Easter – The Back of My Mind

The Jewish Feasts: Part 8, Early Firstfruits

The next and last of the Spring Feasts is Yom ha-Bikkurim, the Day of Early Firstfruits. This is considered an agricultural festival; a celebration of the beginning of the spring barley harvest. It was commanded at Mt. Sinai, but was not to take effect until the Israelites were in the Promised Land, planting their own crops. The timing corresponds to the day that the redeemed slaves miraculously crossed the Red Sea (actually, the Yam Suf, or Sea of Reeds–I personally believe this is a reference to the upper reaches of the Gulf of Suez, near the town of Suez, where I think that papyrus and other reedy swamp plants would have washed down from the Bitter Lakes region at the ebb tides; but there is much scholarly disagreement on this). The theme of Resurrection attaches to this Feast because it is seen to commemorate both their resurrection from sure death at the hands of Pharaoh’s army, and more particularly, their resurrection as a people who essentially lost their national existence when they were enslaved.

I don’t think it needs to be said that Jesus’ resurrection took place on this, the third day after His death and burial! I do not want to spend much time here arguing the exegesis of Matthew 12:40 (ESV), were Jesus said, [40] 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. Some well-meaning conservative Christians have argued on this basis that the Crucifixion must have taken place on a Wednesday; however, this is well-attested Hebrew idiom, and my preferred hermeneutic requires that figures of speech must be considered (see Zuck, Roy B., Basic Bible Interpretation) in translating and properly understanding Scripture. In my view, both Scripture and ancient traditions force the acceptance of a Friday Crucifixion.

Please study closely the slide above, where I have laid out the timeline, as I believe it to be, for the Jewish Spring Feasts, beginning with Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Note that I have enumerated each day during the period Nisan 10 through 21. Note, too, that I have placed the Lamb Sacrifices and the “First day of Unleavened Bread” on Thursday, Nisan 14, the day before the start of the traditional “Passover Week”, as I have previously explained. Next, see that I have placed the Day of Early Firstfruits, on Sunday, Nisan 17, the same as the third day of the 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread.

More on this timing below, but first, look closely at the three heading lines, colored blue on the slide. The middle line shows an equivalent Gregorian date for each of the days covered. I have often been curious about where the Crucifixion and Resurrection would fit on our modern Gregorian calendar. You can find a lot of conflicting—guesses—on the Internet. Finally, I determined to figure it out for myself. Most attempts that I have seen place them in the period AD 30 – 33, which make sense from a historical point of view. Another vital clue is that every Jewish month, by definition, begins on a New Moon. With some searching, I was able to find charts showing calculated new moon dates going back much farther than I needed. Assuming the Crucifixion was indeed on a Friday, it turns out that it is somewhat rare for Nisan 15 to fall on a Friday, and that fact led me to decide that it must have occurred on Friday, April 5, 0030.

Other historical events corresponding to the Feast Day. I waffled here on whether to the Feast was on *Nisan* 16 or 17. In reality, I am convinced it was *Nisan* 17, as explained below, and here.

Although I am personally convinced that the Resurrection had to have been on Sunday, Nisan 17, you may have noticed that in the second and forth slide, I have shown it as Nisan 16 or 17. This is a nod to conflicting opinions based on Leviticus 23:11 (CJB) [11] He is to wave the sheaf before ADONAI*, so that you will be accepted; the Cohen* is to wave it on the day after the Shabbat*. A Biblical “wave offering” is a ritual waving of an agricultural product by a Priest (Heb. Cohen) in an up/down left/right, in out pattern–sort of like a 3D genuflection. The question about this verse that has puzzled the sages from antiquity is, what Shabbat does this verse refer to–the Nisan 15 Shabbat, as the Pharisees believed, or the included Saturday Shabbat, as the Sadducees believed? Modern scholars tend to favor the former because they suppose that (a) the Pharisees were more powerful, and (b) the Nisan 15 Shabbat was more important. Both of those suppositions are wrong! The Saturday Sabbath is more important, and the Pharisees, while most popular with the am ha-aretz, or common people, had little actual power. The Sadducees had almost total control over the Temple and its ritual.

Table of Contents: The Jewish Feasts
Start of Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 1, Chapter Introduction
Previous in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 7, Unleavened Bread
Next in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 9, Weeks

The Jewish Feasts: Part 6, The Lamb of God

“Theology” is the study of God, and “Soteriology” is the study of, or theology of, salvation.

