The current definition of the Hebrew calendar is generally said to have been set down by the Sanhedrin president Hillel II in approximately AD 359. The original details of his calendar are, however, uncertain.
The Hebrew calendar is used for religious purposes by Jews all over the world, and it is the official calendar of Israel.
The Hebrew calendar is a combined solar/lunar calendar, in that it strives to have its years coincide with the tropical year and its months coincide with the synodic months. This is a complicated goal, and the rules for the Hebrew calendar are correspondingly fascinating.
An ordinary (non-leap) year has 353, 354, or 355 days. A leap year has 383, 384, or 385 days. The three lengths of the years are termed, ``deficient'', ``regular'', and ``complete'', respectively.
An ordinary year has 12 months, a leap year has 13 months.
Every month starts (approximately) on the day of a new moon.
Converting to and from the Hebrew calendar can be done using the Julian Day Number as an intermediat date representation. jdn_hebrew can be used to convert a Julian Day Number to an Hebrew date, while hebrew_jdn can be used to convert an Hebrew date to a Julian Day Number.
The names of the months can be determined using the hebrew_monthName routine.
In the following example hebrew_jdn is called to convert the Hebrew date Tishri 2, 5761 to a Hebrew Day Number. Tishri is the first month of the Hebrew Calendar. jdn will have the value of 2451819.
jdn = hebrew_jdn(5761, 1, 2)
In the following example jdn_hebrew is called to convert the Hebrew Day Number 2451818 to an Hebrew date. After calling jdn_hebrew, year, month and day will have the values 5761, 1 and 2 respectively.
Call jdn_hebrew(2451819, year, month, day)
Is the next example, hebrew_monthName is called to determine the name of the third Hebrew Month. monthname will have the value "Kislev".
monthname = hebrew_monthName(3)
hebrew_jdn, jdn_hebrew, hebrew_monthName, Claus Tøndering's Calendar Faq
| Julian Day Number: | 2452025 |
| Hebrew (Gregorian) date: | April 25, 2001 |
| Julian date: | April 12, 2001 |
| Hebrew date: | Iyyar 2, 5761 |
| Islamic date: | Safar 1, 1422 |
| Back to Calendar Math. | Other pages by the same author. |
