Gentile Believers (“Christians”) and the Commandments of Torah

“Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19 NASB).


Should Believers in Christ (Messiah) Keep the Law (Torah)?

This is a huge question, the answer to which—though many mainline Christians will have a hard time accepting it —is yes. Yes, believers should keep the Law (more accurately understood as the Torah, or “Teachings”). The Master Himself makes this abundantly clear in several key verses (see Matt. 5:19; 19:17; Mark 10:19 pp.).

Many prefer to understand the verse that opens this essay in light of Matt. 22:40, so that they believe Yeshua to be saying, in effect, “Don’t annul (break, do away with) the two commandments to love God and others.” But consideration of the immediate context of 5:19 clearly indicates that this is not what the Master had in mind, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law [Torah] until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments [of the law or Torah], and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:17-19 NASB).

Now even though in that verse the Lord was speaking to Jewish disciples, we know that His words were intended for Gentiles as well. All His teaching was for His chosen people, Jew and Gentile alike. We know this because of such Old Testament (Tanakh) verses as Gen. 22:18, Zech. 8:23, and from New Testament (B’rit Hadashah) verses such as Acts 15:7-9 and John 10:16. So, if Gentiles are—through Messiah—now grafted into the olive tree of Israel, as Paul maintains (Rom.11:17-18), and are therefore eligible for the blessings which were promised to them through and because of Abraham, presumably the commandments of the Torah of God are also applicable to Gentiles. “For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me” (John 17:8). And again, “For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak” (John 12:49). We know that Jesus (Yeshua) has the entire Tanakh and the summary of the Torah or Law (the Decalogue) in mind from such verses as Mark 12:28-31 and 10:19. And while there is no explicit teaching from the Master to the effect that the commandments of the Law/Torah are in fact His commandments, the implication that they are is found throughout the Brit’ Hadashah, for instance in Luke 24:25-27 and John 6:68.

Many people read John 13:34 (“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another”) as well as similar statements from John’s letters in the sense that this “new” commandment is a replacement for all the other commandments found in the Tanakh. But the word in this verse, καινὴν, (kainēn), is a variant form of the Greek kainós. The Discovery Bible defines the word kainós as, “properly, new in quality (innovation), fresh in development or opportunity – because ‘not found exactly like this before.’” The new commandment is an innovation, not a replacement. Nor are we to think that we can dodge the bullet by appealing to Matt: 22:40, “On these two commandments [i.e. as found in Matt. 22:36-39] depend the whole Law and the Prophets”, the referents for which are Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18. We like to understand this verse as replacing or fulfilling all the other stricter stipulations of the law. We think that we are merely to experience affectionate and respectful feelings toward God and people in general (and perhaps to perform the odd act of charity) and that thereby we are being obedient to God and meeting His requirements. I don’t think so.

The apostles also make it clear that believers show their love, not by warm and fuzzy feelings, but by keeping the commandments (e.g. John 14:21; Rom. 13:9; 1 Cor. 7:19; Rev. 12:17 etc.). So if we are to keep all of the commandments (including the commandments found in the Brit Hadashah) the next question we need to address is why we should do so.

Why are we to keep the commandments?

As both our Lord and the apostle John make clear, the reason to keep the commandments is to demonstrate our love for God through a willing and even joyful obedience to His Word (John 14:15, 21; 15:10; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 1:6). We are not to keep the commandments for the purpose of gaining merit, reward, or salvation, since it is clear from both the Tanakh and the Brit’ Hadashah that we are saved by grace through faith alone (Gen. 15:6; Hab. 2:4b; Rom. 1:17; 3:22; 5:1; Eph. 2:8-9; Gal. 2:16a etc.) and not by works.

A second reason for keeping the commandments is for our progressive sanctification (Phil. 2:12; Titus 2:11). If we are obeying the commandments for reasons other than as a demonstration of our love and thankfulness as well as our growth in sanctification, then Christ is of no use to us (Gal. 5:2).

What commandments are we to keep?

Are Gentiles to keep all of the 613 commandments of the Torah? Even though the LORD never made a direct covenant with Gentiles, the answer is yes, notwithstanding. In Exodus, the people of Israel swore to keep the commandments which were being delivered to them by Moses (Exo 19:8; 24:3, 7) but the LORD has grafted believing Gentiles into the olive tree of Israel (Rom. 11:17-18). Before, Gentiles had been “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise” but now, through faith in Yeshua, Gentiles “who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both [i.e. believing Jews and Gentiles] one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. So then you [Gentiles] are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:13-14, 19-20). This means that the Torah is applicable to Gentiles. Remember too, that when someone becomes a citizen of a country (or Kingdom) that person is required to obey the constitution and laws of the new country of which he is now a member. Obedience to those laws is not optional for the engrafted citizen any more than for the native born.

So then, which laws or commandments are we to keep?

Well, since not every commandment is applicable to every person in every situation, the broad answer is that we should keep all that apply to us in any given situation. Of course that implies that we know which commandments are in fact applicable to us in the first place. And this further implies that we actually know what the commandments are. That’s one reason why we read and study Scripture: to know what God expects and desires from us. It should go without saying that the so-called Ten Commandments are universally binding. But there are many commandments that are applicable in principle yet are not able to be fulfilled today, like those commandments that depend on the Temple and priesthood for their fulfillment, such as Lev. 6:3, to remove the ashes from the altar or Lev. 5:7, to offer a sacrifice of varying value according to one’s means. The Torah itself prohibits any sacrifice from being offered in any place but the Temple, and then by duly ordained Aaronic priests (Lev. 17, especially verses 3-4, 6, 8-9 and Duet. 12, especially verses 11, 13-14, 26). And since there is no temple or priesthood any longer, any commandment that refers to the temple system is no longer applicable.

(However, there are some who believe that the Temple will be rebuilt and the priesthood reconstituted, either before or immediately after the return of Messiah. However, this cannot be possible if Yeshua is the once and final sin offering; there need be no further offerings or sacrifices made since Yeshua is the perfect and permanent propitiation for sin (Heb. 9:12, 25-27; 10:10; 1 Peter 3:18 etc.) thus making the older—provisional—sacrificial system unnecessary, Heb. 8:13. But keep in mind that the covenant being spoken of in Heb. 8:13 is passing away because it has been renewed, or fulfilled, by the Lord, not discarded. It is not a completely unique covenant being written about but rather is the fulfillment of the older covenant which was given on tablets of stone, but now, in Messiah, is being written upon our hearts, even as the prophet Jeremiah prophesied.)

