7th Day Sabbath Churches of God

Festival of Tabernacles 2009

2009 Feast of Tabernacles sites 

The Festival of Tabernacles begins on the 15th day of the 7th month of the Biblical calendar, and is celebrated for 7 days, plus a holy convocation on the 8th Day (Lev.23:34-36). Depending on the calendar used, this year's festival will begin on:

October 2nd (sun/moon conjunction, Jewish Calendar - dark new moon Sept 18th);

October 3rd (new moon visible locally on Saturday, Sept 19th); or

October 4th (new moon visible in Israel on Sunday, Sept 20th).

Several festival sites will be open for the whole period, October 2nd to 12th.

The timing of the 1st month of the Biblical calendar, Abib (Exodus 12:2, Deut.16:1), is determined by the barley harvest:

"Passover ALWAYS comes in the SPRING, at the time of the early grain [barley]harvest. On the morrow after the Sabbath during Feast of Unleavened Bread,

the priest waved the wave-sheaf, and none of the early Spring grain could be used until this was done. Leviticus 23:10-12."

(How to Figure Passover, Herbert W. Armstrong, 1940.)

The 1st day of the month is determined by the sighting of the new moon:

"If the people of Jerusalem, where God's permanent headquarters are to be, cannot see this crescent of the moon following sunset, then the entire world east and west of that city must delay beginning the month till the following sunset. This is the ordinance as it was given by God. We are not free to begin earlier because of the way we see it." (Prove God's Calendar Correct, Kenneth Herrmann,
Good News magazine, October 1957, published by the Worldwide Church of God.)

The above two rules comprised the 'Second Temple Calendar'.
(Sighting of the new moon could be made outside Jerusalem, but witnesses had to report to the Sanhedrin at the temple before the end of 30th day, otherwise the 
next day would be declared to be the new moon.)

"In Christ’s time the new moon was ostensibly established by observation. There are those today who claim that the only way of calculating the new moon is by exact mathematical calculation. Visual observation is too erratic and could be one to two days off. What we know from first-century records is that the calendar was operated by observation and controlled by the Sanhedrin. If Christ and the Church followed this habit, then Christ accepted something that some are claiming is unacceptable. (The Hebrew Calendar, Doctrinal Statement approved by the Council of Elders of the United Church of God, 1997.)

In the reign of Emperor Constantius (337-361CE), "In an attempt to disrupt the order of the Jewish festivals and to prevent those Christians who wished to do so from celebrating Easter on the first day of Passover, the imperial authorities prevented the rabbis from meeting to proclaim New Moons and leap years and from sending messages to the Diaspora communities to inform them of their decisions."

(A History of the Jewish People, p.350, H.H. Ben Sasson.)

"In order to prevent the Jews scattered all over the surface of the earth from celebrating their New Moons, festivals and holidays at different times, he [Hillel II] made public the system of calendar calculation which .... had been used in the past only to check the observations and testimonies of witnesses, and to determine the beginnings of the spring season."
(The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, p.2, Arthur Spier.)

The belief within some Churches of God that Hillel II made public in 359AD the 

Hebrew Calculated Calendar that is observed today by the Orthodox Jews 
"is confronted with grave objections...The supposed calendar is never referred to in the Talmud, which received its final redaction at the end of the fifth century. Nothing whatever is said there about the length of the month, or the nineteen-year cycle, or anything else of the kind....Moreover, from the earliest post-Talmudic age we have dates which cannot be reconciled with the regular calendar in use today."

"After centuries of controversies between conservatives relying on observation
(of moon and seasons) and innovators recommending calculation, and between
religious authorities in Palestine and Babylonia, the system was settled in the 10th
century A.D." (The Astronomical Companion, 1994 ed., p.30, Guy Ottewell)

Computing the Sacred Calendar summarizes the Hebrew Calculated Calendar, and explains why it should continue to be used by the larger churches of God today.

Please note that the first two sentences of the third paragraph are incorrect.

"In Bible times, when two witnesses saw the new moon, then a new month was declared to start at the next sunset. If they saw it too close to sunset for the
New Moon rites to be prepared, then the new month was declared to start at sunset on the following day."

The new moon cannot be seen before sunset. It is first visible just after sunset, when the sun has gone down far enough below the horizon for the sky to be sufficiently dark to see the crescent. The new moon sets shortly afterwards, 
so it is visible only in the early evening.

A new month was declared to start at the sunset when the new moon became visible, not the following sunset.