The Aviv/Crescent New Moon Calendar

“Reading through many social media posts this year (2019), I’ve become increasingly discouraged about all the chaos that abounds among even those seemingly trying to prove our Father’s truth on the matter of the calendar. It seems many of us aren’t able to respectfully disagree without putting down others (our brothers and sisters!) and I find that very disheartening. While I’m glad to see many more people start to take interest in following our Father’s true calendar, the fruits that I see of more groups conducting their own searches in Jerusalem only seems to be more division. I see a strong need for a central authority to make judgment calls when things aren’t quite clear. It would appear that we have multiple people wanting to make themselves that central authority and that simply does not work. We’re all then left to make the call on our own as to which authority we should follow.

“For planning purposes, I have previously used calculations to help predict in advance when the Holy Days were likely to be & I have believed that we should then follow up with visual observation to confirm the actual dates. At this point, I’ve seen enough discrepancies in the accounts of “witnesses” that I’m almost to the point of believing that, when the witnesses disagree, perhaps we should fall back on the calculations as a more reliable “witness” than humans who may have ulterior motives and a desire to create for themselves a following.

Here’s the basics for [Jennifer’s] aviv barley and visible New Moon calculations:

“Start with the date/times of the invisible conjunction (as determined by the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) https://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO [the Navy is still off line].

“Add 18 hours to the time of the invisible conjunction as an approximation of when the visible crescent could be seen. This seems a logical amount of time given that it’s what Isaac Newton used when he attempted to calculate the date of the crucifixion & he stated that it was the number the Jews used as well.

“Find the time of sunset in Jerusalem. After finding the conjunction & adding 18 hours, the NEXT sunset would begin the month. Sunset times are also available from the United States Naval Observatory (USNO)

“Per the US Naval observatory, naked eye sightings have been seen as early as 15.5 hours after conjunction. Therefore, I decided to go with a 3-hour buffer before the 18 hours. If 15 hours post conjunction puts us at the previous sunset, I’ll list that previous sunset as “possible” visibility, with a reliable witness. Based on some of the previous years new moon sightings being over 22 hours post conjunction, I decided to go with a more generous 6-hour buffer after the 18 hour prediction. If 24 hours post conjunction puts us at the next sunset, I’ll list that following sunset as “possible” visibility with a reliable witness.

“Find the date of the spring equinox. If there is a conjunction 10 days or less prior to the spring equinox, go with that new moon to start the year. Otherwise, go with the following new moon. This is based on the historical Abib declarations made by the Karaites between 2000 and 2014. The new year's conjunction was never more than 10 days before the equinox. While the spring equinox is NOT mentioned in scripture and the abib barley IS mentioned, it is clear that our Creator set in place the motion of our planet around the sun, including equinoxes and solstices, which undeniably play a part in the change of seasons. While my preference is to look to visual observation of the barley in Jerusalem as a confirmation of the change of seasons, with the lack of reliable witnesses, or in the presence of conflicting witnesses, looking to something as universal as the spring equinox seems a logical choice. What if we weren’t living in a time of instant communication and didn’t have the ability to receive word from witnesses in Jerusalem? The spring equinox is a universal sign which everyone could look to regardless of where they are in the world and what the various signs of the changing seasons may be in their particular area.

“Pentecost is counted from the first day of the week during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. If the first day of Unleavened Bread is a Sunday, that’s the Sunday during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so that’s where the count begins. If the first day of Unleavened Bread is Monday through Saturday, the following Sunday would be where the count begins. I don’t believe counting from the First Holy Day of Unleavened Bread is scriptural as it would require the word “Sabbath” to take on two different meanings within the same context of Leviticus 23:15 “And you shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete. If we’re counting seven Sabbaths, this must be referring to full weeks ending with the Sabbath and NOT the annual Sabbath of the First Day of Unleavened Bread.”

While calculations are far more convenient than sightings, and they are usually right, it is an adaptation for the needs of the day whenever you have doubts about the “witnesses”, since the old Jewish custom of having at least two reliable witnesses ride into Jerusalem on horseback with their observations no longer works.

Here are the dates thru 2050. Note the four other spreadsheets she listed at the very bottom.

Be sure to scroll right for the “fall” dates.

No one ever saw an equinox. The equinox is not a Biblical factor as to when a year begins. Interestingly, before 701 BC every year was 360 days long. Here are 100+ quotes from “Worlds in Collision” evidencing major changes in astronomy from the time when every month was exactly 30 days long. Ancient calendars the world over all recorded 360-day long years. Today, the autumn equinox marks the beginning of autumn, but not actually equal day and night. This is not an endorsement of Immanuel Velikovsky’s entire book.

Of course using an obelisk (meaning Baal’s shaft) to determine an equinox is truly a last resort. The oldest stone structures in existence, such as Stone Henge, point to the existence of equinox celebration, along with the complementary sex cults that watch for the shaft shadow to enter the happy place twice a year. They have existed for the entire span of human existence. It doesn’t just date back to ancient Babylon and Egypt as a means of celebrating the shadows. A primary end-of-the-age example is the Georgia Guidestones. It’s an issue to the very end:

Plague, War, Famine and obelisks (equinox locators) are all connected in Ezekiel 6.

Why not simply opt for celebrating the harvest Feasts when the harvest is ready?

Millions of Christians understand that there will be a seven year long period at the end of the age where Babylon has free reign. It’s super easy to find web articles confirming that. But the critical fact virtually always overlooked is that The Day of Yehovah (the Lord) is entirely separate from that period. It is not the same thing or part of the same thing. It’s a year long DESTRUCTION of the Beast power with Elohim in complete control of Babylon’s downfall—an eighth year! Read all about it in Isaiah 13 where Yehovah will “destroy all the sinners”. Notice the benchmark event in Matthew 24:

Matthew 24:29 Immediately AFTER the time of Tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon won’t shed her light and stars will fall from the sky ...

Isaiah 13:10 also explains that in detail with this frequent time stamp: “The stars in the sky and their constellations will no longer shine. The sun will be darkened when it rises, and the moon won’t reflect its light.

Chapter 13 describes the events of that separate eighth year:

Isaiah 13:11 & 19 I’ll punish the land for its evil and the wicked for their wickedness. I’ll put an end to the arrogance of the proud and humble the pride of the ruthless ... 19 And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the 'Babylonians' will be overthrown by Elohim like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Joel 1 describes the transition from the Great tribulation to the Day of Yehovah:

Joel 1:15 A terrible day! The Day of Yehovah is near, and it will come as destruction from the Sovereign.

So it is not continuing destruction coming from Babylon, it’s destruction coming to destroy Babylon! Joel 2 continues into another entire chapter about the Day of Yehovah. Details about the Day of Yehovah dwarf the info on the Great Tribulation!

Isaiah 34 continues:

Isaiah 34:2,4,8 Yehovah is angry with all the nations and furious with their armies. He has devoted them to destruction. He has doomed them to slaughter ... 4 The entire array of stars will disappear [1]. The sky will roll down like a scroll, and all of its stars will fall [1] like withered leaves falling from a grapevine or a fig tree ... 8 It is the Day of Yehovah’s Vengeance, a Year of Payback settling the dispute (retribution) over Zion.