But to continue, other commandments may be optional in one set of circumstances but applicable in a different set of circumstances. For instance, if one lives in an apartment in the city, and buys food from the local supermarket one need not fulfil such a commandment as Lev. 19:19, not to cross-breed cattle of different species or Deut. 22:9, not to sow grain or herbs in a vineyard. (You could even say that such a person is indeed observing these commandments by choosing to live in an apartment.) However, if such a person should buy and move onto a farm, then these commandments might very well become applicable. Some commandments are directed at the leaders of the state and judges and officers of courts of law, who are able to pass judgement, and inflict punishment on criminals after a fair trial, such as Deut. 16:18, to appoint judges and officers in every community in the land of Israel, or Lev. 25:14, to adjudicate cases of buying and selling or Exo. 23:1, not to hear a party in a suit in the absence of the other party. These commandments and many others like them are clearly not applicable in the lives of most people in society, but are certainly applicable to those who take upon themselves political and judicial roles.

However, many other commandments are universally applicable, such as Exo. 20:2 and Deut. 5:6, to know that God exists; to imitate His good and upright ways, Deut, 28:9; not to add to or take away from the commandments found in the Torah, Deut. 13:1. As well, we have moral commandments that are also applicable in all circumstances for all people, commandments such as not to stand aside when another person’s life is threatened, Lev. 19:16; not to take revenge for a wrong done, or cherish hatred in one’s heart, and not to bear a grudge against another, Lev. 19:17-18; to refrain from afflicting an orphan or widow (the weak in society), Exo. 22:21, and to give charity as one is able, Deut. 15:11.

In the case of property and land, we are not to alter property boundaries Deut. 19:14; we are not deny the property rights of others, Lev. 19:11. We are not to steal someone else’s property, Lev. 19:11, and we are to return lost property to the rightful owner, Deut. 22:1.

If we should hire someone to work for us, we must pay him his wages when due Deut. 24:15.

Some commandments must be understood and practiced in the context of the time and society of which we are a part. For instance Exo. 23:5 requires us to relieve an animal of a burden which is too heavy for it and to help a person’s beast of burden that has fallen or is in distress by the side of the road, Deut. 22:4. These commandments are literally applicable to those who own or work with livestock (ranchers, farmers and the like) but the principle of these and other similar commandments is applicable in different contexts. For instance, in the example of Exo. 23:5, the principle would apply to a situation in which one could help another person who was carrying a heavy burden, such as an elderly person lifting groceries into the trunk of her car. The principle of Deut. 22:4 would apply when a person, whose car had broken down or had gotten a flat tire, required assistance. So in cases such as these, the principle of the commandment is applicable. There are very many such commandments which are applicable in principle in differing contexts.

Of course the commandments concerning marriage, divorce and our sexual relations are of obvious importance and have had a profound influence on human society. According to the traditional listing of the commandments by Maimonides, there are 66 such commandments. The subject is too large for an essay of this type. Suffice it to say that these commandments are fundamental for any civilized society, and the absence of them will cause a society to degenerate and fall apart.

Additionally, there are the commandments regarding the holy convocations or appointed times such as Pesach (Passover) Shavuot (Weeks) and Tabernacles to name three from Lev. 23. Nor may we ignore the Sabbath. These are all part of the Torah, which now applies to Gentiles. (Admittedly, not every aspect of every mo’ed, i.e. appointed time, can be kept or celebrated, as many aspects of these appointed times depend on a Temple and a serving priesthood. Nevertheless there are still many aspects of the moedim that can be kept and celebrated.)

Minimum applicability for Gentiles (Acts 15:28-29)

“For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

With these words, the Council of Jerusalem expressed the conclusion of its deliberations concerning the issue that it had confronted: the need of Gentiles to be circumcised and thereby take upon themselves the legally binding yoke of the entire Torah, by becoming—in a fully legal sense—a member of the Sinai covenant; to become Jews in other words.

Remembering the Halachic (legal) authority given by Yeshua to the apostles (Matt. 16:19; 18:18) and consequently to the leaders of the Ekklesia, the Council of Jerusalem had every right to decide on matters that could be legally binding on the Ekklesia (i.e. “Church”) as a whole. Because of this authority, (and the endorsement of it by the Holy Spirit) the decision reached by the Council became the rule for all Gentile believers. This Halachic decision was never repealed by the Council and with the death of the last apostle (John?), it became impossible to either repeal or alter the decision reached, at least until the Messiah’s return, when He may choose to repeal it. This means that the decision is still in effect for every Gentile believer.

In addition to proper sexual relations within the bond of marriage to a person of the opposite gender, the other three terms involve dietary restrictions. (A comprehensive explanation of these four stipulations can be found in an essay on the website “torahresource.com.”) In brief, these four stipulations were put in place as a fence against any involvement with idolatry, preventing Gentile believers from joining with their Jewish brothers and sisters in fellowship and worship. Believers are still required to avoid involvement with idolatry. As well, believers are specifically to avoid ingesting blood as well as the flesh of animals that still retain some blood in the tissues due to non-kosher forms of slaughter (things strangled.) Strangling can refer to literal strangulation, as often occurred as part of pagan worship of the time, but also to the strangulation from blood entering the wind-pipe due to improper or unfit methods of slaughtering. All four restrictions are in force in principle. But they are also in full force in practice by virtue of their placement in the Brit’ Hadashah and by the fact they have never been amended or rescinded.

I believe the verse, “For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues” (Acts 15:21), indicates that the members of the Council fully expected Gentile members of Messianic synagogues to gradually learn and practice the Torah as a result of their compromise solution which allowed Jew and Gentile to continue associating with one another.

Conclusions

So what may we tentatively conclude from this brief study? It seems that we need to obtain a sound understanding of the various commandments in Scripture (as I’ve said, both the Tanakh and the Brit’ Hadashah). This can only happen by actually reading the commandments in their scriptural context and meditating on their relevance to us in our various situations and circumstances (Psalms 119:15, 48). Moreover, as I’ve indicated, the commandments are often dynamic, so that a commandment may be applicable in one situation but not in a different situation. Other commandments are applicable for all believers at all times in all circumstances as in the commandment to “love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut 6:5) and the commandments concerning incest, sodomy, fornication and other such abominable activities. I believe we must look at the various commandments and seek to know those which are relevant to us and understand why they are so, and then as a matter of faithfulness and love to determine how to apply each one, that is, to live it out in our walk of sanctification. But in this we must not maintain a legalistic or inflexible attitude, especially toward those whose understanding is at variance with our own. Indeed, we are commanded not to do so, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 7:12).


(In addition to the regular reading and study of Scripture, one could become more acquainted with the individual commandments. A list of all the traditional 613 commandments can be found at Judaism 101. A similar list of New Testament commandments can be found on the Web but many, if not most, of these commandments are really encouragements or admonishments rather than outright commandments. Even so, it’s a formidable list.)

