renefretz@try-god.com

   Conventional wisdom has long held that the Babylonians were among the first to use a 360-day 12 month calendar, but the Biblical record shows a different scenario. This study will reveal the record of the Biblical Patriarch Noah using this 360-day calendar prior to the great flood. Since Noah and his family were the only human survivors to live after the flood, all men can trace their genetic roots to his family. Thus the many cultural records of the great deluge found in ancient myths and archaeological records, obviously were written down after the flood, and would have followed Noah and his descendants. Noah is a key Biblical Patriarch because he represents the transition between the pre-flood and the post-flood world. Thus all the systems of Biblical timekeeping that we have already documented in the article on The Calendar of the Biblical Patriarchs, going back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, after the flood, including the coordination of the luni-solar year, the year divided into 12 months of 30 days, giving a 360-day year relating to the 360 degrees of the circle, all are traceable back to Noah's day. Thus, the calendrical practices of the Biblical Patriarchs are summarized in Noah, combining the Lunar, Solar and Sidereal years in his standards of timekeeping. Since Noah was already 600 years old when the flood waters descended upon Earth [Gen. 7:6], Noah continued the use of his calendar leading up to and during the 120-year period (120 x 3= 360) wherein he built the Ark. The construction of the ark was according to God's revealed plan, which follows a consistent divine pattern, the same tripartite pattern found in the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of David and Solomon. Before we provide the evidence for Noah's 360-day calendar, let's review some additional evidence for the calendar based on the star Sirius.
   We have already documented the recognition of the star Sirius or Sothic Calendar in the Book of Job [Job 38:12-15], as the oldest book in Biblical Canon and the only book of the Bible specifically addressed to the time period known as the Patriarchal Administration, [see our Timeline]. Historically, the Sothic Calendar first appears in ancient Egypt as the earliest 365-day calendar in history. One detail to notice here is that every 4 years the 365-day calendar falls behind the 365.25-day calendar, which is where our modern practice of the "leap year" comes in to correct this problem. Thus, every 4 years (365 x 4 = 1460 days) a leap-day was added to keep the coordination of the calendar in place. Job tells us that these calendrical practices were already in place among the Biblical Patriarchs, as part and parcel of their standard practices in Astronomy and timekeeping, which God first revealed to Adam.

 

Job 38:31-33
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth the Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?

   Job's reference to the Mazzaroth above, refers to the entire zodiac of 12 signs, applied also by the Biblical Patriarchs. Among some of the earliest overt astronomical references in all of Scripture, these verses are important aspects of the ordinances of heaven, or "statutes from the Creator as laws of Nature that were permanently binding." The universal influence of the 365-day calendar and the division of the zodiac circle into 12 equal sections of 30-days each, represent two indispensible innovations in the history of Astronomy forming a foundation upon which the rest of ancient Astronomy and timekeeping were built. Thus the Biblical records of Job based on Noah, establish the advanced astronomical practice of the Biblical Patriarchs, providing a basis from which the roots of ancient  and studies in Archaeo-Astronomy can be traced in their true context. Noah's Covenant with God took place after his family came out of the ark, and included the first burnt offerings on the altar that Noah built [Gen. 8:20-22]. This initial and unconditional Covenant not only re-established the major elements of Jehovah's Covenant with Adam, but also set a divine standard established later in the Old Testament Law, which was carried out in the ministry of the Tabernacle and Temple. The common tripartite pattern seen in God's divine design of Noah's Ark, the Temple and Tabernacle, exhibits the Creator's Intelligent Design of His temporal order of sacred Space-Time, that He first revealed to the Biblical Patriarchs. We are not speaking here of the modern politically correct version of Intelligent Design that refuses to admit that God is the Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent power behind all Creation. On the contrary, God is the only One Who is capable and wise enough to design His Creation with the consistent themes of phi Symmetry running through all levels of His Four Kingdoms of Life and His temporal order in Nature, witnessing to His dominion.
   With Noah and his family preserved in the Ark, as the Biblical progenitors of human ancestry after the flood, we see his calendrical practices going back as far as the early 3rd millennium BC. On the other hand, the accepted historical record of the post-flood world does not put a 12 month, 30-day calendar in Babylon until around 1000 BC, and the final recognition of the 12 signs of a complete zodiac until around 500 BC. For the most part, this is based on the work of the late historian of ancient astronomy, Willy Hartner of Frankfurt University, who concluded that the transition from the Old-Avestan calendar to the Young-Avestan Calendar occurred on March 21st, 503 BC. This "Young-Avestan calendar consisted of 12 months, each of 30 days, except the eighth month which was 35 days." ¹ Although Hartner's research provides historical evidence that the 12 month, 365- day calendar was in use in Babylon by this time, it does not prove that this was the first time it was used in history. One purpose of this Biblical study is to provide some strong evidence that the astronomer-priests of Sumer-Babylon were not the originators of this innovation in ancient timekeeping, but that in fact it originated with the Biblical Patriarchs.Astronomy

  As we take a detailed look at the record of Noah's flood in Genesis 7, the first thing that requires our attention is the septenary pattern of the temporal record. In verse 4, God tells Noah that the flood rains were going to begin in seven days... From the very start of the events of the Creation Week, God had ordered temporal things according to a week of seven days. There is no historical precedent for a 7-day week in history that cannot be traced back to what the Creator instituted in the Creation Week [Ex. 31:15-16]. Thus the Sabbatical year founded upon this standard [Levi. 25:8], has continued through all sacred and secular calendars that followed, not only in Israel, but around the world. In Noah's Calendar the recorded dates of the flood in Genesis 7-8 are all Sabbaths, with one exception which we will discuss presently.

