Key religious events often occur on sacred calendar holy days,
allowing precise dates to be deduced afterward. The life of Jesus Christ
provides a compelling example.
Sacred
calendars have been used to produce a chronology of important religious events
throughout history. This article reviews just how that was accomplished and
provides illustrations to show that the amazing resultant network of evidence
confirms the accuracy of the proposed dates. The chronology of the life of
Jesus Christ provides a perfect example.
The Solar System is a Huge Clock
One of
the results of this research is that the solar system contains much more order
than has even been suspected before. Scientists have theories explaining many
features of planetary motion, but the precise orbital periods have been thought
to be random consequences of a supposed "big bang" long ago. In
contrast, the current research shows that the orbital periods were designed
with very high precision to work together to keep time, accurate to hours over
thousands of years.
God Creating the Sun and Moon
by Michelangelo
God told
us he designed the lights in the sky to be "for seasons, and for days, and
years" (Gen. 1:14). That not only means the sun, moon, planets, and stars
are for keeping time in general, but the word translated "seasons"
has a double meaning. In other places it is translated in the King James
version as "set time" (Gen. 17:21), which this work has shown can
refer to "holy days" on sacred calendars.
Sacred
calendars are all based on tracking the rotation or revolution of those
celestial bodies. The periods of the earth, moon, sun, Venus and Mercury are
all so precise that calendars which track them can be used as a "record in
heaven" to determine the exact dates on which key events in world history
occurred. Hitherto scientists have not even tried to explain the precision of
these orbital periods because they have not noticed they are not just random
numbers. The work reviewed here clearly shows there must have been a
"Watchmaker" to design this magnificent clock.
Two Hemispheres, Two Witnesses
A brief
history of how all of this was discovered should also serve to introduce the
entire concept of the celestial witnesses. In 1984 I read in a book of Aztec
traditions related to astronomy that they believed that their god Quetzalcoatl
resurrected from having been dead a few days at the same that the planet
representing him, Venus, also rose in the east, which symbolized its
resurrection.[1] The date of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has been
identified by some as Quetzalcoatl, was already known to me, being Sun 3 Apr AD
33 on our calendar.[2] Checking planetary tables to see if indeed Venus was rising on
that Easter Sunday showed that it was high enough to be a blazing morning star.
That matched the symbolism in the Bible that the "bright and morning
star" represents Christ (Rev. 22:16).
That
opened up this entire study, which proved incredibly fruitful. It led to the
discovery of several sacred calendars, one of which tracks the planet Venus.
Each of these calendars has designated holy days, and on the Venus Calendar, it
turned out that Sun 3 Apr 33 was the one holy day in a 585-day cycle which
represents resurrection.
That
discovery was not only confirming evidence of the date of the Resurrection,
which is still in dispute, but also for the identification of the original
Quetzalcoatl as being Jesus Christ.
On the
Hebrew calendar, it is well known that the Savior was crucified at Passover, at
the same time that Passover lambs were sacrificed. It is not so well known that
there is a day on the Hebrew calendar for offering a sheaf of the firstfruits
of barley from the ground. That day (called the Waving of the Sheaf) represents
resurrection in general, and of Jesus Christ in particular, being the
firstfruits from the ground (1 Cor 15:20). That day on the calendar given to
Moses is the Sunday after Passover (Lev 23:11). Fortunately the Council of
Nicea also set the annual date of the Christian Easter to nearly always be the
Sunday after Passover. They couldn't have made a better choice, even though the
date jumps around between March and April.[3]
So on the
Hebrew Calendar of the eastern hemisphere and on the Venus Calendar based on
western hemisphere traditions, the Biblical date for the resurrection of Jesus Christ
occurred on the exact day on both calendars that symbolizes resurrection.
To understand how rare an event that is, Easter only occurs on 1 Resurrection
on the Venus Calendar about once in 500 years. It occurred in 2001,[4] but
that was the first time in over 500 years, nor will it occur again for 500 years.
So the fact that it occurred on the very day indicated by the Bible is a
powerful witness that the date is correct. But there are many more witnesses.
The
research led to discovering that many of the key events of the Savior's life
occurred on holy days on both of those calendars. They are summarized below,
and they provide even more powerful evidence that it is far beyond chance for
so many alignments to occur. That provides a compelling witness that the dates
are indeed correct.
There are
many holy days designated on the Hebrew Calendar. Paul explained that the law
of Moses "was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ" (Gal. 3:24).
One way to recognize Him was that He performed sacred ordinances and fulfilled
prophecies on the appropriate dates on the Hebrew Calendar. Besides dying and
resurrecting on the proper days, other key events were His birth, being
presented at the temple on the 40th day of His life according to the law of
Moses, the date He began His public ministry, and the date on which He was
transfigured in the presence of three of His apostles. But as is discussed
below even some events that would appear to be minor were apparently also
scheduled on sacred calendars. Events such as being visited by the magi and
then fleeing to Egypt and returning to escape Herod's decree to slaughter the
infant boys are apparently also included. Thus, this network of events
occurring on sacred days on the Hebrew Calendar form a witness that Jesus
Christ was indeed the expected Messiah.
On the
other hand, or rather, in the other hemisphere, if one checks the dates
indicated for each of those events, all of them also occurred on
holy days according to calendars used in the Americas, especially on
the Sacred Round, used by many Native Americans across both continents. Thus,
the dates of these events form a network of witnesses that Jesus was the
original Quetzalcoatl of Native American lore. Together with the testimony of
the eastern hemisphere, these witnesses provide overwhelming evidence that
Christ is indeed both the Messiah and Quetzalcoatl.
Sacred Calendars
The
process of discovering just how all of the sacred calendars function is still a
work in progress.
Some of the calendars were used
by ancient civilizations and still are in use today.[5]
Others have been modified or perverted and have to be corrected. Some are being
discovered from scratch, with no evidence that they were ever actually used by
anyone. That is, they are apparently being used by God to calendar important
events, but they may never have been known before. For the purposes of this
paper, it is not necessary to understand any details of any of them, but it is
necessary to at least be familiar with their names and what they are tracking.
The purpose of a calendar is to keep track of some celestial body or bodies, to
know where they are at any given time. Let's take a brief look at each.
Ten Discovered So Far
To
date there are ten principal sacred calendars which have been described in my
work. That number is by no means complete. So far only the planets Venus and
Mercury have known calendars; it is expected that at least Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn will each have a sacred calendar associated with them.[6] Table 1 summarizes each of
the ten calendars.
The
first five listed keep track of celestial bodies; the last five are simple day
counts. That means that the first five require "intercalation",
meaning to insert (or skip) extra "leap days" in order to make the
periods come out exactly equal to the true cycle length over long periods of
time. That is a process that requires discovery and tweaking, and not all of
the intercalation procedures are perfectly known to me at this time.[7]
The
importance of the calendars listed as tracking "Days" is that they
are all simple day counts. They do not track any celestial object (other than
the rotation of the earth). That means for each of them, after one historical
day is chosen on which their cycle begins, it is never adjusted all during
history. Thus, when ten events in the Savior's life all occur on holy days,
there is no way to adjust the calendar with a leap day to force it to fit. The
other calendars have the potential problem that the "leap days" were
inserted incorrectly, but the methods employed in my work are based on simple
patterns.
The
day counts are like the 7-day week which just keeps counting days and is never
interrupted nor changed. Even though we use the week in conjunction with our
modern Gregorian calendar, it is actually a separate calendar by itself. In
fact, it is the basic unit of several of the calendars in the table.
Planetary periods are designed
like precise interlocking gears in a huge clock, based on the 13-day trecena of
the Sacred Round.
The
Perpetual Hebrew Calendar is a modified version of the modern Hebrew Calendar,
corrected so that it does not drift slowly through the seasons. The Sacred
Round is the basis of most Native American calendars. Its 260 days comprise
twenty 13-day counts called "trecenas". The Venus and Mercury
calendars were discovered by the author. The Enoch Calendar is described in the
Book of Enoch. The Jubilee Calendar is referenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but
was partly restored by the author. The Priest Calendar comprises the rotation
of the 24 courses of priests in the Temple of Solomon which each served for a
week. The last three uniform calendars are like their namesakes, but they never
intercalate days.
The
"Unit" listed is the fundamental unit of the calendar. For those
tracking something other than days, this is the unit which is intercalated when
needed. For example, when the Perpetual Hebrew Calendar needs to be adjusted to
track the sun (year) better, an entire month is inserted. Those listing the
week as the unit insert an entire week. The Venus calendar skips one trecena
about every twenty years to approximate the true Venus cycle of 583.92166 days.
