stephan huller

The Passover week is a week: it has seven days. Its correct name is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. There are two days in the category Mikra Kodesh, “sacred assembly”. The 15th, the first day, is the Passover in Jewish terminology.

The Samaritans call the night when the meat is eaten the Passover and the daylight following is called the Yom Tov, meaning simply “Festival”. The Yom Tov [Samaritan pronunciation Yom T.ob] is in Aramaic Yoma Tava [Sam. pronunciation Yûma T.âba]. (It was on the morning of the Yûma T.âba that Dositheos was killed).

The second Mikra Kodesh is the seventh day. On a Samaritan calendar the seventh day will be labelled “Unleavened Bread”, and the first day will be labelled “Passover”, but the whole seven days are “Unleavened Bread” as well. The days between the first and the seventh are semi-sacred, that is, there are no restrictions on what activities are permitted.

The Gospel of Peter if read naturally follows the same tradition as John, against the Synoptics, in setting the death of Jesus on the 14th of the first month, on the day before Passover, which is the 15th. The “Unleavened Bread, their feast” seems to me to be the normal Pagan designation of the Passover. If the context allowed, it could be the Sabbath coinciding with the Mikra Kodesh on the 21st. In this instance, however, the 21st is clearly later on.

The words “the Unleavened Bread, their feast” can mean (a) one or the other Mikra Kodesh, or (b) the whole week, but the words can’t mean an intermediate or profane day between the 15th and the 21st. In this case they mean the 15th. I agree that the passage Luke 24:13-16 shows people leaving Jerusalem after a festival, but I can’t see why they might not have been leaving on the 16th. Understanding it as being on Sunday the 22nd seems more natural by itself, but the dates won’t work.

In this case, he would have been killed on Friday 20th, and the Sabbath on the 21st would have been a Great Day, being the Sabbath during the Passover week. The difficulty then is that this would put the Last Supper on the night of the Sabbath starting the 14th, which would not be the night of Passover. In short, you can’t have both the Passover night, the 15th, and the second Mikra Kodesh, the 21st, both on a Sabbath. The Passover week is a week. If you suppose a Friday night during the Passover week, then the death of Jesus could not have been on a Friday.

First, to clear away one possible difficulty, when the Synoptics call the day of preparation for the Passover “the day of unleavened bread”, they follow Jewish usage in giving this name to the 14th. This usage has nothing to do with the Samaritan terminology.

Also, the words “Unleavened Bread” on a Samaritan calendar marking the 21st are the result of the terminology needed to have a name to put on the calendar page, instead of “last day of the seven days of unleavened bread and second Mikra Kodesh”. The 14th by definition is not part of the Passover week, but the day when all leavened foodstuff is cleaned out or stored away day. Traditionally this is completed by midday or an hour earlier. The Samaritans do the same, but use a more precise name, the day of preparation for the Passover. The 14th is also obviously when the lambs are killed. This is done after midday. The Gospel of Peter follows the same tradition as all the Gospels in making it a Friday. John confirms that the Sabbath the next day was “a great day”, meaning it was the first Mikra Kodesh, the first day of the seven days of unleavened bread in Samaritan terminology or the first day of the Passover week in Jewish terminology.

What is different in the Gospel of Peter is that the manifestation of the risen Jesus is double: once as he ascends after sunset on the first day of the week (on Saturday night) and then on Friday the 21st. Neither time matches the specification of the morning of Sunday 17th in the canonical four. The first matches the Anglican liturgy and the demands of logic.

Now, as to Solomon Zeitlin’s belief that the word ΠΑΡΑΣΚΕΥΗ in John 19:30 could refer to the Friday of the Passover week, this is impossible, since Jesus was killed according to John on the day the Passover lambs were killed, that is, the 14th. Or are we to suppose that this bit of information is to be deleted as an interpolation? Three notes on Solomon Zeitlin. First, he did more to damage scholarship in Jewish studies than could be imagined. He destroyed forever the quality of the once illustrious Jewish Quarterly Review. More could be added here. Second, he and his offsiders published articles interminable in number and stupefying in the amount of irrelevancy packed in, as well as startling in their absence of logic. One wonders if he had all his marbles, and I say this seriously. Third, he was an arrogant pain in the bum, worse if possible than Jacob Neusner.

