In the other thread, a discussion began on whether the crucifixion was on a Friday, a Thursday, or a Wednesday. I thought I would start a new thread on this topic, and begin with the "original" Biblical calendar.
The first thing you need to do stop thinking about the Sabbaths falling on a Saturday. You also need to stop looking at modern Jewish calendars that do not follow the method used by the ancient Hebrews. In the Orthodox Jewish calendar, the first of the month was always the first day of the week, and clashes with the Feasts in Leviticus 23 do not happen. And no thought was ever given to the possibility of there being clashes, because they didn't follow or ever intend to follow a continuous 7-day week. So there is only a 1 in 7 chance that the weekly Sabbaths in that year on that month fell on the Saturdays of a Gregorian Calendar. If you want to be an Orthodox Jew today in a country that follows the Gregorian Calendar, you would find yourself regularly having to ask for normal Monday-Friday days off so you can observe the weekly Sabbath.
The days of the month that are a Sabbath are the 8th, the 15th, the 22nd, and the 29th. The first day of the month is not a Sabbath. Then we have the Festival/Feast days in Leviticus:
See? The Festival of Unleavened bread is a high Sabbath that happens on the 15th of Nissan. But the 15th of every Jewish month is always a Sabbath anyway. It ends with another Sabbath on the 22nd of Nissan... which again is a Sabbath anyway.
There was not two Sabbaths, there was not three Sabbaths, there was only one. And there could only have been one. Let's go through the rest of the Festivals:
No extra Sabbath there.
Why is there fifty days in seven weeks? Because the first of the next month is not a sabbath, it is the first day of an 8-day week. Also, there are no extra Sabbaths.
Ah, a day of rest on the first day of Tishrei! No work to be done. Could it be - no it's just a day of rest, it's not a Sabbath.
The Day of Atonement is possibly the best candidate for a Sabbath day that doesn't fall on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, or 29th of the month. It is after all specifically described as being observed in the same way as a Sabbath. But note this - it happens on the 10th day of Tishrei. There is no clash with the weekly Sabbath, and there is always one work day before and four after, there is no back-to-back Sabbath days. It is very similar to a Sabbath, but observed slightly differently.
And there we have it, all the rest of the Sabbath days commanded by Jehovah all fall on the weekly Sabbath days.
So what does all this tell us? It tells that using the original method to calculate their calendar that the 14th of Nissan is always the 6th day of the Hebrew week. It can never be the 5th day or the 4th day, or any other day of the week. But here's the thing, do we know they were using this method to calculate the Jewish calendar in 30AD? No we don't, and the evidence is against it. I can see that this poses at least four different problems for Christians, and that's probably why it's never really addressed.
The first problem: If they weren't using the Biblical calendar then it means that Jesus was not observing it correctly either.
The second problem: If they were calculating their calendars the way that we think they were in the Second Temple era, then it means that the days of the week become fluid, and more Sabbath days are introduced. This leaves us with a big problem, if Jesus was crucified on either a "Thursday" or a "Friday" then the first day of the next week should theoretically be a Sabbath day. However the Bible clearly says the women go early in the morning to the tomb on the first day of the week. "Wednesday" is of course possible, but that doesn't explain why the women don't go to the tomb on "Friday", especially given the fact that he was given a burial without the proper rites on the day that he died.
The third problem: Jesus was buried at the very end of the day on Nissan 14. Nissan 15 was the Sabbath. According to the Bible Jesus is raised sometime in the evening of Nissan 16. That means he was in the grave for one full evening, then one full day, and then half of the evening if that. Yet the Bible says that he would be in the ground as Jonah in the fish for three days and three nights. It seems that Christians insist on counting Nissan 14 - but for most of that day he: ate the Passover meal with his disciples, then he was tried, then whipped, then crucified, and then finally buried - again according to the Bible. I don't see how you can count Nissan 14 as a day he spent "in the grave", given that he spent the vast majority of it doing other things, and only the very last hour at the most in a grave.
