According to the Mishna (treatise
Rosh Hathanak), "On the 1st of Nisan
is a new year for the computation of the reign of kings and for festivals." To
which the Jewish editors of the English translation of the Mishna add this
note: "The reign of Jewish kings, whatever the period of accession might be,
was always reckoned from the preceding Nisan; so that if; for instance, a
Jewish king began to reign in Adar, the following month (Nisan) would be
considered as the commencement of the second year of his reign. This rule was
observed in all legal contracts, in which the reign of kings was always
mentioned." This rule, I may add, will explain what Christian expositors and
critics are pleased to call the "errors" in the chronological statements of
Scripture as to Jewish regnal years. Full information on the subject of the
present Jewish year will be found in Lindo’s Jewish Calendar, and in the
Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., article "Hebrew Calendar."
But while their calendar
is now settled with astronomical accuracy, it was not so in early times. And
nothing is certainly known of the embolismal system then in use, to adjust the
lunar to the solar year. But the testimony of the Mishna is definite that the
great characteristic of the sacred year, as ordained in the Mosaic age,
remained unchanged in Messianic times; namely, it began with the first
appearance of the Paschal moon. The Mishna states that the Sanhedrim required
the evidence of two competent witnesses that they had seen the new moon. The
rules for the journey and examination of the witnesses contemplate the case of
their coming from a distance, and being "a night and a day on the road." The
proclamation by the Sanhedrim may therefore have been delayed for a day or two
after the phasis, and the phasis may sometimes have been delayed till the moon
was 1d. 17 h. old. So that the 1st Nisan may sometimes have fallen several days
later than the true new moon. (See Clinton, Fasti Rem., vol. ii. p. 240.)
All writers therefore who, e.g., fix the date of the Crucifixion by assigning
it to a year in which the Paschal full moon was on a Friday, are clearly wrong.
The elements of doubt are: (i) The time of the phasis; (2) the appearance of
the necessary witnesses; (3) the rules to prevent the festivals falling on
unsuitable days; and (4) the embolismal system in force, of which we know
nothing certainly. The use of the Metonic cycle in settling the Jewish calendar
dates only from the fourth century A.D.; and as the old eight years’ cycle
was in use among the early Christians for settling Easter, the presumption is
that it was borrowed from the Jews. Let me illustrate this by A.D. 32, the year
which Scripture itself marks out as the year of the Crucifixion. The true new
moon was late on the night (10h. 57m.) of the 29th March. The proclamation of
the Sanhedrim therefore would naturally have occurred on the 31st. But, as
above explained, it may have been delayed till 1st April; and in that case the
15th Nisan should have fallen on Tuesday the 15th April. But according to the
scheme of the eight years’ cycle, the embolismal month was inserted in the
3rd, 6th, and 8th years; and an examination of the calendars from A.D. 22 to 45
will show that A.D. 32 was the 3rd year of such a cycle. And as the difference
between the solar year and the lunar is 11.5 days, it would amount in three
years to 33.75 days, and the addition of a 13th month (Ve-Adar) of 30 days
would leave an epoch still remaining of 3.75 days. And the "ecclesiastical
moon" being that much before the real moon, the Passover festival would have
fallen on Friday (11th April). 1 have dealt with this question at greater
length in The Coming Prince, pp. 99 - 105.