Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jayrok · 03-24-2009, 06:35 PM

I was talking with a friend this morning about various discrepancies between the gospel stories during Passover when Jesus allegedly died.

It's common knowledge that according to the synoptics Jesus died the day after Passover and Jesus ate the Passover Meal with his disciples the evening before he was arrested.

According to gJohn, Jesus died the afternoon prior to the Passover Meal because, to gJohn, Jesus was the Passover Lamb so he had to die prior to that meal.

He told me about a potential solution to this chronological problem submitted by John MacArthur where Mr. MacArthur claims that Jesus ate the passover with his disciples on Thursday night because they were from Galilee and Jews of that region used a different calendar than the priests in Jerusalem.

So to Jesus and his disciples the 14th of Nissan was on Thursday evening and to the Jerusalem priests the 14th of Nissan was on Friday the next day.

So you have Jesus eating the Passover meal with the disciples and also dying before the Jerusalem priests slaughtered the lambs for THEIR Passover meal.

My question is this... How plausible is it that the Jerusalem priests would hold two separate "slaughtering of the lambs" to prepare for Passover? One on Thursday and one on Friday? MacArthur claims they probably broke it into two days because one afternoon wasn't enough time to slaughter that many lambs. However I've read that many visiting Jews brought their own lambs or could purchase them outside of Jerusalem. The priests just needed the bodies for the blood.

It seems if this was possible and in fact done at some point in the past there would be precedence somewhere. Does anyone know of any recorded Passover where this type of thing occured in the Temple in Jerusalem?

I've been searching Jewish sources but was hoping to maybe get lucky and see if anyone has already addressed this issue here.

On the surface it seems plausible but doesn't seem likely. Unfortunately I'm no expert on Temple restrictions of Antiquity.

Thank you.

Jay

IamJoseph · 03-24-2009, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayrok

I've been searching Jewish sources but was hoping to maybe get lucky and see if anyone has already addressed this issue here.

On the surface it seems plausible but doesn't seem likely. Unfortunately I'm no expert on Temple restrictions of Antiquity.

Thank you.

Jay

Perhaps the 'Temple scrolls', a new book discovered in the dead sea scrolls package, and not known of before, can offer some clues here. This document is a service manual of all aspects of the Temple ritual, including festival observences.

The Passover festival is basically a rememberence of the Exodus - namely of inalienable human rights and Liberty. The texts actually says this of this festival, and thus it is one for eternal rememberence - against slavery - and has no connection with human sacrifice, which is specifically forbidden in the Hebrew bible.

OMHO< - the NT is a treatise which is inclined in the negation of the Hebrew bible, disguised by the term 'fullfilled'; it seeks to re-establish Hellenism via a set of deviant means [presenting itself as speaking via Jews!] - but this has not been successful - there is nothing Jewish about the NT; there is everything here equal to Hellenism. None of the Hebrew bible laws are negated today, while the world does not follow any laws from the NT or the Quran.

Toto · 03-24-2009, 07:24 PM

Quote:

"The system of reckoning each day from sunset to sunset was followed by the Sadducees in Jerusalem. The system of reckoning used by Jesus and His disciples and described by Matthew, Mark, and Luke was (apparently) from sunrise to sunrise. John describes the events from the perspective of a sunset-to-sunset reckoning because this system enjoyed more of an official recognition.

"Indications are that this difference in systems was also a point of disagreement between the Pharisees (who reckoned a day from sunrise to sunrise) and the Sadducees (who reckoned a day from sunset to sunset).

"The synoptic accounts therefore see Jesus as eating a Passover meal the evening before His crucifixion. For those (Pharisees) who followed the sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning, the Passover lambs had been slain a few hours earlier, in the afternoon. For them the slaughter took place on the fourteenth of Nisan (Thursday), as did the Passover meal. The fifteenth did not begin until the next morning, Friday, at about six (sunrise).

