renefretz@try-god.com

   Conventional wisdom has long held that the Babylonians were among the first to use a 360-day 12 month calendar, but the Biblical record shows a different scenario. This study will reveal the record of the Biblical Patriarch Noah using this 360-day calendar prior to the great flood. Since Noah and his family were the only human survivors to live after the flood, all men can trace their genetic roots to his family. Thus the many cultural records of the great deluge found in ancient myths and archaeological records, obviously were written down after the flood, and would have followed Noah and his descendants. Noah is a key Biblical Patriarch because he represents the transition between the pre-flood and the post-flood world. Thus all the systems of Biblical timekeeping that we have already documented in the article on The Calendar of the Biblical Patriarchs, going back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, after the flood, including the coordination of the luni-solar year, the year divided into 12 months of 30 days, giving a 360-day year relating to the 360 degrees of the circle, all are traceable back to Noah's day. Thus, the calendrical practices of the Biblical Patriarchs are summarized in Noah, combining the Lunar, Solar and Sidereal years in his standards of timekeeping. Since Noah was already 600 years old when the flood waters descended upon Earth [Gen. 7:6], Noah continued the use of his calendar leading up to and during the 120-year period (120 x 3= 360) wherein he built the Ark. The construction of the ark was according to God's revealed plan, which follows a consistent divine pattern, the same tripartite pattern found in the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of David and Solomon. Before we provide the evidence for Noah's 360-day calendar, let's review some additional evidence for the calendar based on the star Sirius.
   We have already documented the recognition of the star Sirius or Sothic Calendar in the Book of Job [Job 38:12-15], as the oldest book in Biblical Canon and the only book of the Bible specifically addressed to the time period known as the Patriarchal Administration, [see our Timeline]. Historically, the Sothic Calendar first appears in ancient Egypt as the earliest 365-day calendar in history. One detail to notice here is that every 4 years the 365-day calendar falls behind the 365.25-day calendar, which is where our modern practice of the "leap year" comes in to correct this problem. Thus, every 4 years (365 x 4 = 1460 days) a leap-day was added to keep the coordination of the calendar in place. Job tells us that these calendrical practices were already in place among the Biblical Patriarchs, as part and parcel of their standard practices in Astronomy and timekeeping, which God first revealed to Adam.

 

Job 38:31-33
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth the Mazzaroth in his season? Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?

   Job's reference to the Mazzaroth above, refers to the entire zodiac of 12 signs, applied also by the Biblical Patriarchs. Among some of the earliest overt astronomical references in all of Scripture, these verses are important aspects of the ordinances of heaven, or "statutes from the Creator as laws of Nature that were permanently binding." The universal influence of the 365-day calendar and the division of the zodiac circle into 12 equal sections of 30-days each, represent two indispensible innovations in the history of Astronomy forming a foundation upon which the rest of ancient Astronomy and timekeeping were built. Thus the Biblical records of Job based on Noah, establish the advanced astronomical practice of the Biblical Patriarchs, providing a basis from which the roots of ancient Astronomy and studies in Archaeo-Astronomy can be traced in their true context. Noah's Covenant with God took place after his family came out of the ark, and included the first burnt offerings on the altar that Noah built [Gen. 8:20-22]. This initial and unconditional Covenant not only re-established the major elements of Jehovah's Covenant with Adam, but also set a divine standard established later in the Old Testament Law, which was carried out in the ministry of the Tabernacle and Temple. The common tripartite pattern seen in God's divine design of Noah's Ark, the Temple and Tabernacle, exhibits the Creator's Intelligent Design of His temporal order of sacred Space-Time, that He first revealed to the Biblical Patriarchs. We are not speaking here of the modern politically correct version of Intelligent Design that refuses to admit that God is the Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent power behind all Creation. On the contrary, God is the only One Who is capable and wise enough to design His Creation with the consistent themes of phi Symmetry running through all levels of His Four Kingdoms of Life and His temporal order in Nature, witnessing to His dominion.
   With Noah and his family preserved in the Ark, as the Biblical progenitors of human ancestry after the flood, we see his calendrical practices going back as far as the early 3rd millennium BC. On the other hand, the accepted historical record of the post-flood world does not put a 12 month, 30-day calendar in Babylon until around 1000 BC, and the final recognition of the 12 signs of a complete zodiac until around 500 BC. For the most part, this is based on the work of the late historian of ancient astronomy, Willy Hartner of Frankfurt University, who concluded that the transition from the Old-Avestan calendar to the Young-Avestan Calendar occurred on March 21st, 503 BC. This "Young-Avestan calendar consisted of 12 months, each of 30 days, except the eighth month which was 35 days." ¹ Although Hartner's research provides historical evidence that the 12 month, 365- day calendar was in use in Babylon by this time, it does not prove that this was the first time it was used in history. One purpose of this Biblical study is to provide some strong evidence that the astronomer-priests of Sumer-Babylon were not the originators of this innovation in ancient timekeeping, but that in fact it originated with the Biblical Patriarchs.

