[Apologetics] Re: Jesus died on 14 Nisan

Fri Apr 6 22:42:09 EDT 2007

Stephen,

The Catholic World News article on this at
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=50362
states in part:

In his homily the Holy Father proposed a new
interpretation of a puzzling passage from St. John's
Gospel, acknowledging that while it is a "convincing
solution" to an old question, it is "not yet
universally accepted." 

The Eucharist, the Pope said, has always been
recognized by Christians as the "new Passover," in
which Christ is the sacrificial victim. He went on to
observe that St. John, who emphasizes the Passover
image in his Gosepl, reported that Jesus died on Good
Friday at just the time when lamb were being slain for
the traditional Jewish feast. But the other three
Gospels report that Christ and his disciples had
celebrated the Passover the previous night. 

There is an obvious inconsistency in these accounts,
the Pope observed. If Jesus died on the day before
Passover-- the time when the lambs were slain-- "he
could not personally celebrate the Passover meal" with
his apostles. 

The solution to this puzzle, the Pope suggested, might
be revealed in the discovery of the Qumran writings,
which showed that some of the Jews of that time
celebrated the Passover according to a different
calendar. The inconsistency in the Gospel accounts is
eliminated if Jesus belonged to this group. If this
theory is accurate, the Pope continued, Jesus
"probably celebrated Passover with his disciples
following the Qumran calendar-- that is, at least one
day earlier." 

The theory is particularly intriguing, the Pope
continued, because the Qumran community marked the
Passover without a lamb. The community also did not
recognize the temple built in Jerusalem under Herod,
"and was waiting for the new Temple," the Pope said.
Thus at the Last Supper, Jesus became both the lamb of
sacrifice and "the true temple-- the living temple--
in which God lives and we can encounter and adore
Him." 

