The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 73

Fencing in the Feasts

In 1944, the number one song in America was “Don’t Fence Me In.”

Everyone remembers that big hit, right? Before the Beatles and “Hard Days Night” and before Elvis and “Blue Suede Shoes,” there was Gene Autry and “Don’t Fence Me In.”

That western song had these lyrics.

Oh give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me in

By contrast, the Pharisees could have had a song like this.

We’ll Fence It In
Oh give me foods, lots of foods, to set our kosher rules,
We’ll fence them in.
Give me clothes, hems and fringes, arms and meninges,
We’ll fence them in.
Give me Sabbath, a rest day for spiritual blessing,
We’ll add so many rules that we make it a cursing,
And if there’s anything else, then we’re still working,
We’ll fence it in.

That Pharisee song was never number one, but has had much more influence than the Gene Autry song.

1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, “Pharisees”
The Pharisees “added new restrictions to the Biblical law in order to keep the people at a safe distance from forbidden ground; as they termed it, “they made a fence around the Law,”

The Pharisees were socialist/communist types. They did not rely on spiritual control but on government control, and they thought they were the religious government. So the Pharisees fenced everything. Sabbaths, foods, clothing – they set rules for everything.

Wikipedia, “Pharisees,” 12/28/19
Jewish law prohibits Jews from carrying objects from a private domain (“reshut ha-yachid”) to a public domain (“reshut ha-rabim”) on Sabbath. This law could have prevented Jews from carrying cooked dishes to the homes of friends for Sabbath meals. The Pharisees ruled that adjacent houses connected by lintels or fences could become connected by a legal procedure creating a partnership among homeowners; thereby, clarifying the status of those common areas as a private domain relative to the members of the partnership. In that manner people could carry objects from building to building.

How about that? The Pharisees made rules, then they made rules to get around their rules.

Whose rules?

Their rules.

Now here is a critical question.

If the Pharisees set rules for Sabbaths, foods, clothing, washing hands and platters, etc., etc., etc. –

Wouldn’t they also set rules for the Feasts?

Can a fish swim? Is the pope a Catholic? Yes! They were absolutely going to set rules for the Feasts, as they did for everything else. That’s what they do. They fence you in.

First of all, most of their Sabbath rules also apply to their Feast high days. So accepting their high days logically means accepting their Sabbath fences for their high days.

But what are the Pharisee Feast days?

The Pharisee Feast days are the days set by the Pharisees in their calendar. Again, when the Temple fell, the Pharisees with their synagogues became Judaism. So the “Jewish calendar” is the Pharisee calendar.

How did the Pharisee calendar come about?

1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, “Pharisees”
The history of the Jewish calendar may be divided into three periods—the Biblical, the Talmudic, and the post-Talmudic. The first rested purely on the observation of the sun and the moon, the second on observation and reckoning, the third entirely on reckoning.

The three periods of the Jewish calendar were:

1. Biblical — following Bible instructions during Temple times. The months were set by the visible new moon, testified by witnesses, whoever and wherever they were in the Holy Land.

Once the Temple fell, the Feasts were still set by the Creator’s timing, not by rabbi calculations.

Jewish Encyclopedia (cont.)
After the destruction of the Temple (70 C.E.) Joḥanan ben Zakkai removed the Sanhedrin to Jabneh. To this body he transferred decisions concerning the calendar, which had previously belonged to the patriarch. After this the witnesses of the new moon came direct to the Sanhedrin.

As said before, the Sanhedrin did not set the Feasts. They only accepted what God had set in His creation.

2. Talmudic period

Jewish Encyclopedia (cont.)
Under the patriarchate of Rabbi Judah I., surnamed “the Holy” (163-193), the Samaritans, in order to confuse the Jews, set up fire-signals at improper times [fires on hilltops were used to signal a new moon], and thus caused the Jews to fall into error with regard to the day of the new moon. Rabbi Judah accordingly abolished the fire-signals and employed messengers. The inhabitants of countries who could not be reached by messengers before the feast were accordingly in doubt, and used to celebrate two days of the holidays. By this time the fixing of the new moon according to the testimony of witnesses seems to have lost its importance, and astronomical calculations were in the main relied upon.

The Talmudic period was after the Temple had fallen but before the calculated Pharisee/Jewish calendar. The Talmud, a written record of the oral law of the rabbis, was compiled during this time. The Talmud shrank the Bible’s importance, because the oral law is viewed as being equally inspired. At this time the Jews also shrank the importance of Bible instructions about the Feasts, with a gradual replacing of Bible instructions for setting the Feasts in favor of their calculated method. As the Jewish Encyclopedia said, “fixing of the new moon according to the testimony of witnesses seems to have lost its importance.”

We have to appreciate the arrogance of those who add to the Bible. The Pharisee rabbis said that what the rabbis said was just as inspired as the Bible. To whatever degree, that’s like a rabbi saying, “Hey, I’m God and my words are inspired!”