  As we take a detailed look at the record of Noah's flood in Genesis 7, the first thing that requires our attention is the septenary pattern of the temporal record. In verse 4, God tells Noah that the flood rains were going to begin in seven days... From the very start of the events of the Creation Week, God had ordered temporal things according to a week of seven days. There is no historical precedent for a 7-day week in history that cannot be traced back to what the Creator instituted in the Creation Week [Ex. 31:15-16]. Thus the Sabbatical year founded upon this standard [Levi. 25:8], has continued through all sacred and secular calendars that followed, not only in Israel, but around the world. In Noah's Calendar the recorded dates of the flood in Genesis 7-8 are all Sabbaths, with one exception which we will discuss presently.

   This is the first time the word "month" is used in the Bible, upon which the Lunar Month was founded in Israel. The first day of the New Moon was considered holy, and was associated with the weekly sabbath, and was usually first visible near sunset. This also explains why the day began at sunset in Hebrew timekeeping. The New Moon that began every month [Num. 28:11], especially in the holiest seventh month [Num. 29:1], were special days of sacrifice and offerings to the Lord, which were enshrined throughout the Old Testament Law in the Tabernacle and Temple of Israel. In keeping with this septenary pattern of God's temporal order, the seven sabbaths of years became 49 years, leading unto the 50th year of the Jubilee [Levi. 25:8-13]. As we have seen already the luni-solar year was harmonized according to the 50-year Jubilee via the phi ratio, with 618 lunations in each 50-year cycle. This harmony of the luni-solar year allowed a predictive capability pertaining to the eclipse cycle, which was terrifying to the ancient cultures based on divination, but not to the Biblical Patriarchs, for whom divination was forbidden by God. Instead these men of God reaped the benefits of honoring the Creator for His Handiwork, and enjoyed the precision by which He set the celestial orbs in their paths, as a witness to His glory. It should be noted that man has continued to struggle with this coordination of the Solar and Lunar Cycles throughout the rest of the history of human timekeeping, and it remains a problem even into modern times. Due to the evolutionary bias in modern science, most researchers have not been willing to give the Creator His due when it comes to recognizing His Intelligent Design of these elements of Creation, along with the ordinances of Heaven that rule on Earth. Their preference has been to choose to continue chasing their theoretical tails in the scientific and social circles that they frequent, so they can take credit for their scientific "discoveries," and keep those reseach dollars flowing. As has been documented in Ben Stien's recent film "Expelled," any researcher or educator who even mentions the words Intelligent Design has been blackballed by the evolutionary thought police, and many times lost their tenure and professional teaching positions as a result. This is the same social environment, influenced by athieism that has prohibited God from being mentioned in the classroom, and called into question the very idea of  American politicians opening their deliberations with prayer.      
  It has always been a recognition and honoring of the Creator that provided the impetus of the Natural Law approach to Astronomy, whose influence was key in the development of a predictive mathematical Astronomy that far exceeds any Astrology carried out by the ancient heathen idolators. Their divination only served to degrade the original truth of the Astronomy of the Biblical Patriarchs, which accounts for the roots of the world monomyth. For additional information and further evidence of this corruption based on Astrology, please refer to our  study on Biblical Astronomy vs. Astrology, including the section on  "The Corrupted Constellations," which will give specific cases where the astrological practices of divination changed the original meaning the Creator attached to specific star pictures. [Ps. 147:4]
   We should also take note that the specific calendar days marked in the Biblical record of the flood, were later enshrined as holy days in the Old Testament Law. The months of the year were designated by number, 3 of them in this record [2nd, Gen. 7:11, 7th, Gen. 8:4, 10th, Gen. 8:5]. Most of the other numbered months are named in the Penteteuch, which confirms that Noah was working with the same Mazzaroth Job was; an entire zodiac of 12, 30-day months, as implied in the 360 degrees of the circle linked to the 360 days of this calendar. These twelve months were not named in Israel until after the Babylonian captivity, centuries later. This tropical zodiac also incorporates a practical knowledge of the pi ratio at work in Noah's calendar, long before it was ever considered in ancient Astrology or celestial science. More importantly, it gives us a decisive glimpse of the mathematical sophistication inherent in this Calendar of the Biblical Patriarchs, without doubt revealed by God, not motivated by divination, but the Revelatory Astronomy disclosed to these ancient Patriarchs, long prior to the development of any celestial science in ancient Mesopotamia. The origins of the mathematical standards of a Sexegesimal place-value notation are also evident in this system revealed by the Creator, based on the dual solar year of both its annual and precessional cycles. The great cycle of the precession of the equinoxes framed by the 20-year Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction cycle, provides a window on this Sexegesimal Rhythm of precession, that was the basis of every major celestial calendar of the ancient world. The 12 months of 30-days in the 360 day-year of Noah's Calendar, all multiples of 60, provide values where each degree of time was equal to 1/360 of a day, or 4 minutes. This gives us the 60 second-minute, the 60-minute-hour, and the (6 x 60) 360-degree circle, all of which we still use in the modern world. This place-value notation system afforded all kinds of mathematical calculations from algebra to linear and quadratic equations, which Otto Neugebauer says: "became the foundation of a theoretical Astronomy of mathematical character,"² the ancestor of modern scientific Astronomy.

   According to the calendar of 12 months with 30 days each, utilized by Noah, this 150 day period consisted of 5 months. This is established in Gen. 8:3b, which states: "and after the end of the one hundred and fifty days the waters were abated." If we add these 5 months to the second month mentioned in 7:11, we come to the seventh month.

