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1. The Wave Sheaf Offering given on the day after the Sabbath: Is this Sabbath the first day of Unleavened Bread or the weekly Sabbath?

The Sabbath is first defined as a day of rest, a day of no work and a day to hold a sacred assembly of the faithful (Lev 23:3). On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the faithful are to hold a "sacred assembly" (Ex 12:16 NIV, "holy convocation" KJV) and to do no work. Even though these are the same characteristics as called for on the 7^th day Sabbath, the 1^st day of the Feast (along with the 7^th day) is never officially called a "Sabbath". Therefore there should be no confusion that the Wave Sheaf is referring to the day after the 7^th day Sabbath.

It would appear that the Lord was careful as to which time periods are defined as Sabbaths in the Law. For when one lines up the definitions from the Law, as they are above, then the pattern of God's Master Plan for our redemption arises despite our confusion. The history of our planet goes back a long way, but after our last judgment the Lord has allocated 7,000 years as a grand Shabua to "seven" or perfect a people who choose to follow his Way.

I consider the argument of the definition of the Sabbath to resolve this issue as secondary. The primary reasoning comes directly from the Law also. When one focuses on the definition of the Feast of Weeks in Leviticus 23:15-22 as counting seven sabbaths from the Wave Sheaf offering, only if one counts from the day after the seventh day Sabbath does one encounter seven weekly Sabbaths precisely from that point. If one starts from the first day of the Feast, then unless it happens to fall on the weekly sabbath, the only seven sabbaths you encounter right after that point for 50 days is the weekly sabbath and then the first one would be partial. So it only fits exactly if the Wave Sheaf is given the day after the seventh day Sabbath.

It seems to me the Law is clear on this issue and I don't see why there should be controversy for those who claim to know Our Father's Law.

By the way, because the Wave Sheaf is by definition offered the day after the Sabbath, when Jesus fulfilled this offering at his resurrection it certified the 7^th day as still the Lord's Sabbath Day! Furthermore, since Jesus is the firstfruits from the same harvest to eventually produce the fruit of God's elect, it also certifies Jesus as a fellow created being who has been anointed by the Father to be our Lord. Because the forces of darkness want to obscure and confuse these truths, this is why it has been so important to replace the fulfillment of this feast day with the pagan holiday of Easter, derived from Ishtar of Babylon. So Christians ministers, how do you explain the recognition of Jesus' crucifixion as the fulfillment of the Passover offering yet you don't also acknowledge Jesus' resurrection as the fulfillment of the Wave Sheaf offering?


2. The New Moon: Does it occur on the dark new moon or at the sighting of the first crescent of light?

The Hebrew word used for "month" in Ex 12:2 is chodesh. According to Strong's Concordance the meaning of this word is "a month, new moon". In Psalm 81:3 this word is used twice in a row and translated as "new moon" to emphasize the day on which one is to blow the trumpet. This Psalm makes clear that the trumpet is to be blown for all new moons and at the time "appointed" (KJV), the feast days. The Hebrew used here for "appointed" is kece which means "fullness or the full moon, i.e. its festivals: -- (time) appointed". [Note: The NIV translates this as "when the moon is full".] For the Spring and Autumn feasts to begin at the full moon, the first day of the month must be on the day of the new moon since these feasts both begin on the 15^th day of the month. This is consistent with the theme that we begin in the darkness and move to the full light for the feasts that emphasize perfecting the people. So we see that this theme of the light, the Hebrew and the Scripture quoted above (Num 28:11,14; 1 Sam 20:5; Isa 66:22-23; Ezek 46:1-8) are all in harmony with the interpretation that the day of the new moon is day 1 of the new month.

