Understanding Calends

The Calends and the Weekly Cycle

In the Roman Republic Calendar, the Calends—the first day of each month—never align with Sunday or any other day of the week. Likewise, Sunday, as the first day of the week, remains distinct from Saturday, the seventh day. This enduring separation mirrors the design established in the Genesis creation narrative. The Old Creation Day, described in B'reyshiyth (Genesis) 1:1-2 and revisited in 2:4-3, marks the inception of all things. It corresponds to the first Calends of the year, the true New Year's Day: True March (Nisan) 1, 3999 BC. The next day, the first day of the week, aligns with B'reyshiyth 1:3, beginning the divine work of creation on Sunday, March 2, 3999 BC.

Using ancient calendars, like the Roman Republic Calendar (RRC), is how many of the best historians describe ancient timelines. Such tools avoid the confusion inherent in retrospective interpretations through the Gregorian Calendar. For example, the Gregorian system has produced years when Easter is celebrated two weeks before Passover, leading to the perplexing scenario of commemorating the Messiah’s resurrection weeks before observing His death. By contrast, the RRC offers clarity and consistency, allowing us to explain that the first day of the week described in B'reyshiyth 1:3-5 would fall on a Sunday, March 2, 3999 BC, in a Messiah-centered calendar.

A major road block in understanding the so called "50 day count to Pentecost" skips over New Moon Day and the 30th day, otherwise making the count come up to 51 or 52 days.  When I began learning Spanish in Junior High School, I remember thinking that Spanish wasn't right when they would say "la casa blanca", literally, meaning word by word "the house white", instead of the proper way, the way, the white house.  It wasn't long before the Spanish Teacher pointed out that different languages have different grammars. In contrast, Spanish did not always follow English grammar rules, which didn't mean it wasn't following its own Spanish rules.  It wasn't until I was doing my post-baccalaureate work in linguistics that I discovered there was a term for this.  It is called parametric variations.

Since then, I have come to realize that there are also parametric variations, not only in language, but in cultures and, yes, calendar structures.  The Scriptures say to count seven Shabbaths, and to call the day after the seventh Shabbath "Day 50", which funnels into English through Greek as "Pentecost".  In the "Feast of Weeks/Pentecost" New Moon Days (Calends, from Calendae) are not considered as days of the week.  The structure of the RRC (Roman Republic Calendar)