, although the nations are terrified by them." In this modern age, there are all kinds of Christians, Jews, and even people of other religions that spin tall tales about calendar coincidences that have nothing to do with real history. They are just making it up as they go along, and then using psychological manipulation and the wow factor of look what I came up with, and suggesting that they received it from God. It is all very entertaining until you realize that none of this can feed or clothe you or get God to bless you. Do not be in awe of them.

So before delving into our topic concerning when Messiah was born, founded on actual historical statements, let me address the superficial debate between the Christmas is pagan camp and the Christmas isn't pagan and is a wonderful season camp. Paganism is associated in the modern mind with idols and false worship usually in a formal or rebellious sense. As noted above, the kind of thinking with which pagans served their gods was superstitious thinking based on unscientific belief about cause and effect, and deployed with all kinds of rites that were supposed to accomplish something spiritual, even if they did nothing of the sort. Even if Christmas isn't pagan in practice, just about everything in it is founded on fiction, the date, Santa Claus or Saint Nick, stockings, mistle toe myths, and so on. These things are the remnants of old superstitions, even if modern Christians joke about what they were supposed to mean. But this very joke reflects knowledge about ancient superstitions in the customs. And these indeed come from an ancient pagan kind of thinking.

However much, or however little that Christmas was paganism introduced into the Church, the only thing that really counts is that it is a lie as far as history and the Scripture are concerned, made up for a superstitious reason. And in fact, if a historic justification cannot be come up with, then what is left on the table? Somebody made it up for some clever manipulative reason that persuaded unscientific thinking people that they should religiously observe it. For this reason Scripture tells us to religiously observe what God said to observe, and neither to add to it nor subtract from it.

When he was born: Tishri 1

Luke the Evangelist lays out a very detailed and complete chronology, which if one knows the priestly divisions, leads straight to Tishri 1, 2 BC, which is called The Feast of Trumpets, which in 2 BC began with the sighting of the new moon on September 1 in the Roman civic calendar. This is the first day of the seventh month in the Torah calendar. It must be noted that the chronology is not figured from cosmic coincidences. Unlike the December 25 myth, I do not use the coincidence of September 1, 2 BC in the Roman calendar to say how beautiful it looks and then make up the date out of my own heart. The matter is wholly established by actual historical data in the Scripture and Torah, and not by cosmic alignments. Nevertheless, it does not hurt to notice the remarkable alignment of the Roman and the Torah's seventh month here. It is certainly permitted to suppose that the Almighty caused the Roman calendar to bend to His will here, so long as we acknowledge that Scripture does not say He did, nor insist that this is the foundation of our views.

Messiah Yeshua does publish what amounts to his own horoscope in Revelation 12:1-2. Does this word imply something like divination? It surely does. Astrologers draw up horoscopes all the time for divination. However, there is a technical difference in astrology between a horoscope and the definitions that attach divination to the meaning. A horoscope is just the exact positions of the sun, moon, and planets at the hour of someone's birth. Thus, everyone has a horoscope. What is forbidden is using it for divining the future or anything that might be unknown through ordinary means. The astrological practice is full of symbolism. That is how it derives its predictions; it interprets the symbolism to find traits for the person whose horoscope it is. What we are going to do here is use the horoscope for the most ordinary thing you can think of. Since it normally gives the celestial positions at the time of someone's birth, we will simply use the celestial positions to determine what the time was.

The sun, moon, and stars are given to mark days, years, months, seasons, and appointed times. This is the divinely sanctioned use. The most secure way of documenting when someone was born, especially when calendar disputes are bound to arise, is to record the positions of the heavens at the exact moment. Then however many calendar corruptions occur, someone can come along later and use those heavenly positions to precisely locate the birth in time.

I should point out that I did not make this horoscope in Revelation 12:1-2; it is just there. The Messenger of Yahweh gave it to His servant John. If the Most High makes His own horoscope and the typical symbolic meanings actually apply to His own characteristics, which are confirmed by other Scriptures that give the characteristics, then it is allowed to notice what He did. We are not allowed to do it, but the Most High is allowed to predict the future. In fact, correctly predicting the future is one of the things that the Almighty challenges false gods to accomplish. They cannot do it like He does. When they do it, it is divination. When God does it, it is prophecy. Prophecy is involved in Revelation 12, most definitely, and the symbolism in the horoscope is also tied to that prophecy. So because Messiah is the Son of God, the Almighty Son, He and He only is the only human allowed to have a horoscope that means anything more than the time that a birth happened.

For our purposes here, we will only use it for determining the time. There are millions of horoscopes with people's names on them. If a historian and finds one belonging to some famous historical figure, then one could determine when that person was born using it. It would be a purely historical exercise to do so, and have nothing to do with divination.

"And a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman having been getting dressed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, then she cries out, being in labor and in pain to give birth" (Revelation 12:1-2). Now, this passage, like many texts in Scripture is put to multiple uses. For example, the prophecy in Hosea 6:1-3 contains multiple layers. The prophetical element is included. In fact, it is what people might assume at first to be the only reason for it. However, when we get down to the details, the picture is precisely what one would expect a heavenly chart to look like for a royal birth.

First, it is a "great sign"; the constellation of Virgo is nearly the largest one on the ecliptic. Also, the sun is the greater light, and the moon is the lesser, but if you put them together, it is a very great sign indeed. The sign "is seen," meaning it must on some regular basis be visible. The sign was "in heaven," implying that one must either look up at the sky at night, or know what the sky would look like through calculation to perceive it. These heavenly bodies have specific locations: the sun clothes the woman, the moon is under her feet, the stars make a crown on her head.

Also, there are nine principal stars (Regulus, Denebola, Algieba, Zosma, Chertan, Adhafera, Rasalas, Alterf, and Subra) of Leo and three wandering stars (Venus, Mars, and Jupiter) in the same constellation above the head of the Virgin. This makes twelve. Mercury is also in the scene but is arguably not on the head. There is more than one valid way to count the twelve stars.

A little basic astronomical knowledge is necessary. First, there is only one woman in the heavens that the sun and moon can travel through—Virgo. The constellation names were fairly well standardized by the Greek and Roman period. Secondly, a new moon only occurs when the moon is near the sun. Finding the sun and moon in the same constellation means that the moon is very near the new moon phase. Finally, the sun is in the constellation of Virgo mainly in September. If we investigate the year 2 BC, the moon precisely under the feet of Virgo is a new moon. Virgo is the longest of all the 12 constellations, so it takes the moon about 2.5 to 3.5 days to move through it. So, if you divide the constellation up into three parts—feet/legs, mid—body, and head or over the head—then you get an idea of how far the moon moves each day. Since the sun clothes the woman, about the only place the moon can appear for a new moon is at the feet. And for 2 BC, there is exactly one day when the moon is in that position. This is on August 31, 2 BC in the evening, or on the civic Roman calendar, September 1. So, the timing of the configuration is completely unique for Tishri 1, the Torah calendar's new moon for the Feast of Trumpets.

