The Lunar Sabbath Controversy

Transcription

1 Here is yet another rebuttal to the Creation Calendar. It appears that Maria. Merola intends to explain or describe the lunar calendar and how it works and will appeal to her readers to reject the Lunar Sabbath. Time will tell if she correctly understands the Creation Calendar with its Lunar Sabbaths. History tells me that Ms. Merola will understand very little of the Creation Calendar, which will not dissuade her in the least from commenting upon it. Ms. Merola writes to her readers in this teal font. My responses will be in orange, [bracketed in orange in mid paragraph] bright blue, black and red. Dated: The Lunar Sabbath Controversy By Maria Merola Copyright Double Portion Inheritance, May I was unable to find Maria Merola s study at the above web address. The Lunar Sabbath Controversy Lately there has been a popular teaching going around within the Hebrew Root s Movement called the Lunar Sabbath Calendar. What exactly is Lunar Sabbatarianism? This method of time keeping purports that one must use the first crescent new moon each month in order to begin the count of seven days for the Sabbath day. [This is not true. The first crescent is how the Babylonians began their months. Ancient Israel picked up this nasty little practice while in captivity.] While it is true that we are to sight the new moon each month, the moon is not for measuring 7-day cycles. [A statement of fact or speculation? If fact, where is her evidence?] The moon is for measuring 30 day cycles and for helping us to know when to keep the appointed Feast Days of YHWH. [Agreed.]

2 In this method, the first day in the cycle is the first of the month and then every seven days from that first sliver of the new moon is a Sabbath day for that month. The Sabbath is the seventh day from every new moon, yes, but not from the first sliver moon. If a new moon happens to fall on a Wednesday, then every Wednesday for that month will be a Sabbath on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th day, [This is correct.] leaving one extra day at the end of the month on the 30th for which nobody knows how that day should be counted into the equation. [No so. The new moon is a third category of day. It is not counted against the week. See evidence below.] Some Lunar Sabbatarians keep the Sabbath on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of each month. But this still leaves 2 extra days at the end of each month and one more day for the new moon, hence 3 non-days where they do not work. Ms. Merola opens several cans of worms here. I will address them in order. 1. Ezekiel 46:1 proves that new moon days are a third category of day, not counted as a week day. The temple gate is shut during each and every one of the SIX working days, but it is opened each and every Sabbath and new moon. This is a simple math problem. All you have to do is plug in different answers (there are only 7 different week days possible) and see if they fit without error. For instance, what happens when new moon falls on a pagan wednesday? If the tabernacle were still here and I asked you, Would the gate have been open or shut? how would you answer? If you said Open because it is new moon day, I would respond that it is a work day, it must be shut. If you agreed, Of course wednesday is a work day, it must be shut. I d reply, But friend, it is new moon, it must be open. I am not being cantankerous, just pointing out that you have no correct answer because you are applying a pagan/papal/roman/solaronly/man-made calendar to this Scriptural calendar event. Amos 8:5, Isaiah 66:23 and II Kings 4:23 also prove that the days of set-apart convocation (Sabbaths and new moon days) belong in a separate category, apart from the six common work days. Amos: The unscrupulous venders are seeking to cheat the Israelites, but it is Sabbath and new moon. Israel won t come out to buy their wares until a work day. Isaiah: We will worship YHWH on Sabbaths and new moon days, not on work days. II Kings: The boy collapses in the field, his mother races out, scoops him up and runs inside. There the boy dies in her lap. So she runs upstairs, places the boy on Elisha s bed, then runs to her husband asking permission to take a donkey and a servant with her to go see the prophet. To which he inquires, It is neither New Moon, nor Sabbath, why do you want to go see him today? Where was the man? In his field. What was he doing? Working. Click here for more information 2. Very few Lunar Sabbath keepers observe the Sabbaths on the 7 th, 14 th, 21 st and 28 th days of the month. Maybe years ago they did, but the Lunar Sabbath was in its infancy here in the USA at that time. Passover (Abib 14) is preparation day for the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread, therefore the 14 th cannot be the weekly Sabbath. 2

3 3. There are never more than 2 days in a New Moon celebration. Ms. Merola does err, not knowing the Scriptures or what Lunar Sabbatarians believe. And so consequently there are some Lunar Sabbatarians who will take the last Sabbath of the month on the 29th and then go back to work on the 30th. And then on the 8th day of the following month is another Sabbath. This means that they will have to work for 8 days in a row before they can keep another Sabbath, but this is clearly a violation the commandment: Exodus 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to YaHuWaH: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Exodus 35:2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to YaHuWaH: whosoever doethwork therein shall be put to death. Leviticus 23:3 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of YaHuWaH in all your dwellings. What YHWH wants us to do on New Moon days is not mentioned in these verses. Ms. Merola says that Lunar Sabbatarians work for 8 days in a row, and yet these verses do not mention the New Moon segment in them, mentioning only the 7 day work week. How can Sister Merola judge us with Scripture that does not mention the thing she accuses us of? These verses are ONLY about the seven day work week. ONE week consists of 6 working days and 1 Sabbath or rest day. And we are obedient to this commandment, we work on the 6 work days and rest on the Sabbath. Other Lunar Sabbatarians in order to avoid this violation decide to keep a 3 day long Sabbath of rest from the 29th (the last Sabbath of the month) and then on the 30th and on the 1st of the month, they do not go back to work, they wait for the new moon to appear in the sky and then they return back to work. [What violation? We work on the 6 work days and rest on the seventh day Sabbath of each week.] But there is no place in scripture where we are commanded to abstain from regular work or employment for three consecutive days while waiting for a new moon. [Nor is there any Scripture that commands us to work on New Moon. In fact, in Scripture there are several places where there is labor being performed on New Moon day, but there is not a single reference to regular work or employment (and I should also add commerce) being done on New Moon days.] Lunar Sabbatarians often use the following scriptures to support their error: 1st Samuel: 20 5 And Dawid said unto Yahunathan, Behold, tomorrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even 3

4 18 Then Yahunathan said to Dawid, Tomorrow is the new moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty. Lunar Sabbatarians use this verse in an effort to prove that we are to take a 3 day sabbatical until the new moon appears in the sky. [No, we use this verse to prove that there are two days of new moon at times, which proves that the new moon cannot be announced by the first visible crescent because there is only ONE first sliver, not two. There is no mention of taking a 3 day sabbatical in these verses, so attempting to use them for such would be rather foolish.] But there is no such commandment in the Torah that tells us that we must keep a 3 day sabbatical leading up to the new moon. [Agreed.] In this account, David was simply afraid for his life and so he wanted to go and hide himself to pray for three days and nights from King Saul because he knew that Saul wanted to kill him. This scripture is not indicating that David was keeping some kind of Sabbath for three days. [True, but it does prove that he observed two consecutive days of New Moon celebration.] As a matter of fact, this very same scripture that Lunar Sabbatarians use to prove a Lunar Sabbath is used to disprove it if you continue to read on into 1st Samuel A friend of mine name Sarah Kreb s explains how these verses helped her to see that Lunar Sabbath reckoning is false: This should prove interesting, if not enlightening. Sarah Kreb s Testimony: When I did this study I prayed and prayed and asked God to show me if I was wrong in my observance of Sabbath. I told him I was willing to change and ask him to please teach me as a child. I deliberately tried to forget everything I knew and learned about the Sabbath. Not long after praying God directed me to 1st Samuel 20, and I was devastated. I thought, Great! I'm going to have to start observing the lunar Sabbath. I was wondering to myself Why are You directing me to this portion of text----a portion of text that the lunar sabbatarians use to prove their stance?" Well, I kept on reading. I didn't stop at Chapter 20, but I kept reading, and praying, completely willing to change the way I observed Sabbath. And then I saw it as if for the first time and I jumped for joy - ahahahaahh! Ms. Merola and Sarah Kreb do not know it yet, but it was not the Spirit of YHWH that led Ms. Kreb to this conclusion. She was devastated, Great! I m going to have to start observing the Lunar Sabbath. Meaning that the evidence leading her to support the Lunar Sabbath was NOT welcome and whenever truthful evidence is unwelcome, temptation soon follows. You, the ladies and gentlemen of the jury, will understand fully when we are done with this rebuttal. YHWH does not speak out of both sides of His mouth, He is not double minded. There would not be a ton of Scriptural, historical and natural evidence supporting the Creation Calendar (click here, and here) and a ton of evidence that disproves satyrday is the Sabbath (click here) if the opposite were true. Below is just a bit of the historical record that supports the Creation Calendar 4

5 The New Moon is still, and the Sabbath originally was, dependent upon the lunar cycle. Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, p No quote can be clearer than this. each lunar month was divided into four parts, corresponding to the four phases of the moon. The first week of each month began with the new moon, so that, as the lunar month was one or two days more than four periods of seven days, these additional days were not reckoned at all. Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, p Article "Week." The Sabbath depending, in Israel s nomadic period, upon the observation of the phases of the moon, could not, according to this view, be a fixed day. the Hebrew Sabbathon was celebrated at intervals of seven days, corresponding with changes in the moon s phases... Encyclopedia Biblica, p In the time of the earliest prophets, the New Moon stood in the same line with another lunar observance, the Sabbath. Ezekiel, who curiously enough frequently dates his prophecies on the New Moon describes the gate of the inner court of the (new) temple looking eastward as kept shut for the six working days, but opened on the Sabbath and the New Moon. Scribner's Dictionary of the Bible (1898 edit.), p. 521 The Hebrew month is a lunar month and the quarter of this period one phase of the moon appears to have determined the week of seven days. Encyclopedia Biblica, p And why have we never been taught any of this??? The [early] Hebrews employed lunar seven-day weeks which ended with special observances on the seventh day but none the less were tied to the moon s course. Hutton Webster, in his book, Rest Days, page 254. In the article Shawui Calendar: Ancient Shawui Observance, we find confirmation of a radical change in YHWH s calendar. The [lunar]...calendar was used by all the original disciples of Yeshua... This original Nazarene lunar-solar calendar was supplanted by a Roman planetary week and calendar in 135 C.E. -- when the Bishops of the Circumcision (i.e. legitimate Nazarene successors to Yeshua) were displaced from Jerusalem. This began a three hundred year controversy concerning the true calendar and correct Sabbath. This intimate connection between the week and the month was soon dissolved. It is certain that the week soon followed a development of its own, and it became the custom -- without paying any regard to the days of the month (i.e. the lunar month) --...so that the New Moon no longer coincided with the first day [of the month ]. Encyclopedia Biblica, (1899 edit.), p the custom of celebrating the Sabbath every 7th day, irrespective of the relationship of the day to the moon s phases, led to a complete separation from the ancient view of the Sabbath... Encyclopedia Biblica, (1899 edit.), p

6 The calendar was originally fixed by observation, and ultimately by calculation. Up to the fall of the Temple (A.D. 70), witnesses who saw the new moon came forward and were strictly examined and if their evidence was accepted the month was fixed by the priests. Eventually the authority passed to the Sanhedrin and ultimately to the Patriarch. Gradually observation gave place to calculation. The right to determine the calendar was reserved to the Patriarchate; the Jews of Mesopotamia [Ed. this is the land of Babylon] tried in vain to establish their own calendar but the prerogative of Palestine was zealously defended. So long as Palestine remained a religious centre, it was naturally to the homeland that the Diaspora looked for its calendar. Uniformity was essential, for if different parts had celebrated feasts on different days confusion would have ensued. It was not until the 4 th century A.D. that Babylon fixed the calendar Encyclopedia Britannica: Vol. 4, article Calendar. These imported [from Babylon] superstitions eventually led Jewish rabbis to call Saturn Shabbti, the star of the Sabbath, [and]...it was not until the first century of our era, when the planetary week had become an established institution, that the Jewish Sabbath seems always to have corresponded to Saturn s Day [Satyrday]. Hutton Webster in his book, Rest Days, p Thus the condemnation in Amos 5:26 was set in stone. In Amos 5:26, the prophet is recorded as reminding Israel of their apostasy. Israel started worshipping Chiun, a star-god of their own making. In Acts 7:43, Stephen quotes Amos and is translated into Greek as saying Remphan, the star-god Chiun and Remphan are the respective Hebrew and Greek words for Saturn. The Sabbath of Scripture is based upon the lunar cycle. So Israel did indeed come to worship Saturn on his day, but at a much later date and not by Divine command. With the development of the importance of the Sabbath as a day of consecration and the emphasis laid upon the significant number seven, the week became more and more divorced from its lunar connection... Universal Jewish Encyclopedia: Vol. 10, 1943 edit. Article, "Week," p The four quarters of the moon supply an obvious division of the month...it is most significant that in the older parts of the Hebrew scriptures the new moon and the Sabbath are almost invariably mentioned together. The [lunar] month is beyond question an old sacred division of time common to all the semites; even the Arabs, who received the week at quite a late period from the Syrians, greeted the New Moon with religious acclamations. We cannot tell [exactly] when the Sabbath became disassociated from the month. Encyclopedia Biblica, 1899 edit., pp How is it that Scholars cannot tell when the Sabbath was disassociated from the lunar cycle while modern Satyrday sabbath keepers in general deny that the Sabbath was ever connected with the moon in the first place? The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider. Isaiah 1:3 Here is what YHWH showed Sarah as she continued reading: 6

7 1st Samuel 20:5 And Dawid said to Yahunathan, See, tomorrow is the New Moon, and I ought to sit with the King to eat. But let me go, and I shall hide in the field until the third day at evening. Lunar Sabbatarians say that David hid himself for 3 days because he was keeping the new moon days but he was hiding from Saul because Saul wanted to kill him. The third day from the new moon was the 3rd day of the month. Not correct, and Ms. Merola is not giving you the accurate information for this simple equation. In a 30 day month (the only months that have 2 days of New Moon), day 30 of the old month is the first day of the two days of new moon. There is no visible moon for either of these days if the lights in the heavens and the calendar days are lined up correctly (meaning as they were established at Creation, not based on any man-made theories). Here are the facts Maria Merola has withheld from you (or was ignorant of). You decide which: A-When David said, Tomorrow is New Moon he was speaking on the 29 th day of the month. And I can prove it... New Moon days are not week days (see evidence p. 2). There are 28 days in the lunar cycle with a visible moon, likewise there are 28 week days in a month, this is not a coincidence. In a 30 day lunar month, days 2-29 will be announced by a phase of the moon. Since day 1 of the month is New Moon (not a week day), the day before the NEXT new moon would be 28 days after the previous New Moon, meaning the 29 th day of the month. See above. B-David and Jonathan clearly understood that there were two day of New Moon because David admits that he is expected to eat with King Saul (and I Samuel 20:5, reveals that he was expected to sit with the King for TWO days). C-David was not expected to sit with the King at meat on the 29 th day of the month when David and Jonathan made the pact, nor the day after the New Moon celebration was over when Jonathan shot the arrows. Just the two days of New Moon. D-So the day Jonathan shot his arrow was the second day of the month, not the third. The dates in question are highlighted below. From the 29 th, the day of David and Jonathan s pact, three days later (30-1-2) is the 2 nd day of the month. Looks like this New Moon Days First Week Day Second Week Day Third Week Day Fourth Week Day Fifth Week Day Sixth Week Day Seventh Week Day

8 E-The words second day of the month in I Samuel 20:27 and 34 is a bad translation. If you will ask someone who speaks Hebrew, they will tell you that in context it literally means second day of New Moon. Now let us take a look at these verses to see what is really taking place here: We just did that, but we should go ahead and humor Ms. Merola anyway. It may prove somewhat interesting. 1st Samuel 20:24 And Dawid hid in the field. And when the New Moon came, the King sat down by the food to eat. 1st Samuel 20:27 And it came to be the next day, the second day of the month, that Dawid s place was empty. And Sha ul said to Yahunathan his son, Why has the son of Yishai (Jesse) not come to eat, either yesterday or today? 1st Samuel 20:34 And Yahunathan rose up from the table in the heat of displeasure, and ate no food the second day of the month, for he was grieved for Dawiḏ, because his father put him to shame. This was the second day of the month. The next morning Jonathan went out in the field to shoot arrows so this was the 3rd day of the month: 1st Samuel 20:35 And it came to be, in the morning, that Yahunathan went out into the field at the time appointed with Dawiḏ, and a small youth was with him. It is because of Ms. Merola s gross lack of understanding of the calendar established at Creation that she reads an English translation and accepts that as literal Hebrew. The Hebrew reads the second day of chodesh (New Moon), not the second day of the month. A faulty foundation leads to the collapse of the building and/or doctrine built upon it. 1st Samuel 20:42 And Yahunathan said to David, Go in peace, since we have both sworn in the name of YaHuWaH, saying, YaHuWaH is between you and me, and between your seed and my seed forever. Then he arose and left, and Yahunathan went into the city. 1st Samuel 21:1 And Dawid came to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. And Ahimelek trembled when he met Dawid, and asked him, Why are you alone, and no one is with you? 1st Samuel 21:2 And Dawid said unto Ahimelek the priest, The King has commanded me a word, and said to me, Let no one know whatever of the word about which I send you, and which I have commanded you. And I have directed my young men to such and such a place. David lied (or rather prevaricated). Interesting. 8

