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What the Bible says about Two Passover Observances at Time of Jesus
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Exodus 12:6-20

The original Passover instructions clearly stipulate that Passover is a single day -- Abib 14 -- followed by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, beginning on Abib 15 (Exodus 12:6-20; Leviticus 23:5-8; Numbers 9:2-5). These original instructions also direct the Israelites to keep the Passover in individual homes rather than at the Tabernacle or Temple -- to catch the blood of the lamb in a basin and smear it on the doorposts and lintel of the house (Exodus 12:22).

Over time, though, the children of Israel moved farther from God and His instructions. During the reigns of the kings, Israel and Judah, now separate nations, adopted many practices from the pagan cultures surrounding them, with the kings often leading the way. However, a few kings of Judah, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, stand out for their dedication to God. Under these zealous monarchs, various religious reforms were instituted to try to bring Judah back to God's way. Among other reforms, they reinstated the commanded observance of the Passover, which the people were not keeping to any significant degree, if at all.

However, these well-meaning reforms also contained a subtle change: Under both Hezekiah and Josiah -- at the king's command rather than God's -- the people observed the Passover at the Temple rather than in individual homes (II Chronicles 30 and 35). The kings may have done this to ensure that the people actually kept the Passover, and did so without mixing in the Baalism that was so prevalent in the land. These kings' examples introduced a second way of observing the Passover. Now the Jews had both God's original Passover instructions as well as the kings' reforms to draw on when determining how to observe the festival.

While God intended the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread to be separate (though adjacent) observances, the Jews ended up combining the two during the Babylonian exile, as the Encyclopaedia Judaica confirms: "The feast of Passover consists of two parts: The Passover ceremony and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Originally, both parts existed separately; but at the beginning of the [Babylonian] exile they were combined" (vol. 13, p. 169). This careless and unscriptural merging of festivals resulted in the Jews observing Passover late on Abib 14, just hours before the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. Thus, a third variation of Passover observance was added to the mix.

At the time of Jesus Christ, this mixture was on full display. Philo of Alexandria, in De Vita Mosis, notes that in the early first century, the Passover was not strictly a Temple-kept event, but one in which people also killed their own lambs without help from the priests. In his Wars of the Jews, Flavius Josephus records that in 4 BC over 250,000 lambs were sacrificed for Passover. However, given the limited space of the Temple environs and the fact that Jewish tradition (not the Word of God) held that the lambs were to be slain within a two-hour time slot (from the ninth to the eleventh hour, or 3:00-5:00 pm), it is readily apparent that not all of those lambs could have been sacrificed at the Temple. In fact, Joachim Jeremias, in Jerusalem in the Times of Jesus, calculates that the three courses of priests on duty could slay only 18,000 lambs during those two hours. Josephus records that the rest of the lambs -- a far greater number -- were slain by individuals at their own homes.

Another critical point is that, despite Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread being distinct festivals, they were commonly grouped together and simply called "Passover." Thus, when the gospel writers mention "Passover," it can sometimes refer to the Passover sacrifice itself (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12), the day when the sacrifice was made (Mark 14:1), or the whole eight-day period of Abib 14-21 (Passover plus Unleavened Bread; Luke 22:1).

In actuality, then, there were really two Passover observances happening at the time of Jesus: one led by the priests at the Temple and the other observed by the people in their homes. These separate observances were also at different times: The Temple-kept Passover was observed late in the afternoon of Abib 14, while the home-kept Passover was kept at the beginning of Abib 14. As the gospels show, Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover in a home rather than at the Temple, observing it the evening before the priests did at the Temple. In other words, Jesus kept it as Abib 14 began, while the priests kept it as Abib 14 ended.

David C. Grabbe
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For the sake of accurately representing my understanding of this topic, I will add the following:

I am just a little more forgiving of the Jewish people having altered the observation of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  I believe apostasy may have played a role, but likely moreso convenience.  And there is also a little room to allow for confusion, which I briefly address here, speaking about Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, under the section titled Spring Celebrations.

Mr. Grabbe is not correct in all his findings.  For example:

• Passover was not "a single day" on Nisan 14.  Nisan 14 was the Preparation Day for Nisan 15's Passover -- commemorating the day when God Passed Over Israel, which clearly happened during the night of Nisan 15, with the people safely within their homes which had earlier (on Nisan 14) been marked by the blood of the sacrificial lamb.
• Heads of families (not the priests) performed the sacrifice of their own lambs, and so all could have taken place at the Temple.
• Curiously, Mr. Grabbe endorses the Bible's timing of Passover observance -- starting in the latter part of Nisan 14 -- and decries the earlier starting time, but then ends his article with the fact that Jesus observed the earlier start, and that He did so in opposition to the Temple priests.  Has Grabbe now changed His mind?

