The Blogs: Passover and the Crucifixion Contradiction

The Christian Bible contains a contradiction: The Synoptic Gospels say that Jesus was executed after eating the Passover sacrifice and John says it was on the “Preparation Day of Passover”, which all indications in the text seems to mean the day before (John 18:28).

I am reticent to post this because I know that Israel has Christian allies and I don’t want to rock that boat. On the other hand, I see a lot of people changing Judaism to reconcile this contradiction. I am in favor of starting with facts and then basing opinions off of those.

Here is how the holiday works.

Throughout the Bible (Tanakh), Passover is only ever referred to as the “The Holiday of Passover” once (Exodus 34:25). All other references to “Pesach” refer to the offering. Even here the verse says, “the sacrifice of the holiday of the Passover”. Some have advanced the theory that “Holiday of Passover” referred to the half-day of killing the Passover sacrifices, even though this is not a Yom Tov (see below). We also have a custom of firstborns fasting – meaning no food and no water – which would be contradictory to a real holiday. It is a “holiday” in that holy stuff goes on that day, but it is not really counted as one. Today, we just refer to this day as “Erev Yom Tov” – the eve of the holiday, like “Erev Shabbat” refers to Thursday night and Friday until Shabbat.

Incidentally, it could be a lamb (young sheep) or a goat. Diner’s choice (Exodus 12:5). “Paschal Goat” just doesn’t have the same ring, though.

“Holiday of Matzot (Unleavened Bread)” refers to the 7 day holiday that starts the night AFTER the Passover offerings are killed and is the way the Bible always refers to the holiday. See the Timeline below.

Aside – the root P-S-Ch is also used for the verb “to skip over” or “to protect”, “lame”, referring to animals in the form “pise’ach” and as someone’s name. Ashkenazim pronounce the tav as an “s” so the entrance to the Tent of Meeting is “pesach ohel moi’ed”, but this is unrelated.

Timeline of Passover

The 14th of Nissan (biblically known as the First Month)

Starts out as a regular day. You can eat bread and drink a beer. The prayers are normal weekday prayers. Late in the morning, we stop eating leavened products and then burn our remaining leavened products. At the same time, we are forbidden to eat unleavened bread – we have to wait until nightfall.
In the afternoon, we start sacrificing our Passover offerings. Because there are millions of people, they start as early as possible, although each offering was shared among several people because it is a sin in the Torah for any of the meat to go to waste (Exodus 12:4).
This entire day is NOT Yom Tov. You can drive, use your phone, etc. See below for the definition of Yom Tov.
If this day is Shabbat, the timeline still holds except we burn the leavened products the day before and just scatter outside (or flush) the leftovers in the late morning.

15th of Nissan

At night (Jewish days start at night), we have a festive meal that must be eaten in Jerusalem when there is a Temple. The meal includes discussing the Exodus and eating the Passover offering. Today, we call it Seder and we use a book called a Hagadah, although most of the book is instructions from rabbis in the 1st and 2nd century (the time of the Christian Bible and just after). Therefore, we know they did some retelling (the biblical commandment is in Exodus 13:8), but we have no idea exactly what.
This entire day is a Yom Tov, from the previous night, when we ate the Passover sacrifice, until dark of the following night, which starts the 16th of Nissan. “Yom Tov” (lit. “Good Day”) is a later Jewish term for a holiday in which melachah is prohibited in the Torah. Melachah (lit. “task”) means specific things, but some examples are not driving, light fires, travelling and writing. Shabbat is a “super Yom Tov” with more restrictions, but most of what is forbidden on Shabbat is forbidden on Yom Tov.
Whatever is left of the Passover offering must be burned and cannot be eaten.

16th of Nissan

You can do melachah and go home, although it is better to stay in Jerusalem. This starts the intermediate days and you can’t eat leavened bread, but you don’t have to eat matzah and you don’t have to eat sacrificial meat. There is a rabbinic enactment that Jews who don’t live in Israel and didn’t come for the first day keep a second Yom Tov with all the restrictions. This is a rabbinic enactment from this time, but it is not biblical and doesn’t factor in for the people discussed in the crucifiction story.

21st of Nissan

Another 1-day Yom Tov. We eat festive meals, but not necessarily sacrificial meat. This is the last day leavened products are forbidden. On the 22nd, the rabbis also instituted a second-day Yom Tov, but this is also irrelevant for this discussion.

The way that we celebrate Passover – aside from the destruction of the Temple – has not changed from this era. Even if you argue that “Rabbinic (or Pharasaic) Judaism” is new and was not the way Judaism had been practiced, by this point (1st century), Rabbinic Judaism was firmly in place and this is what was done and it follows the text of scripture. This is also the same timeline of the actual Exodus. We ate the lamb and left Egypt on the 15th of the first month, not 14th.

There is nothing that proves that Judaism wasn’t always “Rabbinic”. We just have way more evidence from the Maccabees (170 BCE or so) on and we have records of divergent (apostate?) sects from that time.

Regarding the gospel accounts:

The synoptic gospels say that on the first day of Unleavened Bread, the Passover sacrifice was killed. This is an issue. If it said “on the holiday of Passover”, it would be different. See Exodus 13:6. Luke 22:1 says the feast of unleavened bread is called the Passover.
The idea that “eating the Passover” refers to something other than the Passover offering runs counter to the Bible’s usage and is not found elsewhere.
The idea that Pontius Pilate would release someone on Yom Tov, as opposed to the day before, is rather odd. Especially since the freed person would have missed the opportunity to participate in the Passover offering. But it could be.
The idea that some people would follow a different calendar, either Sadducee or Essene or someone else’s, and that the people in the Temple would be cool with that, seems unlikely.
The idea that one could bring his Passover sacrifice the next day, because it is the second day of Yom Tov is contra-biblical.
I have no idea what John means by “high Sabbath”. We refer to “Shabbat Yom Tov” if a Yom Tov falls on Shabbat and “Shabbat Chol Hamoed” if it falls on the intermediate days, but there’s nothing special or more holy about these than any other Shabbat.