The Diatessaron agrees with John in setting the death of Jesus on the 14th, on the afternoon of the day before the Sabbath of the first day of the Passover week. It follows the Jewish terminology in calling the 14th the day of unleavened bread. (XLIV:2, 10, 34; LII:14).

Putting the 21st on a Sabbath means putting the 15th on a Sunday which means putting the Passover on Saturday night which can’t happen in any calendar because the preparation day on the 14th can’t be on a Sabbath.

Putting the 21st on a Sunday will work because then the preparation day, the 14th, will be on a Sunday with the Passover on Sunday night, the second day of the week. This puts the resurrection day on Sunday 21st, in agreement with the Gospel of Peter. The expression “the Unleavened Bread, their feast” then seems possible in the context, since we know it was a Sabbath. In that case my objection to the terminology was unfounded. This would mean the Last Supper would have been on the 15th on Sunday night and the arrest could have been the next night. This would put the “two days before the Passover” on a Sabbath.

The date of execution in the Synoptics is difficult, and here I suggest to you the first definite evidence for compression of the chronology. Would the Romans have executed anyone on the 15th, the day of Passover? Think of the stupidity of the Americans in executing Saddam Hussein at the holiest hour of the holiest day, turning him into a saint and martyr. The Romans were a bit cleverer than that. I don’t mean Pilate might not have thought of it in this case. He couldn’t have done this because it could never have been policy. See the next paragraph.

John puts the death of Jesus on the afternoon of Friday 14th. You can’t make the following “Great Day” the Sabbath of the Passover week and no more: the next day must be the 15th because of the datum that the day of Jesus’s death was the day of slaughtering the lambs. This could be argued to be probable in itself, if you say Pilate wanted to have Jesus die at a critically important time without arousing suspicion. The slaughtering of the lambs is not part of the Passover except as preparation and the day and time have no holiness in themselves. The religious ceremony is the eating of them. Only after the event did the timing become loaded with meaning. Perhaps Pilate had a cunning plan. As for the compression of the chronology, consider this. There is no Passover meal in John. The washing of the hands and feet could have been a week before the execution.

I think it highly likely that the Gospel of Peter has an older version of what is now in the Synoptics. I think you could then make the date of execution in the Gospel of Peter Friday 19th and the resurrection the 21st. In that case I was wrong. The real difficulty is reconciling Peter with John. Does that phrase sound familiar? And if you can’t reconcile them, which one is historically true? Here is a simple suggestion. The Synoptics as they stand have Friday 15th, with Passover on Thursday night. Peter could haves Friday 19th, with Passover on Sunday night. John has Friday 14th, with Passover on Friday night. If we reduce this to the difference between Peter and John, we are left with a difference of five days in the dating, on the same day of the week. So the same day had two dates five days apart. From memory this sounds like the possible difference between Samaritan and Rabbinic dating. If this is the answer, then here is a reconciliation of the dates together with the necessary expansion of the chronology in both cases, with no assumptions to be inserted in the case of John and only the assumption of the originality of Peter in the case of the Synoptics. I will have to look at the Samaritan calendar system to make sure.

The Diatessaron at XLIV:34 puts the 14th on a Sunday, as I proposed for the Gospel of Peter.

Ken Brown

Hi Stephan, I really don't know what your tastes are, but I do know what the majority of Judaism believes and they believe that the counting should be from the High Sabbath and not the weekly Sabbath (just for purposes of clarification, the counting should be from the weekly Sabbath and NOT the High Sabbath).

Spin has tried to say that Nissan 15 is not a Sabbath, do you agree with him? And if you don't, is there a preparation day for the Sabbath of Nissan 15? KB

jakejonesiv

It doesn't matter when you start counting, nobody rose from the dead. Not after 1.5 days, not after "three days" and not after "three days and three nights."

