Word of Truth Fellowship

Where do we get the idea of looking for a “new moon” for the start of a month?

We have been doing the traditional way of sighting the first crescent moon for the start of the month for almost 9 years until……

     A few months ago, I was able to get the Biblical software Logos and within the library there is a book about the traditions of the Canaanites along with other texts from the Near East called, “Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd Edition with Supplement).”  And just casually reading this book, I came across a text that was “A prayer to the Moon God” which was named “Sin.”  This along with many other texts including another prayer to the Sun God, was more focused on the Moon.  Even the prayer to the Sun called the Moon “his father,” in other words the sun according to the Canaanites was of less importance than the moon.  This started a path that I believe was only started by Yehovah himself because I was completely sure of what I was doing, even though I had never fully examined it.

     I then began a study about the word usually translated month, ‘Chodesh/hodesh’ which James Strong, A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament and The Hebrew Bible says this:

    2320. חֹדֶשׁ chôdesh, kho´-desh; from 2318; the new moon; by implication a month:

—month (-ly), new moon

The root, or where this word comes from is:

2318. חָדַשׁ châdash, khaw-dash´; a prim. root; to be new; caus. to rebuild:—renew, repair.

This word is used 277 times in the KJV bible and is never used as “moon” or “new moon” until 1 Samuel 20:5:

1 Samuel 20:5 (ESV) David said to Jonathan, “Behold, tomorrow is the new moon (chodesh), and I should not fail to sit at table with the king. But let me go, that I may hide myself in the field till the third day at evening.

It amazed me that it was never translated as moon during the Torah or the Judges but only after King Saul was trying to kill David!  Why wait so long to translate this as moon, why not earlier?  Maybe because the moon didn’t have a place in the observation of the month until much later and many of the English translators of many Bibles understood that putting “new moon” for “month” wouldn’t make sense in the context or application of the verses being translated like in 

Leviticus 27:5–6 (ESV) 5.If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 6.If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver.

If this verse said, ‘a new moon old’, it wouldn’t make sense because a lunar month is so short and unpredictable if you have to wait to observe it and not calculate it.  Which by the way, even in 1 Samuel David tells Jonathan that “tomorrow is the chodesh.”  How did he know that the following day was going to be the new moon, unless it was the 29th day and a lunar month can never be longer than 30 days because a lunar month is exactly 29.5 days long.  Unless they weren’t using the moon to calculate the month.

     Notice how the word chodesh doesn’t have a root that has anything to do with moon but renewed or repair.  So why does the month get associated with the moon in Scripture?  Even though the English word month comes from the word moon, we don’t use the moon for any month ever so why would we suppose that Hebrew word for month, chodesh, has anything to do with the moon?  We can see where this tradition began and even see how this tradition is not in Scripture.

The Babylonian Talmud, Volumes 1–20: Original Text, Edited, Corrected, Formulated, and Translated into English (Introduction to Tract Rosh Hashana (New Year’s Day))

After Rabbi Jehudah Hanassi had completed the proper Mishnaic arrangement regarding the number of New Year’s days, making the principal one “the Day of Memorial” (the first of Tishri); after treating upon the laws governing the sounding of the cornet in an exceedingly brief manner—he dwells upon the custom in vogue at the Temple of covering the mouth of the cornet or horn with gold, and declares the duty of sounding the cornet properly discharged if a person passing by the house of worship can hear it.

First of all, notice how in Judaism there is more than one New Year’s Day and they consider the “principal one” the first day of the 7th month, Tishri is the Jewish name for the 7th month but continuing on…

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He arranges the prayers accompanying this ceremony in a few words, and then dilates at great length upon the Mishnayoth treating of the lunar movements by which alone the Jews were guided in the arrangement of their calendar, upon the manner of receiving the testimony of witnesses, concerning the lunar movements, and upon the phases of the moon as used by Rabban Gamaliel. He then elaborates upon the tradition handed down to him from his ancestors (meaning thereby the undisputably correct regulations), and also upon the statutes ordained by Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai, enacting that the sages of each generation are the sole arbiters of all regulations and ordinances, and may themselves promulgate decrees even though the bases for such be not found in the Mosaic code.

Notice how Rabbi Gamaliel is the one who began using the moon to arrange prayers yet according to the Talmud itself, it notes that the bases for such, using the moon for the calendar, is not found in the Mosaic code!  So why would they add a tradition and make it so that everyone has to obey it?  This is one of the reasons why Messiah said in Mark 7:8-9:

Mark 7:8–9 (ESV)
8You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
9And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!

Why would the religious leaders add something like this when there is no basis in Scripture?  Where would they have gotten this idea?  When I show you the origin and the path that this goes, if you are like me will be shocked but at the same time will understand why.

Origin of the New Moon observation

Morris Jastrow Jr., The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, MA: Ginn & Company Publishers, 1898), pg.98.

It will be borne in mind that in the city of Ur, the sun-god occupied a secondary place at the side of the moon-god. This relationship is probably indicated by the epithet ‘offspring of Nin-gal,’ accorded to Shamash in the inscription referred to. The moon being superior to the sun, the consort of the moon-god becomes the mother of the sun-god.

In Ur where Abram was called out of and told to leave his family is also the center of moon worship in Babylonia.  Remember that Rachel, Jacob’s wife had stolen her father’s idols?  Laban was from Abraham’s home country which his name means to be white.  So, what kind of idol did Rachel steal?  Where he was from and considering the history of his country, I would put my money on the idea that it had to do with the moon.  

     Interestingly after the Greeks took over Israel, the people took on the Greek culture and wanted to be like them, even the priests were Greek appointed.    It is known fact that the Greeks began their day in the evening, and they started their months by the sliver of the new moon.  With both the Babylonians and the Greeks, Israel as a whole took on the Babylonian month names like “Tammuz” and “Nisan” and began their day in the evening like both nations, so why do most leave out the rest of their calendar system.  The truth is sometimes hard to admit because we have been shoved tradition in our face for so long yet even after the Messiah, we have writings like the “Preaching of Peter” that talk against these things:

Montague Rhodes James, ed., The Apocryphal New Testament: Being the Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypses (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 17.

Neither worship ye him as do the Jews, for they, who suppose that they alone know God, do not know him, serving angels and archangels, the month and the moon: and if no moon be seen, they do not celebrate what is called the first sabbath, nor keep the new moon, nor the days of unleavened bread, nor the feast (of tabernacles?), nor the great day (of atonement).

In Conclusion

So, you have to make a choice, do you go off by the moon for a month like the Babylonians, Greeks and Judaism or use the signs that Father gave us in Genesis 1, the sun, moon and stars.

Be blessed and happy searching!