So there is an eight year long close to this age—not seven! (Seven years is not the same as six years and two partial years with the same number of days. So to be seven years it must start on the first day of some year.) I strongly suspect that the final eight years of this age will begin on Sunday, March 12, 2024 (aviv barley permitting). The year when Yehovah sets foot on the Mount of Olives in Zechariah 14:4 (and His Father returns to Mt. Zion, Zechariah 8:3, Daniel 7, especially verse 22 and Micah 4:2,6-7) falls on a year when “no man knows the day or the hour” of the Day of Trumpets (Matthew 24:22). I believe 2032/2033 to be the Jubilee year when Yeshua and His Father appear at the Valley of Yehoshaphat (“Armageddon”) on the Day of Trumpets. The Day of Trumpets of some year is in question as to when the crescent moon will be sighted in Israel by astronomical calculation. With all of the unique things to be going on in the sky we should expect some surprises, so expect that “no man knows”. The return of a 360 day-long year wil make these dates just relative placeholders.

[2021 note to local friends: It’s a sure bet that you will see the New Moon on Monday nite Pacific time provided the sky is clear, as seen here, however there is only about a 1% chance of visibility in Israel. So what if Yeshua were planning to return to Israel this year (He won’t of course). Would you say when you see the New Moon on Pacific time—and nothing happens—that “the Lord delays His coming”? Would you celebrate that annual Sabbath starting Monday nite anyway as you’re planning, or would you celebrate the Day of Trumpets beginning Tuesday nite, the same day Yeshua (and His Father) does, on Israel time, and welcome Them back? Of course if it were the actual year of Their return that I expect to be in (2032/2033) then you, desirous of being His Bride, would be at the threshold of Israel, having had the spots and wrinkles beaten out of you by three and a half years of Great Tribulation, ready to live on into the millenniun as mortals, while I am desirous of coming down from New Jerusalem, (just above us then) with Them Both as one of the Sons in a new spirit composed body. I don’t expect for there to be any loitering around the pearly gates—the millisecond that the New Moon is visible the fireworks will begin!]

Before going any further, you may ask how the Appointed Times (Days), based on New Moons, can be determined over six months in advance, since no one can possibly see the crescent New Moons in advance. One school of thought says that we must wait for actual witnesses in Jerusalem to report New Moons before determining any New Moon. Strict visibility was apparently done between 747 BC and the Diaspora, after which the Hillel 2 calendar was devised. Since the twelve tribes of Israel were dispersed all over the world, any witnesses who might have slipped into Israel would only be useful about as far as they could shout. Until mass communication, anyone celebrating the Appointed Times by Scriptural standards would have had to estimate the dates by local observations. I respect strict visibility advocates and have no problem befriending them—witnesses in Jerusalem—period, end of story for them—except that even they use logic instead of visibility to “calculate” that a month must not exceed 30 days, even under heavy cloud cover.

An approach that takes into account that people all over the world need to know when the Appointed Times should be celebrated is briefly described on this link. The concept is addressed in a short letter. Here is an excerpt:

“A few years ago on a particular occasion the moon should have been easily visible from Israel. Indeed, on the previous evening, the moon had already been sighted half way around the world in the US. Now there is a hard and fast rule that if the moon is visible in a given location it will be visible everywhere to the west of that location on the same latitude. So if the moon was seen in the southern United States then it has to be visible in Israel (on the following evening)”.

Most of Judaism, due to being ousted from Israel by the Romans, abandoned the two sole visible factors for determining a Scripturally accurate calendar, and “temporarily” adopted a mathematically calculated calendar. This happened in the 4th century under the influence of Hillel 2. Now Rabbinic Jews still totally ignore any actual visibility of the New Moon for determining when a month begins. Secondly, they rejected annual agricultural “leap years” based on ripening barley in Israel (since they were no longer allowed there), to determine when a 13th month is necessary to keep the years on track.

Did you ever wonder why there is so little information in the Bible about the calendar that Isreal used? Since I began celebrating the aviv/crescent calendar in 2000 (and getting booted from the local COG splinter group I started), I have not seen any comment on this.

A friend of Albert Einstein’s named Immanuel Velikovsky actually provided strong proof in his book Worlds in Collision that prior to 747 BC, every month was exactly thirty days long. This book was found open on Albert’s desk after he died. Long story short, the entire scientific community has rejected his findings—now even backed up by satellites—and swept him under the rug for rocking too many boats, but it should come as no surprise to us!

An honest evaluation of world history reveals that exact thirty day long months were a reality until at least the time of the defeat of Israel and Judah when they were carried off captive to Babylon and Assyria. In fact Bible prophecy indicates a return to the thirty day months (but not retroactively). The book of Revelation (11:2 & 13:5) describes the Great Tribulation as lasting 42 months, while Daniel said it will last 1,260 days. 1,260 divided by 42 = 30. Since this is true then visibility every month and calculations would not have been necessary before the “worlds collided”. Counting to thirty was all that was necessary for a month and counting to twelve for a year. This accounts for the lack of Scriptural commentary on sighting New Moons. It is logic that dictates that visibility is necessary. Scripture does not say anything about moon witnesses or aviv searches in the vicinity of Jerusalem or how much barley constitutes a harvest; they are necessary deductions, now that the “worlds have collided”.

Here are some quotations from Velikovsky’s book. This accounts for the unusual historical information in regard to the calendar in Jewish historical accounts since the eighth century BC.

“From biblical times vestiges of three calendar systems remain,104 and this assumes a special interest in view of the fact we noted some pages back, namely, that the tablets from Nineveh record three different systems of solar and planetary movements, each of which is complete in itself and differs from the others at every point.

It looks to me like the miracle in 2 kings 20:8-11 when the shadow went backwards might actually mark The days in a month kept changing! Be prepared for the “New Heavens”. Have you ever wondered what could be new about the heavens? Velikovsky:

“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will [do] make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain,” reads the closing chapter of the Book of Isaiah. All flesh will come to worship the Lord “from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another.” The “new heavens” means a sky with constellations or luminaries in new places. The prophet promises that the new sky will be everlasting and that the months will keep forever their established order.

“Daniel, the Jewish sage at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Exile, when blessing the Lord, said to the king: “He changeth the times and the seasons.”106 This is a remarkable sentence which is also preserved in many Jewish prayers. By the change of seasons or “appointed dates” (“moadim”) [Feast dates] is meant an alteration in the order of nature, with shifting of solstitial and equinoctial dates and the festivals connected with them. “The change of times” could refer not only to the last change, but to the previous ones also, and it was “the change of the times and the seasons” that was followed by calendar reforms.”

Note that Judah’s “temporary” calendar from the 4th century AD is totally unrelated to the massive calendar changes stemming from the destruction of Judah and the second Temple.

During the great flood in the time of Noah, years were a steady 360 days long. But during the 8th century BC that all changed. Yehovah revealed to Moses when to begin a new year. So during the Exodus and for many centuries to follow, all you had to do for a calendar was to count to thirty—twelve times!

