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.”
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 15th 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 14th/15th
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
