A Perfect Calendar

 

I acquired a book recently written by Ken Johnson entitled “The Ancient Mysteries of the Essenes.” In it, Johnson discusses the various calendars used by humanity throughout the ages and which one might be Biblically accurate. This essay is based on Part 1 of the book entitled, “The Ancient Dead Sea Scroll Calendar and the Prophecies it Reveals.” It forms the basis of his conclusion for a Biblical calendar, based on a consistent application of the Scriptures. It is his perspective that the Essenes, custodians of the Dead Sea Scrolls held to a Biblically accurate calendar that is supported by the fulfillment of a number of Old Testament prophecies.

The calendar we use today is the Gregorian (Julian) Calendar, a solar calendar based on a 365-day year with one extra day added every four years. Some holidays are set on the solar calendar. The American Independence Day is always celebrated on the fourth of July while others, like Easter are based on a lunar calendar, so they are celebrated on a different day of the month each year. Easter always occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox. 

The modern Jewish Calendar is a lunar calendar based on a 354-day year and then a leap month (Adar II) added every three to five years to keep somewhat in sync with the four seasons. The months start on a new moon. This is not how the Jewish Calendar began. It was the Essenes who taught that God gave us a perfect calendar, a solar calendar and it was observed from the time of Adam to Moses. It remained the only calendar observed by the Jews until they were forced when under foreign rule to use the Seleucid Greek calendar, modified by the Pharisees and similar to the one they use today. 

Calendar of the Essenes 

The Essenes recognized the original calendar as 364 days long, evenly divided into fifty-two weeks. [Since each year is 365.24 days, they accommodated a 24 hour day by recognizing a leap week, recognized once every five or six years.] This meant that all holidays fell on the same day of the week each year. They began each new year on Wednesday since it was the day God separated the earth from the heavens and day from night. They believed the calendar year started in the spring (not the fall) with the spring equinox. This calendar remained in use through the time of King David, who wrote fifty-two songs, one for each Sabbath. These songs have the dates in them showing which Sabbath it was and what solar date was for each of the Sabbaths. This calendar began to get corrupted after the return from exile. 

The Ancient Book of Jubilees gives a prophecy (6:36-38) that the Jews would replace the solar calendar with a lunar one. This Book consists of fifty chapters as additional instructions to the Torah and given to Moses by angels on Mount Sinai. It is not recognized as canonical by Judaism but acknowledged and quoted by a number of Church Fathers.

For there will be those who will assuredly make observations of the moon – how it disturbeth the seasons and cometh in from year to year ten days too soon. For this reason, the years will come upon them when they will disturb the order, and make an abominable day the day of testimony, and an unclean day a feast day, and they will confound all the days, the holy with the unclean, and the unclean day with the holy; for they will go wrong as to the months and sabbaths and feasts and jubilees. For this reason, I command and testify to thee that thou mayest testify to them; for after thy death thy children will disturb them, so they will not make the year 364 days only, and for this reason they will go wrong as to the new moons and seasons and sabbaths and festivals. 

Because of the continued corruption of the calendar by the Pharisees (among other things), the Essenes referred to them as “sons of darkness” (i.e., lunar darkness) while seeing themselves as the “sons of light” (i.e., solar light). A number of other ancient writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls also support the Essene conclusions about the perfect calendar. 

6,000 years of Human History

Several Church Fathers embraced the perfect calendar of the Essenes and they believed that the Second Coming of Messiah would take place in 6000 AM followed by the Kingdom Age of 1,000 years. The first 6,000 could be characterized by threes ages of 2,000 years each, the Ages of Chaos, Torah, and Grace. I have included in this work a revised timeline utilizing the perfect calendar, identifying the dates of many Biblical and historical events. Given this timeline, we can conclude that 6000 AM will take place in 2075 AD.

