The dating of the last supper Part III The problems with the fascinating "Essene Hypothesis"
Fascinating as it may be, there are various problems with Annie Jaubert’s “Essene hypothesis”, a theory we explored in my last post: The Passover always falling on Tuesday on the Qumran calendar (1.), furthermore the duration of the feast according to them (2.), and finally their dating of Firstfruits (3.).
1. The most obvious problem of Annie Jaubert’s “Essene” hypothesis
When Benedict in his homely in 2007 was referring to the Qumran calendar (for details see my last post), saying “…In all likelihood, however, he [Yeshua HaMoshiach] celebrated the Passover with his disciples in accordance with the Qumran calendar, hence, at least one day earlier…” (emphasis added), he is a bit blurry, because according to the Qumran calendar, the day of the Passover was fixed and always fell on a Tuesday. In other words, if this theory were correct, Yeshua would have celebrated Passover three days earlier than “mainstream Judaism”: According to John, “the Jews” celebrated Passover on Friday (John 18:28; 19:31); hence the Qumran Passover would have been exactly three days earlier.
Furthermore, John as well as Mark relate that Yeshua was crucified on Friday, John 19:31; Mark 15:42
John 19:31 “Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the sabbath, especially because that sabbath was a day of great solemnity…”;
Mark 15:42 “When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,…”. Mark in this verse can only refer to the weekly Sabbath, as according to his own account and perspective “the first day of unleavened bread when the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed”- the high holiday - had been the day before, when Yeshua had celebrated the Passover together with his disciples, Mark 14:12. (More in detail further down.)
Have a look at the Passover festival according to the Qumran/Zadokite Calendar projected to 2024 (dates and weekdays are always fixed; Passover is on Tuesday)
As I have just said, Yeshua was crucified on Friday according to John as well as Mark. If you simply read the gospel accounts - John chapters 18+19 as well as Mark chapters 14+15 - you will find that the last supper took place the day before, or rather the evening before Yeshua’s crucifixion., that is Thursday, two days later than the Qumran community might have celebrated. (As an aside, we do not know how the Qumran calendar was intercalated, as the year has roughly 365,25 days and not 364 days; therefore, a whole week [so that the days of the week for festivals remain unchanged] must have been added every several years.) Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts agree with Mark.
This is the main reason why the hypothesis proposed by Annie Jaubert of a Passover celebration according to the Qumran calendar is, in my view, far-fetched. If you do not read things into the text, you can’t get to a last supper having taken place on Tuesday.
Benedict in his book “Jesus of Nazareth” from 2011, four years after his homily, came to the same conclusion:
“One argument against this redating of the Last Supper to Tuesday, of course, is the long tradition assigning it to Thursday, which we find clearly established as early as the second century. Jaubert responds by pointing to the second text on which her theory is based: the so-called Didascalia Apostolorum, a text from the early third century that places the Last Supper on Tuesday. She tries to show that this book preserved an old tradition, traces of which are also found in other texts.
In reply it must be said that the traces of tradition to which she refers are too weak to be convincing.”
According to Annie Jaubert, all four gospels (all composed in the first century CE according to modern scholarship, with John’s being the latest in the 90s) got it wrong as to the last supper having taken place the day before the crucifixion, Thursday, whereas one text from the third century, the Didascalia Apostolorum, got it right.
(If you are interested in a redundant outlining of what scholarship has to say about the date of the last supper and Jaubert’s theory, I highly recommend the book by Stéphane Saulnier (Note 1) from 2012.)
2. Another problem with Annie Jaubert’s hypothesis: The duration of the feast
Although extremely appealing, Jaubert’s theory has yet another flaw: As you can see on the picture of the Zadokite/Qumran calendar above, Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread altogether lasted eight days for the Qumran community. As stated by Mark, Matthew and Luke however, the first day of Unleavened Bread, a high holiday, was on the 14th of Nissan, when the Passover lambs are to be slaughtered; consequently, for Yeshua and His disciples the whole feast lasted seven, not eight days.
