From: Dave Bedwell
To: heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: Re: No One Knows The Day Or Hour
Dear all--
I appreciated the article by Tony Galli regarding the meaningful significance of
the phrase "no man knows the day nor the hour" and its relationship to the
Festival of Trumpets.
However, I wanted to make an observation regarding his assertion that the
witnesses before the Beth Din testified about seeing a waning moon. I think Tony
is simply mistaken about this. The Talmud says no such thing as far as I am
aware. In none of the discussions of the sanctification of the new moon that I
have read from the Talmud does it refer to the waning crescent as the basis of
the new moon testimony. I believe the Talmudic account is explicit that it was
the waxing crescent, and that it refers to the sighting of it "in the evening
after sundown". I know for a fact that Maimonides and every other Jewish and
non-Jewish authority on the subject interprets the Talmudic new moon as refering
to the waxing crescent.
The following quote from the same post, describing the testing of witnesses, is
PROOF that the Talmud understands the new moon to be the waxing rather than
waning crescent:
Continuing in Chapter 2, Mishnah 6: How do they test the
witnesses? The pair
who arrive first are tested first. The senior of them is brought
in and they
say to him, tell us how you saw the moon - in front of the sun or
behind the
sun? To the north of it or the south? How big was it, and
in which
direction was it inclined? And how broad was it? If he says (he
saw it) in
front of the sun, his evidence is rejected. After that they would
bring in
the second and test him. If their accounts tallied, their
evidence was
accepted, and the other pairs were only questioned briefly, not
because they
were required at all, but so that they should not be
disappointed, (and) so
that they should not be dissuaded from coming.
Notice: if the witnesses claimed to have seen the new moon "in front of" the sun
(i.e., PRIOR to sunset), their testimony was rejected. To be acceptable, they
had to report that the new moon was seen "behind" (that is, after, the sun).
This
is because the crescent moon appears AFTER sunset. If the WANING moon was the new
moon, then you would EXPECT to see it "in front of the sun", and the criteria
would be the opposite of what is described in the Talmud. [Obviously, the phrases
"behind" and "in front of" the sun do not refer to their spatial
relationship,
since you could never "see" a crescent moon either directly in front of, or
directly behind, the sun].
Here is another excerpt:
In short, the two qualified witnesses usually stood before the
Nassi or
President of the Sanhedrin (Jewish High Court) to give account of
the moon's
appearance prior to its becoming total dark (Moed Rosh HaShanah,
Chapter 3,
Mishnah 1). Just before the moon's disk enters total darkness,
there are
tiny slivers of white on the edges of the waning disk. These were
called the
"horns" of the moon. Correctly sighting the
"horns" (on the waning crescent)
determined the beginning of the new month. Once the two
witnesses were
qualified and questioned, if the President (who had knowledge of
astronomy)
was convinced their observation was accurate, he publicly
sanctified the
start of the new month.
Here again I think Tony misunderstood what the Mishna was saying in the above
citiation. The first sentence of this Mishna reads:
If the Beth Din and all Israel saw it, if the witnesses were
tested and
there was no time left to say "Sanctified" before it
grew dark, then the
month is prolonged.
This Mishna is somewhat unclear as to what is growing dark, and so the
misunderstanding is easily understood. However, the footnote to the section
makes it clear that this event takes place on the thirtieth day, shortly before
nightfall, and that it is the day that is growing dark, not the moon.
The supporting Gemara supports this interpretation as it reads:
But when once it has been stated that if "it grew dark then
the month is
prolonged," why should the testing of the witnesses be
mentioned at all?
-It is necessary. For you might suppose that the testing of
the witnesses
is regarded as the commencement of a suit in court, and the
pronouncement of
"sanctified," "sanctified" as the end of the
suit, and therefore they should
sanctifiy at night ... Therefore we are told that this is not so
... Just as
judgement is delivered by day, so here [the pronouncement must
be] by day.
One can readily see that the discussion undertaken here is that of the day
growing dark (and hence the beginning of a new day), not of the moon growing
dark. It is clear throughout the sacred, as well as the secular histories, that
Israel used the waxing new crescent for the determination of the new month, not
the waning crescent (presumably to determine the molad/conjunction).
I think Tony just missed the boat somehow on this one. The rest of his analysis
of Matt. 24 was good. Where he got that idea about the waning moon is beyond me.
Such a notion is clearly not supported by any of the literature.
Regards,
Dave
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