Is the April 8th, 2024 Eclipse on the True Passover?
There are over a dozen different “one true calendar” interpretations out there trying to find the feast days that YHVH has intentionally hidden from us until his second coming. Today I want to present the case for April 8th eclipse falling on the true passover, and correspondingly the October 2, 2024 eclipse falling on Feast of Tabernacles.
My advice to everyone entering the calendar discussion is to judge others how you would like to be judged. If you want to be held to having a perfect understanding of his “one true calendar” then you are free to take that risk, but as for me and my house, I hope and pray that we are not accountable for figuring it out perfectly because there is enough ambiguity and tradition to make it impossible to prove with 100% certainty any individual calendar. That said, I believe we owe it to our Creator to do our best to understand and follow His ways as a sign that once He reveals His truth we will be ready to follow His instructions.
I encourage everyone who thinks they are “settled” on a calendar to finish the article / video with an open mind before rejecting it out of hand. I’m going to start with the softer evidence and then build up to the stronger evidence where we have a direct quote from the time of Yeshua that strongly indicates that Passover occurred on a Dark Moon and therefore the month started on the Full Moon in spite of what modern Pharisees attempt to claim.
Starting the Month on the Full Moon
This is a minority opinion, but one that thecreatorscalendar.com has (almost) throughly fleshed out. My intuition has me suspicious of the crescent / sliver moon as start of the month given it is symbolic of Muslim faith. Someone recently pointed out to me that this “moon flag” looks more like an eclipse! In particular a ring of fire eclipse. But all of this could just be a coincidence, what does scripture say?
Blow the trumpet at the new moon, At the full moon, on our feast day. For it is a statue for Israel, an ordinance of the Elohim of Jacob — Psalm 81:2–4
These two verses appear to describe the monthly New Moon feast, being aligned with the full moon which then decreases. Skeptics will claim the Hebrew word used for Full Moon is derived from the word “to cover” which some claim means covered in darkness and others say covered with light. However, in combination with Ecclesiasticus there is more evidence that it means covered with light.
‘He made the moon also to serve in her season (moed) for a declaration of times, and a sign of the world. ‘From the moon is the sign of feasts, a light that decreases in her perfection. The month is called after her name…” SIRACH (ECCLESIASTICUS) 43:6–8 את CEPHER
The moon is not visible the day before and the day after the astrological new moon (dark moon). This creates 3 nights of darkness which causes the modern Jewish month to have a one or two day offset from the “logical” starting points (Full Dark or Full Light). As a result the feast days of Passover and Unleavened Bread occur after the full moon. This causes a major problem for any interpretation of Psalm 81.
If the feast referred to is any feast that starts on the 14th or 15th of the month then it cannot be a full moon if the month starts on a sliver. Furthermore, if the month starts with a sliver it cannot be a completely covered “dark” moon either. Jews end up celebrating Rosh Hashanah for two days because they don’t know when the 1st day of the month actually begins until they see the sliver. Therefore there are no feast days that correspond with a month starting on a sliver moon and blowing the trumpet on a fully covered [light or dark] moon.
This would imply that the month must start at either the light or dark conjunction: the astrological full or “new” moon.
Then Elohim said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years; and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. Elohim made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. Elohim placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and Elohim saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.. — Genesis 1:16
The first thing to notice is that the “light” is the sign, not the darkness or lack of light. Since the month starting with a sliver has been ruled out by Psalm 81, our only remaining choice is using the light or the darkness as a sign. The Pharisees use the sighting of the first sliver rather than the conjunction in part because there is at least some light as part of the sign. To fall back to the astrological conjunction after the flaws with the sliver is to contradict their justification for sighting some light!
By starting the month with the full moon and the day at sunrise (this is a separate video!), there is no ambiguity about when the month starts. It starts on the morning immediately following the night where the full moon was observed. The day where the difference in time between sunset and moon rise is the shortest. The only night where the moon rules the entire time.
This is a sign that cannot be missed and is easily observable by everyone all over the world. The tradition of spotting the sliver and running to the temple to report the sighting puts the calendar in the hands of man, the judgment of men, and not the infallible sun, moon, and stars.
The sliver moon is both hard to see and only visible for an hour or less at sunset. So it is hard to claim it is ruling the night as its light is both small and short lived.
Chinese Evidence
The Chinese kept detailed and highly accurate records of all astrological events. The following quotes were taken from these records which document some very relevant information that aligns perfectly with Passover week in 31 AD.
“Yin and Yang have mistakenly switched, and the sun and moon were eclipsed. The sins of all the people are now on one man. Pardon is proclaimed to all under heaven.” History of Latter Han Dynasty, Volume 1, Chronicles of Emperor Guang Wu, 7th year.