However, some bring cloudiness to this clarity by extracting meaning from a different set of Hebrew words. The Hebrew word for moon is yareach. It simply means, "moon". It comes from a root word, yerach, which means "a lunation". This is defined in Webster's as the period of time for one revolution of the moon around the earth and is a reflection of the varying light during that period. This is a natural term for the moon, to refer to the cycle of its light. Some then use cases such as Psalm 104:19 where it says that the moon determines the appointed times (Hebrew is mow'ed in this case), to say that all set times must be determined by the light. They then build an argument that the first day of the month could not be declared by an event of total darkness, so they determine that one must wait to see the first crescent of light before one declares the first day of the new month. If this is wrong, it has a very, very serious impact on the faithful in that they will be observing and watching on the wrong days!

The word mow'ed more likely refers to the feasts, again at the full moon, and it is translated as "feasts" in Lev 23:4. In my opinion, the tradition that day one of the new month occurs on the day of the first observed crescent moon is an invalid extrapolation because it contradicts Scripture and it is taken out of context. I believe Scripture is clear that the day of the new moon is day one of the new month, regardless of whether you see it or not. It is verified by observation on the closest day upon which one can see it.

As a contrast, the understanding that the first month of the year is called by observing the crop is a valid extrapolation from the Hebrew word Abib (ripening in the head) because the meaning of the Hebrew is taken in context and is supporting by the content of the passage (don't come before the Lord with nothing from the harvest), such as in Ex 23:15.

It is interesting to note that the crescent moon and star, the current symbol of Islam, was first used by Islam during the Ottoman Empire which kept the flag of the then conquered Eastern Roman Empire in Turkey. The Greeks and Persians had also used this symbol in ancient times. Furthermore, it is also the symbol of the resurrected fourth beast of Daniel, as explained in the Keys of Daniel.


3. The New Year: Is it in the Spring or in the Fall?

It is my view the argument that the new year begins in the fall is based upon a misunderstanding of the Jubilee announcement. The Jubilee is declared in the 7^th month. This warning is given at the fall feast national gathering to give all farmers a special warning to not plant in the coming fall/winter after the early rain because the new year in the following spring will be a Jubilee year. The special warning would be needed because this would mean not planting for 2 years in a row, following the 7^th sabbatical year.

Finally, in addition to the Scripture quoted above (Ex 12:2, 11, 18, 23:16; Ps 65:9-13; Ezek 40:1, 45:21) for the start of the year being in the spring, the numbering of the months clearly marks that the year begins in the spring.


4. Purim: Is this Feast Day Ordained by God?

The feast of Purim comes from the book of Esther, so questioning this feast means questioning the book of Esther. Should it be canonical? Consider the following:

• The book of Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not mention God. This alone makes it suspicious. Nor does the book have any explicit reference to "worship, prayer, or sacrifice" (see NIV intro).
  
• The Queen did not originate the feast of Purim; it was a pre-existing Babylonian pagan feast to the goddess Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven, who Jeremiah warns about in Jer 7:18 and chapter 44.
• The Queen of Persia called for a fast in her name and Mordecai's, not in the Name of the Lord or to acknowledge God (Est 9:31).
• The emphasis on retaliation in this book seems out of character for the Bible.
  
• The book of Esther was not among the books found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, nor was Purim listed among the feasts.
  

For more detail on the evidence from Qumran, see the introduction to the book of Esther in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible by Abegg, Flint & Ulrich (HarperSanFrancisco, 1999).

To put the final nail in the coffin, here are several web pages which equate the name Mordecai with Marduk and Esther with Ishtar: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, and another article.

In taking all of the above, I've come to believe that the feast of Purim is not ordained by God; and further, I am therefore forced to conclude that the book of Esther should not have been included in the Bible. [Please note that the book of Esther is the only book I reject from the NIV translation.]


5. God's Law commands the cancellation of debt every 7 years and in the year of Jubilee: Is this reasonable?

Niall Ferguson, in his book The Ascent of Money, maintains that one of the lessons of history is that it doesn’t matter what form your debt takes, whether public or private, whether your government runs up enormous external obligations or your households have taken on mortgages they can’t service, sooner or later financial history tells us these debts have to go one way or another.

They can go through default. They can simply be canceled. That occurred in ancient times with the Jubilee year, he points out. The other way they can be reduced is through inflation. In his book he shows that this has been a recurrent feature of financial history, times when suddenly the volume of money itself collapses and therefore so too does the volume of debts denominated in that money. This happened to Germany twice in the 20th century. So he concludes it may be necessary, at some point, to get out of this enormous debt mess by allowing the printing presses to roll and letting the money supply finally generate an inflation in the double or triple digits.
[CNN’s GPS 1/18/09]

Economics is not my field, but to this layman it seems that God’s law of scheduled cancellation of debt is a better overall solution for maintaining the long-term financial health of our society than random default or inflation.

Footnotes

¹ Ears Pierced to the Post: Apparently, the representatives of Judaism who translated the LXX Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures forgot the Law in this case because they did not properly render this idiom. (Ps 40:6 is corrected in the NIV.) It is ironic that this error has been captured in this translation, for it memorializes the part of the Law the Israelites forgot to observe during the time of their ancient kingdom and the reason they lost their land.

I've often wondered if Paul wrote the book of Hebrews. I submit this misquote proves he did not write the book. Of all the Apostles, Paul knew the Law well, so even in using a reference like the LXX translation, I bet Paul would have caught the error and corrected it. Paul's ministry centered on the Gentiles. Peter, on the other hand, was focused on the Jews. He was not formally educated in the Law, so he very well may not have caught this error and is a more likely author of the book.

² The 10^th Jubilee begins after the completion of Daniel's 70^th Week. The counting of the 70 weeks of years (70 x 7) stopped after the 69^th week when the Messiah was cut off, according to the prophecy, and certainly the count stopped after the land became desolate when the Romans destroyed the city and the sanctuary and the Israelites were taken captive among the nations. This all takes place within the context of God's Master Plan. The count will resume when the people have returned to the land and the protection of God's people and His holy city are arranged. This will appear to be accomplished through the covenant with death, the counterfeit covenant. This covenant will involve many nations, Israel and Jerusalem. This event will begin the 70^th Week, the final week of years, and it will resume and complete the overall count of 70 weeks of years. However, the true covenant will be reaffirmed and God's people refreshed, as they complete their journey to holiness during this final shabua (week of years), through the outpouring of God's Spirit in the form of the Latter Rain.

³ For more depth on calling the Biblical new year based upon the crop, see the article entitled: Biblical Calendar - Part III - Establishing the Biblical New Year.

⁴ Can the start of the year be delayed by as much as 3 months? Perhaps Amos 4:7 hints at this.

It is interesting to note that when the 70^th Week is aligned to end on the Day of Atonement, this puts the abomination 30 days later and it occurs in the Autumn. This is the point at which Jesus advises those in Judea to flea to the mountains and to pray that your flight is not in the winter. This always made me wonder in that it didn't seem to line up with this arrangement. However, if the 7^th year is a year of famine or plague, then the start of that year should be delayed by 3 months. The eerie thing is that this then puts the abomination in the winter for one hemisphere! (Mt 24:20).

It would appear that Satan has tried to remove the flexibility from God's calendar by again using the goddess Ishtar to entice God's people into accepting another false holiday, that of Purim. (See "Comments on Calendar Controversies" section on Purim.) If Purim is kept as a feast day in the 12^th or 13^th month, then this exactly removes the flexibility from God's Holy Calendar to wait for the crop in unusual cases such as famine or plague. This is another reason I believe it to be a false feast day. The other clear example of altering God's Holy Calendar through the influence of Ishtar is getting Christians to accept Easter over observing the Wave Sheaf offering.

The flexibility of God's calendar is expressed in a period of 3 months, a number often seen in Scripture. Symbolically, we see again the intent of the forces that suppress the truth and knowledge to restrain your upper 3 chakras. God's plan is to energize your upper 3, leading to being sons and daughters of the Most High.