We need to keep in mind that the determination of the New Moon in Jerusalem in a timely manner after the eighth century BC was determined by how far a messenger on a horse can travel in a night to report a sighting. This was not a Biblical standard; it was a pragmatic determination at the time it was made, made by thinking people. Had the people on the calendar court heard the year following their determination that someone had bred horses that traveled much faster, they could have revised the required distance traveled from Jerusalem. They could have said, “Hey guys, until someone invents the internet and cell phones, let’s get some of those faster horses!” Well now the wait is over, we have “horseless messengers” that can circle the earth almost instantaneously. Perhaps an hour is long enough to get the New Moon reports to the “calendar court”.

(Of course now, with Jennifer’s calculations you can be pretty sure when to celebrate, even when the grid ultimately fails!)

Since the orbital shift people have had to use judgment.

So do we use the same judgment standard (horses) that was in use pre technology days? If so, unplug your computers and phones and resort to local New Moons and local barley for rough estimations (or Jennifer’s calculations for very close estimations).

Why not use local visibility? My wife and I always celebrate the Feasts and Festivals (there is a difference) on the same day of the week as is done in Israel—just like every other Sabbath. All Sabbaths/Feasts have to start at some place on a round earth. Some time zone has to be the first to celebrate them. That is why there is an International Date line. It’s the place on earth that each day begins, tho the one in the Pacific ocean happens to be in the wrong place. If a person accepts local New Moons as being ok for determining the New Moon, then several different days would be “Aviv 1” over the planet. Furthermore, some days would begin before they do in Israel and some days would begin after the day begins in Israel for those who think a day can begin in any of the 24 time zones they want it to. Likewise, several different months would be Aviv, depending on the local climate. That makes asking what day it is rather complicated!

Suppose you live in the U.S; do you ever celebrate the Sabbath before they do in Israel? Never! It always comes to us with the setting sun after it is celebrated in Israel. Why switch to celebrating annual Sabbaths before Israel just because in some months you see the New Moon before they do? Each of the 24 time zones has an equal shot at being in the right place on earth for sighting the moon when she first appears. Should we start days in any of the 24 different time zones, as if we were playing Russian roulette? The Feasts must also begin in Israel and then come to all time zones following the sun. With local sighting there is no standard of what constitutes a day. Logically speaking, days must always start in the same place on the planet and end there. Is that place the International Date Line? Should China, Japan and Australia sporadically celebrate Sabbaths or Feasts before Israel? I don’t think so!

What if Yeshua was planning to come to Jerusalem (you name the year) on the Day of Trumpets as we expect, and the 29th day of the sixth month just ended. The next new day begins with sunset—it could either be the 30th day of the sixth month, or the 1st day of the seventh month (depending on the sighted moon). The day begins but the moon is not visible anywhere in Israel, so Yeshua would be waiting for the next day. But 8 hours later, the moon appears over the U.S, and “local observers” declare New Moon day, and begin celebrating the Day of Trumpets. Would it really be the Day of Trumpets? Did Yeshua miss His opportunity to set foot on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4) on the Day He had been planning on for millennia?

If, as I believe, Yehovah’s International Dateline really belongs on the eastern border of Israel, rather than the arbitrarily designated Pacific ocean location, then anyone living either east or west of Israel at sundown—the other twenty-three time zones—are actually living in the “previous day”, because only one time zone sliver of the planet has experienced the new day once it begins in Israel. But any moon witness on the same latitude observing the crescent moon prior to sundown in Israel should be able to notify Israel (and everyone else) that New Moon Day will be beginning at sundown in Israel once it does happen.

A fascinating article timing the birth of the Messiah to the very hour is found here. The article presents an amazing connection with the crescent New Moon described in Revelation and the day Yeshua was born! The astronomical information provided inadvertantly proves that John’s prophecy would not work using a lunar conjunction. Yeshua was born under a crescent New Moon!

To determine “New Year’s Day”, New Moons and Aviv are the only requirements for a calendar; other than knowing what constitutes a day, a month and a year.

Now about Aviv:

Pictures of the barley may still be posted on Nehemia Gordon’s Facebook page at: Nehemia Gordon

An excellent article that addresses almost every conceivable argument by those wishing to promote Hillel 2’s rabbinic calendar instead of the Biblical one can be found on the following offsite link. What about sighting the New Moon locally instead of depending on it being sighted from Israel? Aside from the problem created by the location of the International Date Line being placed in the middle of the Pacific ocean, affecting which day of the week it is for over half of the planet, there is the problem of each locality (or neighborhood or household or individual) having their own opinion on the visibility.

Yehovah’s “Green” Calendar

Plants “know” when to grow, so long as they are their natural climactic zones. While plant maturity can be delayed by planting too late, plant maturity basically can’t be hastened by earlier planting dates. In fact some gardeners and farmers plant their spring crops in late fall, knowing that the seeds of most crops won’t germinate and grow during the winter months. I plant potatoes the same day I harvest them, knowing that they “know” what they are doing. The green calendar or growing season is then left up to Yehovah. It is up to Him to send the rains (and temperatures) in due season:

Leviticus 26:3-5 If you ‘live’ by My unchanging tenets, and obey My Commandments, and actually do them, 4 then I’ll send you your rain in the right season, and the land will yield produce, and the trees in the fields will produce their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue; until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting time [Clarke’s]! You’ll eat your fill of food, and live securely in your own land.

Various green (agricultural) calendars have been observed over the millennia. Perhaps Linnaeus read the Bible:

“The act of plant watching has had a long tradition and rich history. In 1750 the Swedish scientist and artist Linnaeus turned plant watching into a systematic science. He made calendars of flowering times for 18 places in Sweden, also noting the exact climatic conditions at these times. This research was the foundation of modern plant phenology which spread too many European countries and revealed, over the centuries, that some spring wildflowers are super-sensitive weather instruments.” dead link

We use what’s called phenology to mark the beginning of the New Year. What is that?

“Phenology: The name of this method is Greek for “the science of appearances”. Annual occurrences—or “appearances”—in the growth of plants and the behavior of wild animals are used to determine when cultivated plants should be sown, fertilized, sprayed, or pruned. Although the principle has been used since ancient times, it’s becoming an ever more exact science with practitioners around the world keeping detailed records of the yearly cycles in their gardens. Because this method allows nature to indicate appropriate planting times, it’s quite precise.” A similar replacement link.

A wide range of signs are utilized, from the first open leaf and flower buds, the migration of birds to hatching insects. Coordinated efforts are being made to find more of these signs. Timings of phenological events are ideal and fascinating indicators of biological things to come. I have watched for forsythias flowering before Passover for years.

Yehovah (God) told Moses to begin the year utilizing a phenologic sign He called Aviv.

Aviv is not the name of a month-it is the condition of a month! The “month” of Aviv literally means: The moon (lunar cycle) with “young barley ears”. (There was no corn in that half of the world).

Speaking of the time when Israel left Egypt:

Exodus 12:2 This New Moon will be the beginning of your New Moons [months]. It will be the first New Moon of your year.

Exodus 13:4 Today, in the month of the aviv, you’re leaving. [the Exodus].

Several phenological indicator plants are mentioned during the Exodus but the barley specifies the growth stage of the plant necessary for calendrical use.

Exodus 9:31-33 (The flax and the barley were destroyed, since the barley was aviv, and the flax was budding. 32 But the wheat and the spelt were not destroyed, since they ripen later.) 33 Then Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He spread out his hands to Yehovah, and the thunder and hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured down on the earth.

