Three Sabbaths Triangulation

Astronomical mathematics allows us to determine the beginning of Israel’s months and subsequent days of the week. Ancient Israel does not have a set calendar; instead, it is a floating calendar dependent on the first moon’s sighting. Ancient Israel starts their months at the first sighting of the new moon at sunset. To establish this beginning of the month, one would have to witness the moon’s first appearance. Seeing the month’s start is established only at the new moon’s sighting, it is impossible to establish their ancient calendar. Thanks to astronomical mathematics, one can calculate the day Israel would have seen the new moon and subsequently establish their long-lost calendar.

One specific way this method was used is for the calculation of the date of Jesus’ death. The Bible informs us Jesus died on a Friday, so mathematicians calculated Israel’s calendar for that specific year. Mathematicians were able to calculate this one event because they were looking at a narrow timeframe: one month for a year for a span of no more than a few years. While this was feasible for people with slide rulers a hundred years ago, it was unfeasible to expect them to calculate every single month for every single year for thousands of years. Over time, this information sat idle and forgotten.

There was no feasible way to verify when the moon would have been spotted, so there was no reliable way to set the beginning of their months and subsequent days of weeks. However, thanks to the knowledge of astronomy and highly accurate mathematical computations in correlation with tremendous computer computing power, one can calculate every single beginning of the month for Israel. The impact is that when the Bible said the fifteenth of Nisan was a Sabbath, there is now a way to verify it. Now these Old Testament statements can be looked at and considered to be timelines of Scripture.

The Bible describes three different Sabbaths that occurred:

1. Israel’s first Passover lambs were sacrificed in the Promised Land on a Sabbath Saturday at twilight.
2. After the manna started falling, Israel’s first morning Sabbath was on the seventh morning after it was promised.
3. Israel’s Exodus from Egypt fell on a Saturday morning.

The correct Exodus date would allow for these three Sabbaths to occur correctly on Saturday. The Exodus has a fingerprint in the Bible with its unique description, allowing for its identification. The eyewitnesses recorded several Sabbaths with exact lengths of time from the Exodus. The observations will only line up if the correct Exodus date is selected. If the wrong Exodus date is selected, the Sabbaths will not line up. This is because the Sabbaths did not occur on the same days of the month every year but changed based on a sequential pattern of seven days. The three Sabbaths probabilities combine to a 1/73 chance. Furthermore, when the Sabbaths are paired with the Jubilee, the odds fall to 1 out of 3,601. The odds of the three Sabbaths and the Jubilee lining up is only one year in 3,601 years. Finding the one year that enables the Sabbaths and Jubilee to line up would provide substantial evidence for that Exodus year.