As an Evangelical Christian, I believe that Salvation is by God’s Grace, through Faith implanted by God and acting in us. I believe that Salvation has always been by Grace, through Faith. In Temple times, yes, certainly there were many Jewish legalists, but the sages always understood that the sacrifices were a response of faith to Salvation, not a means of it. And if not, were Jews of the Babylonian Captivity forever lost because they had no Temple and therefore no sacrifices? No, they had their faith and a gracious God!

We understand that Salvation is, in one sense, a process (personal conviction of sin), culminating in an event. Not, I think, a result of following some yellow brick road through random verses in Romans with a well-meaning friend or stranger, and then repeating back a magic prayer. The best statement I know of to explain salvation is:

Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)
[6] And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

While the Salvation event is a jewel to be sought, it is in reality a jewel with many separate facets (see slide, below): It gathers us into fellowship with likeminded believers; in fact, usually, God brings people into contact with believers in order to introduce them to the reality of His existence. The key facet is regeneration, replacement of our old nature by the new. This results in short- and long-term joy. It also brings redemption from slavery to sin. As we live among God’s people and learn God’s will, we experience sanctification, a turning from sin towards a purer life. Eventually, we all die, but we look forward to ultimate resurrection, followed by revelation of all truth.

So, these facets of Salvation are typified by the recognized themes of the Jewish Feasts! The order is precisely that of the feasts, on Israel’s civil calendar beginning in the fall.

It is important, and the reason for this article, that you recognize that

Jesus is not just the archetype of the Passover Lamb; He is also typified by, and fulfills the prophetic vision of, all Biblical Jewish Feasts and Sacrifices.

In1 Peter 1:18-19 (ESV), the Apostle tells us, “You were ransomed … with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb… without blemish or spot” The emphasis on “like” is mine, and I removed a comma that is not in the Greek. Peter is here comparing Jesus with, really, all of the efficacious sacrificial animals, not just the Passover Lamb.

John the Baptizer, in John 1:29 (ESV), said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” But, what does it mean to call Him “The Lamb of God“? Was John prophesying that Jesus would be crucified during the Passover Feast, some 3-1/2 years in the future? The people hearing John in that day, in that place, would have missed that point and immediately known that John was pointing out to them the person who he believed to be the promised Messiah!

Prior to Jesus’ appearance, the Jewish rabbis taught that personifications of “the Lamb” in the Old Testament were speaking of the coming Messiah. Take, for example,

Isaiah 53:7 (ESV)
[7] He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

At the bottom of Part 4, I mentioned some reasons that many theologians mistakenly think that the Gospel of John conflicts with the synoptics, and thus proves that the Last Supper could not have been a Passover Seder. Part of their belief is that Jesus must have been crucified at the exact same time as the Passover sacrifices because “He was the Passover Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.” That, too, is a misreading of John.

Here is a list of some things that I think make it impossible for Jesus to have died on Nisan 14, at the same time as the sacrifices:

Most importantly, a proper understanding of the scriptures and the cultural traditions make the narrative of the four Gospels clear and consistent. The sacrifices were on Nisan 14, the Crucifixion on Nisan 15.
In Exodus, the killing of the sacrifice was of little importance; what mattered is what happened in the home that night—the smearing of the blood on the doorposts and the sharing of the final meal in slavery. Followed, of course by the passing over by the angel of death. In the commemoration, the sacrifice was governed by ritual, but it was still not a holiday occurrence—the meal was now the essential feature and made more-so by Jesus. During that one, all-important twilight, at the Passover Seder, Jesus proclaimed for all time the New Covenant in His body and blood!
If Jesus had died alongside the Passover sacrifices, His death would have been forever connected with that one sacrifice alone. In fact, His death represented every other sacrifice as well!

The key take-home from this lesson is that, while Jesus was certainly the ultimate Passover Lamb, it was not as the Passover Lamb that He saved us! Passover lambs were never sin offerings. A sin offering became a symbolic receptacle for the sins of the people, and could not be eaten, because one would be symbolically re-ingesting the same sins. The Passover lambs were a type of fellowship offering, a remembrance of redemption from slavery, and a celebratory meal between family and/or friends. It not only could be eaten, but it must be eaten.

So, where did salvation truly lie? In Jesus, the Scapegoat of Yom Kippur! Stay tuned for a future instalment.

Table of Contents: The Jewish Feasts
Start of Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 1, Chapter Introduction
Previous in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 5, Passover
Next in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 7, Unleavened Bread

The Jewish Feasts: Part 4, Spring Feasts

Technically, there are three Feasts in the spring month of Nisan, as bracketed in the slide above; but because they are contiguous (even overlapping) and so closely related, it became traditional practice to lump them together as a single Feast, which was called Passover (Heb. Pesach). I will present details of each component Feast in future posts, but for now I want to provide, in narrative form, a description of the events that preceded a typical Passover week, with notes about Jesus’ last Passover.

