The story of the first Passover is told in Exodus chapters 12-14. The Israelites were given a new start to the year and were told each household was to select an unblemished male lamb or kid on the tenth day of the first month which was called Abib (or Aviv). They were to keep the lamb until the fourteenth day and then kill it in the evening (Lit. between the evenings) and put some of the blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses and eat the flesh of the lamb that night with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.

The Hebrew day begins after sunset and runs on until the next sunset. Therefore the first Passover meal took place after dark at the beginning of the fifteenth day of Abib (or Aviv). That night all the first born of man and cattle in Egypt were struck down by the destroyer who 'passed over' the houses of the Israelites and did not enter the houses marked with the blood of the lamb (Exodus 12 and 13:4).

In the New Testament, the day before the Passover meal was eaten was referred to as the day of preparation when all leaven had to be removed from the Israelites' houses (and the sacrificial lamb killed). It is also called the first day of unleavened bread (Mark 14:12) but, as noted above, the feast started at evening after dark at the beginning of the 15th day of the first month. This day and the 21st day were special Sabbaths marking the start and end of seven days of unleavened bread. (Ex.12:18, Jno.19:31).

The pre-exilic month names (of which there were four) are not mentioned after the time of Solomon. During or after the Exile to Babylon in the 6th century BC, the Jews adopted month names similar to those from the Babylonian calendar, as recorded in Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther and Zechariah. There is no mention in the Bible of any of these month names before the Exile and they are not used elsewhere in the Bible other than in those four books. Therefore any use of these month names for biblical calendrical dates outside their historical context must be used with caution.

There should be no confusion in the New Testament as to which day of the first month the Passover meal should occur if biblical definitions are adhered to. The apparent conflicts in the New Testament account of the crucifixion can be resolved if it is realised that there must have been two religious calendars in use at that time. John refers to Passover 10 times in 9 verses. In two of those verses he describes it as 'The Jew's Passover'. This qualification is significant. In this analysis I shall assume that the original Exodus calendar was used by Christ and the disciples, for this particular event at least, for reasons that will become apparent.

In Mark 14:12-14 we read, And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover? And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the goodman of the house, The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? i.e. this conversation took place on Abib 14 in preparation for the Passover meal on Abib 15 in the calendar Christ and the disciples were using (my emphasis throughout).

In John 13:1-2 we read, Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him; Here we have the information that the last supper on Abib 15 preceded the Jew's Passover on Nisan 15.

John, in 19:14-15 and 31, writes concerning the day of the crucifixion, And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. ... 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. i.e. the crucifixion took place on Nisan 14 before the special sabbath high day on Nisan 15.

In the above quoted verses we have proof that two seperate Passovers were celebrated: one between Christ and His disciples at the last supper, and the other on the day following this crucifixion day. Thus The Messiah celebrated His Passover with His disciples on Abib 15 according to the old calendar and the Jews celebrated theirs one day later on Nisan 15 according to their calendar.

During His last week of preaching, spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. In saying this, Christ acknowledged the authority of the Jewish rulers to set the feast dates. The last supper was a private affair celebrating the Passover on the correct day according to the old calendar. It being a private affair, there was no public killing of a paschal lamb of the ovine variety on Abib 14 that year but, on Abib 15, the disciples kept the authentic Passover, eating, in a figure, the flesh of the Lamb that God had provided (John 6:53-56), ...the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come (1Co.11:23-26).

By weaving the crucifixion narrative around two calendars, inspired Scripture demonstrates a wonder that man could not have contrived: The Jews fulfilled the hidden teaching of the Passover by killing their Messiah, the Lamb of God (John 1:29), on the selfsame day that they killed their Paschal Lamb and, on Nisan 15, kept their own Passover feast, oblivious to the enormity of what they had just done.

The fact that there were these two passovers kept on separate days perhaps explains why the crucifixion is generally believed taken to have taken place on a Friday. Whereas, for Christ to have been dead for three days in the heart of the earth and to have risen on the third day, He must have been crucified on a Thursday. As John testified, the day following the preparation was a 'High Day' which distinguishes it from the regular Saturday Sabbath that followed it in the Nisan Calendar. According to the Seleucid Calendar¹ and my reconstruction of a possible Exodus Calendar, there were two years when Abib 15 and Nisan 14 fell on a Thursday: AD 27 and AD 34. These years fit nicely with the early and traditional dates respectively for the birth of Christ.

^[1] Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C. - A.D. &5, Richard A. Parker, Waldo H. Dubberstein. Brown University Press, 1956. (2007 reprint by Wipf & Stock)

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©2018 Martin Allen Cragg