9 1st Samuel 21:3 And now, what do you have on hand? Give five loaves into my hand, or whatever is found. 1st Samuel 21:4 And the priest answered Dawid, and said, There is no ordinary bread on hand, but there is set-apart bread- provided the young men have kept themselves from women. 1st Samuel 21:5 And Dawid answered the priest, and said to him, Truly women have been kept from us about these days, since I came out. And the vessels of the young men are set-apart, and it is an ordinary mission, and also, it was set-apart in the vessel today. 1st Samuel 21:6 Then the priest gave him set-apart bread, for there was no bread there except the showbread which had been taken from before YaHuWaH, in order to put hot bread in on the day it is taken away. David came out of hiding on the 3rd day from the new moon [I can t believe I just read this. The text says it was the 3 rd day from the day David made his pact with Jonathan, and this was clearly the 29 th day of the previous month, not New Moon. Three days after the 29 th is the first day after the New Moon, not the third. Please refer to the calendar model at the bottom of page 7 above.] and the men had been away from women for three days. [Quite a few more actually.] Then the priest gave David the old showbread because the new showbread had just been baked and this was the day that they were replacing the old showbread with the fresh showbread. And what day of the week is the new showbread replaced? The Showbread was always changed out on the Sabbath day: Leviticus 24:5-8: 5 And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it, two-tenth of an ephah in each cake. 6 And you shall set them in two rows, six on a row, on the clean table before YaHuWaH. 7 And you shall put clear frankincense on each row, and that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto YaHuWaH. 8 On every Sabbath he is to arrange it before YaHuWaH continually, from the children of Yisra el an everlasting covenant. And so if the Sabbath was determined by a new moon, then the Sabbath would have been on the 7th day from the new moon. But David was only into his 3rd day from the new moon when he came out of hiding and this was the day that the priest was changing out the bread on the Sabbath day and it was the 3rd day of the month! 9

10 Oh wow, and here we find the first evidence that Ms. Merola has an agenda and is actively attempting to deceive her readers. Either that or she does err, not knowing the Scriptures and is therefore not qualified for any sort of ministry. Rightly dividing the Word of Yah is paramount if you are going to have an on-line ministry trying to lead people to salvation. I m sorry if that sounds harsh, I don t know Maria Merola, but I m not judging her without due cause. I m making these comments based on her own words. Please reread the texts Ms. Merola offers above. They say that David and Jonathan both agreed that the next day was New Moon. They reveal that there were two days of New Moon because David and Jonathan agreed to shoot the arrow three days later and that David was expected to eat with Saul for TWO days. In two verses, it is admitted that the second day that David was to sit with Saul was also a New Moon day. Regarding David s run for safety, it does not say that David approached Ahimelek the priest on the third day (meaning three days after Jonathan and David first agreed to the pact). David admits that he has been on the run for these days, since I came out. He did not start running until the third day of their pact (which was the 2 nd day of the month the first day after New Moon was over), and he said he had been running for days but does not tell us how many. Ms. Merola says that it was the third day that David approached Ahmielek (indicating the same day he left Jonathan s company). David had been running since the second day of the month, and assuming that this was the first Sabbath of that month, the fact that Ahimelek was changing the showbread proves that had been running for 6 days, and in fact was approaching Ahimelek on the 8 th day of the month. How can I be so certain? Every Sabbath that can be date identified in Scripture falls on the 8 th, 15 th, 22 nd or 29 th days of the month. The study at this weblink will provide you all the evidence you can possibly want. 29_Proof.pdf. Because I am so certain, I can present the evidence without bias and without prejudice. I am not trying to prove the lunar calendar. This truth is self-evident. All I am doing is defending the Lunar Sabbath against those who deny it and pointing out the error of those who reject it. Another thing that now makes sense is that YaHuW shuwa Messiah when being questioned about his supposed violation of the Sabbath, he pointed out that King David ate the showbread. Now why would he have used this example? Because King David received the showbread on the sabbath! Yes, it was on the Sabbath, but how is eating old showbread on the Sabbath a sin? In I Samuel 21:4 Ahimelek only inquires about whether the men have been apart from women. If it were a sin, then it would not have mattered if they had had sex 5 minutes or 5 years before their arrival because they would not have been permitted to eat of it anyway. Ms. Merola, this is called evidence. It is not evidence that can be used against the Lunar Sabbath because there is no prohibition against eating the old shewbread on the Sabbath (if certain criteria are met). And this Sabbath did not fall on the 3rd day of the month. 10

11 Please examine the calendar below and tell me how it was possible for this meeting to take place on the third day of the week... New Moon Days First Week Day Second Week Day Third Week Day Fourth Week Day Fifth Week Day Sixth Week Day Seventh Week Day Above, I have highlighted the problems with Sis. Merola's calendar model. In David's day there were only 30 day months, every month held 2 days of New Moon celebration. Those two days were day 30 and day one of the new month, as the last day of any two day New Moon MUST be the first day of the new month. For the record, please note that the calendar model presented by Ms. Merola, depicted above, BOTH days of New Moon celebration fall on one of the six week days, all of which are commanded work days. According to Scripture, New Moon days are not week days. Here is the most potent evidence against her calendar model... Ezekiel 46:1 proves that New Moon days are a third category of day, not counted as a week day. The temple gate is shut during each and every one of the SIX working days, but it is opened each and every Sabbath and New Moon. This is a simple math problem. All you have to do is plug in different answers (there are only 7 different week days possible) and see if they fit without error. In the case above, what happens when New Moon falls on a pagan thursday? If the tabernacle were still here and I asked you, Would the gate have been open or shut? how would you answer? If you said It would be open because it is New Moon day, I would respond that it is a work day, it must be shut. If you agreed, Of course thursday is a work day, the gate must be shut. I d reply, But friend, it is New Moon, it must be open. Ms. Merola has no correct answer because she is applying this Scriptural calendar event to a pagan/papal/roman/ solar-only/man-made calendar. Also, in every place that the weekly Sabbath can be date identified, it falls on the 8th, 15th, 22nd or 29th days of the month, without exception. There is not a single place in Scripture where the 3rd, 10th, 17th or 24th days of the month are called the weekly Sabbath. Not once. Matthew 12 1 At that time Yahushua went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day. 3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him? 11

12 Trying to Fit a Square Peg Into a Round Hole Pretty cool picture. Now understand that the peg board above is the calendar established at Creation, and the square peg is satyrday, not the Lunar Sabbath. If you want to know how satyrday became the Sabbath, click here: HowDidSatyrdayBecomeTheSabbath.pdf. Now the same thing happened to me that happened to Sarah. I was praying about this Lunar Sabbath reckoning and was very troubled about it. Some of my friends were pressuring me and they wanted my opinion on it. I had already seen the evidence before, on both sides of the argument, but I was still unsure of what to believe about the Lunar Sabbath. [Which tells me Ms. Merola has not really seen or paid attention to the evidence supporting the Lunar Sabbath. If she had, she would not have written this article. I am now, however, providing her all the evidence she can possibly need.] I was willing to make the switch if it was truly the correct time-keeping. But one night in May of 2011, YHWH spoke to my heart and said Maria look at the Shmita---the 7 year Sabbatical Cycles. I went to get my calculator, and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, this is what he showed me: You cannot fit 7 days into 30 days evenly and you cannot fit 7 days into 360 days evenly. YHWH showed me that the smallest denominator that you can fit 7 days into is a 7 year sabbatical cycle which is 2,520 days. 2,520 7 =

13 This means that in the 7th year, the land has to take a rest of 360 days (one biblical year) because the land has been producing food for us for 7 years without any rest on the Sabbath. And so the traditional way of keeping Sabbath on the 7th day of the week means that we end up keeping just as many Sabbaths in a 7 year period as the land. We end up keeping 360 Sabbaths in 7 years and the land keeps a Sabbath rest of 360 days (one biblical year). Ms. Merola is trying to tell you that the seven day weeks run in an unbroken cycle of seven day weeks. But this is not what Scripture teaches, so it was not the Set-Apart Spirit who led her to this conclusion because the Spirit of YHWH is in the business of leading people TO the truth, not deluding them. Please refer to the calendar illustration near the bottom of page 7 above. There are 28 days in a lunar cycle when the moon is illuminated. In comparison, on the lunar calendar there are 28 week days in a lunar month (7 x 4 = 28). Of these 28 days in the lunar cycle, there are 4 quarter phases of the moon that are observed at 7 day intervals. In comparison, on the lunar calendar there are 4 weekly Sabbaths that appear at 7 day intervals in the lunar month. After the last Sabbath of the lunar cycle, there are 1-2 dark days, with no illuminated moon. Naturally, as you would expect, after the last Sabbath of the lunar calendar month there are 1-2 New Moon days. This type of perfect symmetry and synchronicity does not appear in nature without reason. All nature screams the majesty of YHWH. Nature does not lie. Men do. Days, weeks, months and years all find a cycle in the heavens that define them. And nothing in nature will contradict the calendar in Scripture. Likewise, nothing in Scripture will contradict the cycles found in the luminaries in the cosmos. Might I ask how Maria Merola gets 7 into 360 evenly? Lunar Sabbatarians are not bent on proving that the 7 day weeks run in an unbroken cycle, Ms. Merola is. In Scripture the years are 360 days long, consisting of 12 thirty day months. 12 x 30 = 360. Originally, the lunar months all had two days of New Moon and combined with the 4 seven day weeks made 30 day months, = 30. Meaning that there are 48 weeks in a Scriptural year. How interesting that David created 24 orders of priests (I Chronicles 24:1-19) who would serve twice a year since the lunar year has only 48 weeks. This proves the lunar calendar year because if in David s day there were 52 weeks in the year or he would have created either 26 or 52 orders of priests to serve in the temple. You see, I don t have to fit 7 into 360 and have it come out evenly. This is a demand that Ms. Merola makes, Scripture does not, once again proving that the New Moon days are not week days. They are a third category of day, days of the month and year, just not days of any week. Ms. Merola seems to be intent on discrediting the lunar Sabbath in order to persuade her readers to remain satyrday Sabbath keepers. She won t (because she can t) prove that satyrday is the Sabbath of Scripture, but if she can cast doubt upon the Lunar Sabbath, then perhaps her readers will remain in the satyrday Sabbath camp. That is her hope. 13

14 If she REALLY wanted to get to the bottom of this issue and to share the truth with her readers all she has to do is two things. 1. Prove from Scripture that satyrday is the weekly Sabbath. 2. Prove from Scripture that the weekly Sabbath is the seventh day of an unending and unbroken cycle of seven day weeks. She will do neither because she cannot. Scripture does not teach either of these doctrines; they are both the traditions of men, therefore the only conclusion we can come to is that Ms. Merola is more interested in spreading her tradition around as truth than actually discovering what Scripture says. Lunar Sabbatarians will only be keeping 336 Sabbaths in a 7 year period which is a difference of 24 Sabbaths missed! None are missing. There are only 48 Sabbaths in any given year. 7 x 48 = 336 Sabbaths in a 7 year period. See, we are missing no Sabbaths. It does not match the same amount of Sabbaths that the land will be keeping! The land does not keep Sabbaths every month. It keeps them every year. So whatever count is used for weekly Sabbaths in a year is irrelevant. Once every seven years is a land Sabbath. In that year there are 48 weekly Sabbaths. The land does not keep weekly Sabbaths, it keeps an entire year as a land Sabbath. Comparing apples and oranges might make an interesting fruit salad but it does not prove your doctrine or disprove someone else s. The fact that elsewhere in scripture, new moon festivals are mentioned still does not mean that this festival involved a three day long Sabbath before being allowed to go back to work. Some people cannot jeopardize their jobs in order to stay home from work for 3 days while waiting for a new moon, and scripture does not tell us to abstain from work for 3 extra days at the end of each month. [Here, Ms. Merola makes an excuse for disobedience for economic reasons. Yet, the example we are given is that Israelites living in Israel, working for other Israelites who observed the SAME commandments, statutes, feasts and Sabbaths who had no issue whatsoever getting New Moon days off. The other point one could make (and I will) is that there was no command to cease from all work on New Moon. There is a command to have a Set-Apart Convocation of some sort on New Moon, but the entire day is never called a Sabbath, with the exception of the seventh new moon, Feast of Trumpets. Some over zealous Lunar Sabbatarians saw Isaiah 66:23 and over corrected unnecessarily, observing all New Moon days as rest days or Sabbaths. There is no command in Scripture to abstain from work on New Moon, neither is there any example of anyone returning to their regular jobs.] While Lunar Sabbatarians argue that the Jews have altered the Creator s Calendar (and they did with Hillel II in the 4th Century by no longer sighting the new moon), they are themselves adding extra commandments in the Torah that are not there. They have created a 3 day long Sabbath or non-work days while waiting for a new moon. In their efforts to depart from Pharisaism they are creating their own brand of Pharisaism: 14

15 Deuteronomy 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of YaHuWaH your Elohiym which I command you. By adding these three extra days of Sabbath at the end of the month, Lunar Sabbatarians are adding to the commandments. No, we are not. We are not adding extra Sabbaths, but admittedly, some new or misguided Lunar Sabbatarians are indeed guilty of this. Gratefully, the Almighty winks at our ignorance. The 29 th day of the month is the last Sabbath of the month. After that there are 1-2 New Moon days before the next regular work day, the second day of the month. Here now is all the evidence I have found showing that work was indeed performed on New Moon days, but you will not find a single evidence of men returning to their paying jobs of employment. I call it non-commerce labor. The foundation of the earth was laid on new moon day (Genesis 1:1-2). This was a segment of time BEFORE the first work day of the first month of earth s history. The desert tabernacle was erected on new moon (Exodus 40:2-17), the foundation of Yah s temple was laid on new moon (I Esdras 5:57) and the foundation of Solomon s Temple was relaid on new moon (Haggai 1:1, 2, 8, 12). There is a convocation that takes place on new moon, but the convocation is Kadosh (Holy) not the entire day. For the Sabbath, the entire DAY is called Kadosh. On the first day of the month, Noah removed the roof from the ark (Genesis 8:13), not something that would be done on the weekly Sabbath, but was non-commerce labor. The first census was taken on new moon (Numbers 1:1-4). Again, not a Sabbath activity, but neither was it commerce. We are supposed to stick around the home area on the Sabbath (Exodus 16:25-29), yet Ezra 7:9 shows Ezra beginning his journey, leaving Babylon to go back to Jerusalem on the first day of the month. Also, in Joshua 6 and I Kings 20 both reveal Israel engaged in a 7 day battle. In Ms. Merola s reckoning of the calendar, one of these days would have to be the Sabbath (because she insists that the Sabbath is the seventh day of an unbroken cycle of seven day weeks). In reality, the first day of each of these 7 day battles would have occurred on new moon day because Israel never went to war on the Sabbath. A calendar of the months in which these seven day battles took place might look like this New Moon Day 1 of week Day 2 of week Day 3 of week Day 4 of week Day 5 of week Day 6 of week 7 th day Sabbath