Since all bar mitzvah (Son of Commandment) Jewish males, age 13 and over, were required to be in Jerusalem for this Feast, nearby roads, bridges, wells and mikvoth (ritual baths, baptistries) were repaired well in advance and the city cleaned up for hordes of out-of-town visitors. Groups of roughly 7 to 12 people would share one lamb or kid, sized so that no meat would be left over after the upcoming Seder. Usually these groups were families, so that’s how I will refer to them here, but frequently small families or more loosely related groups would combine.

Selection of the animals had to be done no later than Nisan 10, so that was the date that most families would begin arriving. Jesus arrived that day (which we now refer to as “Palm Sunday”) on a donkey colt, with Peter and John who appear to have shared the preparation duties in the following days.

Though the Passover Week would not start until the Seder meal during the period of dusk between Nisan 14 and 15, the sacrifices had to be completed during the day on Nisan 14. This day was also called “the first day of unleavened bread”, because all leaven had to be consumed, sold to Gentiles or destroyed before the Seder and the following week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread.

There were usually as many as a million people in Jerusalem for Passover, so around a hundred thousand animals had to be sacrificed in a single day! All 12 courses (rotations) of priests and as many Levites as possible would be on duty. Typically, one or two representatives from each family, with their animal, would gather around the Temple Mount, on its top, and in the outer courts and the Court of Prayer (also known as the Court of Women, or the Treasury). As quickly as possible, these worshippers would be led in groups through the Nicanor Gate separating the Court of Prayer from the Court of Israel. Two lines of priests would be stationed in the slaying area on the north side of the altar, each priest holding a gold or silver bowl as shown below.

Property of the Temple Institute, Jerusalem

The function of the family representatives in this ceremony was to bring the animal and the slaying knife, to kneel in front of one of the priests, and to tenderly hold the animal as a way of identifying with it, emotionally and spiritually. The representative, not the priest, would then slit its throat quickly and humanely. The blood would be drained into the priest’s bowl and passed down the line of priests to be splashed at the base of the altar, near a drain that would channel much of it down into the Kidron Valley, below. After finishing with the slaying, the representatives would carry their dead animals to an adjacent area where they would hang it from one of several posts provided for the purpose and quickly cut out portions of meat dedicated to the temple personnel, and parts forbidden for consumption. The forbidden parts would be carried by priests up a ramp onto the altar and tossed into a fire. The representatives would skin the rest of the offering and cut it up for cooking. The meat would be wrapped in the skins and taken back into the city to be roasted on a spit in ovens constructed for that purpose.

The reason I spent so much energy describing the above process is that it can’t be understood from the Bible alone, and probably 98% of what you read on the Internet is flawed. Many Christians say that there had to have been two Seders, or the Last Supper must have been some other meal. There are three main reasons for this confusion:

First, many believe that Jesus was crucified “on Passover”, at the same time the lamb (singular) was sacrificed. For historical and theological reasons that I will go into in future posts, the Crucifixion absolutely could not have been on Passover, and it could not have been on the same day as the sacrifices (plural). Jesus was crucified during traditional Passover week, but not until after the Biblical Passover Feast, the one and only Seder. There were not two Seders.
There is also confusion about terminology–the Preparation Day was on the first day of unleavened bread, but that is the day before the first day of The Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Also, in John 18:28, when the Pharisees refused to go into Pilate’s headquarters with Jesus in the morning lest they be defiled and unable to “eat the Passover” (ESV), the meal they were concerned about could not have been the Seder, because defilement from entering a Gentile home only lasted until sundown! Instead, it had to refer to the important chagigah meal at noon following the Seder. More on all these issues later.

Table of Contents: The Jewish Feasts
Start of Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 1, Chapter Introduction
Previous in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 3, An Overview
Next in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 5, Passover

Easter Myths, part 2

Updated 7/12/2022

©Ron Thompson, based on my own calculation, using Scripture, Jewish customs, and available scientific New Moon tables.

Myth: The crucifixion actually took place on a Wednesday. For two thousand years, most Biblical historians and scholars have held to a Friday crucifixion. More recently, though, many evangelicals have begun to teach that Jesus died on a Wednesday or Thursday. At the heart of this matter is Jesus’ statement in Matthew 12:39–40:

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.
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.
—Matthew 12:39–40 ESV

For some reason, it’s hard for some folks to see how you can find three nights between Friday and Sunday! I’m going to first present the actual timeline (see also the first chart, above), as I see it, and then I’ll explain several important concepts:

©Ron Thompson. This chart added for 2022 revision.

