Hello,
I’ve heard Bart refer to Jesus being depicted as dying on two different days, with focus on the account in Mark and in John. With a cursory reading it seems to be the case to me, but I want to make sure I have a complete understanding. I’ve read Christian apologists explaining things in such a way to make it sound as though they agree and there is some vagueness with which the days are identified, at least in the English translations I’m able to read. I’ve seen a calendar that attempts to diagram everything, yeah that just confused me more. lol Does Bart go into more detail in any of his writings or lectures? I’d love to go deeper on this one.
I’ve tried looking around to see if this has been answered, but I haven’t found it if it’s on this site.
Bart talks about there being disagreement in the gospels over the timing of Jesus’ execution with regard to Passover. The Gospel of Mark says it happened after the famous Passover meal (Matthew and Luke follow suit), but the Gospel of John says it was before the Paschal supper, and the meal where Jesus washed his disciples’ feet is therefore implied to be just an ordinary meal, noteworthy only for it being Jesus’ last before his death (and of course, as in the other gospels, that Jesus knew this in advance). In John’s account, Jesus and his disciples never shared the Paschal lamb in Jerusalem, at least not during the Passover he was crucified.
This is not a translation issue–the synoptics and ‘John’ are unequivocal on this point, and both can’t be correct.
I am not sure Bart has anything more to say about this, but here’s an article that discusses the issue.
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Here’s why John agrees with the synoptics that Jesus died on Nissan 15th after the passover meal.
John 13:1-2 ” (1) Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (2) And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him …”
sounds as if this evening meal is before the passover. However there were no chapters when the gospel was written and 13:1 is referring to what has preceded it in Chapter 12. John 12:44-50
It is these words that are spoken before the passover. And following that, the evening meal, is then the passover meal.
For John, and as per Josephus, the passover and the feast of unleavened bread as synonymous. It is a week-long festival where for seven days they are to eat bread without yeast, exodus 12:17
To “eat the passover” then, John 18:28, is to participate in the week-long festival, not the first evening passover meal.
John 19:14 “It was the day of Preparation of the Passover”. Here Παρασκευὴ (day of preparation) means nothing more than Friday. “It was the Friday of the week-long feast of unleavened bread”
Didache 8 “But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites; for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week; but fast on the fourth day and the Preparation (Friday).”
Mark 15:42 “It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath).”
The passover lamb is brought in on Nissan 10 and cared for until twilight of Nissan 14. There is no particular preparation day for the passover meal.
There is no other reason to think John placed the crucifixion before the passover.
There’s no reason to assume much of anything, other than that Jesus presumably ate some kind of meal in Jerusalem, prior to being crucified. Good reason to believe all the gospel accounts are inaccurate, and use the Passover in a symbolic context, making it hard to know if any gospel account is correct on this point (it must have been somewhere around the Passover, given Pilate’s physical presence in Jerusalem).
But it’s self-evident that John disagrees with the synoptics. There is a conflict, and a very pointed one. John may be trying to correct what he sees as an error in the earlier accounts, since the temple authorities shouldn’t be engaged in any activity during the Passover week (and trying to arrange for the execution of a troublesome itinerant rabbi is an activity). One problem is that possibly none of the gospel authors were Jewish (problematic for you in that you believe the author of Matthew is the Apostle Matthew), and their grasp of the Passover traditions may have been sketchy.
The more you look at it, the more confusing it gets, and there are many more positions than two here.
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