I’ve always had 2 niggles around the timing of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as told in the Bible, they are:
- If Jesus ate the Passover then died the next day, how could He have been sacrificed at Passover?
- If Jesus died on Friday night and rose on Sunday morning, then that is not “three days and three nights” (Matt 12:40)
I have previously tried to look at this and was unable to work it out, but it seems the the answer to my confusion lay in my understanding the Jewish culture of the time (and even now). So lets take a look.
The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread
First of all lets see what the Bible says about the feasts that happened at that time.
The Bible is very clear that there are two separate feasts that occur adjacent to each other, they are the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This is what the Bible says about them…
- The Passover was/is to occur on the 14th day of the first month (the first month was called Abib, but was changed to Nisan)
- The lamb (of either sheep or goat) is killed at twilight (see below about twilight)
- It is to be kept as a memorial of how God took them out of Egypt
- The Feast of Unleavened Bread starts in the 15th day of the first month and goes for seven days
- The first day and the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are sabbaths.
See Exodus 12:3-18, Leviticus 23:4-8, and Deuteronomy 16:1-8
What were the boundaries of a day?
We tend to think of a day as being from 12AM to 11:59PM, but that is not how it was for the Israelites. A Jewish day starts at sunset and finishes at the next sunset, as taken from Genesis.
If that does make sense, and it’ll make more sense after this next bit.
Was Passover at Evening, Twilight, or Afternoon?
There seems to be some confusion in the biblical word twilight, my Bible has a note saying “Hebrew between two evenings”. Most translations have twilight or evening, but the literal translations do say ‘between the evenings’.
By looking at the words meaning1, it looks more likely to be evening than twilight. However in the instance above, the word seems to be written in a dual fashion, which I guess is evening and evening2, or between two evenings. But that doesn’t clear things up at all.
What does help clear it up is Deuteronomy 16:6, which says ‘there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt’.
But just to confuse things a little more, they didn’t actually come out of Egypt the evening of the sacrifice, Exodus shows them sacrificing at twilight and putting the blood on the door posts, then at midnight God struct down all the firstborn, then was the exodus.
However, the easiest way to interpret this is, between two evenings, that is, it was originally done at sunset, and they were delivered out of Egypt that same period of time, between the two evenings.
What all this does show, if nothing else, is that it is at least at some time on the 14th day, either at the beginning (at sunset), or at some time before the next sunset. Although it looks to be unlikely that it was at the end of the day, we’ll see that later.
Comparing the Event in the Gospel Accounts
The Scriptures
Matthew
- ‘Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?”’ (26:17)
- ‘When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve.’ (26:20) – (If it was evening, wouldn’t that be the second day?)
- Jesus is arrested this same night.
- ‘When morning came…’ (27:1)
- ‘Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted.’ (27:15)
- Jesus died ‘about the ninth hour’ (27:45) of this same day – This is the same day (between the evenings) as the Passover meal.
- ‘When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph…’ (27:57) – (is this now the 3rd day?)
- ‘The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate’ (27:62) – this would be a Sabbath
- ‘Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week’ (28:1) – the tomb was empty.
I need to point out here that this word Matthew uses for Sabbath is a plural3
Mark
- ‘And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”’ (14:12)
- ‘And when it was evening, he came with the twelve.’ (14:17) – (again the second day?)
- ‘And as soon as it was morning…’ (15:1)
- ‘Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked.’ (15:6)
- Jesus died at about ‘the ninth hour’ (15:33) – This is the same day (between the evenings) as the Passover meal
- ‘And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath.’ (15:42)
- ‘When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.’ (16:1)
- ‘Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene…’ (16:9)
Luke
- ‘Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover.’ (22:1)
- ‘Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.’ (22:7)
- ‘And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him.’ (22:14)
- ‘And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.’ (22:15) – the meal was clearly a Passover meal.
- ‘When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes’ (22:66)
- ‘there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.’ (23:44) – Jesus died
- ‘It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning.’ (23:54) – that is, Jesus was buried on the ‘day of Preparation’
- ‘On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.’
- ‘But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.’ (24:1)
John
- ‘Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father…’ (13:1)
- ‘During supper’ (13:2) – continuing on, i.e. before the Feast.
- ‘Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,”’ (13:29) – so the feast hadn’t yet happened.
- About Judas – ‘So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.’ (13:30) – that is after evening. Could now be the Passover?
- ‘Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover.’ (18:28) – so they hadn’t yet eaten the Passover.
- ‘But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.’ (18:39)
- ‘Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover.’ (19:14)
- ‘Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day)…’ (19:31)
- ‘So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.’ (19:42)
- ‘Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark…’ (20:1) – Jesus rose.
The Synoptic Gospels
The Synoptic Gospels all merge the Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but Luke says it ‘drew near’, while the others say ‘on’.
They all say that Jesus ate the Passover with His disciples.
They all say Jesus died on the 9th hour of the same day as eating the Passover (evening to evening).
They all say Jesus died on the day of Preparation, but Luke also says He was buried on the day of Preparation. This makes sense, would they even do that sort of work on a Sabbath? – which also indicates that Matthew and Mark are a bit more loose with their timing (wasn’t their focus).