Luke's Chronology

So now I turn to our line upon line argument, putting Scripture with Scripture. Try to realize that just about everything I am going to say had been hidden by the lies and the justifications for the lies. But it is actually according to the precise language of Scripture. I lead off with Luke, a careful, and precise historian.

In the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar Messiah Yeshua is almost 30 years old (Luke 3:23). "Almost" or "nearly" is the correct translation of the Greek here. It is not "about 30" as if Luke was not sure, or as if Luke was being imprecise. "Almost thirty" is more precise than just saying he was 29. It means he was 29 and pressing on to the end of the 29th year. In the article on the 15th year of Tiberius, I proved exactly when the beginning of this year was and the end of it: Tishri 1, AD 28 to Tishri 1, AD 29. Sometime in this year Yeshua was almost 30. But which end of this year. Luke does not leave us to wonder. The story of the Shepherds tells the secret.

In Luke 2, the story of the Shepherds tells us that they were pasturing their sheep and keeping watch by night in the fields of the Bethlehem town district. The presence of the Shepherds is a seasonal indicator, because they were only allowed in the local fields after the harvest, and they would only keep them there until plowing and planting resumed. The window for the Shepherds opened about Shoshanim or Av to late Tishri or Cheshvan, when the rains began. After Sukkot, the farmers would be waiting for the fall rains so that they could plow and sow their fields. They hoped these rains would start after Sukkot in the 7th month, and become heavy in the 8th month. When the ground softened from the rain, they could plow, and this means that the shepherds had to leave. The Shepherds would return to the wilderness where they would graze on new grass that came up during the winter. But during the night, in the wilderness, they kept their flocks in "folds," that is rock enclosures they had built or caves in the wilderness. But usually it was structures of stacked rock to keep the wind and weather off of the flocks while they huddled together at night. They would then let them out to graze in the middle of the day when the temperature warmed up.

This pattern was a symbiotic relationship between the flocks of the Shepherds and the fields of the farmers. The farmers left the stubble high in the fields and let the weeds grow. The flocks ate this down and dunged the fields. It was beneficial for the shepherds, because the season they were allowed in was just that season when the grass in the wilderness was drying up. And Bethlehem, since it stood on the ridge at 2500 feet was considerably wetter than the Judean wilderness. During this season, they did not need a sheep fold because the farmers fields were bordered by rock walls, and they kept watch at night because the protection was not as perfect as a fold. There were still predators to be guarded against.

This late summer to early autumn time is the season of the shepherds to watch their flocks by night in the town district, and sometime during this season, Messiah was born. We can now put several pieces of the puzzle together. Yochanan the Baptist was just five months younger than Yeshua the Messiah, and it was Yochanan that came with the word of the Almighty in the 15th year of Tiberius. Luke tells us that Yochanan was first presented to Israel at his inauguration (Luke 1:81). That means just after he received his commisioning as a priest, for which he would have to be 30 years old. This priestly induction has to be inside the 15th year of Tiberius and then be followed by the season of the shepherds 5 months later. This can only mean that Messiah's birthday lay somwhere between late summer in the 15th year and the autumnal rains in the 16th year of Tiberius, which we can reduce to July 1, AD 29 to October 1, AD 29 a space of about 90 days max. Now we can translate this to Messiah's birth year, remembering there is no year zero. You can count backwards on the charts, using the column I provided for the age of Messiah and come to July 1, 2 BC, to Oct 1, 2 BC. This is the window in which Messiah must be born when we put these facts together. Can we narrow this down further? Indeed, Luke provides us with priestly division math, from which we can compute the time Yochanan's father, Zekaryahu, came off his priestly rotation. Then, Luke provides every detail needed to move from this point in time to the birth of Yeshua.

Luke tells us that John's father Zechariah was serving during the time of his division in the Temple, in the division of Aviyah (Abijah). Now there were 24 priestly divisions, and Aviyah was the 8th of these. The duty calendar for the Temple would go through each of the 24 divisions in 24 weeks, each division changing out at noon on the Sabbath, and then when the 24 divisions had used up 24 weeks, the divisions would start over again with division one and go another 24 weeks until all the divisions had served. And they would keep starting over like this every time the 24 divisions were used up.

This method of divisional rotations is called a continuous rotational system because like the seven day week it never resets once it starts. It is also like Solomons 12 month rotation for governors of districts of Israel to provide food for the kings table. The 12 months rotated around the calendar with no 13th month. This meant that in about 38 years the months of service would rotate around the year. The same thing happened with the priestly divisions. They rotated around the year. That is the divisions wandered the seasons, so that every priest received their fair share of every season.

The reason for continuous rotations is equity. Every priest, by law, had to be granted equal access to his portion of the offerings that Israel brought to the altar. No one was to be allowed more time in service than someone else. And no priest was to be discriminated against by giving them less time. For the same reasons, Solomon's 12 month provisional schedule for the king's table rotated without a leap month. This was to keep the tax burden equally distributed for the 12 districts of Israel.

One may ask what happens at the three pilgrim festivals. The answer is that all the priests served under the direction of the regular division on duty, whosever week it was. The regular division would get its regular duty, and then all the priests, including the regular division for that week would divide up all the extra demands among themselves. The division priests for the week would end up pulling double shifts so to speak. But this burden was also equitable because the each division would end up serving on a festival, and over time, it would average out to the same number times for each division.

It has been widely assumed that the divisions had an annual reset on Nisan 1 or Tishri 1. This is not the case, and it would result in an inequitable distribution of the proceeds of the altar. Since there are more than 48 weeks in a year, some divisions would end up with three weeks of service. That means they would be paid 33.3% more than divisions that could serve only two weeks.

One can prove that these Nisan 1 and Tishri 1 reset systems are unbiblical, and were never practiced. Besides being inequitable, which violates the Torah, the beginning of the divisions in Solomon's Temple in his 12th year was on the 2nd week of Tishri. The texts says that all the divisions were sanctified during the first week of that Tishri. And then starting in the 2nd week of the month, the first division began, and the rotations ran continuously right down to the destruction of the Temple on Av 10, 587 BC.

During the first Temple the divisions began rotating on October 13th, 1012 BC at noon. This was the Sabbath at the end of the first week of Tishri that year, because the new moon day had fallen on the first day of the week. Tishri 7 (noon on Sabbath, Oct. 13) to Tishri 14 (noon on Sabbath, Oct. 20) the first division served. This continued in strict rotation until 587 BC.

In 587 BC, on the 9th day of Av (a Sabbath), division 14, Jeshebeab, would have entered their week, but they did not get to do it, because the temple was burned on the 9th and the 10th.

