• Church

    Why is Easter Always on a Different Day?

    Growing up I was always perplexed by the fact that Easter was always on different days of the year. In contrast to Christmas, which always takes place on December 25 no matter the year, Easter always seemed to change—sometimes significantly! Some years it is in March, sometimes in April. How is one to make sense of it all? Believe it or not, the changes to the date of the Easter celebration are not random. There is actually an ancient reasoning behind the date changes. For example, if you compare all of the possible dates for Easter, you will observe that Easter can occur on any Sunday March 22 through April 25. Why between those dates? Easter and the Council of Nicaea The rational behind the dating of the Easter celebration can be traced back to 325 AD, when the Council of Nicaea decreed that Easter was to be celebrated on…

  • Old Testament

    Calendar, the Bible, and Ancient Israel

    A calendar is a cultural convention of tracking extended time. It is internalized without much thought by a culture, but it is interesting (and important) to note that calendars have changed significantly over time. In fact, it may come as a surprise to some readers that the current method for date reckoning that Western nations use is called the Gregorian calendar, which was recently (1582 AD) put into place by Pope Gregory XIII to improve the former Julian calendar, which had been used utilized since the time of domination by the Roman Empire. The Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar (40s BC), was largely accurate but was off by about 1 day per 100 years. Thus, Pope Gregory instituted a new calendar that would align even more precisely with the times and seasons, and would avoid having a regression (however slight it may be). So, the present calendar we use…