This principle [phenology] has been used in agriculture for all of history. The best planting dates can’t be determined by the date on a solar equinox calendar. Millions of farmers in the past have relied on lunar cycles for the best results. However since scientists have relatively recently moved the finish line on what a New Moon is—using an astrologically determined invisible conjunction rather than visible moon signs, the results have been skewed for many because of the one to two day discrepancy. Another factor for successfully “planting by the moon” is knowing which moon to plant in. While moon sign planting is considered superstition to many people, there is documented experimental data to back it up. Using phenological indicator plants along with determining the agricultural first month of the year is the most successful method. And using the New Moon and the aviv barley together indicates the beginning of the all important agricultural/Biblical year in Israel.

For local planting purposes, between dandelions, lilacs, forsythia and daffodils (narcissis) it is possible to fine tune the best planting dates for about anything where I live. The more species the more fine tuned you can get because best planting dates vary from year to year, not necessarily counting days from any one indicator plant. In other words, planting something 10 days after dandelions bloom one year may not be best the next year, so you would use a more fine tuned specific phenological indicator plant to fix the best planting date later in the season. That is what gardeners have done since the dawn of gardening. In the case of finding the best “planting” date for Passover, the use of another species could easily be off, and some years one day could alter the calendar for a year.

If using local visibility to determine New Moons, you are 100% guaranteed to have people arriving at different calendar days (on any calendar) for every Sabbath or in this case for every Passover. But Passover is on the 15th day of Aviv for the entire earth, so all days and months must be calculated from Jerusalem for that to be the case. And using local visibility of barley could put “Passover” in many months of the year when you consider that spring in the southern hemisphere is “six months off”.

Genesis 1:14 Then Elohim said, “There should be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They’ll signal 'Appointed Festivals', days and years.

There are substitutional methods of determining when to plant. Using historical average first and last frost dates on a solar calendar or better yet soil temperature readings to choose planting dates works most years, but it still exposes plants to injury or death if the presumed planting dates are up to a month (moon) off.

In the future everyone will be involved with their own food production. The Everlasting Kingdom will be an agriculturally based kingdom to keep people “grounded”. The Kingdom of Elohim will be an Edenic garden.

Isaiah 51:3 Yehovah will comfort Zion. He’ll have compassion on all her ruins. He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like Yehovah’s garden. Joy and happiness will be found there, thanksgiving and the sound of music.

Real estate will be free then. Even city dwellers will have free access to crop land for gardens outside of, for example, Jerusalem: Ezekiel 48:19.

Yehovah Rejects Hybrid Plants & Animals

A cultivated variety is designed to reproduce after its kind in succeeding generations. (Genesis 1:12)

A hybrid seed is designed to NEVER reproduce the exact kind in the next generation, if at all. It produces unending, seldom good surprises.

Leviticus 19:19 You must obey My unchanging tenets. You must not crossbreed vastly different kinds of animals. ‘You must not sow your fields with vastly different kinds of crops [2] or wear clothing made of linen and wool woven together.

In 1970 I planted a small plot of Indian corn next to my uncle’s perhaps 100 acre corn field. His entire harvest was speckled with rainbow colors! Uncle Bill was very amused that the Indian corn was so fertile, but it didn’t affect his crops value since none of it would ever be planted, and cows don’t care

Since the garden of Eden, people have been saving the best seeds for the next year. Until about 1950 that practice remained unchanged. Farmers always saved their own (open pollinated) seeds for the next year. Saving your own seed, done correctly, epigenetically adapts your crop to a particular garden or field better each year, beginning the first year, than the same exact variety purchased from a commercial source! Even the beneficial bacteria on the seeds carries over into the next crop.

Farmers harvesting their own seeds for the next year was never an option until about the time I was born. Farmers saving seeds today do that about 0% of the time. Hybridization of seeds is really done to prevent people from saving their own seeds, to keep them addicted to buying seeds each year, and deceived by state run/corporation funded experts.

It is illegal to salvage genetics from patented seeds. Then there are suicide seeds:

“Genetic use restriction technology (GURT), also known as terminator technology or suicide seeds, is designed to restrict access to ‘genetic materials and their associated phenotypic traits.’ The technology works by activating (or deactivating) specific genes using a controlled stimulus in order to cause second generation seeds to be either infertile or to not have one or more of the desired traits of the first generation plant. GURTs can be used by agricultural firms to enhance protection of their innovations in genetically modified organisms by making it impossible for farmers to reproduce the desired traits on their own.”

The entire field of modern agriculture is on the verge of collapse. The land, sea and air are all poisoned with herbicides, fungicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Massive soil erosion and petroleum dependency, etc. threatens civilization itself—not to mention all the other threats that science had created.

The word ‘species’ was intended to differentiate plants or animals that could be bred together and produce young from those that can not. That is increasingly proving not to be the case. The Biblical word ‘kind’ does fit that description. Hybridization is a natural process, within diverse kinds, that can not be prevented without isolation of the differing kinds. While these hybrids are uncommon among darwinian defined ‘species’, they are very common among commonly recognized cultivated varieties (cultivars). Indigenous peoples the world over have maintained “landraces”. These differ from modern varieties in that they have a much higher degree of variation. Each year seed is saved from the plants that look the most like what farmers in a tribe wanted. Those that differed too much were among the eaten. Had my uncle been replanting traditional open pollinated seed, he would have had to rogue out any off colored or shaped seed from the best ears he had selected, and selected against many other variations among the plants for many years to get back to a landrace from one year of mingled seeds. A landrace may be all that has been necessary for us to meet the Leviticus 19 standard over the centuries, but modern named cultivars really are the cutting edge of the art.

It may seem ironic, but all of our purebred named varieties come from the hybridization of differing parent plants—often one special plant. The first Concord grape was just a found seedling, as are several apple varieties saved by cuttings since Roman times. The goal is to find the fortuitous offspring with the best characteristics of both parents, while eliminating the less desirable features. This takes several generations to accomplish, with the vast majority of offspring failing to measure up. Then once accomplished it takes several more generations to ratchet up the seed supply for commerce. Seed savers must still always select the best parent plants from several individual plants to avoid inbreeding—a massive lack of variation within a variety (particularly with corn).

Modern selection is often done for things that a gardener would not select for. Things like long distance shipping durability, appearance and productivity outweigh the best tasting and most nutritious heirloom varieties. I really like Fedco Seeds!

Almost all of the plants we eat today were developed from “weeds”. The cabbage family is an excellent example. Cabbage, broccoli, kale, mustard, brussels sprouts, collards, bok choy, komatsuna, misuna and rapini were all bred from a single “weed”.

Some, possibly many garden seeds sold as hybrids are really pure varieties—cheap to produce, with the assumption that no one would save the seeds for replanting.

Master gardeners can use small plots as a hybridization tool to create superior purebred varieties!

Ag Corporations use small fields of purebred varieties to create sterile or impaired hybrids for use over millions of acres. (This segment added 5/25/24.)

