Poor James. He was looking so forward to tonight being able to toot his new moon horn, but it did not happen.
It did not happen because only ONE person in all of Judea had the wherewithal to stand outside in their legalistic glory looking for the slightest sliver of the moon to appear over the horizon. If two people had seen it he would have been able to toot his horn tonight. Now he has to wait till Tuesday to toot that horn.
Imagine basing's one's entire life on such minuscule minutia such as this. Jesus be damned, but new moon be glorified.
Announcements: Only one person saw the new moon in Judea this evening as cloud cover rolled in. The new moon was calculated to be at least 2% illuminated this evening. No matter how much we are tempted to claim a new moon sighting based on only one witness because of cloud; God’s word requires at least TWO witnesses to confirm a calculation.
Therefore, based on the two witness rule the new moon will be Tuesday at sunset until Wednesday at sunset.
Since no month can be longer than 30 days and Tuesday will be the 30th day; the new moon will automatically begin tomorrow at sunset on that count as well.