The week is the best number of days with which to track the periods of the sun
and moon, whereas the trecena is the best unit of time to track the planets.
The Enoch and Jubilee Calendars use both: 364 days comprise 52 weeks and also
28 trecenas.
Holy Days Symbolize Life
Each
of the sacred calendars has holy days. Most civil calendars also have them,
which has given rise to the word "holiday". Perhaps the best known,
besides Easter and Christmas, are those on the Hebrew Calendar such as Passover
and Hanukkah.
Each
of the ten sacred calendars discussed here also has a set of holy days. In the
Hebrew Calendar, they are pretty much the usual ones known to Hebrews. In the
case of the Venus calendar, they correspond to 9 orbital points, such as when
Venus is rising or setting or brightest in the sky.
Only
recently was it discovered that the holy days on most, if not all, of the
calendars all correspond to days in life.[8] That is, the rising of Venus as an Evening
Star is its birth and its setting is death. Rising in the east as a Morning
Star is resurrection. That part has been known since the beginning of my work,
but the recent discovery is that the holy days on the Hebrew Calendar have
similar symbolism. For example, the Feast of Tabernacles represents birth when
we come to earth to live in a tabernacle of clay.
When
we get to the example of the life of Jesus Christ, some of the events of His
life happened not only on a holy day on a certain calendar, but also on the
very holy day which represents that event. That is a much more rare occurrence.
For example, the Resurrection did not just occur on any Hebrew holy day, such as
Passover, but on the very day symbolic of resurrection, the Waving of the Sheaf
(simply renamed "Easter" in my work).
When
an event occurs on a day which is a holy day on more than one calendar, that is
an even more rare occurrence. All ten of the events considered in the life of
Jesus Christ in this article occurred on a day that was holy on at least four
sacred calendars, and many on eight simultaneously which is exceedingly
unusual.
Network of Witnesses
Let
us now consider how incredibly rare such occurrences are, and what a strong
witness that network of events provides that the dates are indeed correct. Let
us begin by taking a brief look at estimating probability in order to
appreciate how rare it is for events to occur on many holy days simultaneously.
Probability
Let's
consider some simple laws of probability. Probability is a predicted result one
can calculate which assumes the universe is run by "chance". It
is based on the ignorance of the observer of a future outcome.
For example, people bet on the
outcome of a horse race, and the chance of each horse winning is calculated by
the laws of probability. But all of that is done before the
horse race. If you are watching a video of last year's Kentucky Derby, it
doesn't make a lot of sense to bet on the outcome. It's a done deal. The end is
known from the beginning of the rerun.
Before
Christ was crucified, a bookie could have taken bets on whether Jesus would die
at the very hour that the Passover Lambs were being sacrificed in Judea, or
whether he would resurrect at the time priests were waving the sheaf of barley.
What if the bet included that He must also resurrect on the very day that Venus
resurrects as a morning star according to its calendar, which only happens on
one day in 585? And what if it had to be on the Resurrection day on three other
calendars too? How would you have bet?
If
the universe were run by chance, there would be essentially a zero probability
that Christ would resurrect at all, let alone at a specific time indicated in a
law given to Moses over a thousand years earlier. Apparently no one was
expecting Jesus to resurrect at all; even his apostles did not believe it at
first. Such a bet might qualify as the biggest "long shot" in
history.
Amazingly,
He did resurrect at that time, but a moment's reflection shows that it was not
just a lucky chance coincidence at all. The event had been planned from before
the creation of the earth and it was scheduled ahead on sacred calendars. In
other words, there was a 100% chance that it would all turn out as God had
planned it. It actually was a sure bet, not a long shot at all!
Independent Events
Before
looking at the timing of events in the life of Jesus Christ according to
different calendars, it should be noted just what calendars are independent of
each other. If a date is known on one calendar, what is the chance of it being
a given date on another calendar? If the calendars are independent, then it is
sometimes easy to calculate that probability.
