The Prophetic Calendar
How Many Days in a Year?

How long is a year? There have been numerous calendars, with varying length years. A solar year is 365 ¼ days long. The Dispensationalist/Futurist (D/F) interpreters insist that in prophecy, years are 360 days long. They cite for support the prophecy of Daniel 7:25 and its various repetitions.

Daniel 7:25	a time, times, and half a time.
Revelation 12:14	a time and times and half a time
Revelation 11:2	forty-two months
Revelation 11:3	twelve hundred and sixty days

It is clear from these texts that the 3 ½ year period equaled 42 months or 1,260 days. Simple arithmetic yields a 360 day year. In other words, for purposes of this prophecy, a "year" is 360 calendar years long. The D/F’s insist that this proves that all of the 1,260 years of the prophecy are also 360 days long. They make a similar argument regarding the 490 years in Daniel’s 70 weeks of Daniel 9:24. The essential claim is that a Jewish year is 360 days (12 months of 30 days) long, and the both the Jews and they understand it.

The foundation of the D/F claim is the 30 day Jewish month. Unfortunately, from the very beginning, the D/F’s are wrong. While the Jewish month is a nominal 30 days long, it is not exactly 30 days long. The Jewish month is a lunar month, beginning on the first day that the new moon is seen. When the new moon was observed, the Sanhedrin was notified. When the committee (three members, including the High Priest) heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred at a certain time, they would declare the rosh chodesh (first of the month) and send out messengers to tell people when the month began. This method of determining the rosh chodesh means that it is very possible for the month to begin a day or two late if the weather prevents a good view of the sky. The Jews understood this, and allowed the previous month to go up to two days extra, then forced the new month to start whether the moon was seen or not.

Immediately we can see that Jewish months are variable in length. However, celestial events are not variable in their timing. The fundamental clock of the Jewish month, the moon, operates on a 29 ½ day (actually 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 1/3 seconds) cycle. Note that this rounds off to 30 days, hence the 30 day months in the prophecy above. But, since the cycle is not 30 days, it starts a day early every other month.

A twelve lunar month year will be 354 days long (actually 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, and 40 seconds). This is about 11 days less than the solar year which governs the seasons. A thirteen month year would be about 19 days too long. Since the various Jewish feasts are commanded to be held during specific seasons, an adjustment to match the solar year is necessary. Also, since certain feasts were not allowed to happen on particular days of the week, the length of some months are adjusted upward or downward by a day.

In an ordinary year, there would be twelve months totaling 353, 354, or 355 days. In order to keep the festivals in harmony with the seasons, the Jews used intercalated months (an extra, 13th month). This leap year occurred seven out of nineteen years. This shifted the new year back 29 or 30 days, yielding a year from 382 to 385 days long. AT NO TIME WAS A YEAR EVER 360 DAYS LONG. (The specific calculations governing the details of the adjustments are beyond the scope of this discussion, and do not affect its conclusions.)

Because of the immense importance of the proper timing of the holy festivals, keeping of the calendar was done very carefully. The archeological record and the OT show that this was done even during the Babylonian exile. The existence of these detailed records allows us to determine with great accuracy the correspondence between the Jewish calendar and that of their neighbors. We are also able to project our modern calendar backward into ancient times, and we can correlate it with all major ancient calendars.

Astronomy/astrology has been an important part of all ancient cultures. Very detailed records exist of all relevant cultures with regard to calendars and events. Therefore we are able to clearly state that the Jews, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Romans, Babylonians, and others were well aware of the 365 1/4 day solar year. They started their years at different seasons, and used different lengths and numbers of months. Their methods of adjustment to the solar year varied, but the results were the same, with the sole exception of the Egyptians. The Egyptians maintained a 360 day year in spite of the solar year, since they perceived no difficulty from the months sliding with respect to the seasons..

But how long is the prophetic year? Or, in other words, how many "days/years" does it represent? The length of the Jewish year is no help, since it was a lunisolar year of variable length. We know, as we have already noted, that the Jews kept their calendar records very carefully because of the theological significance of the calendar. Is it possible that God intended that the Jews should be so careful to keep his standard calendar, yet impose a different one when prophecy was to be considered? Let us consider the possibilities.

The first and foremost consideration is that prophecy is understandable (2 Tim 3:15-16). While it is true that Daniel was told to "conceal these words and seal up the book" (Dan 12:4), at the time of John’s apocalypse, where the 1,260 day prophecy was clarified, the book was no longer to be sealed. Therefore, whatever the calendar situation was in the first century AD, that is, the context of the prophecy. Since the Jewish calendar had not changed from the earliest days, it is necessarily the calendar we should use in attempting to understand prophecy.