The Sign of Christ’s Resurrection from Matthew 12:38-39

³⁸ Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” ³⁹ But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

In a previous post I put forward the hypothesis that Christ was crucified on Wednesday evening and resurrected on Saturday evening (in the year 30 CE). In the post, I used His reference to Jonah in the belly of a fish as a critical indication of the truth that Messiah was in the tomb for a full three days or exactly seventy-two hours. However, in that essay, I did not explain sufficiently why I believe that this reference is so important. In this short addendum to the previous work I hope to clarify the concept.

The two keys to its importance lies in the context of the verses and the word “sign” used in both verses.

The context is the sinful unwillingness of the Scribes and Pharisees with whom he had been debating to acknowledge Him as the Messiah. I think this is made clear by v. 34 and again by v. 42 which act as bookends for vs. 38-39.

In these verses we find the intransigence of these particular Pharisees being roundly condemned by Yeshua. And when they ask for a sign, it’s as if Yeshua thought to himself, “Oh, so you want a sign do you? OK, I’ll give you a sign!” And of course the sign He says will be forthcoming—for He does not immediately cave in to their agenda, but makes them wait—is the sign of Jonah.

Now, as it is used in the Renewed Covenant (aka the NT), the Greek word for sign is sēmeíon. And in virtually every occurrence this word is not used in the mundane or common sense of a mere indicator. Indeed, it has much greater consequence. For instance, the Discovery Bible describes it as, “4592 sēmeíon – a sign (typically miraculous), given especially to confirm, corroborate or authenticate. 4592 /sēmeíon ("sign") then emphasizes the end-purpose which exalts the one giving it. Accordingly, it is used dozens of times in the NT for what authenticates the Lord and His eternal purpose, especially by doing what mere man cannot replicate or take credit for.” The Master responds to the Pharisees’ request for a miraculous sign by promising the miraculous, supernatural sign of the prophet Jonah. Surely, Christ is responding to their request in His own style and using the occasion to indicate—prophetically—the coming event (entombment and resurrection). In this context, we cannot gloss over the use of the reference. It cannot be taken as a casual expression or as a “simile.” The Lord does not say “a sign like the sign of the prophet Jonah” which would allow for flexibility in the timing of the burial/resurrection event. The Lord is referring unequivocally to the very three days and three nights spent by Jonah in the fish. I believe these verses are indeed reinforced by the fact that Jesus defined day and night as periods of twelve hours each. To quote from my previous post, “Nor does Yeshua leave us to determine on our own what He means by the terms “days” and “nights.” According to Scripture (Gen. 1:4-13; John 11:9-10) the terms “day” and “night” were defined as periods of light and darkness, each period lasting twelve hours.” On this basis, one full day (i.e. including periods of both light and darkness) would equal twenty-four hours. Three twenty-four hour periods equals a total of seventy-two hours. (And if we believe the Bible to be correct when it comes to Jonah’s being swallowed alive by a fish, only to be regurgitated seventy-two hours later, then surely we must accept the Lord’s words in our verses from Matthew as categorical and imperative.) He was stating emphatically that this would be the miraculous sign for the generation of His time and place. In the circumstances, we cannot understand these verses in any other way, nor do we need to. The Lord says in these verses that He was soon to give a miraculous—not mundane—sign of what would surely and certainly happen. The sign He gives is the sign of Jonah. (It is interesting to speculate that God intentionally contrived the Jonah event to act, at least in part, as a type for the future burial/resurrection event.) If we reject the intentionally of these verses, it puts us in jeopardy of rejecting the truthfulness of the entire drama of the passion of Christ. I, for one, am unwilling to go that far and have no logical reason to reject His prophecy—a prophecy from the very Son of Adonai Elohim, which consequently must be true. 

Random Thoughts on the Validity of a Saturday Sabbath

My personal belief thus far.

As a necessary first assumption I believe we must concede that whatever order of days God ordained has continued from the creation. I believe that not a single day has been “lost” (see Joshua’s long day below.) Therefore the order of days is the same today as it was for Adam in Eden, regardless of what each day is named. But how do we know what the order is?

The “oracles of God” were entrusted to the Jewish people and it is reasonable to believe that these oracles included when to keep Sabbath. God would not have commanded His people to keep the Sabbath if He did not also provide a means for doing so (Nehemiah 9:13-14; see also, Deut. 5:2-5a; 29:1). The Bible testifies that at least one purpose for the sun, moon and stars was for “signs and for seasons, and for days and years” (Gen. 1:14). This knowledge He passed on the Jewish people through Moses; they thereby became the authorized custodians of the sacred calendar. God gave the Sabbath to His people by communicating that day to Moses, “Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord” (Exo. 16:23, italics added). It is inconceivable that Moses and the people did not know what day “tomorrow” was. If the Sabbath could not be remembered—and therefore kept—then God’s Word proves to be errant, fallible and untrustworthy and God Himself insufficient in His knowledge and power. Therefore, God must have provided and continues to provide a means for such remembering and keeping of the moedim and Sabbath. Indeed, that means is in fact the Hebrew people, their culture, traditions, laws, and their religious awareness of themselves as God’s chosen people. An important concept, inherent to the Torah, is Halacha. This is the interpretation and application of Torah in the form of legal decisions. Halacha has always been operative as a principle within Judaism since Sinai. Halacha determines any kind of legal issue, including the recognition and timing of the Sabbath, along with all the other biblically mandated festivals, or “appointed times” (moedim).
(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halakha).  

The Sabbath was kept faithfully by Christ and His apostles. The day known to Christ as the Sabbath was the day determined by custom and confirmed by the Jewish Halachic authorities (the Sanhedrin prior to 70 CE). If that day was sufficient for Christ, it is sufficient for me. In Israel, there has been no monolithic decision-making body since the demise of the Sanhedrin and the Temple. However, this is not the same as saying there has been no authority or continuity. Continuity (in the form of tradition) has always been extremely important to Israel, (even in the Diaspora). The modern Rabbis have continued essentially the same system of keeping track of time for cultic purposes as did the Rabbis of the Master’s day. The main difference being that the present Jewish calendar—probably created or at least authorized by Rabbi Hillel ll in the fourth century—is a mathematically calculated calendar, whereas its predecessor was based on physical observation by reliable witnesses who would pass along atmospheric and climactic information to the Sanhedrin (or more specifically, a “calendric committee” within the Sanhedrin. (Chabad.org is a contemporary example.) The Jewish people never “lost” their calendar and Hillel’s calendar was based on the earlier observed calendar. The shift from one calendar to the other was “transparent” and represented a transition, not a disruption.

