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.