To elucidate this more in detail, let us look again at Mark 14:12. “On the first day of unleavened bread when the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed,…”.
This is, actually, a contradiction to the description of the feast in Leviticus 23:5,6, moreover Numbers 28:16,17, “The fourteenth day of the first month is the LORD’s Passover. On the fifteenth day of this month, there shall be a feast; for seven days unleavened bread is to be eaten.”. According to Leviticus, the passover lambs are slaughtered at twilight of the 14th of Nissan; the feast of Unleavened Bread starts on the 15th of Nissan and lasts for seven days. Likewise, in Antiquities of the Jews, 3.248, Josephus explains: “In the month of …Nisan, …on the fourteenth day …, the law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice … which was called the Passover; and so we do celebrate this passover in companies, leaving nothing of what we sacrifice till the day following. The feast of unleavened bread succeeds that of the passover, and falls on the fifteenth day of the month, and continues seven days”. First the Passover, then the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread.
Especially Jewish rabbis point out that Mark 14:12 is a “contradiction in terms”(Note 2). Others do not even seem to notice the contradiction or do not deem it worthwhile mentioning (for example Benedict in his book “Jesus of Nazareth”).
Nevertheless, I take Mark at his word because I do not think that he was, as some scholars suggest, uninformed about these customs or using his words in an ambiguous way, yet indicating mainstream Jewish practice. I am certain Mark meant exactly what he said, although this contradicts Lev 23:5,6, Numbers 28:16,17 and the custom described by Josephus for the following reasons:
He designates the feast the way it is described in Exodus 12:15-18. (Early exegetes like Melito of Sardis and Origen of Alexandria based their Easter sermons on Exodus (Note 3).) Cf. further Ex 13:6,7; 23:(15),16(Passover not a feast separate from Unleavened Bread, seven days altogether).
The same is true for Ezekiel 45:21-23.
Furthermore, his description matches with the oldest calendar in Palestine, the Pentecontad calendar (Note 4): The spring festival, massot, lasted seven days altogether, whereas the fall feast, ingathering, lasted eight days.
Deut 16:4 indicates the Passover altogether lasted seven days.
Luke 22:7 as well as Matthew 26:17 describe the first day of Unleavened Bread the same way as Mark does.
Obviously, therefore, Mark was not indicating that the last supper took place when the Passover lambs actually were slaughtered in the temple, but he rather suggests when the correct date for the slaughtering would have been, in other words: He suggests the correct understanding of the Old Testament writings.
But is it conceivable that there are differences between the texts within the Old Testament?
Very much so, as biblical science today knows that the text of the Hexateuch developed over a long period of time, the different literary strata having distinct cultural backgrounds.
Let us start with Exodus 12:15-18. Ex 12:15: “For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to remove the leaven from your houses. Whoever eats anything leavened from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.” Seven days, unequivocally. Furthermore, the day all leaven removed is the 14th of Nissan (cf. also Ex 12:6,8,10). Exodus 12:16 goes on, ”And on the first day you shall have a holy assembly, and another holy assembly on the seventh day. You must not do any work on those days, except to prepare the meals—that is all you may do.” We are still talking about the same first day on which all leaven has to be removed. To me, this sounds very much like Mark 14:12, Luke 22:7 and Matthew 26:17. As these verses clearly imply, the last supper on Thursday corresponded to this first day, the 14th; this was considered the high holiday, when the only work allowed was to prepare for the meals. (All of this will get even more obvious when we discuss the convincing solution that has been proposed exactly 75 years ago.)
Now have a closer look at Exodus 12:18 “In the first month you are to eat unleavened bread, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day.” Counting from the evening of the 14th to the evening of the 15th is one full day, to the evening of the 16th two full days … up to the evening of the 21st, when we are at seven full days. Compare furthermore Ex 13:6,7; 23:(15),16. Ex 12:18 is ambiguous however because of the dates given.
