Did Jesus Celebrate His Final Passover on its Proper Night? Part I

The passion story of Jesus Christ in the four gospel accounts contains an apparent contradiction. This apparent contradiction concerns the day of the week the celebration of Passover was to occur that year.

One very important detail that needs to be understood in advance of discussing this matter, is that for the Jewish people of that time, each day began at sunset and ended just prior to the following day’s sunset. As a result, Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples and was crucified and died on the same Jewish day.

The three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke reveal that the celebration of Passover by Jesus and his disciples that year, which we more commonly call the Lord’s Supper, occurred on a Thursday evening. We know this intuitively as Jesus’ crucifixion occurred on a Friday afternoon before the Jewish Sabbath commenced at sunset that evening.

However, in John’s Gospel, the day on which Christ’s crucifixion occurred is referred to as “the day of preparation”. This detail is confirmed in John’s Gospel, when referring to the timing of the burial of Jesus. It states that “for the Sabbath day of that week was a solemn one.” It was a solemn one that year as it coincided with the timing of the Passover Seder that Friday evening.

How can the gospels have such an apparent contradiction regarding the timing of Passover? This would seem to be such an important detail for this to occur. In fact, many non-believers challenge the authenticity of the gospels by virtue of the presumed inaccuracy caused by this apparent contradiction!

But what if the gospels are correct? How is this apparent contradiction reconciled? What if certain groups of Jewish people celebrated Passover on different days? On first blush that may seem strange to us. But consider Catholics and the Orthodox celebrate Easter, more often than not, on different Sundays.

Now within the Jewish society at that time, there existed five sects or groups of people. The Sadducees and the Pharisees were by far the two largest and most influential of these sects and the ones’ most relevant to this discussion. In order for you to better appreciate the possibility that these groups celebrated Passover on different days, and the role this inevitably played in God’s plan for our salvation; I need to provide you with a brief background about their respective histories and central beliefs.

Both the Sadducees and the Pharisees enter recorded history at approximately the same time. Their respective appearances first occurred shortly after the Maccabean rebellion that arose to overthrow Antiochus IV, the Greek king of Syria. It was Antiochus IV who had conquered Judea in the early part of the second century BC.

This king forcefully tried to Hellenize the Jewish people. His aim was to root out all religious and cultural practices of the Jewish people and replace these practices with Greek culture, including the polytheistic worship of the Greek gods.[i] This was an anathema to the Jewish people! In 164 BC, this Jewish revolt succeeded in overthrowing Antiochus IV.

Thus began a two hundred year struggle for power between these two influential Jewish sects. At the center of this religious dispute was the central question as to who had the authority to interpret Sacred Scripture.[ii] For the Sadducees, that authority rested with the Levitical priesthood who were principally members of the Sadducee sect. While for the Pharisees, that authority resided with the scribes and rabbis, who were in turn, members of the Pharisee sect.

Generally speaking, the Sadducee sect was the party of the elites, while the Pharisees represented the interests of the common man within the populace.[iii]

For the better part of the first 170 years of their struggle for power with the Pharisees, the Sadducee sect was the dominant political party within the Jewish religious society. Though the Pharisees began to exert some political control of their own in the latter half of the first century BC.

The Sadducees political dominance ended abruptly with the ouster of the Herodian family’s rule over Jerusalem by the Romans in 6 AD. At that time, the Pharisees succeeded to power.[iv] While the Sadducees continued to maintain numerous seats in the Sanhedrin, including that of the high priest, their power had been dramatically reduced.

Let me briefly summarize these two sects’ central beliefs before discussing their very different and conflicting Passover practices.

The Sadducees

From the priestly circles emerged the Sadducee sect who represented the aristocratic and priestly class within the Jewish society. One can say, while not all Jewish priests were Sadducees (though most were), virtually all Sadducees were priests.[v] Their religious views were conservative and as a general rule not subject to change.[vi]

They were rigid adherents to the Law of Moses as revealed in the Torah, which encompasses the first five books of the Old Testament. Those five books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Their rigid adherence to the Torah was, in part, a means to ensure their retention of political power. They believed that by virtue of a literal interpretation of the Torah their status as an aristocracy was protected.[vii]

They did not consider the contents of any of the other books of the Old Testament as binding. For the Sadducees, only the Torah (the Law) was strictly adhered to and binding.[viii] As an example of this rigid adherence, they did not believe in a life after death because the Torah did not explicitly say as much. Their religious practices principally centered around the cultic Temple sacrifices and offerings as well as the observance of the various religious festivals that were prescribed in the Torah.

The Sadducees disappeared from history soon after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD.[ix] With no place to offer acceptable sacrifices to Yahweh, the Levitical priesthood came to a fairly abrupt end.

The Pharisees

What the Levitical priesthood was to the Sadducees, the scribes (lawyers) and rabbis (teachers) were to the Pharisees. Indeed, from the Torah scholars rose the party of the Pharisees.[x]

The Pharisaic movement had developed from its Hasidic roots.[xi] As forerunners of the Pharisees, the Hasidim (meaning “the pius ones”) had adopted Hellenic philosophical thought into the Jewish faith.

The Pharisaic scribes and rabbis taught that their forefathers had imparted an “oral tradition” of the Torah (Law), also referred to as the “tradition of the elders”, which terms are referenced in the gospel accounts. This oral tradition contained 613 precepts of the Law, which all Pharisees would have studied and rigorously sought to comply with in their daily lives.

