New Moon  1/12/38/120

Dear Friends,

This is the New Moon of the 12th month called Adar.  It is the last month of the sacred year 2015/16.  There is no intercalary month in 2016.  The intercalation is in 2017 with the 13th month or WeAdar beginning on 26 February 2017 with the New Moon at Jerusalem time of 16:58.  The Month has 30 days and the New Year begins on 28 March 2017 with the New Moon at 04:57 Jerusalem time. The system of the Temple calendar is explained in detail in the paper God’s Calendar (No. 156) including the records of Philo made over the last two centuries of the Temple period.

The New Year is always the New Moon nearest the equinox in the Temple Calendar and with the other Middle Eastern calendars up until Babylonian intercalations were invented in the Seventh Century BCE and their crazy system of measuring the calendar years was developed and passed to the Jews in 344 CE by the two rabbis from Babylon that gave the system to Hillel II.

The Temple was destroyed and Jerusalem closed to Jews by the Romans in 70 CE (see War with Rome and the Destruction of the Temple (No. 298)). The Pharisees took over from the Sadducees and established the court at Jamnia and began their system of observations so that they could fiddle with the observations of the moon because they had no system of postponements verified and we know this from the Mishnah which was compiled ca 200 CE. There were still back to back Sabbaths observed at the time of the compilation of the Mishnah and any who reads it can see that is a fact.

The system of postponements was developed between 344 CE when the Babylonian rabbis brought the Babylonian Calendar to Hillel II as high priest and they were developed and in 358 the Hillel or Jewish Calendar was issued as the official calendar.  It was incorrect because of the Babylonian system and Maimonedes made several adjustments to it in the 12th century CE. The Postponement system is examined in the paper The Calendar and the Moon: Postponements or Festivals? (No. 195).  The Jews wrecked the Temple calendar and its system due to their traditions for which they were condemned by Christ (see the paper Distortion of God’s Calendar in Judah (No. 195B)).  The problems with the Babylonian system and Hillel are explained further in Hillel, Babylonian Intercalations and the Temple Calendar (No. 195C).

The observation and the postponements under the Pharisees were resisted by what was left of the Sadducees under the later exilarch. However, when the Hillel Calendar was issued the Babylonian intercalations threw out the month of Spring by at least 6 years in every 19 year cycle. This error gave rise to the Karaite movement which by the 11th century had become a significant counter force to Hillel.  This movement is discussed in the paper The Origin and Basis of the Karaite Division (No. 156C). Now anyone with the capacity to read can get this history from the Enyc. Judaica and elsewhere.    However, the RCG/WCG under Armstrong dare not admit that their calendar came from the Babylonian system and that there was a Temple Calendar.  The Jewish pawns try to push this lie that there was no fixed calendar even today in the WCG system.  Those old hands in CCG that were present in WCG openly admit that Armstrong claimed that Hillel invented them himself and should be given credit for them.  Now that is a blatant lie. The Babylonians had them in place for some one thousand years before Hillel.

With the Temple Calendar we can always tell what sort of seasons we will have. For example in 2015 we knew that the winter in the North would be short and the Spring would be early with the New Year in March 9.  However with Hillel with the false intercalation no such deduction was possible. The Northern Summer will be longer in 2016/17 with the Spring later in April.  The Barley Harvest in the Levant will be early in 2016 but Hillel claims it is later and they intercalate.
What is more disgraceful is that they know in the WCG offshoots of the Churches of God that Hillel is a month later in 2016 and they are now trying to use the Karaite argument to justify keeping the Hillel system and intercalating in the year in which they should not do so and our officers have heard that deceitful argument used to them.

It is frustrating to say the least to hear the lies come out of the mouths of the people in the Armstrong offshoots in justification of keeping what is known and admitted to be in error by the Jews themselves through their own rabbis. Their argument is that they will have to wait for the Messiah to come to fix it.  (see the paper Why is Passover so late in 1997? (No. 239), when the same Babylonian induced error occurred.  The members of the offshoots doubtless have been fed these lies by their ministry to stop the groundswell of opinion against the use of Hillel in the Churches of God.

Anyone with half a brain merely has to ask what calendar did the Churches of God use before Armstrong and Dugger introduced Hillel to the COG (SD). The answer was the Temple Calendar and Caldwell was using that calendar and all COG (SD) congregations, even if they did not keep the Feasts like Caldwell did, were still determining the Passover correctly for the Lord’s Supper.

What calendar were the quarto-decimans keeping from the time of Christ and the apostles in the temple period and before the issue of the Hillel Calendar in 358 CE? The answer was the Temple Calendar based on the conjunctions of the New Moons (see also 156 above).

What calendar were the Churches of God keeping over the period after Hillel was issued?  Why did the UCG German speaking ministry lie by omission about the Transylvanian calendar and their keeping of the New Moons and the entire feast system in the Reformation period up until their history as recorded by Rabbi Kohn at Buda and Pest in 1894? (see the Sabbatarians in Transylvania, CCG, 1998).

Where is the academic integrity in these ministers of the WCG system?  Have they no shame?  It is a fact that no one that keeps Hillel will enter the Kingdom of God and the First Resurrection because of the laws that the system breaks.  Elijah and Enoch will deal with them and Hillel will not be kept from their time and everyone that keeps Hillel from then on will die.  Why is Sardis and Laodicea removed from the First Resurrection?  What is it that they do wrong?  Revelation 3 tells us what is wrong with them and even names the Sardis demarcation church as the Living Church of God. Surely the members of the Churches of God are not so feeble minded and brainwashed as to hand their salvation to Armstrong and his ill-educated cronies.  Wake up and repent.

Wade Cox
Coordinator General