A Digression Leading Up to Determining Aviv (or Abib) Barley

Hopefully my experiences with plants will help illustrate why I have endorsed Nehemia Gordon’s efforts to make known the Scriptural calendar requirements. During the Diaspora, (when Jews were scattered all over the world) Hillel 2 constructed a “temporary” calculated calendar, because checking on the state of the aviv in Israel and distributing the determination to the rest of the world was virtually impossible.

Over the last 50 years I have spent a lot of time studying the Bible. However, because I relied too much on “professionals” to tell me what the Bible meant, I actually spent more time studying plants until 2000—when new found truth forced me to investigate more closely what the Bible actually says. I justified limiting my Bible studies because the conclusions I was reaching contradicted what the “true church” was telling me. I was baffled by what I was finding! Yet the biggest reason that I spent so much time studying plants was because I hoped that by doing so, Yehovah would give me a cabinet position in the agriculture department in the Kingdom of Elohim. No bean or pepper has ever given me any grief!

I have records of the hundreds of varieties of crops that I have grown over the in the last quarter century. Most exciting to me are the plant varieties that I have created myself, a couple of which the Seed Savers Exchange, Inc made available to the public as public domain (meaning non patented) varieties.

I Do My Own Research

Realize that politicians, corporations, scientists, doctors, religious leaders, soldiers, the food industry and everyone else is far more likely to be serving their own interests without necessarily considering your interests at all with their well refined rhetoric.

Too many politicians bow to corporations, too many scientists are on the payroll of corporations, too many doctors blindly trust those scientists and peddle their pharmakia, virtually every religious leader is influenced by the god of this world, too many soldiers kill for religious leaders, agriculture has been turning topsoil into dirt since Eden—now empowered by every imaginable biocide imaginable. Dirt is dead, it impoverishes people and makes them sick. Sterile land floods, grasslands are turned into fields and then plowed into desert, oceans now hold most of our topsoil.

Be slow to listen to someone’s recommendations who stands to gain from what they say. Pay much closer attention to someone who may have something to lose for what they say.

Before I talk specifically about barley I suppose that this is a good place to mention that there is an easy way to “de-hybridize” hybrid seeds. Open pollinated seeds are virtually absent from many seed sources. Essentially, you just begin saving seeds from your hybrid plants and use them the next year. There will usually be considerable variation among the offspring, that I find fascinating in itself. Any one of these could become a variety that you could put your name on, sort of like Adam did. You simply select the plants that taste the best or have other characteristics that you like and save its seeds. This variability is the plants way of returning to a variable condition. Every possible variation that is within the genes of the second generation hybrid will make itself known. The more plants you plant, the better the odds that you could find a truly superior plant to work with. Every seedling will be unique, somewhat as in nature.

This feature of a natural barley plant has been criticized as “multiple stages of growth simultaneously”. Plant breeders can make the equivalent of “identical twins” out of our crops. That is the appeal of hybrids for one pass machine harvest etc., but this lack of variation puts the world in jeopardy. A single plant virus could wipe out an entire nation (or many nations) harvests of any particular major crop because all of the modern strains share so few genes that the entire food crop has the same weaknesses. In the 1970’s such a situation partially occurred in the corn crop. Much of the U.S. had corn derived from a small genetic pool; total crop failures in those inbred crops resulted from a virus. Of course now things are worse. The genetic gene pool is shrinking rapidly. I believe that part of the Deuteronomy curse could be a result of our hybridized agriculture.

In corn, I select offspring for a dozen different factors for a period of years, but I get to eat all of the delicious “failures”. After only two years you start to see considerable uniformity forming among your crops. The more years that you select offspring, the more uniform the crop. Selecting the best offspring is totally unnatural, that is why a wild stand of, say barley, has so much variation built into it. When a group of plants ripens over a period of time, instead of all at once, the species has a better chance of surviving. Hungry animals will not find all of the seed available for consumption at one time; so some will mature and fall to the ground when the hungry critters are not looking. Some seed will fall when weather conditions are more favorable. Other seed will mature when birds happen by. Birds fly off and “plant” lots of seeds.

Indigenous peoples the world over have developed what is known as landraces of crops. This is close to the ideal situation. While they have a fair amount of variability, they are not “varieties” as we have today. Many landraces are still in existence where the seed companies have not set foot, but the number is falling off rapidly. Europe essentially made them and family heirloom varieties illegal to own-in favor of the corporations and patented varieties, particularly hybrids.

Almost everyone thinks that second generation hybrid seed is sterile, like a mule. That only happens when the parents are extremely unrelated, but still part of the same genus. Yehovah’s charge above is really giving farmers some practical advice on agriculture. This advice has essentially been followed for all of history until about 1950 when agriculture entered “apostasy”, because saving his own seed had been profitable for the farmer. The big lie is that hybrids are said to be superior. They call it hybrid vigor. Generally there is absolutely no “vigor” present! The only reason hybrids are made is to stop farmers and gardeners from saving their own seeds! Corn is one of the few plants to actually show hybrid vigor, but hybrid corn does not take up minerals from the soil, they are junk food, yet open pollinated (natural) corn makes up approximately 0% of the U.S. harvest! Now hybrid barley has hit the market.

Modern farmers have been duped into becoming the slaves of the major seed producers. They are entirely dependent on seed suppliers and fertilizer companies and others every step of the way. Most still receive for their crop only what giant corporations will give them.

Determining Aviv Barley:

Up until 2005, everyone I knew of who celebrated the Scriptural (aviv/barley) calendar relied on New Moon & aviv reports from Nehemia Gordon and his extensive experience with finding wild stands of barley in its various stages of growth. Some modern strains do not ripen at the same time as the more primitive strains used by our ancestors. This is true of virtually every crop.

Adam and Eve would barely recognize anything that we eat today. For example, the Romans developed cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, brussels sprouts, kale, arugula and other crops from a single weed. That is the up side. The down side, as far as aviv is concerned, is that modern four and six row barleys generally take considerably longer to develop, because there is more plant to grow. In the case of barley, an extra month or more for the more developed strains is probably the norm.

We don’t have access to the old strains of barley, so as Nehemia Gordon had been doing for years [ending in 2016], he and other volunteers search for the earliest mature barley, which is the 2 row stands of both wild and farmed varieties. There is something to be said about the wild plants. Plant breeders can easily create varieties that come on later in the season; all they have to do is save seed from the latest plants to ripen. Breeders are even well under way to creating perennial grains so that they growers would not have to plant every year—by just saving the right seeds. (No till farming, such as this uses far more chemicals.) However it would take genetic engineering (like crossing tomatoes with fish, which has been done) to create earlier strains of barley. This may not happen unless there could be an economic incentive to do so. In fact the result would be counterproductive—smaller grain. Searching for wild barley eliminates many of the variables that are present when you factor modern agriculture into the picture. Different farmers plant barley at different times, which can influence the life cycle, as does the levels of fertilization; also highly artificial. So some stands of barley may be delayed due to the activities of the farmer. Using wild barley that has reseeded itself is the ultimate way to factor Yehovah into the equation! However, goats and sheep grazing on the vast areas where barley is growing poses a significant obstacle (Uncontrolled grazing is the primary reason why we have so many deserts today!) This makes a protected nature preserve an excellent place to search.

