Page 61 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
40 40 COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW

Also, one of the two major parts of the Talmud, the basic source of Jewish law, is
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called Mishnah (possibly relating to the fact that it is being repeatedly learned).
A similar term is indeed used in English. When a person wishes to offer sup-
port for a motion already proposed, we say that he or she is “seconding” this
motion (namely, repeating it).
It is therefore no surprise that if one wished to coin a name for a cyclic phe-
nomenon that repeats itself in a regular never-changing cycle, an obvious choice
would be a word derived from the Hebrew root for repetition. Both the exposed
meaning of the word “year” in Hebrew and its root source are quite obvious.

Let us now learn how the Hebrew calendar year is structured, but precede this
by learning other commonly used calendars.
A calendar can be based either on the sun, on the moon, or on a combination
thereof. The Christian calendar, also called the Gregorian calendar , is based on
the sun, and the earth’s yearly circling of it. The exact length of the year depends
on the reference point. The most common is the tropical year , based on the equi-
noxes, and its length is 365.24219 days (Mitton 2000). Since the Gregorian year
is 365 days long, this means that in order to keep pace with the exact solar cycle
(365.242 days), a day is added to the month of February every four years.
The Islamic calendar , the Hijri calendar, is based on the moon. The time it
takes for the moon to encircle the earth is, from most recent measurements by
NASA satellites, 29.5305888 days. This means that the year, based on the lunar

month (also known as the synodic month ) is

12 x 29.53059 = 354.36707 days

The Islamic year is exactly 354 days long (refer to Table 2.1). This implies that
the Islamic calendar is consistently shorter than a tropical year, and therefore shifts
with respect to the Christian calendar (which is 365 days long). Furthermore, the
Islamic year also lags behind the actual lunar year (based on the synodic month)

Table 2.1. Names of months in the Islamic calendar (their durations, days).

Month Month name Month Month name
no. (no. of days) no. (no. of days)
1. Muharram (30) 7. Rajab (30)
2. Safar (29) 8. Sha’ban (29)
3. Rabi’ al-awwal (Rabi’ I) (30) 9. Ramadan (30)
4. Rabi’ al-thani (Rabi’ II) (29) 10. Shawwal (29)
5. Jumada al-awwal (Jumada I) (30) 11. Dhu al-Qi’dah(30)
6. Jumada al-thani (Jumada II) (29) 12. Dhu al-Hijjah (29)