If Jesus had not kept God’s ordained Sabbath He would have sinned, thus denying His divinity. Jesus (and His apostles) kept the same Sabbath as other Jews, including the Pharisees, therefore the day they kept (our Friday/Saturday) had to have been the divinely ordained Sabbath. By observing the seventh day Christ in effect ratified it with His divine authority (Matt. 12:8; pars).

Whenever Christ was in a confrontation with the Jewish authorities (especially when accusing them of keeping their own “traditions of the elders) He never once accused them of keeping a false or unbiblical Sabbath. There is no hint in Scripture that Christ thought the Jews were mistaken or deceitful in acknowledging the seventh day Sabbath. I cannot conceive of Him ignoring such an important issue and what would have been such a flagrant violation of revealed Scripture.

Traditionally, what have the Jews of the Diaspora practiced in determining the time of the Sabbath (and the other moedim)? The Jewish people of the Diaspora have always calculated the specific dates and times of Sabbath and the moedim using the Jerusalem calendar as their authority, and then transposing the dates of the Jewish calendar into the corresponding dates of the secular calendar that governed the country in which they resided. For the Jewish people of the Diaspora, the assumption was simply that the Jerusalem calendar was authoritative and that the dates and times which corresponded with this calendar were therefore also assumed to be legitimate. The fact of a rotating earth precludes a “same day” possibility for experiencing events. If the earth were flat then there would be no corresponding days. One day would occur at exactly the same moment for everyone. It is my belief that this fact should not deter anyone from considering the Jerusalem calendar as authoritative.

God made an earth that rotated once every 24 hours and God defined a day as a time of darkness followed by a time of light (Gen. 1:3-5) each continuing in succession as the result of the earth’s rotation on its axis. Therefore we must deduce that once God inaugurated the first Sabbath day as the last day in the pattern of seven days of creation, that the pattern would be maintained as the earth rotated. Genesis also describes a day as being composed of evening and morning or a period of increasing dark followed by a period of increasing light. In the NT, Jesus defines the day as being composed of twelve hours—leaving us to infer a night of twelve corresponding hours. But the beginning of the pattern was established by God in His act of creating the earth, as recounted by Moses in the first chapter of Genesis.

Joshua 10:13 describes one of the greatest miracles since creation began, “And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.” Based on this verse (and a similar verse from Isaiah 38) many people have claimed that because the sun and moon stood still for approximately a whole day (either 12 or 24 hours) that a day was “lost.” This would mean that the Sabbath would no longer be in the same temporal position in relation to the other days. And that in turn would mean the traditional Sabbath cannot be correct. But God elsewhere says, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22). In this verse, the word translated “cease” is the Hebrew Shabbat which commonly means resting from work. In other words, the sun and moon shall not rest from their work. But what is that work? We know from Gen. 1:14 that the work is for creating and controlling “signs [appointed times, including the Sabbath] and…seasons, and…days and years.” So we have God decreeing that the luminaries will not rest. They will continue in their work until the last judgement. If this is the case, then the Bible cannot also be testifying in Joshua 10:13 that God in fact allowed—even caused—the reverse to happen, thus contradicting Himself.
      We must understand that the Bible is not a scientific textbook; it is written in such a way that its recipients—including the Hebrew people of Moses time—would have little difficulty in understanding it. Accounts of nature in the Bible are written from the position or vantage point of common, everyday perception. The author of Joshua 10:13 writes of the setting of the sun. This word is an expression stemming from common, ordinary human experience. In fact the sun does not “set” by moving below the horizon, but that’s what it looks like to us, even to the most sophisticated astronomer, who really knows better. So what is the way out of our dilemma?
       I believe in miracles in general and I believe in Joshua’s miracle in particular. But for people of faith, the miracle cannot be what it appears at face value. Certainly, it seemed to Joshua that the sun stood still; it seemed to rest from its work, but if that were so then the verse quoted above (Gen. 8:22) would not be true. Rather, the miracle was such that it seemed to Joshua that the sun really had rested for a day, thus causing a day to disappear because the sun did not “create” the next day. A chunk of time equivalent to a day was lost, thus putting the days of the week out of sequence. Rather, God caused a miracle to occur that only seemed to Joshua to be one thing from his observational frame of reference[1]. This was something he could conceive based on his own experience. From Joshua’s frame of reference, the sun really did stand still or rest from its work. What was the miracle that really took place? I have no idea, but would not be surprised if it had something to do with the refraction of light.
      In any event, there was no day lost. Instead, the day on which the sun and moon stood still was an extended or lengthened day. The sequence of days remained the same, only one day was made—or at least appeared to be made—longer than normal. It was a longer day, but it was the same day and did not alter the sequence established by God on day four of creation.

Believing Gentiles have been grafted into Israel (Rom. 11; Eph. 2-3). To my mind, this indicates a degree of agreement and alignment with the traditions of Israel and the OT, including the calendar used by Jesus for determining and celebrating the moedim and Sabbath. Since believing Gentiles have been grafted into Israel, her sacred calendar is our sacred calendar. Therefore we have a moral and spiritual privilege (see next point) to keep the Sabbath, not necessarily in the same way as Jewish people, but at the time determined by Judaism, taking it as our own “reference marker” to accommodate for the earth’s rotation, and which determines the actual time that we observe the Sabbath. I believe that observing the Sabbath at a different solar time than those in Israel is acceptable to God as He created the spherical, rotating planet that forces this condition upon us.

In a related way, we can resolve the issue of long days and nights toward the poles. For instance, in the northern latitudes during the summer, the sun never really appears to set. It is light virtually all the time. In the winter months, just the opposite is true, the sun never seems to rise and so it is dark during that part of the year, even when to the south both light and dark occur over any twenty-four hour period. This is caused by the angle of the axis of the earth relative to the sun as well as the travelling of the earth in orbit around the sun over the course of a year. But both of these conditions were determined by God. Given that fact as well as the fact that God has determined the seventh day as His Sabbath, it is reasonable to conclude that any determination of Sabbath commencement which is based on the arguments already given above, e.g. the rotating earth, will be acceptable to God who has created all these conditions. If we use the time determined for Jerusalem (or thereabouts) as our reference point and determine a time appropriate for our situation then this would seem to be an acceptable course of action.

