Feast Days and the Gestational Cycle

I have skepticism of certain aspects of how Zola Levitt and others have presented this thesis before, but there is a strong basis for it.

Here is a Wikipedia Link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy#Timeline

It is a mistake when they equate Birth with Hanukkah.  The 280th day of a Gestational Cycle identified as beginning on the First of Aviv would be the 10th Day of the Tenth Month at the soonest unless there are five extra intercalary days inserted somewhere in the first 9 months in which case its the 5th Day at the soonest.  And that’s using full 30 Day months not Lunar Months as the Hebrew Calendar is popularly understood.

But I want to focus on the first month for now.  

The 14th Day of a woman’s Menstrual Cycle is typically when the Egg leaves the Ovary and Ovulation begins, with Fertilization usually happening on the 15th Day.  Fertilization can sometimes be accomplished with Sperm planted earlier. That compelling correlation is what the rest is built on.

The first issue comes when they claim Implantation can happen at any point for a Week after Fertilization so they can identify it with the common Christian understanding of the first day of Omer in Leviticus 23:9-14.

The truth is Implantation rarely happens sooner than four days after Fertilization or later then five days.  The typical estimate is Day 6 from Fertilization and Day 20 of Gestation.  So Implantation on Day 16 or 17 to fit either Common Christian understanding of how The Resurrection fulfills “First Fruits” isn’t viable, but neither is my proposed model where The Resurrection happened on Day 22.

I’m about to now work on my own particular model for this with the Gospels-Acts narrative in mind.  And using my own proposed revision of how the Passover Chronology and The Passion interact.

https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2022/04/passion-week-chronology-completely.html

The starting point however is that the Child being conceived is The Church fitting my The Man Child of Revelation being The Church or Individual Believers thesis.  And that’s how I can be cool with no notable day correlating to Resurrection Sunday.

The Mother is Israel, the Womb is Jerusalem and the Ovaries are the Northern and Southern Kingdoms and the Egg(s) represents individual Israelites who at some point became followers of Jesus.  The Baby Daddy is The Messiah her Bridegroom and His Seed is The Word of God based on Luke 8:11.  And we are the Children of the Bridechamber in Luke 5:34. James 1:18 adds further support.

In my proposed Passion Model the significance of the 14th day of the first month is John 12:1-11.

Jesus and his Disciples entered Jerusalem on the 15th..

Implantation is the day I place The Crucifixion, a day the Followers of Jesus fled and hid for safety in Jerusalem.

The finishing of Implantation is typically day 26 which in this model would equate to Bright Thursday, the traditional reading for which is Luke 24:35-48 but I don’t think those events are actually believed to happen on that day.

Day 9 of Implantation, Day 15 of Fertilization and Day 29 of Gestation is when the Embryo Stage begins.  That correlates to the Sunday a week after Resurrection Sunday which is Thomas Sunday, John 20:24-29.  Once all of the Eggs have seen the Risen Jesus then the Embryo is formed. 

Day 20 of Implantation, Day 26 of Fertilization and Day 40 of Gestation is the day Primitive Heart Function can first be detected. Maybe we could arbitrarily identify this with Matthew 28:16-20.

Day 51 of Implantation, Day 57 of Fertilization and Day 71 of Gestation is the day The Fetal Stage begins.  And that equates to day 50 of the Omer, Pentecost.  Now that day is popularly called the Birth of the Church, but it can be viewed as the day it took its basic visible form.  It is also about here that Fetal Breathing Movements start, so remember that both the Hebrew and Greek words for Spirit also mean Breath, this is when The Holy Spirit entered The Church.

Sex Organs do not take form till during the Fetal Stage, hence Paul saying in Galatians 3:28 that we are neither Male or Female.  The Holy Spirit will guide us to our true intended Gender Identity, not the biology of The Flesh.

The Fall Feasts connections are also an area where I’m skeptical of Zola Levitt’s claimed connections. Being able to hear distinct sounds at the start of the third trimester does seem to hold up.  But Blood Cells form well before the third trimester and the Heart Beating starts before then too, same with Breathing as already shown.

Revelation 12:3-5 is part of a collection of signs being seen in Heaven, so maybe not when on the timeline the events they represent happen.  But as it’s about the preparation for Birth it could be correlated to entering the Third Trimester after the Seventh Trumpet is sounded.

Deuteronomy 16:17-19 which applied to all the Pilgrimage Festivals is also I think part of the root of the Communism of the Early Church which is described twice. Acts 2:44-45 is definitely on Pentecost so Acts 4:32-37 could be set at Tabernacles.

Our true Birth happens at the Bodily Resurrection, when the Earth gives Birth to her Dead and all Flesh sees Salvation.

But it may be worthwhile to note at least typologically that according to Acts 8 it was after the death of Stephen that The Church finally left Jerusalem, that’s when we left The Womb.  Stephen’s Martyrdom is traditionally dated to December 26th, the day after Christmas, in the West and December 27th in the East. A date that on a Hebrew Calendar could correlate to Hanukkah or the Fast of the Tenth Month. 

Protection, Passover and Easter

One of the silliest hills you will see a radical KJV Onlyist die on is defending the use of the word Easter in Acts 12:4 specifically and nowhere else.

Now I suspect the people at the King James Research Center YouTube Channel I discovered in December of 2024 are scholarly types who’d know better than to do that.  They would just argue that in King James English Easter and Passover were synonyms so it’s not a big deal that this one verse translates the name of the holiday differently then the others.  And that position isn’t entirely wrong, I’m not one of those “Easter is Pagan and the very etymology of the word proves it” types.  But I do think the baggage the word now has is a good reason to avoid it at least in how we translate Scripture.

But I'm talking about the people who argue it'd be wrong to use Passover (or whatever you think the proper name for that Jewish Holy Day is) in Acts 12:4.

These bad KJV Onlyists first argument is “it’s during Unleavened Bread so Passover is past already”.  That is based on Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23’s rather strict usage of Passover for the 14th specifically, but Deuteronomy 16 and Ezekiel 45:21 set the precedent for using Passover to describe the entire Spring Festival season and that’s clearly how many if not all New Testament references are using it, like Luke 22:1-7.

