mattlary's weblog

From an e-mail forward:

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.

Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) than it will be this year (2008) but that is pretty rare.

This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives!

And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early previously (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier!

Here are the facts:

1. 1. The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).
   2. The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285, 277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

We found this in an old family Bible; note that nobody from my family signed it (Click on the image for a larger version)

I was reading an article about Moses, and apparently, because of a mistranslation of the Hebrew word qaran in the Latin Vulgate Bible, people thought Moses had horns. The verse is now translated, …the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with [God] ( Exodus 34:29 American Standard Version; Excerpt)

Interesting stuff; probably one of the lesser known big oopses in history!  When talking about why Moses’ skin shone, one person referred to it as a type of Divine Radiation Burn.  I thought that was funny (and probably accurate!)

My brother in law showed me a cool online tool- it’s a bible site with several translations, and even a word by word hebrew< ->english/greek< ->english feature. I’m no biblical scholar, but there have been a few times when I really wanted to get into the nitty gritty and see what the original words were and what they became after translation. The site is here if you want to check it out: http://www.blueletterbible.org/ (Click the ‘C’ icon next to a verse to see the original language)

The Utica OD had an article about the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Seminary/Monastery in Jordanville the other day.  They also have an interesting slideshow about the same- it’s really cool because they have a recording of the Monks chanting in the background.  You can view it here.

(Jordanville is in Herkimer County near Ilion)

Just saw this article and thought I would share it.