Oracles of Yah

New Moon or New Month?

Let me start with one new testament verse, Colossians 2:16.

Colossians 2:16 "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days"

Notice the word moon in the above verse. Let us take a look at the Greek from which it is translated.

G3561 Noumenia: Feminine of a compound of G3501 and G3376 (as noun by implication of G2250); the festival of new moon.

The above definition is directly from Strong's Greek Dictionary, but lets dig a bit deeper.

G3501 Anaireo: A primary word, including the comparative (second form); "new", that is, (of persons) youthful, or (of things) fresh; figuratively regenerate.

G3376 Men: A primary word; a month.

So in Colossians 2:16 we should read the following.

Colossians 2:16 "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new month, or of the sabbath days".

Colissians 2:16 is the only time that the word month is mistranslated moon. Notice the context. By the way, the Greek word for moon, selsne, is found nine times in the new testament. Each time it is translated moon.

G4582 Selsne: From selas meaning (brilliancy; probably akin to the alternate of G138, through the idea of attractiveness); the moon.

Month from G3376 is found twenty times in the new testament and each time it is translated month or months based on the context.

This goes along with one of my main complaints concerning scripture translation. Why are we not given the actual word found in the Greek? Some translators believe that they have the authority to decide what they think God wanted us to read in His scripture. I say let us see what it says and then make the determination based on what was really intended by the context. I very much like consistancy in translation. Colossians 2:16 should read new month!

I have found that the old testament was also mistranslated this same way although it is not as clear at first. The Hebrew word chodesh, Strong's H2320, is always translated month except when the verse it is found in has the word Sabbath or has some connection to a feast. In those instances it is translated moon. 1 Samuel 20:5 is a good example even though there is no mention of Sabbath.

Remember that the kings of Israel set up a schedule for those who were responsible for keeping the king and his servants supplied with food and necessities. They set up a 12 month schedule. Now it would be my suggestion that this feast was just associated with the beginning of this new monthly cycle and what we see occurring in 1 Samuel 20:5. If this were a lunar cycle then the king would periodically go hungry for 30 days as the lunar cycle periodically requires a 13th month in order to work.

There is a word for moon, Strong's H3394, yareach. It is rather obvious when this word is used as the verse, such as Deuteronomy 4:19, talks about worship of the sun, moon and stars. Moon is translated from yareach.

Now there are some other variations for the word and those I am still looking at however if you take a close look I think you will find the same inconsistancies in the translation. Why is this important. It is important because there are several groups of people who are basing doctrine on this mistranslation. People are drawing lines of fellowship based on this mistranslation. Doctrine is one thing that is hard to correct after the fact.

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Oracles of Yah