Jake

Sheshbazzar

That Passover week had three days that were 'preperation days'.

The first was the preparation for the Passover seder, a preparation that actually began on the tenth day of the year with selection of the Passover lamb.
For that seder preparation the materials would have been bought and prepared on the thirteenth day of the month, and if the Torah enjoined commemoration -were faithfully followed- (many didn't) the lamb would have been roasted and eaten with bitter herbs on the evening of the fourteenth day. (Ex 12:6 & Lev 23:5)

In the first Passover the blood had to be on the doorposts and lintils before death's angel passed over at midnight on the fourteenth day, it was to be eaten in one house, and no one was to go out of the house till morning (Ex 12:22)
That night is 'Leyil Shemorim' the 'night of vigils', a twelve hour observance to be observed by all the children of Israel in all their generations.
Only ONE night out of each year, every year. The only 'night' observance commanded in the Bible. (Ex 12:42)

In the morning, the daylight portion of the fourteenth day, the flocks were gatherd
'And they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month;
On the morrow after the Passover the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians.' (Numbers 33:3)

The second day of preparation in that week was the daylight portion of the fourteenth day, doing all nescessary preparations for the fifteenth day, which was the commemoration of the Israelites departure from Ramses Egypt.

The next day, the sixteenth day in that year was the third 'preparation day' in that week, being the sixth day of the week, was doing all of the required baking and cooking preperations for the seventeenth day in that year, which was the weekly Sabbath.

And the ending of this weekly Sabbath marked the beginning of the fifty-day count towards "Pentecost"
NOT just a count of fifty days from the fifteenth day observance, but Seven full weeks, forty nine days, and Seven SABBATHS complete, beginning the count on the first day of the week that followed Passover, the fiftieth day "Pentecost" always landing upon the first day of the week following the seventh weekly Sabbath.

Certainly this does not agree with some 'traditions', but it follows the TEXTS.




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Iskander

Are Christian and Jewish scholars an ignorant, irrational and illogical bunch?
Where did you get this “High Day Sabbath” from?
In which year did Jesus die?

Ken Brown

Hi Stephan, the 14th of Nissan fell on Wednesday, and the 15th of Nissan was on Thursday, and your long post really doesn't give credible evidence to the contrary. John does not say Nissan 14 fell on Friday. The only credible evidence to prove that the High Sabbath of Nissan 15 fell on a different day from the weekly Sabbath is the evidence of the women buying ingredients after the High Sabbath and preparing burial ointments before the weekly Sabbath. Nissan 16 was on Friday, and this was the day the ingredients were bought and prepared. KB

Ken Brown

Hi Iskander, you get it from John 19:31:

(Jn 19:31) The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and [that] they might be taken away.

Iskander, are you not familiar with the High Holy Day Sabbaths? KB

Iskander

No. Give me a more reliable reference for “high day sabbath”,please
John 19:31 Since it was Friday the Preparation Day...
Which year did he die?

Ken Brown

Hi Iskander, John calls it a "high" day, but Scriptures call them Feasts, holy convocations:

(Lev 23:2) Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of יהוה, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.

(Lev 23:4) These are the feasts of יהוה, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.

(Lev 23:7) In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.

(Lev 23:8) But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto יהוה seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.

(Lev 23:21) And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.

Lev 23:24 - 23:25

(24) Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. (25) Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto יהוה.

Lev 23:27 - 23:28

(27) Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto יהוה. (28) And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before יהוה your Elohim.

(Lev 23:32) It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath.

(Lev 23:39) Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto יהוה seven days: on the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath.

KB

Iskander

Fail. Give me examples of days in which observant Jews behave as they do on a Sabbath, please. Examples from any time in Jewish history.

There is only one day [7th day of the week] associated with Sabbath and only one Erev Shabbath/ Eve Sabbath.

There are other festivals, but the word Sabbath is never associated with it and only on a Sabbath observant Jews behave as on a Sabbath.