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For July-September 2001
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Nisan
CE 30
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The civil new year began with the month of Tishri and the sacred year with Abib (or Nisan). The first of Tishri, however, did not always occur on the day of the molad of Tishri because of dehioth (postponements). When the molad of Tishri occurred at a time unaffected by the postponement rules Tishri 1 was on the same day as the molad. Hillel II disclosed the rabbinic postponement rules as they existed in his day.
The observance of Passover night, by the rules of calculation as disclosed by Patriarch Hillel II, could occur on a Monday night, a Wednesday night, a Friday night, or a Saturday night but never on a Sunday night, a Tuesday night, or a Thursday night.F7 The rabbinic calculated calendar, the Hillel II calendar, provides us with a means for determining an approximation of the priestly calendar that functioned in Temple times. Accordingly, by calculation the Passover Sabbath in CE 30 began, as it did in CE 31 as well, on Wednesday evening making Wednesday, at first glance, the most probable candidate for the day of the Crucifixion.F8 However, some argue that in the year of the Crucifixion that a calendar fixed by observation could result in the Passover Sabbath occurring on a Thursday, a Friday, or a Saturday. That remains to be seen.F9
The First Month in the Essene Calendar |
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| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | ||
The Essenes,F10 on the other hand, who followed a solar calendar, always observed the Passover on a Tuesday night. The Essenes fixed Nisan 14 on their calendar as the third day of the week, sunset Monday night to sunset Tuesday night or simply Tuesday as we reckon time.F11 In their community the Passover Sabbath, the annual Sabbath known as the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, always began at sunset Tuesday night and ended at sunset Wednesday night. This means of marking time differs from our Gregorian calendar wherein specific weekdays are not preset to exact dates. In the United States, for example, President's day always falls on a Monday in January but it can come on different days of the month. Nisan 15 was always a Wednesday on the Essene calendar.
Understanding such calendar distinctions is important when considering which specific weekday Jesus consumed his last Passover meal with his disciples and for ascertaining the explicit weekday of his execution. There have been many attempts to harmonize the events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion into a coherent timetable.F12 All have their failings, nevertheless passionate arguments exist for a Wednesday crucifixion, a Thursday crucifixion and a Friday crucifixion as well as some for other days of the week. There remain serious obvious flaws in each argument and some biblical scholars have come to shun any attempt at harmonization of the gospel accounts of the Crucifixion week.F13
At BibArch� we understand the Bible, consisting of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, to be the Word of God written and therefore inerrant in the autographs. We also adhere to the logic, philosophy, and principles of science as they apply in the social sciences. This means that we look at various solutions to the chronology of Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection as hypotheses for testing against the biblical record as well as against archaeological and historical data.
Scientific research involves testing theoretical models and modifying theories. Further articulation of a theory results from the testing of research hypotheses against data and developing new explanations for observed results. The adjustment of a theoretical model occurs with a shift of theory based upon testing of hypotheses against data resulting in a new theory replacing an old one. In this type of research an investigator has a continuing ethical duty of stating the strongest possible case for any theory in question before attempting to falsify it. Failing to do so not only invalidates the research but it is intellectually dishonest. There is no place in scientific research for proving theories as the process proceeds by falsification of hypotheses not by formal proof nor by proof texts.
With this in mind, I do not advance at this point any specific scheme or theory about which evening of the week Jesus ate his last supper. In this article I do not advocate any particular point of view nor suggest any implication for Christian praxis in the contemporary world regarding the observance of Hebrew festivals and annual Sabbaths. The objective of this analysis is scholarly in an effort to detect and resolve the chronological issues. The explanations developed here remain tentative. I encourage readers not to lift this material out of context nor attempt to use it as a weapon to change praxis in their fellowships. Its purpose is to heighten awareness and to promote understanding.
Sorting out the chronology of the Passion week requires some understanding of the festivals and the seven annual Sabbaths observed by biblical Israel and how the very early Church dealt with them. As set out in the Hebrew Scriptures the annual Sabbaths, sometimes called high Sabbaths (John 19:31), were sacred assemblies, that is, holy convocations (Leviticus 23:2). For biblical Israel, functioning under the terms and conditions of the Sinaitic covenant, they were periods of holy time belonging to God.
While the weekly Sabbath memorialized God's seventh day rest in God's Creation activity, the set of seven annual Sabbaths commemorated the story of Israel's deliverance from Egypt and coming to rest in the Land (Eretz Israel). The writer of Hebrews plays off this theme by pointing out in antitype (fulfillment of the symbolism foreshadowed in the original event) that there yet remains a rest, the Kingdom of God and life eternal, for the people of God. The writer of Hebrews explains that "one who has entered His rest has himself also, rested from his works, as God did from His" (Hebrews 4:10 NASB).
For first-century Jews the weekly Sabbath, the tBv (Shabbat), was the single most important religious event each week. Sabbath observance, whether weekly or annual, following the Hebrew convention of beginning the day at sundown rather than at midnight, began at the setting of the sun on Friday night and continued until sunset the following evening. The annual Sabbaths, linked to the harvest seasons in seven religious festivals, occurred only in the spring and the fall.
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In the spring Israel celebrated the festivals of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of Firstfruits (or Weeks). The Feast of Unleavened Bread marked the beginning of the barley harvest. The first and last days of this six-day festival were annual Sabbaths. The Feast of Firstfruits, known as tw[Wbv (Shavuoth), was the third annual Sabbath coming fifty days later. Its association was with the early wheat harvest (Exodus 34:22) not the barley harvest.