Our next consideration is to look at other prophecies. Jeremiah prophesied regarding the length of the Babylonian captivity.

10 "For thus says the LORD, 'When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. Jer 29:10

The historical and scriptural record on this prophecy is clear. When seventy standard solar years (by anyone’s calculations) were completed, Cyrus freed the Jews. If a 360 day prophetic year had been the standard, God was about a year late, since seventy of those "years" would be about 69 standard years!

Our next step is to look at the question of record keeping. If prophetic years are 360 days long, it would be absolutely necessary to have a second set of records to establish when a prophecy was completed. Unfortunately for the D/F’s, there is absolutely no evidence that the Jews ever kept a "prophetic 360-day year" calendar. They were however compulsive about keeping the standard calendar. Without this second calendar, there would be no possibility that they would understand when any prophecy would be completed. As the study of Daniel 9 shows, the Jews (and even the Samaritans and the Magi) did understand the proper length of the seventy weeks, and they understood it to be 490 standard solar years.

Does it make any sense for God to give prophetic guidance which could not be understood? Of course not! When God gave Daniel the prophecies of end times, God knew that the Jews kept a calendar synchronized with the solar year. When the prophecies were repeated to John, this situation had not changed. If the 30 day month were to be understood in prophecy, then there would be evidence that either the Jews knew of this constraint, or that God had given instruction regarding it. Since we have neither, we must conclude that God had no intention of fitting prophecy into 360 day years.

The problems imposed by two different calendars would be enormous. Put simply, unless there was an actively maintained "prophetic" calendar, it would be utterly impossible for the Jews to know when any event would be expected. Even with our modern computers, it is not easy. But with a common solar year, the task is easy, even for illiterate common folk. We must reject any solution not available to the common person. Only the standard solar year fills the bill.

We must ask why it is necessary to even consider a 360 day year. After all, if the Jews simply did not have such a year, why would it even appear in prophecy? The simplest answer comes from the nature of apocalyptic prophecy. In it, long spans of time are represented in symbolic terms. Since these terms are figurative, they do not fit well with the technical precision required to describe the Jewish year. It is far more appropriate to say "forty-two months" (Rev 11:2) than to include a dissertation on the fine details of which months in which years should be counted. Such an aside would detract from the message the prophecy was intended to convey. It also allowed God to tell how many years were in the prophecy (on the "year for a day" principle) without dealing with the complexities of the nineteen year Jewish cycle.

The Jews knew that a month was (about) 30 days long. Thus, the 42 months, or 1,260 days, would have seemed natural to them as a way of describing the time. At the same time, they would automatically know that it was not a precise way of describing specific years, since the calendar did not always have 30 day months. This is no different than our modern thinking, where "a month is 30 days", even though months may actually have 28, 29, 30, or 31 days.

We must consider the motivation of those who insist on the 360 day year. It is possible to propose that they have a simple misunderstanding of the Word. After all, the arithmetic is easy to do. But when we actually use this arithmetic to attempt to understand prophecy, it doesn’t work. Rather than consider the possibility that their method might be in error, the D/F’s force the Bible to fit their preconceived notions. This is not exegesis, the understanding of what God put in the Word. This is eisegesis, the reading into the Word of man’s ideas, and is to be condemned. Further, in their attempts to make the dates fit, the D/F’s have conjured up a whole series of geopolitical events which have nothing to do with the gospel. These speculations are not merely errors. They act to draw attention away from the true message of prophecy: the victory of the gospel.

We must always try to learn what God placed in the Word. He used the language, culture, and common understanding of the people to whom the prophetic message was addressed. It is in this context that we can find the meaning of prophecy. And in every word, we should look for the gospel.

The prophecy of the 1,260 days, 42 months, or 3 ½ years is phrased so as to allow us to understand how many years it represents. It says nothing about how long those years are. That must be determined by the culture of the writer. The years are solar years of 365 ¼ days. That they are the same for the Jews and for us is due to the act of God in controlling the movement of the earth. A "year" is a year. Bible prophecy is written in forms which were understandable to the audience of that day. We should reject any interpretation which the Jews would be incapable of understanding.

The concept that the ultimate time spans envisioned in prophecy are made up of 360-day years is incorrect. It should be rejected on that basis alone. But the more important reason for rejecting the concept is that it detracts attention from the gospel and focuses us on political fortune-telling regarding the future of the Jews. When we see this work of the father of lies we should run from it toward the truth.

For additional material on the Jewish calendar and the non-existence of the 360 day year:

Hebrew Calendar Science and Myths