16 The actions of some misguided Lunar Sabbatarians should not cast a negative light upon all Lunar Sabbatarians, especially those who have never or no longer observe the New Moon as a Sabbath. Ms. Merola owes the majority of Lunar Sabbatarians an apology. YaHuWaH made the sun the moon and the stars on the fourth day of creation and so the time-keeping mechanism was placed in the sky by YaHuWaH not on the first day but rather on the fourth day and then he rested on the seventh day. [This is a false statement. Or should I say, another false statement.] Now notice that YaHuWaH did not start counting seven days from the day he made the new moon on the 4th day! If YaHuWaH wanted us to begin the count with the new moon, then he would have rested on the 10th day instead of the 7th day! YHWH did start the count on New Moon day. If the second month of earth s history began with a New Moon day, and last month began with a New Moon day, what do you suppose the FIRST month of earth s history began with? You guessed it, New Moon. But Maria Merola will not try to provide one for her readers, I will (below). This is the distinction between a truth seeker and a loophole seeker, a student of Yah s word and a student of one s own tradition. Watch now Genesis 1 14 And Elohiym said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And Elohiym made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And Elohiym set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and Elohiym saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Lunar Sabbatarians would argue that since YHWH separated the light from the darkness on the first day of creation that is when he made the sun and the moon. But that is not what the scripture says. It clearly says that he made the sun the moon and the stars on the 4th day in Genesis 1:16. ' What was the first thing created during creation? Light? No. Genesis 1:1-2 says heaven and earth, and please note that this time consuming event is not part of the work week. What this means becomes clear based on what was done on the next day, the first day of the work week. And it is at this juncture where some folks refuse to see, even though it is ink on the page. 16

17 And Elohim said, Let there be light: and there was light. And Elohim saw the light, that it was good: and Elohim divided the light from the darkness. And Elohim called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Genesis 1:3-5 There is only one light source in the universe that can divide Day from Night, the sun. Please note that if the sun was NOT lit on day one, how are there 3 numbered days before the 4 th week day of Creation? The Hebrew word day (yom) means heat as in from the sun. Since the Hebrew understanding of day requires sunlight, how were there 3 days (yom) before the 4 th day of creation week? According to Genesis 1:3-5, this separation of day and night is the sole responsibility of the one great luminary lit on that day, the sun. Since the sun was lit in Genesis 1:3-5, the moon was thus illuminated as the moon resides in the same heaven with the sun, meaning the sun, moon and stars were not created on day 4! Can this be proven from Scripture? Sure. Moses used two different words in the creation account. One means created from scratch (H#1254, bara, an example of which is found in Genesis 1:1), the other (asah) does not. An example of the other word is found in Genesis 1:16. And God made (asah) two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Genesis 1:16-19 This word made (Strong s H# 6213) is used several times during the creation week. This is the Hebrew word asah, (ah-saw). Created: בּרא H1254 ba ra, baw-raw, A primitive root; (absolutely) to create; (qualified) to cut down (a wood), select, feed (as formative processes): - choose, create (creator), cut down, dispatch, do, make (fat). See Genesis 1:1 Made: עשׂה H6213 aŝ Уaĥ, aw-saw, A primitive root; to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest application: - accomplish, advance, appoint, apt, be at, become, bear, bestow, bring forth, bruise, be busy, X certainly, have the charge of, commit, deal (with), deck, + displease, do, (ready) dress (-ed), (put in) execute (-ion), exercise, fashion, + feast, [fight-] ing man, + finish, fit, fly, follow, fulfil, furnish, gather, get, go about, govern, grant, great, + hinder, hold ([a feast]), X indeed, + be industrious, + journey, keep, labour, maintain, make, be meet, observe, be occupied, offer, + officer, pare, bring (come) to pass, perform, practise, prepare, procure, provide, put, requite, X sacrifice, serve, set, shew, X sin, spend, X surely, take, X thoroughly, trim, X very, + vex, be [warr-] ior, work (-man), yield, use. See Genesis 1:16 17

18 Please note that when it is to her advantage, Ms. Merola will take the time to show you what the underlying Hebrew means, but when it is NOT in her favor, she neglects to provide the meaning of the underlying Hebrew for her readers. Has anyone other than me noticed this? Asah means made from something, or advanced upon or appointed. The Hebrew word made would be used in the following sentence; I made (asah) my bed this morning. The bed was not created from scratch this morning; it was already there, it was only advanced upon and made ready for use the next night. For example: He appointed (asah) the moon for seasons Psalm 104:19. Here David very nearly quotes Genesis 1:14, only he s very specific about the role of the moon. Genesis 1:14 says the two great luminaries in the heavens were created to regulate signs, seasons, days and years. Seasons here in Psalm 104:19 is the same Hebrew seasons found in Genesis 1:14; mo edim, meaning appointed times or set feasts. Leviticus 23:1-3 calls the weekly Sabbath a feast, using the same Hebrew word, mo edim. So, right from creation, the Sabbath has been regulated by a luminary in the heavens, not by a pagan/papal man-made calendar created for the express purpose of worshipping false gods. The simple fact is that time on earth began in Genesis 1:1-2, not Genesis 1:3-5. It is the movement of the sun, moon and stars that define time on earth. Also, it is a universal truism that without motion there can be no time. And the inverse is also true, without time there can be no motion. So, since time began on earth at the moment the Creator spoke heaven and earth into existence, what all did He create and set in motion at that time? Do you deny the absolute laws of the universe? You must deny them if you insist that the sun and moon did not exist until the 4 th day of Creation. Lunar Sabbatarians do not deny universal law, we embrace it. YHWH created earth and heaven (clearly along with its celestial bodies) at a certain point in time defined in Genesis 1:1-2. He doesn t call it a day because the time piece that regulates the day was not yet lit. Then at the beginning of the first day of the week, YHWH lights the sun creating light and day and night as a result. Since the earth and sun were created during the initial event, it is natural that the other objects in the heavens (planets, moons, et al) were created as well. We are not wresting the Scriptures because the underlying Hebrew should have been translated in this way. Then on day four, YHWH advanced upon the luminaries that He had created earlier [when He created the heavens and the earth and then illuminated them on day one], and ordained them, appointed them as time keepers. The moon rules the week/sabbath (signs) and the month (seasons). The sun rules the day and the sun and moon work together to regulate the year. Ms. Merola's assumption above that the moon plays no part in the cycle of time in Genesis chapters 1-2 is made with the preconceived idea that the Lunar Sabbath is false. Sister Merola makes no attempt to examine the evidence; she only seeks to sustain what she already believes. A concept well known to man... Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do. James Harvey Robinson. There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance; that principle is contempt prior to investigation. Herbert Spencer 18

19 Other verses that Lunar Sabbatarians use out of context are as follows: Isaiah 66:23 And it shall come to pass, that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith YaHuWaH. All this says is that there is a worship service on New Moon and the weekly Sabbaths. Nothing more, nothing less. And we do not take it out of context, we are acutely aware of the context. New Moon is a day of convocation, but it is NEVER called a Sabbath anywhere in Scripture other than the seventh New Moon (Feast of Trumpets). Someone please show me what we have taken out of context. Ezekiel 46:1 Thus saith YaHuWaH Elohiym, The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened. All this says is that the gate to the inner court is shut on ALL SIX work days, but open on New Moon AND the weekly Sabbaths. Nothing more, nothing less. Which means that the New Moon will never fall on one of the 6 work days, yet in some of her arguments above, Ms. Merola forces New Moon to be part of the work week, contrary to this verse. So who is taking this verse out of context? Ms. Merola s argument below is that the New Moon and Sabbath are different, which is a conclusion we agree with. Now it is very important that we pay close attention to the words and in these verses. You will notice that a new moon is not the same thing as a Sabbath. [ And we agree with this.] If they were one and the same, there would be no need to mention the word and. A new moon is called Rosh Chodesh meaning head of the month and it is to be set apart as a day of recognizing a new month. But there is no mention in Leviticus 23 (where the commandment is given to keep the 7th day holy), that this always takes on the 7th day from a new moon. Interesting, most people do not offer Leviticus 23 as a Sabbath commandment, most offer Exodus 20:8-11 or Deuteronomy 5: But Leviticus 23:3 very clearly tells us to keep the seventh day of the week Set-Apart. Good for Sister Maria Merola. It is Ms. Merola who insists that the New Moon day can fall on any day of the week, which is contradicted by Ezekiel 46:1. And because the New Moon is prohibited from falling on any of the week days or the weekly Sabbaths, it forces a different understanding of the calendar. In truth, it forces the first Sabbath to be 7 days from a New Moon, a truth steadfastly denied by Ms. Merola. So who is taking these verses out of context? Our calendar model immediately below agrees with both verses. Unless Ms. Merola recognizes New Moon as a worship day (Isaiah 66:23), her calendar understanding is out of context with both of these verses... 19

20 New Moon Day 1 of week Day 2 of week Day 3 of week Day 4 of week Day 5 of week Day 6 of week 7 th day Sabbath How Long is a Biblical Month and Year? In Genesis 7:24 and in Genesis 8:3 we find out that Noah s Ark rested on the waters for 150 days. [Agreed.] In Revelation 11:3, the two witnesses will have a ministry that lasts for 1,260 days. When this is divided by 3.5 there are 30 days for each month. In Revelation 13:5, the Antichrist speaks blasphemies for 42 months which is a total of 3.5 years. The prophet Elijah also had a ministry that lasted for 3.5 years which is also 1,260 days. In Scripture, the months ALL used to be 30 days in length, for a total of a 360 lunar/solar year. The luni-solar year was originally 360 days long. The prophetic years are 360 days long. Twelve 30 day months = 360 day year. Genesis 7:11 says that the flood began on the 17th day of the second month. Genesis 8:4 says the water prevailed upon the face of the earth until the 17th day of the seventh month. That is 5 months. Genesis 7:24 and 8:3 say that the water prevailed upon the earth for 150 days. 150 divided by 5 = 30. So there were 5 consecutive 30 day months in Scripture, which is not possible with the current relationship between the earth and moon. It was not until the 8 th or 7 th centuries B.C. that 29 day months appeared, due to a shift in our cosmos. I call it the dent YHWH put in His calendar. In Daniel 12:11, the Angel told Daniel.from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. In all of these scenarios we can see that a Biblical month is always 30 days and since there are 12 months in a year that means that a Biblical Year is 360 days. That is correct. Which proves that there are two days of new moon each month, as shown by David being expected to sit with King Saul for a meal on two consecutive days, the first of which is actually called a New Moon Day. And so with a Lunar Sabbath Calendar we can see an illustration below: 20

21 As one can see from the illustration above, only 4 seven day cycles can fit into a 30-day month leaving two extra days that are then treated as "non-days" by Lunar Sabbatarians. But these two extra days should be carried over into the following month. Not non-days, they are days of the month, and days of the year, they are just not week days. How can they be week days, the verse below proves that New Moon days cannot be one of the 6 work days, and they are clearly not weekly Sabbaths. Ezekiel 46:1 Thus saith YaHuWaH Elohiym, The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened. 21

22 Lunar Sabbatarians use the above verse in an effort to show that the New Moon is a Sabbath Day. But that is not what this verse is saying. [And Lunar Sabbatarians do not use this verse to prove that the New Moon is a Sabbath. The verse most used for that is Isaiah 66:23.] A New Moon Day is simply a festival of sounding the shofar and ushering in a new month called Rosh Chodesh (head of the month). No place in scripture are we commanded to rest from work on a New Moon Day. All of the waxing gibbous moons shown above the red line below (the first 15 days of the month) are seen at sunset the evening BEFORE the numbered day in the box. All the waning gibbous moons shown below the red line (the last days of the month) are identified at dawn of the numbered day in the box. 1 New moon First Quarter Full moon Third Quarter The graph on this page shows how the lunar calendar works. Each quarter phase ends its respective week, announcing the weekly Sabbath (red font). All three categories of day are distinctly different. The New Moon days (blue font) are not illuminated. The week days (black font), including the weekly Sabbaths ARE illuminated, but the quarter phases which are approximately 7 days apart announce each Sabbath. If the dark days are recognized as a third category of day, and put in the place of the new moon days, suddenly each and every Sabbath is announced by a quarter phase of the moon before the Sabbath begins. The light is a sign or signal just like it is said in Genesis 1:14. There is always harmony in the truth. Last Sliver may or may not be seen 30 New moon 22

23 The New Moon was a day to offer up sacrifices but there is no mention of resting from our regular work on a New Moon day any place in scripture: 2nd Chronicles 2:4 Behold, I build an house to the name of YaHuWaH my Elohiym, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual shewbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of YaHuWaH our Elohiym. This is an ordinance for ever to Israel. Excuse me, but there IS a command to work six days a week and to refrain from working on the seventh day of the week (Exodus 20:8-11, Deuteronomy 12-15). Scripture puts New Moon into a third category of day, so why should YHWH mention whether work is to be or not to be performed on New Moon? They never fall on any of the SIX commanded work days. See calendar below. There is no argument here, it is Ms. Merola looking for loopholes again. New Moon (Genesis 1:1-2) Work day #1 (Genesis 1:3-5) Work day #2 (Genesis 1:6-8) Work day #3 (Genesis 1:9-13) Work day #4 (Genesis 1:14-19) Work day #5 (Genesis 1:20-23) Work day #6 (Genesis 1:24-31) 7 th day Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3) (30) The Key to Understanding the Creator s Calendar is in the Shmita or the Sabbatical Year Cycles What is a Shmita? Shmita (Hebrew: שמיטה, literally release ), also called the Sabbatical Year, is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the Land of Israel, and still observed in contemporary Judaism. During Shmita, the land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity including plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting is forbidden by Torah law. Other cultivation techniques such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying, trimming and mowing may be performed as a preventative measure only, not to improve the growth of trees or plants. Additionally, any fruits which grow of their own accord are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by anyone. A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption and disposal of Shmita produce. A second aspect of Shmita concerns debts and loans. When the Shmita year ends, personal debts which are due during that year are considered nullified and forgiven. The Book of Leviticus promises bountiful harvests to those who observe the shmita and makes observance a test of religious faith. 23

24 What I underlined above is an addition to Torah, created by the rabbis. There is such command in Torah. And, for the record, the key to understanding the Calendar of Creation is the New Moon. If you understand New Moon, how if functions and where it is placed in the calendar of heaven, you will understand how satyrday and the Gregorian calendar are not the Sabbath and calendar of YHWH. If the Sabbatical year or cycle is the key to understanding the calendar of Yah, then it would not have been until 7 or 50 years after Creation before Adam would have had a CLUE about how or when to observe the appointed times to meet with YHWH. Come now, let us reason together. That said, I am all ears. I want to know what Ms. Merola has to say about the Shmita because the land Sabbath cycle is the only part missing from the Creation Calendar because we do not know where we are in that cycle. The key to understanding the Creator s Calendar is not based on a one year or a monthly cycle but a Shmita (7 year Sabbatical Cycle). To see the folly of this statement, let me repeat: If the Sabbatical year or cycle is the key to understanding the calendar of Yah, then it would not have been until 7 or 50 years after Creation before Adam would have had a CLUE about how or when to observe the appointed times to meet with YHWH. The largest problem with her theory is that Adam had a Sabbath to observe a week after Creation week ended. Too bad he had to remain ignorant for the next 7-50 years. Naturally Adam had 930 years to figure it out but I guess YHWH was wroth with his lack of understanding, being a day early or a day late, or generally missing weekly Sabbaths for at least the first seven years. Come now, let us reason together. The problem is, no one can reason with someone who is blind by choice or apathy. First of all, there are 360 days in a year and if you divide that by 7 you get Sabbaths in a year. What this means is that you will only be able to keep 51 Sabbaths in a year and then there will be 4 days that are going to carry over into the next year as part of a week and then in the following year you will use 3 days from that year to complete a week. Absolutely amazing! Ms. Merola apparently believes that YHWH cannot figure out how to get an even number of WHOLE Sabbaths in His year. Or that He could not figure out a way for all the days of this year to REMAIN in this year, not having 3 days left over to become part of the next year. I am simply stunned. Indeed, there are 360 days in the Father's original year, but He also culled out New Moon days from ever being part of the 7 day work week. If you remove those 24 days from the 360, you get 336. And = 48. Seems like we have had this conversation before. 24

