Calendar and Chronology

The Calendar and Chronology

The Calendars used in Biblical times are vitally important in helping us understand the Bible and biblical events. In Genesis it is stated that the sun, moon and stars were given for sign (otot) and for appointed times (moadim). The knowledge of the calendars and chronologies of the biblical period is very important for our dating of biblical events and their position relative to the societies contemporary with the Bible. This project is an investigation into chronology and calendars. We hope to collect together data regarding the calendars and methods of measuring time in biblical days.

An Old Palestinian Calendar
In about the 10th century BCE a farmer of writer of some sort inscribed an agricultural calendar on to a small soft limestone plaque. It laid out the year in terms of the work of a farmer. The year went as follows:
His two months are (olive) harvest, (Sept-Nov)
His two months are planting (grain), (Nov Jan)
His two months are late planting; (Jan- Mar)

His month is hoeing up flax, (Mar-Apr)
His month is harvest of barley (Apr-May)
His month is harvest and feasting (May June)

His two months are vine-tending, (June –Aug)
His month is summer fruit (Aug- Sept) (41,Madeline 1978)

This calendar was found in 1908 by R.A.S Macalister at the biblical site of Gezer. We see that the writer describes a 12 month period covering the work of one particular farmer. This calendar is important because being the 10th century BC that is running from 1000 to 900 BC it is contemporary with the reigns of King David and King Solomon. Gezer lies west of Jerusalem in lowlands between the Judean hills and the Philistine coast. It is slightly north east of what was later Yavneh and is historically important because of it proximity to the north south trade route along the via maris. The calendar shows forth some aspects of the agricultural society at that time.
We see a number of agricultural products filling the year of a farmer in Gezer 3000 years ago. He is working with olives, grain (wheat and barley), flax (Hebrew-peset, Gk Linon), barley, grapes and summer fruit. His jobs over the year included harvesting olives, planting various seeds, hoeing flax, harvesting barley, tending his vines and gathering summer fruits. This calendar is based on the agricultural seasons but it will be useful for us to see in a little more detail what our farmer in an agricultural society would spend his time in those days.
The agricultural season would be divided into three main periods: planting or sowing, harvesting and threshing, and vintage, and the gathering of olives and grapes. The Encyclopedia of Bible Life of Miller gives two main jobs to the farmer, grain cultivation and vine cultivation.
Biblical Time
It very important to get a basic biblical perspective on how it measured time, how does the Bible describe units of time? In the modern days we speak of minutes and hours, days, months, years, decades, scores centuries and millenniums, but our intention now is to look briefly over biblical description for the passage of time. We see that the Gezer calendar as translated by Albright uses the term months (chodeshim linked to chadash for the new moon), but the Bible uses many other terms also.
The first “time” term used in the Bible is the very first word of the Bible, it says “in the beginning” “bereshit”. And the second was with the creation of light which God called “day”. But we are not told what measure of time a day represents at that time. The Bible describes “evening and morning one day”, and we get our first measure of divided time, evening and morning equal one day. The Bible goes one to label days by number, so instead of the modern Sunday (Day of Sun), Monday (Day of moon) as English has developed days are not names in the Bible but numbered. In Genesis 1:14 we have mention of certain other units of time and the source of their calculation. Elohim creates a greater and a lesser light to divide day from night. These two lights have five functions to separate day from night; to serve for signs (ototh), seasons (moadims-appointed times), days and years and to give light on the earth. Interestingly the month is not yet mentioned and nor is the week. On the seventh day God rested and blessed it and sanctified it. The whole seven days is not at this point called anything special. Our time vocabulary to this point is
Yom day
Lilah night
Erev evening
Boqer morning
Moadim seasons or appointed times
Ototh signs
Shanim years