Now let’s look at the Ezekiel, 45:21-23: “On the fourteenth day of the first month you are to observe the Passover, a feast of seven days, during which unleavened bread shall be eaten. On that day the prince shall provide a bull as a sin offering for himself and for all the people of the land. Each day during the seven days of the feast, he shall provide seven bulls and seven rams without blemish as a burnt offering to the LORD, along with a male goat for a sin offering.” No matter what the context, if you just take the text, there remains little doubt Ezekiel is talking about a spring feast of seven days, like in the original Pentecontad calendar (Note 3).
Deuteronomy 16, likewise, is consistent with these texts. “You shall offer the passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock and the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose as a dwelling for his name. You must not eat with it anything leavened. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it—the bread of affliction—because you came out of the land of Egypt in great haste, so that all the days of your life you may remember the day of your departure from the land of Egypt. No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days; and none of the meat of what you slaughter on the evening of the first day shall remain until morning.” Deut 16:2-4
Just reading these texts and taking them literally might very well be the reason why Mark, as already quoted above, as well as Luke and Matthew tell us, that for Yeshua HaMoshiach and His disciples the 14th of Nissan, when the Passover lambs are to be slaughtered, was the first day of Unleavened Bread:
Matthew 26:17: “On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?””
Luke 22:7: “Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.”
For Yeshua and His disciples, as attested by all three gospels, the day when the Passover lambs had to be slaughtered was the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread which lasted seven days altogether, not eight.
This is in plain contradiction with the Qumran calendar, on which Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted eight days (see picture above).
Now what about the objection that the writers of the synoptic gospels did not know the customs well, or just used an unusual expression but still indicating the mainstream Jewish custom of an altogether eight day feast?
As I had already mentioned I am certain all four evangelists used their words very carefully in this matter because we know there was a fight about different calendars going on when Yeshua was walking on earth bodily.
From the writings of the Qumran community we know that they were fiercely opposed to the other two main Jewish sects at that time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Their opposition manifested in the solar calendar they followed, a calendar which represented a whole cosmic worldview, being "a cyclic reflection of an eternal divine order" according to Professor Rachel Elior. This worldview stood in contrast to the ideas of the other two groups, the Sadducees and Pharisees, who followed a lunisolar calendar to which their worldview was attached. This contrast in calendars is also implied in the war-like literature found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, talking about a fight between the “sons of light”- obviously the group at Qumran and their allies, following a solar calendar - against the “sons of darkness”, Pharisees and Sadducees, following a lunar calendar.
Professor Rachel Elior further argues that the lunar calendar was introduced and imposed upon the Jewish people by the Greek foreign power in the 2nd century BC. According to this lunar calendar forced upon the Jewish people, the year starts in the autumn, while in the Bible it is written that the year starts in the spring, Exodus 12:2.
In fact, there is no explanation whatsoever why today Jews start their year in autumn, although the Pentateuch clearly indicates the start of the year in the spring. (Cf Ex 12:2; 23:16)
Furthermore, Rachel Elior highlights the fact that before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars had puzzled over the question why certain texts had been excluded when the Rabbis closed the Jewish canon after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD:
"To many of the Jews of the first millennium BCE, all the texts had been equally holy," she says. "The [excluded] Book of Enoch or Book of Jubilees were certainly not considered less sacred than the [canonical] Book of Judges or Esther or Daniel." Yet the excluded texts - close to a dozen major works - were not just abandoned but excised as if they were a malignant growth. "Whoever reads them," declared Rabbi Akiva, one of the foremost sages involved in the process, "will have no place in the world to come.””
The short reason for excluding certain works, Professor Rachel Elior suggests,“… was a dispute over the calendar. The more profound explanation involves a power struggle between the old priestly order that believed its rulings to be divinely inspired and an emerging class of rabbis espousing a different narrative, one which gave human reason and laws a role in shaping the religion."
