Annual Donation Reports Coming
We are busy preparing the reports of total donations we received in 2019. If you contributed anything in 2019 you will have a report coming in your postal mail. We are grateful for your dedicated support this past year that enables our outreach efforts. The year 2019 was a very busy year for YRM, and we review all that Yahweh has done by our hand in ministry and expansion of the facilities for daily work and Feasts.
Interest in YRM Grows by Leaps and Bounds
Our website, yrm.org, experienced a phenomenal jump in visitors last month. Google analytics reported 19,200 visitors in December with a total 26,600 sessions. Sixty-one percent of those who visited learned of us organically — without the help of advertisements. Our videos continue uncommon viewership numbers, while our live streaming grows daily. Praise Yahweh!
TEST YOUR TUTELAGE
The Jewish calendar is the most accurate biblical calendar.
A. True
B. False
The present Jewish calendar is not the same calendar the Jews used during the time of the Messiah. Up to the time of the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem, the Sadducees were in charge of Temple worship. The growing influence of the Pharisees led to their dominating Jewish worship after 70 C.E., when the Jews were driven out of Jerusalem. Modern rabbinical worship is an extension of that Pharisee worship.
In Temple times visible sightings of the new moon in the environs of Jerusalem were carried out each month. Those sighting the thin crescent were questioned by the Sanhedrin, which was charged with sanctifying the beginning of the month. Once the new moon was seen and verified, a calculated calendar was obviously in use to corroborate the beginning of the 29- or 30-day month.
Certain changes and postponements are incorporated into the present Jewish calendar, established in the year 369 C.E. by Hillel II, which are nowhere found in the Bible. Instead of beginning the annual calendar with Abib, the first Biblical month of the year determined by green ears of barley (“Abib” means “green ears”), the Jewish calendar works backward from the Feast of Trumpets and Day of Atonement to set the year.
The Bible knows nothing of postponing a Feast day. Yet the present Jewish Calendar has four dehioth (postponements), listed here:
1) When the Molad [conjunction] Tishri occurs on a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday, Rosh Hahshanah is postponed to the following day.
2) When the Molad Tishri occurs at noon (18h) or later, Rosh Hashanah is postponed to the next day. Or if this day is a Sunday, Wednesday or Friday, to Monday, Thursday or Sabbath because of Dehiah
3) When the Molad Tishri of a common year falls on Tuesday, 204 parts after 3 a.m., i.e., 3d 9h 204 p or later, Rosh Hashanah is postponed to Wednesday, and because of Dehiah a., further postponed to Thursday.
4) When, in a common year succeeding a leap year, the Molad Tishri occurs on Monday morning 589 parts after 9 a.m., 2d 15h 589 p or later, Rosh Hashanah is postponed to the next day.
There is no authorization in the Bible allowing man to transfer or delay Feast days. Yet, one of the “religious requirements” is that Yom Kippur (Tishri 101) shall not occur on the day before or after the Sabbath and Hoshana Rabba (Tishri 21) shall not occur on a Sabbath.
Nowhere can we find that Atonement cannot occur on a Friday or Sunday. It may be more convenient when it comes to fasting on Atonement, but there is no Biblical justification for it. Neither is there any proscription against having Hoshana Rabba occur on the Sabbath.
Man-made exceptions override the rules of the calendar 60 percent of the time. Thus, exceptions dominate the modern Jewish calendar. Nowhere does the Bible teach such a thing.
The Jews themselves recognize that the calendar they presently use is of a more recent date and is not the calendar Yahshua followed when He walked this earth. The Israelites and Jews of old watched for the appearance of the new moon just as we at YRM do today. Observing the new moons has been the practice of Yahweh’s people down through history in obedience to Yahweh’s established heavenly calendar (Gen. 1:14; Ps. 104:19).
Answer: B