New Year, Celebration, Signs – What are the ancient roots of our modern New Year’s celebration? – Part 1

New Year, Celebration, Signs – What are the ancient roots of our modern New Year’s celebration? – Part 1

This week’s article may be more of a history lesson than anything else, although I will touch on some Old Testament laws on keeping the yearly calendar. Time is an important thing in this working world, and just like we need to keep a weekly schedule for work, school, religion and family activities we must also keep a yearly schedule for those yearly chores like tax season, the beginning of the school year, and the like. This week’s article will be about that yearly date we celebrate as the start of the year, its history and connect it with our daily lives using the Bible as the go to reference book of choice.

First, let’s talk about the history of the current calendar the majority of the world uses to mark the beginning of the New Year. It has it’s foundations in Rome and actually, seems to be traceable to Greek civilization before that. The calendar we currently use is the Gregorian; it was adjusted slightly from the Julian calendar, both of which use the sun to determine dates, months and years. Although I am far from an expert on keeping time, it seems that the early version of the Greek calendar matches up more closely with the Old Testament laws of keeping time, that is, there are 29 and 30 day months, vs. the 30 and 31 day months we have now.

More to come…

Darrell

Seven Steps to Freedom