In the 2nd Temple, the structure was completed on the 3rd day of Adar in the 6th year of Darius, which was Feb, 10, 515 BC. Between this time and the Passover, the rotations picked up where they had left off. Division 14 could have completed its week in the 4th week of Adar II (II Adar 17 to 24; March 26 to April 2, 515 BC). Technically it was not necessary to pick up where they left off after a hiatus because the divisions had to be reconsituted, only four divisions having returned. But it is how it works out when we back calculate by two different methods. The 14th division could have finished its abandoned week from 587. But this is merely symbolic. They were starving to death or under great duress for quite some time before this.

Clearly, the Temple suffered some interruptions after 515 BC. Antiochus IV certainly interrupted things. It appears however that a theoretical rotation was kept even if it could not actually be served. What we really need is a key date in the second Temple period when a known division was serving. Is there such a date?

Yes, there is, and we will see in the end that there are two synchronization points, one in Luke and one at the destruction of the second Temple. I will work off of the second Temple destruction, and when all the pieces fall into place, it will be seen that Luke 1-2 is a second witness to the actual divisional rotations.

The Second Temple was burned on Av 9-10 (Aug. 5-6), AD 70 when the division of Jehoiarib was on duty. This division had just come on duty on Av 8, which landed on Sabbath August 4. Av 9 that year was on the first day of the week (motse Shabbat—the going out of the Sabbath). We have two sources on the date, Seder Olam and Josephus, "The Second Temple was destroyed on Av 9 according to Rabbi Chalaphta, on a Sunday, when the course of Jehoiarib was on duty. It was On Av 10 according to Jos. Ant. 6:250, the difference being Solomon's Colonnade was fired on the 9th, and the Inner Temple on the 10th. The astronomically calculated Julian date is Sun, August 5 and Mon, Aug 6 respectively, AD 70."

So the destuction date is double witnessed. Seder Olam says that week was the week of the first division. Taking this as a witess, we can back calculate and see if Luke can confirm it. We will find that July 3 BC is the only window for the division of Abijah, from which we can count the 14 months between this division and Messiah's birth, which is 5 months up to the Messengers announcement to Miryam, and then 9 months after that. This not only drops us into our July 1 to October 1 window in 2 BC, but it actually drops us ideally on September 1, 2 BC.

Going backwards from AD 70, we find that Sabbath July 6 to Sabbath July 13 (Month IV, day 23 to day 30) was the service week for the division of Abijah, the 8th. Zechariah went off duty on July 14, 3 BC, which was the new moon day for the month of Av, the 5th month. Luke then reports the passage of 5 moons, July 14, Aug 13, Sept 12, Oct 12, Nov 11. On the 6th moon was the Anunciation to Miryam. Eactly 9 months and 1 day later is September 1, 2 BC.

Let us now go into the so called "months" mentioned in Luke 1. In classical Greek the word μείς also stood for the new moon. And in the Hebrew language חֹדֶשׁ hodesh also meant the new moon. For this reason Luke's calculation is not some vague counting of months. It is rather a counting of new moons. And further, Elisheva is not counting at all. Luke is counting. A series of new moons have been hidden by the English mistranslation of Luke's text. Luke is using a meaning of the Greek word μήν, which in his time could still be understood as new moon, but would be regarded as an archaic usage. "Month" was the usual understanding. But because the translators did not recognize that Luke was laying out a detailed and precise timeline in his context, they overlooked the necessary archaic sense of the word and mistranslated it "month" in English. This mistranslation exists in English, and not in the Greek. In Greek, as we shall see, educated reader in the Greek Scripture (LXX), or Hebrew language equivalents could come up with the archaic meaning. And in fact, LXX translations required them to apply the sense of new moon to identical texts.

Luke 1:26 reads, "Ἐν δὲ τῷ μηνὶ τῷ ἕκτῳ" and Exodus 19:1 reads, "τοῦ δὲ μηνὸς τοῦ τρίτου"; notice the same word for "month" is use here. However the Hebrew says "בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁלִישִׁי", "In the third new moon" or "renewing." The rule is this. If the word hodesh is used without a numeral it means the new moon or the new moon day. If it is used with a numeral then it has the meaning of month. The difference is that without the numeral it is the renewing point of the cycle, whereas with a numeral it is a day within the renewing cycle. So after the Hebrew custom, Luke is telling us that it was the New Moon Day of the 6th month.

The English translation "month" is a functional mistranslation, because the word is disconnected from the lunar cycle in English, and because the Greek and Hebrew words in the right context also denoted the beginning of the lunar cycle, the new moon. In Greek so many μῆνες are counted from new moons. The cycle is only ignored when the Roman administrative usage of the word is superimposed, because the Roman usage disregarded the new moon in its calendar after the old republic and Caesar's calendar reform.

If this point is ambiguous in vs. 26, it is made clear in vs. 36. "καὶ οὗτος μὴν ἕκτος ἐστὶν αὐτῇ,"And this moon a sixth is to her." Compare Exodus 12:2, LXX, "ὁ μὴν οὗτος ὑμῖν ἀρχὴ μηνῶν," "The moon this to ye first of the moons"; and in Hebrew "הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים", "This new moon to ye [is] head of the new moons." Rashi, on Exodus 12:2 writes, "החדש הזה — He showed him the moon in the first stage of its renewal, and He said to him, “The time when the moon renews itself thus, shall be unto you the beginning of the month”. (The translation therefore is: “This stage of renewal (חדש) shall be the moment of beginning the months”; cf. Mekhilta). " Umberto Cassuto, a famous modern Orthdox Jewish scholar writes, "הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה", means "חִדּוּשׁ זֶה שֶׁל הַיָּרֵחַ". "This Hodesh" means "the making-being-renewed of the moon" ("חידוש זה של הירח"; on Exodus 12:2).

Finally, in New Testament Koine Greek, Thayer supplies us with, "μην 1. a month 2. the time of new moon, new moon, (barbarous Lat. novilunium; after the use of the Hebr. חֹדֶשׁ, which denotes both a month and a new moon). For a Hellenistic Jew familiar with the LXX and the classics, the word μην meant a new moon if it was unadorned with a numeral greater than 1. So when reading passages like Exodus 19:1, the Greek Jews understood μην to mean the third new moon. In later Greek the word μην shifted to the exclusive sense of "month" and νεομηνίας was used to refer to the new moon. This shift was because this is how the administrative state used the word.

LLM Synthesis: The semantic rule of the Hebrew calendar is this: if the word chodesh is used without an attached numeral, it specifically denotes the physical new moon or the literal New Moon Day. If it is used with a numeral, it denotes the broader span of the month. The critical difference is that without the numeral, it marks the exact renewing point of the cosmic cycle, whereas with a numeral, it marks a specific sequence within the shifting cycles. Following this strict Hebrew custom, Luke is telling his audience that Gabriel arrived on the New Moon Day of the sixth month.

