John 18:28 - Two Passovers?

Post by **_mattrose** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:23 pm

Why, in your opinion, do we worship on Sunday?

Post by **_Homer** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 11:57 pm

Greetings!

I can't imagine a better resource regarding these questions than the book "The Eucharistic Words of Jesus" by Joachim Jeremias, a most eminent scholar. He devotes about 70 pages to the question whether the Last Supper was a Passover meal, concluding that it was, with about 20 pages considering objections to his conclusion.

The book is now out of print.

Damon - re your comment about the "breaking of bread" referring to a common meal, Jeremias said that in Judaism the term never referred to the complete meal but only the ritual tearing of the loaf and the words spoken over it. It became a technical term for the Eucharist.

Post by **_Sean** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 1:43 am

Damon wrote:
Wednesday - Day portion of Nisan 14th
Jesus is crucified. This is also the Preparation Day for the Holy Day on the following day. (The day before the Sabbath, whether that Sabbath is a weekly Sabbath or an annual Holy Day, is called the Preparation Day.) Lambs are slaughtered at the Temple during the afternoon in preparation for the national Passover observance. Jesus is put in the tomb just before sunset.

Wednesday evening - Nisan 15th begins
This is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a "High [Holy] Day" (see John 19:31) according to Leviticus 23. To this day, the Jews refer to the annual festivals as "High Holy Days." The whole, seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread was called "the Passover" in the time of Jesus (Luke 22:1).

Damon

Why does Luke 22 seem to read that Jesus was alive on Wednesday day and night and tried in the (Thursday) morning?
7 Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. 8 And He sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat."..."66 As soon as it was day, the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, came together and led Him into their council, saying, 67 "If You are the Christ, tell us."

Post by **_Damon** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:23 am

This is worded somewhat confusingly, but first of all, "the Day of Unleavened Bread" cannot refer to the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread since it follows the day after the Passover, whereas the killing of the lambs takes place before the Passover. It was legally required to kill the lamb before sunset beginning Nisan 14th. So, this wording in Luke is referring to the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread all together as one eight-day festival. It's simply saying that because the Feast of Unleavened Bread was near, it was time for the Passover lamb to be killed. Translating this from Greek to English without rephrasing it sounds confusing to an English speaker.

The Gospel accounts concur when they speak of the time, close to sunset at the end of Nisan 13th, that the Passover lamb was to be killed. They just word it differently, with the account in Luke being the most confusing one.

Damon

Post by **_mattrose** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:11 pm

Damon...I am re-considering a Wednesday crucifixion position, but I have a few questions

1. This position seems to place a lot of 'stuff' on regular sabbath days. For instance, the triumphal entry (was it not too much travel for a sabbath?). Wouldn't Matthew/Mark/Luke mention that the triumphal entry was on a Sabbath? They seemed to indicate when Sabbath days were regularly.

2. Please explain Matthew 26:17 one more time. I thought the passover came first and THEN the feast (leviticus 23:5-6). Is Matthew just combining the passover meal and the 7 day feast into 1 event known as the Feast of unleavened bread?

3. I'm still really confused in Mark. If Jesus delivered the Olivet discourse on Monday night, and Mark 14:1 refers to Tuesday/Wednesday as the 'two days away' before the Passover/Feast, then how can Mark 14:12 speak of the first day of thte Feast of Unleavened bread. Shouldn't that be Thursday? Yet you're saying it's still Tuesday night (start of Wednesday to the Jews).

Sorry my questions are confusing.

Post by **_Damon** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:50 pm

mattrose wrote:1. This position seems to place a lot of 'stuff' on regular sabbath days. For instance, the triumphal entry (was it not too much travel for a sabbath?). Wouldn't Matthew/Mark/Luke mention that the triumphal entry was on a Sabbath? They seemed to indicate when Sabbath days were regularly.

Typically yes, but for the same reason that you would think that too much 'stuff' was going on that day could be why the Gospel writers didn't mention it. Jesus did what He needed to do for His ministry and didn't let legalistic concerns bother Him, right? But at the same time, I don't know that the Gospel writers would have necessarily stressed that He entered Jerusalem on the Sabbath.

If one instead assumes that the Triumphal Entry was on Sunday, that would put Jesus' coming to Bethany on Saturday, "six days before the [Friday] Passover." But we don't see any mention of the Sabbath then, either. Either way, it's just not mentioned.

Besides, in one sense this was like a marriage ceremony. If He was coming as King of kings and Lord of lords - even though the Jews later rejected Him - then just as a man marries his bride, Jesus would have been 'marrying' His people. With that in mind, did you know that the Sabbath in part symbolically represents a marriage?

mattrose wrote:2. Please explain Matthew 26:17 one more time. I thought the passover came first and THEN the feast (leviticus 23:5-6). Is Matthew just combining the passover meal and the 7 day feast into 1 event known as the Feast of unleavened bread?