"(John's) description, however, views the events from the standpoint of the Sadducees, who controlled the temple. Jesus was crucified at the normal time of killing the Passover lambs, that is, the afternoon of Nisan 14. (For the Sadducees), Nisan 14 had begun at sunset on Thursday and would not end until sunset on Friday. This was the normal time for the lambs to be slain, but the temple authorities had apparently compromised with those who followed the other calendar and allowed them to slay the lambs on Thursday afternoon. Otherwise, the (Temple's) facilities could not have accommodated the large number of people with their sacrifices who came to the Passover each year. This difference explains why Jesus' accusers had not yet eaten the Passover (John 18:28). They were about to do it Friday evening, Nisan 15, which began at sunset.

"If the preceding solution is correct (and it is impossible to say dogmatically that it is, but it does seem to handle all the data more effectively than other proposals), then Jesus was crucified on Friday, Nisan 15 according to the sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning (which was Friday, Nisan 14 according to the sunset-to-sunset method)." -- The NIV Harmony of the Gospels (or via: amazon.co.uk), by Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry, pages 312-313.

quoted here

It sounds like speculation.

apatura_iris · 03-24-2009, 07:54 PM

My initial reaction is that is nonsense... AFAIK the sabbath has ALWAYS begun at sunset and neither Sadducee nor pharisees thought differently. I won't swear on this 100% but it doesn't sound kosher.

I do know that if two witnesses came before a court and their testimony conflicted by 1 day, their testimony would still be accepted, but if the testimony conflicted by more than that, it was rejected.

Another major problem with the crucifixion chronology is that it was illegal to hold a death penalty case at night, and, it was illegal to make an immediate decision on a death penalty-- the sanhedrin was required to "sleep on it" and give a verdict the next day so as not to make hasty decisions.

Jayrok · 03-24-2009, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

"The system of reckoning each day from sunset to sunset was followed by the Sadducees in Jerusalem. The system of reckoning used by Jesus and His disciples and described by Matthew, Mark, and Luke was (apparently) from sunrise to sunrise. John describes the events from the perspective of a sunset-to-sunset reckoning because this system enjoyed more of an official recognition.

"Indications are that this difference in systems was also a point of disagreement between the Pharisees (who reckoned a day from sunrise to sunrise) and the Sadducees (who reckoned a day from sunset to sunset).

"The synoptic accounts therefore see Jesus as eating a Passover meal the evening before His crucifixion. For those (Pharisees) who followed the sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning, the Passover lambs had been slain a few hours earlier, in the afternoon. For them the slaughter took place on the fourteenth of Nisan (Thursday), as did the Passover meal. The fifteenth did not begin until the next morning, Friday, at about six (sunrise).

"(John's) description, however, views the events from the standpoint of the Sadducees, who controlled the temple. Jesus was crucified at the normal time of killing the Passover lambs, that is, the afternoon of Nisan 14. (For the Sadducees), Nisan 14 had begun at sunset on Thursday and would not end until sunset on Friday. This was the normal time for the lambs to be slain, but the temple authorities had apparently compromised with those who followed the other calendar and allowed them to slay the lambs on Thursday afternoon. Otherwise, the (Temple's) facilities could not have accommodated the large number of people with their sacrifices who came to the Passover each year. This difference explains why Jesus' accusers had not yet eaten the Passover (John 18:28). They were about to do it Friday evening, Nisan 15, which began at sunset.

"If the preceding solution is correct (and it is impossible to say dogmatically that it is, but it does seem to handle all the data more effectively than other proposals), then Jesus was crucified on Friday, Nisan 15 according to the sunrise-to-sunrise reckoning (which was Friday, Nisan 14 according to the sunset-to-sunset method)." -- The NIV Harmony of the Gospels (or via: amazon.co.uk), by Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry, pages 312-313.

quoted here

It sounds like speculation.

This is what he was suggesting as well. To me this would raise other questions, though.

But let's say it is true that the Pharisees saw a day as being from sunrise to sunrise and the Sadducees saw a day as sunset to sunset. The Temple in Jerusalem was operated by the Sadducees not the Pharisees. So I don't see how pascal lambs would be slaughtered by Pharisees inside the Temple in Jerusalem.