If this point is at all ambiguous in verse 26, it is made completely clear by the time the reader reaches verse 36: "καὶ οὗτος μὴν ἕκτος ἐστὶν αὐτῇ" (And this moon, a sixth, is to her). This phrasing directly echoes the Greek Septuagint translation of Exodus 12:2: "ὁ μὴν οὗτος ὑμῖν ἀρχὴ μηνῶν" (The moon, this one, to you is the head of the moons). In the original Hebrew, this foundational text reads: "הַחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה לָכֶם רֹאשׁ חֳדָשִׁים" (This new moon to you is the head of the new moons).

For a Hellenistic Jew deeply familiar with the Septuagint and the classical masters, the word mēn natively meant a literal new moon whenever it stood alone, unadorned with a numeral greater than 1. Consequently, when reading passages like Exodus 19:1, Greek-speaking Jews understood mēn to mean the arrival of the third new moon. While later vernacular Greek shifted mēn to the exclusive, abstract sense of a civil "month" and required the newer term νεομηνία (neomēnia) to isolate the new moon day, this shift occurred precisely because that was how the administrative, bureaucratic state forced the use of the word. In the sacred, historical text of Luke, the ancient, visual lunar clock remains fully intact.

Luke steers us toward this conclusion further with the words, "And she was completely concealing herself five new moons," (vs. 24) which run up to the sixth new moon, "And with the sixth new moon the Messenger Gavriel was sent from the Almighty (vs. 26). She said, "So thus Yahweh has been doing with me during the days in which he looks upon me to take away my disgrace among men" (vs. 25).

A few points here are due. Elizabeth could well have guessed her conception was on the new moon day, right after Zechariah's priestly division ended. But her concealment does not require us to assume that. Zechariah came home, and not being able to speak, wrote down for her what had happened. He was highly motivated to cooperate with Elizabeth at this point because he was cursed with an inability to speak. Elizabeth would have considered then the point in time when Yahweh began to actively look upon her with favor as commencing with the new moon day when Zechariah arrived back in the Levitical city that was their hometown. She would not know from any physical sign for quite some weeks. So the calculation is from the end of the division. Her words give the timing as Yahweh looking upon her, which is a Hebrew idiom for looking with favor. See Genesis 4. So the text bypasses the conception date, while implying it might be on the new moon day. It does not, however, require it. She is counting from when Zechariah communicated to her.

The wording in Luke 1:36 confirms the timeline "καὶ οὗτος μὴν ἕκτος ἐστὶν αὐτῇ" (And this new moon, the sixth is for her). By leading with "this new moon" without a day number, and the Messenger speaking to Miryam on a particular day, the text is indicating that the five months concluded with a new moon.

Luke says she completely hid herself, περιέκρυβεν. This is an intensive Greek word meaning total concealment. This is a highly unusual statement, and does not have anything to do with a custum of hiding. Normally women were not visible in their pregnancy for up to five months, and certainly they could conceal it with a loose dress. There was no need to seclude or hide for the first five months of pregnancy. I mean there was no need to hide from the public. In fact, if she did not go about her ordinary duties, she would have drawn unwanted attention to herself, i.e. they would say "What is wrong with Elisheva?" What it means is that she did not tell anyone, and did not reveal it to the public. Because if she did, they would ridicule her.

The five new moons are backended by the sixth new moon. The phrase, "And this new moon, the sixth is..." (vs. 36) fronts the text with "this new moon"; this appears to be a deliberate recall of Exodus 12:2. But when the annunciation came to Miryam, Elisheva was still completely concealing the pregnancy, and no doubt continued to do so for those days of the sixth month that it took Miryam to travel to her. This makes Luke's statement a chronologicon—a statement meant to indicate how long the progress of total concealment had gone on just before arriving at the sixth month. Luke is responsible for the duration of the five months. Elisheva did not say to herself, I will conceal myself for five months. Since Luke is saying this, he means five months, and not a day more, bang the sixth new moon. If it had been some way into the sixth month, then he could not have said five months. He would have to say five months and some days to be totally honest, or even six new moons. The five months is a literary temporal way point, i.e. how long up to a particular day .

I should give another example. It is written that Saul was the son of a year, and yea two years he has reigned (1 Sam. 13:1). This statement has caused translators a conniption fit. They have called it a scribal error, changed it to thirty years, or deleted it. But the text is a chronologicon to indicate how much progress his reign has made. It is not his total 40 years. The idiom "son of a year" means the first year is complete, and the second year is current. The reason for Samuel's careful statement is that Saul was about to blow the Jubilee trumpet to make war on the Philistines and to recover the lost inheritance of Israel that they had seized.

So Luke has brought us forward to the sixth new moon. He brings the chronology to term in 2:6-7, "Then it happened that while they were there, the days were fulfilled for her to give birth. Then she gave birth to her first-born son." This statement is not just a poeticly vauge statement. Nor is it a statement that her days were just finished, whatever number they might be. But "the days" here is definite. A period of time is being measured out. The word "for her to give birth" means "in order for her to give birth"; In Greek this is an articular infinitive, αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ τεκεῖν αὐτήν, i.e. "the days for THE giving birth for her." This is reinforced by the word "completed", meaning the number of days had run its course. Luke, being a medical doctor, who had no doubt counseled and assisted many women, knew how to calculate and predict the expected term for a child to be born.

The term for fulfilled here, ἐπλήσθησαν, is not the ordinary word "to fulfilled" but the verb ἐπλήσθησαν (eplēsthēsan / were fulfilled) is an administrative and mathematical term. You cannot "fulfill" a number unless that number has a strict, predetermined limit. The verb is used in Luke 1:23 to denote the completion of Zechariah's service in the division of Abijah, a term spanning exactly 8 days, from noon on the Sabbath beginning his rotation to noon on the next Sabbath, when the next rotation came in. It is likewise used in Luke 2:21 in regards to the 8th day being filled up for circumcision. In Luke 2:22 the same word is used for the 40 days of postpartum purification required by the Torah. These are fixed terms of days and not vague statements with an oblique sense amounting to whenever it happened.

So what is the term date for a child. We need to look at the term from conception and not the term from the LMP. The latter is 280 days or 40 weeks. But the time from conception is 266 days, which is exactly 9 lunar months and one day. In antiquity this term could be calculated out by finding the average cycle of 28 days, then halving it at 14 for the day known to be the max fertility date, and then compling an average of actual terms.

In 3 BC, following the division of Abijah, the five months are Av, Elul, Tishri, Cheshvan, and Kisleu. The sixth new moon was for Tebeth. The new moon day was on December 10, 3 BC. This was Julian day number: 1720671. Exactly 9 months and 1 day later, brings us to Sept. 1, 2 BC, which is Julian day 1720936. On an inclusive count (counting both December 10 and September 1) the number of days is 266. The inclusive math is 1720936—1720671+1= 266. So the term date from conception is September 1, 2 BC. And this day, September 1, 2 BC was the new moon day.

