Passover problems in the Gospels

The Israelites counted their day from sundown to sundown so Passover day would actually begin at sundown at the end of the 13th day of Abib (Nisan).Ex12.6 says the animal was to be slaughtered between the two evenings.
In view of Exodus 12:17,18, Leviticus 23:5-7, and Deuteronomy 16:6,7, the evidence points to the time between sunset and complete darkness. And this view is held by numerous jewish groups and commentators.So this would mean that the lamb was eaten well after sundown on Nisan 14, which is why the gospels state that Jesus and his apostles observed the Passover meal after evening had fallen. (Mr 14:17; Mt 26:20) It also tells us at John 13.30 that when Judas left the building, he went out immediately after the Passover observance, And it was night.It was still early in Nisan 14 at this time and it would continue to be Nisan 14 until the sun rose the following morning and decended that same evening.... and when it ascended again it would become Nisan 15.

his diciples assumed nothing. the account clearly states that they did not know the reason why Jesus was sending Judas out or for what purpose. "but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him....some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor."How you draw such a conclusion from this verse is beyond me.The fact is that Judas was sent out AFTER the passover had been eaten. The next meal they were partaking of was not the Passover but the 'Lords Evening Meal' otherwise known as 'The Last Supper'it was something entirely different to the passover and Jesus did not partake of it, only the diciples did. Jesus passed them the bread and the wine and they ate and drank it but he himself did not. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

well you've misunderstood me. I said the passover began on the 14th which was at the end of the 13th. Let me see if i've got this straight.... the scriptures you posted clearly identify the 14th as the day that the passover was to be eaten (which began after sundown on the 14th), but you say that this really means the passover is on the 15th. I dont get that. there are no contradictions between the gospels and john as to when the passover took place. People are confusing the different aspects of the entire passover celebration...which was more then eating one meal.When John says They themselves did not enter into the governor’s palace, that they might not get defiled but might eat the passover. (Joh 18:28) it wasnt because the passover meal had not yet taken place. He made that statement early in the day, which, if you take into consideration the jewish reconing of a day beginning at sunset, then it would have been after the following sunrise...or early in the morning. This is in harmony with Johns account about Jesus arrest during the night and being held at the governers palace until morning. The verse before this one tells us about the cock crowing....which they do early in the morning just before the sun rises.Also, the passover did not only consist of the one meal of lamb on the night of the 14th. The entire period, including Passover day and the Festival of Unfermented Cakes was often called Passover. After the initial meal of the lamb, there was a compuslory peace offering made on the following day, Nisan 15, which was the first day of the Festival of Unfermented Cakes.So it was this second offering that the Jews were afraid they might not be able to eat if they entered Pilate's residence.Perhaps you are confusing the compuslory offering of the 15th with the eating of the slaughtered lamb on the 14th?

the day of preparation is the day before passover. Remember the day begins at sunset...so during the daylight is the preparation, and when the sunsets the new day begins. This new day is the passover.... otherwise, they are makign their preparations during the night time and there would not be enought time to eat the lamb 'between the two evenings'the two evenings are the time when the sun is sets, and the darkness of night appears. This is a short time and this is the time when the lamb was to be eaten....meaning it had to already be prepared ie slaughtered, skinned, gutted and roasted. Its not all that clear at all. early in the day could mean after the Passover meal had taken place which happened at sundown (14th) the previous night. 12 hours later would be sunrise and it is still the passover (14th) right up until 5.59pm that day.The meal for the next night (15th) beginning at 6pm would be the Festival of Unfermented Cakes....which is still refered to as 'the passover'. Remember that the passover is a 7 day long festival and each day can be called 'the passover' it certainly makes sense to say he was the lamb on the day of the lambs being killed and there is nothing in the gospels to suggest that he died on the 15th rather then on the 14th.the 14th ran from 6pm until 5.59 pm so there is a whole 24 hours for him to have eaten the passover with his disciples, been arrested and taken to a mock nighttime trial, sent to Pilate the next morning (still the 14th) impaled around midday of the same day, dieing at 3pm on the same day and being buried before sundown on the same day.

except that the jews began their day from sundown to sundown.IOW, the 15th began at sundown.....otherwise your day is only 12 hours long.

what you explain is again contrary to scripture.Leviticus 23:32 "....From evening to evening YOU should observe YOUR sabbath. im sure you'll disagree lol

Again, your comments are out of harmony with scripture.leviticus 27:34 "these are the commandments that God gave to Moses as commands to the sons of Isreal on Mount Sinai"Leviticus 26:46 "these are the regulations and judicial decision God set between himself and the sons of Israel in Mount Si′nai by means of Moses"and considering the Pentacheut was originally in one scroll, leviticus being a part of it, proves that Moses was the original writer. the passover was practiced according to the mosaic law... that law never changed and it still hasnt changed.If we are to believe the jews of the first century were practicing customs other then what their law directed, you would need some pretty firm evidence for it. I dont believe there is any evidence to suggest the jews did not recon their day from sundown to sundown.The gospels have Judas leaving the upper room, after the passover meal, in the dark of night... not during the daylight hours but in the dark of night.Jesus trial was at night, he was then sent to the governers palace in the early morning hours...when the roosters were crowing. The evidence does not support a daytime passover celebration.

You dont seem to understand that we are talking about a 24hour period of time that began at 6pm (sundown) and ended the following sundown at 5.59pm.If the lambs are killed and eaten when they are supposed to be eaten, then they are eaten just after the sun goes down and before the dark of night sets in... aprox 6-7pm on Nisan 14Nisan 14 Passover Begins
6pm - start of new day. Celebration begins, lambs are near ready to eat
7pm - lambs eaten before darkness appears
8pm -
9pm - Jesus & Disciples head outdoors
10pm
11pm
MIDNIGHT Nisan 14 - Arrested in Garden of gethsemane
1am - Taken to Sanhedren for night time trial
2am
3am - held at high priest Caiphas house until he can be taken to Pilate
4am
5am - cock crows while Jesus is still being held at Caiaphas house.
SUNRISE Nisan 14 - General population are now waking up after celebration.
7am - Jesus taken to Pilate sometime early in morning.
8am
9am
10am
11am - Sentenced to death
MIDDAY Nisan 14 - Is on the stake around midday
1pm - A 3 hour long darkness occurs
2pm - darkness
3pm - darkness
4pm - darkness. Jesus is seen to be dead and is taken down from stake.
5pm - jesus is rushed to the tomb and buried before sundown.
5.59pm Nisan 14 is about to come to an end.6pm Nisan 15 - Festival of unfirmented cakes begins at sundown.Im just curious to know if you are understanding the day and the events of Nisan 14 in the way that i've put above???

There are two preparation days. One is the preparation for the passover lamb and the other is the preparation of the unfermented bread/cakes.
Mark explains that the preparation day was the day before the sabbath.
Mark 15:42 42Now as it was already late in the afternoon, and since it was Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, So he is speaking about Nisan 14 here. Not the passover of the lamb, but the daylight hours after the lamb had been eaten and the preparations for the unfermented cakes was taking place. The day of Jesus’ death could be viewed as the preparation of the passover in the sense that it was the preparation for the 7 day Festival of Unfermented Cakes that began the next day. this is because the celebrations were so close on the calendar that the entire festival itself was often called Passover. And the day after Nisan 14 was always a Sabbath, so they still needed to prepare their food and upcoming celebration of unfermented cakes because they could not do this on the sabbath....it had to be done on the 14th in keeping with the law found at Ex 20:10 stating that no work was to be carried out on the sabbath. If this is what you are referring to, there could be a few explanations for this.the greek word in the text of Matthew is 'protos' and in other verses its rendered as before such as at Joh 1:15, 30.... he existed before [protos] me. So its quite possible that Matthew should be read as 'on the day before the unfermented cakes' which is why we cant be dogmatic about this one verse.At John 19:14 Now it was preparation of the passover; it was about the sixth hour [of the daytime, between 11:00 a.m. and noon]. This, of course, was after the time of the Passover meal, which had been eaten the night before. But in this verse the Greek word pa‧ra‧skeu‧e′ is translated preparation. This word seems to mark, not the day preceding Nisan 14, but the day preceding the weekly Sabbath.this is in harmony with Exodus 16:5 & 22-27 where, in preparation for the weekly Sabbath, the Jews collected and baked or boiled extra manna because they could not do it on the day of the sabbath. In time the day before the sabbath came to be termed Preparation, which is what Mark called it at Mr 15:42Its also noteworthy that Luke calls the passover 'the festival of undermented cakes at Luke 22:1 Now the festival of the unfermented cakes, the so-called Passover, was getting nearThe facts are that all the gospels expressly put it that jesus had eaten the passover lamb with his diciples in the upper roomMatt 26:19-20 "And the disciples did as Jesus ordered them, and they got things ready for the passover. When, now, it had become evening, he was reclining at the table with the twelve disciplesMark 14:17After evening had fallen he came with the twelve. 18And as they were reclining at the table and eatingLuke 22:14 At length when the hour came, he reclined at the table, and the apostles with him. 15And he said to them: I have greatly desired to eat this passover with YOU before I sufferJohn 13 doesnt mention passover specifically, but he is clearly speaking of the same night but in much more detail. Chapters 13-17 is the detailed discussion that took place while they were in the upper room and chapter 18 begins with Having said these things, Jesus went out with his disciples across the winter torrent of Kid′ron to where there was a garden, and he and his disciples entered into it from this point on John relates the account about Jesus arrest in the garden of gethsemane.

I have been saying over and over that the whole celebration was called the passover...not just the eating of the passover lamb.It was an 8 day celebration which started with the preparation of the lambs on the 13th, then the eating of the lambs at the beginning of the 14th, then the preparation of the unfermented cakes late on the 14th, then the partaking of the cakes on at the beginning of the 15 - 21st.the preparation of the 'passover' could mean the unfermented cakes because the entire 8 day festival was called 'the passover'...not just the 14th.Before i go on further, do you understand that John could have been referring to the entire 8 day celebration as 'the passover'?And do you get that if he was, then the preparation he was talking about was the preparation of the 2nd meal of the passover which was the unfermented cakes on the 15th?

im seeing a contradiction in your post. you've officially confused me. According to scripture the passover lamb was eating at the very start of the 14th...which starts at sundown - 6pmish.In the hours before...say 3pm ,4pm, 5pm, this is the time when the preparations would be made of the lamb. It would have to be killed, gutted, cleaned and roasted.... this would all be taking place on the 13th because the 14th doesnt begin until sundown approx 6 oclock in the evening.Exodus 29:38-39 has nothing to do with the passover celebration. This is the specifications for making somone a priest.
Vs 1 And this is the thing that you are to do to them to sanctify them for acting as priests to me:..." I never said they were slain on the 13th...i said they were prepared on the 13th in the hours before the 14th began which is at sundown.2) if you are basing this on Exodus 29, then you are applying th wrong scripture to the passover.

here is exodus 12:3-10read it carefully and you will notice 2 things1. The lamb was to be eaten on the 14th between the two evenings - this means it was to be eaten between sundown and the dark of night.2. None of the lamb was to be left over in the morning - therefore they were not permitted to eat any passover lambs after this time. If there was some leftover, it had to be burned with fire. i wanted to clarify which day you thought the lamb was being eaten before i went on. The above scripture should show you that there is no way they would have eaten any lambs at the end of the 14th for it was forbidden.

LOLoh yeah i did too...sorry about that.Well, i guess they were slain, they just were not eaten until the beginning of the passover....6pmish on the 14th.The thing is, they only had a short time to actually eat the lamb...it had to be properly cooked and a whole lamb on a spitroast would take a 2-3 hours.The time they had to eat the lamb was 'between the two evenings' and according to some scholars, as well as the Karaite Jews and Samaritans, this is the time between sunset and actual darkness. This is why the lamb had to be ready to eat.... but the actual celebration began with the eating, not with the slaughtering.

you'd be correct if we were to apply our current 'day and night' to the scripture. But the hebrews began their 'day' at sundown.So if we apply their reconing of when the 14th began, we'd have to say they ate the lamb at the very start of the 14th...at sundown. not if we are reconing when the day began in the same way they did. The morning would be 12 hours later when the sun came up. It would still be the 14th.

3 Questions.Which part of the verses do you consider to be saying the 'end' of the 14th?Do you accept that the jews started their day in at sundown?If you eat unleavened bread on the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th & 21st....how many days have you eaten unleavened bread?And final question:Do you realise that the passover and the festival of unleavened bread are actually 2 celebrations combined into one which take a total of 8 days?