25 Apparently it has never occurred to Ms. Merola that the Gregorian calendar was invented in 1582 and is not nearly old enough to be the calendar established at the Garden of Eden. And since this observation is 100% accurate, it is also apparent that she has never considered that the first day of the pagan planetary week is not the Sabbath of Creation. I'm not talking about sunday (presently the first day of the week), I'm talking about satyrday the day Ms. Merola is trying to promote and defend as the Sabbath of Scripture, but she cannot find or present any evidence because at the time the Scriptures were being written, satyrday was the FIRST day of the week, not the seventh. To assume that Israel observed the pagan seven day planetary week in the first century when Rome themselves did not is sheer lunacy. Rome did not officially adopt the seven day planetary week until A.D. 321 when Emperor Constantine became a christian. Until that time, saturn s day was the 1st day of the seven day planetary week, not the 7th. Below is a sketch of the pagan planetary week, circa 100 B.C. saturn s day, sun s day, moon s day, mars day, mercury s day, jupiter s day, venus day The sketch above came from the clay calendar tablet pictured on the following page. Rome ruled the world in the first century B.C., thus the Roman numerals, but this is not a Roman calendar. This is the pagan seven day planetary week as it existed from B.C., until A.D. 321 when Constantine venerated the day of the sun. You see, Constantine worshiped Mithra, the Persian version of the sun god. He did not want the day of the sun taking a back seat to saturn, so when he venerated the day of the sun all he did was bump satyrday from the coveted #1 position in the week all the way to the seventh day, which was vacated by all the other days moving up one position in the weekly cycle, permitting the sun s day to hold the preeminent first day position. 25

26 You see, the dirty little secret is out. Satyrday was not the seventh day of the week anywhere on the planet until A.D. 321, and then by virtue of Constantine, not the Creator Almighty, so it certainly was NOT the Sabbath of Israel at any time in earth s history, yet this is the day Ms. Merola is defending as the weekly Sabbath. And you can ask her why, but you will never get an answer. So, Sister Merola, was Israel using the 7 day pagan planetary week in the first century? If so (If not) are you ever going to produce any evidence to support your conclusion? Rome certainly wasn't. In the first century, the Julian calendar consisted of a repeating 8 day market week, A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H; it BECAME a seven day week in A.D. 321 when Constantine adopted the pagan planetary week. Ms. Merola's arguments are mere words until she backs them up with facts. It's OK, don't be frightened. Facts have never hurt anyone, well, unless you reject or ignore them. Here is a reproduction of a first century Roman Republican calendar... In the first century, Rome had an 8 day market calendar week, not a seven day week. Satyrday did not appear on the official Roman calendar until 321 A.D., so satyrday was FAR from well established as a day on the Roman (much less Hebrew) calendar in the NT times. 26

27 There were some tribes in the Empire that were observing the pagan seven day planetary week, but the official calendar of Rome was the Roman Republican Calendar until A.D. 321 when Constantine adopted the pagan planetary week. But in a Lunar Sabbath Cycle, there are only going to be 4 Sabbaths per month and that means 48 Sabbaths in a year! That is correct. Is there a problem with this number? Oh, that's right, the problem is that this number proves the Lunar Sabbath while at the same time disproving satyrday as the Sabbath. Why? Because Lunar Sabbatarians are using up the other days that are meant to be a Sabbath Day (every seventh day) and they are using them instead as new moon waiting days and so they are keeping 3 fewer weekly Sabbaths per year which is a violation of the Covenant! Ms. Merola does err, not knowing the Scriptures. Now since there are 3-4 days left over at the end of the year, you will have to finish the rest of the week with 3-4 more days from the New Year in order to complete another week. She repeats herself and I am as stunned as the first time. She offers no Scriptural, historical or even natural evidence to support her position, we are simply expected to take her word for it. How does that sit with you, dear reader? Now if you take 360 days for a year and you multiply that by seven years you will come up with 2,520 days: 360 X 7 = 2,520 days: This is an even number which is divisible by 7 Any number that is multiplied by seven will be divisible by seven. This is not evidence. The problem is that the year SHE is using has 3-4 days more than 360. So why isn't she multiplying 364 by 7? And so every seven years (shabuwah) is 2,520 days. What this means is that you are only going to be able to keep 51 continuous Sabbaths in a year but there will be extra days that carry over into the next year. And so the extra 4 days will be a half of a week but the other 3 days will carry over into the week for the next year! Indeed, there are 2520 days in 7 Scriptural years, but there are only 48 Sabbaths in each year, not 51, and there are NO days that carry over from the last week of the old year to the first week of the new. That is utter nonsense. If a year has days that carry over from one year to the next, then Ms. Merola is actually presenting the ancient Egyptian calendar (but does not know it) which had 364 days, the last 4 days being non week days, just left over from the old year. And so every year, there is going to be 4 days that carry over into the New Year! 27

28 This is a completely false statement. I have no idea who gave this woman the idea she was qualified to speak against the calendar of Scripture, much less defend satyrday, something she has utterly failed to do. Why 4 days? Because at Creation YaHuWaH did not cause the sun the moon and the stars to begin their work as a Cosmic Calendar until the 4th day of Creation, just like he did not cause Messiah to come to earth until the 4th Millennium (4th day). And he also died on the 4th day of the week (Wednesday). A noble effort, but again false. The sun, moon and stars were created on the New Moon day of the first month of earth's history (spoken of in Genesis 1:1-2). The evidence is on pages above. There was a light lit on the first work day that divided Day from Night. That light can only be the sun. By the way, I thought this section was about the Shmita. According to Ms. Merola, this is the key to understanding the calendar. When is she going to tie the two together? Have you seen this evidence yet? I haven't. What is significant about this is that at his first coming, Messiah came in the 4th Millennium and he died on the 4th day of the week and he resurrected on the 7th day of the week as the Sabbath was ending (see Matthew 28:1). The 4th millennia perhaps, but the 4th day of the week? Not hardly. And once again, I find myself asking, "WHERE is her evidence?" Does she honestly believe that hearing herself say it makes it true? Truthseekers are not that gullible. Truth seekers prove all things, hold fast that which is true. Scholars have generally agreed that the only dates that the crucifixion could have taken place was A.D. 30, 31 or 33. The reason for these years is that there are other historical events that took place at known dates that must be taken into consideration and placed in the timeline of the events in the NT. Passover was a lunar event, the full moon seen the evening of the 14th day of the first lunar month. The moon's phases are not a secret and the lunar cycle can be determined in either the past or future with a great deal of accuracy. Any moon phase calculator will tell you that the full moon of Passover......would have been on the pagan m-day in 28 A.D. On the pagan su-day in 29 A.D. On the pagan th-day in 30 A.D. On the pagan t-sday in 31 A.D. On the pagan su-day in 32 A.D. And on the pagan th-day in 33 A.D. 28

29 What this proves is that there were no fri-sat-sun weekend Passovers on ANY of the dates between 27 and 33 A.D. covering all the suspected years of the crucifixion. It also proves that there are no w-day crucifixion days in A.D. 30, 31 or 33. And Ms. Merola is trying to say that wednesday was Passover, meaning that her Sabbath would have been on thurday the 5th day of the week, because the day after Passover in the year of the crucifixion was most certainly the weekly Sabbath, see Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54-56, John 19:31. If satyrday is the Sabbath, friday would have been Passover. But there are no fri-sat-sun crucifixion weekends available. If weday was Pasover, then according to the NT, th-day was the weekly Sabbath. This proves that the pagan planetary week was not employed by Israel in the first century. They observed the Lunarsolar calendar established at Creation, a fact corroborated by historians and proven by Scripture. Naturally, Ms. Merola disregards the evidence in Scripture that the day after Passover is the weekly Sabbath. Instead, she would rather climb a tree and tell a lie rather than stand on the ground and tell the truth. And I can PROVE that wednesday was not the Passover or crucifixion day. Below is how Ms. Merola is trying to force her understanding of the calendar to fit her theology. Do you see the problem? It is highlighted... First Week Day Second Week Day Third Week Day Fourth Week Day Fifth Week Day Sixth Week Day Seventh day Sabbath She says that Passover (Abib 14) must have taken place on a wednesday, forcing the weekly Sabbath to take place on the 17 th for which there is no evidence in Scripture. Do you spot the problem? Check the arrow above. The 10 th day of the first month floats around on the Roman calendar. If the 17 th is the Sabbath of any month, so is the 10 th. Do you remember what happened on Abib 10, four days before Passover? The 10th day of Abib is a work/commerce day, the day to set aside to select the Passover Lamb. If you did not own a lamb, you had to go and purchase one on THIS particular day. Did you know that there are three commanded work days in the first month of the Father s calendar? Abib 10 is one of them. The 14th day of Abib is always preparation day for Abib 15, the first day of Unleavened Bread. Matt. 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54--24:1, John 19:14, 31, 42 John 20:1. Abib 14 floats on the Gregorian calendar. The fact is that the 10th, 14th and 16th of Abib (which all float around on the Roman calendar) are, without exception, commanded work days. The barley could be harvested on the 16th after the Wave Sheaf had been offered, Leviticus 23:9-14. Any moon phase calculator will prove to you that if there is a continuous 7 day cycle, every few years either the 10th, 14th, and 16th will fall on a satyrday. 29

30 Evidence: Abib 10 fell on a satyrday in The 14th fell on satyrday in 2004, 2008 and The 16th fell on a satyrday in 2002, 2006 and There is no legislation provided to do these tasks a day early or a day late, these work dates are fixed. And YHWH never asked Israel do common work on a rest day. He is not the Author of confusion. Isn t it interesting how the Father maneuvered His commanded work days in such a fashion that they would totally disrupt and destroy all the calendars of pagans and apostates alike? But at creation, YaHuWaH made the sun the moon and the stars which are for timekeeping. YaHuW shuwa Messiah is time. He is the alef & taw. He is the one who was and is and is to come.the first and the last, the beginning and the ending. Messiah is time? Guffaw! Sorry that just slipped out. Um, can there be TWO who are first and last? The prophet Isaiah disagree with just who this person is... Thus saith YHWH the King of Israel, and his redeemer YHWH of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me there is no Elohim. Isaiah 44:6 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, My called; I am He; I [YHWH] am the first, I also am the last. Isaiah 48:12 (Read 48:2 to see Who is talking). There is no Messiah figure mentioned in either of these chapters. Because he is time, and light, it stands to reason that the sun the moon and the stars are symbols of him, and they were made on the 4th day of Creation. But on the 7th day of Creation, YaHuWaH rested from his work and on the 7th day of the week YaHuW shuwa rested in the tomb and at the close of the Sabbath he resurrected! How poetic. Problem is that poetry is not law. The sun, moon and stars are not symbols or memorials of anything or anyone. If they were, we would have a Thus saith YHWH, rather than a Thus saith Maria Merola. Messiah is not time, and was never equated to time anywhere in Scripture. His teachings may have been considered light (which is a symbol of truth), but there is no passage anywhere in Scripture that equates Messiah with either the sun, moon or stars. And saying he is time and/or light does not make it true. Saying he is the "light of the world" is ambiguous and cannot be equated to any of the luminaries in the heavens. Said another way: If the BEST you can do is a poetic application, then you do NOT have a doctrine. 30

31 Now here is the fatal flaw for Lunar Sabbatarians. [Why wait until 2/3rds of the way through her article to reveal the fatal flaw of Lunar Sabbatism? Why not share it right up front?] Since they are not using those extra new moon waiting days in the count for a continuous flow of Sabbaths back to back, then over the course of a Shmita, or Seven Year Sabbatical Cycle they are going to be keeping fewer Sabbaths! Huh? There has never been a continuous flow of Sabbaths. The flow is interrupted every month by the New Moon phase. Ms. Merola, where in Scripture does it call satyrday the weekly Sabbath? And where in Scripture does it say that the Sabbath is every seventh day in an unbroken cycle? The ONLY reason you believe these things true is because of the Gregorian calendar (circa 1582). All Scripture says in every verse that it is mentioned in context is that the Sabbath is the seventh day. Period. That is all it says. So one must ask the question, seventh day of WHAT? And the answer to that is the seventh day of the week. A "Sabbath complete" is a complete week, SIX work days ending in a Sabbath. And that is what Lunar Sabbath keepers observe. New Moon are not extra or uncounted. According to Scripture they are just not week days. Looks like this... New Moon (Genesis 1:1-2) Work day #1 (Genesis 1:3-5) Work day #2 (Genesis 1:6-8) Work day #3 (Genesis 1:9-13) Work day #4 (Genesis 1:14-19) Work day #5 (Genesis 1:20-23) Work day #6 (Genesis 1:24-31) 7 th day Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3) (30) If Ms. Merola were serious about disproving the Lunar Sabbath, all she had to do is find the text that says satyrday is the Sabbath or that the Sabbath is every seventh day in an unbroken cycle. She has not been able to offer these texts because they do not exist. Since Lunar Sabbatarians rest on 29th the 30th and the 1st (and sometimes beyond while waiting for the new moon, [New Moon days, day 30 and day 1 above, are not rest days, they are days of convocation (to meet with YHWH at the tabernacle). Only the seventh New Moon is a rest day, Leviticus 23: And there is no "sometimes beyond while waiting for the New Moon." Days 30 and 1 ARE New Moon. When they're gone, we go back to work. Ms. Merola does not know what Lunar Sabbath keepers believe, so what ever prompted her to think she was qualified to attack the Lunar Sabbath?] the commandment to work for six days following a 7th Day Sabbath is being violated! [Look again at the calendar above and tell us what we have violated. We work 6 on the 6 days and rest on the 7th.] Now they are resting for 3 days in a row or more and not working to support their families. Now if this was a commandment then they would be justified but there is no such commandment. [Lunar Sabbath keepers are not resting 3 days in a row. Labor was performed on New Moon. 31

32 See page 15, above. But there is no record of Israel returning to their regular employment. After the "holy" convocation, you could clean your gutters, iron that stack of clothes, sharpen your farm instruments, march around Jericho, or volunteer to lay the foundation of the temple. And for the record, no one's family will starve if you do not work on New Moon days, and no bills would be missed because YHWH would BLESS your for your obedience to HIS law, for adhering to HIS calendar.] In fact they could jeopardize their job or their income and thus be guilty of violating these other commandments: One's job or income is not an issue when it comes to the law. Either do, or do not. Lunar Sabbath keeper find a way to obey. Satyrday Sabbath keepers find excuses. Ms. Merola's last sentence above is one of the worst. 2nd Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. We command you? Whose we? Does Paul have a mouse in his pocket? While I agree with this text in practice, it is not Torah. 1st Timothy 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. Again, I agree with the text, but it is not Torah either. Seventy Times Seven In Matthew 18:21-22 Peter (Kefa) asked YaHuWshuwa, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? YaHuWshuwa saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. What we are seeing here is that the number 7 is a prophetic pattern for forgiveness. In Daniel 9 the Angel told Daniel that there would be Seventy Weeks determined for the Covenant people of Yisra el. Now the Hebrew word for weeks is shabuwah which can mean a literal 7 day week, or it can mean a 7 year period or it can even mean a 49 year period. [And just what does this have to do with the Lunar Sabbath?] Strong's Concordance number H7620 shâbûa shebû âh ש shâbûa ב ע,ה ש ב ע ש בוּע shaw-boo'-ah, shaw-boo'-ah, sheb-oo-aw' Properly passive participle of H7650 as a denominative of H7651; literally sevened, that is, a week (specifically of years): - seven, week. Total KJV occurrences: 19 What this means is that this word does NOT mean a 49 year period. The most it can possibly mean is a seven year period if the word Shabua is applied prophetically. 32

33 It REALLY bothers me when people take liberties with Scripture and/or the meaning of Hebrew words and it is VERY easy to discern when the have. So you can either call them out on their error or simply disregard them and/or their ministry. To the law [Torah] and to the testimony [of the prophets]: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20 70 X 7 years = 490 years for the prophecy: Daniel 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. As we can see that there are 6 things that YaHuWaH intended and still intends to do within this 490 years and it has to do with forgiveness! Perhaps. It has nothing to do with the Lunar Sabbath but we will wait for Ms. Merola to get around to making her point. 70 X 7 = Forgiveness! And so the pattern for time keeping and prophecy can only fit when working with numbers divisible by 7 s. Says who? Oh that's right, it is found in the gospel of Maria Merola. Prophetically applying 7 in multiples has nothing to do with the calendar, as I will systematically reveal as we go... We cannot fit the number 7 into a 30 day month evenly: 30 7 = 4.28 Sabbaths per month That is because there are 2 days of New Moon in a 30 day month that Scripture excludes (not Troy, SCRIPTURE) from the week. And 28 is very readily divisible by seven. There are 4 (four) Sabbaths per month. We cannot fit the number 7 into a 360 day year evenly: Sabbaths per year That is because there are 24 New Moon days in the original Lunar-solar year. They are excluded from the seven day weeks. Once taken out of the equation, 336 is very readily divisible by seven. There are 48 Sabbaths per year; a number that is also divisible by 12 (twelve). 33