In chapter 2 of Genesis the term yom is used with a more general meaning than in the seven days it’s the day in which Yahwah created the heavens and the earth. As is clear from our observations of Genesis 1 the scripture considers time very important, it is the Elohim who is revealed as the organizer of the heavens to give time measures. This early observation continues through Genesis and the rest of the scripture. Genesis 3 has day used in various ways. Satan warns eve that the day she eats of the tree she will become wise. Yahwah Elohim tells Adam cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow thou shalt eat of it all the days of Thy life” so we see here the measurement of a life duration in terms of days. The concept of eternity is also brought in in this chapter with man being driven out of the garden lest he eat of the tree of life and ‘live forever”.
In Genesis 4 we are introduced to further concepts of time. “And in the process of time “vahi miqetz yamim”. Cain brought of the fruit of the cursed ground an offering to Yahwah and Abel brought the firstling of the flock. Here perhaps we get an insight into more than just the fact that the ground bore fruit for the farmer normally on a cyclical basis and that the flock also bore children usually on a seasonal basis. These two activities are both regulated by time and that at the ordering of the creation by Yahwah. Cain is what scholars call today a farmer. The scripture calls him a tiller of the ground.(oved adamah) and Abel is called a keeper of sheep “hevel doeh tzon”.
The keeper of sheep and the tiller of the ground or the shepherd and the farmer represent two important parts of biblical society and they both relate to the calendar in one way of another. Cain no doubt after the harvest brought a mincha or offering to Yahwah.and Abel brought from the firstling of his flock (Mibecorot tzono). Here we see in the story of Cain and Abel some aspect of the competition between the farmer and the shepherd which went on through out the biblical times. If not controlled the sheep and goats of the shepherd nomad will eat the crops of the farmer and leave him no harvest. If not controlled the sheep and goats of the shepherd nomad will eat the crops of the farmer and leave him no harvest. Yahwah respected Abels offering (mincha) but not Cain’s. Perhaps points, to some, bias in favor of shepherd nomad during this period.
Genesis four again using day focuses on the creation but then we are introduced to the first genealogy with times recorded. The times are recorded in terms of years and days. The first is that Adam lived 130 years and then “all the days of Adam were 930 years”. This is the formula followed in the rest of Genesis “all the day of …were so many years. The counting and the recording of the years of important people then was a part of the Bible interest in the importance of years.

In the story of Noah the Bible enters a new measure of time, the month. Firstly Yahwah decrees that mans days would be restricted to 120 years. He then warns Noah that in 7 days it would rain for “forty days and forty nights” and this rain would be caused directly by Yahwah. And the purpose was to destroy everything he had made. Do we see here that seven days is a period of warning and forty days and nights becoming a period of judgment on the creation bringing death and destruction to the wicked and those effected by their wickedness. According to the Bibles Masoretic Texts chronology the flood would come in the year 1656. What we are not told up until now in Genesis is what the measure of a year is. We do not know which kind of years is being used. However we perhaps get a hint in the next few verses where we are given the detailed dates of the flood. It came in Noah’s 600th years in the second month and on the 17th day of the month it lasted for forty days and forty nights. It then prevailed upon the earth for 150 days. In the second month “bachodesh ha shenei” this is as we have seen the first mention of chodesh as a measure of time in Genesis. We still have the question is it the second month of his years or of a calendar used by the writer of Genesis, and how long is a chodesh, and how long is a shanah? It took another 150days for the waters to abate according to Gen 8 and so we have a period of 7 days, 40days and nights, 150days, days from the causing of the flood to it abating. On the 17th yom of the 7th chodesh the ark landed on the mountains of Ararat. Here then we have 5 chodeshim passing and 150 yamim. In the tenth chodesh the tops of the mountains were seen and so we have it that the writer numbers the days and the years and the month they are not given names in this calendar but numbers. On the new moon of the tent month Noah landed.

The Year
We see from the introduction of the chodesh in the Noah story that a chodesh can be thirty yamim. Most scholars agree that Noah’s year was one of 30 yamim times twelve months, that is 360 days. This brings us on to the possible calendars of the biblical days.

According to Fauslich’s and many other scholars calculations the Masoretic Text observes that Moses was writing between 1460 BC and 1420 BC. We can calculate this using the chronology in the Masoretic Text (MT). Bishop Ussher used the dates in the MT and came out with a date for creation of 4004 BC.