As most Biblically educated people know, prophets often used the word “day” (Heb. yom) to indicate a long or indeterminate period of time, rather than a literal 24-hour solar day. The key to understanding the timing issue here lies in Hebrew idiom—figures of speech. Where there was a likelihood of confusion, ancient Hebrew writers used terms like “three days and three nights” and “the evening and the morning were the first day” to emphasize that true solar days or portions of literal days were in view, not a longer prophetic period of time.

In the Matthew 12 passage quoted above, Jesus was prophesying. Many of His listeners believed in a coming resurrection of the dead in the acharit hyamim, or end times, so it was necessary for Him to emphasize that He was speaking of something that He would personally experience, and that it would be of short duration. Paraphrased, He was saying, “In a little while, I’m outta’ here, but I’ll be back before you know it, on the third calendar day.”

In both spoken and written Hebrew, references to literal solar “days” or “days and nights” did not necessarily imply that complete 24-hour periods were meant. “Three days and three nights” meant “some part of one solar day, all of a second, and some part of a third.” On the first line of the second timeline chart above, “Day 1” was Friday. Recall that Jewish days last from evening twilight until the subsequent evening twilight (see the third chart, below). Jesus died around 3 PM and was entombed before twilight, so at most He was dead only around three hours on this day. He remained in the tomb all through the night and day of Saturday, “Day 2”. His resurrection was sometime on Sunday morning, “Day 3”, before His tomb was found open. The total period was thus composed of a little more than one full period of daylight and at most two full periods of dark. “Three days and three nights” by traditional Hebrew reckoning.

Many conservatives refuse to believe this non-literal interpretation of Jesus’ words and insist on exactly 72 hours, but the hermeneutic employed by me and many conservative, Evangelical scholars allows for a non-literal (but not random!) interpretation of various obvious (to those who understand Hebrew literary techniques) figures of speech.

Many well-meant attempts to rescue the Friday crucifixion tradition resort to various forms of Greek linguistic gymnastics, trying to prove that “in the heart of the earth” doesn’t really mean buried, but could, for example, mean the period from Jesus’ betrayal to His resurrection. I urge caution in using Greek to understand Hebrew concepts. Hebrew idiom does not always translate well into Greek.

Each Jewish day begins at nightfall and lasts until the following sundown. The twilight period between any two days technically does not belong exclusively to either day, or in another sense, it can be viewed as belonging to both days. The Seder supper always begins during this twilight period between Nisan 14 and Nisan 15 (see Lev 23:5). Note that the lambs are sacrificed on Nisan 14, before the Seder and thus before, not during, the traditional weeklong Feast of Passover.

Every Sabbath is preceded by a Day of Preparation, when meals are prepared, candles lit, and other chores performed that are unlawful on the Sabbath itself. Many arguments against a Friday crucifixion focus on misunderstandings of John 19:31 and its parallels:

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
—John 19:31 ESV

The argument is that Friday was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, so it could not have been the previous day of preparation. It is true that the first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are important Sabbaths. But in Jewish custom, the regular weekly Sabbath that occurs during the Passover week is the most important of all the 7^th-day Sabbaths.

So, in that particular year, there was a Feast Day Sabbath on Friday and a weekly Sabbath the following day, on Saturday. Confusion arises because many non-Jewish scholars believe, incorrectly, that it was unlawful to ever cook or make other preparations on any Sabbath. In fact, Jewish law makes an exception when two successive days are Sabbaths. Preparations for each are permissible on the preceding day, whether or not it, too, is a Sabbath.

Some confusion also arises due to a failure to recognize that the “First day of unleavened bread” is one day prior to the first day of the Feast by that name.

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.
So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”
—Luke 22:7–8 ESV

On Nisan 14, the day of the sacrifices, all hametz (leaven) must be removed or destroyed so that none at all is present during the entire week of the Feast.

Another verse that leads to confusion about the timing is John 18:28:

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.
—John 18:28 ESV

To most, this seems to imply that Jesus’ trial and crucifixion came on the day before the Seder, implying that the Last Supper was something entirely different. Not so. Any ritual defilement caused by entering Pilate’s presence would only last until sundown, so it would have no effect on eating the Seder meal. Instead, this refers to the chagigah (festival sacrifice) which was eaten with much celebration and joy in the afternoon following the Seder.

