No Leaven Used with Passover
What the critics cannot get straight in their minds is that the Passover was also a day when Unleavened Bread was eaten. The Passover was always to be eaten with unleavened bread (Exodus 23:18 and 12:8).
There were seven days during which no leaven was to be seen anywhere in Israel — this is during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. But also the 14th of Abib the children of Israel were to eat only unleavened bread with the Passover and to use that day as a preparation in putting out all leaven and getting ready for the feast of seven days which followed. So there were eight days in all during which unleavened bread was eaten — one day with the Passover and seven days with the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
That is why Matthew, Mark and Luke speak of the Passover as a day of unleavened bread! It was not the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but the first of eight days on which unleavened bread was eaten. (In the King James Version the word "feast" is improperly inserted in Matthew 26:17. Notice that it is in italics.)
Also observe that Matthew records the conversation of the Jews' plot to kill Jesus. They said: "Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people." (Mat. 26:5).
There is absolutely no shred of evidence that Jesus was crucified on the 15th of Nisan. He was killed on the 14th as our Passover Lamb — on the very day the Passover Lamb was always slain. The Jews purposely avoided killing Jesus on the Feast — the 15th.
But now we must read John 18:28. On the morning of the 14th of Nisan the Jews refused to enter the judgment hall of the Roman. governor, Pilate. Why? "Lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover."
So the Jews from Judaea had not eaten their Passover yet! They were not observing it at the same time the Galileans ate it. Remember that Jesus and the disciples were from Galilee. Jews in Christ's time — those who lived in Judaea — kept their Passover one day later than did Jesus, His disciples and the Galileans in general. Why did they do so? Where did the custom originate? Why were the Jews in Judaea observing their Passover on a different day of the month than were the Jews living in Galilee?
Even Josephus, the Jewish historian, acknowledges that the Judeans were celebrating the Passover at a different time than it was celebrated by Moses.
Notice what Josephus wrote about the Passover.
Confession of Josephus
Here is his account of the exodus. "In the month . . . which is by us called Nisan . . . on the fourteenth day of the lunar month . . . the law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice . . . which we slew when we came out of Egypt, and which was called the Passover. . . . The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the Passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month, and continues seven days." (From Antiquities of the Jews, book III, chapter x, § 5)
How plain. The Passover is the 14th and the seven days which follow are the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Josephus repeats the account of the Exodus in Antiquities, book II. Notice how he words the account here. "But when the fourteenth day was come, and all were ready to depart, they offered the sacrifice . . . Whence it is that we do still offer this sacrifice in like manner to this day, and call this festival Pascha, which signifies the feast of the Passover; because ON THAT DAY God passed us over, and sent the plague upon the Egyptians; for the destruction of the firstborn came upon the Egyptians THAT NIGHT" (chap. xiv, § 6) . This was the 14th!
And on what day did they leave Egypt? "They left Egypt," declares Josephus, "on the fifteenth day of the lunar month" (chap. xv, § 2).
This agrees perfectly with Numbers 33:3. "And they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month: on the morrow after the Passover the children of Israel went out. . . ."
Remember that Josephus plainly records that the Feast of Unleavened bread was celebrated for only seven days following the Passover on the 14th of Nisan. Yet Matthew, Mark and Luke show that it was customary to refer to the day of the Passover as the first of eight days of unleavened bread. Did Josephus also speak of eight days of unleavened bread, including the Passover? Indeed! In memory of the exodus he said to the Jews "keep a feast for eight days" (book II, chap. xv, § 1).
Sometimes the entire eight-day period was called "The Days of Unleavened Bread," and sometimes it was all called "The Passover," as in Luke 22:1.
If the Jews once knew that the sacrificing of the Passover lambs occurred on the eve or beginning of the 14th of Nisan, "between the two evenings," at dusk, and that God passed over them that night — the 14th — and that they left Egypt on the 15th of Nisan, why did the Jews in Judaea in Christ's time confuse the events and celebrate the Passover one day late?
The answer has never been understood by the critics and the scholars. Here is what happened. Also read the series on Judaism by Ernest Martin in this issue.
After Ezra and Nehemiah
The Jews who returned under Ezra and Nehemiah correctly observed the festivals according to the law. They began each day at sunset. This custom continued until the Persian period of rule over Palestine ceased.
Then came the Greeks. New ideas began to be introduced. Judaism developed. It was a mixture of the Law of Moses and "Hellenism" — as Greek culture introduced under Alexander the Great after 333 B.C. was called. The eleventh chapter of Daniel tells us of the history of the Jews in Palestine for the next three centuries. First, Palestine was to be under the control of the King of the South. The King of the South was the Ptolemaic line of Greek rulers in Egypt. The Egyptians — under the rule of a Greek dynasty — began to force their particular brand of Hellenism upon the Jews in Palestine. The Great Synagogue was disbanded. The Jews were forced to take up the ways of the heathen — and that included changing the time when the day begins. Any encyclopedia will reveal that the Egyptians began their days with sunrise, not sunset. They therefore commenced each day about 12 hours later than the time God appoints.
So notice what would happen to the celebration of the Passover.
