Was the Lord's supper Passover?

[GuardianShua]

Is the Passover Lamb EVER prepared on preperation day Friday.

 

[ContraMundum]

There are many good works written in defense of the Book of Mormon and its contradictions, too. I’ve yet to see anything written that accounts for all parts of each account. Things that must be accounted for:

1. The statements in the Synoptics recording that the disciples prepared the Passover (Matt. 26:19; Mark 14:16; Luke 22:13).
2. The five different verses where it is stated that they were going to eat the Passover in the Synoptics (Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12,14; Luke 22:8).
3. The explicit statement of Jesus that he was eating the Passover with his disciples (Luke 22:15).
4. The lack of mentioning of eating the Passover in John’s gospel except in stating that “the Jews” were afraid of becoming ceremonially impure and missing out on eating the Passover (John 18:28), which would presumably have taken place the night after the crucifixion.

It doesn’t come down to the identification of the Preparation Day or Days, though that is certainly an additional problem. It comes down to the whether or not Jesus ate the Passover with his disciples. The Synoptics say he did. John tells a different story. (By the way, the same holds true with regard to the women’s purpose in coming to the tomb on the first day. The Synoptics say that they came to anoint the body, which had not been anointed before burial. John says that they came to see the place where he was buried [and to mourn], since he had Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus anoint the body before it was buried. There was, then, no purpose in John bringing the women to the tomb to anoint the body, as it had already been done.)

I don't think you are following what I said. I really don't see this as a contradiction

 

[GuardianShua]

There are many good works written in defense of the Book of Mormon and its contradictions, too. I’ve yet to see anything written that accounts for all parts of each account. Things that must be accounted for:

1. The statements in the Synoptics recording that the disciples prepared the Passover (Matt. 26:19; Mark 14:16; Luke 22:13).
2. The five different verses where it is stated that they were going to eat the Passover in the Synoptics (Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12,14; Luke 22:8).
3. The explicit statement of Jesus that he was eating the Passover with his disciples (Luke 22:15).
4. The lack of mentioning of eating the Passover in John’s gospel except in stating that “the Jews” were afraid of becoming ceremonially impure and missing out on eating the Passover (John 18:28), which would presumably have taken place the night after the crucifixion.

It doesn’t come down to the identification of the Preparation Day or Days, though that is certainly an additional problem. It comes down to the whether or not Jesus ate the Passover with his disciples. The Synoptics say he did. John tells a different story. (By the way, the same holds true with regard to the women’s purpose in coming to the tomb on the first day. The Synoptics say that they came to anoint the body, which had not been anointed before burial. John says that they came to see the place where he was buried [and to mourn], since he had Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus anoint the body before it was buried. There was, then, no purpose in John bringing the women to the tomb to anoint the body, as it had already been done.)

Unless you like wasting time and effort, forget about the Synoptic writers and the Book of Mormon. And when it comes to the Old or New Testament, pay attention to the foot notes of any good study bible. Anyway, good observation!

 

[Mockingbird0]

A calendar cited by another contributor above contains the following footnote: "The Jewish sacred year begins with that new moon of spring which comes between our March 22 and April 25 in cycles of 19 years."

This looks like a mistake. March 22 to April 25 inclusive are the limits of Easter Sunday in the Gregorian calendar. The range of 35 days is a consequence of the custom of always holding Easter on the 3rd Sunday in its lunar month. There would be no need for a new moon to vary in a range of 35 days. A range of 30 days should be enough. In the Gregorian lunar calendar, the limits of 1 Eastermonth are March 8th through April 5th inclusive, a period of 29 days. In the Rabbinic lunar calendar, due to a slight solar drift, the limits of 1 Nisan are slowly creeping back into the summer as the centuries roll, but 1 Nisan Rabbinic can still, and for many centuries to come, fall before March 22.

I suspect that the calendar posted above is an adaptation of the Gregorian lunar calendar, and that whoever wrote "Note 1" got confused and wrote down the calendar limits of Easter Sunday instead of the calendar limits of his "1 Nison/Abib".

