I came across your "Good Thursday" commentary. The one thing that did not seem to fit, however, is that Aviv 14 never appears to fall on a Thursday.

The calendar converter that I used is at this site: http://tarekmaani.com/LunchCOnverter.html. Using this calendar converter, the 14th day of Aviv (Nisan) is always either a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday. Is our weekday offset from the Hebrew calendar? Or how do you resolve this?

Ted's Response:

There are many calendar converters, many of which do not match with other converters. Some Jewish calendar converters place Aviv or Nisan 14 on a Monday, a Wednesday, a Friday, or a Saturday. There is a basic reason for this, and because of it the mathematical calendar is required to follow the "rules," which of course are man-made rules. However, nowhere in God's written Law/Torah does it state that Jewish feasts, festivals and holy days must take place only on certain days of the week and cannot occur on other days of the week.

Many Jewish rabbis have deemed that Yom Kippur (Tishrei 10) cannot fall on a Friday or a Sunday, nor can Hoshana Rabbah (Tishrei 21) fall on a Saturday. As such, Rosh Hashanah (Tishrei 1 = first day of the Jewish year) cannot fall on a Sunday, a Wednesday, or a Friday. Accordingly, this would force Passover (Aviv/Nisan 14) to be on a Monday, a Wednesday, a Friday, or a Saturday.

Other rabbis have designated that Passover can take place only on a Saturday, a Sunday, a Tuesday, or a Thursday. Here is a chart showing the days of the week on which these rabbis have said that special days on the Jewish calendar can fall:

Indeed, the following page shows that Passover (Pesach), during the years 2000 to 2050, takes place on Saturdays, Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays: Jewish and Israeli holidays 2000–2050.

In more ancient times, priests went outside at the beginning of the year, for a few nights, to determine the time of the new moon. They decided when it was Rosh Hashanah (Tishrei 1), and that established the days of the other important days of the year. One of these days was Aviv 14, on which there always was (and still is) a full moon.

Those priests long ago did not follow the more modern "rabbinic rules" that Rosh Hashanah, and certain other important days, could not fall on certain days of the week. Furthermore, new moons and full moons, at any time of the year, can occur on any day of the week. So I do not see any restriction preventing the full moon and Jesus' crucifixion, during Holy Week, from taking place on a Thursday.

Incidentally, since those ancient priests did not have a scientific means to know when the sun, moon, and earth were aligned, and therefore the moment of the new moon, a term for Rosh HaShanah came to be known as, "We don't know the day or the hour." Thus, in Matthew 24:36,42 and in Mark 13:32,35, when Jesus stated that the day and hour of His next appearance (Matthew 24:30,31; Mark 13:26,27) was unknown (see day and hour unknown), He very likely was implying that His manifestation in the clouds would be on a Rosh HaShanah. Since Rosh HaShanah = Yom Teruah traditionally is observed for two days, then we won't know the exact year, day, or hour of Jesus' appearance in the clouds to gather His elect believers at the Rapture.