Jews began to neglect the law. The majority soon began to celebrate Passover in accordance with the Egyptian measurement of time. They therefore had to change the time for celebrating the Passover to meet the new custom of reckoning a day from sunrise to sunrise. Originally the Passover was celebrated at sunset, beginning the 14th of Nisan. But according to Egyptian reckoning that sunset would not be the beginning of the 14th, but midday of the 13th lunar month!
By Egyptian reckoning the 14th of a month began at sunrise, 12 hours late!
The dusk period "between two evenings" on the 14th of an Egyptian day would therefore occur at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th day of a month as God reckons time! When this pagan method of time reckoning was forced on the people, the Jews in Palestine began to celebrate the Passover at dusk on the middle of the 14th day of the Egyptian month, 24 hours too late. It was in reality the beginning of the 15th day as God reckons time!
And that is how the custom began of celebrating the Passover at sunset one day late. But the story does not end here.
The True Day Later Restored
At the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ the Jews had restored the beginning of a day to its proper point. The Galileans also restored the Passover, but the Judeans were celebrating their Passover on the 15th of Nisan!
What happened is this. After the Hellenized Egyptians were driven out of Palestine the Hellenized Syrians dominated Palestine until the Maccabees. The Maccabees were zealous Jews who drove out the Gentiles about 160 years before Jesus' birth. They were able to restore some of the practices of Moses, but they still compromised with the Gentile customs which the Jews had been practicing for generations under Greek, Egyptian and Syrian influence. The Jews restored the beginning of a day to sunset. But what were they going to do with the time of celebrating the Passover?
The Jews in Galilee, in the north of Palestine were far less influenced by Egyptian and Hellenic influences. They restored the beginning of each day to sunset and restored the Passover to its proper time at the beginning of the 14th of Nisan. But the Judeans, who lived in and around Jerusalem and southern Palestine refused to change the custom of celebrating Passover in the middle of the Egyptian day at dusk — one day late.
The Judeans decided to restore the day to begin at sunset. But they refused to change the hour for celebrating their Passover. The traditions of the elders were too strong. The Judeans henceforth decided to kill the Passover lambs and to eat them at the same time of day they had been doing under Gentile Egyptian rule! And that is how the Jews in Judaea began to celebrate their Passover at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th day of Nisan! And by so doing they rebelled against the government of God.
Jews Admit It
In 1948 I wrote to the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, asking them for information on this very subject. The librarian replied to me that in Christ's time the Jews were divided over the Passover celebrations. The Jews, he wrote, had just recently (just before Christ) restored the beginning of a day to sunset. The Galileans, he admitted, had consequently restored the Passover to the beginning of the 14th as originally celebrated. But the Judeans decided to continue their practice of killing the lambs one day later, at the beginning of the 15th so as not to change the customs they had followed while under Egyptian rule. If their elders had done so, they reasoned, they would continue to do so!
What Happened to Feast of Pentecost
The same conditions led to the celebration of Pentecost on the wrong day.
When the Greeks removed the Jews in the Great Synagogue from authority over the community, the problem arose as to who should determine the Feast of Firstfruits. Since there was no fixed authority, many of the Jews decided it would be better to have a fixed day of the month rather than be in doubt. Thus the Jews adopted the practice of designating Sivan 6 as the day of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover. But Pentecost is not fifty days after the Passover. It is fifty days after the day on which the wave sheaf is cut — and that always occurred on the first day of the week following the only weekly Sabbath which occurs during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Notice Leviticus 23:11. "On the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it" — means the weekly Sabbath. Otherwise there would be no reason to count which day of the month Pentecost occurs.
Here is the proof!
Since the day the wave sheaf is cut could fall on Abib 20 (if Passover is on Monday), or on Abib 18 (if Passover is on Wednesday), or on Abib 16 (if Passover is on Friday), or on Abib 22 (if Passover is on the weekly Sabbath), you can easily see why Pentecost has to be counted.
In these four illustrations (for Passover Abib 14 can only fall on these four days of the week, beginning the evening before, of course), Pentecost — which is celebrated fifty days after the day the wave sheaf is cut and always falls on Monday — will be Sivan 11 or 9 or 7 or 13 respectively. That is why Pentecost must be counted.
There was no repentance among the Jews any more than there is today in the professing Christian world. There was no obedience to God. There were only the traditions of men! And the critics even to this day refuse to accept the plain words of Scripture that Jesus celebrated the Passover at its proper time on the eve of the 14th of Abib — the very day He was crucified. Carnal men uphold the tradition of Egypt and the doctrines of Judaism, not the Bible! The truth of God they refuse. They hate God's way. They refused to keep the Feast of Firstfruits — Pentecost — and that is why they were rejected as a nation.
Since 70 A.D. the Jews have also ceased altogether to observe the Passover. Today they make a pretense of keeping only the Feast of Unleavened Bread. At the Feast they have a lamb bone on the table as a solitary reminder of the original Passover which God commanded Moses. Is it only the true New Testament Church of God which rightly celebrated Pentecost, and the Passover on the eve of the 14th of Nisan! "Do this," said Jesus "in remembrance of me." Are you really doing it?