The fourth problem: Thursday and Wednesday crucifixions are just not possible. A Thursday crucifixion causes Nissan 16 to be a Sabbath (marking the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread). And a Wednesday crucifixion can't happen because according to the chronology of the gospels, every day of the week is accounted for starting on Palm Sunday. Read it yourself.
Sunday - Jesus travels to Jerusalem.
Monday - the triumphal entry itself and it is late in the day (Mk 11:1-11).
Tuesday - Jesus creates the disturbance in the Temple and gets violent according to John. He then leaves the city walls (Mk 11:19), probably in fear for his life following the disturbance he created.
Wednesday - he goes back to Jerusalem, and back to the Temple and (unsurprisingly) he is immediately confronted by the chief priests, scribes, and elders (Mk 11:27-28). Then Jesus starts preaching, during which time some of them go away, and some Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees come. At the end of all of this we're told that it was two days before the Passover (Mk 14:1), and he leaves and goes to Bethany. According to the gospels, while he is in Bethany Judas goes to the chief priests and agrees to betray Jesus.
Thursday - they prepared the Passover Lamb. Jesus remained in Bethany and sent his disciples to Jerusalem to get a lamb.
Friday - in the evening (the start of the day) he went with the rest of his disciples to Jerusalem and ate the Passover with them ("Last Supper"). Then they went to Gethsemane (probably on their way out of Jerusalem), and then Jesus was arrested and brought before the chief priests. This supposedly all happened in the evening. In the morning he was brought before Pilate tried and sentenced to crucifixion. And the Romans crucified him.
Right, so the whole week is accounted for. Even if you move the triumphal entry up to Sunday, a Thursday crucifixion is only possible if you're willing to accept that the first day of the following week would have also been a Sabbath. And note that there are no Sabbath days mentioned in any of the gospels in between the triumphal entry and the crucifixion. So to get to a Wednesday crucifixion AND still follow the biblical chronology of that week, you have to move the triumphal entry into Friday of the previous week. But that's not possible either because right after the triumphal entry it says on the following day that they go from Bethany back to Jerusalem and "cleanse the temple", something they would not have been able to do on the Sabbath. That means the you have to move the triumphal entry back to Thursday, then the disturbance in the temple happens on a Friday. But that doesn't work either because the gospels say that on the following day he goes back and preaches in the Temple. So now, the triumphal entry has to be moved back to Wednesday, then Jesus goes and creates a disturbance in Jerusalem on the Thursday, then goes back to preach on the Friday. With me so far? There could be a Sabbath here, but the problem is that on the first day of the next week that creates (the Sunday) it says that "it was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread" (Mk 14:1). That would then put the crucifixion onto a Tuesday. There is just no way to get to a Wednesday crucifixion without accepting all the problems that it creates.
Now, I'm not saying that Jesus wasn't crucified on a Wednesday. I don't think the Bible is particularly accurate about the details of Jesus' death. However, even I have a problem believing that the triumphal entry did not happen in the same week as the crucifixion, and I don't believe that a day earlier than Thursday is possible. I don't think Jesus actually died on the same day as his crucifixion, because as mentioned in the other thread I don't think there were any disciples there to witness it. They fled in fear for their own lives.
And some of the events just can't be compressed into single days, for example there is no way that Jesus created the disturbance at the temple and then went back and preached on the same day. Jesus was obviously afraid for his life, and that's why he didn't go to back to the temple to select a lamb himself, and instead waited it out in Bethany until he could sneak his way back into Jerusalem at night. Then after he ate the Passover meal he left Jerusalem as quickly as he could. On his way out of Jerusalem he stopped and prayed to his God that he would not be delivered into the hands of the authorities. Those are not the actions of a man who expects or wishes to be a martyr!!
I'll leave you with one final problem: If Jesus was crucified on a Friday, then the Sunday should also have been a Sabbath marking the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And that's how it works on a modern Jewish calendar, whenever Nissan 15 falls on a Saturday, Nissan 16 is a Sabbath day too. The real problem here is that it's guesswork as to exactly how their calendar worked in the first century, there are no extant records but it appears that they calculated the calendar for the whole year, rather than followed the lunar cycle.
