What about the vernal equinox in the calendar?

I have been following the barley Biblical calendar for years. A friend told me that beginning the year with the vernal equinox was the correct biblical calendar. Could you please tell me if you agree/disagree with this?

You will not find "vernal equinox" or even spring equinox in the Scriptures. The argument has been attempted that the vernal equinox corresponds to the Hebrew word tequphah, which is found several times in the Bible. The definition of tequphah (Strong’s Concordance No. 8622) is: "A revolution, i.e. of the sun course (of time) lapse: circuit, come about, end." From the definition, we find it next to impossible to attach any firm connection of tequphah to a spring equinox. The meaning of tequphah points to the end of the year, not the beginning.

The following passages contain the verses where the Hebrew word tequphah is found, as well as its meaning in the context of each:

• Exodus 34:22 (Feast of ingathering at the "year’s end")

• 2Chron. 24:23 (Syria attacked Judah at the "end of the year")

• 2Chronicles. 24:23; 36:10 ("end of the year/year was expired")

Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon defines the tequphah (Strong’s No. 8622) as: "coming round, circuit;–Ex. 34:22, adv., at the circuit (completion) of the year, so 2Chron. 24:23= pl. cstr. 1Sam. 1:20; sig. Sf. Of finished circuit of sun." p. 880

Brown, Driver, Briggs says about the root of tequphah, No. 5362 naqaph: 1. An intransitive verb meaning to surround something… (Isa. 29:1, let feasts go around, i.e. run the round (of the year). 2. make the round, i.e. complete the circuit. Job 1:5 when the days of feasting had completed their circuit.

The closest we have in the Hebrew to spring as a season is 6779, tsamach, a primitive root meaning to sprout, bear, bring forth, bud, grow, cause to spring (forth, up). Yahweh again reveals that the time for His Feasts is attached to the growing of crops, the barley, not to the scientific vernal equinox.

When the Roman church de-liberately acted to separate Easter from Passover, it ruled in 325 CE in the Council of Nicaea that Easter would fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. This establishment of an observance was entirely man-made, and appropriately applied to the man-made holiday of Easter. The Roman church on its own volition, therefore, bestowed a legitimacy on the vernal equinox as a calendar marker where it had none before –at least not in any kind of Biblical context.

That does not mean, however, that the vernal equinox had no significance among ancient pagans and their calendars. Note the following:

• "Easter, too, celebrates the victory of a god of light (J-sus) over darkness (death), so it makes sense to place it at this season. Ironically, the name ‘Easter’ was taken from the name of a Teutonic lunar Goddess, Eostre (from whence we also get the name of the female hormone, estrogen). Her chief symbols were the bunny (both for fertility and because her worshipers saw a hare in the full moon) and the egg (symbolic of the cosmic egg of creation), images which Christians have been hard pressed to explain. Her holiday, the Eostara, was held on the Vernal Equinox Full Moon. Needless to say, the old and accepted folk name for the Vernal Equinox is ‘Lady Day.’ Christians sometimes insist that the title is in honor of Mary and her Annunciation, but Pagans will smile knowingly." – Lady Day: The Vernal Equinox, by Mike Nichols.

• "The most important festival in Babylonia was the New Year, which occurred at the Spring equinox. This was the akitu, a twelve-day ceremony in which the King, as the son and representative of the divinity, regenerated and synchronized the rhythms of nature." – Tales of the Vernal Equinox, by Robin DuMolinc.

The early Egyptians (who were sun worshipping pagans) built the Sphinx to face east, so that it points directly toward the rising Sun on the day of the vernal equinox. The Sphinx was called Hor-em-akhet (English: Horus of the Horizon). As a result of the precession of the equinoxes, the sun on the vernal equinox rises against the stellar background of a different constellation. For the past two thousand years that constellation has been Pisces the Fish. This is rather interesting, as this is the symbol of Christianity. As the church grew and left it's Hebrew roots, sun-worship infiltrated the church, it is not surprising that the mother church (and all subsequent Protestant churches) calculate Easter as the first Sunday (sun's day) after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. It is also not surprising that this came as a result of the first Council of Nicea (325 C.E.) which was convened by Roman Emperor and sun worshiper Constantine the great, who was also instrumental in evolving Sunday (the sun's day) to replace the Sabbath as the day of "rest and worship."

Yahweh’s calendar is agricultural, and begins with green barley ears. An interesting find in Israel called the "Gezer" calendar shows that the Israelites were an agrarian society that based it's months from the bases of agriculture.

In the March April 2002 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review on page 45 we read "A Different Clock governed everyday life in ancient Israel. The society was agrarian- virtually everyone was a farmer- so people naturally regulated their daily lives by the rising and setting sun. Likewise the yearly calendar was defined by seasonal activities related to farming and herding. This small limestone tablet, found in 1908 at Gezer and called the Gezer Calendar, associates the months of the year with activities like sowing, pruning and harvesting, and gives us a glimpse into a way of life very different from ours- a life strongly tied to the earth and it's natural rhythms.

Written in Paleo-Hebrew, the Gezer Calendar dates from the 10th century B.C.E., around the time of the construction of Solomon's temple. The biblical city of Gezer is located on the western slopes of the Judean Hills, midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It contains the following text:

"Two months of harvest)
Two months of planting
Two months are late planting
One month of pulling flax
One month of barley harvest
One month of harvest and feasting
Two months of pruning vines
One month of summer fruit"

This calendar lays-out the fundamental importance of the agricultural cycle in King Solomon's day, this can be seen in the temple festivals of Shavuot ("Feast of weeks") or First Fruits in early Summer (the "month of summer" fruit in line 8), and the Feast of Ingathering (the harvest) in the Fall which culminates to the Feast of Tabernacles. The mention of feasting reflects the pilgrimages festivals which involved feasting.