34 The only way to render time keeping accurately is to always start with a number that is divisible by 7. Ms. Merola, if you had any spiritual integrity, now would be the time to give the text that supports your conclusion. This is now truth seekers try the spirits, because not every spirit is of YHWH. This is why the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonicans, because they studied the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. Hence we must begin with a Shmita or a Sabbatical Cycle: 7 years X 360 days = 2,520 days 2,520 days 7 days = 360 Sabbaths in a Sabbatical Cycle. Oh wait, I get it. This is NEW math we are dealing with here. I'd ask Ms. Merola if she wanted to retract this statement, but I'm not going to. I'm going to show you that she does err, not knowing the Scriptures or very much about math. The Gregorian calendar (which provides Ms. Merola's satyrday Sabbath) has 52 satyrdays in the year I suppose it is possible that there might be 51 some years (since 7 does not go into 364 evenly), but who knows. Watch now, I'm going to perform this next feat without a net, without any smoke or mirrors, without any duct tape or bailers twine... 7 x 52 = 364 Well, what do you think about that? I'm really not sure why she is parading around the Sabbatical cycle because she is not herself observing a 360 day calendar year. You will notice that every 7 years we are keeping an entire year of Sabbaths. There are 360 degrees in a perfect circle or a circuit so this is the unit of measure that we should be using to evenly divide the number of Sabbaths to be kept. Um, no. The first sentence is false. During a Sabbatical year, candle makers made candles 6 days a week, tent makers made tents, and bakers baked. Farmers did not farm. That's it. It was not 360 days of keeping a Sabbath (as said above). That is another utterly foolish statement from our intrepid satyrday Sabbath keeper. Okay so moving on from there, every 49 years is a Shabuwah and so the 50th year is a Jubilee right? Oh hey, back to the Sabbatical year. Finally. I have to admit, I'm a bit surprised that Ms. Merola correctly states that a Jubilee cycle is 50 years. I shall give her credit where credit is due. Many incorrectly say it is 49 years with the first year of the next cycle also being the 50th year of the old cycle. How many Sabbaths do we have within a Shabuwah? 34

35 Shabua means seven or ONE week. So if literal, ONE Sabbath in a shabua. If prophetic application is made, there are 336 Sabbaths in 7 years. Why am I not surprised that Ms. Merola comes up with a different answer... Every 49 years we have 2,520 Sabbaths that we keep. A shabua is one week or one prophetic week, not seven prophetic weeks. Seven x shabua, applied prophetically, is 49 years. There are 48 Sabbaths every lunar year. There were 2 days of New Moon between each 30 day month. New Moon days are NOT week days, thus there were only 336 week days in each 360 day Scriptural year. 48 x 49 = 2352 in each cycle of 7 land Sabbaths, not Everything is always divisible by 7 with nothing left over. [This is again Ms. Merola quoting from the Gospel of Merola.] Those are the units of measure that we use--- Shabuwah s (7 year Sabbatical Cycles) and 49 year Jubilee Cycles. This idea of trying to fit an even number of Sabbaths into a 30 day month or a 360 day year is not going to work because we are supposed to be thinking Shabuwah! (7 & 49 year cycles)! And WHERE are we told to think Shabua? Chapter and verse would be nice. This is a Scriptural refutation of the Lunar Sabbath, right? Oh what was I thinking? There is no Scripture to refute the Lunar Sabbath. And every point brought against it without supporting Scriptural evidence just further cements the fact that Ms. Merola does err, not knowing the Scriptures. In Genesis 6 we are told that man s days shall only be 120 years but that word for year is a Jubilee Cycle and so if we take a 50 year Jubilee Cycle and multiply it by 120 years we come to the 6,000th year for the end of the Age as we know it, and then shall be the 7,000th year from Creation called the New Millennium when Messiah returns for his bride. And the YHWH H3068 said, H559 My spirit H7307 shall not H3808 always H5769 strive H1777 with man, H120 for that he H1931 also H7945 H1571 is flesh: H1320 yet his days H3117 shall be H1961 an hundred H3967 and twenty H6242 years. H8141 Genesis 6:3 Do YOU see the word shabua (H7620) in the verse above? I don't. I see year (shaw-neh).,h8141 ש, נ ה ש נ ה shâneh shânaĥ shaw-neh', shaw-naw' (The first form being in plural only, the second form being feminine); from H8138; a year (as a revolution of time): - + whole age, X long, + old, year (X -ly). 35

36 It is true 50 x 120 = 6000, but can someone please find this Millennial reign in the law or the prophets? To the law [Torah] and to the testimony [of the prophets]: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20 Genesis 6:3 And YaHuWaH said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. The word for years here is a Hebrew word that can mean an age or a revolution of time: #8141 shaneh shaw-neh' (in plura or (feminine) shanah {shaw-naw'}; from 8138; a year (as a revolution of time):--+ whole age, X long, + old, year(x -ly). Oh, so NOW we get the truth about the word in Genesis 6. Originally she said that it was shabua. Nice Flip-Flop. We hardly noticed. We are commanded to keep the Sabbatical Years: Leviticus 25:4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for YHWH: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. Deuteronomy 15:1 At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. Deuteronomy 31:10 And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles. Jeremiah 34:14 At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear. What are we seeing here in these verses? We are seeing that if we keep the Sabbath every 7th day (and not according to a Lunar Sabbath Cycle which is the 8th day, the 15th the 22nd and the 29th) then we are going to be keeping 360 Sabbaths in a 7 year period (equivalent to one full year). [And WHERE do these verses say or imply anything about a Sabbath every seventh day (without interruption)?] This means that the slave who works for 6 years is to be released in the 7th year. The fact that there are 360 Sabbaths in a 7 year cycle means that a full year s worth of days (360) is for the release of debts and slaves. There are 364 Sabbaths in 7 of the years employed by Ms. Merola. I should point out that the model for the land Sabbath is not identical to that of the week. Similar, but not identical, still I'm surprised that Ms. Merola has used the land Sabbath cycle in her defense. She wishes to portray the week as uninterrupted and is using the Jubilee as evidence, but the Land Sabbath cycle is interrupted. The 50th year interrupts the 7 sevens; it is not part of the 7 sevens. And 50 is NOT evenly divisible by 7, and this is the foundation of her argument at this point. 36

37 The Jubilee year is similar to a New Moon in that it is part of the whole, but not part of the weeks represented in both Land Sabbath and monthly counts. Similar in that it definitely interrupts the count of sevens, but not identical in that the New Moon interrupts the count after 4 sevens, and the Jubilee interrupts after 7 sevens. But interrupts it does, destroying the entire premise of Ms. Merola's defense of repeating seven day weeks, and thus a Sabbath on an uninterrupted seven day cycle. And so we fit 7 days into 7 years and we come up even. We fit 7 years into 49 years and we come up even again to a Jubilee! She still doesn't get it. 7 goes into 49, but not 50 the same as 7 goes into 28 but not 30. She completely ignores the fact that the Jubilee year interrupts the Land Sabbath cycle of sevens in the same manner that New Moon interrupts the weekly cycle each month. She's looking right at it and can't see it. Utterly amazing. A blind man cannot see, but there is no man so blind as one who WILL not see. This is the only way to keep the Sabbath every 7th day continuously without having a 3 day wait for the new moon at the end of each month. Oh brother. See my last sentence above. The weekly Sabbaths should run their course on a Shmita Cycle (Sabbatical year) cycle. That means that we are not supposed to use up any extra days at the end of the month by not working. We are supposed to carry those extra days over into each new month and each new year into the following year so that there is a continuous flow of 7 days without any extra days at the end of the month that we don t know what to do with. YaHuWaH s Calendar is perfect and so there should be no extra days to try to figure out what to do with. I have many ignorant statements in the defense of satyrday Sabbath and in refutation of the Lunar Sabbath, and this lines up with the most dreadfully ignorant I've seen. What extra days? Where in the law and the prophets are ANY extra days mentioned? If they existed, Israel would surely have been instructed what to do with them. Isn't Israel blessed that YHWH waited nearly 6000 years after Creation to send us Ms. Merola to explain this to us? I cannot imagine the gall of this woman, thinking to add to Torah and thinking to do so with impunity. You must keep an even amount of Sabbaths to take you to the 50 years of Jubilee! So, in the same manner, why can't Lunar Sabbatarians keep an even number of Sabbaths to take us to New Moon? Someone PLEASE explain the difference to me. 37

38 Leviticus 25:8-9 And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee,seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And so what is the judgment for the House of Yisra el when they violated all of those Weekly Sabbaths and 7 Year Cycles? There are curses listed in Leviticus 26 for violating or missing all of those Sabbaths! And what do you suppose the curses or judgment will be for keeping the weekly Sabbath on a pagan/papal/roman/solar-only/man-made calendar and refuting the Sabbath of Creation in favor of a false one? Lunar Sabbath Reckoning Undercuts the Crucifixion & Resurrection of Messiah Oh, now, here we go. Ms. Merola has stepped in it this time, she just doesn't know it yet. There are many Mathematical Discrepancies with a Lunar Sabbath Cycle as we have already seen. [When did we see these?] But one huge error is revealed with a Lunar Sabbath Cycle that undercuts the crucifixion and resurrection of our Messiah. Not sure how since first century Israel was still observing the Lunar Sabbath. YaHuW shuwa Messiah was crucified on the 4th day of the Week (what we now call Wednesday) and this was on the 14th day of the Month Abib on Passover. He died at 3:00 p.m. that evening and was buried on the eve of a High Sabbath (Unleavened Bread) and that was the 15th day of the month of Abib. And then the 16th was the 2nd day of his burial, and the 17th was the 3rd day of his burial and he rose again on the evening of the 17th as the Sabbath was ending. Surely Ms. Merola knows that the term "High Sabbath" is when an annual and weekly Sabbath are observed on the same day. In this case, Abib 15, the first day of Unleavened Bread. This is the weekly Sabbath as well as the annual Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. Passover was a lunar event, the full moon seen the evening of the 14th day of the first lunar month. Scholars generally agree that the crucifixion occurred in either the year A.D. 30, 31 or 33. The moon's phases are not a secret and the lunar cycle can be determined in either the past or future with a great deal of accuracy. Any moon phase calculator will tell you that the full moon of Passover......would have been on the pagan m-day in A.D. 28. On the pagan su-day in A.D. 29. On the pagan th-day in A.D

39 On the pagan t-sday in A.D. 31. On the pagan su-day in A.D. 32. And on the pagan th-day in A.D. 33. What this proves is that there were w-day crucifixion days in A.D. 30, 31 or 33, or any of the surrounding years. If we-day was Pasover, then according to the NT, th-day was the weekly Sabbath, because the day after Passover in the year of the crucifixion was most certainly the weekly Sabbath, see Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54-56, John 19:31.. This proves that the pagan planetary week was not employed by Israel in the first century. They observed the Lunar-solar calendar established at Creation, a fact corroborated by historians and proven by Scripture. It also proves that Ms. Merola does err, not knowing the NT. Below is how Ms. Merola is trying to force her understanding of the calendar to fit her theology. Do you see the problem? It is highlighted... First Week Day Second Week Day Third Week Day Fourth Week Day Fifth Week Day Sixth Week Day Seventh day Sabbath The 10 th day of the first month floats around on the Roman calendar. If the 17 th is the Sabbath of any month, so is the 10 th. Do you remember what happened on Abib 10, four days before Passover? The 10th day of Abib is a work/commerce day, the day to set aside to select the Passover Lamb. If you did not own a lamb, you had to go and purchase one on THIS particular day. Did you know that there are three commanded work days in the first month of the Father s calendar? Abib 10 is one of them. Work days NEVER fall on the Sabbath. The 14th day of Abib is always preparation day for Abib 15, the first day of Unleavened Bread. Matt. 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54--24:1, John 19:14, 31, 42 John 20:1. Abib 14 floats on the Gregorian calendar. The barley could be harvested on the 16th after the Wave Sheaf had been offered, Leviticus 23:9-14. The fact is that the 10th, 14th and 16th of Abib (which all float around on the Roman calendar) are, without exception, commanded work days. If there is a continuous 7 day cycle, every few years either the 10th, 14th, and 16th will fall on a satyrday. There is no legislation provided to do these tasks a day early or a day late, these work dates are fixed. And YHWH never asked Israel do common work on a rest day. He is not the Author of confusion. 39

40 Isn t it interesting how the Father maneuvered His commanded work days in such a fashion that they would totally disrupt and destroy the calendars of pagans and apostates alike? It clearly says in Matthew 28:1 that it was the end of the Sabbath when the women went the first time and found that the stone had been rolled away. Other modern translations say early Sunday morning rather than the end of the Sabbath. But if we look at the Aramaic and the Greek text for Matthew 28:1 it clearly says Opse de Shabbaton which means end of the Sabbath. Finally, something we can agree on. In fact, the word sunday appears no where in the underlying Greek of the NT. If he rose at the end of the 17th day, and it was the end of the Sabbath according to Matthew 28:1, and a Lunar Sabbath is always on the 15th then it is clear that this reckoning of Sabbath keeping is found to be false. [How so? By WHOSE yardstick is this false, and how is a Sabbath on the 17th true? I mean for Pete's sake, she even asked a hypothetical question say IF HE ROSE at the end of the 17th, then concluded with since the Lunar Sabbath is always on the 15th, then the Lunar Sabbath must be false. So she is basically making up a scenario, saying the 17th is the weekly Sabbath, then concluding for all the world to see that the Lunar Sabbath must be false (only in her scenario) since the Lunar Sabbath is always on the 15th. And THIS is an argument against the Lunar Sabbath? Wanna see what a REAL argument looks like? If the 17th is the weekly Sabbath, then so is the 10th (see calendar on previous page). The 10th day of the first month is a commanded work day, the day to buy and set aside the Passover lamb. Since the 10th day of Abib can NEVER be a Sabbath, neither can the 17th day of Abib. This ain't rocket science. In fact, it is no harder than 3rd grade math. I offer facts I can verify in Scripture, Ms. Merola offers a hypothetical question.] Even by the alternative reckoning, for those who use the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th, it still does not work. That is correct. The 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th reckoning does not work. The 14th will never be a Sabbath because it is a work day. Messiah resurrected before the end of the Sabbath according to Matthew 28:1. Other places in the gospels, the women went back to the tomb a second time on the first day of the week. But in Matthew 28:1 the Greek and Aramaic both confirm that it was the end of the 7th day Opse de Shabbaton means end of the sabbath when the women went back to the tomb the first time and saw the stone rolled away. Indeed he resurrected a short while before the Sabbath was over, near dawn of the first day of the week. But that day is Abib 16, not Abib 18 (the morrow after the 17th). It is Abib 16 that Josephus writes about, his words hammering the counterfeit calendar and its proponents. Please understand that Josephus is writing to a non-israelite audience. In The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3, Chapter 10, section 5, he has this to say about the Passover season: 40

41 (248) In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of the year, on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries (for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians, and law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover; and so we do celebrate this Passover in companies, leaving nothing of what we sacrifice till the day following. (249) The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the Passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month and continued seven days, wherein they feed on unleavened bread (250) But on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day, they do not touch them.. (251) They take a handful of ears, and dry them, then beat them small and purge the barley from the bran; they then bring one tenth deal to the altar, to Elohim; and, casting one handful of it upon the fire they leaven the rest for use of the priest; and after this it is that they may publicly or privately reap their harvest. Josephus is explaining to the Gentile nations how the barley could be harvested on the 16 th, and says exactly what Leviticus 23 says about the feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread and wavesheaf. In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is YHWH s passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto YHWH: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto YHWH seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. And YHWH spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before YHWH, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. Leviticus 23:5-11 The 14 th is Passover, the 15 th is the first day of Unleavened Bread, and according Leviticus 23:11, the morrow AFTER the Sabbath is wavesheaf. A first century Hebrew historian claims that this day is always the 16th of Abib. The day after the 15 th is the 16 th. So what was the date of the Sabbath in Leviticus 23:11 according to Josephus? Abib 15. Satyrday sabbatarians insist that wavesheaf can be observed the day after a satryday Sabbath that interrupts the seven days of Unleavened Bread and insist that it can be any one of the following days of the feast from the 15 th to the 21 st. So if Passover (Abib 14) falls on a wednesday (for instance) then satyrday will fall on the 17 th day of Abib. Satyrday sabbatarians insist that the 18 th would then be wavesheaf. Is this what Scripture or Josephus say? No, it is not. Matthew 28 1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to draw on toward the first of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. 41