Herod Agrippa was a devout Jew not a Pagan, so no he would not have been observing any “Ishtar” festival in Jerusalem. 

The fact is this verse of Acts uses the same word as every other reference to Passover in the Greek Text, Pascha which is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Pesach.  So I think it should be translated consistently with all the others.

The little historical footnote they will cling to is that it was William Tyndale who coined the word Passover and he used Easter in this verse.  The problem is Tyndale used Easter for every Pascha verse of the New Testament.  You see he did the New Testament first and then started work on the Hebrew Bible which he never got to finish and it was for that he coined Passover.  If you asked him if future translations should use Passover for Pascha in the New Testament including Acts 12:4 I'm confident he would have said yes.

I am however now going to say something that will be anathema to even those more sane KJV Onlyists. I think even Passover was a wrong translation of Pesach.  I think Tyndale got a lot of stuff right (like translating Limne as Lake), but he messed up here, though the error begins with the Septuagint version of Exodus 12:23.

As the proper name of a Holy Day Pesach should probably just be transliterated.  

But as far as what the word means when used as a verb I agree with scholars like Nehemiah Gordon that it really means Protect and thus as a noun or name means Protection or Protector. Gordon’s articles are behind a Paywall now so I’ll instead link to these.

https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-passover-on-the-true-meaning-of-pesah

https://fatheroflove.info/article/view/explaining-that-passover-means-god-protecting-not-deciding-not-to-kill

The Septuagint in fact agrees with this interpretation of the word in two out of the three Exodus 12 verses.

Both uses of “pass over” in the KJV of Exodus 12 make more sense if translated “protect” especially verse 23, and “passed” in verse 27 works as “protected”.  Likewise “passing over” in Isaiah 31:5 definitely makes more sense in context as “protecting”.  

The seemingly contradictory way this word is translated in 1 Kings 18 as “halt” in verse 21 and “leaped" in verse 26 is fixed by understanding inherently defensive actions as what both verses were going for.  In 2 Samuel 4:4 the second “lame” in the KJV is a form of Pesach but the first “lame” is different, in this case I think it’s an ironic usage about Johnathon’s son being defenseless.

Continuing the running joke of me when talking about translation issues suggesting a Japanese word because I watch Anime, the best Japanese Translation of Pesach would be Mamoru.

East of Jerusalem Crucifixion

I’d considered just supporting the Holy Sepulcher Site now that I’ve made an effort to restrain my bias for Alternative Biblical Geography theories, which includes that I do now mainly favor the Mainstream Sinai View and definitely do not think it was in Arabia or Jordan.

But the more I think about it and look into it the more convinced I become of an East of Jerusalem model for The Crucifixion and Resurrection rather than West or North. 

The most compelling reason is the parallel accounts of Matthew 27:51-54, Mark 15:38-39 and Luke 23:45-47.  

One can argue there is some reasonable doubt that the Veil being torn has to be specifically among what the Centurion saw, but looking at it as an an aspiring writer and one who likes to analyze the writing of others, to deny every sign here is among what the Centurion saw is worse then saying the curtains are just blue.  And if you know even the basics of the Geography of The Temple and Jerusalem then you know that is only theoretically possible if they were directly due East of The Temple.

I’m still undecided about how I fully view Zechariah 12-14, but for Chapter 14 Verses 4-5 I lean towards the Earthquake cleaving of the Mount of Olives there as being the one from Matthew:26:51-54.

John 19:20 says The Crucifixion was “nigh to the city”.  To a modern reader that doesn’t seem to say anything about which direction, but when you understand all the Torah and Scriptural Emphasis on entering The Tabernacle and Camp from the East you’ll understand that best fits being on the road leading to Jerusalem from The East.

And that also applies to Hebrews 13:10-13 and it’s allusion to Torah Passages like Exodus 29:14, 33:7, Leviticus 4:12-21, 6:11, 8:17, 9:11, 16:27, 24:14 and Numbers 19:3-8.  

Additionally Numbers 31:13-19 identified “Without the Camp” as where Censuses were held, and because of Exodus 16:13, 38:16, Number 1:2-18-20-22 and 1 Chronicles 23:3-24 the Hebrew word gulgoleth could be associated with Censuses.  So Golgotha could refer not to a Geographical feature but to a place for holding a Census.

Second Kings Chapter 23 in Verses 4, 6 and 12 refer to Josiah burning Idols and other pagan paraphernalia in the Brook Kidron which is between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, even saying “without Jerusalem”. Verse 12 names Ahaz and Manasseh showing this is still tied to the Tophet mentioned two verses earlier. 

Gehenna in The New Testament is a name derived from Hinnom of The Hebrew Bible.  I disagree with the popular view that it was South of Jerusalem, that’s based on a misunderstanding of Joshua 15:8 and 18:16.  Jeremiah 19:2 much more explicitly identifies Hinnom with the Eastern Gate. 

In The Bible Kidron is always the name of a brook, the Valley we today call Kidron is the real Valley of Hinnom.  I also think the valley of Jehoshaphat and valley of decision in Joel 3 is also probably this same valley and that Joel was using poetic names rather then what it was normally called, but I know other more popular theories for that valley exist.

The Tophet is why Hinnom became associated with fiery judgment in Jeremiah 7 and 19 and Isaiah 30:33.  The Tophet was something related to the worship of Molech built by Ahaz in 2 Chronicles 28:3 (and 2 Kings 16) and used by Manasseh in 33:6.

In Genesis 22 Moriah is the name of a land not a single Mountain, but the Hebrew word translated “mount” in 2 Chronicles 3:1 can itself refer to a mountain range rather than a single mountain.  So the Mount of Olives rather than the Temple Mount being where Abraham offered Isaac is plausible.

2 Samuel 15:30-16:1 tell us David worshipped God at the Summit of The Mount of Olives as he fled the rebellion of Absalom.  In Ezekiel 11:22-23 the Glory of God leaves the midst of The City and stands on the Mountain on the East Side of The City.

In my Sunday post at the start of 2025 I mentioned Biblical reasons to view Sunrise as a symbol of The Resurrection.  Well the Sun Rises in The East so likewise Jesus should Rise East of Jerusalem.

The Romans usually Crucified criminals in front of a City's Main Gate to make sure a maximum number saw the example being made.  And for Jerusalem especially during the Pilgrimage Festivals that was The East Gate.