Having said all this, especially the previous point, I believe it’s critically important to understand the issue of the Sabbath for Gentiles in the context of Acts 15, especially verses 19-21. As I understand it, the Jerusalem Council (in effect the “Sanhedrin” of the Apostolic Church) did not impose Sabbath observance as a legal and binding requirement. Because circumcision was a covenant sign between God and Israel, when the Pharisee’s demand for circumcision was refuted by the Council it indicated that—for Gentiles—there was no requirement to adopt Sabbath observance (or the rest of the Torah for that matter), with the exception of the four stipulations given in these verses: idolatry, sexual immorality, improperly slaughtered meat (i.e. not kosher), and eating blood.  Verse 21 indicates the idea that these minimum requirements would allow Jewish and Gentile believers to maintain communion, therefore allowing the Gentiles to remain in the synagogues, hear the Torah preached, come to understand it and consequently come to a gradual and voluntary adoption of it. The nature of this adoption would vary, some Gentiles being stricter than others in their adoption and observance. However, it was taken for granted, as a given, that anyone observing the Sabbath would do so on the last Jewish day of the week. This was the only day understood by the Hebrew people (not to mention Christ) to be the God-ordained Sabbath consequently the believing Gentiles within the synagogues would automatically keep the last day of the week as their Sabbath as well.

The Death and Resurrection of Christ: An Alternate Timeline

The following essay was not written with "Easter" upermost in mind, but rather it was written as an attempt to demonstrate that Christ was not crucified on Friday nor resurrected on Sunday. As I have explored in other related postings on this blog, I contend that Sunday was not the day of resurrection and that consequently it is not the biblical day or worship or rest, that in fact the Sabbath is still in full force as God's duly ordained day of rest and worship. This being the case however--and if my thesis is correct--it obviously means that Sunday cannot be the day of "Easter", that Easter is a man-made day of worship and is completely unbiblical. As I contend in this essay, Christ was resurrected on the day of Firstfruits according to the accepted Jewish reckoning of the time. It is on the day of Firstfruits that all believers should gather to celebrate the Resurrection.

Peace & Love!

I offer the following observations purely in the spirit of Semper Reformanda (Always Reforming). I believe the Church has for too long been satisfied with her own traditions and assumptions, in spite of both warnings and contradicting evidence from Scripture. Doubtless, there will be objections, some based on material I’ve not been able to cover in this simple work. There is a vast amount of information and truly a whole book could be written about this subject. Nevertheless, I can honestly proclaim that my only intent is to be true to the biblical record and therefore to bring honour to Christ, whatever my shortcomings as researcher and writer.

The purpose of this essay is to show that Christ was crucified on Wednesday, not Friday, and was resurrected on the evening of the last day of the week, according to the Hebrew measurement of days, which is from sunset to sunset. In this essay, I am using the word sunset to mean the period following the moment the sun sets beneath the horizon. This is followed by a time of twilight or dusk and then full darkness, which is the evening proper. Twilight or dusk is the period when birds begin to roost (Ex. 16:12) and when lamps are lit (Ex. 30:8). Evening corresponds with twilight and is described by Alfred Edersheim in his work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, “For the Jews reckoned two evenings, although it is not easy to determine the exact hour when each began and ended. But, in general, the first evening may be said to have begun when the sun declined, and it was probably reckoned as lasting to about the ninth hour, or three o’clock of the afternoon. [See Josephus “Antiquities16.6.2]. Then began the period known as ‘between the evenings’ which would be longer or shorter according to the season of the year, and which terminated with the ‘second evening—the time from when the first star appeared to that when the third star was visible.”
 

Scripture tells us that sometime before daybreak on the first day of the week (corresponding to the Gentile Sunday) after Christ’s crucifixion and burial, some of Jesus’ female disciples arrived at His tomb before full daybreak. (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). From all accounts, by the time of their arrival one or more angels had rolled away the tombstone from the entrance of the burial chamber. The body itself was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, Christ had risen before the women arrived at the tomb.

As recorded in Matt. 12:39-40 and 27:63, after His crucifixion, Christ would be entombed for three full days. Moreover, in Mark 8:31, He says He will rise again after three days (which implies not before three days). In Mark 10:34 He says “on the third day” and in John 2:19 He says “in three days.” Many consider all these references to be casual expressions of duration. However, while there is some reason to concede that Mark 10:34 and John 2:19 are casual or imprecise, there is no reason to consider the words in Matt. 27:63 or Mark 8:31 as casual expressions. Nor do the casual expressions used deny the truth and validity of the other more precise terms. We should rather take them at their face value. In Matthew 12:39-40, Christ stated categorically and unequivocally that the only sign He would give would be that of the prophet Jonah. “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” I believe that in this passage Christ is actually clarifying the less precise expressions used in Mark 10:34 and John 2:19. That is to say, He is telling us exactly what He means in those verses. Nor does Yeshua leave us to determine on our own what He means by the terms “days” and “nights.” According to Scripture (Gen. 1:4-13; John 11:9-10) the terms “day” and “night” were defined as periods of light and darkness, each period lasting twelve hours. That He expired in the middle of the afternoon (around 3 PM) and was entombed sometime later (in the evening, around sunset) indicates that, counting backwards from just before His resurrection, the Lord must have been in the tomb at sunset Wednesday/Thursday evening—remembering that an entire (24 hour) Hebrew day was counted from sunset to sunset, not midnight to midnight. However, we know that Christ celebrated Passover with His disciples on the evening of His arrest. Passover was a pivotal day in the Jewish festal year and was always to begin with the coming of sunset of Nisan 14 (Lev 23:5-6; Num. 9:1-3; 28:16-17). This Passover is one of a pair of temporal bookends (the other bookend being the first day of the week) which enclose the specific events of the last days of our Lord. Because Christ was entombed at the close of Passover, corresponding to the Gentile Wednesday evening, and was in the tomb for a full seventy-two hours means that he could not possibly be resurrected on Sunday morning.

(Much has been written concerning the idea that a day as defined by Jews in the time of our Lord could consist of a part of a full twenty-four hour period. This amounts to a colloquial or idiomatic use of the word day. And while it is probably true, we are not justified in using this imprecise (and unscriptural) definition as an explanation for our Lord not having to be entombed for a full and contiguous seventy-two hours. As we have already declared, the Bible—which is our final and sufficient authority—defines a day as two twelve-hour periods, one of light and one of darkness.)

The Scriptural reference to the “first day of the week” is very important because it is a known and reliable time marker, the second temporal bookend, allowing us to work backwards from it to Passover in order to determine when all these events took place.

The tomb was empty on Sunday morning. Christ was entombed—according to Scripture—for three full days (seventy-two hours). Even if Christ’s resurrection took place just before the arrival of the women disciples, it means he could not have been crucified on Friday. If he were resurrected on Sunday morning and had to be entombed for three full days (in order to fulfill Scripture, i.e. Jonah) then he would have been crucified on Thursday morning. But Scripture is clear about the time of death (Mark 15:34, 39; Luke 23:44, 46) that it occurred in the middle afternoon. So the traditional dating is simply not going to work. According to Scripture, Yeshua was the Passover of His people “for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7) who also “takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). And the Christ’s identification as the Passover lamb by Himself and others would dictate that He must die on the same day and at the same time as the lambs should have been killed in every Jewish household, that is to say Nisan 14.

