TRANSCRIÇÃO 🔗
WEBVTT
00:00:10.464 --> 00:00:14.702
Hello again, everybody, and welcome back to the Bible Difficulties and Answers podcast.
00:00:15.131 --> 00:00:19.160
I'm your host, Lance Smith. This is episode 314.
00:00:19.938 --> 00:00:26.271
Today, we're looking at a question from the Skeptics Annotated Bible under Matthew 26:17:
00:00:27.072 --> 00:00:31.687
Was Jesus crucified before or after the Passover meal?
00:00:32.328 --> 00:00:37.239
And this is one of those apparent contradictions where, at first glance,
00:00:37.500 --> 00:00:39.445
the problem looks pretty straightforward.
00:00:40.041 --> 00:00:44.759
Matthew, Mark, and Luke appear to say that Jesus ate the Passover meal with
00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:48.470
his disciples and was crucified the following day.
00:00:49.027 --> 00:00:54.612
But John seems to say that Jesus was crucified before the Passover meal.
00:00:55.256 --> 00:01:01.059
Did Jesus eat the Passover and then die the next day, or did he die before the
00:01:01.059 --> 00:01:03.476
Passover meal ever took place?
00:01:04.115 --> 00:01:07.689
And this is where things get a little awkward. We have Matthew,
00:01:07.689 --> 00:01:11.225
Mark, and Luke saying essentially, "Yes, this was the Passover meal."
00:01:11.803 --> 00:01:17.318
Then John comes along and seems to say, "Well, not so fast." So, congratulations.
00:01:17.864 --> 00:01:22.519
We have arrived at another one of those places where the Gospel writers apparently
00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:24.261
decided to give us a little homework.
00:01:25.019 --> 00:01:29.750
All right, those are all fair questions, so let's let the texts speak for themselves.
00:01:30.349 --> 00:01:35.891
Matthew 26:17 says: "On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread,
00:01:36.141 --> 00:01:41.810
the disciples came to Jesus and asked, 'Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal for you?'"
00:01:42.437 --> 00:01:46.930
Then in verses 18 and 19, Jesus tells them where to prepare it.
00:01:47.522 --> 00:01:55.138
And Matthew says: "So the disciples did as Jesus told them and prepared the Passover meal there.
00:01:55.917 --> 00:02:02.469
Mark says essentially the same thing. Mark 14:12 says this happened "on the first
00:02:02.469 --> 00:02:07.079
day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed."
00:02:07.889 --> 00:02:16.074
And Luke is even more explicit. Luke 22:7 and 8 says: "Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread arrived,
00:02:16.765 --> 00:02:22.825
when the Passover lamb is sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John ahead and said,
00:02:23.231 --> 00:02:26.651
'Go and prepare the Passover meal so we can eat it together.'"
00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:33.796
Then Jesus says in Luke 22:15: "I have been very eager to eat this Passover
00:02:33.796 --> 00:02:36.415
meal with you before my suffering begins."
00:02:37.133 --> 00:02:42.376
That's pretty hard to misunderstand. The natural reading of Matthew,
00:02:42.376 --> 00:02:46.889
Mark, and Luke is that Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples.
00:02:47.831 --> 00:02:52.226
Wayne Jackson, in his Christian Courier article, "Did Jesus Eat the Passover
00:02:52.226 --> 00:02:58.456
Supper?," puts it plainly: "The testimony of the Synoptics is clear and decisive
00:02:58.456 --> 00:03:01.603
that Jesus and his disciples observed the Passover."
00:03:02.705 --> 00:03:05.968
So far, so good. But then we come to John.
00:03:06.705 --> 00:03:13.508
John 18:28 says that the Jewish leaders took Jesus to Pilate early in the morning,
00:03:13.996 --> 00:03:16.445
but would not enter Pilate's headquarters:
00:03:17.059 --> 00:03:21.767
"because it would defile them and they wouldn't be allowed to celebrate the Passover."
00:03:22.515 --> 00:03:30.002
Then John 19:14 says: "It was now about noon on the day of preparation for the Passover."
00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:35.525
And that's where the apparent contradiction comes from. If the Jewish leaders
00:03:35.705 --> 00:03:39.309
were still concerned about eating the Passover on Friday morning,
00:03:39.907 --> 00:03:44.488
then how could Jesus have eaten the Passover with his disciples Thursday night?
00:03:45.387 --> 00:03:48.255
The skeptical argument here is not a foolish one.