The problem with having so much confidence that the local Traditions couldn’t have gotten it wrong is that the history of Jerusalem is filled with multiple discontinuities.  

There is dispute on if the Jewish Jerusalem Church after AD 70 ever returned to Jerusalem from Pella even in part, because Jerusalem was largely not actively inhabited at all during that time.  But what’s most significant is after the Bar Kochba Revolt, Jews, including Jewish-Christians, weren’t even allowed anywhere Jerusalem was visible from (according to Eusebius Church History Book IV Chapter 6 Section 3), so in Hadrian’s City a new Gentile Christian community was formed that had no direct continuity with the prior community. And the thing is I don’t believe these truly Early Christians were all that invested in worshiping as special sacred locations to begin with.  

This is relevant to debating the location of The Temple as well.  You’ll see it claimed that during this period of Jews being banned from Jerusalem they were at least allowed to visit the site of The Temple once a year on the 9th of Av, but even that wasn't there from that start, that allowance was granted by Septimius Severus.  By then it’s very well possible no Jews who had ever been in Jerusalem previously were still alive, or any who had been were very old and possibly Senile.

The Architect Hadrian used for Aelia Capitolina also oversaw a similarly shaped complex at Baalbek, where a Temple to Venus was also built nearby the Temple to Jupiter, that’s why a Temple to Venus was built where The Church of The Holy Sepulcher now stands, it had nothing to do with covering up a Christian place of worship. But maybe even before Nicaea local Christians desired to imagine it was.

Where The Church of The Holy Sepulcher is located was outside the city limits during the first century, unfortunately the early history of people arguing against it was so wrapped up in people before we knew that starting with the argument that Jesus was Crucified outside the city limits that traditionalists just think that being addressed is itself enough to dismiss alternate theories.  As I laid out above, the real issue is that it’s in the wrong direction. 

Melito of Sardis and my own Hadrianic date for the writing of Revelation (Chapter 11 verse 8) can be cited as evidence that the Crucifixion site was now in the City Limits after Hadrian's rebuilding of the City.  Neither Melito or Revelation are being strictly geographically literal, and the Mount of Olives can be considered part of the area of Jerusalem in any time period.  In the Fourth Century Cyril of Jerusalem referred to both The Mount of Olives and Bethlehem as part of Jerusalem at least as far as his clerical authority went.  But if Hadrian’s rebuilding did create some increase in a willingness to refer to the Crucifixion site as within Jerusalem maybe it was some nuance in how a Roman style city is defined.  Or maybe what Cyril claimed goes back to Marcus the first Greek Orthodox Bishop of Jerusalem.  At any rate the Mount of Olives is absolutely considered part of Jerusalem now, even when modern Jerusalem is divided between East and West because of the Partition the Mount of Olives is in the same part as the Old City both being East Jerusalem.  

The Garden Tomb has the issue of its Tomb being too old going back to the Bronze Age.  We also know the Skull like Feature tourists find so attractive probably didn’t exist yet in Antiquity.  Ron Wyatt’s claim about finding The Ark under that Crucifixion site is attractive for a lot of symbolic reasons I understand, but his story also sounds way too much like Joseph Smith’s. 

There are different East of Jerusalem sites that have been proposed for The Crucifixion and Resurrection.  One of the first I read about was looking way too far north not lined up with any proposed Temple Location.  Bob Cornuke places The Temple way too far South and thus is also looking for The Crucifixion way too far South.  

I have come to favor the Northern Conjecture or Dome of the Tablets view of where The Temple/Holy of Holies stood, of alternatives to the official view it’s the least extreme, it's not that far away being essentially on the same large platform. And it involves reading sources like the Bordeaux Pilgrim pretty much the same as the mainstream view does, my hunch is simply that the Rock underneath the Dome of the Rock and the “Well of Souls” beneath is the Cave where these Fourth Century Witnesses say Solomon wrote “The Book of Wisdom”.  And that’s even if the Pilgrim was still referring to the correct Temple Site, as I said above the core mistake could have been made before the 2nd Century was even over.

The main reason I like that view is it places The Temple directly due West of The Golden Gate, which is definitely where it should be.  Placing the Temple anywhere else required arguing the Golden Gate was originally somewhere else but there is was too much archeological verification that it's always been where it currently is.  

Yes I have made a point elsewhere out of the discontinuity of Jerusalem's history caused by Hadrian, but that's about population more then lay out.  If he did place an important Shrine or Status right where The Temple was the entry gate lined up with it he wouldn't want to move, especially if the road leading up to it from the east was still in place.

I therefore think the Crucifixion site should be looked for directly due East of The Golden Gate.  It is principally the Crucifixion site that has to be directly due East, the Tomb can be a little north or south as long as it isn’t too far away from its corresponding Crucifixion site. 

I think the original Jerusalem Church may have casually commemorated these locations and they may have in some form been inherited by the Greek Church set up after Hadrian, but no one built grand structures as Christian Worship sites in the area till Constantine. I think after the site of Hadrian’s Temple to Venus became the official imperial backed site the true sites may have become reframed as more obscure references, that may or may not have been at the same location anyway.  But maybe not, again I have no great confidence that the Traditions got anything right.

So I decided to look at Churches that are due East of The Golden Gate. Attempting to start in the West then moving East, but I can’t find a single Map with all of them so I may be uncertain about some of the order.  And all of this is speculative, I don’t know nearly enough about the geography of the area to propose a definitive exact location for anything.

First is The Church of All Nations and the nearby Garden believed to be Gethsemane. The Church commemorates a Rock they believe is where Jesus prayed on the Eve of his Passion. I’ve looked at pictures of this Rock and I feel it could justifiably be said to look like the top of a Skull and thus be a  Golgotha.  But I’m not gonna be like other people insisting their Golgotha is obvious and nothing else could be Golgotha, I’m self aware that there is a bit of a Rorschach test in my seeing it here, and I’ve argued against it needing to refer to what anything looks like anyway.

