Unleavened Bread – The Back of My Mind

The Jewish Feasts: Part 7, Unleavened Bread

My last two blog entries dealt with the Jewish Feast of Passover, its preparation (including the sacrifices) during the preceding days, the actual Biblical Feast, lasting only through the twilight time between Nisan 14 and 15, and it’s correct relationship to Biblical Soteriology. Today I’m moving on to the second Feast, Unleavened Bread.

Unleavened Bread is the second of the Spring Feasts, and in fact it spans the entire seven days now traditionally called “Passover“. The first and last days of the feast are “convocations”, or Sabbaths, no matter on which day of the week they occur. The Saturday Sabbath within this seven-day span is considered an “especially holy Sabbath”, particularly if it falls on Nisan 15. If the Saturday Sabbath and either of the holiday Sabbaths occur on consecutive days, then cooking and other related Sabbath prohibitions are relaxed during the first of the two days.

Deuteronomy 16:16-17 (ESV) designates three days each year as regalim, or “pilgrim festivals“, which all ritually clean adult males (12 and above) are required to attend:

[16] “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. [17] Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.

In practice, attendance during Unleavened Bread is only required until the end of the first full day. In fact, many Jews started home on Nisan 16, though many stayed for the entire week. I am confident that an early return to Nazareth was the context in which Jesus’ family left him behind as recorded in

Luke 2:41-47 (CJB)
[41] Every year Yeshua’s* parents went to Yerushalayim* for the festival of Pesach*. [42] When he was twelve years old, they went up for the festival, as custom required. [43] But after the festival was over, when his parents returned, Yeshua* remained in Yerushalayim*. They didn’t realize this; [44] supposing that he was somewhere in the caravan, they spent a whole day on the road before they began searching for him among their relatives and friends. [45] Failing to find him, they returned to Yerushalayim* to look for him. [46] On the third day they found him—he was sitting in the Temple court among the rabbis*, not only listening to them but questioning what they said; [47] and everyone who heard him was astonished at his insight and his responses.

Adapted from Rose Guide to the Temple,
© Copyright 2012 Bristol Works, Inc.

Where in Jerusalem was Jesus most likely “sitting … among the rabbis“? Most likely on these stone steps (on the Temple diagram) or on the porch at their top (the Hel). The rabbis mentioned were probably Pharisee members of the Sanhedrin, who at that time regularly convened in the Chamber of Hewn Stone (below the arrow). During times like this they would often walk out to the porch to talk to worshippers and answer theological questions.

Historically, Exodus 12:39 (CJB) records that the Israelites prepared unleavened dough for their flight from Egypt: [39] They baked matzah* loaves from the dough they had brought out of Egypt, since it was unleavened; because they had been driven out of Egypt without time to prepare supplies for themselves. Leaven later came to prefigure sin to Israel, so that the removal of leaven from the Land during this feast symbolized the removal of sin–i.e., sanctification.

By His crucifixion, Jesus bought our salvation, in all its aspects. His crucifixion is seen in all of the Feasts, and each Feast prefigures at least one of those aspects. It turns out that important events in either Jesus’ first or second advent have evidently occurred or are scheduled to occur on Feast days relevant in some way to the events themselves. So far:

Passover symbolized redemption from slavery (to Egypt/to Sin), and it was precisely on the Feast of Passover (during the Seder) that Jesus proclaimed the New Covenant as foretold in Jeremiah 31:32 (CJB),: [32] ⁽³³⁾“For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Isra’el* after those days,” says ADONAI*: “I will put my Torah* within them and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Unleavened Bread symbolized Sanctification, or removal from Israel (of Egypt/of Sin), and it was precisely on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread that Jesus was crucified to provide salvation, including payment for, and sanctification from, sin.

Table of Contents: The Jewish Feasts
Start of Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 1, Chapter Introduction
Previous in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 6, The Lamb of God
Next in Series: The Jewish Feasts: Part 8, Early Firstfruits

Resurrection Day: Nisan 16, or 17?

The Feast of Early Firstfruits is Nisan 17 on the Jewish calendar. In the year of Jesus’ crucifixion, that was a Sunday, by our terminology. By my own reckoning, based on astronomical new moon tables, I believe that the resurrection occurred on April 7, AD 30.

So why do I show this on “Nisan 16 or 17″ on the table of feasts? It isn’t because I question the date, but simply because the subject of the table is not specifically the resurrection, but rather the date of the feast, Early Firstfruits, or Yom haBikkurim, as celebrated by Israel. Lev 23:10-11 (CJB) says

[10] “Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘After you enter the land I am giving you and harvest its ripe crops, you are to bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the cohen. [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.

The question of the day was, which Shabbat (Sabbath); the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or the normal weekly Shabbat? Modern Jewish calendars follow the view of the Pharisees, who insisted on the latter; but in the First Century, the Sadducees controlled the Temple and the calendar, and they held to the former.

So, even though Jewish calendars today show Yom haBikkurim on Nisan 16, which was a Saturday in 30 AD, Jesus was indeed the embodiment of the resurrection theme of the feast, and He rose from the dead on the exact day of the celebration!

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.