CHAPTER II JESUS CHRIST 67 156 should have matured their bloody counsel in the solemn crime. Moreover it is on the other hand equally diffinight of the Passover, and urged a crucifixion on a great cult to explain that they, together with the people, should festival, but it agrees, with the satanic wickedness of their have remained about the cross till late in the afternoon of the fourteenth, when, according to the law, they were fore the Passover; for then there would have been no need to kill the paschal lamb and prepare for the feast; and of such haste for purchases as the apostles understood Christ that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea, with the pito mean when he said to Judas.” That thou doest, do quickly” ous women, should have buried the body of Jesus and so (13:27). In John 18:28 it is said that the Jews went not into incurred defilement at that solemn hour. the Praetorium of the heathen Pilate “that they might not be The view here advocated is strengthened by astrodefiled, but might eat the Passover; “ but this was said early in nomical calculation, which shows that in a.d. 30 the the morning, at about 3 A. M., when the regular paschal meal probable year of the crucifixion, the 15th of Nisan acwas not yet finished in the city; others take the word Passover tually fell on a Friday (April 7); and this was the case “here in an unusual sense so as to embrace the chagigah ( ) only once more between the years a.d. 28 and 36, except or festive thank-offerings during the Passover week, especially on the fifteenth day of Nisan (comp. 2 Chr. 30:22); at all perhaps also in 33. Consequently Christ must have been 157 events it cannot apply to the paschal supper on the evening of Crucified a.d. 30. To sum up the results, the following appear to us the the fifteenth of Nisan, for the defilement would have ceased after sunset, and could therefore have been no bar to eating most probable dates in the earthly life of our Lord: the paschal supper (Lev. 15:1-18; 22:1-7). “ The Preparation Birth a.u. 750 (Jan.?) or 749 (Dec.?) b.c. 4 or 5. Bapof the Passover,”ἡ παρασκευὴ του πάσχα, John 19:14, is not tism a.u. 780 (Jan.?) a.d. 27. the day preceding the Passover (Passover Eve), but, as clearly Length of Public Ministry in 19:31 and 42, the preparation day of the Passover week, (three years and three or i.e. the Paschal Friday; παρασκευή being the technical term four months) a.u. 780–783 a.d. 27–30. for Friday as the preparation day for the Sabbath,thefore-SabCrucifixion a.u. 783 (15th of Nisan) a.d. 30 (April 7) bath,προσαβ́ βατον,Mark15:42 (comp.theGermanSonnabend § 17. The Land and the People. for Saturday, Sabbath-eve, etc.). For a fuller examination of Literature. the respective passages, see my edition of Lange on Matthew I. The geographical and descriptive works on the (pp. 454 sqq.), and on John (pp. 406, 415, 562, 569). Lightfoot, Wieseler, Lichtenstein, Hengstenberg, Ebrard (in the third Holy Land by Reland (1714), Robinson (1838 and 1856), ed. of his Kritik. 1868), Lange, Kirchner, Keil, Robinson, An- Ritter (1850–1855), Raumer (4th ed. 1860), Tobler (sevdrews, Milligan, Plumptre and McClellan take the same view; eral monographs from 1849 to 1869), W. M. Thomson while Lücke, Bleek, DeWette, Meyer, Ewald, Stier, Beyschlag, (revised ed. 1880), Stanley (1853, 6th ed. 1866), Tristram Greswell, Ellicott, Farrar, Mansel and Westcott maintain that (1864), Schaff (1878; enlarged ed. 1889), Guérin (1869, Christ was crucified on the fourteenth of Nisan, and either assume a contradiction between John and the Synoptists (which in this case seems quite impossible), or transfer the paschal supper of Christ to the preceding day, contrary to law and custom. John himself clearly points to the fifteenth of Nisan as the day of the crucifixion, when he reports that the customary release of a prisoner “ at the Passover”(ἐν τῳ πάσχα) was granted by Pilate on the day of crucifixion, John 18:39, 40. The critical and cautious Dr. Robinson says (Harmony, p. 222): “ After repeated and calm consideration, there rests upon my own mind a clear conviction, that there is nothing in the language of John, or in the attendant circumstances, which upon fair interpretation requires or permits us to believe, that the beloved disciple either intended to correct, or has in fact corrected or contradicted, the explicit and unquestionable testimony of Matthew, Mark and Luke.”Comp. also among the more recent discussions Mor. Kirchner: Die jüd. Passahfeier und Jesu letztes Mahl (Gotha, 1870); McClellan: N. Test. (1875), I. 473 sqq., 482 sqq.; Keil: Evang. des Matt. (Leipz. 1877), pp. 513 sqq.
156 The answer to this objection is well presented by Dr. Robinson, Harmony p. 222, and Keil, Evang. des Matt., pp. 522 sqq. The Mishna prescribes that “on Sabbaths and festival days no trial or judgment may be held;” but on the other hand it contains directions and regulations for the meetings and actions of the Sanhedrin on the Sabbaths, and executions of criminals were purposely reserved to great festivals for the sake of stronger example. In our case, the Sanhedrin on the day after the crucifixion, which was a Sabbath and “a great day,” applied to Pilate for a watch and caused the sepulchre to be sealed, Matt. 27:62 sq. 157 See Wieseler, Chronol. Synopse, p. 446, and in Herzog, vol. XXI. 550; and especially the carefully prepared astronomical tables of new and full moons by Prof. Adams, in McClellan, I. 493, who devoutly exults in the result of the crucial test of astronomical calculation which makes the very heavens, after the roll of centuries, bear witness to the harmony of the Gospels.
