© 2005 André Chappuis
© 2005 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
| God the Absolute | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 34 — Summer 2005 | The Impossible Dialogue with Fundamentalists |
Response to the question from Jeanmarie Chaise published in Link No. 11[^1], and to the second part of “Hasty Judgment” by Jean Royer from Link No. 32.
I believe that in his article, Jean Royer does not give THE solution, but an explanation. On two occasions, the author states that “Pentecost is 50 days after Passover.” This is still the case now, but not at the time of the Temple. We should not use rules in force today to explain events that took place 1975 years ago, but look for those on which we based ourselves at that time. It is a bit like taking articles from the Italian constitution to justify the wars of Julius Caesar. Mr. Royer also asks the following questions: “Was it a typing error? Was it a lack of knowledge on the part of the authors?” I think that by this, he suspects the mediators who transmitted the fourth part of the L.U. of having made a mistake. Since in Papers 172 through 194 the dates, days of the week, and the forty-day difference agree, this is neither a typing error nor an error of the midwayers. How could they have been mistaken, since, in addition to their memories, they had access to the (lost) writings of the apostle Andrew, as well as to information gleaned from celestial beings who were on earth at the time of Michael’s bestowal (especially his now personalized Adjuster)? The midwayer who expresses his gratitude throughout page 1343 tells us that when planetary information failed, he had recourse to superhuman records. I think there can be no doubt about these. I would rather tend to say that if there is ignorance, it is among those who want at all costs 50 days to separate Easter and Pentecost in the year 30.
In the Jewish calendar, the days of the week do not have a name, but a number corresponding to their location: Sunday = 1; Monday = 2; Tuesday 3; Wednesday = 4; Thursday = 5; Friday = 6. Only the day corresponding to our Saturday has a name: Sabbath which means rest, this because of Genesis 1.1 to 2.3 plus Exodus 31.15 and 35.2. But, when a holiday falls on a working day, that day is also called Sabbath since we do not work. We find an example in Le 29 to 31: … in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you will humble your souls, you will do no work… it will be for you a sabbath, a day of rest… This corresponds to the festival of Yom Kippur, in French Day of the Great Atonement, which takes place on the 10th of Tishrei (name of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar). According to current rules, this festival can fall on a Saturday, but also on a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday; and according to Le 16.31, these days of the week are also called sabbath.
For about 3 centuries, Christians celebrated Easter at the same time as the Jewish Passover, which could fall on a Sunday, a Tuesday or a Saturday. It was in 325, at the first Council of Nicaea, that Christians decided that Easter would be on a Sunday, the day of Jesus’ resurrection. A formula was established that made it possible to set Easter day on the first Sunday following the first full moon of spring whose equinox fell at that time on March 21. Julius Caesar had set the equinox on March 25, but the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar had, in 370 years, caused the equinox to drift by 4 days. Since in its early days, Christianity celebrated Easter on the same day as the Jewish Passover, the same was true for Pentecost, which as we will see was not at that time linked to Passover, but to the maturity of cereals.
To obtain a solution to this problem of the number of days separating the two festivals, in the year 30, it is necessary to read Leviticus 23: 15 and 16 which indicate how to count these famous 50 days, but also take into account the other verses and rules which speak of this festival of Pentecost which the Jews call Shavuot. Rules concerning the calendar and Jewish festivals can be found in the following works: The spiritual significance of Jewish festivals by A. Boulagnon, Come and see, May 1985. The calendar by Paul Couderc, Que sais-je? N 203, 1981. Astronomy, the ATLAS encyclopedia of the sky, chapter the calendar, p. 1604 to 1617, ed. Atlas, 1984. Encyclopedia Astronomy p. 194, ed. Fabbri, 1991 to 1995.
At the feast of Shavuot, the products mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8 were offered. They had to be of the first quality, they had to be harvested in the territory of Israel and they were offered at the Temple in Jerusalem. The biblical prescriptions only concern the owners of the land.
The diversity of fruits listed allowed farmers in the mountains of Galilee, where the climate is a little harsh, to have at least one of the fruits on the list fully ripe at the time of the festival, whereas in Jericho, a city with the lowest altitude on the planet, they could probably all be obtained that day.
With a lunisolar calendar, like the one used by the Jews, the dates (and therefore the holidays too) move in relation to the seasons, but there is also the fact that the harvests are not done every year on the same date. For example, around Lausanne, over a period of 60 years, I have seen harvests begin on September 15 and others end on November 15, two months later. It was therefore not always possible to have fruits throughout the territory of Israel that met the conditions exactly 51 days after Passover, which is why Moses did not determine the date of Pentecost according to that of Passover, but according to the maturity of the cereals.
The date of Passover is clearly located at Leviticus 23.5, or the fourteenth day of the first month, which corresponds to the first full moon of spring.
According to André Boulagnon, who may have been influenced by tradition, the offering of the first sheaf was to take place the day after Passover. But, we see that in Lev. 23: 10-11, it is written that the priest will wave this sheaf the day after the Sabbath. Instead of “the day after the Sabbath”, we find in other translations “the day after the feast”. Here, there is no question of Passover.
All work being forbidden on the seventh day of the week, the day called the Sabbath, it was not possible to harvest on that day, nor to bring a sheaf of firstfruits to the priest, which would also have been considered work; on the other hand, the journey of a farmer from his field or his home to the temple was, for almost all of them, greater than a Sabbath journey. This distance varies according to the authors, but it is probably around 1100 meters. Whoever brought his firstfruits on that day would have violated two laws. This sheaf was therefore obligatorily brought during a working day, and this was called a festival or Sabbath.