Two
events being "independent" means that they do not affect each other
at all. When rolling two dice, the outcome for each die is estimated
individually because they (supposedly) do not affect each other. To calculate
the probability of an outcome of two independent events, one multiplies the
probability of one event occurring times the probability of the other. For
example, if one rolls two perfect dice, there is a 1/6 probability of rolling a
6 on each die because it is assumed that each of the six faces is equally
likely to come up. If so, then there is a 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/36 chance of both dice
having a 6 result.
Of
the ten sacred calendars discussed here, only two appear to be totally
independent of each other. Those two are the (Perpetual) Hebrew and the Venus.
The first is tracking the moon and sun, and is also tied to the week. The other
is tracking Venus and is tied to the trecena. Thus any day on the Hebrew
Calendar can fall on any day on the Venus Calendar. In the case of the
Resurrection discussed above, Easter on the Hebrew Calendar can fall on any of
585 different days on the Venus calendar. Therefore, on the average, the Hebrew
Easter only falls on the Venus day 1 Resurrection about once in 585 years.
The other calendars are
somewhat dependent on one of those two. If a given day is a holy day on the
Venus Calendar, then it always is a holy day on both
the Sacred Round and the Mercury Calendar because all three are locked into the same trecena. The point here
really is that the calendars are not random, they are designed! Some calendars
are not independent from each other at all. The Uniform Enoch and Uniform
Jubilee Calendars both have exactly 364 days every year. That means that if a
day is holy on both calendars this year then those two holy days will always
fall together every year. The sacred calendars were designed to maximize
multiple holy days.
Now
that that is understood, one can simplify an approximate calculation of how
rare multiple holy days are to the simple calculation of just the Hebrew and
Venus Calendars, which are independent from each other.
In
the case of the calendars there are 32 holy days on the Hebrew calendar which
averages 365 days in length, and there are 18 holy days (9 pairs of two
consecutive) in 584 average in the Venus cycle. The "chance" (before
you look at a calendar!) of any day being holy on both calendars is therefore
32/365 x 18/584, which is about 1/370. That means that one would expect to find
one day per year on the average that is holy on both calendars. And indeed that
is the case.
On
the other hand, if one demands that the day be some specific holy day on both
calendars, then it is much more rare. Then then odds are 1/365 x 1/584 which is
1/213,000. But this is a result we have already seen, because 213,000 days is
about 584 years. This is just another way to calculate that the Hebrew Easter
will only occur on the day Venus resurrects once in about 584 years.
Now we are ready to consider
the events in the life of Jesus Christ, and to consider just how unlikely it
would be for all of those events to fall on holy days on so many calendars if
the orbital periods of the sun (really earth), moon, and Venus were determined
by chance.
Life of Jesus Christ
Let us now look at a network
of dates that have been proposed in my work for the life of Jesus Christ. The
anchor date for the whole set of those dates for is the date of the
Resurrection. That date can be derived precisely to the very day from the New
Testament. Briefly, the Gospels state that the empty tomb was found on Sunday
(first day of the week), after a Saturday Passover between three and four years
after the summer of AD 29. That pinpoints the day to Sun 3 Apr AD 33 (on our
modern Gregorian Calendar). Most scholars choose AD 30 instead for the
Resurrection, based on other reasons.[9]
Lunar eclipse of Dec, 1 BC,
shortly before Herod’s death.
The
date for the beginning of Christ's public ministry is a secondary anchor date
because the Bible explicitly states that Jesus began on the Passover Feast day
(John 2:23). The birth date was chosen because it has recently been
noticed that Passover is the birthday feast of the Savior.[10] He was baptized at age 30,
and Passover of his birth year would have been on Thu 6 Apr 1 BC (there was no
year 0 BC). The feast is eaten the night before at the beginning of the
Hebrew day.
There are several reasons for choosing the dates for the
Flight to Egypt. The calendar symbolism was a day of evil, of weeping, and the
day to begin a journey. The date for the end of the journey is the counterpart
of the beginning and it occurred about a month after Herod's death.[11]
Table 2. Events in life of Christ in order of certainty of date.
Table 2
lists the ten events in the life of Christ being considered, and the proposed
date for each. Many dates are known to quarter-day accuracy, where the * means
night time (before 6 a.m. or after 6 p.m.). They are listed in the order of
certainty, with the first being rock solid. The first seven all have some
indication of the date given in the Gospels, the last three are mostly deduced
from calendar symbolism. For more detail about why each date was chosen, find
the date listed on my Religious Chronology[12] and
follow the links to the paper proposing that date.