The first thing you need to do stop thinking about the Sabbaths falling on a Saturday. You also need to stop looking at modern Jewish calendars that do not follow the method used by the ancient Hebrews. In the Orthodox Jewish calendar, the first of the month was always the first day of the week, and clashes with the Feasts in Leviticus 23 do not happen. And no thought was ever given to the possibility of there being clashes, because they didn't follow or ever intend to follow a continuous 7-day week. So there is only a 1 in 7 chance that the weekly Sabbaths in that year on that month fell on the Saturdays of a Gregorian Calendar. If you want to be an Orthodox Jew today in a country that follows the Gregorian Calendar, you would find yourself regularly having to ask for normal Monday-Friday days off so you can observe the weekly Sabbath.
The days of the month that are a Sabbath are the 8th, the 15th, the 22nd, and the 29th. The first day of the month is not a Sabbath. Then we have the Festival/Feast days in Leviticus:
See? The Festival of Unleavened bread is a high Sabbath that happens on the 15th of Nissan. But the 15th of every Jewish month is always a Sabbath anyway. It ends with another Sabbath on the 22nd of Nissan... which again is a Sabbath anyway.
There was not two Sabbaths, there was not three Sabbaths, there was only one. And there could only have been one. Let's go through the rest of the Festivals:
No extra Sabbath there.
Why is there fifty days in seven weeks? Because the first of the next month is not a sabbath, it is the first day of an 8-day week. Also, there are no extra Sabbaths.
Ah, a day of rest on the first day of Tishrei! No work to be done. Could it be - no it's just a day of rest, it's not a Sabbath.
The Day of Atonement is possibly the best candidate for a Sabbath day that doesn't fall on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, or 29th of the month. It is after all specifically described as being observed in the same way as a Sabbath. But note this - it happens on the 10th day of Tishrei. There is no clash with the weekly Sabbath, and there is always one work day before and four after, there is no back-to-back Sabbath days. It is very similar to a Sabbath, but observed slightly differently.
And there we have it, all the rest of the Sabbath days commanded by Jehovah all fall on the weekly Sabbath days.
So what does all this tell us? It tells that using the original method to calculate their calendar that the 14th of Nissan is always the 6th day of the Hebrew week. It can never be the 5th day or the 4th day, or any other day of the week. But here's the thing, do we know they were using this method to calculate the Jewish calendar in 30AD? No we don't, and the evidence is against it. I can see that this poses at least four different problems for Christians, and that's probably why it's never really addressed.
The first problem: If they weren't using the Biblical calendar then it means that Jesus was not observing it correctly either.
The second problem: If they were calculating their calendars the way that we think they were in the Second Temple era, then it means that the days of the week become fluid, and more Sabbath days are introduced. This leaves us with a big problem, if Jesus was crucified on either a "Thursday" or a "Friday" then the first day of the next week should theoretically be a Sabbath day. However the Bible clearly says the women go early in the morning to the tomb on the first day of the week. "Wednesday" is of course possible, but that doesn't explain why the women don't go to the tomb on "Friday", especially given the fact that he was given a burial without the proper rites on the day that he died.
The third problem: Jesus was buried at the very end of the day on Nissan 14. Nissan 15 was the Sabbath. According to the Bible Jesus is raised sometime in the evening of Nissan 16. That means he was in the grave for one full evening, then one full day, and then half of the evening if that. Yet the Bible says that he would be in the ground as Jonah in the fish for three days and three nights. It seems that Christians insist on counting Nissan 14 - but for most of that day he: ate the Passover meal with his disciples, then he was tried, then whipped, then crucified, and then finally buried - again according to the Bible. I don't see how you can count Nissan 14 as a day he spent "in the grave", given that he spent the vast majority of it doing other things, and only the very last hour at the most in a grave.
