On Sun, 27 Jan 2002 09:25:13 -0600 "The Fool" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > It was my understanding that the Jewish calendar (which is > lunar) > added a > > > thirteenth month every couple of years in a periodic fashion. > ^^^^^^^^^^
> Fourteenth it should probably say (13*28=364). - Naaaa, thirteenth. The Hebrew calendar works on 'true' lunar months of 29.5 days, but since you can't really have half a day in one month and the other half in the other, it alternates 29 and 30 days. Back in the day, the alternation was random, based on visual witnessing of the new moon, but today the standardized calendar almost always goes 30-29-30-29... well, maybe not always, i don't know the frequency but there's a calendar called _lo ad"u rosh_ which means that the first day of the year can't be a sunday, wednesday, or friday; so the 2nd and 3rd months have variable lengths. > > Well, I won't argue with that, I think its right. What I am > pointing > out is > > that the order of the months also varied at the discretion of the > high > > priest. Its as if Easter was the 10th of April, and the Pope, > getting > > weather reports, decided that this year, May would come before > April. - I've never heard any such thing... the intercalated month was always a doubling of the month Adar, the month right before Nisan (the month that Passover falls out in). The point is that the whole reason that the calendar is SOLI-lunar in the first place is because Passover has to occur in the springtime. If it wasn't sufficiently spring, the Sanhedrin (high council) would repeat the month before Passover. -Stephen (Steg) "the almond trees are flowering..." ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.
