The editors of our local rag, the Contra Costa Times, must have been laughing their heads off. They knew the answer but kept themselves amused by bouncing the Gores and the Quayles off of each other as we all weighed in on the Great Millennial Debate.
[For the record, the third millennium begins with the year 2001, the simple reason being that there is no Year Zero. Count from one to ten. That's ten years, or one decade. So when does the second decade start? The year eleven! The second century? the year 101. So for the first two millennia to have two thousand years you have to include the year 2000 and so the next starts with 2001.]
So we know about Dennis the Short (no relation to Martin, by the way)and the ancient Romans being totally clueless (way past unclear) on the concept of zero. But that's not all!
There's another question, the really hard question that no one seems to have even thought of let alone raised. Therefore, I'm doing my duty to temporal accuracy and the Right Way of Thinking and asking it:
Why, with a calendar supposedly arising out of Christianity, does the year not start with Christ's birth? Year One; Day One. Sounds reasonable, does it not?
The short answer comes from a vision the above referenced monk had as he had been mulling over how his decision will affect several gadzillion people. Supposedly, Christ came to him and said,
"My son, I hear you're going to make up a calendar about me?"
"Yes," replied the Diminutive One. "We're going to start it with your birth. Once a year, Christmas Day, party like it's 1999!
"What?!" exclaimed Jesus. "And lose New Year's Eve?!"
Golly, gee! O Exalted First Son, get your priorities straight. The last night of the year should be for prayer and meditation. In fact, take a page from Your own tradition and make it a Yom Kippur: wail, gnash you teeth, rend your garments, that sort of thing. Hey, let's go into the New Year with some proper humility!
Yeah, I say, re-think this whole Christmas thing, anyway, which has gotten way out of hand.
Okay, here's the drill:
Best scholarly guestimate, Jesus was born on 10 Nisan, the first month
of the sacred Hebrew calendar,
4 years before the Common Era sometime between two and six in the morning, Jerusalem time. Or Hawaii time (afternoon, the 9th–lotsa time zones out there!) In 1999 that was Saturday, March 27. Aloha & shalom & a Happy B'day Baby Jesus!
[For a dandy analysis of how the Julian and Gregorian calendars bolixed it all up, I recomend your taking a trip to The Priesthood of "ABIA" and checking it out.]
To continue, the anniversary of Jesus' death is 14 Nisan and would have fallen on Wednesday, March 31st of 1999 giving us, three days and three nights later, the Resurrection conveniently on Easter, April 4th. I say conveniently because, his death on Wednesday notwithstanding, Good Friday actually falls on a Friday! There must be something cosmicly right about the year 1999.
One final detail. If Jesus celebrated his birthday on 10 Nisan, 1, then he
must have been born in the year Zero. Subtracting two years from 4
B.C.–sorry, folks but you missed the new millennium by two years!
So here we are, January 10, 1999 as I write this, and it's 2002 already.
My, how time flies when you're having fun.
So let's be Christian about all this. I may be a Jew and all that, but I'm
too Western to get down with Nisan & all that jazz. So I'd just as soon stick with the familiar January (my birth month), etc. (& anyway, my grandmother called me
Jan.) But a solar calendar, based as it is on the four seasons and the natural pattern of the solstices, is really a totally pagan calendar. And although I'm a pagan at heart (as well as a theological atheist), and a philosophical Christian (& by denominational affiliation), I am, after all, a Jew and so was Jesus. So for Christ's sake respect the big guy's heritage and tradition and make it a good ol' Jewish lunar calendar. Name anything else that's lasted 5,760 years.
So we need a thirteenth month. Since I'm in charge here, I nominate the name, Christmoon which, after 2,002 years would probably survive as Chrismon (do we say "Christ-mass", after all?) It stands to reason that since
the bulk of March preceded his birth, and most of April followed, let's say we go: Chrismon, April, May, etc. until we have Christmas (New Year's) Eve falling on March 31st. Cool, huh?
So now we have this thorny little problem: how many days are there in each month. That's easy. 28, of course and no more having to remember "thirty days hath September, April, June and ...."
Oops! C/NY Eve's March the 28th, right?
So, what do we do with the extra day-&-a-1/4? Yeah, 28 times 13 is 364, you may have figured out. As long as we're starting with a tabla rosa, it's a shame to mess with the elegance of symetry. Let me make a modest suggestion: re-calibrate the clocks.
Whew! What a can of worms that opens up! Six months later midnight's at three in the bloomin' afternoon. No problema. I've got that covered.
Introducing "benAvramian Time"!
Now I was going to mess with the clock but, hey, 12 & 12 works for me. Besides, asking HAL to add 4.945054945055 minutes onto each day is right up his alley, but telling the average joe to eighty-six midnight and noon is
really asking for it.
So what do you do about that fifteen-hour shift every six-&-a-half months? Or, to be more precise, 2.307692307692 hrs./month? You get an extra hour's sleep every other Sunday, that's what. Hey, that's my kind of attitude adjustment!
Hell, everything's computerized anyway. A few squiggles on your clock chip and it'll adjust itself. Boy, did computers come along at just the right
time or what?!
Hmmm, what about that extra .307692307692 hours? That's a tick under 18 1/2
minutes, by the way, or 3.999999999996 more hrs./year. Looks like four to
me! So every four months get another hour of ZZZs on top of. Let's make that June, September, December and March, first Sunday.
That's cool. But that 1.44 billionths of a second's worth of slack we need to make up each year bugs me just a little. (1.44. Funny number, huh? Hey, I'm not making that up. Say, call it a "floppy billionth".) So, let's see. So, every 771.4285714285 years you'll have to put up with losing an hour's sleep. If you're down with it, I can live with that.
© 2002 A.D. [adjusted] Daniel Beck
Zwickel ben Avram McJean