The fall festivals consisted of the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day. Except for the Feast of Tabernacles, where only the first day of the feast was an annual Sabbath, each fall festival was also an annual Sabbath. The Great Day of the Feast (John 7:37), immediately followed the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Occasionally, an annual Sabbath would fall on a weekly Sabbath thereby making the day a double Sabbath. For example, it appears that the annual Sabbath at Luke 6:1, presumably the Last Day of Unleavened Bread, fell on the weekly Sabbath (Mark 2:23; Matthew 12:1). Moreover, the weekly Sabbath of John 9:14, 9:16, on which Jesus healed the blind man, appears to be the annual Sabbath called the Last Great Day (John 7:37).F14
The adult men of Israel customarily assembled before God at the central sanctuary to celebrate the three major pilgrim festivals. The central sanctuary was at first the tabernacle, or tent of meeting, and later the temple (Exodus 23:17; 34:23 et al.). The pilgrimage festivals were Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread [March/April], the Feast of Weeks [May/June], and the Feast of Booths [September/October] (see Exodus 23:14�17; 34:23�24; Deuteronomy 16:16).
Those who presented themselves at the central sanctuary were to be there with an offering. Although many commentators state that Deuteronomy 16:16 stipulates a duty of every Jew to appear in Jerusalem three times a year for the three pilgrim festivals this was not the case. The Jews of Jesus' day generally understood there to be no requirement in the Torah demanding that all adult male Jews present themselves at the Temple for every pilgrim festival. Their sense of the matter was that pilgrims, during these three festival seasons, if and when they came before God to worship at the central sanctuary, were to present themselves with an offering. No male was to worship at the central sanctuary without an offering.
Those Jews who lived outside of the land of Israel did not travel to Jerusalem three times a year to worship God in the Temple. For some to attend a festival at the Temple as a pilgrim was a once in a lifetime event if that. See Shmuel Safrai, "Pilgrimage in the Time of Jesus" (Safrai 1989:3). It was customary for Jews living in Eretz Israel, the Land, to attend the pilgrim festivals as a matter of course. Jesus and his family are found so doing in the New Testament. In the Torah there is an expectation that adult males residing in the land of Israel should, if they could financially, come to Jerusalem for the festivals and to make their offering at the Temple. Making these trips financially possible was the festival tithe. The people, however, were obligated to keep the high days, the annual Sabbaths, as holy no matter where they resided or whether or not they traveled to Jerusalem for the events.
The seven annual Sabbaths of the Sinaitic Covenant celebrated God freeing the people of Israel from the bondage and slavery of Egypt and bringing them to rest in the Land. Similarly, in the context of apostolic Christianity, their symbolism foreshadowed specific key events in the divine plan of salvation, that is, God freeing humanity from the bondage and slavery of sin and bringing humanity to rest in the Kingdom of God. The apostle Paul describes the prophetic significance of the annual Sabbaths, and the associated festivals, as a "shadow of what is to come" (Colossians 2:17 NASB). These days, in antitype, represented God freeing the new people of God through a process of personal, ecclesial, worldwide, and ages-encompassing redemption, from sin and its consequences and brining them into the eternal rest of the Kingdom of God (Hebrews 4:8-11). Notice the parallelism between the type and the antitype in the chart entitled "Annual Festival Calendar and its Symbolism".
The parallelism, in type and antitype, between Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of First Fruits are openly laid out in the New Testament. More obscure is the antitype of the fall festivals and their four annual Sabbaths. A common attribution of meaning is that Jesus Christ will return at the sounding of the last trumpet (Feast of Trumpets), his binding Satan for 1,000 years (Day of Atonement), the 1,000 years of rest of the millennial reign of Christ (Feast of Tabernacles), and final judgment (the Last Great Day). While, under the terms and conditions of the New Covenant, God no longer mandated holy time to rest and assemble, these annual Sabbaths retained, along with the weekly Sabbath, special significance in apostolic Christianity.
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Significantly, when one examines the practices of Sabbath, annual Sabbath, and festival observance there are numerous differences between the praxis commanded in the Torah and that followed in the Judaism of Jesus' day. By that time the religious periods of Israel had become cluttered with added symbolism, myth, and superstition. Even terminology had shifted. For example, at that time the Passover and the whole week of the Days of Unleavened Bread were known collectively as Passover (Acts 12:3-4, cf. John 19:14). Similarly, first-century Jews saw the festivals and annual Sabbaths in a vastly different way than do the Jews of today's world. Barry Smith, in his The Last Passover, explains:
The Torah's regulations concerning the Passover celebration were the ultimate authority for all first-century Jews regardless of their secondary allegiances. A literary-critical analysis of the biblical sources on the Passover is not necessary, since the first-century Jew read the Torah synchronically. The modern notion that the emergence of Israel's full self-definition as summarized by the Torah was tied to a long social and religious development was completely foreign to the understanding of the first-century Jew. Any development in the ritual or meaning of Passover is irrelevant to an understanding of Jewish views at the time of Jesus. (Smith 1993:12.)
Fastening on the Pharisaic Judaism of the Talmud, many Christian fellowships have adopted Hebrew words and contemporary Jewish customs thinking that this somehow makes their praxis more biblical. It doesn't. More often than not, it results in erroneous and misleading anachronic readings of the New Testament, unbiblical legalism, and self-righteousness.F15
Moreover, Jews now observe the Feast of Trumpets as the beginning of their new year, Rosh Hashanah, but anciently this was not the case. The Hebrew Scriptures nowhere refer to the Feast of Trumpets as Rosh Hashanah (head of the year). The phrase occurs only once in the Hebrew Scriptures at Ezekiel 40:1 where used for the "beginning of the year" (NIV). The biblical new year began in the spring. R. Laird Harris, writing in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, points out that in the Hebrew Scriptures it "is interesting that this ancient fall feast was not given the extra emphasis that its equivalent, the New Year (Rosh Hashanah), is given among Jews today" (Harris 1990:627).
Now then, Jesus of Nazareth, the evening before his execution, instituted a memorialF16 for his followers to observe. Today, in Protestantism, we call this event the Lord's Supper based on an early Reformation anachronistic reading of I Corinthians 11:20.F17 The Reformers, still caught in the sociocultural paradigm of sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism, brought into early Protestantism some of the customs and traditions associated with the mass. The practice of celebrating Eucharist at anytime, however, was not that of the very early Church (CE 30-70).
