3<\/strong>4 \u00a0<\/strong>The new moon determining Nisan in 4 BC was on (Julian) ca. March 27, which seasonally adjusted from the Julian Calendar to today\u2019s calendar would make it \u2018feel\u2019 like March 24. While this makes for a relatively early Nisan, there was almost certainly \u00a0no<\/u> <\/strong>intercalated month that year, or otherwise the 1st of Nisan would have been April 26, which, even when seasonally adjusted to April 23, would have thrown forward the Passover meal to\u00a0May 6, all but too late in the year. In other words, it seems very unlikely that there was an intercalated month in the year many claim was the year Herod died (4 BC). Therefore the time between the eclipse and the Passover in\u00a04 BC would have been one, not two, months.<\/p>\n 3<\/strong>5 \u00a0<\/strong>The new moon used for determining the 1st of Nisan, 1 BC fell on (Julian) March 25 or else April 23. This would equate today to about a March 22 or April 20 beginning of Nisan, though probably the former, since the latter would throw forward the Passover to (Gregorian) May 4, i.e., quite late in the year. Again, and for the same reasons, the 4 BC calendar which yields either ca. March 28 or else April 26 date for Nisan 1 all but rules out the latter date, because it places Passover on about May 6, which is even later. Jewish and Egyptian Calendars from the 5th century found at Elephantine show that in 14 instances the Jews reckoned the 1st of Nisan somewhere between (Julian) March 26 to April 24 (inclusive), or what on the Proleptic Gregorian Calendar would approximately equal March 20 to April 18. Consulting the NASA chart shows that the eclipse in 4 BC would\u00a0have allowed only about one month for all the events to take place which Josephus relates, whereas the eclipse of January 9, 1 BC would allow nearly 3 months. Also, the eclipse as viewed from Jerusalem in 1 BC is total, whereas the eclipse in 4 BC is not.<\/p>\n 3<\/strong>6 \u00a0<\/strong>http:\/\/www.csgnetwork.com\/juliandaydate.ht<\/a>ml is one site that seems reliable. After entering a different day, you may need to move the mouse outside the calculator and left-click, rather than to press \u201cEnter.\u201d<\/p>\n 3<\/strong>7 \u00a0<\/strong>At the risk of pressing a parable too far or drawing an analogy not originally intended, it nevertheless seems possible that the parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:6-9 may be an indicator of how long Israel remained fruitless\u00a0during Jesus\u2019 ministry. (This idea was suggested by my brother.) As far back as the Old Testament (see Is. 5) God used a simile of a husbandman\u2014planting, tilling, and tending a fruit-bearing crop with the expectation there would be fruit\u2014to God\u2019s own expectation of spiritual \u201cfruit\u201d among the people whom he \u201cplanted\u201d and cared for in the Promised Land. Jesus seems to have had this idea in mind when expressing the following parable:\u00a0<\/p>\n He [Jesus] spoke also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumber it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it,\u00a0and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.<\/p>\n Now, most <\/em>of the early figs arrive in June\/July, with the harvest in August\/September. So let us say a farmer had a farmhand plant a tree in spring, and the next year the farmer looked for figs on that tree in late summer or\u00a0early fall during the harvest, saw\u00a0none, and came back each year for three years. That would equal\u00a0three years (four times looking for fruit). But suppose he delayed cutting the tree that last fall because the farmhand wanted to\u00a0aerate and fertilize the soil to see if it would help. Yet when mid- spring came the farmer still saw\u00a0no visible signs of the very earliest\u00a0figs known as breba<\/em>, which in Israel can be seen as early as late April (especially if the tree is near a house). In such a case the\u00a0duration of time the farmer waited from his first inspection of the\u00a0tree would be approximately<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Vinedresser and the Fig Tree, by James Tissot.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n equivalent to the time of Christ\u2019s\u00a0ministry, about 3\u00bd years. Thus\u00a0Jesus\u2019 parable seems to invoke an Old Testament simile that should have been familiar to his Jewish audience. Interestingly enough, the Antichrist, too, will spend 3\u00bd years from the time of his rise as a political savior before he presents himself as the Jewish Messiah.<\/p>\n 3<\/strong>8 \u00a0<\/strong>http:\/\/www.hope4israel.org\/pdf\/passover.