   From the 17th day of the 2nd month, to the 17th of the 7th month is exactly 5 months, in the 12 month, 30-day calendar. The Hebrew word for the "tops" of the mountains in verse 5: "rosh" [H7218]² in the context of Noah's calendar, is also rendered "Dog-star" in Job 38:13 and 15, in reference to the star Sirius, in The Revised English Bible.³ The ancients many times used the mountain ranges set against their horizon, as a reference point to orient themselves regarding the seasonal positions of the stars, Sun and Moon in their cycles. Archaeo-Astronomy notes a rich history of this practice in ancient cultures of the world and this could be very early evidence, perhaps even of the origins of this practice with the Biblical Patriarchs. This would also have associated the only star that provides a 365.25-day calendar, that also happens to be the brightest star in the heavens, with the highest mountain peaks where the Ark came to rest. If this is evidence of Noah's wisdom regarding the recognition of the Sirius or Sothic Calendar as it became known in ancient Egypt, it gives us an initial glimpse that the Biblical Patriarchs kept both of these calendars at the same time, as part of their harmonized luni-solar year. This also agrees with the Creator's purpose for the celestial lights stated in Genesis 1:14-17, to shed light upon the earth, in relation to the timekeeping of weeks, days and years. The luni-solar harmony based on the phi ratio [1.618...] which contains 618 lunations in every 50-year Jubilee cycle, exhibits the divine signature of the Creator's handiwork, as the "Source of life" throughout all levels of His Creation. This is why we also find the phi ratio or the divine proportion, so ubiquitously in all levels of the Kingdoms of Life in Nature. The phi ratio is the master pattern of all growth life on earth, as various life forms progress through succeeding geometric stages of life development.  
  This is God's way of illustrating His Intelligent Design of Creation. We find common elements of this temporal harmony in the 50-year Jubilee, preserved in the Old Testament Law, coinciding with the 50-year cycle of "Sirius A" with "Sirius B,," the White Dwarf companion of the Dog-star. The beauty and precision of the original pattern of the Creator's divine design of the heavens was clearly corrupted in Babylonian Astrology, witnessed in how the Babylonians later employed with their partial zodiac of normal stars, with elements of their sidereal year. Their normal stars were a group of 31 stars that appear in early cuneiform texts as reference points for planetary positions in Babylonian divinatory Astrology. Added to what we have found here in Genesis 8:5, in reference to the middle-east's highest mountain peaks, rosh [H7218] also occurs in the Biblical context of the summit of the ziggurat or Tower of Babel [Gen. 11:4], and the "cheif cornerstone" [Ps. 118:22, Eph. 2:20].
   The blueprint of Noah's 360-day calendar was carried forward with the builders of the Tower of Babel, not in the original sense of spreading the message of mankind's Coming Redeemer, written in the celestial gospel, but in an idolatrous sense which began to mix in their idolatrous practices of Astrology with the original Astronomy of these Patriarchs, not honoring the true God. This is a major reason that they incurred God's judgement of the confusion of tongues at Babel, because this early attempt at a one-world government motivated by Nimrod, outside of Godly standards and opposed to Godly purposes, just had too much of an advantage going for it. Thus God took