Now we also know from Scripture that the week following the day of Passover was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This feast commemorated the flight to freedom in the desert following the first Passover. But while according to Scripture the feast always followed Passover, in the custom of Jesus’ day the Jews considered Passover to be part of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (and still do) and often referred to the entire feast by the name Passover. This is illustrated from Scripture in such passages as Deuteronomy 16:1-4 and Luke 22:1, in distinction to other passages, (Lev. 23:5-8 for instance) which actually clarify God’s intention. This is simply another instance of scripture clarifying scripture.

But why is the Feast of Unleavened Bread important to this particular discussion? Its importance is found in the fact that the first day of the feast is also a “high day” or “holy convocation”, a Sabbath, in other words. The myth of the Friday crucifixion was able to become a tradition in the Church because there were two Sabbaths during the week of Christ’s crucifixion. In the OT, not every Sabbath was the weekly Saturday or seventh-day Sabbath. God describes His feast Sabbaths (or high days, or holy convocations) in Lev. 23, in such verses as 24, 26-32 and 39. In Leviticus 23, God speaks of and describes His Sabbaths. Specifically in 23:3, He defines a Sabbath as a day of rest in which no work was to be done: “Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings [emphasis added]. In this verse, God describes the weekly Sabbath and further names it as a “holy convocation.” In 23:5-8, He describes both Passover and the separate Feast of Unleavened Bread and states that the first day of the feast, not Passover, is a Sabbath day, a holy convocation: “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.” With these words, God is describing a Sabbath even though He does not use that particular expression. This comes clear in the other verses in Leviticus to which we have already referred. “But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.” The Sabbath spoken of in Luke 23:52-54 and for which the Jews were in preparation was one of the high day Sabbaths. It was not the upcoming weekly Sabbath.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread began on Nisan 15. By the time of Christ however, as we have already made note of, Jewish tradition dictated that they celebrate the Passover as a part of the week long feast, even though, according to God’s standards, Passover was to be the day preceding the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread: “Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover” (Luke 22:1). According to this custom, Passover actually took place on Nisan 15, not on Nisan 14 as was required by God. Jesus had already eaten a scriptural Passover with His disciples in the upper room before He was betrayed by Judas’ kiss and taken prisoner by the mob. “Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover” (John 18:28). So the Jewish people were keeping Passover on Nisan 15, not 14, which was the day prescribed by God. This will explain why Matthew seems to contradict himself when he says, “Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?” (Matt. 26:17). In this verse, he seems to be saying that Christ ate Passover on Nisan15 and not Nisan 14. But we must remember that Matthew wrote his gospel for other Jews, who would themselves have incorrectly understood Passover to be the first day of the feast.

The preparation day spoken of in John 19:14 and 42 as well as in Luke 23:52-54, was in fact the true biblical Passover, which had already begun as the sun set hours earlier. It was the coming evening between the end of this day, Nisan 14, and the beginning of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread that was being referred to in the words “and the Sabbath drew on” in Luke 23:54. It was the Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Nisan 15, the first day of the feast, “And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King!” (John 19:14). “This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on” (Luke 23:52-54).

We have established that by the morning of Sunday, the first day of the week, the resurrection had already occurred. We know from Scripture that Christ would be entombed for three full days. This means that He must have been entombed sometime after His death on the afternoon of Nisan 14—which would put it sometime on Wednesday/Thursday evening (the 15^th of Nisan). But can we be more precise?

There is one other very important piece of the puzzle that we need briefly to look at. This is the Feast of the Firstfruits, when the first sheaf of barley was ceremonially cut down and later presented in the temple as the Wave Sheaf (Lev. 23:9-11 KJV). Actually, there are two Firstfruits—the Early Firstfruits and the Latter Firstfruits. It is the Early Firstfruits that concerns us here. Alfred Edersheim describes the ceremony in his work The Temple, Its Ministry and Service. Suffice it to say that the celebration was one in which the very first of the barley harvest was presented to God. The first of the barley was, as it were, a promise of the larger crop to come. (The word Firstfruits in Hebrew actually means “a promise to come”). Moreover, like the firstborn of the flocks, it was dedicated to God. Now according to Leviticus, the sheaf was to be presented and dedicated to God on the day after the high Sabbath which was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, this would put it on Nisan 16/17. Edersheim is accurate in his description of the celebration, but not, I believe, in its occurrence within the overall calendar of feasts. There are two traditions on when Firstfruits actually occurs. The Pharisees maintained that Firstfruits should commence immediately following the High Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, making Firstfruits occur on the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Sadducees, on the other hand, maintained that Firstfruits should commence following the Sabbath at the close of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I maintain that in order for Christ to fulfill all Scripture, the Pharisaic view must be correct. The High Sabbath was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and began on the evening of Nisan 15, which, counting back from Sunday, is Thursday. Referring to John 19:31 should make this clear: “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away” [emphasis added]. That this preparation was during daylight hours should be clear from passages such as Mark 15:42 and Luke 23:54. Paul testifies as to the validity of the OT Scriptures by saying to the Corinthians that Christ died, was buried and resurrected according to Scripture (1 Cor. 15:3-4). We must also remember that in NT Scripture Christ is referred to as not only the Passover lamb but also, in 1 Cor. 15:20-23, as the “firstfruits”, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.” And in addition, it behoves us to remember that it was a stated purpose of Christ to fulfil the Law as given to Israel according to Scripture (Matt. 3:15; 5:17). This means that when we read of the various ordinances and feasts throughout the OT, we can be sure that they all pointed to Christ as their ultimate fulfillment and completion. We know then, that Christ, the second person of the Godhead, has obeyed and fulfilled scripture for us. And when we read of Christ as being the firstfruits of his people, we can be confident that this pointed to an ascent to the Father before He presented Himself to His disciples later (John 20:17). As the firstfruits, Christ must have presented Himself to God the Father sometime between His resurrection and His appearance to the disciples on Sunday morning. This would account for the so-called missing twelve hours.

