Q: In your review of "The Temples that Jerusalem Forgot" by Ernest Martin, the article was interesting. I came on this page of
the web looking for what the word meaning of the “common hall” was in the
Bible [Matt. 27:27 KJV].
I disagree that the Last Supper was
the night before the crucifixion. In John 19:14, it states, "And it was the preparation of the Passover,
and about the sixth hour: and he [Pilate] saith unto the Jews, Behold your
King." With Jesus on the cross the third hour, then this
has to be the day before the crucifixion, at least. If you look at John
4:6, the passage with the woman at the well, it's also the sixth hour. Any
commentary I've read states that this was noon
. If it's noon here, then
in John 19:14 it is also noon . In John 13:1 it states, "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." This is just before the Last
Supper. In Josephus it states that the 14th, "The Lords
Passover" had become a feast day during the time of Jesus. This is twice that
the Bible states that the Last Supper was not the evening before the
crucifixion. Before the feast means before the feast. The 14th was a
feast day, but not a holy day. I have been working on this question off
and on for about four years. Take a look at another possibility.
Please read www.holyweekrevisited.com
--Joseph L.
A: Many Gentile
Christians are misled by the phrase, "the preparation of the
Passover" in John 19:14. It appears to them to indicate a day of
preparation before the beginning of the Passover holiday itself. But as
with so many other details of Jewish observance, what may seem logical to us as
Gentiles is no guarantee of a correct understanding of the culture of that
day. The only way to correctly understand it is according to the
original Jewish understanding. Among the Jewish people,
the "Preparation" was their name for the day preceding the
Sabbath (i.e. Thursday evening and Friday until sunset). This, by the
way, is still the name for Friday in Greece today (Paraskeue, which means “Preparation”).
The "preparation" day in John 19:14 therefore refers not to a day
preceding the Passover celebration, but to the Preparation day (the Friday) that
fell in the Passover week. This Preparation day was especially important,
because the Sabbath that fell during the Passover week was considered a
"high" Sabbath (as explained in John 19:31). What this
means is that the Preparation day of the Passover always falls within
the Passover week, and never before it. As a result, these events could only have happened after
the evening Passover Seder meal (Jesus’ Last Supper) held on the first evening
of Passover, and not before.
This same verse, therefore, also specifies the day of the week on which
Jesus was crucified (Preparation = Friday), which agrees with Luke 23:54, which
specifically says that he was crucified on the preparation day just before the
Sabbath. This confirms that Jesus was crucified
on a Friday, and that the preparation they were both referring to was the day
of preparation that immediately preceded the Sabbath.
The time of day mentioned in John 19:14, “the sixth hour,” is 6 am Roman
time, the time system used by John, who at the time of writing was living in
the diaspora, in Ephesus, and was writing mostly to Gentile believers who had
never been to Israel, and so were not familiar with the Jewish timekeeping
system. The Romans started counting the
hours at midnight just as we do today, and then started over again at
noon. This means that the “sixth hour”
in John 4:6, in the story of the woman at the well, was 6 pm, after a long day
of traveling by Jesus and the disciples.
But Mark, along with the other synoptic gospel writers (Matthew and
Luke), used the Jewish system of counting the hours, which starts at 6 am. The “third hour” in this system is 9 am,
which is when Jesus was hung on the cross (Mark 15:25). Applying these two different systems of
counting the hours to the gospels makes the sequence of events work out perfectly.
With regard to John 13:1, many have been led by this verse to suppose
that the meal described here was not a Passover Meal, but took place before the
Passover. But despite the fact that John's account has a different focus
than that of the other gospel writers, all are referring to the same meal. This can easily be seen by looking at
what follows in John 18, where Jesus ends up in the Garden of Gethsemane
that same night and is betrayed by Judas, just as in the other gospels.
A translation that more accurately reflects the original Greek verb
tenses solves the problem: "But Jesus, knowing before the
feast of Passover that his hour had come in which he would depart from this
world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, showed
them love to the end" (John 13:1). The idea expressed here is not
that the events that follow took place before the Passover, but rather that Jesus
already knew before the Passover that the time of his death had come, yet
he continued showing love to his disciples right up until the end. In other words, the knowledge that his death
was near did not change his behavior, as it would for most other people.
You mention Josephus’ reference to a celebration on the 14th
of Nisan. Let’s take a look at that in
detail: “And they offered the sacrifice
which was called the Passover on the fourteenth day of the same month [Nisan],
and feasted seven days...” (Antiquities 11.4.8 [110]). Here he states that the sacrifice of the
Passover lambs took place on the 14th of Nisan, which is exactly
what was commanded in the Bible (Exodus 12:6).
Then that evening, which becomes the 15th of Nisan after the
sun sets, they ate the Passover meal (the Seder),
again exactly according to the Bible (Exo. 12:8, Lev. 23:6, Num. 28:17).
Taking this evidence into account, it is clear that Jesus’ last Passover with his disciples took place on a Thursday evening, and he was crucified the next morning (Friday morning).
Taking this evidence into account, it is clear that Jesus’ last Passover with his disciples took place on a Thursday evening, and he was crucified the next morning (Friday morning).
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