As study of the Pharisees’ Talmud replaced much of their Bible study, so calculations of Feasts were put in place of Bible instruction — at about the same time!

Jewish Encyclopedia (cont.)
One of the important figures in the history of the calendar was Samuel (born about 165, died about 250), surnamed “Yarhinai” because of his familiarity with the moon. He was an astronomer, and it was said that he knew the courses of the heavens as well as the streets of his city (Ber. 58b). He was director of a school in Nehardea (Babylonia), and while there arranged a calendar of the feasts in order that his fellow-countrymen might be independent of Judea. He also calculated the calendar for sixty years. His calculations greatly influenced the subsequent calendar of Hillel.

Calculated the calendar for sixty years — How comfortably convenient! No more watching and waiting on God.

Jewish Encyclopedia (cont.)
Under the patriarchate of Rabbi Judah III. (300-330) the testimony of the witnesses with regard to the appearance of the new moon was received as a mere formality, the settlement of the day depending entirely on calculation. This innovation seems to have been viewed with disfavor by some members of the Sanhedrin, particularly Rabbi Jose, who wrote to both the Babylonian and the Alexandrian communities, advising them to follow the customs of their fathers and continue to celebrate two days, an advice which was followed, and is still followed, by the majority of Jews living outside of Palestine.

Remember that Yeshua said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” Luke 12:1, English Standard Version.

Hypocrisy. After Rome was ruled by Caesar dictators, they still kept the Senate. They looked like the old republic, but were a totalitarian government. And the Pharisees still accepted witnesses of the new moon, but then ignored what they said. In other words, they ignored what God had set, in favor of what the Pharisees themselves had set. Yet for a while, they went through with that charade.

But only for a while.

3. Calculated period, to the present time.

Jews had said they had no king but Caesar, yet they kept rebelling against their king. Predictably, the Caesars didn’t like that. So the Jews fought Rome in the Great Revolt of 66-70 CE, the Bar Kochba rebellion in 132-135, and other smaller insurrections. This led Rome to detest Jews. Remember that Emperor Constantine opposed the Sabbath and Feasts because he wanted to “have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd,” as Eusebius recorded. Consequently another Jewish revolt against Rome, this time in Galilee in 351, led to Rome preventing the announcing of the festival times by the rabbis.

That was the straw that broke the calendar’s back.

Jewish Encyclopedia (cont.)
Under the reign of Constantius (337-361) [son of Constantine] the persecutions of the Jews reached such a height that all religious exercises, including the computation of the calendar, were forbidden under pain of severe punishment.

So the Pharisees were forbidden from publicly announcing their Feast days. They had already given up going by what God set in favor of what they set by their calculations. Because of the Roman opposition, they then took the next step. Instead of announcing the Feast days they had calculated, they simply made public their calculations for setting their Feast days.

Jewish Encyclopedia (cont.)
This unselfish promulgation of the calendar, though it destroyed the hold of the patriarchs on the scattered Judeans, fixed the celebration of the Jewish feasts upon the same day everywhere. Later Jewish writers agree that the calendar was fixed by Hillel II. in the year 670 of the Seleucidan era; that is, 4119 A.M. or 359 C.E. Some, however, as Isaac Israeli, have fixed the date as late as 500. Saadia afterward formulated calendar rules, after having disputed the correctness of the calendar established by the Karaites.

This calendar method and the resulting Feast days were not exactly the same as the Jewish Pharisee calendar today.

Jewish Encyclopedia (cont.)
While it is not unreasonable to attribute to Hillel II the fixing of the regular order of intercalations, his full share in the present fixed calendar is doubtful.

Wikipedia, “Hebrew Calendar”
“The principles and rules were fully codified by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah in the 12th century.”

The Pharisee/Jewish calendar was not some inspired revelation that God dropped down from Mt. Sinai. It was gradually developed over centuries, not by God but by the Pharisees. After all, the Pharisees were inevitably going to add to it, to fence it in. These fences included the multiple postponements of the days they themselves calculated, added to fence in the high days.

Of course, Yahweh God Himself forgot to put all those rules in the Bible, so the Pharisees had to help Him out with that.

The Jewish Encyclopedia says that the “unselfish promulgation of the calendar, though it destroyed the hold of the patriarchs on the scattered Judeans, fixed the celebration of the Jewish feasts upon the same day everywhere.” In reality, the Pharisee/Jewish calculated calendar did not destroy the hold of the patriarchs. In fact, the Pharisees put most Feast keepers under their control, even to the present day, by keeping the Feast days that the Pharisees set, instead of the Feast days that God sets.

Calculation is not just a different way of coming up with the same Feast days. Calculation is a different way of coming up with different Feast days.

And those different days are the days the Pharisees set.

You recall how Jeroboam changed the Feast of the seventh month to the eighth month?

In reality the Pharisees, with their complicated, convenient, calculated calendar, did the same thing. They Jerebombed the Feasts. They changed them.

