This book uses terms from four fields — biblical scholarship, rabbinic literature, calendrical science and astronomy — and not every reader is at home in all four. This glossary gives a short, workable description of every load-bearing term; it does not replace the explanation in the chapters, but makes it easier to follow. At the close, the whole case stands in a single image.
H.1 · Glossary
Aviv — the ripening stage of the barley at which the crop stands "in the ear"; the biblical condition (Exodus 13:4; Deuteronomy 16:1) that decides whether the spring month may be called NisanNisanFirst month of the Hebrew religious calendar (early spring). Pesach falls on 14 Nisan; the Crucifixion fell on 14 Nisan in AD 31 (weighed). or whether an intercalary month must be added. See omer, intercalary month.
Base rate — how often a "hit" would occur even without the supposed cause. Without a base rate a hit says nothing: a Wednesday 14 Nisan falls twice in 11 in the window AD 26–36 — a measured frequency of 0.18, conservatively 3/11, against a chance level of 1/7 ≈ 0.14 (ch. 7, appendix A), so the strength of the case lies not in the Wednesday itself but in its crossing with the measured day-axis.
CALCULATED / DOCUMENTED / CONSTRUED — the three marks of the book. Calculated: you can recompute it yourself. Documented: seen in the primary source, with its location. Construed: a reading or a choice, which weighs as much as one grants it. The marks may never blur into one another (ch. 2).
Conjunction (astronomical new moon) — the moment at which moon and sun stand at the same ecliptic longitude; the moon is then invisible. The first visible crescent follows roughly a day and a half later. Not to be confused with the "new moon" of the observational calendar, which is precisely that first crescent.
Crescent (first lunar crescent) — the narrow, young lunar crescent that first becomes visible to the naked eye after the conjunction; its first appearance opens 1 Nisan. Its visibility can be recomputed with Yallop's criterion (appendix C).
Double construction — the expression "three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:40, after Jonah 1:17), which names the nights separately. The book argues (ch. 3, appendix B) that it is a measure (full days) and never counts inclusively within the Hebrew and Aramaic corpus searched — unlike the bare ordinal "on the third day". The qualification belongs with it: there is one late Latin exception — Augustine, in the fourth century, does count it inclusively — but that is an interpreter arguing the point, not a source that uses the idiom so. Appendix B §B.3c weighs him in full.
Equinox (spring) — the moment at which the sun crosses the celestial equator northwards (around 22–23 March, Julian, in the first century). Several calendar rules bind Nisan to the equinox; which binding applied is the narrowest link (ch. 8).
Erev Pesach — the eve of, and the day before, the Passover: the fourteenth of Nisan, on which the Passover lambs were slaughtered in the temple. The book reads this as the day of death (ch. 5).
High sabbath / festival sabbath — an annual day of rest that falls on a festival date (here 15 Nisan), distinct from the weekly sabbath. The two-sabbaths reading (ch. 4) distinguishes the festival sabbath (Thursday 26 April) from the weekly sabbath (Saturday 28 April).
Inclusive reckoning — the Jewish custom of counting a day already begun as a whole one: "on the third day" can then span Friday→Sunday. The rule is documented for the ordinal (Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 9:3, the onah rule), but — so Chapter 3 argues — not for the double construction.
Intercalary month (Adar II) — see intercalation.
Intercalation — the insertion of a thirteenth month (Adar II) to keep the lunar year in step with the solar year. An intercalated AD 31 shifts Nisan into April and 14 Nisan onto Wednesday 25 April; whether AD 31 was in fact intercalated is not documented (appendices D and E).
Lunation — one complete lunar cycle from conjunction to conjunction (≈ 29.5 days). The "March moon" or "April moon" is the lunation whose crescent opens Nisan.
Omer — the first sheaf of the barley, waved in the temple on the day after the sabbath (Leviticus 23:10–11): by the best-attested practice 16 Nisan, by the letter the day after the weekly sabbath (ch. 4); its ripeness is the aviv test. It could, if need be, be fetched from further afield (m. Menachot 10:2) — a weakening of the aviv argument (appendix E).
Onah — "a part of the unit of time counts as the whole": the rabbinic rule behind inclusive reckoning.
Ordinal "on the third day" (τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ) — the supple form of the resurrection predictions, open to inclusive reckoning; to be distinguished from the double construction (ch. 3).
Paraskeuê (παρασκευή) — "preparation"; the technical name for the day before the sabbath, hence the Friday, but originally the day of preparation before any day of rest. Mark glosses it as prosabbaton, "fore-sabbath" (Mark 15:42). The hinge of Chapter 6: how paraskeuê came to mean "Friday".