action to prevent it. You would think these people would learn that ultimately, it does not pay to oppose the Creator and His divine purpose, it only shows the extent to which "the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not," [II Cor. 4:4]. Still, we find that many aspects of the original truth in the celestial gospel, were carried forward in a mathematical and geometric context, found in these Babylonian, Mexican and Egyptian temple-towers or "step pyramids," like the one found at Saqqara in ancient Egypt, built according to a septenary pattern. Below is an example of the Mayan Pyramids, like Quetzalcoatl's Pyramid, that incorporated a model regulated on the dimensions of the Earth, even as the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. 



   According to H.G. Wood: "the ziggurat of Jupiter Belus at Babylon had an ideal basis in the number 360. He describes a 7-staged pyramid in which each of the six upper stages is 360 inches shorter than the one next below it: the base side was 3,600 inches, and the total height of the structure was 3,600 inches. Wood therefore concludes that: the entire system of ancient Babylonian metrology appears to have been derived from 360 x 360 x 100 or, 12,960,000."⁴

   This numerical total (12,960,000) happens to be half the length of solar years in the precession of the equinoxes showing the precessional basis of timekeeping as an ancient temporal standard related to Noah's calendar. This perfect template of the cosmic order is based on the beauty of the precessional pattern, as seen in the sun’s trajectory through it’s annual course, where it "dwells" in each of the 12 houses of the zodiac for one month. The Sun moves in its circuit at a rate of 12 miles per second or 43,200 miles per hour (1/3 of 1,296,000) carrying its train of planets in our solar system, and shedding its light upon the earth within the boundary lines of the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn. As the Sun illuminates the earth for twelve hours each day; (43,200 seconds), and since there are 86,400 seconds in each 24-hour day, we find the earth moving through 1,296,000 seconds of arc every 24 hours. It is also interesting to note that the diameter of the sun is 86,400 miles, thus the time it takes for the sun’s light to cover the space of the earth’s surface relates to it’s own diameter. We can find the consistency of this divine rule of light, or the Creator’s DNA, at every level of the temporal and physical order, marking & dividing the seasons, days and years [Gen. 1:14-18]. Also, this shows that the builders of the Great Pyramid were intimately aware of this divine standard, since they modeled the earth’s northern hemisphere on a [1/43,200] scale, upon which the Pyramid represents the exact dimensions of the Earth, long before they were rediscovered by modern science. When we divide the sun’s orbital speed of 43,200 mph, by the 12 houses of the ecliptic, we get 3600, or the number of arc-minutes in a solar day. This matches the 36 decans of the zodiac’s 360 degrees, the same celestial and numeric standard manifested at increasing powers of 10, showing the Creator's signature of Symmetry throughout His Creation. The sun’s orbital speed; of 43,200 mph, is also 10% of half of its circumference in miles (864,000 miles or 2/3 of 12,960,000). This is undeniably the signature of the divine Hand of the Creator, or the Great Geometer as the Pythagoreans called Him, exhibiting the dominion of His divine measure of Light, His own essence ruling over all kingdoms of terrestrial and temporal life. [John 1:3-4]