In the Judeo-Christian thinking of the first Christians the events of the Last Supper produced a new Passover, in remembrance of Jesus Christ (I Corinthians 11:24), observed annually at the end of the thirteenth day and into the evening portion of the fourteenth day of Nisan. That appears to be the unmistakable thinking of the gospel writers (Matthew 26:17-18; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:8, 22:15) and it certainly was the tradition of the ancient church.F18
Judeo-Christians, well into the fifth century, continued to observe the Christian Passover at the beginning of Nisan 14, which according to Franciscan biblical archaeologist Bellarmino Bagatti, was due to "the common belief among the [Christian] Jews that the date had been fixed by the Lord and was, therefore, unchangeable. Many believed that this date was superior even to the sabbath itself" (Bagatti 1971a:81). Bagatti knew that the Sabbath remained important in Judeo-Christianity well into Nicene times.
The prevailing practice in the East, where seemingly the majority of Christians were of Jewish descent during the first and second centuries, was observation of the Christian Passover in the Greek assemblies at the precise time of the Jewish Passover at the beginning of Nisan 15. For some reason the time of its observation from apostolic times had shifted, among many Greco-Roman Christian communities of Asia Minor, from its celebration at the beginning of Nisan 14 to the beginning of Nisan 15. This apparently was in response to the language of the synoptic gospels indicating that just prior to his death Jesus kept the Passover with his disciples (Matthew 26:18, Mark 14:14, Luke 22:8). They appeared, as Gentile Christians, to be as confused about this Passover in the gospels as are Christian scholars today.
Beginning with Constantine the Great, the social policy of the Roman government, at least when in the charge of orthodox emperors, was the elimination of paganism and the bringing about of unity in Byzantine Christianity. Its basis was establishing a common core of fundamental orthodox beliefs which would work to further the stability of the Roman state. In Bagatti�s words: "In the 4th century, when Christianity had already won the victory over paganism, there was a reorganization of the church for unitarian purposes. The Jewish usages and doctrines, unknown in great part to the Christian world, in some regions were looked upon as causes of division among the faithful and were therefore fiercely opposed. Bishops and savants united their efforts on this programme and they acted through the councils" (Bagatti 1971a:86).
Nevertheless, three centuries earlier, at the beginning of the fourteenth day of Nisan, on the evening before his death, Jesus chose to assign new meaning to the unleavened bread and wine of the ancient Passover service. These changes were consistent with the New Covenant he brought into being. There is no indication in the New Testament that the Twelve, Jesus' key disciples, knew beforehand of his intention to change the significance of these symbols during a Pascal meal. He, however, had previously made the following points:
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Jesus informed his disciples, two days before the feast of the Passover of the Jews (observed at the beginning of Nisan 15 after sunset), that he would be betrayed to be crucified (Matthew 26:1-2). |
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Jesus instructed Peter and John, early Nisan 14 after sunset and a full 24 hours before the Passover of the Jews, to make preparations to eat the Passover Supper that very evening (Matthew 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-13). |
Surprisingly, the Twelve appeared not to be in any way shocked or taken aback that they were going to eat the Passover with Jesus at the beginning of Nisan 14, as set forth on the traditional Hebrew calendar, not at the end of Nisan 14.F19 Apparently their only surprise came during dinner when Jesus girded himself with a towel and began to wash their feet (John 13:5). The principal events of the evening, the defining elements of the new Passover included:
a set time, a full 24 hours before the traditional Jewish Passover celebration, at the beginning of Nisan 14 (Matthew 26:20; Mark 14:17; Luke 22:14);
a meatless Seder, the paschal meal, which the apostle Paul referred to as the Lord's Supper (I Corinthians 11:20; cf. Matthew 26:19, Mark 14:16, Luke 22:13);F20
the foot-washing ritual during the meal involving Jesus and the Twelve (John 13:5-16);
during the meal Jesus took bread (unleavened not leavened bread) and asked a prayer over it, giving thanks and seeking a blessing, before braking it into pieces and distributing it to the disciples (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; I Corinthians 11:23-24);F21
he then took a cup of wine (not grape juice), gave thanks, and gave it to the disciples which they each drank from the single cup (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:17-20; I Corinthians 11:23-25), and
a hymn (Mark 14:26).F22
Thereafter, Jesus' followers, all Jews, abandoned the Mosaic Passover and its animal sacrifice as they saw Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, "our Passover" (I Corinthians 5:7), as the supreme sacrifice once and for all (Hebrews 10:10-14, 18). In the theology of the ancient Church the observance of the new Christian Passover constituted the reaffirmation of a believer�s baptismal commitment to God. The bread represented Jesus Christ giving himself as a sacrifice once to take away the sins of many (I Corinthians 10:16-17; I Peter 2:20-24; Luke 22:19) and the wine symbolized the New Covenant in his blood, shed for the remission of sin (Matthew 26:27-28; Hebrews 9:11-15; Colossians 1:19-22). The symbols taken together demonstrate that the New Covenant came into being through his death. In various passages of the New Testament appear echoes of this event, although far from certain, in the meals of Judeo-Christians (Luke 24:30, 24:35; John 21:9, 21:13; Acts 2:42, 2:46, 20:7, 20:11).
The Christian Passover in Judeo-Christianity became an annual event, at the beginning of the fourteenth of Nisan, observed, in accordance with the traditional Hebrew calendar on the evening and in the manner set by Jesus. As ancient Christianity fragmented into many independent groups multiple forms of this event came into being. The question of when these matters occurred and what comprised the precise practice of the early Church in regard to this memorial continues to invite scholarly debate and Christian passion.
Every indication is that from that very night early Christians continued this practice. Indeed, according to Bellarmino Bagatti the practice was so much a part of Judeo-Christian praxis that as late as the time of Constantine the Great they continued to argue that the traditional day of Nisan 14 for Christian Passover was not capable of change (Bagatti 1971a:10).