Let us assume, most modern scholarship notwithstanding, Moses wrote Genesis in the period from 1460 BC to 1420 and we look at the data he gives us regarding the calendar of Noah we can then compare this with the evidence regarding calendars from the period of 1656AM after Adam or 2354 BCE which is the date of the flood. We know that in 2354BC the Sumerians were flourishing in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians are believed to be the world’s first centre of civilization. Moses is claiming that the descendants of Adam down to Noah are the world’s first community or even settled community for Noah settled long enough to have a vineyard produce fruit and cause him to get drunk. So history tells us that Sumeria were the first civilization, Moses tells us that the family of Adam are the first of the families on earth. Moses also tells us that that family measured time using an artificial 30 day month. The interesting question is their any evidence that the Sumerians had a 30 day calendar at the time Noah lived according to the MT dates. We will need that to make some observation on the Sumerian calendar.
Mesopotamia
The Sumerians are credited with being the first civilization. And we have a lot of information on Sumerian Society. We also have the Sumerian Kings lists, which mention kings before and after a flood. In the 2700’s BC the Sumerians were using artificial time units. They used the period of the rule of an official to describe time. For example they might say “N Day of the turn of office of X, Governor. The financial year would start two months after the barley harvest. And with the agriculturul cycle the year might be divided into three seasons: delivery of the new barley, settling of the accounts and the next crop. Around 2400 BC the Sumerians had a calendar in place which used a years of 12 months with 30 days a month. According to the Masoretic text this would be around half a century before the flood of Noah. According to the record in Genesis Noah was also on a year made up of 30 day month. This would fit then with the Sumerian way of measuring time. This information we have gleaned from the Encyclopedia Britannica (1977) and it’s article “Calendar”. We see then the tradition preserved by Moses in Genesis regarding the time period of Moses is consistent with the evidence found independently representing calendars of that period.

Let us return to our observation of how Moses in Genesis refers to time and it progression. We have a references to the seasons in Gen 9:22
“while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease”. These words are recorded as the words of Yahwah heart. They come as a promise to the people of the earth who have just offered sacrifices of clean beasts to Yahwah. We notice that time is divided into 4 dichotomies and are attached peculiarly to the existence of the earth. The first to measure by the agricultural phases of a settled civilization, or the agricultural society; the second by the climate on earth arising from the position of the earth or parts of it in relation to the sun; the third being the same as the second and the forth begin the distinction between day and night arising from the rotation of the earth on it axis. No time per4iods are given of any specific measure.
This promise is shown to arise in the heart of Yahwah in the context of covenant and the duration of the earth. Showing that Moses had it revealed to him that these measures of time are fundamental to the nature of life on earth.
At this time a measure of time is introduces which seems to indicate perpetuity but measures in terms of men not abstractly. This is the phrase “perpetual generations’. Yahwah made a covenant with Noah and his seed for “perpetual generation”. This covenant for “perpetual generation” in Gen 9:12 is later called by God an “everlasting covenant” which again seems to introduce the idea of a very long time.

When it came to referring to a period of time they could be referred to a particular individual. In English we might refer to the Elizabethan age. But in the society of Moses thay referred the days of a particular person or God. So we have “In the day that God created man” or “in the day that Yahwah Elohim made the heavens and the earth” . We have the “days of Adam” referring to a specific portion of his life and “all the days of Adam were 930 years “ referring to his whole life. A person could be named a particular event for of Peleg it was said “In his days was the earth divided”.















Eugene Faustlich in his Bible Chronology and the Scientific Method, sought to develop a testable chronology of the Bible. The way he did this was to develop a computer program which could calculate the position of the stars in the skies over Biblical lands going back 6000 years. He could then go through dates in biblical or extra biblical literature and compare the astronomical claims of the particular chronologies or calendars with the sky as it would actually have been at the time. For example in the reign of the Pharoah Amenemhet III the Egyptians astronomers had not a number old moons, that means the end of a month when the moon disappears. He could compare the date in the Egyptian calendar with the sky as it was. If there would have been an old moon in Egypt at that time we have an astronomically fixed date in the reign of Amenemhet III. The same can be done with references to Eclipses. In the case of a biblical date you can add other testable factors. For example we have with the Jewish calendars 7 years cycles and Jubilee cycles. We also have the weekly priestly cycles which say when the priests ministered in the temple. With all this data we can compare, for example if a date is said to be a Shabbat and if it really would have been a Shabbat. Faustlich also developed a conversion program so that you can see the date of any given day on 5 different calendars:
The Biblical and Babylonian Calendar