 

[GuardianShua]

A calendar cited by another contributor above contains the following footnote: "The Jewish sacred year begins with that new moon of spring which comes between our March 22 and April 25 in cycles of 19 years."

This looks like a mistake. March 22 to April 25 inclusive are the limits of Easter Sunday in the Gregorian calendar. The range of 35 days is a consequence of the custom of always holding Easter on the 3rd Sunday in its lunar month. There would be no need for a new moon to vary in a range of 35 days. A range of 30 days should be enough. In the Gregorian lunar calendar, the limits of 1 Eastermonth are March 8th through April 5th inclusive, a period of 29 days. In the Rabbinic lunar calendar, due to a slight solar drift, the limits of 1 Nisan are slowly creeping back into the summer as the centuries roll, but 1 Nisan Rabbinic can still, and for many centuries to come, fall before March 22.

I suspect that the calendar posted above is an adaptation of the Gregorian lunar calendar, and that whoever wrote "Note 1" got confused and wrote down the calendar limits of Easter Sunday instead of the calendar limits of his "1 Nison/Abib".

Eostre is "associated with the coming of spring and the dawn, and her festival is celebrated at the spring equinox. Because she brings renewal, rebirth from the death of winter... A date on the Wiccan Wheel of the Year is (Ostara, 21 March).

 

[Mockingbird0]

It may be of interest that this year's Passover sacrifice on Mt. Gerizim will be offered on the afternoon of Friday, May 4th, 2012.

 

[GuardianShua]

It may be of interest that this year's Passover sacrifice on Mt. Gerizim will be offered on the afternoon of Friday, May 4th, 2012.

That date certainly has nothing to with what was ordered by Moses. Do the Orthodox Jews pay no attention to the Sacred Hebrew Calendar?

 

[Henaynei]

It may be of interest that this year's Passover sacrifice on Mt. Gerizim will be offered on the afternoon of Friday, May 4th, 2012.

Is that according to the Observed in Israel New Moon?

b'Shalom {iPod touch w/CF app}

 

[Henaynei]

That date certainly has nothing to with what was ordered by Moses. Do the Orthodox Jews pay no attention to the Sacred Hebrew Calendar?

It's not the Orthodox who do this, I don't think.

b'Shalom {iPod touch w/CF app}

 

[Mockingbird0]

Is that according to the Observed in Israel New Moon?

The Samaritan calendar is a computed calendar, like the Rabbinic, but independent of it: The Samaritan priests do their own computations. I don't know what their system is exactly, though I know they use the 19-year Metonic cycle as the Rabbinates do and as the Western churches do, and they don't observe the "Lo BaDU" rule that prevents Rabbinic 15 Nisan from falling on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. The dates for Samaritan 14 Nisan for the past few years are consistent with a scheme that requires 1 Nisan to fall on or after some fixed date that I think is close to March 25th. If some such rule holds, then the Samaritan calendar in this respect somewhat resembles the Babylonian calendar, which required the month of Nisanu to fall entirely after the Spring equinox. In the years A.D. 10 through A.D. 50, for example, Babylonian 1 Nisanu fell on dates between March 25th and April 21st inclusive.

 

[Yahudim]

Brother Phillips,

If I may ask, what language is that in your signature?

 

[GuardianShua]

Brother Phillips,

If I may ask, what language is that in your signature?

It's Anglo-Saxon. I wonder how well he knows Anglo-Saxon? I have a few questions I would like to ask.

 

[yonah_mishael]

That date certainly has nothing to with what was ordered by Moses. Do the Orthodox Jews pay no attention to the Sacred Hebrew Calendar?

He's not talking about Jews. Those are Samaritans. Also, contrary to your figuring, the calendar that you posted above has nothing to do with Moses either.

 

[GuardianShua]

He's not talking about Jews. Those are Samaritans. Also, contrary to your figuring, the calendar that you posted above has nothing to do with Moses either.

