Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary 

time  were distressed by famine and the want of necessaries, for this  happened to be a Sabbatic Year. 

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Then he describes the capture of Jerusalem in the autumn, on the fast day (the Day of Atonement), in Tishri. If 

the Sabbatical years at that time were according to the civil calendar, beginning and ending in autumn, then 

the Sabbatical year would have ended by the time Jerusalem was captured on Tishri 10. Yet, after the capture 

of Jerusalem, Josephus plainly states that the Sabbatical year was still going on:   in part by the Sabbatic 

Year, which was still going on, and forced the country to lie still uncultivated, since we are forbidden to sow 

the land in that year. 

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    This may be an example of a year where the Sabbatical year was counted from the spring, according to the 

sacred calendar. The Sabbatical year began in the spring, prior to the capture of Jerusalem, and was still going 

on after Herod captured the city, and did not end until the following spring. Josephus was a Jewish priest and 

would not have been likely to make a mistake about when the Sabbatical year ended. So, this mention of a 

Sabbatical year occurring before and after the month of Tishri is not likely to be a simple error or 

misunderstanding on the part of Josephus. 

    The food shortages in this Sabbatical year were not caused merely by the Sabbatical year, since the proper 

observance of the Sabbatical year should provide sufficient produce from the land. Rather, the famine was 

caused by the war, which had been disrupting agriculture during the 3 years of Herod's attack on Judea and 

Jerusalem. The inability to plant and harvest during the Sabbatical year made the situation more difficult, but 

was not the cause of the lack of food. 

    After Herod captured Jerusalem, he controlled who became high priest of the Jews. And he chose the 

Jewish high priests from a different group of men.  Herod was then made king by the Romans, but did no 

longer appoint high priests out of the family of Asamoneus; but made certain men to be so that were of no 

eminent families, but barely of those that were priests . 

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 This change in leadership among the Jews could 

easily have resulted in changes to policies set by the Jewish high priest, who had authority over decisions 

about the religious calendar. This is the most likely time for the Jewish high priest to have changed the start of 

the Sabbatical year from spring to autumn. The change in leadership could also have brought other changes to 

the calendar, such as a change to using the calculated date of the new moon, rather than the observation of the 

crescent new moon, to determine the start of each month (see chapter 17 for details). 

    I cannot be certain whether the change in the way Sabbatical years were counted occurred at this time or at 

some other time. However, based on the words of Sacred Scripture, the Sabbatical year clearly was counted 

from the month of Nisan at some point in the history of the Jews. 

    The assertion that there were changes in the Jewish calendar from time to time is not such an unusual idea. 

Certainly the ancient calendar of the Jews was determined by observation of the crescent new moon. But the 

modern calendar is determined by calculation of the astronomical new moon date. Changes have occurred to 

the Jewish calendar. Also, even the Rabbis cannot agree about which year is supposed to be the Jubilee year. 

Nor is there agreement on when the Jubilee years were kept in ancient times. 

    The above evidence provides substantial support for the idea that Sabbatical years were originally kept 

beginning in the spring, with the Jubilee year overlapping the 49th and 50th years. However, the practice of 

how the Sabbatical and Jubilee years were counted in later times was different. Sabbatical years in later 

practice were counted from Tishri in the autumn. And Jubilee years were most likely counted as the full year 

after the end of the Sabbatical year, so that there were two full civil calendar years when the Jews could neither 

plant nor harvest.

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Chronology of the Jewish Sabbatical Years 

    The Sabbatical years began to be counted from Tishri in the autumn, probably no later than the early part of 

Herod's reign over Jerusalem. This made the previous practice, whereby the Jubilee year overlapped the 7th 

and 8th years, impossible. So the Jubilee year became the same as the 8th year.  

    There are two prevalent theories about which years were Sabbatical years, one proposed by Ben Zion 

Wacholder, the other proposed by Benedict Zuckermann and Donald Blosser.

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 These two competing 

theories differ from one another by only one year. Wacholder has the Sabbatical years as one year later than 

Zuckermann/Blosser. Are either of these two theories correct? 

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