Memorial on full moon?

by Aphrodite 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  TwoBlackBelts

  The irony of a dodgy milennium cult having their one big night of the year on a full moon is marvelous.

  They should be out howling at it.
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  Leolaia

  z.....I would agree with most of the Brittanica reference except for its marginalization of the sabbatical solar calendar to just the author of the "Book of Luminaries" in 1 Enoch and the Qumran community. The calendar was used by the Second Temple Zadokite priests to schedule their sabbaths and feasts, and thus was also used in the Priestly document of the Pentateuch, the priestly material in Ezekiel 40-48, in Daniel, Jubilees, and lies behind several of the holidays in the Megillat Ta'anit. The 1 Enoch author was not proposing a new calendar but engaging in a polemic on how the lunar cycles ought to be synchronized with the solar calendar and how the four epagomenal days ought to be counted within the monthly and yearly recokonings. The dispute in the third century BC for the author was not over adopting a solar calendar but what kind of solar calendar is best. By the time we get down to Jubilees and the Qumran documents, the polemic is now clearly between the solar calendar and the lunar (or more accurately, lunisolar) calendar of the Seleucids and Hasmoneans. The main theory of K. Marti, R. T. Beckwith, and J. T. Milik is that the priests adopted the Mesopotamian 360-day calendar during the exile, made it sabbatical by making the epagomenal days coincide with the equinoxes and solstices, and then according to J. C. VanderKam, A. Jaubert, H. Eshel, and others, the official status of the calendar ended during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes who ended the Zadokite priesthood and imposed a lunar calendar (cf. Daniel 7:25, 1 Maccabees 1:58-59, 2 Maccabees 6:6-7). In the Hasmonean period, when Jubilees and the Qumran sectarian documents were written, the non-Zadokite priesthood continued to follow the lunar calendar and the Pharisees did so as well, whom the Qumranite Essenes condemned for observing feasts and the sabbaths at the wrong times (cf. 4Q390, 1QS 1:13-15, 4Q266-268, the Damascus Document, Jubilees 6:36-38)....the solar calendar became marginalized during this period, finding expression only at Qumran, some hints in the scheduling of feasts among the Sadducees and Eastern Christians, the interpretation of Daniel in Revelation, etc.....the modern Jewish lunar calendar, derived from that of the rabbis, of course continues the Pharisee use of lunar reckoning....
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  Narkissos

  Funny that when it comes to Jewish holidays (and especially the Sabbath, vs. the SDAs) the WT is prompt to quote Colossians 2:16f:

  Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

  Or Galatians 4:9ff:

  Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.

  But then, when it comes to the Memorial, the right day of the right lunar month with specific rules for setting the "true" equinox new moon suddenly becomes a matter of utmost importance, and a(n additional) reason to condemn others.
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  heathen

  This one ritual I can see the importance of doing it and doing it correctly since jesus words are to "keep doing this in remembrance of me". The apostle Paul also wrote the importance of doing it properly to the churches and it should not be taken lightly but very seriously that if they didn't do it with the utmost scrutiny they would in fact eat and drink judgement against themselves and thus not survive into the kingdom which of course was going to arrive anytime in the near future .
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  free2beme

  Funny that you mentioned that. As a practicing Pagan, I pay close attention to when the full moon really is. My friend who attended the memorial called on the full moon and I mentioned that it was a full moon tonight. They said, "No, the full moon was Wednesday?" I explained it wasn't, but they assumed it was, as that was the memorial and the memorial was suppose to be on the full moon. I remember many years where it was not and people would ask, why? The reasons where always about the Jewish calender and such, but no one listended as the next year they assumed it was a full moon again. Weird that they never checked.
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  heathen

  regardless I think this thing needs to be done when the sun sets on nissan 14 in jerusalem not when the sun sets in your local area . I believe it's supposed to be an actual dinner and not just one cracker and sip of wine . This church is so screwy they can't even have a church dinner and do it right .
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  Leolaia

  My friend who attended the memorial called on the full moon and I mentioned that it was a full moon tonight. They said, "No, the full moon was Wednesday?"

  http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth/action?opt=-p&img=MoonTopo.evif

  Lunar phase is currently at 89% (100% is full moon).