   These mathematical principles survived in the Astronomy of ancient Mesopotamia which formed the basis of their advanced practices in celestial science, but with the adulteration of their practices in Astrology over time, they wandered further away from their true origins. As the floodwaters continued to abate so that the peaks or tops of the mountains were visible, on the first day of the tenth month, this according to Bullinger, was the only recorded flood date that is not a sabbath.
  In ancient Egypt where the Sothic Calendar was based on the star Sirius, coordinated the first day of the sidereal year in harmony with the first day of the lunar year and the New Years Day of the solar year, that also marked the annual flooding of the Nile. But due to the 365-day Egyptian Civil Year losing a day every 4 years (365 x 4=1460 days) against the 365.25-day Sirius calendar (1461 days), it actually took 1461 years for the Egyptian Civil Year to return in synch with the Sirius cycle's realignment on New Year's Day. Here we can see a year-day relation between the 1461 days of the Sirius calendar and the 1461 years it took the Egyptian civil calendar to realign with Sirius on New Year's Day. There are Biblical prophecy precedents for this day-year correspondence [Num. 14:34, Ezek. 4:4-6] which relate directly to the 40-year cycle, which itself contains 14,610 days, (1461 x 10). We have pointed out the significance of this 40-year generational cycle previously relating to Noah's period in building the Ark (40 x 3 = 120) along with the correlations to Moses leading the Children of Israel through the wilderness for 40 years, during the third 40 year segment of his own life of 120 years. We have also recognized the relation of this 120-year period (120 x 3 = 360) to Noah's Calendar. Again, this is evidence of the Creator's consistent pattern of symmetrical Intelligent Design throughout multiple levels of Creation, that collectively become an undeniable and overwhelming cascade of truth, exhibiting His Divine Omniscience. This is far beyond man's ability to fully comprehend, we can only point to its perfection and give honor and glory where its due, to the Only One capable of putting it All together-The Almighty God.

  There were similar calendrical observances in ancient Babylon. Lets take time to closely inspect one of these rituals in ancient Babylon and note some of the important parallels between the mythology of ancient Egypt and Babylon, and the Biblical record. The creation myth in ancient Babylon was called the Enuma elish. It records the victory of their god Marduk, over the chaos of the underworld and his subsequent ordering of the Babylonian cosmos. Their ritual for the New Year occurred at the equinox either in the spring or the fall. This ceremony at the entering of the New Year was called akitu and it lasted 11 days, which is interesting in light of the fact that there is an 11-day gap between their 354-day lunar year and the 365-day solar year, which would have harmonized the luni-solar cycle, ushering the New Year. This 11-day gap expanded to 7 months over the 19-year lunar saros, and 235 full moons of the Metonic Cycle. According to E.C. Krupp:

