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“Keep Doing This in Remembrance of Me”The Watchtower—1976 | February 1
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They realized that the Jewish calendar listed “Passover” for Nisan 15, after sundown. Nevertheless, these anointed Christians arranged to celebrate the Lord’s Evening Meal on the night of Nisan 14, even as did Jesus. Still, these Christians used the Jewish calendar in accepting the determination of the month of Nisan for each year.
The modern Jewish calendar determines the beginning of their month of Nisan by the astronomical new moon. However, usually it is eighteen hours or more later when the first sliver of the crescent of the new moon becomes visible in Jerusalem. Each year, in recent times, the governing body of Jehovah’s witnesses has determined the actual new moon that becomes visible in Jerusalem, which is the way the first of Nisan was determined in Biblical times. For this reason often there has been a difference of a day or two between the Memorial date of Jehovah’s witnesses and the Nisan 14 date according to the modern Jewish calendar.a
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“Keep Doing This in Remembrance of Me”The Watchtower—1976 | February 1
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a For the same reasons, occasionally the modern Jews find it necessary to add their intercalary thirteenth month at a different time than do Jehovah’s witnesses. On such occasions, then, their Passover date comes to be a month later than the Memorial date of Jehovah’s witnesses.
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