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Bargil Pixner, left, pictured with author Michael Germano at Tahgha in Galilee. A BIBARCH� Photo. |
A quite unlikely source, archaeologist Bargil Pixner, a Benedictine, who lives on Mt. Sion in the Dormition Abby, holds that this Last Supper occurred on a Tuesday night in the guesthouse of the Essene community on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. What? The Essene guesthouse? "To my mind" writes Pixner "this took place in the Essene guesthouse on Mount Zion on the Tuesday night" (Pixner 1992:64; see also Pixner 1976, 1990, 1997).
Richard Mackowski, concurring, held that this "must have been a very simple dining hall in keeping with the simple life of the Essenes" (Mackowski 1980:141). In his thinking, the "site, therefore, must be secure, for it has been the only candidate for the Cenacle (Coenaculum or dining hall) from primitive Christianity until today" (Mackowski 1980:145).
Mackowski concluded, from his topographical study of the site of the Upper Room, that the Last Supper did indeed take place in the Essene dining hall on Mt. Sion from where Jesus and his followers "walked down from the Upper City�s Essene quarter, using the steps still visible beside the Chapel of Peter-in-Gallicantu on the eastern slope of Mt. Zion (Mackowski 1980:164). Moreover, he stated that:
According to Pixner, who recently has reexamined the area thoroughly, the steps leading up from the Church of St. Peter-in-Gallicantu, on the eastern slope of Mt. Zion, led up towards a point identified as the most likely spot for a doorway or a vestibule of an ancient house. This door would have opened towards a platform leading to a house whose level would correspond to a second story upper room. (Mackowski 1980:145.)
Mackowski, independently of Bargil Pixner�s study of the area (Pixner 1976), concluded that the material evidence on Mt. Zion, in the light of textual analysis, was not only the mahaneh (the camp) of the Essenes during the time of Jesus but also the birthplace of this sect in Jerusalem (Mackowski 1980:63).
In terms of the Last Supper, and the Judeo-Christian traditions regarding the observation of the Christian Passover, Mackowski argued that Jesus instituted it on a Tuesday night. According to Mackowski, Jesus would not have been an Essene but he celebrated his last Passover supper in the Essene quarter on Mt. Sion.
Therefore, Jesus would have celebrated the combined feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread following the solar calendar, which remained fixed. The fourteenth day of the month of Nisan (March-April) on which Passover began was always celebrated on a Wednesday. Thus, his Seder or Passover meal would have fallen a few days earlier than for ordinary Judaism. The Seder was celebrated after sunset on the evening before the Feast, on the third day of the week (Tuesday), while the fourth day (Wednesday) was a festive occasion for the Essenic community. (Mackowski 1980:164.)
Lest he be misunderstood, Mackowski used the word Seder in reference to the solemn ritual meal of the Christian Eucharist not the Jewish Seder (Mackowski 1980:164). He also held that Jesus� Crucifixion occurred on Friday. Bargil Pixner disclosed in a video interview with me, conducted in the course of this research, that he also understood the time of the Last Supper to be a Tuesday night leading up to the Crucifixion on Friday afternoon (Pixner 1993). Both scholars suggested that there were simply too many events concerning Jesus� arrest and trial to collapse into a single 24-hour period and therefore suggest that the biblical authors probably telescoped these events (Mackowski 1980:165; Pixner 1993).
Raymond E. Brown in his commentary, The Death of Jesus, states that some commentators believe that the events between Jesus' arrest and his crucifixion are too crowded to have happened in one night but he dismisses it outright. Why? He asks, "does not rearranging that material over a longer period of time undo the intention of the evangelists to describe the whole procedure as hasty and crowded because the authorities wanted to have Jesus executed without any chance that the people would react and thus cause a disturbance?" (Brown 1994:8-9).
The paradigm of both Brown and Pixner, distinguished Roman Catholic scholars, is that Jesus died on a Friday but they are at variance over the length of time between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion.F23 Pixner, based on historical and archaeological evidence, holds that the Last Supper occurred on a Tuesday night with Jesus' execution taking place the following Friday. Brown, based upon his analysis of the Gospels, holds that Jesus died on a Friday the day necessarily following the Last Supper.
If Pixner is correct that Jesus ate his last Passover in the Essene guesthouse on Tuesday night, and, if Brown is correct that the events concerning Jesus' Last Supper, arrest, trial, and execution all occurred within a single 24-hour period, then neither Thursday nor Friday can possibly be the day of the Crucifixion. By eliminating Friday as the day of the Crucifixion the two propositions come together into a strong presumption that the Last Supper occurred on Tuesday night (as Pixner and Mackowski claim) and that Jesus died the afternoon following the Last Supper since both events took place within a single 24-hour period (as Brown claims). This requires the Sabbath immediately following the day of Jesus death to start at sunset Wednesday night, an annual Sabbath, not a weekly Sabbath.
Brown writes that "the vast majority of scholars have accepted that the crucified Jesus died on Friday as his burial was before the Sabbath, and indeed sometime in the afternoon" (Brown 1994:1351). With this Jack Finegan, in his Handbook of Biblical Chronology agrees. Finegan contends that:
All four Gospels indicate that the day of the crucifixion of Jesus was a Friday (in our terminology), because they describe the following day as the Sabbath (Mark 15:42; Matt 28:1; Luke 23:56; John 19:31), our Saturday, and because they state that the visit of the women to the tomb on the next day was on the first day of the week (Mark 16:2; Matt 28:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1), our Sunday. (Finegan 1998:354.)
Brown and Finegan, erudite scholars as they are, would have us believe that the Sabbath that began after Jesus' burial was a weekly Sabbath. What they knew and chose to not disclose, or what they should have known and did not, was that in the Torah Nisan 15 was always a Sabbath, preceded by the Nisan 14 preparation day,F24 whether or not it fell on a Saturday for it was an annual Sabbath (Leviticus 23:6-7). Barry Smith in Jesus' Last Passover errs as well by claiming that Mark 15:42, Matthew 27:62, Luke 23:54, and John 19:42 show that Jesus died on a Friday (Smith 1993:215, 218). The problem is that their claim is wholly conjectural. Evidence that this had to be a weekly Sabbath rather than an annual Sabbath is conspicuously lacking.