The Julian Solar Calendar propounded by Julius Caeser
The Gregorian Solar Calendar first established in 1582
The Egyptian Sliding Calendar
The Egyptian Fixed Calendar
In his calculations Faustlich also included a calculation of the number of days from the creation of Adam as calculated using the chronology of the MT. His calculations give him 3 years differences from Usshers calculation. He has March 4001 BC on the Gregorian calendar for the date of Adams first years.
Faustlich in his Bible Chronology and the Scientific Method includes around 200 tested moon dates. His book will be very helpful in studying the Biblical period calendars.
In order to understand the chronology and calendars of the Biblical societies we need to have a clear context for looking at the data. We need to know the various rulers who lived in the biblical times. We need to know what calendars they used, the names of the month and whether the calendar is Solar, Lunar or Lunisolar or even Sidereal. Let us look at two main civilizations, their rulers and their calendars to get a context of the Biblical data. These are the Mesopotamian and the Egyptian societies, they form the background to the Biblical data. In between then we have the Levant the area where Israel, Phoenicia, Philistia and Syria flourished.
Mesopotamia
The Sumerians are credited with being the first civilization. And we have a lot od information on Sumerian Society. We also have the Sumerian Kings lists. There are also a lists of 6 kings from Mari. In the 2700’s BC the Sumerians were artificial time units. They use the period of the rule of an official to describe time. For example they might say “N Day of the turn of office of X, Governor. The financial year would start two months after the Barley harvest. And with the agriculturul cycle the year might be divided into three seasons: Delivery of the new barley, settling of the accounts and the next crop. Around 2400 BC the Sumerians has a calendar in place which used a years of 12 months with 30 days a month. According to the Masoretic text this would be around half a century before the flood of Noah. According to the record in Genesis Noah was also on a year made up of 30 day month. This would fit then with the Sumerian way of measuring time.
Sometimes in Sumer the royal year would begin with the Barley harvest and the offering of the first fruits. The king would celebrate a new agricultural year by offering first fruits. And the year would be named according to some important event taking place in that year. For example the year might be the year”the temple of Ninjinu was built. Until the event the year would be called the year following a year already named. This reminds of two biblical references. The first when Israel was told that the month of their escape would be the first of the months for them. This was the time of the Barley harvest, one of the plagues having destroyed Egypt’s barley harvest. It would seem that Yahwah was reestablishing an old calendar, which Israel while in Egypt had not observed. Modern scholarship dates Israel adoption of the Babylonian calendars as being from the exile. This may be the case with the month names, but for clearly the text of Exodus points to an early adoption of a spring new years for the newly born community. In this paper we follow Faustlich astronomically tested 1460 date for the Exodus and not the later 12 century date held by most scholars. The second reminder is of Isaih when he describes his vision of Yahwah. “In the Year King Uzziah died” This fits a little with the Sumerian way of expressing or naming years.
After 17th century BC date formulas were supplanted in Babylonia by Regnal years whereas lunar reckoning began to take precedence in the 21st century BC. Around the 18th century BC a Lunar calendar with 29 and 30 day months was in use in Mari and the Old Babylonian Empire adopted the calendar of the Sumerian city of Nippur. Agriculturally the Babylonian years was divided into two, the wet season and the dry season. It will be helpful for us to know the Babylonian months. These were:
Nisanu
Ayaru
Simanu
Duuzu
Abu
Ululu
Tashriti
Arakhsamna
Kislimu
Tebetu
Shabatu
Adaru
Adrau II
Their months began with the new moon and their days began with sunset.
The Akkadian word for years is sattu, for month arhu, and for day is umu. The month names for the Ur III calendar are:
Bara zag gar duku
Gu sisa apindua
Sig ga gangane
Su numun abe
Ne ne gar ra ziza
Kin inin sekinkud
These names were from Nippur. The month were divided into 2 for fiscal and cultic purposes. There were called sapattu mahritu and sapattu arkitu.

Egypt
In that period the Egyptians had two or three calendars. It was originally a lunar calendar plus a sidereal calendar. The Egyptian calendars consisted of 365 days. One of them was called a fixed calendar and the new years began when Sirius arose. The Sirius years was 365.25 days and so every fourth years there was a leap year with an extra day (Ap 1 Faustlich, 1990). According to Encylopedia Britannica “Calendar”, because of problems between the Lunar and the Solar year Egyptians builts a schematic civil year. 365 days, 3 seasons with 4 months a season and 30 days a month with 5 epagomenal days each year. This calendar served for governement and administration, but the lunar month regulated every day life. The thirty day month were split into three decades. The three seasons were called aht inundation, prt emergence or the seaon for farming and smw or dryness. (ABD Calendars). They divided the day into 24 hoursd of unqual length and later Hellenistic astronomers changed to hours of equal length and later these were divided into 60 minutes.

Biblical Months
We find 2 certain canaanite month names Ethanim and Bul and 2 assumed to be Canaanite, Abib and Bul. We also find 7 Bablonian month names: Nisan, Sivan, Elul, Chislev, Tebet, Shebat and Adar.