John 18:1-26 mentions a Garden popularly assumed to also be Gethsemane of Matthew 26:36 and Mark 14:32.  John 19:41 and 20:15 say the Tomb where Jesus was buried was in a Garden.  Could it be that they were meant to be the same Garden?  I don’t know for certain and I don’t know if this Gethsemane has or had any First Century Tombs, but this Garden is considered to have been larger than it is now in the First Century. Sometimes I’m tempted to speculate that the traditional Tomb of The Virgin located a little north of here was actually the Tomb of Jesus.

The Church of All Nations is the point on this route that I think seems to be of the same level elevation as The Temple would have been.  Whether or not this is the Crucifixion site it feels like it makes the most sense for being where the Tophet was.

Next is The Church of Mary Magdalene.  Given that her original core importance is as the first Eyewitness of The Resurrection naming a Church for her at or near where that happened makes sense. But this Church isn’t ancient. 

The Dominus Flevit Church is a bit too far south for a Crucifixion site, but it does long fascinate me not for what it in name claims to commemorate but because of the good reason for believing it marks the primary burial site used by the original Jewish Jerusalem Church.  Christians and Jews in Antiquity chose Burial over Cremation primarily as a witness to their Faith in the General Resurrection of The Dead.  To Christians the Resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of that, so it makes sense for them to choose their first burial site as close as possible to where Jesus was buried.

Last is The Chapel of The Ascension at the Mountain’s Summit.  

The idea that the Ascension happened on the Summit of the Mount of Olives originates in a misunderstanding of Acts 1:12, that verse in my view can be read as placing the Mount of Olives between Jerusalem and where the Ascension happened.  Luke 24:50 places the Ascension at Bethany, which can be considered on the Mount of Olives but is its eastern edge not the Summit.  Bethphage was closer to the summit then Bethany was and still significantly east of it.

A lot of Prophecy students want to interpret Acts 1:11 as saying Jesus will return to the same spot he left from and tie that into Prophecies about the Mount of Olives, but that verse isn’t about location but the manner in which Jesus Ascended.  And the Eschatological significance of the Mount of Olives I think is fulfilled by the Crucifixion and Resurrection happening there, but I’ll get into that someday on my Materialist Eschatology Blog.

The “Ascension Rock” is another rock that arguably looks like the top of a Skull to me. 

Just a little South of the proper Ascension site is the Church of the Pater Noster where the Eleona was built during the reign of Constantine. It was associated with the Ascension but Eusebius also stressed it as containing a “Cave” where Jesus taught His Disciples “Secret Knowledge”, that is not a Biblical concept. The modern name implies it’s the Our Father that was taught here, but The Bible doesn’t place that in a cave and Eusebius never hints at that. A place on the Mount of Olives where Jesus taught something to the Disciples that wasn't Publicly taught would Biblically only be the location of the Olivet Discourses recorded in Matthew 24-25 and Mark 13 starting in verse 3. 

In Eusebius’s writings this site is presented as the Holiest most central site of Christian veneration prior to 325. There are reportedly first century tombs carved into the cave. 

The Bordeaux Pilgrim refers to a location near the summit of the Mount of Olives as where the Transfiguration happened, which has long confused scholars since that happened in Galilee.  Ernest L. Martin in his book on a Mt of Olives Crucifixion theory says this is a linguistic confusion with Transfixiation which could have been used to describe Crucifixion.  But I want to note that the Gospel event we typically call The Transfiguration was just a lesser preview, the true permanent Transfiguration of Jesus to a fully Immortal Unfallen state was The Resurrection. 

Jerome’s Commentarius in Sophoniam or Commentary on The Twelve Prophets is a work I can’t find an accessible English Translation of Online even though so many other Jerome works are easy to find.  There is a claim for which Ernest L. Martin sources this text on page 108 of Secrets of Golgotha that I want to independently verify about a woman named Poemenia placing a large Cross at this spot on The Mount of Olives in the late 4th Century. 

There is a lot of folklore involving Helena’s role in all this.  For one thing Eusebius’s Life of Constantine does not imply she had anything to do with choosing The Church of The Holy Sepulcher, just the Church of The Nativity and the previously mentioned Eleonia near the mainstream Ascension site.

Update August 29th 2025: I'm by no means 100% sold on the Northern Temple location, it simply being where the Dome of the Rock is could be correct.

The East of Jerusalem Crucifixion and Burial model I am firm on however.

Update September 2025: Josephus stressed the entirety of every Wall but the Western Wall being destroyed, so despite my denial before there absolutely could  be a discontinuity in the location of the Eastern Gate. 

The other pillar of the northern Temple argument is about what could plausibly be a Threshingfloor.  But I have long felt what 1 Chronicles 3:1 could mean by the Temple's construction beginning there could be flexible.  In fact I have my own reasons for thinking this Thresshingfloor was itself East of The Temple on the Mount of Olives and so wonder if anyone has looked for a plausible thresshingfloor there?

Some Rabbis have concluded the proper place for the Red Heifer Offering is on land now owned by the Dominus Flevit Church. And I have seen photos verifying the plausible visibility of the inside of The Temple from there as well.  

Update September 10th 2025: The more I learn about Dominus Flevit the more attractive of a Crucifixion site it becomes.  

One of the Trees growing in-front of The Chapel is a Throne Tree very likely exactly the kind of tree The Crown of Thrones was made from. 

There is also an ancient wine press there, and Judges 6:11 tells us that wine presses were sometimes sued as threshing floors.  Going back to 1 Chronicles 3:1 it perhaps makes sense for the site of the Red Heifer offering to be where The Temple's construction would begin.

Update September 25th 2025: I initially didn't want to emphasize the Red Heifer offering as much as others arguing for a Mount of Olives Crucifixion model.  But in Numbers 19 the Red Heifer Ashes are specifically what Purifies the Uncleanness that comes from Contact with Death. It more then any other Sacrifice in The Torah is the one can be seen as symbolizing the undoing of Death.  And then the Third Day after the Sacrifice is when the Priest who performs it is Purified. 

Update October 15th 2015: That said my view on The Red Heifer in Numbers 19 does view the use of the word "Red" as a mistranslation. 

https://materialisteschatology.blogspot.com/2025/10/debunking-myth-of-red-heifer.html

Debates about when to celebrate "Easter".