Why is the accuracy of the timeline we keep measuring time so important? If the Gregorian and Jewish calendars are not accurate, then we have assigned inaccurate dates to many ancient historical events. This also creates a real problem in trying to calculate the fulfillment of prophecies with timelines attached, like the seventy weeks of Daniel found in chapter 9. When applying the perfect calendar timeline to the prophecy, we come to the conclusion that Jesus died on Golgotha on April 6, 32 AD. 

Amazing Prophesies

Another of these prophecies is found in Daniel 5:25-28 where words appear on King Belshazzar’s wall:

“Now this is the inscription that was written out: ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’ “This is the interpretation of the message: ‘MENE’—God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. “‘TEKEL’—you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. “‘PERES’—your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”

There is another interpretation of this event when considering that these Aramaic words can also refer to units of measure, mene refers to 1,000 garahs, tekel = 20 garahs, and peres is 500 garahs. If we add them up, they total 2,520 (1,000 + 1,000 + 20 + 500) prophetic years. The perfect calendar dates Darius’s decree to grant the Jews control of the Temple Mount as August 25, 518 BC. Adding 2,520 years to that date includes recognizing the Jewish calendar of this time as 360-day years, requiring a calculation into days. This calculation takes the result to June 7, 1967, the exact date when Israel was able to take control of the Temple Mount during the six-day war. 

Another similar prophecy is the reestablishment of Israel as a nation on May 14, 1948. Both Ezekiel and Daniel contain prophecies that foretell this exact date. In Ezekiel 4:4-6: 

“As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it. “For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days; thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. “When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year.

Confirmation of Prophecies

Ezekiel is told to lie on his left side for 430 days representing 390 years of Israel’s unfaithfulness and another 40 days on his right side for Judah’s years of sin. According to Leviticus 26:14-18, God’s punishment would be multiplied by seven. Seventy of these years was served in Babylonian captivity, leaving 360 years. The 360 remaining years of Israel’s judgment would mean 2,520 (360 x 7) years. God would impose this judgment on Israel if they would not repent of her sins upon their return from exile in Babylon. According to the perfect calendar, Cyrus issued his decree reestablishing the Jews in Israel on August 3, 537 BC. Again, taking into consideration the 360-day Jewish year, and converting the years into days, we arrive at May 14, 1948. One can arrive at the same date when considering Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years of judgment in Daniel 4. 

There is much more in Ken Johnson’s book that address various aspects of our calendar, including the way we name the days of the week. The Dead Sea Scrolls included many extra-Biblical writings that provide more insights into a perfect calendar as well as many other related topics. I highly recommend it.

	AM		BC		AD
Creation (Adam)	1		3925
Seth	130		3795
Enos	235		3690
Cainan	325		3600
Mahalaleel	395		3530
Jared	460		3465
Enoch	622		3303
Methuselah	687		3238
Lamech	874		3051
Noah	1056		2869
Shem	1558		2367
Flood	1656		2269
Arphaxad	1658		2267
Selah	1693		2232
Eber	1723		2202
Peleg	1757		2168
Reu	1787		2138
Serug	1819		2106
Nahor	1849		2076
Terah	1878		2047
Abraham	1948		1977
Isaac	2048		1877
Jacob	2108		1817
Joseph	2199		1726
Joseph enslaved	2216		1709
Joseph began ruling	2228		1697
7-year famine	2237		1688
Jacob comes to Egypt	2238		1687
Jacob dies	2255		1670
Joseph dies	2309		1616
Moses born	2368		1557
Exodus	2448		1477
Solomon's temple dedication	2935		990
Destruction of temple	3338		587
Cyrus frees the Jews	3388		537
Darius the Mede rules			536-530
Cambyses rules			530-522
Pseudo-Smerdis executed	3481		522
Darius I rules			522-486
Xerxes rules			486-465
Artexerxes rules			465-424
Artaxerxes decree	3481		444
Babylon falls to Alexander	3598		327
Alexander the Great rules			326-323
Death of Messiah	3957				4/6/0032
Israel reborn (Dan 4)	5873				5/14/1948
Control of Temple Mount	5892				6/7/1967

AM=Anno Mundi                      BC=Before Christ                   AD=Anno Domini