Beth Immanuel

Reprinted with permission from First Fruits of Zion’s Torah(Hebrew) instruction, guidance; specifically, the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Often translated "law" or "Pentateuch" Club Volume Four.
D. Thomas Lancaster

One Long Day: Mark 15:1

“Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the Torah and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound YeshuaThe Hebrew/Aramaic name of Jesus of Nazareth. (lit, "salvation"), led him away and handed him over to Pilate.” So begins Mark 15, probably one of the earliest composed and certainly one of the most solemnly told chapters of all the Gospels. It tells the story of one very long day. The chapter begins early in the morning, just before dawn as the would be Sanhedrin reached a guilty verdict regarding Yeshua. The chapter continues until the sun has begun to set in the West with the Sabbath coming on while Yosef of Arimathea rolled the stone door of the tomb shut. It is perhaps the longest, hardest and darkest day the world has endured. But what day was it?

In view of the solemnity of the chapter and sanctity of the narrative it might seem inappropriate to burden it with petty questions of chronology, but those questions are actually very germane to the story. Before we proceed through the chapter, we will take several pages to work out the chronology of the passion week as best we can. When we are then able to return our attention to the narrative of Mark 15, we will be able to look for additional insights that might arise from these concerns. It should be worth the effort.

On the other hand, arguments about dates and days of the week and when this happened or that happened might not interest you in the least. In that case, you should feel free to skip ahead to where the comments on Mark 15 proper resume.

Good Friday?

Traditionally Mark 15 (the crucifixion and burial of Messiah) has been assigned to a Friday. Hence, the celebration of Good Friday. The basis the early church used to determine that Good Friday was, indeed, a Friday (and not Good Saturday or Good Thursday or something) is Mark 15:42 which reads, “It was Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath.” Even the emerging 2nd Century Gentile church knew that the Sabbath was on Saturday, thus the day before the Sabbath was obviously a Friday.

There are some problems with Good Friday though. Most notably, if Yeshua died on a Friday, was buried on a Friday and was raised Sunday morning before dawn (at the latest), that span of time only allows for two days and two nights in the tomb. This is problematic because Yeshua emphatically stated that the only sign to be given to the generation would be the sign of Jonah, namely that the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:39-40)

If this was indeed the only definitive sign given by Messiah, how strange that He should only remain two days and two nights in the earth. The short stay in the tomb raises questions about the efficacy of the sign and the credibility of Yeshua’s words. In addition to the sign of Jonah, there are His repeated statements that he will rise on the third day. It is His most oft repeated prophecy. He repeatedly tells His disciples that after three days (or on the third day) He will rise from the dead.1 He seemed fairly certain of the chronology. He also stated it metaphorically in John by saying in three days he would rebuild the Temple.2 He had said it so often, even the Temple Authorities knew the prophecy and quoted it as a reason to guard the tomb for three days.3 On the day of the resurrection the angel at the tomb reminds the women that He had said He would rise after three days4 and on the road to Emmaus the two disciples lament that that day (the resurrection day) is the third day since the crucifixion. Later in the same chapter, the Resurrected Messiah Himself, speaking to the Twelve, declares Messiah risen on the third day.5 Finally, Shimon Peter in Acts 10 testifies, “God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.”6

If so, how do we account for Good Friday? How can we find three days between His burial on Friday and His resurrection after the Sabbath on Saturday night? We have probably all heard the explanations of how even a small part of day constitutes a whole day. This theory is based upon the Jewish reckoning where a day begins at sunset. According to this theory, by Friday night after sunset, no more than an hour after His body had been placed in the tomb, one day had already gone past.

This model allows for three days and three nights and retains the traditional Christian reckoning. It is also the one suggested by the sketchy details of the synoptic Gospels. This traditional scenario, however, allows only for 48-56 hours to elapse over the course of the “three days.” The First Day that the Son of Man is in the heart of the earth is no more than an hour long. While it may be plausible, it is hard to imagine how such a collapsed reckoning of three days and three nights could have been considered an important sign. This model may allow for three days by an apologist’s reckoning, but it seems hard to reconcile it with the “three days and three nights” of which the Master spoke.