So then, you are saying that all those scholars who made that calendar are wrong? Do you have any sources Yonah?

 

[yonah_mishael]

All those scholars.... Who was that exactly? What makes you think that that chart is correct? How many supposed calendars of ancient Israel have you seen? People do make things up to fit their agendas, you know.

 

[yonah_mishael]

Besides that, I see nothing in the "Sacred Calendar" that you've posted above to suggest that Passover fell on Friday in the year when Jesus died. I still don't know where you're coming from.

 

[Mockingbird0]

Sacha Stern (Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar Second Century BCE--Tenth Century CE,Oxford, 2001, pp. 55-62) tries to synchronize dates of Unleavened Bread in the Second Temple period to the Julian calendar. He gets a date of April 29 for Passover in 41 B.C. Stern does not specify whether he means 14 Nisan or 15 Nisan, or whether this is simply the astronomical full moon corresponding to the middle of Nisan that year. He computes this date from an Jewish inscription from Berenike in Cyrenaica identifying "the assembly of Tabernacles" with the 15th of Phaophi in the Egyptian calendar, in what the inscription calls "the 55th year." Interpretation is not straightforward and Stern must make a number of guesses, but he arrives at a date of October 26, 41 B.C. for the first day of Tabernacles that year, from which he gets the April 29 date for Passover.

For A.D. 37, Stern starts from a remark of Josephus (Antiquities 18.5.3) about when the news of Tiberius Caesar's death reached Jerusalem. Josephus says that the news arrived during a "festival". Stern guesses, reasonably, that the "festival" must be Passover, and from that identifies April 19th as the most likely astronomical full moon corresponding to the middle of Nisan that year.

Both these computed dates are consistent with the proposition that the Jerusalem priests in Herodian times followed the Babylonian calendar. Babylonian 1 Nisanu was on April 16th in 41 B.C., so Nisanu 14 would have been April 29 that year. Babylonian 1 Nisanu was on April 6th in A.D. 37, so Nisanu 14 would have been April 19th. Stern's computations are too full of uncertainties, in my view, to be taken as proof of the use of the Babylonian calendar by the priesthood in that time and place, but they can be accepted as components of a plausibility argument.

 

[cupid dave]

It needs to be remembered that whatever we are discussing from The Book we have only a part of the whole account; I do not think we have a complete account of anything contained within its pages. However, we should not add in supposition (from whichever source) nor remove that which we think is not truth (under any pretext). We can only 'prove' the truth of Scripture by weighing it against other parts of Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Not being able to understand something doesn't make it in error - it just means that we haven't sufficient to make a value judgement about it. The sooner we grasp these basics the less time we will spend on fruitless, circular debates.

Just a general observation - not aimed at anyone.

2X

 

[cupid dave]

Not a Seder, per se, but a "Teaching Seder." As the Exodus and the Passover are pivotal to Judaism, and as the L-rd commands we Tell this history, And, even in many Haggadot you will read "the more one tells of the Exodus the more one is to be praised," so it is incumbent to not tell the history fresh each year but for Learned Teachers of Torah and Talmud to instruct their talmidim in the D'rash and Sod they have unearthed in their study and experience.

b'Shalom {iPod touch w/CF app}

True.

But we must remember that there is evidence in the New Testament that a formal Seder did take place.
The question of whether it was on Passover is another matter.


In Acts we are told that Jesus ritualized the Eucharist during the traditional order of events called "the third cup."


The New Testament names one of the cups in Luke 22:20, also—the cup taken after supper, which is traditionally the third cup. Jesus calls this cup "the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you".

 

[Huram Abi]

True.

But we must remember that there is evidence in the New Testament that a formal Seder did take place.
The question of whether it was on Passover is another matter.


In Acts we are told that Jesus ritualized the Eucharist during the traditional order of events called "the third cup."


The New Testament names one of the cups in Luke 22:20, also—the cup taken after supper, which is traditionally the third cup. Jesus calls this cup "the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you".

Yes, Cupid. The third cup. Glad to see you absorbing some of this, finally.