why do the jewish calender start in march/april and ours start in jan?

Answer 1

Cause they don't know how to tell time

Answer 2

The Jewish calendar actually started with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish near year, which usually falls in September or October. This is because Judaism relies on a lunar calendar instead of a solar one.

Answer 3

Short version:
The Christian calendar (Gregorian calendar) is based on the motion of the earth around the sun, while the months have no connection with the motion of the moon.

On the other hand, the Islamic calendar is based on the motion of the moon, while the year has no connection with the motion of the earth around the sun.

Finally, the Jewish calendar combines both, in that its years are linked to the motion of the earth around the sun, and its months are linked to the motion of the moon.

Longer story w/ details:
A coupla months were added into the calendar a while ago.
And the Romans renamed a bunch, too.
The last four months used to be the 7th - 10th months in the Calendar.
September (Septem - 7) is our 9th month
October (Octem = 8) is our 10th month
November (Novem = 9) is our 11th month
December (Decem = 10) is our 12th month
January comes from the Roman God Janus, the two-faced "god" who looks both behind (to the year past) and in front (to the year to come).
July comes from Julius Caesar.
And ...... well, check these links out for the rest of the story!
http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html
http://www.ernie.cummings.net/calendar.htm
http://webexhibits.org/calendars/year-history.htmlhttp://webexhibits.org/calendars/
http://webexhibits.org/calendars/year-history.html

Answer 4

The "asker" is correct, the Jewish New Year starts in March/April.

For those who stated that the New Year begins with Rosh Hashana in September/October, check your bible and it says that Rosh Hashana is on the 1st day of the 7th Month (go look it up!). Rosh Hashana is the beginning of the spirtual New Year, not the New Year by which we celebrate our festivals.

The Jewish New Year really begins in the month where Passover falls.

You can see that all peoples in the ancient world considered March to be the first month of the year because that is the start of Spring, the season of renewal.

Just look at the names on the months in the modern calendar.

March = Month 1
April = Month 2
May = Month 3
June = Month 4
July = Month 5
August = Month 6
September = Month 7 (Sept = 7)
October = Month 8 (Oct = 8)
November = Month 9 (Nov = 9)
December = Month 10 (Dec = 10)
January = Month 11
February = Month 12

So you see that the months of September, October, November and December demonstrate that once upon a time, March which is the solar month in which the Jewish month of Nisan falls (and thus Passover) was at one time the 1st month of the year.

The Roman Catholic Church decided to re-do the calendar to move the New Year to back to January 1st, I guess to celebrate the day on which Jesus had his circumcision ceremony performed.

Answer 5

The Jewish new year is actually in September and is marked by the holiday of Rosh Hashanah (in 2007 is will be on Sep 13/14)

The calendar is different because it follows the lunar cycle instead of the solar cycle that the georgian (the current standard) does.

Hope this sheds some light on it

Answer 6

The Jewish calendar starts with Rosh Hashana, the "head of the year" in the Autumn. Previous posters are correct that the Jewish calendar is lunar, but that's not the reason for the Autumn new year. The reason is that Autumn is the start of the rainy growing season in Israel. In that part of the world, things are dead and dry in the summer, and life starts growing again when the rains start in the fall.

Answer 7

centuries ago we used to have the same calendar until a pope named Gregorio or Gregorious invented a new calendar that we use until now named Gregorian calendar were the years start in january but many others stay with the old way to count days, weeks and months, that´s why september, october, november and december correspond to the numbers siete, ocho, nueve and diez (in spanish), if the year starts in march then september is the seventh month and so on.

Answer 8

Jewish calendar is based on the cycles of the moon as opposed to the sun. J/S

The "modern" form is a rule-based lunisolar calendar, akin to the Chinese calendar, measuring months defined in lunar cycles as well as years measured in solar cycles, and distinct from the purely lunar Islamic calendar and the almost entirely solar Gregorian calendar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Calendar

The Gregorian solar calendar is an arithmetical calendar. It counts days as the basic unit of time, grouping them into years of 365 or 366 days. The solar calendar repeats completely every 146,097 days, which fill 400 years, and which also happens to be 20871 seven-day weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar