Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD.’”
This is the Feast of Trumpets, which Rabbinic Jews today celebrate as Rosh Hashanah, and which also marks the New Year for their civil calendar. (Karaite Jews call the same holiday Yom Teruah.)
The Lord declares that it is to be held on the first day of the seventh month. The Feast of Trumpets is the first of three Holy Days/Feasts in the seventh month. The others are the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles.
When I asked my sister if she was going to be busy with a Feast this week (knowing that Jews were beginning their Rosh Hashanah celebrations the evening of Sept. 8), she was surprised and said no, and wasn't even sure what Rosh Hashanah was. She said that the next Feast she will celebrate will be the Feast of Trumpets on Oct. 8. Since Rosh Hashanah is actually the day for the Feast of Trumpets, I wondered--why a whole month different?! (Especially since she celebrated Passover on the same day as the Hebrew calendar this year.)
In examining this particular problem with the World Mission Society Church of God, I’m not going to compare the Rabbinic and Karaite calendars (which the WMSCOG sometimes deviates from) to try to prove one “right”. I’m only going to compare the WMSCOG calendar with itself and the Bible.
What follows may seem like an insignificant point to some people, but it really shows how the WMSCOG cannot even keep straight their own rules and doctrine.
We know that the Hebrew calendar is luni-solar, which means that the months follow the lunar cycle, with a leap month added every so often to keep the holy days in their proper seasons. Each month starts with the new moon.
(By the way, because of the time difference around the globe, the new moon may occur up to one day off of GMT if you consider that the WMSCOG may go by new moons in Korea (which it does NOT seem to do consistently anyhow). But these problems are far greater than one day….)
Let’s look at this year 2010—
Passover is in the first month (Lev. 23:5)
The WMSCOG kept Passover on March 29.
So the new moon of March 15 marks the first month.
The new moon of April 14 begins the second month.
The new moon of May 13 begins the third month.
The new moon of June 12 begins the fourth month.
The new moon of July 11 begins the fifth month.
The new moon of August 9 begins the sixth month.
The new moon of September 8 begins the seventh month.
The new moon of October 7 begins the eighth month.
The WMSCOG has their Feast of Trumpets scheduled for Oct. 8, 2010.
They are always sticklers for keeping the Feasts at their correct date and time.
Why are they keeping this year’s Feast of Trumpets/Day of Atonement/Feast of Tabernacles in the eighth month instead of the seventh month?
I think their excuse will be something about that these dates are supposed to be in the autumn season, and Sept. 8 is not officially fall yet. But that doesn’t matter. Fall will have officially started before this series of Feasts is finished. And the Bible says that these dates must be in the seventh month.
A similar thing happened in 2005 and 2008:
For 2005, the WMSCOG held Passover on Mar. 24.
So the new moon of Mar. 10 started their first month.
It was followed by the new moons of Apr. 8 (second month), May 8 (third month), June 6 (fourth month), July 6 (fifth month), Aug. 4 (sixth month), Sept. 3 (seventh month), and Oct. 3 (eighth month).
The WMSCOG held their Feast of Trumpets on Oct. 3. (They called this the seventh month on their news report, but it is actually the eighth month counting from when they kept Passover.)
For 2008, the WMSCOG held Passover on Mar. 21.
So the new moon of Mar. 7 started their first month.
It was followed by the new moons of Apr. 5 (second month), May 5 (third month), June 3 (fourth month), July 2 (fifth month), Aug. 1 (sixth month), Aug. 30 (seventh month), and Sept. 29 (eighth month).
The WMSCOG held their Feast of Trumpets on Sept. 30. (They called this the seventh month too on their news report, but it is actually the eighth month counting from when they kept Passover.)
It's just another thing that makes it SO CLEAR to me that Mother Jerusalem is NOT God! She can’t even arrange her own church’s calendar to follow her own teachings.
If you want to see this for yourself, you can look at the South Korea church news reports on the main church website for previous Feast dates here: http://english.watv.org/news/list.asp?menu=I
And here’s a list of new moon dates: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/phase/phase2001est.html
If you'd like to see this information in a chart form, click here.
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