Now that
the reader is familiar with the events, Table 3 lists how many sacred calendars
had holy days on the proposed dates, listed in chronological order. In the
discussion of probability above, it was noted how much more rare it is for the
event to happen on the one or two holy days which either symbolize the event
(like being born on the very day for birth) or that was especially meaningful
(like the Lord being born on the day 1 Lord). For that reason, days which are
bulls-eyes on an exact symbolic day are indicated by a large red "X",
whereas if it was just any holy day, the small purple "x" is used.
Even
though the most independent two calendars are the Hebrew and Venus as discussed
above, it is still incredibly unusual to have an event occur on so many
simultaneous holy days. Five of the dates listed in a 33 year period are holy
on eight sacred calendars. Only a few days in history would be expected to be
holy on eight calendars. In the list of about 170 dates on my Religious
Chronology page, the only other date that was holy on eight calendars was the
date called the Beginning of Mortality, from which Biblical time is measured.
And there are no dates holy on nine of the calendars. So to have five such
dates in a short 33 year time span is amazingly rare in itself, let alone
having them occur on the most likely dates of so many events in the Savior's
life.
Again,
the number of the big red X's is the most important, because the probability of
so many bulls-eyes happening by chance is negligible. Hopefully the reader is
getting the picture that this could not have all happened by chance. All of
these super-holy days attest to the correctness of this set of dates, which was
derived starting from the historical day of the Resurrection and then using
information in the Bible to determine the others. But there is yet another
dimension. That is to notice exactly on which holy days each event occurred.
Table 3. Each big X is about
ten times as rare as each little x.
The
illustration shows the seven best-attested events as points. The points are
connected by lines, which represent by color on which calendar the two events
happened on the same (or one of two consecutive) holy days. For example, look
at the point representing Jesus being at the temple at the age of forty days
(labeled "Temple") and also the point representing the beginning of
his public ministry (labeled "Ministry"). Those two points are
connected by three lines, one purple for the Priest Calendar, one white for the
Sacred Round, and one orange for the Uniform Enoch Calendar. Those lines mean
that those events occurred on exactly the same holy day (or pair of holy days)
on all three of those calendars.
Each line indicates that the
connected events occurred on the same holy day on the calendar indicated by its
color.
It is
easy to calculate how often that happens, and no probability is needed. How
long does it take those three (day-count) calendars to realign so that all
three holy days again occur simultaneously? The answer is, it takes exactly 30
Uniform Enoch years (364 days each). So that event when Jesus was 30 was the
first time since his birth that those three holy days occurred together again.
Think
about that for a moment. That means that the Temple date which was calculated
by counting 39 days from the Savior's proposed birth date just happens to be
the one day in thirty years that matches the exact date given in the Bible for
the beginning of His ministry. Any one of these results is a strong witness
that the proposed dates are correct.
Moreover,
notice the symbolism of the Priest calendar, because at both events at the
temple, it was the Jeshua (Hebrew for "Jesus") priest who was
presiding. So that was not just any holy day on the Priest Calendar, but the
day representing the coming of Jesus. Hence the big red X in Table 3 for those
events on the Priest Calendar. You see how the chance of this all being random
is too hard to believe.
Another
example is on the Mercury Calendar. The Savior was born on the day 1 Lord, was
baptized on the day 0 Lord (0 Lord completes the cycle begun by 1 Lord),
preached to the Spirit World on 0 Lord and then resurrected on the next day, 1
Lord. Because 1 Lord is His special day, those four events are listed
with the big red X in Table 3 in the Mercury column.
Note also
that the Venus Calendar is not listed in the illustration. With it the
symbolism was different. Each of the events in the Savior's life occurred on
different holy days on the Venus Calendar, such that all nine orbital points
are represented.
Eclipsed full moon rising just
hours after the crucifixion.
Looking
at the illustration shows how many events of His life occurred on identical
holy days, because each line represents such a pair on the same calendar.
Note that there are "twin dates" for the Baptism and Transfiguration
as well as for the Ministry to the living and the Ministry to the dead in the
Spirit World. The richness of the symbolism can boggle the mind.