00:03:48.946 --> 00:03:55.248
Elan Gilad, in his Haaretz article, "Was Jesus' Last Supper Truly a Passover
00:03:55.248 --> 00:04:01.918
Seder?", concludes that John and the Synoptics could not be both correct in their chronology.
00:04:02.584 --> 00:04:06.728
Jonathan Klawans, in the Biblical Archaeology Society article,
00:04:07.048 --> 00:04:09.324
"Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?”
00:04:10.067 --> 00:04:15.228
likewise argues that there is a real difference between John and the Synoptic
00:04:15.228 --> 00:04:18.504
Gospels and favors John's chronology.
00:04:18.945 --> 00:04:21.122
So, let's give that argument its due.
00:04:21.755 --> 00:04:27.288
The simplest reading of John, according to this view, is that Jesus was crucified
00:04:27.288 --> 00:04:29.976
on Friday before the Passover meal that evening.
00:04:30.415 --> 00:04:35.108
John emphasizes Jesus' death at the time associated with the slaughter of the
00:04:35.108 --> 00:04:41.752
Passover lambs, while the Synoptics emphasize the Last Supper as a Passover meal.
00:04:42.524 --> 00:04:48.428
That's the problem. Now, here's where the apparent contradiction begins to loosen.
00:04:49.164 --> 00:04:52.496
There are three important things to understand about the language.
00:04:52.955 --> 00:04:58.178
First, "Passover" could refer to more than the opening Passover meal.
00:04:59.136 --> 00:05:05.128
Luke 22:1 says: "The Festival of the Unleavened Bread, which is also called the
00:05:05.128 --> 00:05:06.868
Passover, was approaching."
00:05:08.203 --> 00:05:13.305
In other words, Passover could refer to the specific meal, but it could also
00:05:13.305 --> 00:05:15.262
refer to the larger festival.
00:05:16.053 --> 00:05:21.735
Thomas Brewer, in his Ligonier article, "Does
Load full transcript
John's Last Supper Chronology Differ
00:05:21.735 --> 00:05:26.945
from the Other Gospels?", points out that the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened
00:05:26.945 --> 00:05:29.225
Bread could be used interchangeably.
00:05:29.951 --> 00:05:34.165
Barry Smith makes a similar argument in "The Chronology of the Last Supper,"
00:05:34.531 --> 00:05:36.812
published in the Westminster Theological Journal.
00:05:37.464 --> 00:05:43.475
He argues that some of the apparent difficulty comes from our unfamiliarity
00:05:43.475 --> 00:05:46.050
with first century festival terminology.
00:05:46.676 --> 00:05:52.108
That matters, because when John says the Jewish leaders wanted to "eat the Passover,"
00:05:52.729 --> 00:05:58.025
it does not automatically mean they were waiting for the exact same meal Matthew,
00:05:58.025 --> 00:06:00.078
Mark, and Luke had already described.
00:06:00.877 --> 00:06:05.455
And this is one of those places where English can make things sound simpler
00:06:05.455 --> 00:06:06.647
than they actually were.
00:06:07.362 --> 00:06:12.238
We tend to hear "Passover" and think, "One meal, one night, problem solved."
00:06:12.853 --> 00:06:15.871
But biblical usage can be broader than that.
00:06:16.417 --> 00:06:21.496
Sometimes "Passover" refers to the sacrifice, sometimes the meal,
00:06:21.647 --> 00:06:24.341
and sometimes the entire festival period.
00:06:25.078 --> 00:06:28.869
In other words, one word is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
00:06:29.655 --> 00:06:34.177
Second, "the day of preparation" normally refers to Friday.
00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:37.534
Mark 15:42 makes this explicit:
00:06:38.182 --> 00:06:43.076
"This all happened on Friday, the day of preparation, the day before the Sabbath."
00:06:43.728 --> 00:06:49.950
And John 19:31 says the Jewish leaders didn't want the bodies left on the cross,
00:06:50.577 --> 00:06:55.804
because the next day was the Sabbath, "and a very special Sabbath because it was the Passover."
00:06:56.631 --> 00:07:03.158
So, John can call Friday the preparation day during Passover week without necessarily
00:07:03.158 --> 00:07:07.416
saying that the entire Passover observance had not yet begun.
00:07:08.210 --> 00:07:13.034
Jimmy Akin makes this point in "Was the Last Supper a Passover Meal?"
00:07:13.733 --> 00:07:18.168
He argues that "the day of preparation" was a standard designation for Friday,
00:07:18.168 --> 00:07:19.910
the day of preparation for the Sabbath.