What was the actual time of Christ’s crucifixion and entombment? It is important to know this if, as we have seen, Christ was not only the Passover of His people, but also their Firstfruits, who would guarantee to them the same resurrection that God the Father had given Him and without which our faith is empty (1 Cor. 15:12-23). We know that He was crucified around the third hour, approximately 9 am (Mark 15:25) and that He was alive up to the ninth hour, which is about 3 pm (Mark 15:34). We also know that after He died, several other things happened in succession. First, we know from Matt. 27:57 and Mark 15:42 that the body was on the cross until the beginning of twilight and that Joseph of Arimathaea had first to get Pilate’s permission to remove the body from the cross (Matt. 27:58; Mark 15:43; Luke 23:52; John 19:38). We also know from Mark that Pilate would not release the body until the centurion who pierced Christ’s side could attest to His death (Mark 15:44-45). All this took time. Then the body would have to be removed from the cross. In addition, there would have been no Jewish men around who could do this, as it was now the high Sabbath, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:42). Therefore, the Roman guard would have been paid (by Joseph and or Nicodemus) to remove Christ’s body or else Joseph, with the help of his (presumably) converted servants would have been forced to do this. Then Joseph, along with Nicodemus, would have had their servants (or the bribed Roman soldiers) carry the body, along with wrappings and embalming materials, the short distance to the tomb. They would then have quickly washed the body, applied the spices, wrapped the body in the linen grave clothes and finally rolled the stone in position to secure Christ’s grave (Matt. 27:59-60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53; John 19:40, 42). It is not unreasonable to believe that several hours would have elapsed between our Lord’s death and His entombment. This means that His entombment in the “heart of the earth” would not have happened until the evening of the 14^th/15^th of Nisan. And it would be a full seventy two hours later that Christ’s resurrection would occur. We observe that Christ could not be raised on Sunday morning, say around daybreak, because that would mean He could not be in the “heart of the earth” a full seventy-two hours. If a Sunday morning (around or just before dawn) resurrection is the case, it means His body would have been placed in the tomb just before the hour of sunrise on the Thursday before. But if, as I propose, Christ was placed in the tomb just as the scriptural Passover was ending and the high Sabbath was beginning (the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread) it means He must have been in the tomb at least until the beginning of sunset on Saturday because Passover (when He had to be crucified) was on the Wednesday before.

 

We know that Christ had to be crucified on Wednesday because the NT clearly states the tomb was empty on the first day of the week (called Sunday by the Gentile pagans) and three full days prior to this—according to Scripture—would be Wednesday/ Thursday. As well, we know that the death occurred in the middle afternoon, followed by entombment sometime later, putting the entombment in the evening as Nisan 14 was turning into Nisan 15, the High Sabbath and first day of Unleavened Bread.

This being the case, and given the biblical requirement of three full days, it follows that Christ would be resurrected on the evening of the last day of the week, which of course is the Sabbath. Since there is no mention of a Sunday resurrection in the entire bible—that in fact, from a biblical perspective Sunday has no importance whatsoever—it is obvious that Christ could not fulfill any Scripture concerning Sunday since there was not an iota of Scripture written about Sunday for Him to fulfill! Hence, if we are to be true to Scripture, we should not celebrate Easter. In fact we should not even consider Sunday as a day of special theological or devotional importance, as the primary reason for doing so is—in my opinion—false. And we most certainly should not keep Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. There is only one Sabbath, God’s. This Sabbath has never been revoked by its creator and master—although it has been by the Church—and is still, like the other nine commandments, in full force.

A Note on Calendars and Historical Data

But was Christ crucified in the year 30 CE? This is important because it bears on the actual day of crucifixion and that of resurrection, neither of which I believe happened on Friday or Sunday, as taught by the Church.

Referring to the calendar routines for the Hebrew calendar from the software program Emacs 19 by Edward M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz (www.knowledgengineers.com), we see that in the year 30 CE, Nisan 14 was on a Wednesday. So the calendar provides confirming evidence of a Wednesday evening entombment and therefore a Saturday evening resurrection. But a cautionary word about calendars is in order. Developing calendars, like any scientific undertaking, proceeds from already held presuppositions. In science, there is no such thing as pure, unbiased objectivity (the same holds true for theology by the way). In order to discover scientific proof, one must have a hypothesis which serves as a starting point. But the hypothesis is always provisional. It is simply an idea or proposition that one attempts to prove or disprove and in this process new ideas and new propositions will emerge. Each of these in turn may become hypotheses.  I have looked at several calendars—both traditional and modern astronomical—and I can say with assurance that they simply prove the underlying assumptions and propositions of those who create and develop them. Two supposedly “scientific” and astronomically based calendars can come up with completely contradictory dates for any single event in history. So in order for a calendar to be considered correct, there should be corresponding astronomical, historical, anthropological, archaeological, and or biological phenomena which can be used to date any occurrence in time independently.

The fact that most sophisticated calendar programs, based on astronomical data, posit that in the year 30 CE Nisan 14 was a Wednesday (according to the current Gregorian calendar) by itself proves nothing. It does, however, add credence to historical data which is also available to us. These data were recorded as, or shortly after, the actual events occurred. There was no hypothesising or mythologizing. There was simply a recording of events that happened, whether or not any explanation could, at the time of occurrence, have answered all the questions that might be posed. What are the historical data to which I refer? What we have are references in the Talmud/Mishna of some very odd phenomena beginning in the year 30. Our position here is not to prove that these phenomena actually happened (although I believe they did) but that the recording of them offers independent corroboration for our thesis as well as to lend reliability to the data arrived at by astronomical calculations. But to what phenomena do I refer?

The number 40 occurs again and again in Scripture as referring to a time of testing and trial. Christ was “sifted” for 40 days in the wilderness, Israel suffered in the wilderness for 40 years for her disobedience and lack of trust. And, if we are correct in our theory, 40 years elapsed from the death of Christ to the fall of Jerusalem, which our Lord predicted. But how can we be assured that the fall of Jerusalem occurred 40 years after our Saviours death, therefore putting His death in the year 30 CE, and therefore placing His crucifixion on Nisan 14 of that year? (Most, but not all, calendarists assure us that the astronomical data clearly shows that in the year 30, Nisan 14 occurred on the Gentile Wednesday).

According to various sources (the Talmud, Josephus, Tacitus as well as early Christian tradition) six inexplicable phenomena or events took place beginning in the year 30 and culminating forty years later with the utter destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. We turn to Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, for his summary of these events:

“And now a shudder ran through Nature, as its Sun had set. We dare not do more than follow the rapid outlines of the Evangelistic narrative. As the first token, it records the rending of the Temple-Veil in two from the top downward to the bottom; as the second, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves. . . while the rending of the Veil is recorded first, as being the most significant token to Israel, it may have been connected with the earthquake, although this alone might scarcely account for the tearing of so heavy a Veil from the top to the bottom. Even the latter circumstance has its significance. That some great catastrophe, betokening the impending destruction of the Temple, had occurred in the Sanctuary about this very time, is confirmed by not less than four mutually  independent testimonies: those of Tacitus, of Josephus, of the Talmud, and of earliest Christian tradition. The most important of these are, of course, the Talmud and Josephus. The latter speaks of the mysterious extinction of the middle and chief light in the Golden Candlestick, forty years before the destruction of the Temple; and both he and the Talmud refer to a supernatural opening by themselves of the great Temple-gates that had been previously closed, which was regarded as a portent of the coming destruction of the Temple” (p.893)”

 

The Temple Veil

At the death of Christ, the Temple Veil separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was torn through the middle from the top down, probably due to the—divinely caused—earthquake that occurred at this time (Matt. 27:45-54). The veil was made up of 72 squares. Altogether it was thick as the palm of a man’s hand, 30 feet deep and 60 feet across. It was attached to a huge lintel stone weighing some 30 tons and which itself was broken and fell to the floor of the Temple.