The Passover

Another problem of chronology we need to consider when trying to date the events of Mark 15 is the question of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Synopitc Gospels seem to make it clear that Yeshua and his Disciples celebrated a Passover Seder(Hebrew) literally, "order"; an ordered event, especially the meal eaten on Passover together the day before the crucifixion. Mark 14:12 tells us “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Yeshua’s disciples asked him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’” If the day of the Last Seder was (as this verse implies and as one would expect) on the day when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, that would place it on the 14th day of the month of Nissan. Therefore the trial, crucifixion and burial all occurred on the 15th day of Nissan, which is the High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. The chronology would then look like this.

This model is highly problematic for several reasons.

First of all, as pointed out above, Mark 15:42 identifies the day as a “preparation day before the Sabbath.” John 19:31 tells us that the legs of the crucified were to be broken so they would not hang on their crosses during the Sabbath.” However, if it was already the High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread it could not be construed to be a preparation day, nor would it make sense to remove the bodies prior to the onset of Sabbath when it was already a Sabbath.

There are several other problems along these lines. The entire trial, the accusations before Pilate, and the demand for the crucifixion would all have had to occur on the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. This is an impossibility. Even the secularized Sadducean priesthood would not have been so brazen so as to flagrantly violate the Sabbath laws. It is completely artificial and anachronistic to try to make 1st Century Jerusalem Jews conducting a trial, petitioning the governor and demanding an execution on a Sabbath day. In addition, we would have to imagine that the men Caiaphas assembled for his court room were taken from their Seder tables in order to convene.

If Mark 15 occurs on the 15th of Nissan then Joseph of Arimathea’s request for and burial of the body of Yeshua is out of place because it is already a Sabbath. His purchase of a linen cloth7 would have been a violation of the Sabbath and a near impossibility within Jerusalem.

Therefore the Synoptic chronology is in contradiction with the events it describes.

The issue is further aggravated by John’s insistence that the crucifixion did not happen on the Sabbath, but on the day before a High Sabbath.8 In John, the Master’s Last Seder was not conducted on the night of Passover, it was “before the Passover feast.”9 Since the Passover Feast began on the 15th of Nissan, this would mean that Yeshua and the disciples must have celebrated their last Seder on the 14th or earlier. That is at least one day before the proper Seder night.

John brings further evidence. According to John, Caiaphas and company would not enter Pilate’s palace because they had not yet eaten the Passover. He writes, “to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.”10 If the day of the crucifixion was the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread they would have already eaten the Passover the previous evening.

Erev Pesach

In a sad and difficult passage of the TalmudA major body of Jewish law composed between 200-500 CE., we learn that the Sages had a tradition that Yeshua was crucified on the eve of the Passover Festival, that is the 14th of Nissan. In this passage the word Passover is used generically to refer to the whole Seven Days of the Festival, not in the specific sense of the day the lambs were slain. This generic usage is common in Judaism, all through the Talmud and is even evident in the Gospels where the term Passover is used synonymously with Feast of Unleavened Bread. Thus Erev HaPesach “The Eve of Passover” is the day before Unleavened Bread begins, that is the 14th of Nissan. It is the day the Passover lambs were slain.

On eve of Passover they hung [Yeshua] the Nazarene. For forty days a herald went before him and cried, “[Yeshua] the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and led Israel to heresy. Any one who knows anything to speak in his defense, let him come and explain for him.” And none was found and nothing in his defense [was brought forward] and they hung him on the eve of the Passover! (Sanhedrin 43a)

Thus the Talmud specifies that the crucifixion took place on the 14th day of Nissan. From the other side of the aisle (that is the Christians) comes a consenting voice. The apocryphal Gospel of Peter says, “And he delivered him to the people on the day before Unleavened Bread, their feast.” (Peter 1:3). Both the Talmud and the Gospel of Peter preserve a tradition that places the death of Yeshua on the 14th day of Nissan, the day the Passover lambs were slain. This is in agreement with the Gospel of John that, as we have already seen, places the crucifixion on the same day.