 First, a reminder that "Easter" is a word used only in English and sometimes other Germanic languages.  All of the Greek and Latin speaking ancients I'm about to talk about actually said "Pascha" everywhere modern English discussions/translations of them like Wikipedia say "Easter".

Also, by the First Century the word Peshach/Pascha was being used for all the Nisan Holy Days together and not just the 14th, but this looser application is anticipated by Deuteronomy 16 and Ezekiel 45 21-24.  That's why in Acts 12 it's still Pascha after the Days of Unleavened Bread have started.

First I want to discuss how the Quartodecimanism debate that went on in the Second Century was not the same thing as the arguments modern Hebrew Roots/Torah Observant Christians have with mainstream Western Christianity, or even the same thing as the debate that was had at the Council of Nicaea.

Both sides of the original Quartodeciman controversy were using the same calendar, and it seems like it was a lunar Calendar, if it was exactly the same Calendar the Jews of the time were using or not I don't know for sure but I think it probably was.  The debate was about whether the main celebration (Feast being the word used) should be on the 14th of Nisan (the position of the Quartodecimans) or the following Sunday which seems to be what most Christians were doing. The Sunday observers fasted through the 14th till Sunday morning.

It wasn't a debate between two entirely different methods of when to calculate anything, but a debate about whether the day Jesus was Crucified, or the Day He Rose from the Dead should be the day of the Feast.  Or in the context of Leviticus 23, Exodus 12 and Numbers 28, the day the Passover Lamb is killed or First Fruits, which is always on the morning after the Sabbath hence Sunday.

Modern Torah observant Christians often assume the Quartodecimans were the ones on their side of the dispute, and anyone who wanted to do anything but hide under their beds on a Sunday must have been closet Pagan sun worshipers.

The truth is both sides of the dispute were adding to the Torah by seeing a full Fast as being required at all.  But if you read Leviticus 23 more closely, specifically verses 9 through 14 which are about First Fruits.  Verse 14 says.

"And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for this age throughout your generations in all your dwellings."

So, it sounds like a fast of sorts ends on First Fruits.  It's also interesting that Esther's fast was at the time when Passover would normally be celebrated, but it lasted three days trough the 14th and 15th days of the month, leading to her final victory on the 17th.

Melito of Sardis' Passover teaching clearly teaches the Torah being done away with, so no the Quartodecimans were not the Hebrew Roots people of their time.

To Christians the two most important events in history are the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I would argue that the Resurrection is more important, in the Sermon on Mar's Hill in Acts 17 Paul's presentation of The Gospel to a gentile audience does not directly refer to the Death of Jesus at all, but the climax is definitely The Resurrection.  In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul refers to both the Crucifixion and the Resurrection at the beginning, but the rest of the chapter is primarily about the Resurrection.

Crucifixion Day is a day to mourn (which is often an appropriate time to Fast in Jewish thought), The Resurrection is what we celebrate.

Polycrates_of_Ephesus defended the Quartodeciman position by citing the long established traditions of the Churches in Asia.  But I've already talked about how The Bible itself gives us reasons to suspect that region was where things first started going wrong.

The debate about Easter at the Council of Nicaea is also highly misunderstood.  This debate was only about first if Christians should use the same Lunar Calendar as the Jews, and then if all Churches should use the same calendar.  There was not even any disagreement that it should be a Lunisolar Calendar.

The Council's final decision was that it should be determined independent of the Jewish calendar, and that there should be a universal agreement.  But what that final calendar was took a long time to form.

And it wasn't till centuries later that the Roman Church started making a deliberate effort to make sure Christian Passover never lines up with Jewish Passover, doing that is arguably just as much in violation of Nicaea's decision as adopting the Jewish reckoning would be, since that's not a truly independent decision.

Nicaea was addressing a disagreement that began in the late 3rd Century, so it predated Constantine's influence but was still a century after the Quartodeciman controversy.

One of the arguments against the Jewish Reckoning made at this time was that it sometimes had Passover happening before the Spring Equinox.  Now that makes it seem to me like a form of the modern Rabbinic Jewish calendar is what they were breaking with here, and indeed it seems to have developed at the same time this Christian disagreement started.  The modern Kariate reckoning has if anything the opposite problem, a tendency to happen maybe a little too long after the Equinox.  

Did the Church's developing Anti-Semitism play some factor in why this happened?  Possibly, but just as Anti-Semites criticizing Israel doesn't make criticism of the Israeli Government inherently Anti-Semitic, there is likewise disagreement even among Jews on if the Rabbinic calendar is correct.

I'm not a legalist, I don't think it's a big deal if we're technically observing things on the wrong day.  But I wanted to clarify how neither of these disputes were an Ancient Hebraic Christian practice being suppressed by a Solar Calendar using organized Church.  The origin of the current method the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant Churches use is much longer and more complicated.

I have come to think we should abandon the Lunar Calendar assumption altogether, but that's not something any of these Early Christians are known to have considered.

Passion Week Chronology Completely Rethought

Some alternate Torah calendars have become popular online lately, in particular I’ve been skeptical of those that try to synchronize the weeks to the months or at least year, like the Lunar Sabbath Calendar or the Jubilees Calendar.

Neither of those actually make the first day of the first month the first day of the week, they come up with excuses for starting the year on the same day of the week every year yet not choosing the first day.

Christians of course aren’t inclined to support a calendar that does always start Aviv on a Sunday because then the 14th of Aviv would always fall on the Sabbath, and placing the Crucifixion on the Sabbath is virtually the most impossible model. 

But I have been rethinking some things.

For starters I am making this theory in the context of my prior arguing against the Torah using a Lunar Calendar as well as for starting the day at Sunrise rather than Sunset. So my mind is presuming that as I think about all this, but it could still be compatible with more traditional assumptions about those two issues.

I’ve been thinking about the flexibility of the usage of the name Peshach/Pascha.  (Commonly translated Passover but I've seen some Hebrew scholars say it really means Protection or Protector.)  Christians debating Friday, Thursday or Wednesday Crucifixion models are often focusing mostly on the rather strict use of the term in Exodus 12, Leviticus 23 and some other passages for the 14th.  But by NT times common Jewish usage was treating it as synonymous with the entire Festival of Unleavened Bread which is largely how modern Rabbinic Jews still use the word.  Acts 12 clearly has it still Pascha during Unleavened Bread.  