 

The Sanhedrin

The Sanhedrin was the ruling body of Israel. It was headquartered in the temple. In 30 CE it vacated its official seat, the Chamber of Hewn Stones, for a much less exalted location called the Trading Place; basically a place for the buying and selling of worldly commodities. According to Josephus, they had once more to move to an even less exalted location far removed from the Temple altogether and which had no such sanctity as the Temple. As well, in the year 30, according to the Talmud (Sanh. 1:1, 7:2) the Sanhedrin was forced by Rome to give up its right to act in judgement in cases involving capital punishment, forty years before the destruction of the Temple, i.e. 30 CE.

The Lots

On the Day of Atonement, the Lot was the choosing of two stones, labels or plaques, one white, one black, from a box containing a number of such plaques or labels in order to determine which of two goats would be for God (the sacrifice) and which for Azazel (the scapegoat). Azazel seems to have represented Satan, or at least some demonic entity under Satan’s authority. The high priest would place both hands in a box containing an unspecified number of labels or plaques, from which he chose two. As would be expected, according to the laws of chance, until the year 30 the High Priest selected a white plaque as often as a black one. But beginning in the year 30, until the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, he picked only black ones. The odds for this are 1 in 1,099,511,627,776—that’s basically a trillion to one!

 

The Crimson Thread

Along with the Lot, there was the Scarlet or Crimson Thread; this was tied to the horns of the goat chosen for Azazel. When the goat was driven into the wilderness and pushed over a mountainous precipice, the thread should have turned white in order to tell the people that their atoning sacrifices had been accepted and that their sins were forgiven for another year. And this indeed took place, faithfully, every year until 30 CE. From that time on the thread never again turned white. This indicated that the sacrifices of those years were not acceptable to God. The sins of the people were not being forgiven.

 

The Temple Doors

Beginning in 30 CE, the doors of the Temple swung open every night for forty years, until the destruction of the Temple. This should never have happened. With the clarity of hindsight, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, the leader of the Jewish community (the assembly of Israel)  just after the fall of Jerusalem when the “government” of Israel was transferred to Jamnia, is reported by the Talmud to have said, “Said Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai to the Temple, ‘O Temple, why do you frighten us? We know that you will end up destroyed. For it has been said, “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars” (Zec. 11:1). (Sota 6:3).

 

The Menorah

The most important lamp of the seven branched menorah went out by itself; this in spite of the ministrations of the priests. Every night for forty years—12,500 nights in a row—the main lamp of the Menorah would go out in spite of the attempts of the priests to prevent it! The odds of this occurring naturally are beyond the astronomical. Clearly in this, as in these other phenomena, something of cosmic and divine importance was working itself out.

All these signs prove nothing in themselves. However, in conjunction with astronomical data for the same time period, they offer important corroborative evidence that the year 30 CE was singularly important.

When these events are understood in light of the astronomical evidence, it seems hard not to conclude that the year 30 CE was an immensely important year. These events support the hypothesis that 30 CE was the year of our Lord’s death. In the year 30 CE, the day of Nisan 14 fell on a Wednesday/Thursday, (refer to Figure 1) making a Friday crucifixion impossible.

In regard to which calendar is the correct one for calculating the events constituting the Paschal week of our Lord, perhaps we can find wisdom in a white paper of D. Thomas Lancaster from the teaching ministry First Fruits of Zion, who writes, “In regard to matters of Jewish tradition, Paul tells us to, ‘Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Messiah. Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you’ (1 Corinthians 11:1-2). He goes on in verse 11 to admonish the Corinthian congregation to conform their halachah with other synagogues. If we are to imitate Paul and Yeshua, we must also practice the traditions that they practiced. Their traditional observance was generally consistent with Pharisaic interpretation. Paul himself was a Pharisee. The set calendar as we have it is an institution of ancient Pharisaism. It was instituted by Hillel 2 to unify Israel in the absence of a Sanhedrin and to answer some of the difficult questions that are posed when addressing the Scriptures for proper application. We feel that we are in line with the modeling and injunction of Paul in following the traditional calendar. The Master was silent on the calendar debates of His day. Neither Yeshua nor the Apostles even offer a rebuke regarding calendar issues, with the exception of Paul’s rebuke to the Galatians for ‘closely watching days and months and seasons and years’ (Galatians 4:10).

Since, it is our heart to follow Yeshua's example and He simply kept the rendering of the majority, perhaps it is appropriate that we do the same. When we see other ways of reckoning the calendar that seem to make more sense than the majority reckoning; when the moon seems out of sync with the calendar date or the season seems out of sync with the month, we might be tempted to correct the calendars ourselves. But this isn’t really our job. It is the job of the authority over Israel, whether that authority be a new Sanhedrin or Messiah Himself. If there were a functional Sanhedrin today that was recognized as authoritative by the majority of Israel and they examined the barley and determined that Passover should fall on March 25th this year, that would be wonderful. In that event, we would certainly readjust our calendars. These calendar irregularities serve to heighten our anticipation of Messiah’s coming as we all look forward to the restoration of all things, including the restoration of the reckoning of the calendar”(“Lunar Calendar and the Aviv Barley”, D. Thomas Lancaster, Director of Education, First Fruits of Zion).

 

 

A Few Parting Remarks

My purpose in this essay has not been to destroy faith in the truth of Scripture, but to proclaim it. The more I understand Scripture, the more I understand how much I still do not understand, but also that the Church has often erred in her interpretation, substituting the “traditions of men” for that which she refuses to accept. It has always been a source of frustration to me that what are often straightforward descriptions in the Bible are misinterpreted seemingly with intent. Do I hate the Church? May it never be! I love the Church and wish only that she might learn to accept Scripture for what it testifies of itself that, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Could I be wrong about the timing of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord? Absolutely. The attempt here has only been to assume the truth of Scripture and to follow where it leads.

SOLI DEO GLORIA