While doing a web search to find out why some people have trouble with barley as an indicator of “spring”, I quickly came across a website from a former aviv/crescent moon adherent. His skewed findings are readily dismissed when you consider that the two earliest maturing varieties that he considered were both 6 Row varieties; a type that did not even exist in ancient Israel! Here are some pictures of 6 row barley and 2 row. Two row barley is more drought tolerant so it would behave differently in a dry year. Most of the world considers 6 row as livestock feed and 2 row as beer.

As a soil science enthusiast, I know that the cultivated soils are in far worse condition than soils not raped by the greed and ignorance of generations of soil managers. In the U.S., the depth of our topsoil is only a small fraction of what it was before the first plow scarred the soil. The wild areas that have not been farmed are quite often more fertile than the fields. Even a simple soil test taken from a fence row between fields is an astonishing witness against what goes on a few feet away.

Some say that only the “good ground” should be considered when looking for aviv. But the level ground is all under artificial management. It is actually the small out of the way places that would generally be the good ground—so long as it is “ground” and not stone. There is was cemetery near me that dates back to pioneer days. It has never been tilled and the entire area is raised up at least a foot higher than the surrounding area due to the thickness of the topsoil. As far as the eye can see from that cemetery, the land is flat as a pancake—and lower!

Old roadsides where the topsoil has not been removed or buried by modern machinery, have suffered much less abuse than where the plow furrow begins. If it were not for the higher lead content of the soil, from decades of leaded fuels being burned there, it would be an ideal place to grow things. Even my gravel driveway is an interesting case in point. There is a distinct band of grass lining all of my drive. It is a result of the stone being so close. Soils are made from stone! The minerals present in the gravel causes that strip of grass to grow twice as fast and it is twice as green.

Grass is the perfect soil restorer. Ruined farmland can recover an inch of topsoil in a century if left to itself. However soil left in constant tall grasses, such as pre-1960wheat and other grains, have been known to regenerate an inch of topsoil in seven years. The so called bad soil that is growing barley or another grass is self regenerating soil.

There is an attempt to justify using only cultivated barley for the aviv based on Matthew 13:5. Here is a quote about this line of reasoning:

“Barley growing in stony soil is not to be used, for it experiences an artificial stimulation from the rocks holding the heat etc. Read Matthew 13:5. It springs up immediately”.

OK, Here’s The Account:

Matthew 13:3-9 He spoke with them at length in parables [Strong’s #]. He said, “Look, a sower went out to sow. 4 As he was sowing, some of the seed fell along the path, and birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on very rocky ground where there was not much soil. It sprouted immediately because the soil wasn’t deep. 6 But when the sun came up they were scorched. Because they couldn’t take root, they dried up. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns shot up and choked them out. 8 Other seed fell on good ground and produced a crop, some a hundred times, some sixty times, and some thirty times what was sown. 9 Anyone who has ears should listen.”

Rather than the seed on the “stony soil” receiving “artificial stimulation” and flourishing, as the new view states—the parable specifies that the seeds that fell on this particular “rocky ground” were “scorched” to death by the time that the “had risen”sun because they had “no root” system! If the area “didn’t have much soil,” naturally the sprouting grains would die as soon as the rain that caused them to germinate had evaporated. This is in no way a condemnation of searching for aviv where stone is present.

The book of Matthew has absolutely nothing to do with searching for aviv. The parameters for that were laid out centuries before Matthew’s birth. Yehovah did not wait for the book of Matthew to be written before providing His people with all of the information needed to determine when His Appointed Times should be kept.

There are significant variations in the fertility and physical conditions of most natural fields. Soil types change significantly over the distance of a few feet. There are “sweet spots” in my one acre garden and there are poor spots. There are lower spots that get too much moisture, or too little, depending on the year. There are rocky areas and there are areas without a single pebble present. What really happened is that a sower went out into his field. This field had a variety of soil conditions, both good and bad, as does my Ohio soil which is considered to be some of the best soil in the world. Notice that stony ground was mingled with the good. Several different conditions were present in the sowers’ field! Did you notice that this field had sweet spots in it that produced “one hundred” fold, other areas produced “sixty” fold while others only “thirty” fold? Such would seldom be the case in a modern spoon fed monoculture field. The harvest is much more uniform under modern conditions because the crops are fed on artificial nutrients. This parable describes a mixture of conditions in one location, which is the common denominator of two of the lengthier parables found in the same chapter as the parable of the sower! In the parable of the tares (Matthew 13), both the wheat and the tares are in the same field. In the parable of the dragnet (also Matthew 13) both good fish and bad fish are in the same dragnet. Were the parable of the sower a factor in finding aviv, I would be looking for a field with both good and bad soil and crop conditions, rather than a beautiful clean mono cultural stand!

Rather than stone being bad and forcing plants to go to seed prematurely, stone is fertilizer! I put 20 tons of sand onto a small portion of my garden one year in an experiment to counter the dense clay. It was 3” thick. I didn’t even bother to till it, I just planted into it. The crops in that soil made the identical varieties adjacent to them look like runts. So long as there is not so much stone as to crowd out the soil, and the plants, it doesn’t hurt the crop.

Much is mentioned by some about the weather during the week that aviv was being searched for. The weather forecast is not a Scriptural factor for determining whether or not it is “spring” yet! In fact it is not too soon to be thinking that the weather might be turning against us:

Deuteronomy 28:15-17 But if you don’t obey Yehovah your Elohim and faithfully carry out all of His Commandments and unchanging tenets that I’m giving you today, then all of these curses will come about and overwhelm you [1]. 16 “You’ll be cursed in the towns and cursed in the fields. 17 Your grain basket and your kneading bowl will be cursed.

A grain crop is not the result of a week’s weather; rather, it is the result of the weather over the lifespan of the crop. If the cumulative weather is bad enough then crops will be slowed in maturing. This is Yehovah’s way of saying that it is still “winter”! So look to the GRAIN, not to the RAIN!

Desert Barley?

Some people object to looking for aviv in the desert areas of Israel, claiming that deserts were never meant to be agricultural areas. However we should keep in mind that Israel was never “meant” to be a desert! All of ancient Israel was Edenic:

Deuteronomy 11:8-12 So be careful to obey every commandment that I’m giving you today, so that you can be strong and go in and take possession of the land that you are about to cross into and possess, 9 so that you can continue to live in the land that Yehovah swore to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land that flows with milk and honey! 10 The land that you’re entering to take possession of isn’t like the land of Egypt that you left, where you sowed your seeds, and made irrigation channels with your foot for the enclosed gardens. 11 Rather, the land you’re about to enter is a land of hills and valleys, well watered by the rain from heaven. 12 It’s a land that Yehovah your Elohim cares for. Yehovah your Elohim continually watches over it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

Israel will cease to be an arid country. Before it even became a desert, Yehovah, knowing the future, promised to cause the land to revert from “desert” conditions to being like “Eden” had been.

Isaiah 35:1 The wilderness and the parched land will be overjoyed; the desert will be delighted and blossom like a crocus [or rose?] [1].

The fact that barley thrives even in the desert is an indication that Yehovah knew in advance to use a plant that would always be there for us to observe. Even when virtually every other plant and animal species is absent due to the desert conditions, the barley remains!