"In the first three days of the ceremony, Marduk was symbolically confined in what texts call 'the Mountain.' For three days Marduk remains in the underworld, a realm of chaos and the dead. The term "Mountain" also refers to the tall, multi-leveled temple-towers (or ziggurats) the Mesopotamians built of clay bricks on the flat flood plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is possible that this point in the ceremony was connected in some way with the ziggurat. On the Fourth day of the akitu, the Enuma elish was repeated, and this activity, accompanied perhaps by others, brought Marduk back to life and allowed him to emerge from the Mountain, or the underworld...Marduk's emergence from the mountain at the equinox and New Year, in any case, represents the creation of the world order. Krupp continues his statment: "By staging this myth in ritual terms at the turning point of the seasons and the year, the Babylonians recognized their cyclic nature of the world. The end of each year is a reentry into the time before the creation of the world. The previous world must break down before it is refabricated, and that is why Marduk is imprisoned and slain in the Mountain."⁵  [emphasis mine]

   This scenario is most likely recalled in a cylinder seal from the Akkadian period [2360-2180 BC.] shown below. Here the Babylonian sun-god Shemesh (with a saw in his hand)appears at dawn, marked between the mountain peaks on the horizon.⁶ The idea of this equinox sunrise at New Years is conveyed by the two-faced figure at the far right, an early representation of the Roman god Janus, whose two faces facing in opposite directions, symbolize one view of the going out of the year just passed, while the other face greets the coming New Year. The ancient Chaldeans actually attribute their astronomical knowledge to Noah, who was also known by the name Janus/Oannes, as the inventor of Astronomy. In these traditions Noah became a "two faced" diety since he could look both backwards and forwards via his astronomical expertise, and the truth that he and his family were the only ones who lived on the other side of the great flood.. This depicts how the Biblical Patriarchs themselves were diefied by the ancient heathen cultures of the middle east because Janus, as a corrupted form of Noah, was seen as a solar diety, like Shemesh. The Chaldean "Epic of Gilgamesh" is only one example of this traditional corruption, as witnessed in the Akkadian cylinder seal below. 
 



    

   The parallels of this myth in its agreement with what Christ endured are too close to be explained away as coincidence, especially since Noah was also seen as a forerunner of Christ our Savior. The Mythographers have just got the order reversed. They say that the myths came before the story as it is recorded in the New Testament, which is true, but their myths do not precede the witness of the stars that predate written human language, when the Creator recorded His celestial gospel, telling of the coming redeemer, on the fourth day of the Creation Week. The three days that Marduk spent in the realm of the dead, within the World-Mountain, represent the seven-leveled ziggurat rising above the chaotic flooded plains of the fertile crescent, mirroring the three days and three nights that Jesus spent in the heart of the earth [Matt. 12:40]. This fulfilled the legal definition of death, in the Law of the Old Testament, part of Jesus work as the passover lamb to fulfill every jot and tittle of the Old Covenant Law, which no other man could ever do, because Jesus is the only one qualified to die for the sins of humanity as a perfect sacrifice, a lamb of the first year, without spot or blemish. Jesus also conquered death when he was brought back from the dead, arising at the start of the fourth day. Jesus' resurrection most certainly ushered in a New World, throwing down and refabricating Satan's fallen kosmos, and world order of darkness which was handed over to him when Adam fell. It is noteworthy that Jesus was born on Tishri 1 of 3 BC, our September 11th, the equivalent of New Years Day on Israel's calendar, the anniversary of Creation, and he was crucified during the Passover on our April 28th, 28 AD. Both these dates are very near the equinox, his birth in the fall month of Tishri, the seventh and holiest month on the calendar of Israel, and his sacrifice in the spring month of Nisan.
   The idea that the end of each year is a reentry into the time before the creation of the world, mirrors the disruption of the First Heavens & Earth that resulted from Lucifer's revolt and original sin, which left that world destroyed by the floods of II Pet. 3:6, aligning with the Gen. 1:2 record. This cosmology has been fully elucidated in our article on The Creator's Temporal Order, under the The Intelligent Designer section of our Try-God website. This period of chaotic floods is common to both Egyptian and Babylonian myths, not to mention many others, and is characterized by the world-mountain that rises above the chaos of the flood-waters, which threw time into disorder. It was the corruption of our Hero's journey written in the stars, but recast in the Astrology of the world monomyth of these ancient heathens, that diluted the original truth with foreign admixtures. Yet for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the truth cannot be covered, as we find it still shining through these ancient idolatrous veneers. The parallels of this record along with what we have already seen regarding the New Year observances in ancient Egypt, provide strong support for our thesis, that the major elements originally preserved in the celestial narrative of the promised coming redeemer, Jesus Christ, are mirrored in important aspects of these ancient myths. This explains why these tenets of the world monomyth, as Joseph Campbell called it, are so consistent the world over, in cultures separated in time and space. The Hero's journey, which is the master theme of all good stories, the record of the struggle of the protagonist against the antagonist, was first embodied in the story of the ages, written in the stars, and preserved as an archetypal memory at the deepest foundations of human history. Man has historically linked these observances with his temporal conception and calendrical practices, as a key aspect of his cultural world order, or the cosmology of his day. Thus our recognition of the tenets of Noah's calendar provide great keys to our understanding of the cosmology of the Biblical Patriarchs, which Noah preserved after the flood.