When the wheat (or wheat or barley, depending on the translation), Deut. 8:8, was ripe, it was necessary to harvest and bring the first sheaf to the priest. The day of the bringing of this sheaf was declared a Sabbath day, whatever its position in the week. The day after this Sabbath, the priest waved this sheaf (Lev. 23.12), and it is from there that the 50 days had to be counted (Lev. 23.15). In this passage, there is also no connection with the Passover. The offering of this first sheaf was called Omer.
It was the Sanhedrin that resolved the problems presented by the calendar. It was therefore this assembly that fixed the day on which this first sheaf would be brought and consequently, the date of Pentecost. This worked until the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 AD.
Since the destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the people of Israel in the Roman Empire, it was no longer possible to respect the biblical prescriptions described 8 paragraphs above, so this rite became a memorial. The maturity of cereals or fruits was no longer taken into account. It thus became possible to have a rigid connection between the festivals of Passover and Shavuot, the latter, at a time difficult to specify, was linked to the giving of the Torah, because the rabbis alleged a relationship, of which the O.T. does not speak, between the date of the promulgation of the Law on Sinai and that of the feast of Pentecost. But it cannot be proven that the Mosaic Law was given exactly 50 days after the exodus from Egypt.
In 359 AD, Patriarch Hillel II reformed the rules and established a perpetual calendar. This takes into account, for the addition of the 13th month, the cycle of Meton according to which every 19 years the moon appears almost in the same phase for a given date; whereas previously, the addition of this 13th month was done by observing the shift in relation to the seasons. Jewish calendars prior to the year 359 AD established according to the cycle of Meton are therefore not reliable.
Currently, when Jews count, the day after Passover is the first day and the fiftieth is Pentecost. Christians count Easter as the first day and the fiftieth is Pentecost. Thus, in accordance with the Council of Nicea, both feasts fall on a Sunday. However, the Christian counting system is no longer in accordance with Lev. 23:15 and 16. This has the effect that when Easter and Passover fall on the same day, the Christian feast of Pentecost falls one day before the Jewish celebration of Pentecost. For example, in 1954, Easter and Passover were both on April 18, and Pentecost was on Sunday, June 6, but Jewish Pentecost was celebrated on Monday, June 7. The name Pentecost (from the Greek pentêkostê, fiftieth day) is appropriate for the time period separating the two Jewish holidays, but not for the two Christian holidays, since Pentecost is the 49th day after Easter. The Orthodox Church does not always celebrate Easter at the same time as the Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches, because the former follows the Julian calendar and not the Gregorian calendar.
The L.U. indicates at the beginning of booklet 172 that the apostolic group arrived in Bethany on Friday, March 31, in the year 30. The first sentence on page 1929 tells us that on Thursday (of the following week, April 6), Jesus lived his last day of freedom on earth. At UB 179:0.1, we see that the Passover supper takes place on Friday evening (= April 7.) In the past, the days of the Jewish calendar began at sunset and ended the next day also at sunset. Because of this system, the length of the days was not exactly 24 hours. In our time, this inconvenience has been remedied by having each day begin at 6 p.m. Passover in the year 30 therefore took place from Friday evening, April 7 to Saturday evening, April 8. From UB 193:3.1, the L.U. tells us what happened 40 days later, on Thursday, May 18. Chapter 5 describes the ascension of Jesus which took place shortly after 7:30 a.m. In his last speech, Jesus told his apostles that “soon, very soon, we will send the Spirit of Truth into this world…”. For Jesus, this soon, very soon, meant: this afternoon. But, at that time, he probably did not want to tell his apostles when this would happen. The introduction to booklet 194 tells us that on that same day, around 1 p.m., the outpouring of the Spirit of Truth took place. This means that Christians should celebrate Pentecost on the same day as the Ascension.
It was from Saturday morning, April 8, around 2:30 a.m. (UB 183:4.2, last sentence), that the apostles hid for 40 days (UB 183:4.3 and UB 194:1.1). In this last reference, it is also specified that “This day (May 18), happened to be the Jewish feast of Pentecost.” We have here proof that only 40 days separated Passover and Pentecost in the year 30. During these 40 days, the apostles hid from the Jewish religious authorities, but it is likely that in Galilee, where they were during this time, they lived in broad daylight.
That year, the date on which the first sheaves offered in sacrifice were swung, falling 50 days before Shavuot, was Wednesday, March 29. Tuesday, March 28 was therefore designated “Sabbath”.
In this year 30, probably around March 20, after observing the degree of maturity of the cereals, the Sanhedrin had decided that Tuesday the 28th of this month would be the Sabbath when the first sheaf should be brought to the Temple. It was by means of signal fires and carrier pigeons that he made known to the Jews spread over the lands which were then known, on what date would take place, that year, the bringing of this sheaf and consequently Pentecost.
When we read the verses cited above, we must remember that the L. U. tells us that the biblical texts have been reworked several times. It is possible that this is the case for the verses concerning Pentecost. It would be interesting to be able to read these verses in the Dead Sea Scrolls which are the oldest known biblical documents. They were discovered in 1947. For several decades, we have been regularly told that their publication in French is imminent… and nothing appears. Everything happens as if there was a conspiracy preventing this publication.
I too believe that I have read booklets 172 to 194 as well as the documents I have on the festivals and the history of the Jewish calendar. This is why, following the explanations given above, I declare that Pentecost in the year 30 took place 40 days after Passover.
Concerning the first part of Mr. Royer’s article, 5000 years is an error in the new translation of June 1994; The Cosmogony of Urantia, editions of 1961 and 1971 indicated 500,000 years. The same goes for the Book of URANTIA in one volume, undated, published during the 1980s.
André Chappuis
| God the Absolute | Le Lien Urantien — Issue 34 — Summer 2005 | The Impossible Dialogue with Fundamentalists |