42 2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. Matthew 28 (King James Version) 1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first (day) of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. 2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. These verses are all well and good, though they prove neither the Lunar Sabbath nor satyrday as Sabbath. Most people assume that he resurrected on Sunday Morning because the word for dawn in the King James Version is a mistranslation. The Greek word there for dawn is the equivalent of a word in Hebrew that means a mixture of light and dark hence the word should really be dusk as the sun was going down. I have never seen a more ridiculous statement in my life. Does Ms. Merola believe we are illiterate or ignorant or just plain too lazy to study the Scriptures to see whether the things she is saying are true? In the end (G3796) of the sabbath, G4521 as it began to dawn G2020 toward G1519 the first G3391 day of the week, G4521 came G2064 Mary G3137 Magdalene G3094 and G2532 the G3588 other G243 Mary G3137 to see G2334 the G3588 sepulchre. G5028 Matthew 28:1 G2020, ἐπιφώσκω, epiphōskō ep-ee-foce'-ko A form of G2017; to begin to grow light: - begin to dawn, X draw on. The Greek word means to begin to grow light. I have no idea what reference material she is reading to assist her in her understanding of Greek (for she is clearly not a native Greek speaker), but in the universe were I live, it is growing light when it is dawn. I will have to go outside and check, but last I looked, at dusk it is beginning to grow DARK. Apparently it has never crossed the mind of Ms. Merola that dawn and dusk are BOTH a mixture of light and darkness. At dusk the light is increasingly mixed with darkness; at dawn the darkness is increasingly mixed with light. Not only has this woman NOT bothered to check her facts, she has clearly deluded herself into believing as fact anything that comes out of her own mouth. I am actually ashamed for her. The Strong's Hebrew Concordance reveals that at sundown, the dawning of the day is at twilight or dusk: 42

43 #5399 nesheph neh'-shef from 5398; properly, a breeze, i.e. (by implication) dusk (when the evening breeze prevails):--dark, dawning of the day (morning), night, twilight. But G5399 Nesheph does not appear in Matthew 28:1. Does this bother anyone but me? It clearly does not bother Ms. Merola. The Greek words are as follows: #2020. epiphosko ep-ee-foce'-ko a form of 2017; to begin to grow light:--begin to dawn, X draw on. #2017. epiphauo ep-ee-fow'-o a form of 2014; to illuminate (figuratively):--give light. You can see why the English translators thought that the word should be dawn as in early in the morning, just before sunrise, but the word epiphosko can mean...to draw on and it can mean the beginning of something as in the dawn of a new era. Hence for something to dawn meant that something new was approaching. The term is much more broad than the English word that we use to describe sunrise. That is because this is the word used in Matthew 28:1. Hello!? Murdock's Translation on e-sword has it translated correctly: Matthew 28:1 And in the evening of the Sabbath as it was dusk, as the first (day) of the week began to dawn, came Mary of Magdala and the other Mary, to view the sepulcher. Um, (I'm trying hard not to laugh right now) but, no. There is a Greek word for dusk, Ms. Merola just revealed it to us, G5399 (Nesheph). Someone please point out this word for me... In the end (G3796) of the sabbath, G4521 as it began to dawn G2020 toward G1519 the first G3391 day of the week, G4521 came G2064 Mary G3137 Magdalene G3094 and G2532 the G3588 other G243 Mary G3137 to see G2334 the G3588 sepulchre. G5028 Matthew 28:1 Amazing. It is not there. The Murdock translation makes something up, adds a Greek word that is not in the text and Ms. Merola claims that their translation is the correct one. Absolutely amazing! I am sorry but the root for G2020 is G2017, which means to illuminate or give light. So the meaning of G2020, which means to GROW light clearly is talking about dawn. And for the record, the day begins at dawn. DawnDayStudy.pdf. For an exhaustive study, click on this link. 43

44 You will notice that Murdock is calling this time of day dusk but he is saying that the week (Sabbaton in Greek) was beginning to dawn or to draw on. In other words it was not sunrise, but it was the end of the Sabbath at sundown, as the new week was approaching (dawning). Neither the day nor week "dawns" at sunset. Murdock had to add Greek words to the text that are not in the original. You know we are not supposed to add to the Word, right? Deuteronomy 4:2 The MRC Translation on e-sword translates it like this: Matthew 28:1 Now late on the Shabbat, as it began to draw toward the first of the week, Miriam of Magdala and the other Miriam went to look at the grave. That is correct, the 15th day/night cycle was ending at dawn of the first day of the week (Abib 16). If you will read Genesis 1:3-5 you will discover that Day comes before Night in the Scriptural timeline. The sun was lit in Genesis 1:3, and (later) there was evening (dusk), and (later still) there was morning (dawn), Day one. It reads this way for every work day of Creation week. Creation was done in broad daylight, followed by evening when the light is mixed with darkness, followed still later by dawn, when the night is evaporating, the darkness becoming mixed with light. It is right there, ink on the page. Go ahead, read it for yourself (again) for the first time with new eyes. Andrew Gabriel Roth who translated the Aramaic Peshitta also agrees with this interpretation. Here is what he says: Aramaic literally reads 'b'ramsha din b'shabata' or 'in the evening of the shabbat.' What is true for dawning is also true for setting in the sense of 'conclusion' as is meant here...murdock and Etheridge also confirm this idiomatic reading in their translations. But that word is not in the original either. Click here for a comparison between the Greek and Hebrew (Aramaic) version of Matthew. You will find if you scroll down near the end that Matthew 28:1 is not listed as a verse where there is a major change between the versions. So the Hebrew does not have "dusk" in that passage either, and the Greek surely does not. Something that one must understand is that the Calendar Date changes at sunset each day--- not at midnight. [Wrong. The day begins at dawn. The Jews adopted the even to even day from the Babylonian rabbis who remained behind, refusing to return to Israel with Ezra and Nehemiah. The day from even to even is a pagan Babylonian practice.] It was Pope Gregory who made the date change at midnight in 1532 C.E., thus fulfilling the role of the Beast in Daniel 7: The Beast shall think to change times and laws... [This prophecy was fulfilled many ways, but this was probably not one of them. Daniel was obviously referring to this beast power changing the Father's law, not the law of the Babylonian rabbis.] 44

45 The new day was dawning at sunset and the word day here is in italics in the King James Version. Whenever you see a word in italics in the KJV, that means it was not there originally. Has anyone ever thought how stupid this sounds? I believed this for about 40 years, but there is not a single verse in Scripture that says the Day begins at Night. DUH! And for the real clincher, re-read Genesis 1:3-5 (again) for the first time with new eyes. The light that was lit divided Day from Night, meaning that day and night are separated, the do not touch, at all. Ever. Evening (erev) separates Day from Night, and morning (boker, meaning dawn) separates Night from Day. It has been there in plain English in the KJV since 1611, and for some 8-ball reason, we all have been taught that day begins at night. It is THAT easy to brainwash someone. Tell them something is true, then have their teachers, preachers, parents and grand parents repeat the same thing, and voilà. There you have it. An entire generation immersed in a lie, and some of them never recover. The jury is still out on Ms. Merola. The verse should read like this in the King James Version: Matthew 28 1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to draw on toward the first of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. That is already exactly how the KJV reads: In the end (G3796) of the sabbath, G4521 as it began to dawn G2020 toward G1519 the first G3391 day of the week, G4521 came G2064 Mary G3137 Magdalene G3094 and G2532 the G3588 other G243 Mary G3137 to see G2334 the G3588 sepulchre. G5028 Matthew 28:1 Why all the twisting, gyrating and jumping through hoops when the KJV translated it correctly from the beginning? 2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of YHWH descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. Now think about this logically. [Yes, please do.] The Sabbath ends at sundown on the 7th day right? [The Sabbath DAY ends at sunset, yes, but the night associated with the Sabbath immediately follows the evening transition phase.] It says here that it was the end of the Sabbath so how in the world could it be early the first day in the morning if the Sabbath had not ended yet? [Because the Day/Night cycle ends at dawn. Night is not part of Day, in fact it was divided from Day at Creation, thus it has NEVER been part of Day.] It was still approaching the end of the Sabbath on the 7th day before sundown. Hence, when it says towards the first of the week, it is telling us that on the evening of the 7th day, at sundown, the first of the week had not arrived yet, but it was moving towards sundown on the evening of the sabbath-----the first Calendar Date of the week! 45

46 If only the underlying Greek didn't say he rose shortly before dawn of the 1st day of the week. Stupid original languages. If it weren't for them we could present any doctrine we wanted! Or if you stood on your head, closed one eye and recited the alphabet backward while dressed like a clown, then perhaps the underlying Greek will say he rose near sunset of the seventh day. I mean, after all, that would be easier than simply reading what it says ink on the page. This period is called Havdalah in Hebrew which means exiting the Sabbath. One of the things that I like about the King James Version, is that it italicizes words that were not originally there in the text. [Indeed, and this comes in handy when trying to discern truth.] The word day is in italics here: John 20:1 The first (day) of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Ms. Merola, first of the week means first DAY of the week, does it not? If is a Hebrew expression. If first of the week meant the second for fifth day of the week, then YHWH is indeed the Author of confusion. Notice that it was yet dark and the word day was not there in the original text. That is correct, but everyone reading this text knows that it means the dawn of the first day, including Ms. Merola. Dawn had begun, but it was still so dark that you could not recognize faces. The time spoken of is when that thin yellow strip of light appears as the sun illuminates the airspace above earth before it actually breaks over the horizon. The dawn of the first day of the week had begun, but it was still quite dark. Day actually begins at sunrise. Dawn is strictly the transition period between Night and Day. Day = Light without admixture with Night. Any addition of darkness with Day is called EVENING (erev). Night = the absence of sun Light. Any addition of light to darkness is called MORNING (or dawn-boker). Hence it does not say the first day of the week it says the first of the week meaning the first calendar date of the week. YaHuW'shuwa said in John 11:9 that there are 12 hours in a day. Um, first day of the week and first calendar date of the week are the same thing. I would say that this is getting embarrassing, but if you (the ladies and gentlemen of the jury) are truth seekers, you are probably already as uncomfortable as I am watching Ms. Merola flail about like this. And yes, there are only 12 hours in a day. What Ms. Merola seems to have lost sight of is that if the Day begins at Night as she here professes, then the 12 hours of NIGHT are actually Day, and when the sun is warming the earth that must be something else entirely, and the only segment left is Night. Can't call it day because there are only 12 hours of day according to Scripture. 46

47 There is a verse for this... Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Isaiah 5:20-21 The most basic ability on earth is to be able to recognize the difference between Day and Night, between light and darkness. Ms. Merola is so blinded by her false doctrine that she seems to have lost this ability. Did you ever wonder why our Messiah made a point of separating 3 days from 3 nights? If a day is 24 hours long, why did he not say that he would be in the heart of the earth for three days? Why did he make a point of saying Three days & three nights? This is an excellent argument for Day being 12 hours long. There are several other applications as well. Why does Scripture say that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights during the flood? Because if it rained for 40 days, in Hebrew, that would have meant it did not rain or stopped raining at night because from the VERY beginning Day and Night have been divided. That is why it was written that Moses was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights because if he had only been on the mountain for 40 days, that would have meant to the Hebrew that he came down the mountain every evening and spent the night on the valley floor only to climb the mount the next morning. Why does it read that Jonah was on the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights? Because if he had been in the belly of the fish for three days, that would have meant the fish spit him out each evening only to swallow him again the next morning. The word Greek word for half in Revelation 11:11 is a word that means a part of something, and not necessarily fifty percent of something. Here is the Greek word for half : #2255. hemisu hay'-mee-soo neuter of a derivative from an inseparable prefix akin to 260 (through the idea of partition involved in connection) and meaning semi-; (as noun) half:--half. Revelation 11:11 And after three days and an half the spirit of life from Elohiym entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. None of the 4 paragraphs are relevant. That said, Ms. Merola apparently cannot even read ink on the page without filtering it through her preconceived agenda. G2255 means SEMI or HALF, and is exclusively translated as half. And, ladies and gentlemen, semi means half. There is NOTHING in this Greek definition that can be understood as "a part of something", meaning anything other than about 50% as Ms. Merola would have you believe. I have NO idea why that is so hard for Ms. Merola to understand. 47

48 If scripture sets a precedence of defining a half of a day as only a part of a day and it does not round off the partition of the day to a full day, then one cannot use the full day of Wednesday (Messiah s Crucifixion) to mean the entire day one of his 3 days and 3 nights prophecy. The first day of this prophecy must then commence on Thursday at sunrise (the morning after his crucifixion). This means 6-12 hour cycles: But Scripture set no such precedent. The Greek word for half means HALF. Imagine that? Oh yeah, and once again, the man from Galilee was not crucified on wednesday because if he had been, then the 17th would have been the seventh day of the week, and if the 17th is the seventh day of the week, then so is the 10th. The 10th day of the first month is a commanded work day and will never FALL on a Sabbath if you are using the Calendar of Creation. That Ms Merola is able to manipulate the calendar model she is using is certainly evidence that it is a man-made calendar because the calendar of Scripture tolerates no such manipulation from man. If the carpenter from Nazareth said 3 days and 3 nights, then that means six 12 hour periods, but no half segments, just full ones. I have no idea what Ms. Merola is attempting to prove because there is no implication of a half day anywhere in the passage regarding the 3 [full ]days and 3 [full] nights spoken of by YaHuW shuwa. 14th of Abib 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. = 1/2 of a day 14th of Abib 6:00 p.m.- 15th of Abib 6:00 a.m. = #1 night 15th of Abib 6:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. = #1 day 15th of Abib 6:00 p.m. - 16th of Abib 6:00 a.m. = #2 night 16th of Abib 6:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. = # 2 day 16th of Abib 6:00 p.m. - 17th of Abib 6:00 a.m. # 3 night 17th of Abib 6:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. = # 3 day Grand Total = 3 days & 3 nights (and a half of a day on Wednesday like the 2 witnesses in Revelation 11). But the verse in Revelation 11:11 actually employs the Greek word 2255, hemisu, the entire chapters of Matthew 12 and Luke 11 do not. And Ms. Merola is implying that the 3 days and 3 nights were the time YaHuW shuwa spent in the grave. This is entirely not true. Where does it say YaHuW shuwa would be in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights? Heart of the earth means the land of Israel. Please understand that Scripture is its own dictionary and the FIRST time this phrase is used is in Genesis 48:16. Matthew was writing his gospel to Israelites so he wrote in terms that they would readily recognize. In the heart of is very much a Hebrew idiom or expression, a figure of speech. This phrase is found several times throughout the Old Testament, which was the only Scripture extant at the time Matthew wrote. Let s examine some of them. 48

49 The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth, Genesis 48:16. See also Exodus 8:22, Psalm 74:12, and Daniel 4:10 Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he showed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire. Deuteronomy 4:36 There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. Proverbs 30:18-19 Midst of the earth and heart of the earth are the same thing. Heart of the earth is a Hebrew idiom used in both the OT and the NT and it never means grave. If YaHuW shuwa had wanted to say he was going to be in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights, he had plenty of words and expressions to choose from: grave, sheol, hell, the pit, gehenna, tartarus, the abyss, hades, etc. Granted, some of those are Greek, not Hebrew/Aramaic, but the Greek translators did not use the Greek equivalent for grave either. He is saying that he will be in the middle of Israel for three days and three nights. What exactly is meant by this is open to debate, but what cannot be successfully argued is that this phrase means grave when it literally means something on the surface of the earth, not 6 feet under (so to speak). How can we know? Do any of the above passages in any way indicate a location beneath the surface of the earth or sea? Is a ship that is in the heart of the ocean on the surface or has it sunk to the bottom? Was the heavenly voice heard from underneath the fire or out of the middle of it? Many (including me at one point) thought that the sign of Jonah meant the time he spent in the belly of the great fish. And if you only read Matthew s account, this is easy to think. But stopping there will show our lack of studiousness. Read Luke s account. If you compare Matthew 12 to Luke 11:29-32, the sign of Jonah is about the message Jonah gave the Ninevites, not the interesting journey Jonah endured getting to Nineveh. Evidence: What was the only sign Jonah gave the Ninevites? It was repent or die. The Ninevites had no knowledge of Jonah s interesting ride to the shore. In case you have never considered this, Nineveh is about 600 miles from the shore where Jonah was vomited out on the beach. Do you suppose that it was one of Darwin s fish that had sprouted legs permitting this great fish to walk on to Nineveh? There is no evidence that Jonah gave this testimony in Nineveh, so the Ninevites had no knowledge of it. So how could it be a sign for the Ninevites if they knew nothing of it? What was the ONLY sign YaHuW shuwa gave to the scribes and Pharisees? The same one Jonah gave Nineveh. Repent or die. There is always perfect harmony in the truth. 49