Genesis 8:13-14
And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

   In verse 13 above, "the first month, the first day of the month" is not only recognized here for the drying of the flood waters, but also coincides with the birth of Christ on Tishri 1, millennia later in  3 BC, New Years Day in Israel, also known as Rosh Hashannah, the anniversary of Creation, in Hebrew tradition. Tishri became the 7th month after the change that the Lord directed Moses to undertake in the marking of the Passover [Exod. 12:2,14ff], fulfilled by Jesus, the lamb of God. This denotes a change in the calendar of the Biblical Patriarchs Administration, preserved under Noah, transitioning to the Old Testament Law Administration under Moses, and it also officially recognizes the start of the Jubilee cycle in Israel [Levi. 25:8]. Once Jesus fulfilled every "jot and tittle" of the Mosaic Law, the Law ended and we are no longer under its myriad dictates, which were too heavy a burden for mortal man to bear. Thus we are commanded by the Apostle Paul in Colossians to:

   A significant aspect of our studies on Biblical Astronomy pertains to how the Astronomy of the Biblical Patriarchs embodies the shadow of things to come, as they are fulfilled in the Body of Christ, and future spiritual administrations. This provides us a good example of adhering to the principles of Biblical interpretation, allowing God's Word to speak for itself. One of these is that we "Identify to Whom a Scripture is addressed and to be aware of the administration in which or about which they were written." Those who believe that the entire Word of God is addressed to everyone throughout history, without respect to the different groups of people the Bible has distinguished [I Cor. 10:32], has caused great confusion & contradiction in rightly dividing God's Word [II Tim. 2:15]. The 7 Biblical Administrations are delineated in our Try-God Timeline for reference. A Biblical Administration is "a period of time in God's historical and spiritual timetable during which God deals with man in a particular way. It is governed by principles or spiritual truths that may be unique unto itself. In rightly dividing the Word of Truth, we must understand that these Biblical Administrations have to remain within the boundaries or confines in which God has placed them with His Word. The rules of life change in these various time periods, so we must see each administration within its distinct context. When we investigate 'to whom' a particular Scripture is addressed, we must also see which Biblical administration governs the rules." ⁷
 
   Since Christ is the end of the Law, we are no longer subject to the dictates of Old Testament Law, but we live by the higher Law of the Love of God, upon which "hang all the law and commandments." Yet the accuracy of these ordinances of heaven continue to set the standard for truth in the important area of calendars and timekeeping that we continue to apply in modern times according to the perpetual Covenant of Day and Night [Jer. 33:20 -22]. This is one trait of a "mandate from heaven," that it's truth can remain applicable beyond the scope of its original Biblical Administration. As we summarize this eighth chapter of Genesis and the record of Noah's Flood, verse 22 certainly is worthy of our attention, as an ordinance of heaven that has remained a constant after the flood.