I also disagree with the wording of the last paragraph of the article.  Mr. Grabbe seems to be defining Passover as the eating of the Seder meal, which is fine as this is an intricate part of the celebration.  That being the case, I need to add the clarification that, yes, it does appear that the people had a home-kept Seder-like meal, including the Lord's Supper, which was held at the beginning (just after sunset) of Nisan (Abib) 14.  But what the temple priests were doing in the late afternoon of Nisan 14, shortly before Nisan 15, wasn't "keeping Passover."  They were slaying the paschal lamb, which occurred at the same time as Jesus' death.  The priests were following the direction of Leviticus 23, so the Temple's scheduled Seder Meal took place right after sunset, just after the start of Nisan 15.

I believe that Mr. Grabbe has a little more thinking to do on this subject.

Can we know if this twilight occurs at the day's beginning or at its end?

This question goes right to the heart of one of the most important timing issues in the entire Passover timeline.

The Hebrew phrase translated twilight, is "בֵּין הָעַרְבַּיִם" - bein ha'arbayim, meaning between the evenings.  This twilight encompasses not minutes, but several hours.  In ancient Jewish usage, the first evening occurs when the sun begins to decline in early- to mid-afternoon, and the second evening is at sunset.  So the scriptures' between the evenings meant roughly from mid-afternoon until sundown, and allowed several hours for slaughter, distribution, travel, and preparation.

Exodus 12:6 (and other scriptures) speaks of the late afternoon of Nisan 14, not a few minutes just before dark.  Scripture itself shows this to be a time window.  Exodus 29:39-41 uses the same word for the daily sacrificial offering, and that sacrifice was routinely performed in mid-afternoon, not at the setting of the sun.  Twilight or evening in the Torah is a broad scope of time, not a sharp point, and the evening sacrifice was not offered at dusk but in the later part of the afternoon.

The issue is that the expression is ambiguous, allowing the term to be applied to the twilight at either the beginning or the end of the day.  Because ancient Jewish religious leaders held to both interpretations, the question which naturally arises is:

Here is what Scripture and historical practice show.

Perhaps purposefully, the Bible itself does not explicitly define which "twilight" is intended.  Moreover, in the present context the Hebrew word ereb (evening) can also refer to either:

1. the time including and after sunset, when the new Hebrew day of Nisan 14 begins, or
2. the time before and including sunset, when the Hebrew day of Nisan 14 ends.

It is apparent from the totality of Scripture that the "official" observance of Passover was intended to mimic the time-limited urgency which Israel was forced to employ at the original Passover -- number two above.  It is also an unfailing aspect of human nature that whenever there is opportunity which allows for a divergent viewpoint, there will always be those who are willing to embrace it.

Two major Jewish interpretations existed in Jesus' time, and this is the key to solving the so-called problem of two Passover timelines in the Gospels.

Interpretation 1:  It seems apparent that the day-beginning twilight view was held by the Sadducees (they left little written record) and the earlier Temple establishment, and that they understood "between the evenings" as taking place at the junction of Nisan 13 and 14.  Under this view, the lambs were to be slain as Nisan 14 was approaching, with the Seder meal scheduled near the start of Nisan 14.

Interpretation 2:  The day-ending twilight view was held by the Pharisees.  As it should have, this became the dominant rabbinic interpretation.  It understands "between the evenings" as taking place at the junction of Nisan 14 and 15, and under this view, the lambs were slain as Nisan 14 was ending, with the Seder meal scheduled near the start of Nisan 15.

This timing dispute is widely attested in Jewish sources outside the Bible, and the biblical text itself allows enough ambiguity that either interpretation can be defended.  In practice, those exercising authority over the Temple and the administration of Jewish law adopted the stricter interpretation.  The general population, however, followed the less restrictive view, at least with regard to Preparation (not necessarily the timing of the sacrifice).  This is understandable, since the people faced an enormous amount of work that had to be completed under any circumstances, and all prior to the first Festival Sabbath on Nisan 15.

The many responsibilities of Nisan 14's evening twilight included:

• slaughtering the lamb and cleaning up afterward,
• bringing it home for the required household rituals,
• applying its blood to the doorframe, as well as
• roasting the lamb whole, a process taking hours.

The families' lambs were all to be sacrificed by the head of the family at the city's Temple, a task which included back and forth travel and which would have completely consumed Nisan 14's evening twilight, at least for him.  But there was much more preparation that was required.

By Jesus's time, the festival week was enormous.  Crowds were huge.  Families had long since needed extra time to complete their many additional duties before the Temple sacrifice on Nisan 14, involving:

• cleaning and organizing the entire household,
• removing all traces of leaven from the premises (Exodus 12:15),
• preparing the food that would be eaten during Nisan 14-15,
• finding and procuring the spotless lamb,
• preparing the wood and utensils for the roasting fire,
• personal preparation and the assembling of family members,
• arranging travel to and from the Temple for the next day, and
• completing all ordinary work before the first Passover Sabbath began with the Seder Meal.

And so Nisan 13 functioned as a practical and cultural Preparation Day, easing the pressures of religious deadlines faced by the people.

The so-called "two Passovers" in the Gospels aren't a problem -- they're simply part of the cultural reality of the period.

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It would seem that there is nothing inherently wrong with taking this extra time needed for Preparation -- a time clearly observed by Jesus and His disciples.  But there is a second perspective to consider: