Page 12 - BV1
P. 12
To point out the confusion and utter hopelessness in trying to figure out God's true Sabbath
day from the Gregorian calendar we use today, Joseph Lewis makes this observation --
To complicate matters and make even more impossible the designation of the seventh
day, it must further be remembered that...the Hebrew calendar was based on LUNAR
reckonings. The lunar year is shorter than the solar year by about ten days, twenty-one
hours and twelve seconds. With such a great difference, it is utterly impossible for the
Hebrew calendar to run parallel with the months as divided under the solar year. The lu-
nar month contains 29 1/2 days; consequently, every five months a new day is added to
the month. This would make the original seventh day, according to the lunar calendar of
28 days to the month, or seven days to the week, the EIGHTH day, five months later it
would make it the NINTH day, and thus the original seventh day of creation would be to-
tally lost down the corridors of time (ibid.).
Further, Idelsohn, in his Ceremonies of Judaism, makes this point: "For instance, if
Thursday, October 2, 1940, was the 5,701st year since the world was created, according to the
Hebrew calculation, how is it possible for Saturday to be the seventh day of creation? According
to this reckoning, Wednesday of the following week would be the seventh day; and since the reck-
oning of the New Year according to the Hebrew calendar is constantly changing, this is ADDI-
TIONAL EVIDENCE substantiating the claim that if there was a 'seventh' day of creation, it has
been IRRETRIEVABLY LOST" (pp. 51-52).
The Proof of the Jewish People?
"O.K.," you might say, "I can see how the true weekly cycle and the seventh day could have
been lost due to all the changes that have occurred in the various calendars. But what about the
Jews? Haven't the Jews kept the true weekly cycle throughout all their generations? Haven't the
Jews preserved God's true calendar? The answer to the last question is a resounding "NO" and, as
we will show, the Jews have LOST SIGHT of which day in the weekly cycle to observe God's
Sabbath day on! Why? Because at some time in their history the Jews DETACHED the seven-day
week from the lunar calendar and started keeping the Sabbath according to the reckoning of the
Roman calendar!
Let's make some basic assumptions here. The fact that Jesus Christ DID NOT denounce the
Jews of His day for keeping the Sabbath day on the wrong day of the week, but denounced them for
making the Sabbath a "day of bondage," clearly indicates that the Jews were then correct as re-
gards to which day of the week to keep. Later, in the works of the apostles Peter and Paul, we
similarly find no trace of these stalwart men of God condemning the Jews for keeping the wrong
day. Since Paul was martyred in 67 A.D., and Peter followed him the next year, it is probably safe
to say that the Jews were keeping the correct Sabbath day right up to the destruction of Jerusalem
in 70 A.D. by the Romans.
Writes Herbert W. Armstrong --
Now if we are convinced that Jesus set us a RIGHT example, and that He observed the
RIGHT seventh day, we need have no further difficulty.
12