50 In order to have YaHuW shuwa in the tomb for three full days and be resurrected on a sunday some say that Passover must have been on a wednesday. Even then the resurrection is forced to take place minutes after sundown on the Sabbath (from sunset on the 14th to sunset on the 17th) when Scripture said it took place shortly before dawn on the first day of the week. (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1 and John 20:1) Their false calendar model ooks like this: Interestingly, if you were to count backward by seven using today s calendar, Passover was on what we now call tuesday (if 31 A.D. is the crucifixion year), not friday or wednesday. Look at the calendar model above. Let s assume for a moment that the remark about the sign of Jonah WAS Prophetic, the prophecy was for 3 Days and 3 Nights (in that order). Order is everything in a prophecy. That is one way to determine if it was a false prophecy or a false fulfillment. If he was buried at even (at sunset) on the 14th, then he was in the tomb for 3 nights and 3 days, not 3 days and 3 nights. Which would be a false fulfillment, right? And in order for him to be the wavesheaf, he would have had to be resurrected right at dawn, the morrow after the Sabbath. Yet by forcing a 3 day/3 night prophecy onto this passage (and applying it to a calendar) he would have been raised at sunset on the 17th, the seventh day, not at dawn the first day: 14th n, 15th d/n, 16th d/n, 17th d -- that s 3 nights and 3 days. And according to the NT record, he was resurrected on the first day of the week, not the seventh (see passages above). Understanding the weekend of the crucifixion in this manner creates another very critical problem. See the first calendar model above. It is correctly said that the Sabbath that occurred after Passover was the first day of Unleavened Bread (Abib 15). The problem is that this forces the 17th of Abib to be some spurious weekly Sabbath after which would follow resurrection Sunday (the 18th as presented here). Now, count backward seven days from the 17th. Do you know what the 10th day of Abib was for? Every year, on the 10th day of Abib, Israel was commanded to go into the field and select the Passover lamb and set it aside. Folks who did not have livestock went to the temple and purchased a sacrifice. There are no instructions to postpone the purchase or to make the purchase a day early if the 10th just happened to fall on the Sabbath. Isn t that odd? You cannot say that this was Holy Work or a Holy Purchase because these were common men, not the priests. There is no such thing as a Set-Apart (holy) purchase. Commerce is commerce. Those who force Passover (Abib 14) to fall on a wednesday have a problem. See again the calendar model on the previous page. If the 17th was a Sabbath, so was the 10th. The 17th is nowhere called a Sabbath, but the 10th IS a commanded work day, see Exodus 12:3-6. If you will read Leviticus 23 you will find that the Passover is the 14th of Abib, the Sabbath is the following day, the 15th so the morning AFTER the Sabbath is the 16th. Unless I ve missed something somewhere, it is always best to make things line up with Torah. The resurrection took place on the 16th in the NT if the OT is to be believed. What is NOT to be believed is that the phrase in the heart of the earth has anything to do with a grave/tomb. 50

51 The day after Passover in the year of the crucifixion was most certainly the weekly Sabbath, see Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54-56, John 19:31. Now, let s put the Abib 14 back where it belongs as preparation day for the Sabbath (see below) and add the false prophecy of 3 days and 3 nights IN THE TOMB, and now YaHuW shuwa would have been raised at sunset on the 17th, the second day of the week, not the first day at dawn. There is nothing about the statement in Matthew 12 that is prophetic or that found fulfillment at the crucifixion There are many places where the man from Galilee said he would rise on the third day (Matthew 17:23, 20:19, Mark 9:31, 10:34, Luke 9:22, 18:33). Third day and 3 days and 3 nights are two different things. Let me explain. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. If the text said it had only rained for 40 days, that would mean it stopped raining at night, raining only during daylight hours. That s why the flood account reads as it does, specifically mentioning day AND night. Third day means exactly that. We have an example in Exodus 19:11. And YHWH said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes, And be ready against the third day: for the third day YHWH will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. Exodus 19:10-11 Look at the context (verse 10). Today, tomorrow and the third day comprises the three days in question. There are MANY places in the 4 gospels where the man from Galilee says he will rise on the third day. Only one where he says in three days he would rise (John 2:19), and in this account he distinctly does not add three nights to his statement. In the context of how days are counted, he was killed on the 14th, rested on the 15th, and raised on the third day (the 16th). The accounts in Matthew 12 and Luke 11 taken together say nothing about him being in the grave for any amount of time. There isn t anything in either passage that resembles the grave nor is there a word/phrase that means grave in either passage. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20 A couple of things: 1. Leviticus 23:4-14 gives the timeline for this particular event. If it is prophetic, then anti-type has to line up with it to the letter. Leviticus 23 is Torah. In this passage, Abib 14 is Passover, the next day is the Sabbath of unleavened Bread, and the morrow after the Sabbath (Abib 16) is wavesheaf. If you want a historical reference for this, is Josephus acceptable? 51

52 You've seen this before, but it bears repeating. In The Antiquities of the Jews, Chapter 10, section 5, he has this to say about the Passover season: (248) In the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of the year, on the fourteenth day of the lunar month, when the sun is in Aries (for in this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians, and law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover; and so we do celebrate this Passover in companies, leaving nothing of what we sacrifice till the day following. (249) The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the Passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month and continued seven days, wherein they feed on unleavened bread (250) But on the second day of unleavened bread, which is the sixteenth day of the month, they first partake of the fruits of the earth, for before that day, they do not touch them.. (251) They take a handful of ears, and dry them, then beat them small and purge the barley from the bran; they then bring one tenth deal to the altar, to Elohim; and, casting one handful of it upon the fire they leaven the rest for use of the priest; and after this it is that they may publicly or privately reap their harvest. Josephus is explaining to the Gentile nations how the barley could be harvested on the 16th, and says exactly what Leviticus 23 says about the feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread and wavesheaf. 2. If you are going to apply the timeline of Leviticus 23 to the crucifixion, than you are obliged (dare I say, forced) to stay within the parameters of the text. That means you have the 14th, 15th, and 16th to work with. If it speaks not according to this word, there is no light in it. Needless to say, Ms. Merola's entire premise is false, and everything she is about to wax eloquent about in an effort to prove that YaHuW shuwa was in the grave for 3 and a half days is also false. Start with a false foundation and everything you build upon that foundation is also false and bound to collapse with the proper leverage. The truth has been demolishing error since time began. The idea of a calling a 24-hour cycle a day comes from Babylon because YHWH separated light from darkness at creation, and he does not treat the two periods as one cycle. [Interestingly enough, she is correct.] The fact that it was the first calendar date of the week, and it was dark means that it was after sundown on the 7th day of the Week (Saturday night) when the women were able to go to the tomb. [Well, that did not last long. Back to being in error, not knowing the Scriptures. It was dawning on the first day of the week, it was not sunset or anywhere near sunset. Evidence given above.] The Roman Soldiers were ordered to stand guard until the end of the three day watch, and so the women would've been arrested had they gone to the tomb sooner. [Um, the tomb had been disturbed by the Angelic host! The soldiers had scattered earlier and were nowhere around when the women approached the tomb.] By the time the women arrived, the stone had already been rolled away earlier that day and the angel was there waiting to give them the good news! If the woman HAD gone to the tomb at sunset at the of the seventh day, the would have most assuredly been arrested because the soldiers were still on post. 52

53 Messiah resurrected before the end of Sabbath while it was still daylight! HalleluYah! He is Master (Lord) of the Sabbath! WAIT! WHAT??? In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. Matthew 28:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. Mark 16:1-2 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. Luke 24:1-2 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. John 20:1 Please note that Ms. Merola has already (correctly) said that the day is 12 hours long, and that Day and Night are divided, but apparently she has no idea what this means. Not a SINGLE gospel says that the woman arrived at the tomb at the end of the Sabbath while it was still daylight. It says they approached the tomb early in the morning of the first day of the week while it was still dark. Hello? Is anyone seeing this other than me? I have about had my fill of this nonsense. This is not a case against the Lunar Sabbath; this is an exposé of how ignorant some people are about MANY things, including the Lunar Sabbath. Please read and understand that Ms. Merola does err, not knowing the Scriptures and is completely unqualified to bring ought against the Lunar Sabbath... And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God. There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome; (Who also, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered unto him;) and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem. And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. Mark 15:37-43 It is Passover day, the 14th of Abib. The man from Galilee died, it was between the evenings (about 3 p.m.) and it was preparation day, the day before the Sabbath. Please note that the Greek word used here is Sabbaton, the word for WEEKLY Sabbath. 53

54 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit": and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. And all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned. And all his acquaintance, and the women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding these things. And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just: (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. Luke 23:46-56 It is Passover day, the 14th day of the first month (Abib). The carpenter from Nazareth died while his friends watched. Joseph of Arimathaea coveted the body in order to give him a proper burial. And that day was the preparation day, and the weekly Sabbath (Sabbaton) drew on. His women friends followed, watched where he was laid, then returned home to rest on the weekly Sabbath (Sabbaton) according to the commandment. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished": and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. John 19:30-31 It is Passover day, the 14th day of the first Hebrew lunar month. YaHuW shuwa died, and because it was the preparation day, the day before the Sabbath (Sabbaton) day, the opposition Israelite leaders knowing that because the Sabbath was coming wanted the legs of the condemned to be broken. This hastened death because the crucified could no longer stand (put weight on their feet) in order to relieve the terrible strain on their arms, thus the condemned could only slump down which caused rapid asphyxiation, the usual cause of death in the case of crucifixion. WHERE are there, in these three accounts, 2 full days between the crucifixion and the weekly Sabbath that Ms. Merola demands are there? I am sorry Ms. Merola, but according to the Greek text the weekly Sabbath is the day AFTER Passover, and I just offered THREE witnesses. Remember what I said about building on a false foundation and how easily truth destroys a lie? There are no two Lunar Sabbatarians who can agree on when Messiah was crucified and resurrected. Each of them have a different reckoning in an attempt to make it fit with the time line of Messiah s death, burial and resurrection. 54

55 From the case Ms. Merola has brought against the Lunar Sabbath, I'm guessing she only KNOWS two Lunar Sabbatarians. They may disagree, but there are thousands upon thousands of Lunar Sabbath keepers around this earth, and many of them understand that if the crucifixion occurred on w-day, that this would cause the 10th to be a Sabbath, and the 10th is a commanded commerce day. And of the new Lunar Sabbath keepers who enter this message with a similar understanding of the 3 days and 3 nights concept offered by Ms. Merola above, they quickly learn the truth when they ask where the Sabbath is in this 3 day 3 night issue. Few maintain their false understanding once faced with the evidence against it. One Lunar Sabbatarian tried to suggest that YaHuW shuwa was crucified on the 13th of Abib citing that it was the preparation day before the Passover. But this is completely false. [Agreed. I know a few of these Lunar Sabbatarians.] The preparation day leading up to the Feast of Unleavened Bread is Passover (the 14th) when Israelites would clean out their homes of all leaven just in time for the 15th of the month called The Feast of Unleavened Bread. There is no such imagined day of preparation on the 13th of Abib. Correct. It is amazing how Ms. Merola can be spot on correct in a few things but completely miss the overall picture. This gentleman tried to tell me that the lamb was always slaughtered on the 13th of the first month. But this is what I showed him: 2nd Chronicles 35:1 Moreover Josiah kept a passover unto YHWH in Jerusalem: and they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month. Too bad for this Lunar Sabbatarian. His math does not work (and neither does Ms. Merola's), and he has an agenda (and so does Ms Merola). When well-intentioned believers cease and desist adding to Torah, diminishing ought from Torah, misinterpreting what is INK on the page, and forcing their pet doctrine into a text that fails to support it, the body of believes would be a lot more healthy. It is doctrines like the Lunar Sabbath that causes a theological storm that knocks the deadwood out of the forest of believers. These storms are healthy as they expose the weak minded, the double-minded, the pretenders, the blind followers and the false teachers. Now he is back to square one trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with his Lunar Sabbath error. [Pardon me, Ms. Merola, but his error is in his feast doctrine, not the Lunar Sabbath doctrine. If you do not know the distinction, then please refrain from comment.] Another Lunar Sabbatarian tried to tell me that YaHuW shuwa was NOT three days and three nights in the heart of the earth! [That's because he wasn't. YaHuW shuwa said nothing about the grave in his dialog about the 3 days and 3 nights.] He cited only the account in the book of Luke where it mentions the second time that the women went back to the tomb on the first day of the week. The only problem is the word day is italicize in all of those verses in Luke s Gospel and so that means that the word day was not there! [Not sure why he cited this point because that is not where Luke disproved the notion of YaHuW shuwa being in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights.] And this means it was the first of the week which commences at sundown on the 7th day of the week (Saturday) which is called Havdalah in Hebrew (exiting the Sabbath). [Luke was not written in Hebrew. 55

56 And the days in Scripture begin at dawn, not even/sunset, while satyrday is never identified as the seventh day of the week in either the OT or the NT.] And furthermore, just because the women went to the tomb early on the first day of the week a second time (after going there the night before at sundown), this does not prove that Messiah resurrected on the first day of the week. It simply means that he was long gone by the time that the women went to the tomb. Oh brother. Is anyone else as tired as I am of Ms. Merola's explanations that she's passing off as doctrine without the benefit of corroborating evidence? Watch the truth undo the lie... And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just: (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God. This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. Luke 23:50-24:2 The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a statute, not a commandment, so the Sabbath they were specifically resting on was the weekly Sabbath, the seventh day of the week--the Sabbath spoken of in the commandments. That the first day of Unleavened Bread and the weekly Sabbath is on the same day is irrelevant, the Sabbath the women rested over was the one spoken of in the commandment (meaning the seventh day of the week). Naturally, the day after Passover is the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread (Abib 15), but Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54-56 and John 19:31 all prove that the morrow after Passover was also the WEEKLY Sabbath. I did not need to have you read all these verses other than to offer you the NT timeline. I'm going to present Ms. Merola's timeline and contrast it with the passage above. According to Ms. Merola, YaHuW shuwa died on a wednesday, Abib 14, rested in the tomb thursday and friday over Abib 15 (the Sabbath of Unleavend Bread) and Abib 16 before rising on some portion of satyrday the 17th (even though Scripture says it was the 1st day of the week, not the 7th). The women followed Joseph and Nicodemus to see where the body was laid. They were not content that the men would adequately wrap and anoint his body, and when they had seen where the body was laid, they went home and prepared spices and rested on the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Someone needs to ask the following questions, and it may as well be me. Question: If the women were determined to wrap the body with more spices and ointments (even though Nicodemus had already used an hundred pounds worth, John 19:39), Why did they wait until Abib 18, the first day of the week to return with these spices and ointments they had purchased and prepared? Here is Ms. Merola's timeline calendar... 56

57 First Day Second Day Third Day Fourth Day Fifth Day Sixth Day Sabbath He died and was buried on Abib 14. The 15th was the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread and no work was to be done on this annual Sabbath, BUT the women could have returned to the tomb on the 16th (a friday according to Ms. Merola) as this was a work day, preparation day for satyrday the 17th (according to Ms. Merola), but they did not. They did not return until the FIRST day of the week. WHY? They had a free work day they could have utilized and did not. Waiting 2 more days would have only permitted the body to decay for that much longer. Ms. Merola's timeline adds 2 days that are not in the Hebrew calendar, which looks like this Answer: According to the account in Luke above, on Abib 14, the day of the crucifixion, the women watched where he was laid, went home and rested on the Sabbath, then the VERY next day, the first day of the week, they returned to the tomb. I do not know what could be any clearer than this. There are 7 verses in the NT that use this exact phrase (first day of the week). Day is italicized in each and every one of them, meaning that the Greek is consistent, also meaning that this is a first century figure of speech. What it meant can be determined by the context of these verses. Matthew_28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. Mark_16:2 And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. Mark_16:9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. I left this text as printed in the KJV. According to Ms. Merola, "first day of the week", does not necessarily mean the first day of the week because "day" is in italics. Please note in the verse above that "Jesus" is in italics, so this may or may not have been YaHuW shuwa, could have been anyone according to Ms. Merola's circular way of thinking. Luke_24:1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. 57