Parker & Dubberstein — the standard work Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.–A.D. 45, which reconstructs the Babylonian lunar calendar (with its fixed 19-year intercalation cycle) for these centuries. The Babylonian rule — 1 Nisanu after the equinox — has been recomputed against its anchor (appendix C).
Seder — the ritual Passover meal on the evening of 15 Nisan; the "seder problem" (ch. 5) is the tension between the Synoptics (Jesus ate a Passover) and John (the leaders had not yet eaten it).
70 weeks — the prophecy of Daniel 9:24–27; 457 BC + 483 years to the Anointed One (the baptism, AD 27). The book brings it in firewalled, after the weighing, as a construed second witness (ch. 17).
Sign (Hebrew ot, אוֹת; Greek sêmeion, σημεῖον) — a testable mark that God sets down so that it can later be recognised and checked (Deuteronomy 18:22). Exact fulfilment is, by its very nature, essential; on this hangs Chapter 3.
Tequfah — the Hebrew word for the equinox or solstice point; in the calendar debate, the boundary to which Nisan is bound.
Tishri reckoning — the counting of regnal years from autumn (TishriTishriThe seventh month of the Jewish ecclesiastical calendar but the first month of the civil calendar, corresponding to September-October. Tishri 1 is the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah); Tishri 10 is the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur); Tishri 15-21 is the Feast of Tabernacles. The seventieth week opens on Tishri 1, 2027 in the chronology proposed in this book. Treated throughout, with technical deta) to autumn, as the Judaean scribes did; decisive for the 457 line (ch. 17) and for the ministry window (ch. 9). As against Nisan reckoning (spring to spring).
Zone A / q (Yallop) — the quantity q measures how well a young crescent can be seen; zone A means "easily visible to the naked eye". The crescent of 11 April AD 31 falls well within zone A (appendix C).
H.2 · The whole case in one image
The image below sets the two axes of the book and their crossing in a single timeline: the day-axis (the sign, the two sabbaths) and the year-axis (the calendar, the ministry), which touch at exactly one point — Wednesday 25 April of the year 31. It is a summary, not proof; every element is grounded and marked in the chapter where it belongs.
The conceptual timeline: the day-axis and the year-axis, crossing on Wednesday 25 April AD 31.
This book uses terms from four fields — biblical scholarship, rabbinic literature, calendrical science and astronomy — and not every reader is at home in all four. This glossary gives a short, workable description of every load-bearing term; it does not replace the explanation in the chapters, but makes it easier to follow. At the close, the whole case stands in a single image.
H.1 · Glossary
Aviv — the ripening stage of the barley at which the crop stands "in the ear"; the biblical condition (Exodus 13:4; Deuteronomy 16:1) that decides whether the spring month may be called NisanNisanFirst month of the Hebrew religious calendar (early spring). Pesach falls on 14 Nisan; the Crucifixion fell on 14 Nisan in AD 31 (weighed). or whether an intercalary month must be added. See omer, intercalary month.
Base rate — how often a "hit" would occur even without the supposed cause. Without a base rate a hit says nothing: a Wednesday 14 Nisan falls twice in 11 in the window AD 26–36 — a measured frequency of 0.18, conservatively 3/11, against a chance level of 1/7 ≈ 0.14 (ch. 7, appendix A), so the strength of the case lies not in the Wednesday itself but in its crossing with the measured day-axis.
CALCULATED / DOCUMENTED / CONSTRUED — the three marks of the book. Calculated: you can recompute it yourself. Documented: seen in the primary source, with its location. Construed: a reading or a choice, which weighs as much as one grants it. The marks may never blur into one another (ch. 2).
Conjunction (astronomical new moon) — the moment at which moon and sun stand at the same ecliptic longitude; the moon is then invisible. The first visible crescent follows roughly a day and a half later. Not to be confused with the "new moon" of the observational calendar, which is precisely that first crescent.
Crescent (first lunar crescent) — the narrow, young lunar crescent that first becomes visible to the naked eye after the conjunction; its first appearance opens 1 Nisan. Its visibility can be recomputed with Yallop's criterion (appendix C).
Double construction — the expression "three days and three nights" (Matthew 12:40, after Jonah 1:17), which names the nights separately. The book argues (ch. 3, appendix B) that it is a measure (full days) and never counts inclusively within the Hebrew and Aramaic corpus searched — unlike the bare ordinal "on the third day". The qualification belongs with it: there is one late Latin exception — Augustine, in the fourth century, does count it inclusively — but that is an interpreter arguing the point, not a source that uses the idiom so. Appendix B §B.3c weighs him in full.
