I'd like to know how the date of March 20, 1997 corresponds with the
ancient Hebrew month of Abib.  I'm looking for a very basic answer...
is it at the beginning of Abib, middle, or end?  What day of Abib does
it correspond to?  I need the same exact info for March 20, 2003. 
Note: Abib is not on the modern calendar.

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Request for Question Clarification by ragingacademic-ga on 08 Jan 2003 00:57 PST

jbf777 -

Thanks for your question.

There is no month of "Abib" - "Aviv" in Hebrew, on the other hand,
means "spring" - which I believe is where the confusion stems from.

March will typically correspond to the month of Adar.

Would the answer as it relates to the month of Adar be acceptable - or
are you looking for something else entirely?

thanks,
ragingacademic

Shalom!

Harper's Bible Dictionary confirms Grimace's comment: "ABIB: the first
month of the Hebrew Year (March-April), after the Exile called Nisan."
 Your question shows that you are aware that the name Abib is no
longer used.

The Hebcal Hebrew Date Converter at <http://www.hebcal.com/> allows
you to convert Gregorian dates to Hebrew dates and vice versa.  March
20, 1997 shows as 11 Adar II in the year 5757, while March 20, 2003 is
16 Adar II, 5763.  In a leap year the Hebrew calendar gains an extra
month and you get two months of Adar, thus Adar I and Adar II.  The
extra month is how the Hebrew calendar (based on the moon) manages to
keep pace more or less with the Gregorian calendar (based on the sun)
and Adar always falls in the spring.  (By contrast, there is no leap
year in the Moslem calendar, so the year changes by 11 days or so
every year, and Ramadan will sometimes fall during the short days of
winter and sometimes in the long days of summer.)

There is a nice page on The Jewish calendar at
<http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-jewish.html>
and another at Judaism 101 : Jewish Calendar at 
<http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm>

Adar II always has 29 days, and Nisan falls immediately after Adar II,
so the short answer to your question is that Abib/ Nisan starts 19
days after March 20, 1997 and 14 days after March 20, 2003.

Search strategy:  as well as Harper's I used a simple Google search
for "Hebrew calendar".

I hope the extra information here qualifies this as an acceptable
answer.

Sincerely, read2live

Good work!

Hi,

Although Abib *was* the first month of the ancient Hebrew calendar -
the month now called Nisan - your first date does not fall within that
month (as ragiongacademic says) but is the eleventh day of Adhar II.

Your second date falls on the 16th day of Adhar II. Both years are
Jewish leap years.

In other words, in both years Abib begins about a fortnight *after*
your chosen dates.

A note -- Hebrew uses the same letter for "b" and "v." "Aviv" is
Hebrew for spring. "Tel-Aviv" means Spring Hill.