00:07:20.757 --> 00:07:26.308
That's important because the New Living Translation's wording "the day of preparation
00:07:26.308 --> 00:07:30.988
for the Passover," naturally sounds like the Passover meal is still ahead.
00:07:31.575 --> 00:07:37.937
But that's an English translation. It doesn't settle everything the underlying Greek means.
00:07:38.632 --> 00:07:44.866
Third, "eating the Passover" could refer to other festival meals and sacrifices.
00:07:46.068 --> 00:07:52.250
Wayne Jackson points out that the Greek word pascha could refer to the Passover
00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:56.163
lamb, the Passover meal, or the larger festival.
00:07:56.819 --> 00:08:01.680
He suggests that the meal the Jewish leaders were concerned about in John 18:
00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:07.454
28, could have been a subsequent festival meal known as the chagigah.
00:08:08.095 --> 00:08:12.228
And I realize we're getting into some Hebrew and Greek vocabulary here,
00:08:12.727 --> 00:08:14.486
but the basic point is simple.
00:08:15.068 --> 00:08:20.118
Passover wasn't necessarily one meal and then everybody went home.
00:08:20.936 --> 00:08:25.441
It was a festival involving additional sacrifices and meals.
00:08:26.050 --> 00:08:30.566
So the Jewish leaders could have eaten the initial Passover meal Thursday night,
00:08:31.135 --> 00:08:34.537
and still had festival observances ahead of them Friday.
00:08:35.273 --> 00:08:41.467
That gives us a straightforward way to read John without requiring the Synoptics to be wrong.
00:08:42.262 --> 00:08:49.120
And there's another detail worth mentioning. John 13:1 says: "Before the Passover
00:08:49.120 --> 00:08:53.128
celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come..."
00:08:53.789 --> 00:08:59.501
Some readers take that as proof that the meal in the following verse could not have been Passover.
00:09:00.204 --> 00:09:05.434
But John doesn't actually say that. He says that Jesus knew his hour had come,
00:09:05.875 --> 00:09:09.945
"before the Passover celebration," and then introduces the supper.
00:09:10.665 --> 00:09:15.198
He doesn't explicitly tell us, "This supper was not the Passover meal."
00:09:16.126 --> 00:09:19.545
Barry Smith points to several details in John's account,
00:09:20.154 --> 00:09:26.740
The nighttime setting, the meal taking place in Jerusalem, the disciples reclining,
00:09:26.740 --> 00:09:32.659
and the fact that they don't return to Bethany as details consistent with a festival meal,
00:09:33.306 --> 00:09:37.875
So, John 13:1 doesn't settle the chronology by itself,
00:09:38.673 --> 00:09:43.475
Now, there is another possible solution that deserves at least a brief mention.
00:09:44.507 --> 00:09:51.544
Perhaps Jesus and the Jewish authorities were operating according to different calendar traditions.
00:09:52.503 --> 00:09:56.793
Now, I have to admit, once we start getting into ancient Jewish calendars,
00:09:56.793 --> 00:09:59.626
I begin to feel like I need a calendar to keep track of the calendars.
00:10:00.292 --> 00:10:04.653
But this is a serious proposal, and some scholars have argued for it.
00:10:05.281 --> 00:10:10.183
Leon Morris, quoted by Wayne Jackson, points out that the Synoptics naturally
00:10:10.183 --> 00:10:15.293
read as presenting the Last Supper as the Passover meal, while John appears
00:10:15.293 --> 00:10:19.539
to place Jesus' death at the same time the Passover lambs were being sacrificed.
00:10:20.202 --> 00:10:26.129
His solution is that the writers may be reflecting different
calendar reckonings.
00:10:26.767 --> 00:10:32.067
Ian Paul discusses this possibility in his Psephizo article,
00:10:32.642 --> 00:10:35.213
"Do the Gospel Accounts of Holy Week Make Sense?"
00:10:35.984 --> 00:10:42.491
Including Colin Humphrey's argument in "The Mystery of the Last Supper" for an earlier calendar.
00:10:43.122 --> 00:10:47.586
Humphreys even proposes Friday, April 3, AD 33 for the crucifixion.
00:10:49.253 --> 00:10:52.828
It's an interesting theory, but I wouldn't make it the foundation of the answer.
00:10:53.462 --> 00:10:57.893
Barry Smith reviews several calendar proposals and concludes that the historical
00:10:57.893 --> 00:11:01.043
evidence for them is not strong enough to settle the question.
00:11:01.634 --> 00:11:07.184
Wayne Jackson likewise notes that the two-calendar theory has relatively few supporters.
00:11:07.445 --> 00:11:12.071
So I think we can put that one in the "possible, but not necessary" category.
00:11:12.768 --> 00:11:18.533
And that now brings us back to the original question. Was Jesus crucified before
00:11:18.533 --> 00:11:20.231
or after the Passover meal?
00:11:20.886 --> 00:11:25.643
The strongest reading of Matthew, Mark, and Luke is that Jesus ate the Passover
00:11:25.643 --> 00:11:28.984
meal with his disciples and was crucified the following day.
00:11:29.607 --> 00:11:34.103
John creates a genuine difficulty because he says that the Jewish leaders were
00:11:34.103 --> 00:11:39.921
still concerned about eating the Passover and calls Friday the day of preparation for the Passover.
00:11:40.766 --> 00:11:45.523
But that does not necessarily mean they were waiting for the opening Passover
00:11:45.523 --> 00:11:48.498
meal. "Passover" could refer to the larger festival.
00:11:49.102 --> 00:11:53.133
"The day of preparation" could refer to Friday, the day of preparation for the
00:11:53.133 --> 00:11:54.889
Sabbath during Passover week.
00:11:55.574 --> 00:12:01.293
And the Jewish leaders could have been concerned about remaining ceremonially
00:12:01.293 --> 00:12:06.610
clean for the later festival observances. That's a legitimate reconciliation.
00:12:07.687 --> 00:12:10.647
Is it the only possible explanation? No.
00:12:11.393 --> 00:12:13.023
Some scholars believe John presents
00:12:13.023 --> 00:12:16.820
a different chronology, and I think we should be honest about that.
00:12:17.487 --> 00:12:21.115
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible has identified a real difficulty.
00:12:21.742 --> 00:12:27.100
What it has not demonstrated is a necessary contradiction. Those aren't the same thing.
00:12:27.738 --> 00:12:31.568
And that's an important distinction when we're dealing with difficult passages.
00:12:31.736 --> 00:12:34.714
We don't need to pretend John is easy.
00:12:35.242 --> 00:12:39.433
We don't need to pretend every scholar agrees. And we don't need to invent an
00:12:39.813 --> 00:12:43.091
elaborate calendar theory just to make the passages fit.
00:12:43.682 --> 00:12:47.323
There is a reasonable reading of the language that allows Matthew,
00:12:47.323 --> 00:12:51.136
Mark, Luke, and John to be telling the truth about the same events.
00:12:51.762 --> 00:12:55.543
Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples. He was arrested that night.
00:12:55.543 --> 00:12:58.926
He was crucified Friday. He was buried before the Sabbath.
00:12:59.542 --> 00:13:04.000
John emphasizes that Jesus is the Passover lamb who goes to the cross.
00:13:04.616 --> 00:13:06.503
The Synoptics emphasize the
00:13:06.503 --> 00:13:10.421
Passover meal in which Jesus gives new meaning to the bread and the cup.
00:13:11.570 --> 00:13:16.220
A different emphasis does not automatically mean contradictory chronology.
00:13:17.323 --> 00:13:21.125
So, here, the Skeptic's Annotated Bible has given us a good question.
00:13:21.769 --> 00:13:25.426
But a good question isn't automatically a good contradiction.
00:13:26.160 --> 00:13:29.579
Sometimes the best answer isn't, "There's no difficulty here."
00:13:30.189 --> 00:13:35.452
Sometimes it's, "Yes, there's a difficulty. Now, let's see whether the evidence
00:13:35.452 --> 00:13:37.474
actually requires a contradiction."
00:13:38.051 --> 00:13:40.373
In this case, I don't think it does.
00:13:41.045 --> 00:13:45.452
If you'd like to support the podcast, you can do so at buymeacoffee.com/
00:13:45.452 --> 00:13:48.296
LanceSmith. As always, it's appreciated, but never expected.
00:13:48.986 --> 00:13:52.652
You can find every episode at BibleDifficultiesAndAnswers.Podbean.com.
00:13:52.652 --> 00:13:57.432
You can also find us on Facebook or email me anytime at BibleDifficultiesAndAnswers
00:13:57.432 --> 00:14:01.908
@gmail.com. I read every message and I genuinely enjoy hearing from you.
00:14:02.614 --> 00:14:06.962
This is Lance Smith wishing you good health, good study, and God's richest blessings.
00:14:07.218 --> 00:14:09.418
We'll see you next time. So long, everybody.