Genesis 8:22
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

   This verse is an important aspect of God's "Rainbow Covenant" with Noah, that the seasons, the productivity of the earth's cycles of plant life, and the Covenant of day and night [Jer. 31:35-37], would continue in the Second Heavens & Earth. In astronomical terms this a guarantee from the Heavenly Father that the Earth's obliquity cycle would remain intact. To recall the significance of the obliquity cycle, we should remember that the sun at the summer Solstice is vertical; 90 degrees over-head to one in the Southern Hemisphere, on the Tropic of Capricorn. At the same time, for those in the Northern Hemisphere on the Tropic of Cancer one would witness the Sun’s high point at only 43 degrees above the horizon. The tropics exist because the earth does not revolve vertically on it’s axis relating to its orbit around the sun. The axis is removed from vertical by an angle presently measuring 23 degrees and 27 minutes, which is formally known as the obliquity of the ecliptic, or the cycle of obliquity, relating to this varying degree of the earth’s axis tilt. This angle of the ecliptic not only governs the northern and southern limits of the sunrise on the earth’s horizon, witnessed on the winter and summer Solstice, but it also determines the locations of the tropical boundaries, 23 degrees & 27 minutes north and south of the Equator. The obliquity cycle actually refers to the range of just under 2.5 degrees, in which the earth’s axis tilt varies, over an approximate 41,000-year-year period. This cycle of variation related to the earth's obliquity is actually part of the pattern of the Sexegesimal symphony of mathematical harmony that rules the celestial and terrestrial order, based on the precession of the equinoxes. Thus all the doomsayers who have predicted that the earth would topple off its axis of current polar balance, are in direct opposition to the Creator's promise here in Genesis 8:22. It is the tilt of the Earth's axis currently at 23 degrees, 27 minutes from true north, along with the revolution and rotation of our planet around the sun that gives us our four seasons, and the 24 hour cycle of day and night, and sets the boundaries of the tropics. This 24 hour day-night cycle, based on God's Covenant of Day and Night, is also known as an anthropic constant because if the days were even slightly longer or shorter, the temperature fluctuations between night and day would be too extreme to support life on earth. Jeremiah speaks specifically to this truth:

Jeremiah 33:25-26
Thus saith the Lord, If My covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; 26 Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for I will cause their captivity to return and have mercy on them. 

  This shows a direct relationship between the Godly designed anthropic constants of Creation that make life possible on earth, and the Covenant Promises of the Creator to mankind, here regarding the seed of Jacob and David carried forward by Noah's family. God is the One Who set in stone, the conditions and statutes that make life possible on earth, preserved and determined according to His purposes, This provides more direct evidence of the Creator's Intelligent Design in Creation, exhibited as an outcome of His relationship with Man.  

   In summary, all 3 major calendars recorded in Genesis 1:14-17 are applied practically by Noah, in consummate fashion as he preserved them after the flood. Once the heathen cultures on the otherside of the great flood initiated their corrupting astrological influences, the original unified calendar was lost, surviving only in pieces with different world cultures. The true vestiges of the "Covenant of day and night" remain in effect, and will continue according to the Creator's Covenant with Noah, until the New Order of the "Third Heaven" and the New Jerusalem supplants our current age-time. We can rest in the Godly guarantee of His protection and divine promise, until that great day when the current world kingdom is put down, with all its disease, death, global warming hype and destruction, and we will enjoy the eternal bliss God has promised us with in King of Kings-Jesus Christ!

Footnotes

1. Time in History, G.J. Whitrow, p. 36
2. Exact Sciences in Antiquity, Otto Neugebauer
3. Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon on #H7218
4. Revised English Bible on Job 38:12-15.
5. Ancient Metrology, H.G. Wood 
6. Mysteries of the Ancient Skies, E.C. Krupp
7. IBID, Picture Credit
8. Living in God's Power, Christian Family Fellowship Ministry