The spring equinox in 2 BC was on March 22 (Julian) using the visual horizon method of determing the first day of the year. This day also was the 15th day of the month, so that the Passover was in the new year. This criterion qualified this month to be the first month of the year. Accordingly, the seventh month of that year, Tishri 1, will fall on September 1, 2 BC. And this links up with the the legal time frame that the Shepherds were allowed to run their flocks in the fields of the Bethlehem district.

We see that Luke has given us a pristine chronology that leads straight to the new moon day of September 1, 2 BC. Now I have been giving you the proleptic Julian date for the new moon day, i.e. the day part of the day. In the proleptic Julian calendar (the standard, retroactively calculated solar model used by modern astronomers), the Tishri 1 holy day spanned August 31 at Erev to Sept 1 at Erev. Converting this to the actual Roman civic calendar reveals a stunning alignment. Due to this historical drift, the holy day of Tishri 1 on the civic Roman calendar would have straddled September 1 at evening to September 2 at evening. (To the modern reader, it must be noted that the Roman civic calendar on the ground differed from the astronomical calendar because the early Roman priests miscalculated Julius Caesar's leap year rules, inserting a leap day every three years instead of every four. To fix this accumulating error, Emperor Augustus completely froze all leap years starting in 8 B.C., a freeze that lasted through 2 B.C. Consequently, the actual physical calendar plaques—the Fasti—hanging in Rome were running exactly one day ahead of the true solar cycle). Remarkably, this means the visual biblical reset hit exactly on the first and second days of the Roman seventh month. That is the first day of the Roman 7th month to the second day of the Roman 7th month. If we consider that the first and second days after the new moon were observed in ancient Israel, this alignment is incredible, as well as the comedy of errors the Roman Priests made to arrive at it! It is like there was a divine hand behind the Roman calendar screw up guiding it toward the Almighty Son rather than the later to be divinized Augustus.

So literally, the Roman seventh month, and the first day of it landed EXACTLY when the new moon of the Seventh Month occurred, that is the Kalends of September. And in the pre-imperial Roman calendar, this was the day the new moon appeared. If a divine point is being made here, it is to connect the entering of Messiah into the world with a mission to the nations.

Now after the daily offering on Tishri 1, which was offered with the daybreak, the Musaf Sacrifice mandated for Yom Teruah was offered (cf. Numbers 29:1-6). After this, as soon as it was confirmed that the witnesses had seen the new moon, having traveled in some cases all night, Psalm 81 was sung in the service.

"Blow on the new moon the Shofar, in the concealment of the day of our feast. Because a statute for Israel it is, a custom for the Almighty of Jacob—a witness in Yah of Joseph he has set it—in his going out over the land of Egypt. A language I had not known, I hear." On the same day at dawn, Messiah was born, and the Messenger announced to the Shepherds, "For today in the city of David, there will have been born for you, a Rescuer, who is the Anointed One, Adonai...And suddenly there was with the Messenger a multitude of the heavenly host praising the Almighty and saying, 'Glory to the Almighty in the Highest, and on earth peace among men of good intention."

Now we have to decode "Egypt." Egypt is used here to stand as a figure for the house of bondage, for exile. The house of Joseph had been exiled into the nations. And so this puzzling verse in Psalm 81 is the notification of divine outreach to the nations. And for this reason the messengers message was pitched to all men "men of good intention." It was likely that this was delivered by the messengers in Greek, representing the languages of the exile of the house of Israel. So when Psalm 81 was sung in the Temple, it was the messengers from heaven who sung the interpretation of the puzzling line in the Psalm.

For it is written, "And he says, '[Too] Easy from being thou for Me servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and the Notsari of Israel to restore, but I will have given thee as a light to the nations that should be my salvation to the end of the earth" (Isa. 49:6). So if you understand, Ephraim of Israel became melo-ha-goyyim, the fullness of the nations. And the rescue of Israel includes the rescue of the nations.

So the Mission of Messiah is to go out over all the lands of exile, and all the lands where he hears a foreign language, to rescue Israel living in concealment, "in the concealment of the day of our feast." The utterance of the heavenly host was echoed by the other host of heaven, the levitical priests.

If we recall when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant. They took it into the Temple of Dagon. And the Philistine god fell down before the Ark. Likewise on September 1, the Roman Calendar finally fell down in front of the Biblical Seventh Month.

Our date is confirmed by another witness. The Magi stated, "We have seen his star in the rising" (Matthew 2:2). The Magi were assiduous observers of the planet Jupiter, which in Hebrew was called "Tzedeq," meaning "Righteous." It was also known as the king star. Back in Parthia they had no doubt noted the helical rising of Jupiter in the constellation of Leo on August 1, 3 BC. The second helical rising was on September 1, 2 BC at dawn according to ideal calculation. Now for interpretive purposes, a helical rising did not have to be seen. It would otherwise be calculated according to ideal criteria for the first rising date. And interpreters would still use it for omens even a day later. The requirement for first seeing Jupiter in the dawning sky was right about 12 degrees Elongation from the sun, and 9 degrees arc of vision (the altitude distance between the sun and the star). On September 1, 2 BC the elongation was 11 degrees 50 arc minutes. And the Arc of vision was just about 11.5 degrees. This arc of vision more than compensates for the slightly below 12 degree value of the elongation. September 1, 2 BC at dawn is clearly the ideal calculated time for the rising of the star. The steep alignment of the arc of vision and the elongation were nearly vertical at the horizon. This is the ideal situation for excluding the morning of August 31st as a helical rising date.

It should be noted that by the rules of ancient astrological interpretation for birth horoscopes that this calculated date was good enough. And in fact, they preferred calculated dates because of the variations in observed ones. However, the Magi stated that they saw it, and that they followed the star afterwards, which means they set out on a journey. They saw his star in the east, or in the rising. This is likely a double entendre. They were in the east, in Parthia, when they saw it, and they saw it in the helical rising. Since it takes 4 months to get from that location to Bethlehem, they set out on their journey shortly after Sept. 1, 2 BC. The coincidence of the new moon day and the rising probably also made an impression on them, as well as the massive merger conjunction of Jupiter and Venus a bit earlier in the summer.

Another confirmation of the star is in Revelation 2:28 and 22:16. It says, "I will give him the morning star," that is Messiah will give it to those who have not known the deep things of Satan, who are getting the victory, and who are keeping the deeds of Messiah. It should be fairly obvious from this essay that the deeds of Messiah are expressed in faithfulness to his Torah. And the deep things of Satan are the counterfiet times and seasons that he has introduced into the tradition to alter the Scriptural times and seasons (Daniel 7:25). Along with the counterfiet times comes a counterfiet theology, a theology based on Hellenistic Philosophy, and expressed in its modern form as Augustinianism or Calvinism.