The fourth problem: Thursday and Wednesday crucifixions are just not possible. A Thursday crucifixion causes Nissan 16 to be a Sabbath (marking the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread). And a Wednesday crucifixion can't happen because according to the chronology of the gospels, every day of the week is accounted for starting on Palm Sunday. Read it yourself.
Sunday - Jesus travels to Jerusalem.
Monday - the triumphal entry itself and it is late in the day (Mk 11:1-11).
Tuesday - Jesus creates the disturbance in the Temple and gets violent according to John. He then leaves the city walls (Mk 11:19), probably in fear for his life following the disturbance he created.
Wednesday - he goes back to Jerusalem, and back to the Temple and (unsurprisingly) he is immediately confronted by the chief priests, scribes, and elders (Mk 11:27-28). Then Jesus starts preaching, during which time some of them go away, and some Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees come. At the end of all of this we're told that it was two days before the Passover (Mk 14:1), and he leaves and goes to Bethany. According to the gospels, while he is in Bethany Judas goes to the chief priests and agrees to betray Jesus.
Thursday - they prepared the Passover Lamb. Jesus remained in Bethany and sent his disciples to Jerusalem to get a lamb.
Friday - in the evening (the start of the day) he went with the rest of his disciples to Jerusalem and ate the Passover with them ("Last Supper"). Then they went to Gethsemane (probably on their way out of Jerusalem), and then Jesus was arrested and brought before the chief priests. This supposedly all happened in the evening. In the morning he was brought before Pilate tried and sentenced to crucifixion. And the Romans crucified him.
Right, so the whole week is accounted for. Even if you move the triumphal entry up to Sunday, a Thursday crucifixion is only possible if you're willing to accept that the first day of the following week would have also been a Sabbath. And note that there are no Sabbath days mentioned in any of the gospels in between the triumphal entry and the crucifixion. So to get to a Wednesday crucifixion AND still follow the biblical chronology of that week, you have to move the triumphal entry into Friday of the previous week. But that's not possible either because right after the triumphal entry it says on the following day that they go from Bethany back to Jerusalem and "cleanse the temple", something they would not have been able to do on the Sabbath. That means the you have to move the triumphal entry back to Thursday, then the disturbance in the temple happens on a Friday. But that doesn't work either because the gospels say that on the following day he goes back and preaches in the Temple. So now, the triumphal entry has to be moved back to Wednesday, then Jesus goes and creates a disturbance in Jerusalem on the Thursday, then goes back to preach on the Friday. With me so far? There could be a Sabbath here, but the problem is that on the first day of the next week that creates (the Sunday) it says that "it was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread" (Mk 14:1). That would then put the crucifixion onto a Tuesday. There is just no way to get to a Wednesday crucifixion without accepting all the problems that it creates.
Now, I'm not saying that Jesus wasn't crucified on a Wednesday. I don't think the Bible is particularly accurate about the details of Jesus' death. However, even I have a problem believing that the triumphal entry did not happen in the same week as the crucifixion, and I don't believe that a day earlier than Thursday is possible. I don't think Jesus actually died on the same day as his crucifixion, because as mentioned in the other thread I don't think there were any disciples there to witness it. They fled in fear for their own lives.
And some of the events just can't be compressed into single days, for example there is no way that Jesus created the disturbance at the temple and then went back and preached on the same day. Jesus was obviously afraid for his life, and that's why he didn't go to back to the temple to select a lamb himself, and instead waited it out in Bethany until he could sneak his way back into Jerusalem at night. Then after he ate the Passover meal he left Jerusalem as quickly as he could. On his way out of Jerusalem he stopped and prayed to his God that he would not be delivered into the hands of the authorities. Those are not the actions of a man who expects or wishes to be a martyr!!
I'll leave you with one final problem: If Jesus was crucified on a Friday, then the Sunday should also have been a Sabbath marking the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And that's how it works on a modern Jewish calendar, whenever Nissan 15 falls on a Saturday, Nissan 16 is a Sabbath day too. The real problem here is that it's guesswork as to exactly how their calendar worked in the first century, there are no extant records but it appears that they calculated the calendar for the whole year, rather than followed the lunar cycle.
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