Well, as you noted, this can't mean the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread as described in Leviticus 23:5-6, because that comes the day after the Passover. It also can't even mean the day of the Passover itself, calling it "the first day of Unleavened Bread", because the Passover lamb had to be killed before this day even started.

I've heard two different explanations on this, and both sound fairly reasonable to me. Firstly, the Gospel writers were simply referring to the nearness of the day of Passover, and were calling it "the first of the Unleavened Bread". Second, it was traditional for Jews to have all of the leaven out of their houses on the morning of the day before the Passover. They cleaned their houses of all leavened products and did some very thorough 'Spring cleaning' to make sure there was no leaven left at all, then burned whatever was left in a place where it wouldn't ritually pollute anything. So technically, the day before the Passover might have been called "the first of the Unleavened Bread." I'm not positive about this, though; it's just a supposition on the part of people I've heard this second explanation from.

mattrose wrote:3. I'm still really confused in Mark. If Jesus delivered the Olivet discourse on Monday night, and Mark 14:1 refers to Tuesday/Wednesday as the 'two days away' before the Passover/Feast, then how can Mark 14:12 speak of the first day of thte Feast of Unleavened bread. Shouldn't that be Thursday? Yet you're saying it's still Tuesday night (start of Wednesday to the Jews).

As I read it, the Olivet Discourse was on Monday, not Monday night. Two days later was Wednesday, the first day of the Passover if one lumps the whole observance together. I see Mark 14:12 as occurring late Tuesday afternoon, even though it says "on the first of the Unleavened Bread," etc., and I favor the explanation that it's simply referring to the nearness of the Passover, which began that evening.

Out of curiosity, why do you see the Olivet Discourse as happening on Monday night?

Damon

Post by **_mattrose** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:22 pm

I didn't mean late in the night, just that it was near the end of a full day

Post by **_Anonymous** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:00 am

This is how I once put the events of the Passion week together.

Nisan 9
Thu (night)
Fri (day) Comes to Bethany (Jn 12:1)

Nisan 10 (Weekly Sabbath)
Fri (night) 1st anointing at Behtany (Jn 12:3)
Sat (day) Triumpal entry (Jn 12:12-15)

Nisan 11
Sat (night) Returns to Bethany (Mk 11:11)
Sun (day) Curses fig tree (Mk 11:12-13); Cleanses the Temple (Mk 11:15)

Nisan 12
Sun (night) Went out of Jerusalem (Mk 11:19)
Mon (day) Fig tree withered (Mk 11:20); Questioned in Temple/Olivet Discourse

Nisan 13 (First day of Unleavened Bread)
Mon (night) 2nd anointing at Bethany (Mk 14:3); Judas agrees to betray Jesus (Mk 14:10)
Tue (day) Preparation for Passover (Mk 14:12)

Nisan 14
Tue (night) Last supper; Gethsemane
Wed (day) Trial before Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod; Crucified, died (3pm), buried

Nisan 15 (Special Sabbath--1st day of Unleavened Bread)
Wed (night) ?Passover?
Thu (day)

Nisan 16
Thu (night)
Fri (day) Women buy spices (Mk 16:1); Women prepare spices (Lk 23:56)

Nisan 17 (Weekly Sabbath)
Fri (night)
Sat (day) Rises on the third day (likely close to end of the day)

Nisan 18 (Feast of Firstfruits)
Sat (night)
Sun (day) Two Marys go to empty tomb (Mt 28:1); Jesus makes his appearances

Post by **_Benjamin Ho** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:14 am

The above post was by me. (I forgot to log in with my name.) Below are notes that I made sometime ago about the Lord's Supper.

The Lord’s Supper, was it a Passover meal?

Those who say the Last Supper was a Passover meal (Hebrew: seder) suggest that there could have been two days for the Passover lambs to be killed because of varying practices amongst different groups of Jews regarding the time of the slaughter of the Passover lambs, i.e. at the beginning or at the close of Nisan 14. Therefore Jesus could eat the Passover on the first day and be sacrificed as our Passover lamb on the second day. Alternatively, because Jesus knew that he would be dead before the regular time for the Passover meal, deliberately held it in secret a day early. It was therefore a Passover meal in intention, but without a lamb.

The other view is that the Lord’s Supper was not a Passover seder. Although Peter and John were told to prepare for the Passover, the Last Supper was held before the preparations were completed (because the lamb sacrifice would only be available the next day). This is supported also by John 13:29, when the disciples thought that Jesus was sending Judas away to buy what was needed for the Passover. If the Last Supper was not a Passover meal, what could it have been? A Jewish commentator, Joseph Shulam, has speculated that it might have been a se'udat-siyum or a graduation feast after a successful completion of a course of study. Since Jesus knew that he was going to die, he may have regarded it as appropriate to celebrate the completion of his disciples’ earthly course of study.

Post by **_mattrose** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:57 pm

Do you really think Jesus was annointed twice? Could be, but I just figured Matthew/Mark placed it later in the week to contrast Mary with Judas.