There are a lot of things we’ve just accepted without proof; well, with no more proof than Jewish traditions. And their traditions, just like the Catholic traditions, are fallible. They are works of men, not works of God. And so they can’t be taken at face value. And so we need to examine everything we believe for ourselves, compare it to the Bible, and if it doesn’t match up, reject it. Today’s case in point is the civil year.

The existence of a civil year is a tradition that seems to be unanimously accepted without question despite the fact that it is not mentioned at all in scripture. Every chronologist that I have read, and I’ve read many, makes a statement like “Well, since David counted his reign according to the civil year, then his reign would have extended from…”

Such statements are made by well-intentioned researchers who simply never bothered to stop and ask “why do I believe in a civil year?” For those of you who aren’t familiar with the civil year, the Jewish historians (all of which are post-Babylonian, and most of which are post-Jesus) record that the year is to be counted in two ways – a civil year and a sacred year. The sacred year begins in the spring, about the time of the first green barley ears, in the first day of the first month (Exodus 12:2). The civil year supposedly begins on the day of Trumpets, on the first day of the seventh month in the sacred year.

There is of course ample evidence of the sacred year beginning in the spring throughout the Bible. But throughout the same Bible, the civil year is never mentioned once. Not once. That by itself should make you question the idea of a civil year. I’ve heard only two events cited as proof of a civil year, so let us consider them:

2 Chronicles 34:8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent … to repair the house of the LORD his God.

The reasoning is that if he was counting his reign by the sacred year, then this had to be no earlier than the first day of the first month of his eighteenth year. After this, he commissioned the repairing of the temple, they consulted a prophetess, then gathered the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to come to the temple and read them out of the law and made them all swear to a covenant to obey it (verses 30-32).

Verse 33 And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the LORD their God. And all his days they departed not from following the LORD, the God of their fathers.

After destroying “all” of the abominations, he kept the passover on the 14^th:

2 Chronicles 35:1 Moreover Josiah kept a passover unto the LORD in Jerusalem: and they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month.

The reasoning being that all of those things couldn’t possibly have been done in two weeks. Whereas if he counted his reign from the fall “civil year,” there are six months in which to place these events. But Josiah was “on fire” for the lord, so to speak; and he was serious about getting the country cleaned up.

2 Kings 23:25 And like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the LORD with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.

With the resources of the kingdom at his disposal, attacking this problem with characteristic zeal, there is no reason why he couldn’t have purged the relatively small territories at his disposal of idols in a matter of days, much less weeks. It certainly isn’t enough to prove the existence of a civil year.

In addition, there is no proof that “his 18^th year” was counted by calendar years at all; since technically, the 18^th year of someone’s reign begins just after the anniversary of their coronation! If true, then this would totally eliminate any possible proof of a civil year in this passage.

The next example involves Nehemiah:

Nehemiah 1:1 …And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace,

Chisleu is the name for the ninth month, which corresponds to parts of November and December. And this was in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, as we will see in a moment, a king of the Medo-Persian empire. In this month a friend of his came from Jerusalem and told him of the sad state of repair the city was in, and Nehemiah was very upset by the news and fasted and prayed for some time.

Nehemiah 2:1 And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.

Nisan is the first month of the sacred calendar, corresponding to parts of our March and April. So supporters of the civil calendar use the following reasoning:

“Nehemiah heard the bad news in the 9^th month, during the 20^th year of Artaxerxes; then on the first month of the NEXT YEAR, which was STILL the 20^th year of Artaxerxes, he went to see the king. This proves that Artaxerxes didn’t count his reign from the sacred year but rather from a civil year, which started in the fall!”

Think about that for a moment. That statement is 100% correct. The reasoning is sound and so is the math. But what does that prove? NOT that Israel kept a civil year! It proves that the PERSIANS kept a civil year! It proves that ARTAXERXES, a noble but completely PAGAN king reckoned his years from fall to fall!

So this “proof” of a civil year actually PROVES where the idea came from – pagan kingdoms like Persia! And after the Old Testament was written the idea of a civil year was adopted by some of the Jews who came back from the captivity IN THE SAME REGION where pagans used a “civil year!”

And then it was gradually filtered into Jewish traditions along with a great many other traditions and fables which just aren’t in the Bible – because they didn’t come from God.

So the moral of the story is don’t take the word of a man, a group of men, a church or a people – no matter who they are. Just take the Bible. And there is no civil year in the Bible. So don’t interpret the Bible around the assumption that there is.