Jesus rose on the first day of the week – the day after the Sabbath.
John
The meal looks to be ‘before the Feast of the Passover’, or at least it started before. But this meal has to be the same as the Passover meals in the Synoptic gospels.
The chief priests had no yet eaten the Passover on the morning of the day that Jesus died.
John calls the day Jesus died as ‘the day of Preparation of the Passover’ and says that the ‘Sabbath was a high day’.
Jesus rose on the first day of the week.
Piecing the gospels together
- Jesus died at the time of the Passover feast – as mentioned in all four gospels by Pilate releasing Barabbas (Luke does’t mention the feast, and John calls it Passover)
- Jesus rose on the first day of the week – Sunday
- Jesus died on the day of preparation for a Sabbath.
And that is about all the absolutes we have.
Did Jesus eat the Passover with the disciples on the Passover day or before?
Luke emphatically says that Jesus ate the Passover meal – “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.’ (Luke 22:15).
But then John 13:1-2 clearly says, the evening meal (supper was the evening meal4), was before Passover. Then he goes on to say that the chief priests had not yet eaten the Passover (John 18:28).
But then John says something interesting, that the day following Jesus death was a high day. A high day, or great day (see also John 7:37), was a special Sabbath – one of the seven annual Biblical feast Sabbaths. The only high day at that time was the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened bread.
So if the day after Jesus’ death was the first day of the feast of Unleavened bread (the 15th), then the day Jesus died was the 14th, or the Passover. And because Jesus ate the meal the night before He died, then He ate the Passover meal.
Also, we totally believe that Jesus did everything at the correct time, so He ate the Passover meal, which He looked forward to, at the correct time. He was both in submission to God for His death, and was handed over for death that night – that is He was sacrificed that night. And He died between the evenings.
What was the Passover at the time of Jesus
All three of the Synoptic Gospels say the same thing, which is…
‘And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”’ – Mark 14:12
What is described there is not what the Old Testament describes as a Passover, how can you eat the Passover on the 15th? Or how can the first day of Unleavened Bread be on the 14th? It just doesn’t line up.
There is some evidence to suggest that the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were combined into one event, either lasting 8 days, or having the Passover feast late on the 14th going straight into the Sabbath5.
But the truth is we don’t know what it was like at the time, all we really have to go on is the Bible, and the Bible says that they were combined.
And John’s account might suggest that they ate the lamb late on the 14th.
A short reminder about the gospels
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are so called because of their synergies, that is, they share a lot of word-for-word similarities. Thus we essentially see the same thing in all three. However Luke is more about the facts, and that is likely why Matthew and Mark say ‘on the first day…’ while Luke says it ‘drew near’.
Also remembering that the gospels were written for a purpose, to a specific audience, this is likely why Matthew and Mark didn’t care so much about the actual timing, it was close enough, and the fact that they ate the Passover meal was specific enough.
It is also worth noting that the gospels are narrative, that is, they wrote what happened from their point of view, so when writing about the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread being one and the same, if that is what they knew, then that is what they wrote.
Summary of timing of Jesus Death
Jesus ate the Passover, as the Bible says, on the evening of the 14th.
Jesus died at around 3PM (9th hour) on that same day (between the evenings).
The Sabbath, talked about in all 4 gospels, was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
So Jesus ate the Passover, and was the Passover lamb all within one day, and that is the 14th day of the first month.
And that brings us to the second point of this study, when was the 14th?
3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth
‘For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’ – Matthew 12:40
So building on all the above, there is a theory that makes all the timings work together to fulfill that statement of Jesus.
If Passover fell on a Wednesday, then Jesus would have died on that same day, being put in the tomb just before the Sabbath started. The next day would have been the Sabbath for the feast, then Friday would have been another day of Preparation, then Saturday (the Sabbath), then the first day of the week.
So, if Jesus died on a Wednesday, His first night would have been Thursday (remember is starts at evening, so Thursday night is before Thursday day), and if He rose at the beginning of the first day, then He was literally in the grave for 3 whole days and 3 whole nights.
There is only one scripture that might disagree with Wednesday though…
‘it is now the third day since these things happened’ – Luke 24:21 (On the road to Emmaus)
By ‘these things’, they are talking about the crucifixion. If it happened on the Wednesday, then they would be saying this on the fourth day, not the third, although, another option is that Thursday was the Passover and He rose on Sunday, this would still be 3 nights, and most of three days (which I still think fits).
Whether it was a Wednesday or a Thursday, I guess I’ll never know, but the one option I struggle with, is a Friday Passover, there just isn’t three nights, no matter how you calculate it.
What do you think?
References
- see https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6153.htm ↩︎
- See the Brown-Driver-Briggs definition (1.b) at https://biblehub.com/hebrew/6153.htm ↩︎
- See Thayer’s Greek Lexicon point 1.b https://biblehub.com/greek/4521.htm ↩︎
- See https://biblehub.com/strongs/john/13-2.htm for supper ↩︎
- See https://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/library/weekly/id/741/is-passover-on-first-day-unleavened-bread-part-one.htm for joining of the feats ↩︎
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