You may ask how the Wednesday crucifixion proponents manage to get “three days and three nights” out of a Wednesday to Sunday entombment. Mostly, there are two schools of thought. Some actually place the resurrection on Saturday and justify this by misinterpreting the passages about the women at the tomb. Others say that while Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, he was not placed in the tomb until evening, which would be early Thursday on the Jewish calendar. In that case, a resurrection early Sunday (on our Saturday evening) would meet the requirement.

A less prevalent theory is that the crucifixion was on Thursday. I believe that there are severe problems reconciling Sabbaths, preparation days, and calendar days if this approach is taken, but I will not cover it here.

Easter Myths, Part 1
Easter Myths, Part 3

For a complete series on the Principle Jewish Feasts, as specified in Leviticus 23, please see The Jewish Feasts–The Back of My Mind.

Easter Myths, part 1

Updated 7/12/2022

If you think I’m about to say that the resurrection is a myth, forget it! The resurrection of Jesus is central to my life and theology. I’d have no reason to exist without it. This is about “other stuff.”

Myth: The resurrection occurred on Easter Sunday. This won’t come as a shock. We all know that Easter is a Christian commemoration of the event, not a celebration of the exact day of the year. But why do we do it that way? In the early centuries of Christianity, many churches in the Roman Empire began to object to celebration on the traditional date, considering it to be a “humiliating subjection to the Synagogue.” During the 2nd Century, many of those churches had begun celebrating Easter on a Sunday, regardless of the Biblical calendar. For a clue to the mindset, there’s this ancient text: “Sunday commemorates the resurrection of the lord, the victory over the Jews.”

In AD 325, Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to discuss two major issues in the church. One of those was “the Passover Controversy”, the disagreement between churches that commemorated the resurrection on the Jewish feast day and those that did not. Constantine’s view, of course, won out. He wrote,

It seemed to every one a most unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who, polluted wretches! Having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds.”
It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our Lord’s passion even to the present times. Let us then have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews. … In pursuing this course with a unanimous consent, let us withdraw ourselves, my much honored brethren, from that most odious fellowship. … [I urge you] to use every means, that the purity of your minds may not be affected by a conformity in any thing with the customs of the vilest of mankind. … As it is necessary that this fault should be so amended that we may have nothing in common with the usage of these parricides and murderers of our Lord.

The date for Jewish celebration of the Passover season Feasts is tied by Divine Ordinance to specific dates on the Hebrew calendar (see Leviticus 23). Non-Jews are released from such ordinances, so I don’t care on what day we celebrate the Resurrection. But you should be aware that the name, “Easter”, and most of the secular traditions tied to the holiday are pagan in origin, and that Nicene Council separated it from Passover for blatantly anti-Semitic reasons.

Myth: The crucifixion occurred on Passover, Nisan 14. Well, yes and no. The crucifixion happened on Nisan 15, after the sacrifices and after the official Passover as specified in Torah. It became customary, even in the New Testament, to refer to the three spring feasts together as “Passover.” Technically, Passover is just the short period of twilight between Nisan 14 and 15, on the Jewish calendar (see Part 2 of this series). Immediately after Passover, the 7-day Feast of Unleavened Bread begins on Nisan 15. And in the middle of this period, there is the Feast of Early Firstfruits. Jesus’ Last Supper was a Passover Seder. That meal always begins during that twilight period, true Passover, and ends around midnight on Nisan 15, when celebrants adjourn to the streets and rooftops to sing the Hallel Psalms together. The crucifixion, therefore, occurred on Nisan 15, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

My reckoning of the Crucifixion Week timeline. ©Ron Thompson

Myth: Jesus died at the very instant that the High Priest plunged his knife into the heart of the Passover Lamb. I’ve heard this one even from Ray Vander Laan, a man I consider to be an expert on Israel and its customs. But it’s wrong on so many levels! First, the sacrifices occurred during the day before the Seder, on Nisan 14; the crucifixion was the next day, Nisan 15. Second, there wasn’t just one lamb; there was a lamb for approximately every ten people celebrating. Perhaps 100,000 lambs, killed over a period of hours! Which one are they talking about? Third, the High Priest killed only his own lamb, and that much earlier in the day, before the Temple gates were opened. All the other lambs had to be killed by their owners, not by a priest. Fourth, each lamb was killed by a quick slash of its throat, as specified by scripture. A knife to its heart would be considered cruelty, and in the context of the Feast, could get one stoned. Sometimes, the melodrama in the pulpit is just crazy!

To be continued…

For a complete series on the Principle Jewish Feasts, as specified in Leviticus 23, please see The Jewish Feasts–The Back of My Mind.