In the priestly Hebrew calendar this annual Sabbath, the Passover Sabbath, could have occurred on a Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday, and far less likely Friday, depending on the postponement rules then used by the priests. This is consistent with the foregoing presumption that Jesus ate his Last Supper on Tuesday night and died the following afternoon. There would have been ample opportunity between the annual Sabbath (Thursday) and the weekly Sabbath (Saturday) for the women to buy spices (on Friday). As the authorities sealed the tomb and set a guard until the three days were past, the women did not have access to the body until after the weekly Sabbath. The logical time for them to anoint the body with spices would have been in the daylight of Sunday morning after the authorities lifted the guard.
Moreover, the idea of Jesus observing his final Passover on the Essene calendar is not unique to Pixner and Mackowski. In the fifties Annie Jaubert, who argued that Jesus kept the Essene calendar, held that he ate his Last Supper on the Passover date of the Essene calendar, a Tuesday evening, rather than a Thursday evening as commonly assumed (Jaubert 1957, Jaubert 1965, Finegan 1992:242).F25 Eugen Ruckstuhl continued this line of thought contending that the evidence further supports a period of three whole days for Jesus' arrest, trial, and execution (Ruckstuhl 1963). While an Essene calendar connection is a relatively new development in identifying the weekday of the Last Supper, the Tuesday night Last Supper hypothesis is not. This view, for the most part based on Matthew 12:40, echoed in Matthew 27:63, was also that of A. Davidson, E. William Bullinger, and William G. Scroggie.
Davidson in his 1906 "The Crucifixion, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus" argues for a Wednesday crucifixion holding that the Sabbath mentioned in the gospels as following the daytime of the crucifixion was an annual Sabbath not a weekly Sabbath (Davidson 1906:124-129).
Bullinger in the Companion Bible, his classic, one-volume study Bible on the King James Version, also argued that in the year of the Crucifixion the annual Sabbath (Passover Sabbath) began Wednesday night and that the Last Supper occurred Tuesday night (Bullinger 1990:179-182).
Considering the evidence William Scroggie, author of A Guide to the Gospels, states that on "Wednesday, Nisan 14th, before 6.0 p.m., Jesus' body was taken from the Cross, wrapped in a linen sheet, and hastily buried" (Scroggie 1995:576). He concludes that it has been well said that those who love the Lord, "are compelled by the Spirit of truth (John xiv. 17) to abandon the tradition of Good Friday being the day on which our Saviour was crucified" (Scroggie 1995:577)
Jesus of Nazareth was not an Essene.F26 What is more, there is no hard evidence suggesting that he followed the Essene calendar. If by necessity the first Christian Passover occurred, however, in this Essene community, then it would explain the persisting tradition that the first Lord�s Supper occurred in an upper room on Mt. Sion (see Cenacle) and how Jesus and his followers were able to eat the Passover a full day before the priests and Pharisees did so. The task is now to construct a chronological model based upon the proposition that the Last Supper occurred on a Tuesday night in the guesthouse of the Essene community located in the Upper City of Jerusalem (now known as Mt. Sion or Christian Sion) and in terms of the available evidence endeavor to falsify it.
The literary evidence is found in the gospels of Luke and Mark. Both state that on the day of the slaughtering of the Passover lambs, or possibly slightly before, which would necessarily places the moment after sunset early Nisan 14 or about an hour or so before, Jesus instructed Peter and John to enter Jerusalem, presumably through the Gate of the EssenesF27, and to look for a man carrying a pitcher of water (Luke 22:8-10, Mark 14:13). They were to follow him to where he entered a house and there to inquire of the housemaster (Greek: oikodespore) about the guest room where Jesus was to eat the Passover with his disciples (Mark 14:14; Luke 22:11).
Jesus said "He will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there" (Mark 14:15; cf., Matthew 26:19; Luke 22:12). The Passover had to be eaten within the city of Jerusalem. In this ancient culture, the carrying of water in jars to homes was the chore of children and women, not Jewish men. However, an Essene man, typically a celibate monastic, would carry water as a chore since an Essene enclave would have been absent children and women to perform this menial task. The two took care of last minute details for the Passover Supper made available for money to Jerusalem Passover pilgrims at the Essene guesthouse on Mt. Sion. The quality and amount of food served would have depended on what they were willing to pay. We are not told who served the meal and cleaned-up afterward but presumably it was by their Essene hosts.
When it was late (Greek: opsios), that is, later at nightfall when the stars were visible, Jesus and the Twelve came (Mark 14:16-17).F28 Along with others they consumed a meatless Passover Seder. It would have been meatless since the Essenes, as strict vegetarians, observed a meatless Passover, and would have served such in their guesthouse. In any case they could not serve Passover lamb as the Levitical priests did not sacrifice Passover lambs until the afternoon of Nisan 14 when the high priest ritually slaughtered the first animal. Jesus' meal, his meatless Passover Seder eaten in an upper room in the Essene guesthouse, became known as the Last Supper.F29 In context, this room was the place where they dined that evening not where they resided while in Jerusalem.F30 They resided in Bethany (John 12:1).
Moreover, to eat the Passover Jesus and his party would all have to have been ritually clean, presumably using the ritual baths before entering the guesthouse, and adhering strictly to the Mosaic code on ritual cleanness (II Chronicles 30:18-20). This is consistent with Jesus' statement to Peter about footwashing, he who is clean does not need to bathe (John 13:10).F31
The gospels show that Jesus' disciples included more people than the Twelve. At the very least the disciples included Joseph (called Barsabbas and Justus) and Matthias (Acts 1:21-26). At the Last Supper his party, a haburah (a voluntary association of adults for taking Passover, normally families), likely included them as well as his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and others. There is no evidence that women travelers in Jesus' party would not have been welcome at the Essene guesthouse. The absence of specific evidence of their presence is not evidence of their absence. Why would he exclude Joseph and Matthias from such a watershed event?
