[Avodah] The Molad of Tamuz

Richard Fiedler richardfiedler at mac.com
Wed Jul 4 11:08:16 PDT 2018


I presume that you believe the start of the Hebrew Calendar was in Hebrew Year 4119, or 358/9 CE by a Hillel be R’ Yehuda.

The primary source would be a responsum of R Hai Gaon cited by R’ Avarham ben Hiyya.

The source said, “…until the days of Hillel ben R’ Yehuda, in the year 670 of the Seleucid era, from which year they did not bring forward or postpone, but kept to this cycle which was at hand…”

The Molad of Tishrei would be Saturday, 23 hours, and 233 chalakim. It can shown from a book by Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community, A History of the Jewish Calendar 2nd century BCE – 10th century CE, that the 
Dehiyyah Molad Zaqen had yet to be implemented.

To be consistent over historical changes all my dates are shown in Gregorian. The date of the Molad would be Sat, September 20, 358. The conjunction would be Sat, September 20 at 21:56 Israel Standard time.

If you went down to your local planetarium and had them set their machine on Jerusalem on the morning of September 20, 358 [Gregorian] you would find the you could walk for an hour and a half before daybreak by the light of the moon [old]. Rosh Hashanah would start that night.

The actual new moon would be seen Mon, September 22, 358 at 17:58.

One would think if I was starting a new calendar system, supplanting the use of witnesses, that I would have started it Mon, September 22, 358 with O hours and 0 chalakim.

Zero hours and zero chalakim occurred July 16, 791 BCE. The worldview of the majority of the traditional Jewish world – the view expressed by Artscroll and in the web pages of Chabad and Aish HaTorah – puts King Solomon’s year of passing at 796 BCE. Shortly thereafter, the Kingdom of Israel in the North, and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the South, split. 


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