The author you posted suggests that the synoptics used a sunrise to sunrise day. But were they consistent throughout? The synoptics record Joseph of Arimathea asking for Jesus' body before sundown because the sabbath was about to begin and his body couldn't be up when that happened.

If their day was sunrise to sunrise then they would have not had to worry about taking Jesus' body down before the sabbath since it wouldn't start until sunrise the next day.

Toto · 03-25-2009, 01:10 AM

I think the speculative part of the above is

Quote:

but the temple authorities had apparently compromised with those who followed the other calendar and allowed them to slay the lambs on Thursday afternoon. Otherwise, the (Temple's) facilities could not have accommodated the large number of people with their sacrifices who came to the Passover each year.

Christian apologists have a tendency to try to find ways that scripture can be inerrant, even if it means inventing improbable sequences of events.

Jayrok · 03-25-2009, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

I think the speculative part of the above is

Quote:

but the temple authorities had apparently compromised with those who followed the other calendar and allowed them to slay the lambs on Thursday afternoon. Otherwise, the (Temple's) facilities could not have accommodated the large number of people with their sacrifices who came to the Passover each year.

Christian apologists have a tendency to try to find ways that scripture can be inerrant, even if it means inventing improbable sequences of events.

Yeah. I also read somewhere that not all the lambs used for Passover in Jerusalem were slain at the Temple. Many people coming to the festival brought their own lamb and only gave the blood to the priests for sprinkling on the altar. Those ceremonially slain by the Temple priests were likely used for specific parties.

03-24-2009, 06:35 PM	#1
Jayrok Regular Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: USA Posts: 471	The Passover Chronological Discrepancy - Plausible? I was talking with a friend this morning about various discrepancies between the gospel stories during Passover when Jesus allegedly died. It's common knowledge that according to the synoptics Jesus died the day after Passover and Jesus ate the Passover Meal with his disciples the evening before he was arrested. According to gJohn, Jesus died the afternoon prior to the Passover Meal because, to gJohn, Jesus was the Passover Lamb so he had to die prior to that meal. He told me about a potential solution to this chronological problem submitted by John MacArthur where Mr. MacArthur claims that Jesus ate the passover with his disciples on Thursday night because they were from Galilee and Jews of that region used a different calendar than the priests in Jerusalem. So to Jesus and his disciples the 14th of Nissan was on Thursday evening and to the Jerusalem priests the 14th of Nissan was on Friday the next day. So you have Jesus eating the Passover meal with the disciples and also dying before the Jerusalem priests slaughtered the lambs for THEIR Passover meal. My question is this... How plausible is it that the Jerusalem priests would hold two separate "slaughtering of the lambs" to prepare for Passover? One on Thursday and one on Friday? MacArthur claims they probably broke it into two days because one afternoon wasn't enough time to slaughter that many lambs. However I've read that many visiting Jews brought their own lambs or could purchase them outside of Jerusalem. The priests just needed the bodies for the blood. It seems if this was possible and in fact done at some point in the past there would be precedence somewhere. Does anyone know of any recorded Passover where this type of thing occured in the Temple in Jerusalem? I've been searching Jewish sources but was hoping to maybe get lucky and see if anyone has already addressed this issue here. On the surface it seems plausible but doesn't seem likely. Unfortunately I'm no expert on Temple restrictions of Antiquity. Thank you. Jay

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

03-24-2009, 07:54 PM	#4
apatura_iris Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Staten Island Posts: 1,906	My initial reaction is that is nonsense... AFAIK the sabbath has ALWAYS begun at sunset and neither Sadducee nor pharisees thought differently. I won't swear on this 100% but it doesn't sound kosher. I do know that if two witnesses came before a court and their testimony conflicted by 1 day, their testimony would still be accepted, but if the testimony conflicted by more than that, it was rejected. Another major problem with the crucifixion chronology is that it was illegal to hold a death penalty case at night, and, it was illegal to make an immediate decision on a death penalty-- the sanhedrin was required to "sleep on it" and give a verdict the next day so as not to make hasty decisions.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.