Another
added feature is that there are even more witnesses of these dates, because
they also link to many other dates in the chronology in the same way these link
to each other.
This paper was limited
to the mere 33 years of the Savior's life.
An example of a link to
another date is given in the publication date of this article: Tue 19 Aug 2014.
Today is the holy day 0 Lord on the Venus Calendar, which completes 1,260 Venus
cycles since the proposed birth date of Christ on 1 Lord. Today also is the
holy day 13 Deer on the Sacred Round. It begins the 260th round of 260 days
from the day Tue 6 Apr 1830 (13 Deer), on which was the birth of the LDS
Church. Many believe that the LDS Church was born on the same day as Christ (6
Apr), which agrees with the findings of this paper. Thus, today is linked on two sacred
calendars to the birth date of Christ. Those links did not happen by chance, they were planned.
Conclusion
Ten
sacred calendars have been discovered and are briefly discussed and compared.
Each has holy days, which are symbolic of steps in life, such as birth, death
and resurrection. Results from many previous articles are then reviewed for the
most probable dates of such key events in the Savior's life. The amazing result
is then reviewed that ten of those dates fall on holy days on many of those
sacred calendars simultaneously, often on the exact day of the cycle designated
for that very event. The odds against so many coincidences happening by chance
is overwhelmingly small, providing compelling evidence that most of the
proposed dates are indeed correct.
Notes
1.Aveni, Anthony, Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico, (Austin, Texas: U. of Texas
Press, 1980), p. 187 (where Aveni was quoting the Anales de Quauhtitlan by E.Seler, 1904), quoted by Pratt, John P., "Venus Resurrects This Easter Sunday",Meridian Magazine,
27 Feb 2001, Section 1.
2.See "Astronomers Pinpoint Time and Date of Crucifixion and
Resurrection." That date has been known for
a long time, but the authors of this paper feel they discovered a better proof.
Most historians refer to that Sunday as 5 Apr 33 because they use the
inaccurate Julian Calendar rather than our more accurate Gregorian used today,
which is used throughout my work.
3.It is my understanding that
there is irony in how our date of Easter was chosen. The council selected it to
totally separate Christianity from Judaism. They chose the Sunday after
Passover so that Easter would never occur on Passover. It is not clear that
they even knew about the Waving of the Sheaf offering on the Hebrew Calendar,
and even if they had, by then the Pharisee tradition had taken over the Hebrew
Calendar, so that today the Waving of the Sheaf is on 16 Nisan, which is
usually not on Sunday. So it appears they unwittingly chose the very day on the
Mosaic Calendar symbolizing resurrection in an attempt to avoid Judaism
altogether! In my recent work, the day is simply called "Easter"
rather than the "Waving of the Sheaf" now that it is clear what it
symbolized.
4.The event in 2001 was
celebrated by watching Venus resurrect right on schedule, see Pratt, John P., "Venus Resurrects This Easter Sunday" Meridian Magazine, 27 Feb 2001. Using the
current versions of both the Perpetual Hebrew Calendar and the Venus Calendar,
the last time that happened was on Sun 31 March 1280 and the next time will be
on Sat 23 Mar 2543 pm*, the evening which would begin the Hebrew Easter that
year. On our Gregorian Calendar, using my current models, it never happens
again on an Easter Sunday.
5.See for example, one
version of the Sacred Round by Raven Hail, The Cherokee Sacred Calendar, Rochester, Vermont, Destiny
Books, 2000.
6.Preliminary work was
published already to suggest a calendar for the planet Uranus, but it is not
mature enough to include in this article. There is also a Trecena Calendar
which is very similar to the Sacred Round.
7.An example is the
difference between the Julian Calendar, used from the time of Julius Caesar and
named for him, and our modern Gregorian Calendar. The Julian intercalates a
leap day on 29 Feb once every four years, based on the approximation that the
true year is 365.25 days long. But by the 1500's it became clear that the
calendar was about 10 days off, so the formula was changed to skip leap years
in three out of four centuries to better approximate the length by 365.2425
days.
10. It is only a recent discovery that Passover symbolized the birth
of the Messiah as well as the birth of the nation of Israel at the Exodus. See
Pratt, John P., "Passover: Was it Symbolic of His Coming?" Ensign 24, 1 (Jan, 1994), pp 38-45.