With the importance attached to the adherence to a particular calendar by the Jews of the time as historical background, it becomes obvious why all four evangelists chose their words very carefully when it comes to the description of the last supper. Yeshua, we can be certain, had His own convictions about this fiercely debated matter and clarified the correct understanding.
Actually, the writers of the synoptic gospels had placed such great importance on elucidating when and how Yeshua kept the Passover that they failed to convey to the reader an extremely important point: Yeshua was crucified and died on the cross exactly when in the temple in Jerusalem the Passover lambs were being sacrificed that year - according to the calendar followed by“normative Judaism”.
This is the lacuna John’s gospel fills by writing from the perspective of “normative Judaism” - the last of the four gospels written. It seems natural to assume that John was aware of the other gospels and precisely tried to fill this gap by his relating of the events from a normative Jewish perspective. Thus he points to Yeshua truly being the Lamb of God, cf. John 1:36, “When [John the Baptist] saw Jesus walking by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”, giving Himself for the sins of the world.
3. Last not least: The date of the Feast of Firstfruits according to the Qumran community is at odds with the real events of Yeshua HaMoshiach’s Resurrection
Yeshua was not only crucified exactly at the same time the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the temple, He also rose precisely on the day of Firstfruits, when the omer, that is the sheaf of the first fruits of the harvest, was presented, Lev 23:10,11 thus being the “firstborn among many brethren” as Paul puts it in Romans 8:29:
Lev 23:10,11: “‘When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you are to bring to the priest a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD so that it may be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.”
There was actually a dispute about the correct date of Firstfruits between the Sadducees and the Pharisees, as is evidenced in Mishna Menakhot 10: The Boethusians, who are identified as the Sadducees, understood Lev 10:15 as to mean that Firstfruits occurred on the day after the weekly Sabbath following the first day of Unleavened Bread, that is always on a Sunday. The Pharisees on the other hand understood the verse as indicating the day after the first day of Unleavened Bread, that is on the 16th of Nisan as the correct date, no matter on what day of the week Passover fell.
Yeshua as the “Firstfruits of the Resurrection” (cf 1 Cor 15:20,23) rose on Sunday after Passover, which happened to fulfil both the Sadducee’s as well as the Pharisee’s dating of Firstfruits, as it was also the 16th of Nissan according to “normative Judaism”. This was due to the first day of Unleavened Bread falling on a Sabbath that year.
On the other hand, according to the way Yeshua Himself with His disciples kept the the feast, He confirmed the Sadducee’s way of dating: For Yeshua it was the first Sunday after His celebrating Passover and Unleavened Bread on Thursday.
Now look again at the Qumran/Zadokite calendar above: For the Qumran community, Firstfruits, which they name First Fruits of barley, always occurs on the Sunday after the eight days of Passover/Unleavened Bread. Even if we do not know how the calendar was intercalated, I think it is almost certain that the Qumran Sunday of First Fruits of barley fell after Resurrection Sunday. (The years of the crucifixion according to Bible Scholars are either the year 30 or 33 AD (Julian calendar); they deduce these two years mainly from the full moon and equinox dates. Here are two websites if you want to figure it out for yourself: 1, 2 )
In other words: The Qumran calendar seems to be the only calendar Yeshua HaMoshiach did NOT fulfil with His Resurrection regarding the date of Firstfruits.
There is, however, another much more convincing solution to the seeming discrepancy between the Passover dates in the synoptic gospels and in John that was proposed exactly 75 years ago.
NOTES:
(1) Stéphane Saulnier, Calendrical Variations in Second Temple Judaism, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2012
(2) Jacob Mann, Rabbinic Studies in the Synoptic Gospels,
in: Hebrew Union College , Cincinnati , Ohio, Volume 1 1924, p. 344
(3) Joshua Kulp, THE ORIGINS OF THE SEDER AND HAGGADAH, Academia, p. 121
(4) Julian Morgenstein, THE CHANUKKAH FESTIVAL AND THE CALENDAR OF ANCIENT ISRAEL, in: Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol. 21 (1948), pp. 365-496