So he says he will give the morning star. If one follows the Torah, the conclusions lead to the morning star. Now Yeshua also said, "I am the root and the kindred of David, the bright dawn star" (Rev. 2:16; Zech. 6:12; Mat. 2:2). It should be noted that the Greek word that translated TZEMECH (Branch) was anatole, which means "riser," and can refer to the rising of a star as well as to the rising of a plant. As we have seen, he literally owns the rising of the bright planet called Tzedeq on the day of his birth. It took a group of Magi, astrologers and astronomical observers in Mesopotamia to notice. They did notice that for once, the Most High moved heaven and earth to signal and crown the birth of his only kindred Son.

Now, let us ask the question why authors of books about the Star of Bethlehem have not noticed how everything lines up? They have noticed quite a lot. But generally they have overlooked the September 1 date. Why is this? The reason they have not considered it, at least from the point of view of a scientific secondary cause, is that they are using a modern method of calculating the spring equinox that is based on geometry and not on the ground observational methods. The ancient method of finding the equinox by the Jewish priests was not Babylonian mathematics and Greek science. Rather they watched rising and setting sun travel to and fro on the eastern and western horizon, and they were looking for the sun to align east and west to fix the day of the circuit of the year. Because the sky has an atmosphere, refraction raises the sun above its geometric position as calculated by theory, and as a result it has a few more minutes to move down the angled path with which it approaches the horizen. The result is that it often reaches due west a day before a calculated geometical method would indicate! This is the exact method that stone age observatories lined up the beams of the sun on the equinox day. Refraction was baked in the cake.

We can, of course, calculate for refraction, even 2000 years ago, so find out when their observational method would have matched the first day of the year on the calendar. For 2 BC this date is March 22. And for 3 BC this date is March 22. Also the expected number of days was 365. And the 4 BC spring equinox had fallen on March 22 again after a period of 366 days from the 5 BC equinox, on March 21. It should be noted that the equinox date drops back to March 21st when the year before was 366 days. And that it jumps ahead to March 22 right after. The priests, of course were not using the proleptic Julian calendar. They were simply counting days from the last equinox.

In 2 BC, the new moon was seen on March 7 in the evening. This was an "A" case sighting on the Yallop scale. This rating for the moon is easily visible, and using it for the first month places the 15th of Nisan (Aviv) directly on the first day of the solar year. This alignment meets the criteria for the first month. However, if a geometic method of equinox calculation be used, then the equinox will come up on March 23rd, and the Passover will fall in the old year by that calculation. So this is why authors have missed the target.

It should also be noted that the central Jewish authorities consistently prioritized the mathematical calculation of the spring equinox over raw physical observation when determining leap years. However, they were deeply conscious of competing factions that adamantly demanded the use of literal agricultural observations, such as the ripening of the barley crop. To manage this tension, the Sanhedrin devised a highly sophisticated method of accommodating these groups without surrendering their own mathematical control. They established a formal legal framework to inspect three distinct agricultural regions of the Land of Israel: Judea, Galilee, and Transjordan. By focusing their physical inspections on the unique microclimates within these zones—such as the deep, low-elevation greenhouse environments of Jericho and the lower Jordan Valley—the authorities could rely on areas that naturally witnessed the accelerated, early ripening of grain and fruits. Consequently, if just one or two of these strategically selected regions produced the necessary agricultural results in structural alignment with the mathematical equinox, it was legally sufficient to validate the calendar change, successfully pacifying the factions while keeping the calculated equinox firmly on top at all times.

The Talmud explicitly codifies this political and calendar management: "Our Rabbis taught: A year may be intercalated on account of three regions: Judea, Transjordan, and Galilee. On account of two of them together, the year is intercalated, but on account of only one of them, it is not intercalated. But when one of them is Judea, they may intercalate it on account of Judea alone..." (Sanhedrin 11b). Because each of these three broad geographic zones contained highly accelerated microclimates, the central authorities could almost always guarantee that the necessary agricultural criteria were met in a sufficient number of locations to declare the arrival of Nisan as early as required—that is, as early as the calculated astronomical spring equinox indicated! For it was a hard and fast rule of Rabbinic law that no matter how ripe the agricultural crops appeared on the ground, the festival of Passover could never be legally celebrated before the solar spring equinox had occurred. Therefore, the Sanhedrin's field inspection rules were meticulously constructed to serve as a legal warrant, ensuring that the visual calendar could never be artificially intercalated past a month that already satisfied the structural parameters of the equinox.

In fact, the Rabbis round about way at arriving at the correct calculation is codified directly in Torah. Only the sun and moon are for setting appointed times (Gen. 1:14). And in Exodus 13:10, Passover is to be observed "from days unto days," that is from one batch of 365 or 366 days to the next. And on account of laws of compassion and mercy for the poor, the year could not be delayed, because there was a ban on eating the firstfruits until they were offered in the Temple on the 16th day of the first month! To delay the year past these criteria was literally to take food from the poor.

Sanhedrin 12a says, "תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: אֵין מְעַבְּרִין אֶת הַשָּׁנָה לֹא בִּשְׁבִיעִית וְלֹא בְּמוֹצָאֵי שְׁבִיעִית. אֵימָתַי רְגִילִין לְעַבֵּר? עֶרֶב שְׁבִיעִית. שֶׁל בֵּית רַבָּן גַּמְלִיאֵל הָיוּ מְעַבְּרִין בְּמוֹצָאֵי שְׁבִיעִית. ": "The Sages taught in a baraita (Tosefta 2:5): The court may not intercalate the year in the Sabbatical Year, so as not to prolong the prohibitions of the Sabbatical Year, nor in the year after the Sabbatical Year, when there is not much produce available, and delaying the consumption of the new crop would also cause hardship."

However valid one thinks this ruling may be, the authorities would certainly be hesitant to add an Adar II in the spring of 2 BC. Why? Because a sabbatical year had just ended on Tishri 1, 3 BC. And the crops ripening in the spring of 2 BC were the first new crops since the harvest of 4 BC. So you see, there is no way to avoid Tishri 1 on September 1, 2 BC. If the weather had been cloudy on March 7, 2 BC and the new moon had not been seen, but calculation predicted it would be seen, the authorities would certainly have cited the preceding Sabbath year as a reason not to intercalate. That is, they might have cited that reason even if it wasn't the way they ran the calendar.

The final clue: Revelation 12:1-5. The birth of Messiah is accompanied by a sign in heaven: a sun clothed women with the moon under her feet. This arrangement agrees perfectly with the sun in the constellation of Virgo and the moon under the feet is the new moon. It lines up with Tishri 1, 2 BC. It does not line up a month earlier or a month later.

