Apr 2, 2011 -- 5:08PM, Bezant wrote:

That makes no sense. Without the resurrection Christ is a failed prophet.

I saw my JW visitor today and of course he invited me to the April 17, which is not Good Friday or Easter Sunday, but it is

Palm Sunday.  And that's the day of the Triumphal Entry real serious day, can't be visiting that day at the KH.  Hope he comes back so I can tell him for sure I won't be going.

Dang that's a good song.  Crystal Lewis, The Beauty of the Cross.  On part 2 of the video. Adelphe, 2:39

When he mentioned it I mentioned Easter, and he had this blank look on his face like it was a Pagan holiday, and JW's don't do any holidays including Easter. 

Near the end of the video, in the top right a green box will come up, click on it to watch part 2 it's good too and has a GREAT song playing.

Apr 2, 2011 -- 2:59PM, Brainscramble wrote:

It looks like both the Jews and Christendom have got the dates wrong this year.  They are both late.  Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate the Lord's death on time, on Nisan 14.  We are inviting everyone in the world to memorialize this event with us, on Apr.17.

Crud, did we screw up the dates again? Man is God gonna be pissed, can't we do anything right for once? For as we all know it's not the action of celebration that counts, it's the right date and the right time!!! April 17th, gotta remember that... for Lord knows if I where to celebrate on the 16th God would just ignore it and all. Just need to keep reminding myself it's not Christs actions that mattered, it's the dates. It was never the birth of Christ that mattered at all, but the dates on the other hand...

How much figuring does this take?

Pardon this Jew for trying to help out.

Unlike the Roman/secular calendar, which is strictly solar, the Jewish calendar is a combination of a lunar and solar calendar. The days are governed by the sun, but the months follow the cycles of the moon. Each new moon is a new month of 29 to 30 days long.

The death and resurrection were always associated with Passover.   Passover is celebrated the 15^th of Nisan, Nisan being the first spring month and the 15^th coming at the full moon of that month.  Now the date of that day, although always the 15^th of Nisan on the Jewish lunar/solar calendar, varies during the month of March and April on the secular, strictly solar calendar. Since Passover varies, Easter also varied. There were groups in the first 400 years of the Church who celebrated Easter on Tues. or Thurs. or whenever it was 3 days after Passover and Passover varied on the Roman calendar from year to year. 

In 325CE at the Council of Nicaea, the Church established that Easter should be on the first Sunday of the first spring month after the full moon appeared, as the first one was purported to be. although it did take over 100 years for this tradition to spread throughout the Empire.

Easter is now completely independent of when Passover is ( that was the purpose of Nicaea, to further establish the Church’s independence from Judaism, not to have to ask the Jews when Passover was to schedule Easter), but it still depends on the cycles of the moon which don’t always coincide with the same day every year that is based on the sun.

 You will always know that Christmas is on the 25^th of the winter month, December, but you will always have to look up when Easter is. (BTW, you‘ll have to look up Pentecost also because it falls 50 days after Easter and therefore depends on Easter for its date.)

In the west, the complete rule is Easter Sunday is the first Sunday which occurs after the first full moon (or more accurately the  fourteenth day of the moon, which is not always an astronomical full moon) following the 21st of March,the earliest possible date of Easter is 22 March, the latest 25 April.

March 19/20/21 can be the astronomical vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, and the "vernal equinox" was the original concept, i.e. "the first Sunday which occurs after the first full moon, following the vernal equinox...The Church in the west later determined for ecclesiastic purposes, the vernal equinox should always be counted as 21 March for the sake of uniformity.

In the Eastern rite, which uses a Julian Calendar from 45 BCE and not the Gregorian calendar of 1582 CE that the west uses, Easter can vary from 4 April to 8 May.

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