March 1: The Real Secular New Year

[admin]

The original solar calendar started years counting from March which was the first month. Later Julius Caesar added January and February and made January 1 The Roman Pagan New Year. Later, Christians made January 1 The Christian New Year to commemorate Jesus's brit milah. However, later Christains celebrated March 25 as their New Year to commemorate Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus. But why would a year start on a date that is not the first of the month? Pope Gregory was the one who made January 1 The Christian New Year again with the advent of The Gregorian Calendar. However, this calendar is flawed because it only re-set solar dates to The Council of Nicea. The Winter Solstice was December 21 that year so Pope Gregory re-set it to that so Christmas would remain December 25 and 4 days after The Winter Solstice but the original pagan birth of The Sun holiday that was replaced by Christmas had been on The Winter Solstice. So the astronomical Christmas Eve is December 21. Thefore, today is March 4 under the astronomical solar calendar. The Gregorian Calendar is purely Christan. The Julian Calendar was Roman but adopted by The Christians and The Eastern Orthodox Christams is January 7 due to the natural drift.

The Julian Calendar is the original solar calendar but drifted on its own because it has February 29 even if the year ended in 00 and wasn't divisible by 400. So 1900 was a leap year according to that but not according to The Gregorian Calendar. 2000 was a leap year on both.

The Jewish year number is counting from Tishrei but months from Nissan, the month of The Spring. So I say that the year count for fiscal reasons on The Secular Calendar is counted from January 1 but for all intents and purposes, the real Secular New Year is March 1. Proof of this is that the leap day of February 29 is added on to the end of February, the last month, just like Jews add a second Adar since Adar is the last month. Jews also add a 30th day to the end of Cheshvan sometimes which makes Rosh Chodesh Kislev is 2 days when it is usually one day because Cheshvan normally has 29 days.

So my idea is that March 1 is The Secular New Year and when there is a February 29, it is a 2 day Secular New Year holiday. I like cool days so I went to synagogue the morning of February 29 and then went for Erev Shabbat in the late afternoon/evening. I can't wait until 2016 when there will finally be a Torah reading on February 29 again when it will fall on a Monday. The last time there was a Torah reading on it was on 1996 when it fell on a Thursday unless it was Rosh Chodesh.

So here are the 4 solar New Years.

1. Astronomical- Counting from the first day of Spring or the first day of Winter when The Sun is re-born. This is not part of any calendar but is used in Secular for calculating Secular zodiac signs and for counting the seasons.
2. Gregorian- January 1. This is The Civil New Year for fiscal purposes. It is also the religious Christian New Year for Catholic and Protestant churches.
3. Julian- January 14. This is The Roman New Year and the religious Christan New Year for Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches.
4. Secular- March 1. This is The Secular New Year.

[Raulmarrio2000]

Yor are right Yaakov. However there is a reason to consider March 25th the Secular New Year also, according to the Julian Calendar. When Julian calendar was established, March 25 was generally the beginning of Spring. Now, as the Calendars have drifted, Sprins begins on March 21st of the Gregorian Calendar, March 8th of the Julian one.

I'd like to have an international convention to reset the drift as it should be and come back to the Roman count (2761) for all civil uses. I find no problem with the Roman calendar for all Gentiles. We already have the Greenwich Mean Time (British), and the Decimal Metric system (French). Why not a Roman Calendar?

[Raulmarrio2000]

When Julius Caesar established the Calendar, seasons began on 25th. I just don't know why he decided it to be so. March is devouted to pagan idol Mars, the Roman g-d of war, that's why it was the beginning of the year, since it was the beginning of Roman military campaigns. April (Aprilis) means "to open" and remembers Spring when flowers "open" (bloom). When Julious Caesar established the Calendar (based on Egiptian calendar) and added January and February, he decided to begin the years on Jan the 1st, so he had two months to plan military actions.
Untill the Julian Calendar was established, most nations used lunar calendars (except Egipt).
Generally lunar calendars had a leap year of 13 months to avoid seasonal drift, just as Jews and Chinese Calendars. Arabs also used lunar leap years before Islam, but then Muhammad forbade the leap month since " we, Muslims, can't even read....how can we claim to know when to add a month?!!!!"

[Raulmarrio2000]

I read it somewhere, I thought it was an Islamic source. I may check. But it's obvious that most first Muslims didn't write or read. The question is why didn't they just use the Arabic Calendar calculated by those Arabs who did know astronmy and could read? Perhaps they just didn't like to depend on "infidels", but most likely those who calculated the calendar were executed for being "infidels".

And yes, perhaps Babylonians had also a solar calendar, not sure. But I suppose they used lunar one when Jews were there, if not Jews wouldn't have named their months after the Babylonians. 

[Rubystars]

If the New Year means something to you religiously, then that's different, but most of the time I personally could care less what year it is or when the New Year is.