Should We Look for Aviv Barley in Micro Environments?

“Some have questioned the utilization of artificial micro environments for determining the Aviv. This would be any man made factor that was not in ancient agriculture. That is quite understandable. However, the entire world is divided into micro and macro environments. Even in tiny Israel, barley comes into production over a period of about two months. Those most favored areas, that receive at least the minimum of the necessary factors for production come on first, producing what the Bible calls “the first of the firstfruits”. The first field ready to be harvested would be the firstfruits.

Isaiah 35:1 The wilderness and the parched land will be overjoyed; the desert will be delighted and blossom like a crocus [or rose?] [1].

[1] Many modern versions rightly say “crocus” rather the traditional KJV “rose”—a late winter flower, often popping out of the snow! And here the Second Exodus is tied to late winter/early spring. This has nothing to do with 1948, desalination plants or irrigation (see Isaiah 30:18). Not another verse in this chapter or any verse from Chapter 24 to the end of chapter 35 (all referencing the same future time) is ever cited by the false prophets who claim that the desert blooming like a “rose” is being fulfilled right now. Same goes for Jeremiah 31:31. Try Isaiah 34:8 for context! If the idea of the Second Exodus is new to you,,then this article is highly recommended!

Each subsequent week thruout the harvest brings on more harvestable fields: what could be called the “second fruits” followed by the “third fruits” etc. On some weeks only a tiny portion of the harvest is ready. These areas are referred to as micro environments. Areas in which large portions of the harvest of an area go into production in a particular week can be termed “macro environments”. Actually various combinations of factors in differing environments can also produce a crop during the same time period. For example, some soils may be short on certain micro or macro nutrients, but make up for the shortage by ideal rainfall which makes the scarcer nutrients that are present more available to the plants while other fields lack ideal rainfall but have more fertile soil.

The term “the first of the firstfruits” would indicate that any field within Israel that is harvest ready is the firstfruit.

When looking for aviv barley, most searchers wouldn’t consider barley growing directly on the roadside as valid. This is due to explanation that Ruthanne Koch, an agricultural expert, contributed several years ago. She explained that the roadsides were subject to artificial growing conditions. They do look at three types of barley: a) 2-row wild, b) 2-row domesticated, c) 6-row domesticated (for comparative purposes). It is not unusual to find the domesticated varieties growing voluntarily. However, they have only seen 2-row wild barley planted in a cultivated field in one location and this in the mountains where it ripens very late (May or June!). In practice they have not ever found that the 2-row domesticated ripens at a different time than the 2-row wild. There are far greater differences within these varieties due to localized growing and climatic conditions. The 6-row seems to ripen later.

You might ask if “wild barley” that no one ever harvests should be considered valid for determining the month of aviv? After all the omer is based on the HARVEST being the firstfruits of the HARVEST. Nehemia’s answer is that “Wild Barley is a fully viable and edible crop, unlike wild wheat that produces a seed too small to be useful. The wild barley is very closely related to the ancient barley grown 2,000-3,000 years ago in Israel and serves as a good indicator of the ripening of the Aviv. The primary difference between wild barley and ancient domesticated barley is the brittleness of the stalks; in the wild variety they break apart easier than in any domesticated variety.”

The earliest fields to mature anywhere in Israel should proclaim the New Year! There is no mention of Israelites fighting over whose field would serve for establishing aviv. If there were a problem with the earliest barley being counted then we would have an admonition like this: “after the first barley is aviv, then wait a month”. All things being equal, the best soil in the best location will produce the earliest crop. We must have a standard to go by. Why move the goal post?

Notes on Barley

Aviv Link

Barley can be divided by the number of kernel rows in the head. There are three types; two-row barley (Hordeum distichum), four-row (Hordeum tetrastichum L. and six-row barley (Hordeum vulgare var hexastichum Körn.) according to the traditional terminology ... TWO ROW barley is the oldest form, wild barley having two-rows as well ... Barley can still thrive in conditions that are too cold even for rye. The 1881 Household Cyclopedia adds: Next to wheat the most valuable grain is barley, especially on light and sharp soils. It is a tender grain and easily hurt in any of the stages of its growth, particularly at seed time; a heavy shower of rain will then almost ruin a crop on the best prepared land; and in all the after processes greater pains and attention are required to ensure success than in the case of other grains. The harvest process is difficult, and often attended with danger; even the threshing of it is not easily executed with machines, because the awn generally adheres to the grain, and renders separation from the straw a troublesome task. Barley, in fact, is raised at greater expense than wheat, and generally speaking is a more hazardous crop. Except upon rich and genial soils, where climate will allow wheat to be perfectly reared, it ought not to be cultivated.

You may be asking what 2 row and four 4 barley is, it’s really just a matter of counting the rows of seeds. It’s easier for me to use corn pictures to illustrate the difference. Black Aztec is an ancient variety of sweet corn bred by, well, the Aztecs. It only has 8 rows on the cob. Note that you can only see about 3 rows from any viewpoint in the picture. My own multi colored sweet “landrace” corn, Rainbow Mountain, has anywhere from 10 to 14 rows on a cob. There are 5-6 rows visible from any view.

Black Aztec

Rainbow Mountain

Rainbow Mountain Tassel

Back to those variable crops for a moment: I allow considerable considerable variation in various things such as the row count, and the color of the leaves and tassels, some of which are shades of purple. I select strongly for two ears on a plant and ears that are within easy reach. Notice that I had to shoot for the sky to photograph the green tassel. This is reminiscent of earlier agriculture, as with Laban’s speckled and spotted sheep and goats amid largely brown ones (Genesis 30).

Rainbow Mountain Tassel

Rainbow Mountain Silk

Rainbow Mountain Silk

Sabbath Sunset Times Link

Creative Commons 3.0: “One Right Reserved”

Older quotes from Nehemia Gordon on Aviv and Agricultural Terraces

“I have been involved in searching for Aviv [or Aviv] Barley for more than 10 years. The first modern Aviv Search was carried out in 1988. The early years entailed a great deal of study and experimentation, searching for areas in which barley was cultivated and grew voluntarily, identifying the various stages in its ripening, and carrying out detailed observations and experiments on barley in all its stages to identify the biblical Aviv. By 1997, after almost 10 years of modern Karaite Aviv Searches, a clear and solid understanding of the agricultural state of Aviv had been restored.

“I often write about the two days of Aviv Search at the end of the 12th Month. These two days are the last chance for the barley to be Aviv. If Aviv is not found by the end of the 12th Month, then the following month must be counted as the 13th Month (and not as the 1st Month of the following year). While these two final days of the 12th Month are key in determining the beginning of the biblical year, in reality the Aviv Search spans more than a month, tracking the barley from its early stages of ripening before Aviv all the way through its harvest-ripe stage after Aviv. It is only by doing this every year on an ongoing basis that we can hone and refine our understanding of Aviv barley.

“While the basic definition of Aviv Barley was recovered by 1997, there have been a number of major issues in recent years that have helped us make better and more accurate readings. Several years ago Ruthanne Koch, a certified crop adviser from Colorado with 23 years of hands-on experience, was invited to join the annual Aviv Search. Ruthanne has brought to light two crucial issues which I had not known about, making the Aviv Search much more accurate.