Barry Smith, in his Jesus Last Passover Meal, tells us that:
If there had been more than one room in an upper room of a house, it probably would have been used by another haburah, given the crowded conditions in Jerusalem at Passover. There could even have been another haburah sharing the room with Jesus and his disciples. (Smith 1993:149.)
Conditioned by centuries of religious ceremony and tradition, based upon ideas originating in the Middle Ages, nearly all Christians, however, believe that only the Twelve and Jesus were in attendance at the Last Supper. Nevertheless, Mark 14:18�21 records that the "disciples," disturbed to hear from Jesus that one of them was a betrayer, continued to ask Jesus "Is it I?" Luke states that there was speculation among the disciples about who the betrayer was (Luke 22:23 cf. John 13:22). Which disciples?
Jesus' response, according to Mark�s gospel, was "It is one of the Twelve..." (Mark 14:20 NASB). He did not say "It is one of you." He made it clear that it was one of his immediate associates. John's gospel records that Jesus disclosed quietly to one or more at his table who the individual was (John 13:23�26, cf., Matthew 26:23). Taken together, the four gospel accounts suggest a larger group in attendance than the Twelve, reclining at two or more tables in the room. In this context, Jesus statement "It is one of the Twelve..." is quite enlightening.
After the Pascal meal, the introduction of the footwashing ritual, and altering the symbolism of the unleavened bread and wine, Jesus withdrew with the Twelve (John 14:31) and perhaps with others such as Joseph and Matthias. If the meal was catered, as appears to be the case, then the women and other disciples presumably dispersed as it was getting quite late. According to Barry Smith it "was permissible after midnight to leave the place where one did the Passover, and since the meal was now complete" (Smith 1993:151).
Jesus' party would have descended into the Valley of Hinnom exiting Jerusalem at the Gate of the Essenes, then traveling east they would have crossed the Kidron, and proceeded on toward the Mount of Olives to a garden called Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36; Mark 14:32, cf., Luke 22:40 and John 18:1). It is unlikely that they would have sought to travel to Bethany that evening but to fulfill Torah remained instead within the ritual limits of Jerusalem.
So far we have considered an incredible series of related circumstances, when taken together, imply a Tuesday night Last Supper and a Wednesday afternoon Crucifixion. Jesus kept his Last Supper, which the gospel writers state was a Passover, 24 hours before the Jewish observance of the Passover. The Jewish calendar, by calculation according to the rules given by Hillel II, places the Passover Sabbath (Nisan 15) in CE 30, as it did in CE 31, beginning on a Wednesday evening. CE 30 and CE 31 are the two most probable years for the Crucifixion. The Essenes, as religious vegetarians, consistently observed their meatless Passover on Tuesday evenings, and provided opportunity for others to observe it in their Mount Sion guesthouse in the Upper City of Jerusalem. Jesus' execution was on the afternoon of Nisan 14 and his interment occurred only moments before the Passover began. Moreover, there is a discernable pattern in the Bible between the biblical annual Sabbaths and the associated festivals and the death, resurrection, and return of Jesus Christ, the giving of the Holy Spirit, the millennial reign of the Messiah, and eternal judgment.
Prejudice and doctrinal stances aside, the inescapable conclusion is that Jesus and his followers likely observed a Tuesday night Last Supper at the Essene Guesthouse, which requires, in context, the Jews in the year of the Crucifixion to have kept their traditional Passover early Wednesday evening, Nisan 15, as the new day began. This theory, a simple explanation to a complex problem based upon available evidence, is the only one in a field of conflicting theories offered since the Reformation consistent with Occam's Razor. Is this actually the solution to the vexing chronology of the Passion Week? Is this theory consistent with other data? Now the task is to develop a set of hypotheses based on the theory in order to undertake an objective attempt to falsify it.
To be continued in the January-March 2004 issue.
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Christianity has nothing to do with the religion of Judaism. Judeo-Christianity is an oxymoron, like jumbo-shrimp. This site must be a site that the apostle John warned us about, that there was and will be many deceivers in our midst.
--Gary Padgett
Have you forgotten that Jesus Christ was a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died a Jew? Have you not read in your Bible that salvation is of the Jews? Are you so biblically illiterate that you do not know that the apostle Paul taught that Gentiles had to be "grafted" into spiritual Israel? Are you so unfamiliar with the early history of Christianity that you do not know that Greco-Roman Christianity was a heresy that by political power became orthodox? If you are teaching others that Judeo-Christianity is an oxymoron then you are the deceiver at work motivated by a power you obviously don't understand. We certainly hope you don't represent yourself as a man of the cloth for if you do you have invited a greater judgment by God himself.
--Editor
The "Law". Jesus, when asked, stated that Heaven and earth would pass, but NOT THE LAW, nor would one jot or tittle be changed. If the law, and remember that the New Testament is about Jesus, but is not the Bible He read, will not pass away, then it would seem to conjoin the New Covenant. I don't believe that it is an eternal damning thing to ignore the law, but we certainly can profit by it. And, if we live by the New Covenant, we will most likely fall within the moral edicts of the law anyway.
I firmly believe that Jesus is Messiah, my salvation and my guide. I can perhaps even be called a Trinitarian, in some sense, because I believe in the baptism of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However, I do not believe they are the same person. Jesus was in the water being baptized by John, the Spirit ascended in the form of a dove, and God spoke from heaven. Why would God use cheap parlor tricks to confuse us? Jesus was on the mount of transfiguration with Moses and Elijah, God spoke from heaven. Same question. Jesus stepped out from the right hand side of the throne, then took the scroll from the figure seated on the throne, who is purported to be God. Same question. Hebrews clearly states that at some specific point in time Jesus was formed, but that the Father already existed. Yet "through Him (Jesus) was all creation formed.
-Tony Lisenby, Alabama
I enjoy you site, and though I may greatly differ with you on certain subjects I have no doubt that you are a sincere man and fear God. I have much I could say with regard to your understanding of Torah. I feel a primary reason for so many declaring abolished what God so very, very often declared eternal is the common practice of reading Hebraic writings from a westernized, Greek, Alexandrian/Platonic mindset. Of course, the foundational anti-Semitic spirit of the Christian "fathers" no doubt is alive and well also. But, I digress, that is another matter....