Tabernacles and John 1:14

Now some claims or questions that come up frequently: It is widely claimed that Yeshua was born on the feast of Tabernacles. This is because some teachers cite John 1:14, "And the Word became flesh, and he tented among us," and claim this means he was born on Sukkot, because booths, tabernacles, or tents are put up. But this is contradicted by the known facts. First, the Word became flesh points to Messiah's conception, and not his birth. Second, "among us" is meant to cover his whole time on earth, and not just time at a feast. Third, the teaching is based on an equivocation error, i.e. that because tents are mandated at the feast, that he "tented among us" means only at the feast. But since he became flesh at his conception, it would prove he was conceived at the feast by that logic. But if someone would say he did not become flesh in the womb, but only when coming out of it, well this contradicts the whole biology of the matter.

More serious counter arguments can be cited. The Romans were not stupid enough to conduct their registration at the feast of Sukkot. They required every man to go to his own city. Sukkot required every man to go to Jerusalem. The Jewish authories and Herod had a hard enough time trying to get the people of Judea to cooperate with Quirinius' registration. The Pharisees refused. It actually took a Sadducee High Priest to convince the ordinary people to cooperate. Since all the men had to dwell in booths for seven days at the place of the name, Jerusalem, they could not be elsewhere at the same time. And in fact, 3 days were needed to travel to Jerusalem, and 3 days were needed to travel back home.

As I pointed out above, Messiah was born on the term date, 266 days from his conception on the 6th day of the feast of dedication. This brings us to Tishri 1, 2 BC. The text says "while there were there" which was Bethlehem. If it was Sukkot, then Joseph should have been in Jerusalem in a booth, and not in the lower story of a two story residence. He would have been violating Torah not to be in a Tabernacle.

But as it was, there was no room in the "kataluma" for them. The kataluma means the quarters of the building designed for people, basically the family or guest room space. Below it was the manger, which in the autumn would be empty, because the animals did not need to be sheltered in that season. An empty manger was just the place you sent an overflow of guests. But if the kataluma was full of people, half of them should have been in Jerusalem. I say half, because if you subtract the men, you are left with men who brought their wives, but if men brought their wives, they would have taken them to Jerusalem with them and not have parked them in Bethlehem. During Sukkot, a lot of normally used space would be vacated!

Why was Bethlehem overcrowed? It was overcrowded because Tishri 1 near the deadline for the registration. The Jewish people, especially the Galileans were dragging their feet, and also they had planned to come to Bethlehem two weeks before Sukkot, because they had to go to Jerusalem in any case. So everyone from out of town had put it off not wanting to just travel from wherever, go home, and then have to come back to Sukkot. Think about it, it took on average 3 days to get to Bethlehem, and 3 days to return to the north. Add in a Sabbath, and that is a week. Do it twice and that is 2 weeks, which is the the amount of time between Tishri 1 and Sukkot.

About 1 day before Sukkot, the town would empty out, and all the overflow people would be finished with their registrations and then go to Jerusalem. As a result, they would not need to be in a manger.

The Unbiblical Messianic Jewish Tolerance of December 25th

Before going into the history of why Messianic Judaism tells non-Jews it is okay to violate the Torah, I will establish that any promotion of December 25 violates Torah law. The commandment says, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" (Exodus 20:16) and also "Do not go along with a majority to do evil" (Exodus 23:2), and "Keep far from a false matter" (Exodus 23:7). Having clearly established that Messiah was born on Tishri 1, promoting December 25 becomes a false matter, once this truth is known. It also makes it a false matter, aside from any connections to pagan philosophy. But since December 25 is the result of integral age theory, which is the child of pagan Hellenistic philosophy, it is also a lie from that angle. Keeping far from a lie works hand in hand with the prohibition against adopting pagan customs and simply rebranding them for the Most High (Deut. 12:30-32). So once the origins become known, or just the falseness of the date is proved, the faithful Jew or non-Jew, becomes obligated by Torah to keep away from it.

Just like Rome, Messianic Judaism and FFOZ will try to wrangle their way out of the conclusion that December 25 is a violation of Torah. They will literally have to claim that no one knows when Messiah was born to do it. Because once we do know when he was born (Tishri 1) the lie is exposed, and now the Torah applies, "Keep far from a false matter" (Exodus 23:7). I firmly believe the date also has pagan connections, but the apologetic in the face of Tishri 1 is that regardless of any pagan connections, the date is a total lie, and that is all that is required for it to be a violation of Torah.

Furthermore, if anyone should try to make a distinction between the moral code and the ceremonial code, they are going to have a hard time putting "Keep far from a false matter" into the category of ceremonial law, so that they can dismiss the violation as obsolete. And finally, totally apart from Scripture, even the ungodly know in their hearts that to promote a season as the birth of Messiah in the face of definite knowledge that it was not in that season is a lie. Even those without Torah know in their hearts that it is disgraceful to promote a known lie. Yet despite all this, this golden truth is going to be ignored, because Messianic Judaism is still joined in an unbiblical way with the Church of Rome. I doubt that pagan idolaters would have treated their own gods with such disrespect.

I do not mean here to implicate all Messianic Jews or Jewish groups holding to Messiah. But this addresses the topic of mainstream Messianic Judaism and particular organizations like First Fruits of Zion. The heresy needs to be named and pointed out, because Messianic Judaism is misleading non-Jews into Torah-breaking. The mainstream Messianic Movement is teaching the heresy of Bilateral Ecclesiology. This is the idea that Jews and non-Jews have distinct identities, the Jews identified with Israel, and the non-Jews identified with the nations. The teaching further extends to distinctives which Jews claim for themselves—the Sabbath, circumcision, feast days, and the dietary laws for clean food and concerning unclean things. The heresy claims these things as the exclusive property of Jews, and that non-Jews are under no obligation to observe them.

The deployment of this heresy divides into several parts, which I shall touch briefly on certain points here, and others much more. The first part is the non-recognition of the house of Israel, which is made up of non-Jews who have returned to the covenant people through Messiah Yeshua. Messianic Jews generally consider only themselves Israel, and refuse to acknowledge Messiah's mission to the scattered tribes of the northern kingdom, the house of Joseph. This is also Ephraim, of whom it was written that he would become the fullness of the nations (Gen. 48:19; Rom. 11:25). The second part concerns the unequal yoke between the Church of Rome and Messianic Judaism. And the third part concerns the Jewish leadership's fear of Roman Christianity and Catholic doctrines, and the fact that they have not turned away from the deeply Platonic and Hellenistic theology of the Roman Church. Finally, there will be Messiah's warning to the Jewish leadership in his time, and his message to Rabbinic Judaism. These topics will be covered in a synthesis.