“In the day of Gui Hai, the last day of the month, there was a solar eclipse. [The emperor] avoided the Throne Room, suspended all military activities and did not handle official business for five days.” History of Latter Han Dynasty, Vol. 1, Chronicles of Emperor Guang Wu, 7th year.
“Eclipse on the day of Gui Hai, Man from Heaven died”. History of Latter Han, Annals, №18, Gui Hai.
“During the reign of Emperor Guang Wu, on the day of Bing Yin of the fourth month of Jian Wu, a halo–a rainbow–encircled the sun.” History of Latter Han, Annals №18, Gui Hai.
Chinese months were defined from astrological New Moon, so the last day of the month would have been around the astrological New Moon (dark moon) and very far from the full moon. Since the Passover is celebrated on the 14th day of the month, the Hebrew calendar in Yeshua’s day must have started with the full moon. Furthermore, Chinese years started around the winter solstice (Late December) so the 4th month is perfectly aligned with spring Passover.
Sign of Jonah & the “New Moon”
The following chart shows 30 phases of the moon, one for each day in a 30 day month. Some months only have 29 phases so these are merely approximate. Moon 15 represents the full moon and the 1st day of the month (in the full moon theory). This means that Passover would occur on the 14th of the moonth (Moon 28) and that Yeshua would be in the grave for the 3 nights where the moon cannot be seen by the naked eye (Moons 29, 0, and 1). He would rise at the very end of the 3rd night (just before dawn) when the light is just barely starting to shine again.
Three nights in the heart of the earth corresponding with three dark nights with no visible moon makes perfect sense to me, but is not direct evidence of anything in and of itself.
Eclipse at Crucifixion
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three, because the sun’s light failed,” according to Luke 23:44.
I’m going to assume that this darkness was at least in part supernatural because it was reported all over the world. After all, it was experienced from Spain, to Israel, to China. The important thing to notice is that everyone documented it as a solar eclipse! They were very sophisticated and everyone knew that this can only happen on a dark moon and if the moon was 180 degrees out of position then it would have been heavily documented! At that time no one could predict eclipses, so it wasn’t unusual to be surprised by an eclipse.
In letters written under the name Dionysius the Areopagite, the author claims to have observed a solar eclipse from Heliopolis at the time of the crucifixion. Parker, John (1897). “Letter VII. Section II. To Polycarp–Hierarch. & Letter XI. Dionysius to Apollophanes, Philosopher.” The Works of Dionysius the Arepagite. London: James Parker and Co. pp. 148–149, 182–183.
According to the Orthodox Church in America, Dionysius, who is mentioned in Acts 17:34, was from Athens and received a classical Greek education (i.e. Atticism). He studied astronomy at the city of Heliopolis, and it was in Heliopolis, along with his friend Apollophonos where he witnessed the solar eclipse that occurred at the moment of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ by Crucifixion. (The connection between the events was surely realized by him at a later date.) But even so, at the time of the eclipse he said, “Either the Creator of all the world now suffers, or this visible world is coming to an end.” Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite the Bishop of Athens, Wikipedia.org
Open the East Gate on the New Moon
This is what the Sovereign YHVH says: The gate of the inner court facing east is to be shut on the six working days, but on the Sabbath day and on the day of the New Moon it is to be opened. — Ezekiel 46
This is verse could be interpreted to imply that the light of the moon should shine through the east gate on the “New Moon”. This only makes sense with a full moon. Once again, not proof, but supportive evidence.
Implications for Passover 2024
Contrary to TheCreatorsCalendar.com, I’m going to propose that in order to keep Passover in the spring over thousands of years (as required for Barley) the year must start on the first full moon after the equinox. Due to the procession of the equinoxes, every two thousand years the sun will rise in a different constellation. This means that in the 70 Jubilees (almost 3500 years) since leaving Egypt, the start of the year would have shifted by almost two months as measured by the equinoxes.
TheCreatorsCalendar.com, attempts to maintain the constant that Passover falls in Aries (the Lamb) as it is recorded by Josephus doing when Yeshua gave his life for our sins.
2000 years later, we would expect that same time of year to occur in Pisces (the fish).
The first full moon after the equinox in 2024 occurred on March 24/25 and the April 8th eclipse occurs in Pisces. On April 10th, 31 AD we see the following in the sky:
In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of our year, on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries, (for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians,) the law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover
— Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
The only time the sun is in Aries is during the dark phase of the moon. If you go forward or backward two weeks the sun would not be in Aries.
This is direct testimony that at the time of Yeshua’s death, the 14th of Nissan (Passover) had to occur on the Dark Moon.
Conclusion
If Passover occurred on a Dark Moon, then months should start on the Full moon, and this coming April 8th eclipse is the true passover.