Art

--- Stephen Korsman <skorsman at theotokos.co.za> wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I just posted this on my blog at
>
http://www.theotokos.co.za/blog/post/index/378/Jesus-died-on-14-Nisan
> ... for me this was quite exciting to hear from the
> Pope himself.  The homily text is pasted at the end.
> 
> God bless,
> Stephen
> Jesus died on 14 Nisan
> 
> Posted by stephen on April 7, 2007, 1:30 am
> in Catholic issues ( Sabbath keepers) 
> 
> 
> According to John, Christ died on the cross at the
> exact moment when in the temples nearby, the lambs
> were being slaughtered for the Pascal feast. His
> death coincides with the sacrifice of the lambs.
> That however means that he died on the eve of
> Passover ... Most of the exegetes were of the
> opinion that John did not want to give us the exact,
> historic date of Christ's death, but had instead
> chose a symbolic date to highlight the one  profound
> truth: Jesus is the true Lamb of God who shed his
> blood for us.
> 
> 
> 
> - HH Pope Benedict XVI, sermon, 5 April 2007, Holy
> Thursday
> 
> 
> Sources - Asia News; Annunciations; Whispers in the
> Loggia [full sermon text]; Young Fogeys
> 
> Fr Jay Toborowsky comments on his Young Fogeys blog:
> 
> 
> 
> But something else in that Holy Thursday homily
> knocked me out, which I heard for the first time
> ever. There's always been a battle over whether the
> Last Supper took place on Passover night or the day
> before. ... Scholars tell us that, since Passover
> was always on a fixed date, there were times when it
> fell on the Sabbath, and then came the dilemma of
> which of God's mandated feasts do you keep (since
> one involves heavy work and one requires no work be
> done)? So in his homily, B16 tells of scholarly
> research that says that the people of Qumran (where
> the Dead Sea scrolls were found) would, in the case
> of the Passover and Sabbath collision, have their
> seders the day before, with all the froo-froo, but
> intentionally without a passover lamb. The
> implications of Jesus and the 12 apostles having
> such a seder are interesting. With no lamb on the
> their table, Jesus himself is the Lamb at that seder
> (adding a whole new profound depth to his command to
> eat his body and drink his blood).
> 
> 
> I've been waiting years to hear this most logical 14
> Nisan crucifixion timing from a Catholic priest. 
> And now I hear it from the pope himself.  I always
> get given the 15 Nisan story.  The explanation above
> goes a long way to explain why the Wednesday
> crucifixion theory of Herbert Armstrong is wrong, so
> ironically it was Herbert Armstrong who was adamant
> that Jesus died on 14 Nisan.
> 
> That is the obvious time for Jesus to have died. 
> After all, Jesus death wasn't timed to coincide with
> the killing of the lambs, nor was it meant to be
> approximate; the Passover lamb sacrifice
> foreshadowed Jesus' death, and its original timing
> was designed to coincide with Jesus' death. 
> 
> Post from :
> http://www.theotokos.co.za/blog/index.php
> Printed from :
> http://www.theotokos.co.za/blog/index.php?id=378 
> 
> 
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> Dear brothers and sisters,
> 
> The reading from the Book of Exodus we've just heard
> describes the Paschal celebration of Israel as the
> Mosaic law established its binding form. In the
> beginning it could be that it was a spring feast of
> nomads. For Israel, though, it transformed itself
> into a feast of commemoration, of gratitude and, at
> the same time, of hope. At the center of the Paschal
> meal, ordered according to strict liturgical
> regulations, was the lamb as symbol of the
> liberation from slavery in Egypt. For this, the
> Passover haggadah was an integral part of the meal
> on top of the lamb: the narrative recounting of the
> fact that it was God himself who liberated Israel
> "by his uplifted hand." He, the mysterious and
> hidden God, revealed himself to be stronger than the
> pharaoh with all the power he had at his disposal.
> Israel did not forget that God personally took into
> his hand the story of his people and that this story
> was continually rooted in communion with God. Israel
> did not forget God.
> 
> The reading of the commemoration was surrounded by
> words of praise and thanks taken from the Psalms.
> The thanksgiving and blessing of God reached its
> culmination in the berakha, which in Greek is termed
> eulogia or eucaristia: blessing God becomes a
> blessing for those who bless him. The offering given
> God returns to bless man. All this raises a bridge
> between the past and present and toward the future:
> the liberation of Israel was still incomplete. The
> nation also suffered as a small people in the area
> of tensions amidst great powers. Its recalling with
> gratitude the act of God in the past, it became at
> the same time a petition and hope: Bring to
> completion what you've begun! Give us lasting
> freedom!
> 
> This significant meal of the masses Jesus celebrated
> with his own on the evening before his Passion. At
> the outset of this context we must understand the
> new Passover, which He has given us in the Holy
> Eucharist. In the accounts of the evangelists there
> exists an apparent contradiction between the Gospel
> of John, on one hand, and that which, on the other,
> Matthew, Mark and Luke communicate to us. According
> to John, Jesus died on the cross precisely in the
> moment in which, in time, the paschal lambs were
> slaughtered. His death and the sacrifice of the
> lambs coincided. This means, however, that He died
> on the vigil of Passover and thus wasn't able to
> celebrate the paschal meal - this, at least, is how
> it appears. According to the three synoptic Gospels,
> then, the Last Supper of Jesus was a paschal meal,
> in which traditional form He inserted the novelty of
> the gift of his body and blood. Until some years
> ago, this contradiction seemed unsolvable. The
> majority of exegetes were of the mind that John did
> not wish to communicate to us the true historic date
> of the death of Jesus, but chose a symbolic date to
> make evident the most profound truth: Jesus is the
> new and true lamb who shed his blood for us all.
> 
> The discovery of the writings of Qumran has in the
> meantime found a convincing and possible solution
> that, while not accepted by all, could still have a
> high level of probability. We're now in a place to
> say that what John related is historically precise.
> Jesus really spared his blood on the vigil of the
> Pasch in the hour of the slaughter of the lambs.
> However, he celebrated Passover with his disciples
> probably according to the calendar of Qumran, so at
> least a day prior - it was celebrated without a
> lamb, as the community of Qumran didn't recognize
> the temple of Herod and kept vigil for the new
> temple. Jesus therefore celebrated the Pasch without
> a lamb - no, not without a lamb: in place of the
> lamb he gave himself, his body and his blood. And so
> he anticipated his death in a way coherent with his
> word: "No one will take my life from me, but I
> myself will offer it" (Jn 10:18). In the moment when
> he offered his body and blood, He gave real
> completion to this affirmation. He Himself offered
> his life. Only so did the ancient Pasch obtain its
> true sense.
> 
> St John Chrysostom, in his Eucharistic catechesis,
> once wrote: What are you saying, Moses? The blood of
> a lamb purifies men? Saves them from death? How
> could the blood of an animal purifiy men, save men,
> have power over death? In fact - Chrysostom
> continues - the lamb was able to constitute only a
> symbolic gesture and thus the expression of wait and
> hope in One who would be able to complete it that by
> which the sacrifice of an animal was not capable.
> Jesus celebrated the Pasch without a lamb and
> without a temple and, still, not without a lamb and
> without a temple. He himself was the awaited Lamb,
> the true one, as John the Baptist foresaw at the
> beginning of Jesus' public ministry: "Behold the
> lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of
> the world!" (Jn 1:29). And He himself is the true
> temple, the living temple, in which God lives and in
> which we can find God and worship him. His blood,
> the love of Him who is simultaneously Son of God and
> true man, one of us, that blood is able to save. His
> love, that love in which He gave himself freely for
> us, is that which saves us. The nostalgic rite, in
> some ways lacking efficacy, that was the slaughter
> of the innocent and immaculate lamb, found its
> response in Him who has become for us both Lamb and
> Temple.
> 
> So at the center of the new Passover of Jesus, there
> was the Cross. From it came the new gift brought by
> Him. And so this remains always in the Holy
> Eucharist, in which we can celebrate the new Pasch
> with the Apostles along the course of time. From the
> cross of Christ came the gift. "No one takes my
> life, but I myself offer it." Now he offers it to
> us. The paschal haggadah, the commemoration of the
> saving act of God, has become a memorial of the
> cross and resurrection of Christ - a memory that
> doesn't simply recall the past, but attracts us into
> the presence of the love of Christ. And so the
> berakha, the prayer of blessing and thanksgiving of
> Israel, has become our Eucharistic celebration, in
> which the Lord blesses our gifts - bread and wine -
> to give himself in them. Let us pray the Lord to
> help us understand always more profoundly this
> marvelous mystery, to love it more always and in
> this to love Himself more always. Let us pray for
> help that we not hold back our lives for ourselves,
> but to give them to Him and so work together with
> Him, that men might find life - the true life that
> can come only from He who, Himself, is the Way, the
> Truth and the Life. Amen.
> 

ART KELLY, ATM-S
13524 Brightfield Lane
Herndon, Virginia 20171-3360
(703) 904-3763 home
(703) 396-6956 work
arthurkelly at yahoo.com
art.kelly at cox.net
ArtK135 at Netscape.net

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