Decisions
D-0001 · The Hebrew year is primary
In what count is every date stated first?
The Hebrew year, counted from creation. The secular year is shown beside it as a common alternative.
| Status | Ruled by the owner |
| Set | 20 Tishrei 5787 · 2026-10-01 12:42 |
| Recorded in | held c5a99f86 |
| Rests on | D-0000 |
| Affects | the date of every book, D-0002, D-0003, every date on these pages |
| Would change if | A Daas Torah ruling otherwise. |
Why
SeferGraph is a library of seforim, and seforim date themselves by the Hebrew year. A secular year is a convenience for readers who think in it, so it is always shown — second.
What it means in practice
- A book's date is a Hebrew year, or a range of them, with its source and its precision.
- Academic dates, which are given in secular years, are converted by arithmetic (Hebrew year ≈ 3761 − BCE, ± 1 because the Hebrew year starts in Tishrei) so that every view is stated in the same count.
- The conversion keeps the views in one count; it does not make them agree. Which count a Hebrew year is measured on is its own decision: D-0002.
The evidence on the day
experiments/2026-10-01-tanach-dates — Tanach dated in Hebrew years, both counts side by side.
What rests on this
- D-0002 · Seder Olam is the primary count
- D-0003 · A book's birth — said, or written?
- D-0007 · Where the dates of the later books come from
- D-0008 · When one book counts as before another
- D-0014 · Which source is "primary"
Generated from the register (docs/decisions/0001-hebrew-year-primary.md). A changed value is recorded as a new entry; the old one is never overwritten.