The Hebrew Bible itself actually started that expansion of Peshach’s application in Deuteronomy 16 and Ezekiel 45:21-24.  Of the Five Books in the Pentateuch Jesus quoted Deuteronomy more than any other, the same is true of the New Testament as a whole, so maybe their definitions for Pascha are based on that book more so than Exodus, Leviticus or Numbers?

So if we study Leviticus 23 under the assumption that for the first month the days numbered a multiple of seven are the Sabbaths.  That would make two of the days that are important observances of that month fall on the weekly Sabbath, the 14th which is YHWH’s Peshach, and the 21st which is the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread.  

For Unleavened Bread both the first and seventh days are defined as a Holy Convocation in which no servile work shall be done, obviously they both can’t be the actual weekly Sabbath at the same time, and neither is directly called a Sabbath the way the Holy Convocation days of the 7th month are later, but the last day of Unleavened Bread is defined in the text by it’s Seventhness rather then it’s Lastness which I think can be seen as implying it.  And Deuteronomy 16:8 places special emphasis on the Seventh Day of the Feast as a day of rest repeating the Sabbath like characteristics only for it not the 15th.

Leviticus 23:9-15 describes the first day of the Omer.  Which is commonly called by Christians interested in this stuff "First Fruits", however that can be confusing because in English Bibles that term is also associated with Pentecost, but the Hebrew words are different and at least the one used in this section isn’t in it’s etymology referencing fruit.  I like to call it Aparche, the equivalent Greek word which is used for The Resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15, it rolls off the tongue easier then the Hebrew.  The Aparche is NOT part of Numbers 28, the word for Firstfruits there is the one used in Leviticus 23 of Pentecost.

The timing of the Aparche is defined as the day after the Sabbath, in context the Sabbath that follows Peshach is implicit.  I in the past and others opposing Sabbath synchronized calendars have argued it being described this way instead of simply the 16th or some other date shows that day won’t always be the same day of the month. However the Seventh day of Unleavened Bread isn’t defined as the 21st in Leviticus 23 either.  The Spring Holy Days are directly connected to each other more so then the Fall Holy Days.  The context of this section following the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread being a Holy Convocation in which no servile work is to be done I now feel reasonably implies that day is the Sabbath being referred to in verse 11.  So in the model I'm proposing the Aparche offering is the 22nd of the first month.

And then in verse 14 we are told that bread, parched corn and green ears are things we are to not eat until this Aparche offering is made. During Unleavened Bread you absolutely are supposed to be eating Matzah (unleavened bread), some argue Lehem always means specifically leavened bread, I’m unsure on that as a general rule but in context it certainly does here.  So verse 14 basically defined this day as the day we return to eating what we were restricted from eating during Unleavened Bread in Exodus 12:20.

Leviticus 23:13 is also the only time the word "wine" appears in the KJV of this chapter.  The Hebrew is Yayin which of the Hebrew words translated Wine is definitely one that refers specifically to fermented Wine.  In Exodus 12:20 the word the KJV translated "leavened" the Young's Literal Translation renders "fermented", some Karaites believe this refers to more then just Unleavened Bread, my interpretation of the Aparche here agrees with that.  Also Yeast is used in Fermenting Wine which I didn't even originally know.  Numbers 28:24 confirms that Drink Offerings are part of the days of Unleavened Bread, so "fruit of the vine" can be drank during those days, just not fermented Wine.  

Deuteronomy 16:9 identified the first day of the counting of the Omer as the day they first put the Sickle to the Corn.  In the context of that Chapter that can only be after the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread are over because those days are a pilgrimage festival, everyone is gathered together at the Tabernacle and are not attending their Farms.

In John 20:17 Jesus tells Mary not to touch Him because He hasn’t ascended to The Father yet, since later in the same day the disciples are allowed to touch him, that implies some brief ascension happened, and people studying the Feast Days have argued this was him as our High Priest making the Aparche offering. Leviticus 23:12 refers to a Lamb being offered at this time, but doesn’t say the Lamb was killed that day.  Now don’t get me wrong I’m sure literal Lambs offered that day were probably killed that morning, but the wording here gives us room to typologically view this Lamb as the Risen Jesus presenting Himself to The Father.  1 Peter 1:19 could have a lot of Torah Scriptures in mind, but in the KJV wording it’s arguably most directly quoting Leviticus 23:12 "lamb without blemish".  

In Deuteronomy 16 it is contextually Peshach as a name for Unleavened Bread that is required to be observed in Jerusalem with animals killed in The Tabernacle/Temple, probably the same Sacrifices as Numbers 28:17-25, because the establishment of the Pilgrimage Festivals in Exodus 23:14-17 includes Unleavened Bread but not Peshach.  The 14th of Aviv Peshach was a family matter not a Levitical Sacrifice, it did not have to be in the same city as The Mishkan and was killed by the head of the Household not a Kohen.  I think that is the Supper being eaten in Bethany at the start of John 12, and then the 15th is the Day of the Triumphal Entry aka Palm Sunday.

“How does the 10th of Aviv’s significance from Exodus 12 fit in then?” You may ask. Well that is not one of the ordained to be repeated observances of Leviticus 23, there are only two other references in all of The Hebrew Bible to the 10th day of the first month being a day where something happened.  Ezekiel 40:1 where that is the date of the day Ezekiel had the vision the rest of that book is describing.  And Joshua 4:19 where it’s the day The Israelites encamped at Gilgal.  Gilgal could be related to the place called Ephraim in John 11, but speaking of John 11 it’s clear in John 11-12 that the raising of Lazarus really spiked Jesus’s popularity, in a very real sense that is the day He was chosen by the people.

But going back to my point about Deuteronomy 16.  I think even if Pascha is always used in a singular form, it’s still a meal that is eaten every evening during this week.  That’s how The Last Supper could be a Pascha Meal but there was also a Pascha being prepared while Jesus was on The Cross in John 19:14.

In Matthew 26 I believe the first five verses should be the end of chapter 25, they tell us when the Olivet Discourse happened not anything in the following verses.  Regardless, two days before the Pascha sounds like there is one specific Pascha in mind, as does John 12:1.  It could be that the narrative voice of The Gospels is sometimes using Pascha specifically of the day of the Crucifixion and/or The Last Supper in timing statements like these.  

However for John 12:1 the Peshita reads "before the Six Days of Peshka" which sounds like a direct reference to Deuteronomy 16:8.  

Matthew 26, Mark 14 and Luke 22 are all chronologically jumping backwards when they talk about Jesus being anointed for burial and the argument with Judas then Judas deciding to betray Jesus over it which we know from John 12 all happened the day prior to the Triumphal entry.  And so likewise the following part about making the arrangements for the Upper Room and Pascha may have also been done that same day or the day of the Triumphal Entry, then it transitions back to the present for the Last Supper.  Meaning Matthew 26:2, Mark 14:1 and Luke 22:1 could be referring to two days before the Triumphal Entry.

Now I know the main objection some are going to have is that this weakens the Typology of Jesus as The Lamb which we’ve usually thought of as the Exodus 12 Peshach Lamb first and foremost.  But that Lamb isn’t a Sin Offering as The Lamb of God is clearly defined as being in both John 1 and when Paul says Jesus was made Sin for us in 2 Corinthians 5:21..  No Sin Offering is ordained for the 14th anywhere in The Torah, but Numbers 28 and Ezekiel 45 do have Sin Offerings happening during the Seven Day Festival.  Jesus ultimately fulfills all the Sacrifices not just one.

This also forces me to become a supporter of a Friday Crucifixion model, since now every reference to a Preparation day in The Gospels would have to be Friday, the preparation for The Sabbath.  In the past I’d always been bothered by the Seventh Day of Unleavened Bread having no significance to The Gospel narrative, but in this model that day can be identified with the Sabbath being referred to in those passages and called a High Day in John 19:31.  

Friday is the day Adam was created, The Last Adam goes into the Earth the same day the first Adam was formed out of it.  The Torah constantly counts days Inclusively, like how the time for Circumcision is always determined.  The "Three days and three nights" statement is said only once and in the context of referencing Jonah, exactly how long it would be was not the actual point.

That makes the Crucifixion the 20th day of the First Month, that day is never singled out anywhere in The Hebrew Bible.  But I think that’s good actually, I don’t like how often Western Christians make the Crucifixion equal to or even more important then The Resurrection.  The Resurrection is what the Point of all this was, so that being the day the Aviv Holy Days are all building up to is perfect.

The 22nd of The First Month being the first day of the counting of the Omer makes day 40 the first day of the Third Month.  Having Ascension Day by the third Rosh Chodesh of the year could be relevant because of Exodus 19:1, but also 2 Chronicles 15:10 and 31:7.

The rest of this post is more speculative and not vital to the main argument.

InspiringPhilosophy's videos on Genesis and the Passion Week.

I respect IP a great deal and he's done many videos I like, it is not my intention to be hostile at any point in this.

Genesis first.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TUeQHe-lZZF2DTxDHA_LFxi

He is making these videos largely to oppose Young Earth Creationism, so in that way we are at odds.  But he also makes arguments on some issues I feel very inclined to agree with.

Ben S I also have in mind in this post, he and IP have different views on the Nephilim but besides that they seem to be mostly coming from the same place.  I haven't dug into the details of Peter Hiett's interpretation of Genesis yet.

I don't want to go in-depth on everything, as much of it relates to things I've talked about before. I just have a few particular comments to make.

I believe he was correct to argue that Adam was forbidden to eat the fruit only until he was ready for it.  But to me that should have gone hand in hand with arguing that the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge are actually the same tree.  The entire basis for the "doctrine" that Pre-Fall Adam needed to eat from the Tree of Life to be immortal is a comment made at the end of Genesis 3 about Adam in his post-fall state.

And as proof that I'm not some absurd Hyperliteralist, no I clearly don't think "both their eyes were opened" means they literally had their physical eyes closed.  It's a description of something metaphysical happening.

On the creation of Eve, I also agree that "rib" should be translated "side" and that the picture here is of Adam being split in half.  However he argues that this is merely a vision because God putting someone in a deep sleep always means that, and then cites Genesis 15 as if no one would disagree that God's covenant cutting ritual was a mere vision there.  But I do disagree with that, I believe God walked in a figure eight at Shechem and that is why Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal look the way they do.  Genesis 1 and 5 tell us Adam was created Male and Female, what we call the creation of Woman was really Adam being literally split in two.

On the argument about what The Serpent is I mostly agree.  But the one difference is no the Hebrew text of Genesis 3:1 and 14 does not justify saying the Serpent wasn't a "beast of the field" and a Behemah, it was.  The thing is I believe all the beasts and fowls created in Genesis 2:18-19 are angelic beings who were sapient enough to be potential mates for Adam, and only Genesis 1 records the creation of normal animals.

IP's Nephilim argument is for the royal bloodlines view.  I hold what is technically a from of the Sethite view, unfortunately IP talked about that view the least trying to write it off with two bad arguments based on a strawman understanding of it, the point is not about bloodlines but about Sons of God being Believers.  My post on the subject is partly devoted to undoing that false understanding.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-nephilim-and-sons-of-god.html

Now his argument overlaps with mine in some ways when it comes to arguing that the Sons of God can be Human beings.  But I actually disagree with conceding Sons of God ever means Angels, especially not Psalm 82 which Jesus quotes as being about the Israelites.

He criticized the Hybrid view for being so dependent on later material, yet he too depends a lot on extra-Biblical material to support Sons of God meaning Kings.  I show how my view fits the meta narrative of Genesis being about the escalation of violence.

His Meta Narrative for Genesis makes it so he thinks the main Sin in view here is Polygamy.  I have utterly destroyed the notion that The Bible is anti Polygamy in any Testament.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2019/11/saying-one-flesh-does-not-rule-out.html
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2018/08/just-accept-that-bible-doesnt-condemn.html
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2019/12/mono-mia.html

And that's as far as he is at this point.  I may do a follow up in response to future videos.

In his answering Bible Contradictions series, he on a number of occasions takes routes different then what I would and that's fine.

