The Calendar (or What time is it, anyway?) Part 1

Humankind has one basic major problem. We want to become Ya. We saw it already, the name Ya gave himself was not enough humans had to obfuscate, hide, protect, confuse and twist this very simple thing. Would you believe me if I told you that humans have struck again. Humans have forced our own reckoning of time onto our cultures. It astounds me. This is so pervasive in our world I am not sure we will ever recover.

Time. What an immense concept. There are volumes of poetry, metaphysics, and yes even real physics devoted to the study of it, the inevitability of it, the irreversibility of it, and yes even the shape of it. Time defines our reality. Time forces our mortality.

I will try and keep my comments brief, however this will be difficult I am sure.

We must start at the beginning (pardon the awful pun).

Who created time? Who decided how it works? Who put the stars and planets in motion to help us keep track of it? You could make the case that this is one of the most foundational truths. Here is Genesis 1:1-5 in my words. There was nothing. Then Ya spoke and there was light. Ya spoke again and the light was divided from the dark. There was evening and morning. The very first day was created.

Ya’s day begins and ends with the sunset. Our definition of a day begins and ends at midnight. It takes a lot of discipline to think of days starting and ending at sunset. That is Ya’s definition. Who are we to change it? As we read the Torah and all of scripture the Jews lived observant to Ya’s definitions, their day started and ended at sunset. This changes many things and is the root of many misinterpretations of scripture.

Genesis 1:14-19 describes the fourth day. This is one of my favorites because it gives meaning and purpose to the stars and universe. Once again Ya spoke and there were stars. What unimaginable power. I am awestruck just thinking about it. “Let them be for signs, seasons, days, and years.” The starry host has a purpose. They help us reckon time. They are for us signposts of seasons, days, and years. The best example of a stellar sign is of course the star of Bethlehem that drew the wise man from the east. Other dramatic astronomical signs used in the scriptures are eclipses.

Genesis 2 describes the first group of days. The seventh day was the Shabbat. The day of rest to commemorate all the work Ya had done in creation. This grouping of days is one of the few things that has been preserved. Seven days is a week and always has been.

Months are a much more peculiar thing. There is not a clear definition given in the Genesis record. It is clear in how the calendar works once we get into Exodus that months are defined as lunar months. This part of our calendar half of the world follows and the other half doesn’t. I find it peculiar that the Muslim world still uses a lunar calendar but the Christian world has fallen to modernism and the gregorian calendar.

It is interesting to me as well that the full structure of time is not completely revealed until the feast calendar is introduced after the Passover and exodus from Egypt. Obviously, civilization was abiding by a calendar up until then but from a scriptural revelation perspective it is not discussed until its structure has meaning and purpose.

We will start in Exodus in part 2 just after the Passover.

To be continued…