Bible Question:
Why do we, as Christians, NOT use the Jewish calendar? 2008, 5768. Would it not be helpful in our studies, instead of using B.C.-A.D. |
Bible Answer: Dear Lookinforacity, The Christian Calendar The Christian calendar is the term traditionally used to designate the calendar commonly in use, although it originated in pre-Christian Rome. The Christian calendar has years of 365 or 366 days. It is divided into 12 months that have no relationship to the motion of the moon. In parallel with this system, the concept of weeks groups the days in sets of 7. Two main versions of the Christian calendar have existed in recent times: The Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar. The difference between them lies in the way they approximate the length of the tropical year and their rules for calculating Easter. What is the Julian calendar? The Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. It was in common use until the late 1500s, when countries started changing to the Gregorian calendar (section 2.2). However, some countries (for example, Greece and Russia) used it into the early 1900s, and the Orthodox church in Russia still uses it, as do some other Orthodox churches. In the Julian calendar, the tropical year is approximated as 365 1 to 4 days is 365.25 days. This gives an error of 1 day in approximately 128 years. The approximation 365 1to4 is achieved by having 1 leap year every 4 years. 2.1.1 What years are leap years? The Julian calendar has 1 leap year every 4 years: Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year. However, the 4-year rule was not followed in the first years after the introduction of the Julian calendar in 45 BC. Due to a counting error, every 3rd year was a leap year in the first years of this calendar's existence. The leap years were: 45 BC, 42 BC, 39 BC, 36 BC, 33 BC, 30 BC, 27 BC, 24 BC, 21 BC, 18 BC, 15 BC, 12 BC, 9 BC, AD 8, AD 12, and every 4th year from then on. Authorities disagree about whether 45 BC was a leap year or not. There were no leap years between 9 BC and AD 8 (or, according to some authorities, between 12 BC and AD 4). This period without leap years was decreed by It is a curious fact that although the method of reckoning years after the (official) birthyear History of the Gregorian Calendar The Gregorian calendar resulted from a perceived need to reform the method of calculating dates of Easter. Under the Julian calendar the dating of Easter had become standardized, using March 21 as the date of the equinox and the Metonic cycle as the basis for calculating lunar phases. By the thirteenth century it was realized that the true equinox had regressed from March 21 its supposed date at the time of the Council of Nicea,325 to a date earlier in the month. As a result, Easter was drifting away from its springtime position and was losing its relation with the Jewish Passover. Over the next four centuries, scholars debated the correct time for celebrating Easter and the means of regulating this time calendrically. The Church made intermittent attempts to solve the Easter question, without reaching a consensus. By the sixteenth century the equinox had shifted by ten days, and astronomical New Moons were occurring four days before ecclesiastical New Moons. At the behest of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius V introduced a new Breviary in 1568 and Missal in 1570, both of which included adjustments to the lunar tables and the leap-year system. Pope Gregory XIII, who succeeded Pope Pius in 1572, soon convened a commission to consider reform of the calendar, since he considered his predecessor's measures inadequate. The recommendations of Pope Gregory's calendar commission were instituted by the papal bull Inter Gravissimus, signed on 1582 February 24. Ten days were deleted from the calendar, so that 1582 October 4 was followed by 1582 October 15, thereby causing the vernal equinox of 1583 and subsequent years to occur about March 21. And a new table of New Moons and Full Moons was introduced for determining the date of Easter. Subject to the logistical problems of communication and governance in the sixteenth century, the new calendar was promulgated through the Roman-Catholic world. Protestant states initially rejected the calendar, but gradually accepted it over the coming centuries. The Eastern Orthodox churches rejected the new calendar and continued to use the Julian calendar with traditional lunar tables for calculating Easter. Because the purpose of the Gregorian calendar was to regulate the cycle of Christian holidays, its acceptance in the non-Christian world was initially not at issue. But as international communications developed, the civil rules of the Gregorian calendar were gradually adopted around the world. Anyone seriously interested in the Gregorian calendar should study the collection of papers resulting from a conference sponsored by the Vatican to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the Gregorian Reform. |
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