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n 3<\/strong>9 \u00a0<\/strong>The two lambs appear to represent the \u2018bookend\u2019 times of Christ on the cross, from the beginning of his crucifixion to his death. The date of crucifixion was May 1, 33 AD. The amount of daylight was about 13 h 22 m. Dividing 12 hours of daylight into 802 m is about 66 m 50 s. (It is assumed here that for purposes of civic time during daylight, a sundial(s) was used so the public could know what hour of the day it was. The Roman writer Censorinus says that Manius Valerius introduced sundials to Rome after his victories in Sicily. This was in the\u00a0mid-3rd century BC, and so it is reasonable to suppose sundials were used throughout the Roman kingdom in Jesus\u2019 day. Water clocks were at least one way the Romans judged time during the night. The 12 hours of darkness would have been of less duration than the hours of daylight during the Passover in 33 AD. According\u00a0to Redshift 6 software Sunrise at Jerusalem came 03:09:25 UT and sunset at 04:30:53 UT. Adding 2 h 20 m 55 s for local time and allowing for refraction of about 4 m 43 s before sunrise and also after sunset gives us daylight from 5:25:03 AM to 6:56:31 PM, for a total daylight of 13h 33 m 28 s. We divide this by 12 h with the result that each hour lasted 1 h 7 m 47 s. The gospels give four hours related to the resurrection. John says that after Pilate had questioned Jesus he brought him out the second time to the crowd at about the 6th hour, i.e., one \u2018hour\u2019 before sunrise, or 4:17 AM. John reckons from midnight according to Roman reckoning. The synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all reckon from Jewish time (the 12 hours beginning with either sunset or sunrise, in this case sunrise). Mark states that the crucifixion began at the 3rd hour and Matthew, Mark, and Luke state that there was darkness at or about the 6th hour until <\/em>the 9th hour. At the end of the 9th hour Christ died. The word\u00a0for \u201cunto\u201d or \u201cuntil\u201d the 9th hour is the Greek word heos <\/em>which we will study in Chapter 7, and which always, or\u00a0virtually always, means through the time of<\/em>, hence, through the entirety of the 9th hour. Although we are not\u00a0insisting here that the specific hours given by the gospels are generally intended to mean to-the-second or to-the- minute, we give the times for the 6th hour of John and the 3rd hour of Mark and the 6th and 9th hours of\u00a0Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Rounding to approximately the nearest minute or so, the sixth hour of John, when Pilate brought Jesus out to the crowd after speaking to him, was an hour before daybreak, i.e., 4:17 AM. The 3rd hour spoken of by Mark, in which Jesus\u2019 crucifixion began, ran from about 7:41 AM to 8:49 AM. The darkness which Matthew, Mark, and Luke said covered the land from the 6th hour through all of the 9th hour, began somewhere between 11:02 AM and 12:09 PM, and ran through 3:35 PM. At this point the darkness lifted and the daylight returned until the sun set at 6:57 PM, which marked the beginning of the 15th of Nisan. I have given these times mostly for curiosity\u2019s sake, but also to show there was time to bury Jesus and for the women to prepare spices by sundown, to be used after the 15th of Nisan was over.<\/p>\n 4<\/strong>0 \u00a0<\/strong>As Norman B. Harrison states in His Book: or Scripture in Scripture <\/em>(p. 51), though mistaking wheat for what in fact was barley:<\/p>\n This [First-Fruits] feast foreshadowed the resurrection of Christ from the dead, signifying also His acceptance for us and our acceptance in Him. For this purpose a sheaf of wheat was taken from\u00a0the field, typifying the new life from the \u201cgrain of wheat\u201d under necessity of falling into the ground and dying. It was the early grain, in the process of maturing\u2014a promise of the harvest to be. So \u201cnow hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them that are asleep\u201d (1 Cor. 15:20, R.V.).<\/p>\n 4<\/strong>1\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>Josephus. The Complete Works<\/em>. Chapter 10. [h<\/a>ttp:\/\/www.ccel.org\/ccel\/josephus\/complete.ii.iv.x.ht<\/a>ml]. Josephus says:<\/p>\n But on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day they do not touch them. And while they suppose it proper to honor God, from whom they obtain this plentiful provision, in the first place, they offer the first-fruits of their barley\u2026.<\/p>\n![\"33](\"https:\/\/danielgracely.com\/rockpapershivers\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/fig-tree-300x221.jpg\")
![\"Temple](\"https:\/\/danielgracely.com\/rockpapershivers\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Temple-Precinct-1024x925.jpg\")
The Temple Precinct as drawn by Newton in Babson MS 0434 (courtesy of Huntingdon Library)<\/p>\n