The Last Seder When?

By following John’s chronology, most of the above cited problems can be reconciled. There remains one very difficult question though. The Synoptic Gospels all make it very clear that Yeshua celebrated a Passover Seder meal with his disciples the night He was arrested. If, however, the Passover lambs were not slain until the next day and the actual Seder conducted until the following night, how could Yeshua have conceivably conducted a Seder meal? As pointed out above, according to John, the Master’s last Seder was celebrated a day early. Is it conceivable that Yeshua would have celebrated a Seder meal with His disciples on the wrong day? To do so would have made procuring a Passover lamb an impossibility. Would Messiah keep a festival on the wrong day?11

It is conceivable when one remembers that by the time the actual Seder night arrived Yeshua would be dead and buried. This much He knew. Might He not have chosen to celebrate a Seder meal with His disciples a day early simply because He knew that by the next evening He would be dead? Luke 22:15 almost sounds as if He is explaining to His disciples why He has chosen to celebrate the Seder with them a night early. Therein He says, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”

Yet for the most part, the Synoptic Gospels seem to demonstrate the opposite. They are unanimous in placing the Last Seder on the proper Seder night, the first night of Unleavened Bread. How can these two divergent accounts be reconciled?

Hegg (2002)12 suggests that the discrepancy between John’s reckoning and the Synoptic Gospels (with their insistence that it was indeed the Seder night) might be understood as the result of multiple calendars in use at the time. For example the Essene community followed an alternate calendar that always placed the Seder night on a Tuesday. This calendar, needless to say, was almost always at odds with the reckoning of the Sanhedrin, and resulted in segments of Israel celebrating the Passover on different nights of the week.

Good Thursday

Remember that the tradition of Good Friday is derived from the notice in Mark 15:42 which reads, “It was Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath.” An intriguing likelihood raised by John’s chronology is that “the preparation day” of Mark 15 is not necessarily the preparation day for the weekly Sabbath, but rather the preparation day for the High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. John, in fact, states this explicitly saying, “Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was a High Sabbath.” (John 19:31). Since the High Sabbath of the 15th day of Nissan might fall on any given day of the week, the day of preparation before it need not be a Friday. Instead, depending on which weekday the High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread occurred on, the preparation day could be any day of the week.

It is possible that in the year the Master died, the High Sabbath of Unleavened Bread fell on Friday. In that event, Thursday would become the preparation day. Thursday would be the day when everyone prepared to keep the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread. Therefore, Thursday would have been the day of the crucifixion. It would be Good Thursday, not Good Friday. Not only would that circumstance allow for each of the above cited Sabbath objections to be met, but it amazingly allows for a more realistic three days and three nights in the tomb, a total span of 49-57 hours.

Consider the Good Thursday model.

According to the Good Thursday model, Friday was a High Sabbath. Therefore Friday and Saturday constituted a double Sabbath, as often happens on the Biblical calendar. This would mean that the women would have had to wait 48 hours before going to the tomb.

The Good Thursday Model, with its day early Seder for Yeshua and its full three days and three nights in the Tomb satisfies virtually all the problems of chronology we have encountered. For that reason alone it is a useful way of looking at the Passion Week. However, since the Gospel details are sketchy and seemingly at variance, we cannot be dogmatic about the chronology. Other solutions are also possible. Sometimes it is better to let the Scriptures stand in tension with one another rather than to force them to fit. But at least for purposes of this commentary, the Good Thursday Model seems to offer the best solutions to the chronology problems we are facing.

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1. 1. Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:34 and Luke 18:33
2. 2. John 2:9
3. 3. Matthew 27:40
4. 4. Luke 24:7
5. 5. Luke 24:46
6. 6. Acts 10:40
7. 7. Mark 15:46
8. 8. John 19:31
9. 9. John 13:1
10. 10. John 18:28
11. 11. See comments on Mark 13:12-22.
12. 12. Tim Hegg, "Chronology of the Week of Yeshua's Crucifixion and Resurrection," (2002), available at www.torahresource.com.