Essenes always held Passover on Wednesday?

[John T]

One of the problems I find with Bart D. Ehrman is, he does not appear to give much weight to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
For me, the proof that Christianity was an offshoot of the Essenes is found within the words of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many of Ehrman's noted discrepancies he finds within the New Testament can be reconciled if he would just take a hard look at the contexts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The date for Passover is just one example.

Ehrman writes in; "Jesus, Interrupted" that gMark and gJohn have two different dates for the crucifixion of Jesus based on the date of Passover and he uses it as a "textbook case" with his students. Here are some excerpts from the chapter titled; The Death of Jesus, In Mark and John"....(Mark 15:25). Jesus, then, dies on the day of Passover, the morning after the Passover meal was eaten."...pg 26, Ehrman compares that to John 19:14 were he points out..."And we are told exactly when Pilate pronounces the sentence: "It was the Day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon"....bid.

However, Geza Vermes in his book titled: "The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls In English", points out the Qumran community, a.k.a. the Essenes had a different yearly calendar than the Temple Priests and thus had a different day for Passover. "..."Passover, the fifteenth day of the first month, was always celebrated on a Wednesday;"...pg79.

Which gives support to the my theory that Jesus was probably an Essene. Meaning, the year of the crucifixion was 30 A.D. and the day he died was Wednesday, which if you do the math gives us a full 3 days and 3 nights in the tomb, just as Jesus prophesied in Matthew 12:38-40 and reconciles Ehrman's "textbook case".

Then again, perhaps Geza Vermes got the Essene calendar all wrong.

Sincerely,
John T

[Stephan Huller]

But what do you do about the Sabbath reference in John 19:31? If the Day of Preparation was just before the Sabbath how could the fifteenth have been on a Wednesday?

[Stephan Huller]

Let's explore the implications of a 364 day calendar. Here are the textual allusions from the Qumran material:

“The moon brings about the years precisely, all according to their eternal positions. They come neither early nor late by one day by which they would change: Each is exactly 364 days.” (1 Enoch 74:12; cf. 75:2, 82:6, 11–20; ca.2nd–3rd centuries BC).

“And you, command the people of Israel that they observe the years accord ing to the number of 364 days.” (Jubilees 6:32; cf. verses 23–38; 2nd century BC).

“and he (King David) wrote: psalms, 3,600; songs to sing before the altar accompanying the daily perpetual burnt-offering, for all the days of the year,364” (Psalms Scroll 11Q5 XXVII 4–7; copy dated to 1st century AD butprobably authored earlier).

“The year is complete: three hundred s[ixty-four] days.” (4QMMT Halakhic Letter a, 4Q394 fragments 3–7 i 2-3; ca. 2–1 centuries BC). Cf. the similar wording “(Thus) a year of 364 days is completed” in 1 Enoch 82:6.

“On that day Noah went out from the ark, at the end of an exact year, three hundred and sixty four days” (Commentary on Genesis A, 4Q252 ii 2–3; ca.1st century BC).

In addition to these explicit mentions of the 364-day year, it is attested less directly in a variety of other sources. After its first appearance in the astronomical section of 1 Enoch(chapters 72–82), the 364-day year is also known from, or at least implied in, anothercomposition of roughly the same period, the Aramaic Levi Document (probably also 3rdcentury BC); as well as from the somewhat later book of Jubilees, and from a wide rangeof other compositions from Qumran whose dating varies between the end of the secondcentury BC to the mid-first century AD. https://www.academia.edu/523554/The_364 ... depigrapha

[Stephan Huller]

From the same article (see link) it is confirmed that the 15th would always be a Wednesday:

The festival of Unleavened Bread (Mazzot, 15th of the first month) constantly falls onthe fourth day of the week, and so does the festival of Tabernacles (Sukkot), on the 15thof the seventh month. The first day of the first month (i.e., ideally the spring New Year)also occurs on a Wednesday, and thus also the Day of Remembrance on the first of theseventh month (i.e., ideally the autumn New Year). The table enables one to reconstructthe layout of a complete month on the basis of the brief data for one day alone, by dintof its perfect symmetry.

[John T]

But what do you do about the Sabbath reference in John 19:31? If the Day of Preparation was just before the Sabbath how could the fifteenth have been on a Wednesday?

The Day of Preparation is always before the Sabbath because Passover is a Sabbath a.k.a. holy convocation. Leviticus 23:4-8

[Stephan Huller]

Let's try to work this out. Solomon Zeitlin claimed that the word ΠΑΡΑΣΚΕΥΗ in John 19:30 could refer to the Friday of the Passover week. Yet I think this is impossible, since Jesus was killed according to John on the day the Passover lambs were killed, that is, the 14th.

Note also that the Diatessaron agrees with John in setting the death of Jesus on the 14th, on the afternoon of the day before the Sabbath of the first day of the Passover week. It follows the Jewish terminology in calling the 14th the day of unleavened bread. (cf Diatessaron XLIV:2, 10, 34; LII:14).

John puts the death of Jesus on the afternoon of Friday 14th. You can’t make the following “Great Day” the Sabbath of the Passover week and no more: the next day must be the 15th because of the datum that the day of Jesus’s death was the day of slaughtering the lambs. The slaughtering of the lambs is not part of the Passover except as preparation and the day and time have no holiness in themselves. The religious ceremony is the eating of them. There is no Passover meal in John. Also the washing of the hands and feet could have been a week before the execution.

[Stephan Huller]

The Synoptics as they stand have Friday 15th, with Passover on Thursday night.

[John T]

The Synoptics as they stand have Friday 15th, with Passover on Thursday night.

Again, the synoptics make sense if you compare and contrast it with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

How about doing a little research and find out what day of the week the Jews actually celebrated Passover in 30 A.D.?
Yes, I already know.

John T

[Stephan Huller]

I am not sure I follow you. Do you think that the Passover was celebrated differently in a particular period of history?

[John T]

For the Essenes, Passover was always on a Wednesday. However, for the Temple Priests, Passover was calculated by the moon and it could fall on different day other than Wednesday.

It gets more confusing when you learn that the Romans also had their own calendar in 30 A.D.
Still, all three different calendars were based on a 7 day week.

So, since we have a history of the changes made to the Julian calendar and using modern astronomy calculations we can pin point what day the 14th of Nisan should have been back in 30 A.D.
Got it?

Here let me give you some background and a source to verify it.

http://www.franknelte.net/pdf/passover_ ... _31_ad.pdf

http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomi ... ing-phenom

The Essenes always celebrated Passover on Wednesday but what day did the Temple Priests celebrated it on in 30 A.D.?
I thought I already went over this before on another thread.
Do you remember now?

John T