Equinox (spring) — the moment at which the sun crosses the celestial equator northwards (around 22–23 March, Julian, in the first century). Several calendar rules bind Nisan to the equinox; which binding applied is the narrowest link (ch. 8).
Erev Pesach — the eve of, and the day before, the Passover: the fourteenth of Nisan, on which the Passover lambs were slaughtered in the temple. The book reads this as the day of death (ch. 5).
High sabbath / festival sabbath — an annual day of rest that falls on a festival date (here 15 Nisan), distinct from the weekly sabbath. The two-sabbaths reading (ch. 4) distinguishes the festival sabbath (Thursday 26 April) from the weekly sabbath (Saturday 28 April).
Inclusive reckoning — the Jewish custom of counting a day already begun as a whole one: "on the third day" can then span Friday→Sunday. The rule is documented for the ordinal (Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 9:3, the onah rule), but — so Chapter 3 argues — not for the double construction.
Intercalary month (Adar II) — see intercalation.
Intercalation — the insertion of a thirteenth month (Adar II) to keep the lunar year in step with the solar year. An intercalated AD 31 shifts Nisan into April and 14 Nisan onto Wednesday 25 April; whether AD 31 was in fact intercalated is not documented (appendices D and E).
Lunation — one complete lunar cycle from conjunction to conjunction (≈ 29.5 days). The "March moon" or "April moon" is the lunation whose crescent opens Nisan.
Omer — the first sheaf of the barley, waved in the temple on the day after the sabbath (Leviticus 23:10–11): by the best-attested practice 16 Nisan, by the letter the day after the weekly sabbath (ch. 4); its ripeness is the aviv test. It could, if need be, be fetched from further afield (m. Menachot 10:2) — a weakening of the aviv argument (appendix E).
Onah — "a part of the unit of time counts as the whole": the rabbinic rule behind inclusive reckoning.
Ordinal "on the third day" (τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ) — the supple form of the resurrection predictions, open to inclusive reckoning; to be distinguished from the double construction (ch. 3).
Paraskeuê (παρασκευή) — "preparation"; the technical name for the day before the sabbath, hence the Friday, but originally the day of preparation before any day of rest. Mark glosses it as prosabbaton, "fore-sabbath" (Mark 15:42). The hinge of Chapter 6: how paraskeuê came to mean "Friday".
Parker & Dubberstein — the standard work Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.–A.D. 45, which reconstructs the Babylonian lunar calendar (with its fixed 19-year intercalation cycle) for these centuries. The Babylonian rule — 1 Nisanu after the equinox — has been recomputed against its anchor (appendix C).
Seder — the ritual Passover meal on the evening of 15 Nisan; the "seder problem" (ch. 5) is the tension between the Synoptics (Jesus ate a Passover) and John (the leaders had not yet eaten it).
70 weeks — the prophecy of Daniel 9:24–27; 457 BC + 483 years to the Anointed One (the baptism, AD 27). The book brings it in firewalled, after the weighing, as a construed second witness (ch. 17).
Sign (Hebrew ot, אוֹת; Greek sêmeion, σημεῖον) — a testable mark that God sets down so that it can later be recognised and checked (Deuteronomy 18:22). Exact fulfilment is, by its very nature, essential; on this hangs Chapter 3.
Tequfah — the Hebrew word for the equinox or solstice point; in the calendar debate, the boundary to which Nisan is bound.
Tishri reckoning — the counting of regnal years from autumn (TishriTishriThe seventh month of the Jewish ecclesiastical calendar but the first month of the civil calendar, corresponding to September-October. Tishri 1 is the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah); Tishri 10 is the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur); Tishri 15-21 is the Feast of Tabernacles. The seventieth week opens on Tishri 1, 2027 in the chronology proposed in this book. Treated throughout, with technical deta) to autumn, as the Judaean scribes did; decisive for the 457 line (ch. 17) and for the ministry window (ch. 9). As against Nisan reckoning (spring to spring).
Zone A / q (Yallop) — the quantity q measures how well a young crescent can be seen; zone A means "easily visible to the naked eye". The crescent of 11 April AD 31 falls well within zone A (appendix C).
H.2 · The whole case in one image
The image below sets the two axes of the book and their crossing in a single timeline: the day-axis (the sign, the two sabbaths) and the year-axis (the calendar, the ministry), which touch at exactly one point — Wednesday 25 April of the year 31. It is a summary, not proof; every element is grounded and marked in the chapter where it belongs.