New Year, Celebration, Signs – What are the ancient roots of our modern New Year’s celebration? – Part 2
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…cont’d.
Next, let’s look into the Bible a bit for what God says about keeping time! First, in Genesis 1, God set the “two lights” to be sings for seasons, days and years and to govern the night and day (Genesis 1:14-18). In the Old Testament the beginning of the year was Nisan 1, which we can know is sometime in March, or shortly around that time, because it is connected with the Jewish celebration of Passover or the Christian Easter, which in the Old Testament is said to begin at Nisan 14 (Leviticus 23:5, Exodus 12:2). Is it any coincidence that this time of the year is the end of the year fiscally for most business’s and tax season for all?
More to come…
Darrell
darrellmowat.wordpress.com 