I do have this question: With Matthew 5:18 in mind, would you please tell me when heaven and earth ceased to exist? I suppose I missed it. Perhaps I was asleep and do not realize I am in some sort of perpetual dream state, having missed the catastrophic destruction of earth.
Of course this highlights another problem - the VERY common habit most "teachers" have of ignoring the very words of our Lord Yeshua!
Oh, I agree with you regarding the fanaticism some "name fanatics" have and do NOT consider it a redemptive issue. However, the question must be asked, who is truly practicing error or "heresy"? I find it oddly hypocritical for so many that use what is CLEARLY NOT the Lord's name (Jesus) to criticize those of us that prefer to use His actual name. Why is it that Christians the world over refuse (often angrily) to use the Lord's actual name despite the certainty that "JEEZUS" is NOT his name? What is it that keeps the leaders of the Christian world from using the Lord's Jewish name. Oops! I think I just answered my question - he is "Jewish", and Christians HATE that. Nevertheless, this question continues to leave me wondering.
--Bruce Barham
The name Jesus is an English word. Yeshua is not an English word. The apostles chose to preserve the New Testament in Greek not Hebrew. The English word Jesus is a derivative of the Greek word Iesous. This was the work of the apostles not anti-Semites. Anti-Semitism is wrong in all forms and contexts, and we condemn it. The Gentile Christianity of the Greco-Romans was brutally anti-Semitic and sadistic.
As to Matthew 5:18 it is easy to spin the verse to mean something that in context it does not. The context is the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. The Torah is still with us and so are the Prophets aren't they? They are historical records to help humanity learn that by works of the Torah there is no justification before God.
An underlying assumption of Messianic Judaism and many Protestant groups is that the Sinaitic covenant still remains in full force and effect. This view has major flaws. The whole Mosaic system ended with Jesus of Nazareth. The prophets predicted a new covenant, in which the basic terms of relationship would be greatly altered, and forgiveness would be given without any reference to the sacrificial system. This certainly implies in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves the supersession of the Sinaitic covenant.
Even in contemporary rabbinic Judaism, the Sinaitic covenant has come to an end. It was based on and intermeshed with the Aaronic priesthood and the sacrificial system. The Sinaitic covenant does not authorize the method by which the rabbis wave those requirements. The fact is that the land and people have not had old-covenant prescribed atonement for at least 1900 years. The people are living outside of the Law.
We hope that Messianic Jews will realize the legalism they teach is wholly inconsistent with the New Covenant and come to grasp with the evils inherent in such enslaving legalism. A consistent error in Messianic Jewish publications is a reference to the early Church of God as "our people" which is an oversimplification. The doctrines of the first Christians were not those espoused by most of today's Messianic fellowships.
--Editor
While I have no idea what mtDNA is or how it could pose a substantial threat to the credibility of the Bible, I agree that our scientific knowledge is constantly changing. Advancements occur so frequently that it seems that only the smallest fraction of the most spectacular scientific discoveries make the news. Remember the media blitz surrounding the first photos of the Face On Mars? Did anyone catch a glimpse of higher resolution images of the Face released last month? No? Well, let's just say that it bears a striking resemblance to an uninteresting mesa. In this sort of environment, I think it wise to take scientific "breakthroughs" with a measure of skepticism, at least for a few months.
The search for the four rivers of Eden may be a bit more difficult than it seems. Bear in mind that the four rivers are introduced before the great flood of Noah. If the flood was truly global, as many believe ( I think this might certainly be possible, provided all water on earth was in liquid form and not suspended as vapor or locked away as ice), the topography of Eden would have been severely altered and the garden destroyed. Even if the flood were not global but confined to the area around say the Black Sea, after almost a year of being locked up in a boat adrift Noah would be understandably lost. In either case, the nearest large rivers -- doubtless choked with mud and debris from receding flood waters -- could have easily been the rivers of Eden.
(I think the prospect of a global flood is so much more intriguing. How far could the ark drift in the months it was on the water? What would ocean currents and weather patterns be like in a situation like that? What if there were a hurricane that moved over submerged land, what happens when the flood recedes?)
Anyway, if you don't subscribe to the global flood theory, Dr. Robert Ballard of Titanic fame has recently done research in the Black Sea. There he found compelling evidence for a cataclysmic flood that occurred at the end of the last Ice Age. Basically, as glaciers receded, sea levels rose every where except in the Black Sea. The Bosporus Strait, then a land bridge, could not hold back the Mediterranean and BOOM!
Another perspective is that the account of creation, the garden of Eden, and the Flood are not firsthand accounts handed down through many generations, but were related to Moses by God on Sinai (or whatever that mountain is called.) Exodus says Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights, and he probably wasn't playing Twister up there all that time. I think God gave Moses the book of Genesis, in which case He would have given him the right names for the right rivers. Even then, I think these names are applied to the channels that were left after the Flood, provided that the Flood was global or at least affected the garden of Eden. The Tigris and Euphrates of Moses' day looked nothing like the rivers that flowed from under the garden. I live near the Rio Grande and this area is full of resacas, narrow lakes left in the old river bed after a big flood carves a new channel. Of course, these floods were before the river was dammed and diverted to the point where it literally no longer flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Anyway, my point is that if God told Moses the names of the existing rivers then modern scientists have a slight chance of finding where the garden of Eden might have been. The garden isn't there anymore and the rivers that once served as landmarks are dramatically different.
The note about radar imaging from the space shuttle is very interesting. I remember images of ancient river beds under the Sahara, also taken from the shuttle. Science is cool.