In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul makes a pointed reference to his education and training as a Pharisee before a group of Pharisees:

At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral law and was zealous for God, just as all of you are today (Acts 22:3).

Originally the Pharisees were small in number. But over time their numbers and influence grew to the point that at the outset of the common era they became the most politically dominant sect within all of Jewish society. Their influence was, by then, felt throughout every aspect of Jewish life.

It’s fair to say that the various forms of Judaism today can trace their roots back to this Pharisaic sect.

To sum up this overview, the Sadducees were the far more conservative party in their religious practices and consequently far more narrowly focused than the Pharisees, who were very progressive in their religious thought. The Pharisees believed that the Jewish faith must be adapted to the everyday life of a person and thus to the changing times within the culture.[xii]

Two Distinct Systems of Celebrating the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread

So with that as background, let us now turn our attention to the possibility that the celebrations of the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread were observed by these two sects at different times and discuss the implications this had on God’s plan for our salvation.

What I will now summarize is their two very different systems of celebrating the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread.

The Aristocratic Method as Practiced by the Sadducees

The Sadducees, as well as Jesus and his disciples, followed the Aristocratic method of celebrating the feasts of Passover and of Unleavened Bread as prescribed by God to Moses on seven consecutive days. On the first of these days, which corresponded to the 14^th day of Nisan, the feast of Passover was celebrated.

Recall the point I made at the outset of this article, that for the Jewish people of that time, the new day commenced at sunset. According to this method it was during the twilight hour of that day that the Passover lambs were to be sacrificed. Remember that this would have been at the opening hour of the day. Here is God’s instructions to Moses concerning the Passover sacrifice:

Your lamb must be a year-old male and without blemish. You will keep it until the fourteenth day of this month (Nisan), and then, with the whole community of Israel assembled, it will be slaughtered during the evening twilight. This day will be a day of remembrance for you, which your future generations will celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD; you will celebrate it as a statute forever (Ex 12:5a, 6 and 14).

So for those that followed the Aristocratic method for the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread, the lambs were sacrificed, at the beginning of the 14^th day of Nisan, before the whole assembly, commencing at sunset through the end of the evening twilight. The evening twilight lasted until the light from the sun had ended and the stars became visible.[xiii]

During the month of April this timeframe lasts for approximately an hour and a half. Once the twilight was over, the Passover Seder (meal) would commence, and the victim would be eaten with the arrival of the evening darkness.

In the Aristocratic method, the first day of the seven days of these two consecutive feasts was the feast of Passover, while for the next six days the celebration of the feast of Unleavened Bread was observed. These six days were in addition to the day of Passover, which also required that only unleavened bread be eaten.

Thus, comprising seven consecutive days of unleavened bread. This is covered in the two following verses from The Book of Deuteronomy:

You shall offer the Passover sacrifice from your flock and your herd to the LORD, your God, in the place the LORD will choose as the dwelling place of his name. You shall not eat leavened bread with it. For seven days you shall eat with it only unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, so that you remember as long as you live the day you left the land of Egypt; for in hurried flight you left the land of Egypt (Dt 16:2-3).

For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly for the LORD, your God; on that day you shall not work (Dt 16:8).

In the Aristocratic interpretation of this second quote above from the Book of Deuteronomy, the first of these six days is Passover and the seventh day, in addition to being a high Sabbath day, was also a day that unleavened bread was eaten. For a total of seven days of consuming only unleavened bread.

Lastly, both the day of Passover and the seventh day of these combined feasts were high Sabbath days, where no heavy work was to be done. That Passover was a high Sabbath day pursuant to this method, is very relevant to understanding its effect on God’s plan for our salvation. This point will be further addressed in the last section of this article.

Tomorrow in Part II, we will continue with a discussion of the Hasidic method for celebrating the feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread. As you will see this method, which was practiced by the Pharisees, varied greatly with the Aristocratic method summarized above.

Far from depicting an apparent contradiction in the gospel passion accounts, this disparity in the celebration of Passover actually provided God, by means of his omnipresent powers, with the means to fulfill his plan for our salvation in spectacular fashion!

Note

The principal source of information for this article comes from the Yahu Ranger Report. It can be found at Yahuranger.com. Likewise, most of the references I utilize below for the main points covered in this article were taken from this same source. My purpose in writing this article was to address a much narrower point than those discussed on the Yahu Ranger Report. Mine was to explain how the gospel passion accounts, while apparently containing a critical contradiction could nonetheless be true. And how by virtue of God’s omnipotence and omnipresence could thread the needle on the culminating act of his plan for our salvation, in a way that only God could do!

i 1Mac 1:20-64; 2 Mac6:22-7:42; Jos Antiq. 12:5:4-5.
ii SHDL pp. 57f.
iii Jos. Antiq. 13:10:6.
iv Jos. Wars 2:7:3-2:8:1, Antiq. 17:13:1-18:1:1, 18:2:1.
v NBD p. 1124.
vi CBTEL 9, p. 235.
vii SHDL PP. 56f.
viii HJP 2, p. 411, cf., p. 413.
ix HJP 2, pp. 402, 414.
x HJP 2, p. 388.
xi MDB p. 785.
xii CBTEL 9, p. 235.
xiii ADB 3, p. 691.
xiv HJP 2, pp.397-401, 413.
xv Jos. Antiq. 2:15:1.
xvi Jub. 49:1-23.
xviiPes. 1:4-6; CBTEL 7, p. 737.
xviii Jos. Antiq. 18:1:3.