The problem is when it comes to ones relating to the chronology of the Passion Week.  He is acting as if the Crucifixion being Friday is the most undisputed detail of the Chronology, and those who think Jesus spent more time in the Grave then the traditional Easter week observance are moving the Resurrection to Monday or later, when I've never seen anyone argue that and I investigate these matters and study alternate views a lot, the day of Crucifixion is what's disputed, most commonly are arguments for Wednesday and Thursday.  The only people trying to move the Resurrection are those wanting to move it up to the Sabbath who I have a few posts addressing on my Prophecy blog.

As someone who has been for most of my online activity a Thursday Crucifixion proponent (but I have been more open mindedly looking into other chronologies recently), I agree that the inclusive numbering is a valid interpretation which is part of why I have generally rejected the Wednesday model.  But his desire to weasel out of three days and three nights is simply nonsense, that phraseology is clearly meant to imply something more specific then just three days.

The Resurrection is placed on the "third day" many times, but the Crucifixion is never called the "first day".  I believe the Resurrection was on the Third Day of Unleavened Bread, the 17th of Aviv.

The Crucifixion is seemingly described as the day before (or preparation day of) the Sabbath a few times.  However the Sabbath in question is the 15th of Aviv not the weekly Sabbath.  Leviticus 23 describes the 15th as a day that is like the Sabbath in that doing labor was forbidden.  Leviticus 23 doesn't use the word Sabbath for that day, but when talking about the seventh month it does do so for it's non weekly days you can't work.  When discussing the first month it avoids that only so there is no confusion that the weekly Sabbath is the one relevant for determining Fristfurits and Pentecost.  We know the Sabbath approaching when Jesus died was a Holy Day not a regular weekly Sabbath because John 19:31 explicitly calls it a High Day.

And not even every Gospel explicitly calls the day after the Crucifixion a Sabbath, Matthew never does, Matthew only calls the night before the Resurrection the Sabbath in 28:1, and calls the day of the Crucifixion the Preparation in 27:62 but never uses the word Sabbath in chapters 26 or 27.  Matthew is the most Jewish Gospel, the one some sources say was originally written in Hebrew.  So it makes sense he would use these terms more strictly and correctly to Torah terminology then other NT writers.  I believe in all four Gospels that Preparation Day means the 14th of Nisan not Friday.  Ezekiel 45:21-22 gives Biblically precedent to the 14th being a Preparation day.

Mark 16:1 is misused by Wednesday proponents to say the Women purchased the spices after the Sabbath creating apparent conflict with Luke 23:56 that they then resolve by placing a day between the two sabbaths.  But this is false, Mark 16 is only referring to them having purchased these spices previously.   In context Luke 23 is clearly making it still the same day they Buried Jesus that they prepared the Spices.

IP's second video on Passion Week chronology is about if the Last Supper was the Passover Seder.  The Last Supper being the Seder is the casual popular misconception, but every theologian who actually cares about how Jesus fulfills the meaning of Passover knows the answer to this alleged contraction needs to be that Jesus is the Lamb and so is killed when the Lamb is killed.

The idea that the Synoptics make the Last Super the Passover Seder is based on a statement recorded in Matthew 26:17, Mark 14:12 and Luke 22:7, and then another Quote that's only in Luke I'll get to later.

And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover?

If these verses are translated correctly then they are a problem no matter what chronology you support because they make it sound like the Passover is killed during the days of Unleavened Bread.  The Passover is killed during the daylight hours (Between the evenings in the YLT) of the 14th.  Fact is there is no coherent chronology where eating the Seder is yet future but it's already during Unleavened Bread.

In at least Matthew the word Day isn't used in the Greek, and the word translated "first" can also mean "before".  I don't know exactly how to translate these verses, but I think they are saying that Unleavened Bread is approaching since everyone knows they come after the Passover is killed.  And the beginnings of both Matthew 26 and Mart 14 place these events 2 days before Passover and Unleavened Bread.

The Disciples make these Passover arrangements two days in advance, but then Matthew 26:20 and Mark 14:17 make the Last Supper that very evening.

The only verse that even comes close to seemingly directly describing the Last Supper as Passover is Luke 22:15-16.  And we have another translation issue, because some add the word "again" to verse 16 when that's not in the Greek, or the KJV or the YLT (it's not even in the Peshita).  In this quote Jesus says he desired to eat the Passover with His Disciples before He suffered, but he's saying that to lament the fact that He won't.

John 18:28 is using the word Passover not of a holiday but of the Lamb itself to be eaten.  Even in the looser terminology they might have been using in the first century AD that was still only ever done in reference to the Lamb killed during the daylight hours of the 14th.  And I believe 19:14 is doing the same, this is happening as they are preparing the Passover Lambs for slaughter just as Jesus is being prepared for slaughter.  John called Jesus the Lamb of God all the way back in the first chapter.  This is also why it's stressed that none of the bones were broken.

1 Corinthians 5:7 says Jesus is our Passover Sacrificed for us.

What was the Last Supper if it wasn't The Seder?

Well I feel the main Hebrew Bible precedent for it is Genesis 14 not Exodus 12, with Jesus as Melchizedek and the Disciples (us) as Abraham.  [But I also now view The Showbread as another Hebrew Bible concept connected to the Eucharist.  It however provides the justification for doing a weekly Eucharist on the weekly Sabbath rather then helping us identify the day of the original Last Supper.]

Extra Biblical ideas suggested include it being a Seudat Mitzvah of some kind like a Seudat Siyum Masechet, or a "Teaching Seder".

As I've gone over the different types of Seudat Mitzvah further, I've come to think that maybe the Last Supper is a Sedat HoDaa, a Thanksgiving Mitzvah given the emphasis on Jesus giving Thanks.  But the Pidyon HaBen is also interesting.

The "Teaching Seder" I have had trouble finding verification is a thing among Jews independent of Christians talking about this issue which is why I bring it up with reservations.  But the concept is basically like doing a rehearsal dinner for a wedding the night before the actual dinner.  And frankly that actually fits best with what actually happens at the Last Supper.  When Jesus says "do this in remembrance of me" in Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24-25, He's giving them instructions for the Seder they will have the following night when He's gone.  Which is why it's still valid for Christians to read the Last Supper account when we have a Christian Passover Sedar.

So I think the earliest Christians were doing the Eucharist on Thursday night proceeding Resurrection Sunday for that reason, and in time the tradition simply got confused.