On the land of Nod, I tend to think that this just describes Cain's state of wandering and that he literally could have wandered anywhere in Asia. Adam lived to be more than 900. If Cain's life span was anything like that, he could have walked all over the world several times. As to Cain's wife, I have a question:
If I take the Bible to be literal, which I like to do, then Adam and Eve are the very first and only humans God created with his own hands. Therefore, all humans on earth are descended from them. By that reasoning, all genetic diversity in the human race, plus all the diversity wiped out in the Flood, would have been present in Adam and Eve. It would seem that their children would have something like the Challenger Deep for a gene pool. Would there be any genetic harm in Cain marrying one of his sisters? Don't laugh; I'm not very good at genetics and nearly failed biology. If this is how the children of Adam and Eve had their own families, would the gene pool in each generation get smaller? If so, might this be the reason God wanted Noah and his wife and Noah's three sons and their wives on the ark even though the Bible says that only Noah was found righteous? Would this preserve a reasonable portion of the genetic diversity that was present in Adam and Eve?
I can't believe someone asked about shearing sheep. It seems obvious they could use a sharp rock or something. I saw part of a Discovery Channel show where anthropologists butchered an already-dead-of-natural-causes elephant with stone tools. It took a while, but it worked and I could see where one could get really efficient with a favorite rock honed to a custom edge. Bring on the sheep...
Actually, the shearing question started a train of thought in my head that I feel like sharing. For some reason, modern humans take a very snobbish attitude regarding past peoples, as if our ancestors were intellectually inferior to their successors. Scholars take this attitude with them when they explore ruins of long-dead civilizations and marvel at the sheer scale of some construction. I visited the State Capitol building in Austin, TX, recently and was struck by how massive that building is with its solid granite exterior, cast iron columns and stone floors. Yet the Capitol of Texas is feather light compared to the Mayan's Temple of the Sun, built entirely by hand by a civilization that died out long before Columbus wandered into the Caribbean. What was lost in the conquest of the Americas? How much ancient knowledge has faded away? How many modern discoveries are just repeated effort? It's absurd to think that humans as a whole just suddenly got smarter a few hundred years ago with the Industrial Revolution. I'd say that the people walking the streets of Rome in Nero's day were every bit as intelligent as the people of New York or Tokyo or modern Rome. Maybe I'm wrong and this attitude is not as prevalent among academics as it seems in the bourgeois. In any case, what we now know of human history seems so skimpy.
--Debra W.
Please feel free to submit short questions. We reserve the right to answer and publish those we believe to be in the public interest. We reserve the right to use or not use questions (in whole or in part), to include your name, and to edit or condense your questions for clarity and space. Click here to submit a question to the editor.
Where in the history of Europe did Anglos or Aryans acquire or adopt the religion of Judaism? Did African Jews during the Apocrypha period migrate to Europe and evolve into Anglo's due to the colder climate? I have been seeking an answer to this question for a long time and no one can seem to answer it. Finally, last question, Why do we call the Jews...Jews? If I understand this correctly, if you are Jewish you practice Judaism, which is really the tribe of Judah. But what happened or where are the other tribes like Dan and Naphtali?
--Ted Irving
The people of biblical Israel did not originate in Africa. They came from Asia, specifically Mesopotamia. They are a Semitic people as are the Arabs. Semitic peoples have migrated all over the world in the past 4,000 years. This is too short a period for large evolutionary leaps. With intermarriage and commingling of genes there are African, European, and Asian populations with traceable Semitic genes. In the Diaspora, which has had several phases, biblical Israel has spread and often become assimilated by local peoples.
The term Jew arose for a member of the kingdom of Judah (the southern kingdom) as opposed to the kingdom of Israel (the northern kingdom) after the separation of the ten tribes. Note that in II Kings 16:5-7 Israel and Syria besieged Jerusalem (the capital of the kingdom of Judah). The Syrians ran the "Jews" out of Elath (vs. 6). The Judahites became the Jews in Babylon. Today the word Jews usually has a religious context. Anciently, however, the context of the Hebrew Scriptures was ethnicity. In that culture all Jews were Israelites, but not all Israelites were Jews. The Jews were the three tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi. Israel withdrew and disappeared from history as the northern 10 tribes. Even today, there are millions of people who carry Israelite genes and are part of Abraham's descendants (who only know themselves as Gentiles) but who are not Jews.
Where are the tribes of Dan, Naphtali, and the other lost tribes? They appear to have become part of other nations. Their identity is a mystery, but one which will soon have a scientific answer. See Researchers Determining the Genetic Composition of Major Populations Throughout the World.
--Editor
I am a fourteen year old Christian freshman that loves biblical archeology, but I am not sure as to whether that is what I want to spend my whole life doing. Could you give me some information that will either persuade me or turn me away form doing it and if I am to do it what classes should I take in high school?
--Scott Lasky
The focus in your life needs to be on a college preparation program and the good grades that will get you into college. When you get there take an anthropology course or two and see if you excel in the content. If you do then research archaeology for its career potential.
--Editor
I'm extremely interested in being a volunteer on a dig. Could I please get some more info on how to do that and the cost, and the like?
--Stephanie Sage
See the current BAR Guide to Archaeological Digs.
--Editor
I'm planning to major in art with the eventual goal of getting my masters (I'm not sure in what yet) and my doctorate in Egyptology...I'm also not at all a math or science kind of person. I want to be an archaeologist, but I'm wondering if that will be possible considering my major and such...any opinion concerning this will be appreciated
--Gwen
Archaeology as part of anthropology is a social science. You will have to master the use of the scientific method but it is not all that difficult. Egyptology is a different matter. It lies more in the humanities. A career in archaeology is usually in academe or at a museum. Expect to teach, do original research out in the field, and receive low wages.
--Editor
I am a student at Southwest Missouri State University and am required to write a research paper on a self-inflicted subject. I have had a keen interest in biblical archaeology for some time, and I was wondering if you could send me some information on a known happening or thesis.
--Robb Bippes
There is no shortcut on developing a topic for a term paper. Ask yourself what interests you and then make a list of possible topics. You might find past issues of the Biblical Archaeology Review helpful. The university library should have copies. Choose one that you can research in books and journals. The internet remains too shallow in content although there are some exceptions.
--Editor
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