   This is the first time the word "month" is used in the Bible, upon which the Lunar Monthwas founded in Israel. The first day of the New Moon was considered holy, and was associated with the weekly sabbath, and was usually first visible near sunset. This also explains why the day began at sunset in Hebrew timekeeping. The New Moon that began every month [Num. 28:11], especially in the holiest seventh month [Num. 29:1], were special days of sacrifice and offerings to the Lord, which were enshrined throughout the Old Testament Law in the Tabernacle and Temple of Israel. In keeping with this septenary pattern of God's temporal order, the seven sabbaths of years became 49 years, leading unto the 50th year of the Jubilee [Levi. 25:8-13]. As we have seen already the luni-solar year was harmonized according to the 50-year Jubilee via the phi ratio, with 618 lunations in each 50-year cycle. This harmony of the luni-solar year allowed a predictive capability pertaining to the eclipse cycle, which was terrifying to the ancient cultures based on divination, but not to the Biblical Patriarchs, for whom divination was forbidden by God. Instead these men of God reaped the benefits of honoring the Creator for His Handiwork, and enjoyed the precision by which He set the celestial orbs in their paths, as a witness to His glory. It should be noted that man has continued to struggle with this coordination of the Solar and Lunar Cycles throughout the rest of the history of human timekeeping, and it remains a problem even into modern times. Due to the evolutionary bias in modern science, most researchers have not been willing to give the Creator His due when it comes to recognizing His Intelligent Design of these elements of Creation, along with the ordinances of Heaven that rule on Earth. Their preference has been to choose to continue chasing their theoretical tails in the scientific and social circles that they frequent, so they can take credit for their scientific "discoveries," and keep those reseach dollars flowing. As has been documented in Ben Stien's recent film "Expelled," any researcher or educator who even mentions the words Intelligent Design has been blackballed by the evolutionary thought police, and many times lost their tenure and professional teaching positions as a result. This is the same social environment, influenced by athieism that has prohibited God from being mentioned in the classroom, and called into question the very idea of  American politicians opening their deliberations with prayer.      
  It has always been a recognition and honoring of the Creator that provided the impetus of the Natural Law approach to Astronomy, whose influence was key in the development of a predictive mathematical Astronomy that far exceeds any Astrology carried out by the ancient heathen idolators. Their divination only served to degrade the original truth of the Astronomy of the Biblical Patriarchs, which accounts for the roots of the world monomyth. For additional information and further evidence of this corruption based on Astrology, please refer to our  study on Biblical Astronomy vs. Astrology, including the section on  "The Corrupted Constellations," which will give specific cases where the astrological practices of divination changed the original meaning the Creator attached to specific star pictures. [Ps. 147:4]
   We should also take note that the specific calendar days marked in the Biblical record of the flood, were later enshrined as holy days in the Old Testament Law. The months of the year were designated by number, 3 of them in this record [2nd, Gen. 7:11, 7th, Gen. 8:4, 10th, Gen. 8:5]. Most of the other numbered months are named in the Penteteuch, which confirms that Noah was working with the same Mazzaroth Job was; an entire zodiac of 12, 30-day months, as implied in the 360 degrees of the circle linked to the 360 days of this calendar. These twelve months were not named in Israel until after the Babylonian captivity, centuries later. This tropical zodiacalso incorporates a practical knowledge of the pi ratio at work in Noah's calendar, long before it was ever considered in ancient Astrology or celestial science. More importantly, it gives us a decisive glimpse of the mathematical sophistication inherent in this Calendar of the Biblical Patriarchs, without doubt revealed by God, not motivated by divination, but the Revelatory Astronomy disclosed to these ancient Patriarchs, long prior to the development of any celestial science in ancient Mesopotamia. The origins of the mathematical standards of a Sexegesimal place-value notation are also evident in this system revealed by the Creator, based on the dual solar year of both its annual and precessional cycles. The great cycle of the precession of the equinoxes framed by the 20-year Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction cycle, provides a window on this Sexegesimal Rhythm of precession, that was the basis of every major celestial calendar of the ancient world. The 12 months of 30-days in the 360 day-year of Noah's Calendar, all multiples of 60, provide values where each degree of time was equal to 1/360 of a day, or 4 minutes. This gives us the 60 second-minute, the 60-minute-hour, and the (6 x 60) 360-degree circle, all of which we still use in the modern world. This place-value notation system afforded all kinds of mathematical calculations from algebra to linear and quadratic equations, which Otto Neugebauer says: "became the foundation of a theoretical of mathematical character,Astronomy"² the ancestor of modern scientific Astronomy