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The Jewish Calendar, as inagurated by Hillel but calculable by the Sanhedrin long long before and borne from Torah knowledge, is a truly a marvel that cannot be explained by secular astronomers. The astronomers could not calculate such accurate calendars even in Hillel’s time.
Note the many modifications made to the Christian calendar, including as recently as several hundred years ago due to its inaccuracies (and months starting to move to the wrong seasons.)
Actually there is an error in the Hillel Calender as well
The Julian Calender belived the solar year is 365 1/4 Days
The Hillel Calender calculates the solar year as 365 days 5 hours 55 Mins
The actual Solar year is 365 days 5 hours 48 Mins
You can see this most in Peseach. The Vernal Equonox is March 21, but Tekutfat Nissan is April 4 or 5(The Halachic Start of Spring)
So technically any year that Peseach occurs before April 4 (or 5th in a leap year) it doesnt occur HALACHICALLY in Spring (Although it really is Spring)
That’s no mistake, zahavasdad. It is intentional, since it makes the Jewish calendar be able to be calculated on a regular human not overly complicated cycle.
It is intentional, since it makes the Jewish calendar be able to be calculated on a regular human not overly complicated cycle.
What’s so complicated about skipping a day or so every hundred years? That’s what we do in the Gregorian Calendar (years evenly divisible by 100 are NOT leap years unless they are also evenly divisible by 400).
We currently celebrate Pesach (and all other holidays) about eight or nine days later in the year than Hillel did… and the problem continues to compound at the rate of a few minutes every year.
The astronomers could not calculate such accurate calendars even in Hillel’s time.
To determine the length of the lunar cycle does not require advanced instruments. Once you realize that a solar eclipse can only occur at the time of the conjunction of the sun and the moon, you can simply count the days between eclipses and dividing by the number of lunations. The more data points you have (i.e. the more observed eclipses), the closer you can arrive at the the true value of the lunar month. You can also use lunar eclipses (since they can only occur when the sun and moon are in opposition). Once you have enough data points, you can arrive at the length of the lunar month to several decimal places. No need for advanced clocks, telescopes or anything else. All you need is the ability to see the sun and/or moon and the ability to count days.
The Wolf
The calendar was only required to see us thru to 6000; Without this assumption of 365&1/4 days {Julian calendar} despite a known 12 minute discrepancy, it would be billions of year from 1 Birkas haChamo until the next Birkas haChamo, rather than a 28 year gap.
Jewish calendar is so Makpid on having as few variables as possible as Patri said, that even in a Leap year which is Chosser, we still keep marChehvon & Kisslev @29 days, and Adar hoRischon @30 days, despite the weird resultant of having 3 consecutive Roshei Chodoshim @1 day followed by 2 consecutive Roshei Chodoshim @2 days.
The Jewish calendar is not accurate for long term calculations. The rules that the sanhedrin were using were designed to validate witnesses and determine dates in the absence of witnesses. Also the two foundations of the calendar were known far before Hillel, Thales knew the length of the month accurately enough to predict an eclipse and Meton established a calendar with a 19 year cycle.
I assume you mean Hillel HaSheni.
How about the 84 year cycle calendar? which used to be used in Rome. It is very accurate as well.
What other calendar remained in use, unmodified, for nearly as long (and accurately maintained the dates correlating to the seasons and solar/lunar cycles)?
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