Note 88 — PART I (continued 2)

Bible Educator, edited by Rev. E. H. Plumptre, M.A., vol. iii. pp. 239 and 240. “It may have been with a view to render astrology impossible, that the Jews were forbidden to keep a calendar in the Holy Land, ... as the length of the lunation, or lunar month, is, roughly speaking, twenty-nine days and a half, it is easy to know, from month to month, when to expect the crescent to become visible. Six times in the year the beginning of the month was decided by observation of the new moon.... On two months of the year the determination of the new moon was of such importance, that the witnesses who observed the crescent were authorized to profane the Sabbath by travelling to give information at Jerusalem. These occasions were the months Nisan and Tisri.... The Mishna records that on one occasion as many as forty pairs of witnesses thus arrived on the Sabbath at Lydda. Rabbi Akiba detained them, but was reproved for so doing by Rabbi Gamaliel.... When the evidence was satisfactory, the judges declared the month to be commenced, and a beacon was lighted on Mount Olivet, from which the signal was repeated on mountain after mountain, until the whole country was aglow with fires.”