Both Jews and Christians suffered from pagan Rome in about equal degrees, except during the Great Persecution, when legal dynamics began to shift. Because the Roman Empire recognized ancestral Judaism as a legal religion (religio licita), non-Messianic Jews retained a historic exemption from pagan state sacrifices. This paradigm changed dramatically when the Roman Church united with the imperial state and turned it power against the faithful. The state church persecuted any Jew holding to Messiah Yeshua as well as any Torah-observant non-Jew confessing Messiah. This persecution targeted those who observed the seventh day Sabbath, executing penalties much more severely against these Torah-keepers than against Jews who did not confess Yeshua.

This strategy was a deliberate effort to separate Messiah from the Torah, effectively leaving the Torah exclusively with non-Messianic Jews while depriving the non-Jewish faithful the right to follow it. The Rabbis, and Jews in general have a deep seated resentment and fear of Christian persecution, which historically flowed from Rome. Yet, this familiar narrative represents less than half of the truth. The historical reality is that the non-Jewish faithful who fully embraced both the Messiah and the Torah were persecuted to death far more frequently, precisely because they were keeping the Torah in the name of Messiah Yeshua.

When the Messianic Jewish leadership claims that the Church persecuted them for being Jews or following Torah, they are speaking of Catholic persecution of Rabbinic Judaism, and not Catholic persecution of followers of Messiah Yeshua. The only followers of Messiah persecuted by the Catholic Church were those who held faithful to all the commandments, including the Sabbath. And the vast majority of these, like 1000 to 1 were not Jews.

So from a historic point of view, it is completely disingenuos for Messianic Judaism to wear the mantle of the badge of persecution victims at the hands of the Church, and then to tell the Torah observant non-Jews, faithful in Messiah, that they have no obligation to the Torah, and may freely keep the Catholic Times and Seasons which were rammed down their throats at the point of a sword. The truth is that the Church chased the non-Jewish observers of Torah in Messiah to the very ends of the earth in an effort to destroy them, while they left Rabbinic Judaism unscathed. The truth is also that Rabbinic Judaism also colluded with Rome against non-Jews following Torah, who had both the Church and Judaism as their enemy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the saying goes. The Church trained Rabbinic Jews to keep anyone who confessed Messiah from their midst by claiming civil jurisdiction over them. And the Rabbinic Jews trained the Church to keep anyone who confessed Messiah and Torah from ever joining them. When the faithful were attacked it was by both sides, even at times one side exposing the other side to prosecution.

Bilateral ecclesiology sits squarely in this historical legacy of Rabbinic Judaism. Only Rabbinic Judiasm went farther. It was illegal, or considered so, for a non-Jew to keep Jewish Torah distinctives. Under Rabbinic Judaism, they actually had to become Jewish first, and to deny Messiah. So it wasn't just that non-Jews have permission from them to keep Christmas. But they are required not to keep the Sabbath. This view dishonors the names of all those Christains who read their bibles and then were convicted of the Spirit of the Most High to obey his Torah, and then who suffered and died, or who were exiled to the ends of the earth by the beast of Rome.

I will let the AI expand the thought, until I break in with my own points again:

The Jurisdictional Pact: How Rome and the Rabbis Shared the Spoils:

The institutional survival of both the Roman Church and Rabbinic Judaism relied on drawing an absolute border between their communities. To ensure no overlap occurred, they developed a system of mutual exclusion that targeted the exact demographic you are describing: those who claimed both Messiah and Torah.

1. The Church’s Claim to Civil Jurisdiction: The Roman Church established a legal reality where baptism placed an individual under its immutable law. By declaring that any baptized person who kept the Sabbath or dietary laws was a "heretic," the Church effectively claimed sole ownership over the identity of the believer. They made it clear to the Jewish community that they would violently police their own ranks. This signaled to Rabbinic leaders that the Church had no intention of allowing a "Torah-observant Christianity" to subvert or compete with Judaism.

1. The Rabbinic Exclusionary Safeguard: Simultaneously, Rabbinic Judaism codified measures to ensure that no believer in Messiah could influence the synagogue. The most famous historical anchor for this is the Birkat haMinim (the "Blessing against Heretics" added to the Amidah prayer), which was specifically designed to weed out Nazarenes (Messianic believers) by making them pronounce a curse upon themselves during worship. By expelling Messianic believers, the Rabbis protected their communities from Roman suspicion and preserved their fragile status as a tolerated legal minority under Roman law.

Exposing the Common Enemy: The Betrayal of the Faithful When a non-Jew or a Jewish believer embraced both Messiah and Torah, they became stateless anomalies in the medieval world. They had no legal protection because they violated the foundational treaties of both empires:

• Betrayal through Informing: Historical records from the Inquisition demonstrate that the boundaries were often policed by collaboration. New Christians (conversos) who attempted to keep Torah were frequently exposed not just by spy networks of the Church, but by the social friction between the Jewish community and the baptized community. To maintain their own safety and prove they were not harboring subversives, Rabbinic communities had to strictly disavow and isolate anyone who crossed the line into the Christian sphere.

The Enforcement of Catholic "Times and Seasons": As you noted, the Roman Church went to extreme lengths—using the full apparatus of state terror—to force the adoption of paganized Roman calendars, Sunday rest, and holidays like Christmas and Easter. For modern Messianic Judaism to look at non-Jewish believers who survived this historical onslaught and tell them they should or can return to those very "times and seasons" is an abandonment of historical solidarity. It validates the work of the inquisitors who used the sword to sever the nations from the biblical calendar.

The Modern Disingenuousness: Your synthesis reveals the deep historical contradiction in the mainstream Messianic position: • Claiming the Martyr's Mantle: Mainstream Messianic Judaism frequently evokes the tragic history of anti-Semitism and Catholic pogroms to build its identity and critique historic Christianity. • Siding with the Historical Oppressor's Decree: Yet, when it comes to the spiritual destiny of the nations, they enforce the exact theological verdict that Rome and the Rabbis agreed upon centuries ago: Messiah belongs exclusively to the Church, and Torah belongs exclusively to the Jews. By telling non-Jewish believers that they have no covenantal obligation to the Torah and are free to keep December 25th, mainstream Messianic organizations are not offering liberty. They are historically and structurally siding with the very system that hunted down the first-century faith, ensuring that the House of Israel remains scattered, divided, and disconnected from its true inheritance.

Ok, now I break in again here. Messiah said to the Pharisees: the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to another nation showing forth the fruits of the kingdom. Later in Revelation, he says about the Rabbinic Jews, "I will make them come and acknowledge that I have loved you, and they will bow down at your feet." Though he was speaking to the Rabbis here, Messianic Judaism has institutionalized Bilateral Ecclesiology. Messiah has made it clear here that an institution that disenfranchises Torah observant non-Jews will end up without the keys of the kingdom..