When the Christian Church lost the weekly Sabbath, the process was gradual. First, Christians kept the Sabbath. Next, Christians kept the Sabbath and Sunday, the day that pagan society honored. Finally, Romish Christians kept Sunday and outlawed the Sabbath.

The changing of the Feasts went through a similar process, as you may have noticed. First, they were set by God’s creation, by observing the visible new moon. Next, they were set by calculation, but still receiving new moon witnesses. Finally, they were set only by calculation.

This process is like the shell game. A pea is placed under one of three walnut shells, all three shells are quickly shuffled around, until you just lose sight of where that little pea was. That’s what happened with the Sabbath in the Christian churches and the Feasts among the Jews.

However —

Flash forward sixteen centuries from Hillel II in 358 to 1948. The Jews again became a nation, in the Holy Land. Nineteen years later they regained the Temple Mount. And then the Pharisee Jewish calendar had a problem.

They could see it was wrong.

Any individual in Israel could see the monthly new moon, and realize that the Pharisee Jewish calendar calculated new moon was not the chodesh at all. Even the Pharisees could see that!

The Karaites, who disagreed with the Pharisee calculated Feast days, could see it, too, and they went back to the Bible calendar used at the Temple.

McGill, Karaite Interpretation
Karaites use the lunar month and the solar year, but determine when to add a leap month by observing the ripening of barley (called abib) in Israel, rather than the calculated and fixed calendar of Rabbinic Judaism. This puts them in sync with the Written Torah, while other Jews are often a month later. (For several centuries, many Karaites, especially outside Israel, have just followed the calculated dates of the Oral Law (the Mishnah and the Talmud) with other Jews for the sake of simplicity. However, in recent years most Karaites have chosen to again follow the Written Torah practice.) https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/h/Hebrew_calendar.htm

The Jews — the Pharisees — are working hard toward building a third Temple. They have established a new Sanhedrin. This is what the new Sanhedrin, who are all Pharisee Jews, says about the Pharisee/Jewish calendar.

From the Sanhedrin website:
“The Jewish Calendar has a discrepancy of about one day every century. This means that by the year 6000, Pesach [Passover] will come out two new moons (Sivan) after the first day of spring.” [Sivan is the 3rd month of the biblical year.] http://www.thesanhedrin.org/en/index.php/Committee_concerning_the_fixing_of_the_Calendar

That is, in a couple of centuries the Pharisee Jewish calendar will be so askew that Passover will be about Pentecost time.

“Our current calendar will exceed halachically acceptable limits and we will be celebrating Biblically commanded holidays at times other than when Scripture requires them to be celebrated. One could argue that, if a change is necessary in any event, it would be most correct according to Biblical and Jewish Law to once again use the system of witnesses. But it is certain that we will not longer be permitted to use the mathematical calendar of Hillel II in the near future.” (Ibid)

What does this mean?

The Pharisees have created the most complex calendar known to man — and it’s still wrong.

And they, with their plans for a third Temple, want to change the Feast days back to the original days. As the Sanhedrin says, “But it is certain that we will not longer be permitted to use the mathematical calendar of Hillel II in the near future.”

Their new Sanhedrin has the presumed authority to change back the Sanhedrin’s Feast day changes of 358, as they presumed it had the authority to change God’s Feasts back in 358.

New World Encyclopedia, “Sanhedrin”
Since the Jewish Calendar was based on witnesses’ testimony, which was too dangerous to collect during these Roman times, Hillel II recommended a mathematical Calendar that was adopted at a clandestine, and maybe last, meeting in 358 C.E. This marked the last universal decision made by that body...

In October 2004 (Hebrew Calendar=Tishrei 5765), a group of rabbis claiming to represent varied communities in Israel undertook a ceremony in Tiberias, where the original Sanhedrin was disbanded, which they claim re-establishes the body according to the proposal of Maimonides and the Jewish legal rulings of Rabbi Yosef Karo. The controversial attempt has been subject to debate within different Jewish communities.

So the Feasts were originally set by the new moon.

The Pharisees changed that to Feasts set only by their calculations. Now they themselves admit that their calculations miss the new moon.

This makes for a clear choice. Go by what God said or go by what the Pharisees said. Which authority should we bow to?

Even the Pharisees say their Feast days are wrong. So why do people follow what is admittedly wrong?

Because the Pharisees, and those who follow the Pharisees, say they are not wrong even if they are wrong. Even if their Feast days differ from those God set with the new moons, the Pharisees are said to have the authority to change those days.

We previously mentioned a church leader who kept Pentecost on Monday, then changed it to Sunday. But he maintained that he was not wrong when he and his church kept it on Monday, because he had the authority of Peter, and whatever he said was right, even if it was wrong. In effect, he said he had the authority to change the Feast days. The Pharisees certainly do not claim the authority of Peter, but they do claim authority as God’s rabbis, and some say that authority makes their Feast days right, even if they’re wrong.

Did the Pharisees have authority from God to change God’s Feast days? Do they have the authority to change them back? Do we have to wait on the Pharisees’ Sanhedrin to return to God’s Feast days?