“The first issue is what Ruthanne has coined “artificial micro-environments”. [Micro-environment” is an established term.] An artificial micro-environment is caused by modern man-made factors which can cause the barley to ripen earlier than it would have under Biblical growing conditions. For example, barley that grows alongside an asphalt road is in an artificial micro-environment. The heat radiating off the asphalt causes the barley to ripen much earlier than it would have under normal conditions. Obviously they did not have asphalt roads in Biblical times so we cannot consider this artificially early barley as relevant for determining the Aviv.

“Another type of artificial micro-environment is created by a steep mountainside with a thin layer of soil held in place by wire mesh. This type of micro-environment can be found above roads cut into the sides of mountains; the wire-mesh prevents the soil from eroding onto the road below. In this type of artificial micro-environment, the thin layer of soil will dry out very quickly which stresses the barley causing it to ripen prematurely. Again, barley on a mountainside of this sort is not valid for the Aviv because it is growing under artificial man-made conditions that did not exist in Biblical times.

“A second issue that Ruthanne brought to light is related to herbicides. When barley is sprayed by certain types of herbicides it will send the barley into stress causing it to ripen prematurely [Roundup does this to my Canada thistles in Ohio.]. Ruthanne and her husband run a crop-dusting business so identifying areas that have been sprayed with herbicide is something she does with great expertise. Why would someone spray barley with herbicide? Firstly, barley grows wild in Israel and many farmers view it a weed. Secondly, it is common in Israel to spray roadside ditches and the clouds of herbicide often float over the ditches into nearby fields. Only a trained eye can discern this herbicide damage.

“I thank and praise YHWH for sending us this dedicated crop consultant who gives of her precious time to come and help those who want to uncover the precise times YHWH has appointed for His feasts. Ruthanne Koch is a Torah-keeping believer in Yeshua, and I want to thank her for coming and joining the annual Karaite Aviv Search over the last few years and hopefully for many years to come.”

++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++--++

Aviv and Agricultural Terraces

by Nehemia Gordon and Ruthanne Koch

“This year we found Aviv in a new area, near the spring of Ein Mabua, 15km east of Jerusalem. The vast quantities of lush healthy Aviv were unexpected and require further comment. I have asked Ruthanne Koch to co-author this article with him to help explain some of the agronomic conditions that made this area ideal for barley growth and determining Aviv.

“One thing we immediately noticed in this area was that much of the barley was growing on an ancient agricultural terrace. Pictures of this agricultural terrace are posted here.

“Agricultural terraces are found throughout the mountains of central Israel. The ancient Canaanites and later the Israelites built stepped terraces along the mountain slopes in order to grow crops on every available inch of land. Agricultural terraces consist of a stone wall built without mortar that holds back soil against the mountain slope. The terrace wall prevents the soil from eroding away into the valley below and maintains a deep nutrient-dense level seedbed. Joshua 17:15 mentions that the Children of Joseph did not have enough farmland so they were told to cut down the forests from the mountains. The Children of Joseph built many of the agricultural terraces still found all over Israel in order to utilize the deforested bare mountainsides.

“The fact that many of the terraces were built by the early Israelites has been confirmed by the excavations at Malcha, the site of the Jerusalem Mall. Before the mall was built, archaeologists excavated the agricultural terraces on the proposed site and found the remains of a Canaanite village under the terraces; it was clear from the excavations that the village had been buried by the terraces shortly after it was destroyed, apparently by the ancient Israelite invaders.

“Agricultural terraces would have been exactly the environments in which ancient barley was grown on the mountainsides of biblical Israel.

“In the area of Ein Mabua, the ancient agricultural terraces on the southern slope of the mountain comprise a naturally occurring micro-environment, free from modern artificial interferences. This type of natural micro-environment is found all over the Judean hills. The only artificial influence at this location were the ancient agricultural terraces, which was the typical mode of agriculture in this region in ancient Israel.

“This natural micro-environment combined a number of different elements which resulted in above average growing conditions. These elements included the canyon walls, which provided additional heat units to the crop as well as protection from adverse environmental factors such as high wind. The canyon also contained fertile ground as evidenced by the lush conditions of the barley with long heads, healthy stalks, and large plump Aviv kernels. All of the above elements are naturally occurring and common throughout this region making this type of micro-environment ideal for growing barley and determining Aviv.”

Here is another letter from Nehemia Gordon, all of which are available here.

Karaite Korner Newsletter #202

Aviv vs. the Equinox

Nehemia gets requests for more information about the equinox calendar theory. The Karaite-Korner.org website has long had information dealing with the equinox error, see: Vernal Equinox and Tekufah.

“As discussed in the above articles [now one], the modern equinox-keepers begin their yearly cycle at the first New Moon after the vernal equinox. Ironically they base [this] on ancient Pharisee sources (Talmud, Josephus), which mention the equinox, without actually understanding the meaning of these ancient sources. The ancient Pharisees had two systems of setting the beginning of the year, only one of which took the equinox into account whereas both systems looked at the Aviv as a central factor (see Aviv Faq). The modern equinox followers also fail to understand how the ancient sources used the equinox. Simply put, the ancient Pharisee system (Talmud and Josephus) was NOT based on the first NEW MOON after the vernal equinox! Instead, the ancient Pharisee equinox system was based on the 16th day of the month that fell out after the Vernal Equinox. It was completely acceptable in the ancient Pharisee system for the New Moon of the First Month to fall out before the vernal equinox, as long as the 16th day of that month fell out after the equinox.

“Ironically, based on the ANCIENT equinox system, Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin March 25, 2005, not next month as in the Hillel II calendar. This point was recently brought out by Y. Loewinger, a Rabbanite engineer who researches the ancient and modern Rabbinic calendars. Loewinger recently published a paper on the Internet entitled ‘Have We Intercalated 5765 in Vain?’ In his article Loewinger, an Orthodox Rabbanite Jew who follows the modern Rabbanite calendar, writes: “Had we not added an intercalated month this year ... the first day of Passover would have fallen out on the 25th of March, 2005, 30 days before when it actually falls out [on the Rabbanite calendar]. It turns out, therefore, that according to all opinions, Passover would have fallen out ... after the equinox on March 20, even if we had not intercalated the year ... This intercalation is causing Passover to be celebrated this year after the Month of the Aviv” (p.2). Loewinger’s original Hebrew article [is no longer online].

“Of course, as Karaites we follow the Aviv, paying no attention to the equinox. For more information see the link above.”

How Tishrei Became the First Month of the Hebrew Jewish Calendar

More onsite Biblical Calendar reading Here

Offsite: When is Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles). By Dinah Ben Mordechai [or 58 great answers to 58 stupid objections to the Biblical Aviv calendar.]

The End

A Really Deep Dive into Ancient New Moon Determinations.

Is the Search for Abib Barley Scriptural?

 

 

Volume 2, Chapter 10: Judgment Day—The Last Day 

Updated annually.

Lonnie Martin’s work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

 

.

To locate any word on this site, if just typing onto the page doesn’t highlite it, then holding the shift key and the letter F down for a moment will enable whatever you enter to show up immediately, starting with your first letter.

only search Everlasting Kingdom

 

>