58 John_20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. John_20:19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. Please note that according to John 20:1 and 20:19 that the DAWN of the first day comes before the EVENING of the first day, meaning that day does not begin at night as Ms. Merola would have you believe. Day begins at dawn and ends at evening. Night begins at evening and ends at dawn. Acts_20:7 And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. 1 Corinthians_16:2 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. And NONE of these verses are referencing some nebulous, fuzzy concept of an unspecified segment of time near the beginning of the week. All of these verses speak clearly of the FIRST day of the week. Naturally, this is the first day of the Hebrew week, not the pagan planetary week, but I digress. The 3 day and 3 nights have NOTHING to do with the grave. Many (including me at one point) thought that the sign of Jonah meant the time he spent in the belly of the great fish. And if you only read Matthew's account, this is easy to think. But stopping there will show a distinct lack of studiousness. Read Luke's account. And when the people were gathered thick together, he began to say, "This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet. "For as Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation. "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. "The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here." Luke 11:29-32 If you compare Matthew 12 to Luke 11:29-32, the sign of Jonah is about the message Jonah gave the Ninevites, not the interesting journey Jonah endured getting to Nineveh. Evidence: A sign or signal is something given to change or alter the behavior or movement of something else. A traffic signal changes from green to yellow, causing motorists to slow down because the light is about to turn red. A lighthouse is a signal that there are dangerous reefs or rocks, causing great ships to alter their course to one of safety. The quarter phases of the moon signal that the Sabbath is about to commence, causing believers to prepare to take the day off to rest and meet with their Creator for worship. You get the idea. 58

59 Question: If the 3 days and 3 nights were the signal to the Ninevites, what was the intended effect? If they knew of Jonah's interesting journey, what did it cause them to do? Answer: Nothing. There is no record that the Ninevites were told anything of Jonah's journey in the great fish. Question: If the message delivered by Jonah ("repent or die") was the signal to the Ninevites, what was the intended effect? What did it cause them to do? Answer: It caused them to repent. Read Luke 11:32 (above) again. What was the ONLY sign YaHuW shuwa gave to the scribes and Pharisees? The same one Jonah gave Nineveh. Repent or die. In case you have never considered this, Nineveh is about 600 miles from the shore where Jonah was vomited out on the beach. Do you suppose that it was one of Darwin s fish that had sprouted legs permitting this great fish to walk on to Nineveh? There is no evidence that Jonah gave this testimony in Nineveh, thus they had no knowledge of Jonah s interesting ride to the shore, so how could it be a sign for the Ninevites? There is always perfect harmony in the truth. Another Lunar Sabbatarian in an effort to account for the three days and three nights time discrepancy with a Lunar Sabbath reckoning, tried to tell me that the heart of the earth is Jerusalem (not the underworld). This gentleman said that the count of three days and three nights began the night that Messiah was arrested while he was still alive! There is no discrepancy. Ms. Merola is manufacturing a timeline based on a misinterpretation of Matthew 12. A comparison with Luke 11 would solve for her dilemma, but that would require that she recant or repent of her false doctrine and her argument against the Lunar Sabbath. And Ms. Merola has repeatedly shown she would rather climb a tree and tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell (admit) the truth. I have had no contact with Ms. Merola, but this is something that I have presented for years. No one can prove with conclusive evidence that the 3 days and 3 nights began when he was arrested, but it is possible as it would fit the timeline. That and the "heart of the earth" in the NT is the same as the "midst of the earth" in Hebrew, it is a Hebrew idiom that means the land of Israel, Jerusalem in particular. If you have reason to doubt this, please read the very first place that "midst of the earth" appears in Scripture and notice the definition of this phrase... The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Genesis 48:16 The promised land (the capital of which was Jerusalem) is where the lads grew into a multitude, thus defining this phrase for all of Scripture. This phrase CAN mean something else, but only in the context of the passage will that be determined, but the first definition is the land of Israel. 59

60 But the problem with that theory is that Messiah was already in Jerusalem long before he was arrested. So how is it that he suddenly was counting the days he was in Jerusalem from when he was arrested? Because he was not detained. He was free to move about Jerusalem as he pleased. Jonah was not free to move about in the belly of the great fish, and in death we are not free to move about. Being captive "in the heart of the earth" for 3 days and 3 nights was as sure and confining as death, even though he was not referring to the grave at all. He was referring to the land of Israel. The heart of the earth is obviously what is mentioned on Ephesians 4 as the lowest parts of the earth where he redeemed those who were in Abraham s Bosom (see Luke 16 and Ephesians 4). [Lowest parts of the earth is not the "heart of the earth". The heart is in the "midst" of body, not the lowest part, which is why one can say that heart of the earth and midst of the earth is talking about the same thing.] King David even prophesied of YaHuW'shuwa being in the heart of the earth: Psalm 16:10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (sheol); neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Acts 2:27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell (sheol), neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Psalm 16:10 is not a Messianic prophecy. This is a Psalm about David. He trusts in YHWH (vs. 1), knows he will die (vs. 9), and recognizes that he will not stay dead forever (vs. 10). Just like Job and Daniel, David was assured that he would be resurrected in the latter days. This, again, is not a prophecy it is a statement of hopeful fact. The righteous do die temporarily, just not for evermore. Clearly, if you examine the context of Psalm 16:10, it is about David where he beseeches YHWH to preserve him. He was not begging for the Father to preserve a later day Messiah figure. Psalm 16:11 shows that this request is figurative speech. There is a path of life and a path of death. Even those on the path of life die (temporarily), and they rot in the grave just like the wicked. That is the way of man. But the righteous will indeed live again forever, and will have pleasures evermore. Psalm 16:10 is about David and his resurrection at the end of this era. Holy One is capitalized by the translators (there are no capitals in Hebrew) so there is nothing Messianic about the passage. And even if this passage WAS Messianic, the 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth spoken of by YaHuW shuwa STILL is not a reference to the grave, sheol, hell, the pit, gehenna, tartarus, the abyss or hades, etc. Where is this place called Sheol in Hebrew? #7585 sh'owl sheh-ole' or shol {sheh-ole'}; from 7592; Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), including its accessories and inmates:--grave, hell, pit. 60

61 How do we know that he went into Sheol for three days and three nights? Wanna see a perfect example of circular reasoning? Just watch how Ms. Merola spins this story. I have already shown you it is false, and still she tries to prove it is true. Matthew 12:40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Indeed, Jonah was "captive" in the belly of the great fish for 3 days and 3 nights, just as YaHuW shuwa was captive in the heart of the earth (land of Israel) for 3 days and 3 nights. But Jonah was not dead. It was as IF he were dead, but he was spit out alive. No where in this passage or elsewhere in either the OT or the NT is "heart of the earth" confused with the grave as Ms. Merola is here confused. Ephesians 4: 8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? Here it clearly says that he descended into the lower parts of the earth. Where is the lower parts of the earth? He died, so he did descend into the lower parts of the earth, poetically of course. The tomb was on the surface, carved out of the rock, but he DID die in the manner of all men. 1st Peter 3: For Messiah also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to Elohiym, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Where is prison? It is in Sheol as the prophecy states in Psalms 16:10 and Acts 2:27. Indeed, the sort of prison spoken of in context here is the grave. But what has this to do with the Lunar Sabbath? And Psalm 16:10 is not prophetic. The people who are in Sheol are dead; they cannot be preached to. What would be the purpose? I will soon show you that Ms. Merola is taking this verse out of context, and misapplying that it actually says. But first, let us discover what Scripture says about the dead... 61

62 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Ecclesiastes 9:5 The dead praise not YHWH, neither any that go down into silence. Psalm 115:17 While I live will I praise YHWH: I will sing praises unto my Elohim while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Psalm 146:2-4 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more. Job 7:9-10 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Job 14:10-14 Since I Peter 3:18 contradicts these texts, let s give this text more than just a surface reading. Notice YaHuW shuwa preached to the spirits in prison through the Spirit (NKJV) who raised him from the dead. YaHuW shuwa didn t do the preaching. YHWH said of these antediluvians, My Spirit will not contend with man forever (Genesis 6:3 NIV). Why preach to these people? They were lost in their sin at death and wanted no second chance, having no thought of getting on the ark. In view of all other texts on the state of the dead, what meaning should we apply to this one text to bring it into line with the others? Since it was the Spirit of Yah who did the preaching, this passage is almost certainly claiming that the same Spirit of Yah who spoke to the antediluvians--trying to convict them of their sins before they died--also called YaHuW shuwa back to life. There. Perfect Scriptural harmony. Just read 1 Peter again. There is nothing in this verse that implies that YaHuW shuwa preached to anyone and it certainly has no bearing on what he was doing for those 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. The Saturn s Day Argument Oh, Ms. Merola has NO idea the can of worms she is opening now. Another really weak argument [weak, huh? We shall see...] that Lunar Sabbatarians use to try to disprove our current 7th Day Sabbath is to call it Saturn s Day named after Saturn, therefore it cannot be the true Sabbath. But no matter what day of the week that they are keeping Sabbath it is always going to be named after a pagan deity: The First Day: Sunday was named after the Sun god. 62

63 The second Day: Monday was named after the moon goddess. The Third Day: Tuesday was named after the god Tyr. The Fourth Day: Wednesday was named after the god Odin. The Fifth Day: Thursday was named after the god Thor. The Sixth Day: Friday was named after the goddess Frigga. The Seventh Day: Saturday was named after the god Saturn. Not true. We don't track time based on the pagan/papal planetary week. That there is no such thing as the pagans living in a different time continuum, we all live at the same time, in the same moment, means that the day they call satyrday is also a day that exists in the Hebrew calendar, but that day is not called satryday. It is a ridiculous argument to say that we who keep Shabbat every 7th day (on Saturday) are keeping Saturn's Day. If the pagans call it that, it does not mean that is what YHWH originally called it. He calls it Shabbat not Saturday. Even in Spanish the 7th day of the week is Sabado, and in Italian it is Sabato. In Hebrew it is Shabbat. There are right now over 10,000 languages and dialects on earth. There are only 106 that use some form of "sabbath" as the name for satyrday. Add to this number the languages that have been lost over the years, and you have less than 1% of all the languages in earth s history that uses some form of Sabbath (Subota, Sabado, Shabbat, Sabat, et al) for the name of the seventh day of the Gregorian planetary week. Meaning more than 99% of all language groups do NOT recognize satyrday as the Sabbath. Add to the above facts that satyrday was not the seventh day of the week until A.D. 321, meaning that the 106 languages that do use some form of Sabbath for satyrday came up with that particular name sometime AFTER the 4 th century A.D. This is not a strong argument against the Creation Calendar. It is little more than a desperate attempt. Remember the "weak" argument spoken of above? Well Ms. Merola apparently needs more direct information proving that satyrday is not the Sabbath and that satyrday is a day named after a pagan deity, and to worship YHWH on this day (exclusively) is an abomination. Scripture can prove this too. And you might be interested to learn that YHWH calls satyrday worship idolatry. Indeed, Israel worshiped on satyrday. I admit it. But it s not what you think. But you have borne the tabernacle of your moloch [king] and Chiun your images, the star of your god which you made for yourselves. Amos 5:26 Chiun is the Hebrew word for saturn. Here Amos sees a day where Israel worships a star-god that they would make for themselves. Israel would have been in apostasy then. Stephen, in Acts 7:43 quotes Amos and is translated as Remphan, which is Greek for saturn. Satyrday is ONLY a day found on the pagan 7 day planetary week. Satyrday was the first day (not the seventh) of this pagan calendar week beginning about 800 B.C. The Father s calendar is found in the sun and moon (the two great lights), not in the planets. 63

64 Why am I spelling it satyrday instead of saturn s day? Because Saturn and the Satyr are both linked to the same false system of worship. Do this word study with your concordance. Isaiah 13:21 says But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. Isaiah 34:14 In both cases, the Hebrew word here translated as satyr is Strong s H8163. It would seem that the Father stopped Israel s Satyrday observance early on. Speaking to Israel after their deliverance from Egypt, YHWH said And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations. Leviticus 17:7. Notice the word for devils (below). And they shall no 3808 more 5750 offer 2076 (853) their sacrifices 2077 unto devils, 8163 after 310 whom 834 they 1992 have gone a whoring This 2063 shall be 1961 a statute 2708 forever 5769 unto them throughout their generations Same Hebrew word, H 8163, Satyrs. Jeroboam and his sons were later cursed for leading Israel BACK into idolatry. II Chronicles 11:15 says And he [Jeroboam] ordained 5975 him priests 3548 for the high places, 1116 and for the devils, 8163 and for the calves 5695 which 834 he had made Same Hebrew word, H 8163, Satyrs. Jeroboam brought back what YHWH had removed from Israel in Leviticus 17. And nearly every time Jeroboam s name is mentioned thereafter it is either prefaced or followed by the statement, who has made my people Israel to sin. Amos reminded Israel of their satyrday idolatry; Stephen later repeated it and it got him killed. Some people are touchy about their idolatry. I hope you are not and that you are willing to examine why the Father calls satyrday worship idolatry. Satyrday was not the 7 th day of the week until 321 A.D. when Rome adopted the pagan seven day planetary week. Satyrday was the first day of this seven day week for its entire history (during the time Scripture was being written), and not promoted (demoted actually) until Constantine venerated the day of the sun, supplanting satyrday as the first day of the week with sunday in honor of his sun god, Mithra. Earlier I said that the satyr and saturn were part of the same false system of worship. Would you like to see the evidence? Ever heard of a dual counterfeit? Only the enemies of YHWH would accept an obvious counterfeit, but for the more elect, the Adversary has a not-so-obvious counterfeit. 64

65 How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be Almighty, follow Him: but if Ba al, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. I Kings 18:21. Ba al is the obvious fraud, but what about the LORD? Every time you read LORD or GOD in all capital letters, the underlying Hebrew is YHWH, the Creator s Name. Ba al means Lord in Hebrew. In Hebrew there is no deception, His Name is YHWH, (which is how the Hebrew reads) but in English there is no right answer from which to choose: Ba'al means Lord. Friends, what we have here is a dual counterfeit; one is obvious (Ba al), the other (the LORD) is not-soobvious. Which day do YOU keep holy? Sunday, the current first day of the pagan Roman/papal calendar Saturday, the current seventh day of the pagan Roman/papal calendar. I say current because these days were not always the first and seventh days of the week, respectively. Originally, satyrday was the first day of the week, sunday the second. As a side note, I find it interesting that we pronounce the n in woden s day (wednesday), but we don t for saturn s day (saturday). Have you ever heard of a satyr? The cloven footed half-man, half-goat the universal symbol of Satan himself? Sunday is the obvious fraud. Only the enemies of YHWH would observe sunday, in honor of the pagan sun-god. But every satyrday, of every week, of every year, Sabbatarians every-where, in spite of themselves, worship on satyrday a day named after Satan himself. Very cleverly, the Adversary receives his worship every week, all year long, by sincere folks who believe they are following YHWH. Friends, what we have here is a dual counterfeit; one is obvious, the other not-so-obvious. Even if saturday really is named after saturn, don t think we are going to get off the hook so easily. Saturn worship is the oldest form of Satanism and is clearly and historically linked to satyr, the horned goat. Please feel free to connect the dots. Satan (or Pan) is called the "Horned God". Pay attention to the information in the blue font. Pan a lusty satyr, half-man, half-goat, was given to every form of licentiousness and debauchery. Kronos, the father of the gods for a certain wicked deed, was called Titan, and cast down to hell. Kronos is none other than Satan himself. Titan, or Teitan, as it is sometimes spelled, is the Chaldee form of the Hebrew word Sheitan, the common name of the Adversary. 65