In reading the DA this morning I found a statement by Ellen White on the timing of the Passover and the waving of the sheaf of first fruits. In her statement below, she says that the Passover was in late March or early April which places it after the vernal equinox. In the paragraph after that she says that the wave sheaf of the first fruits was celebrated on the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is how I suggested the modern Jews interpret the passage in my post above. Since the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is only occasionally the day after the seventh day Sabbath, she is agreeing here with the modern Jewish interpretation that ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’ means the day after the Sabbath of the Passover. I agree with this.

Using her reckoning, the Passover sequence runs like this: The Passover is sacrificed on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan and eaten that same evening which is the beginning of the 15th and also the beginning of the first day of Unleavened Bread. On 16th Nissan, the sheaf is waved.

I suggested above that since Lev 23 does not specify the Passover as being the 'Sabbath', in years where the crop is late, any subsequent Sabbath will do. That is one possible solution. The other is that the waving must follow the Passover Sabbath, but in years the crop is late, it is permissible to waive unheaded stocks of grain. After reading her comments, this latter interpretation is the more likely one.

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The time of the Passover corresponded to the close of March or the beginning of April, and the whole land was bright with flowers, and glad with the song of birds. . . .

The Passover was followed by the seven days' feast of unleavened bread. On the second day of the feast, the first fruits of the year's harvest, a sheaf of barley, was presented before the Lord. DA 76

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You can see in this quote also that she tells us barley was used. So while you are right, Rosangela that this is an historic fact we still have the scriptural fact that barley was not specified, and therefore not a requirement. The only requirement was that it should be the first ripe grain because it stood in place of all the grain crops.

If Ellen White is correct that the sheaf is waved on the second day of Unleavened Bread, this needs to be harmonized with the gospel account of the crucifixion. The gospels indicate that Jesus ate the Passover Thursday night, was crucified Friday, rested Sabbath and rose Sunday. If Passover was Thursday, the sheaf would be waved Sabbath which would not harmonize with the resurrection on Sunday. That suggests that the Passover in 31 AD was on Friday, in which case Christ and the disciples ate the Passover meal one day early, on Thursday, so that He could fulfil the type on the actual day. If the Passover was Friday, then that reckoning works properly because the second day of Unleavened bread would be Resurrection Sunday. And I think we all agree that Christ is the 'first fruits of them that sleep', so that the second day of Unleavened Bread when the first fruits of grain were presented must have been Resurection Sunday in that year.

The Adventist objection to this interpretation is that under Karaite rules of lunar observation the latest the Passover could be is Thursday, the 24th. So some Adventists have maintained that Thursday must be the actual Passover date.

Well, the AB calendar may help us here as well. Rather than using observation to determine every new moon, the AB calendar lunations are pre-calculated. I have found an intercalation method that I believe may have been used anciently that would keep the astronomical new moon in line with the calculated new moon within one day. In other words, this intercalation method keeps the AB New Moon within one day of the observed New Moon and is accurate to within a day for about 4000 years. By way of comparison, the Gregorian Calendar is said to be accurate to within one day in 2,500 to 3,500years. The reason I mention this here is that although the Karaite method of reckoning will not allow Friday the 25th to be a Passover date, the AB calendar, due to it’s one day variation from the observed does allow the Friday the 25th to be the Passover.

Mark,

No precalculated method would give Nisan 14 on Friday, April 27 (not 25) in 31 AD, because the conjunction was on April 10. Besides, as I said before, for this to happen the previous month would have had to be longer than 30 days, which is inadmissible in a lunar calendar.

However, even if we considered Friday as Nisan 14, this wouldn't solve the tension existent within Ellen White's own writings, for she says:

"He knew that His hour was come; He Himself was the true pascal lamb, and on the day the Passover was eaten He was to be sacrificed" (DA 708).

Everybody knows that the passover lamb was eaten, together with unleavened bread, on Nisan 15.

All these problems and many others are analyzed on chapter three (III) of Juarez´s book.

Are you using Julian dates to arrive at Friday as the 27th. I’m using software produced by R Hoffman. It seems reliable and agrees with the 7000 Year Calendar software. My software gives Thursday April 10 as the observed New Moon. If we add 14 days, we come to Thursday the 24th as the latest possible Passover according to the observed method. The AB however has a one day variance built into it and would allow Friday to be the Passover.


Your statement that Passover was eaten by the Jews on the 15th surprised me, but I may have misunderstood you. The passages in Exodus, Lev and Numbers tell us that the Passover lamb was to be slain on the afternoon of the 14th and eaten that evening. If you mean that the Passover was eaten on the evening at the beginning of the 15th, then I agree. But the scripture requires the sacrifice of the Passover lamb before sundown of the 14th. No sacred offering could be offered after dusk. So the Jews from the Exodus until today celebrate the Passover from the afternoon of the 14th.

I need to clarify a point I made above. The Passover itself is not a day of rest. The Feast of Unleavened bread is bracketed by two Sabbaths, one on the first day, and one on the last. What Ellen White was saying was that the phrase ‘morrow after the Sabbath’ refers to the first Sabbath of the feast, Nisan 15. I have not seen any tension on this issue with Ellen White.

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23:6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month [is] the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.
23:7 In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.
23:8 But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day [is] an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work [therein].

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Regarding the intercalation method for the lunar part of the AB calendar, that is mostly set out in the text of the Astronomical Book. It says there that the lunar year has 354 days and thus falls behind the solar year of 364 days by 30 days in 3 years, 50 in five and 80 in eight. Years three, five and eight are therefore the years for intercalating an additional lunar month of 30 days. How does the math work out?


If we multiply 354 days x 8 years, there are 2832 days in eight lunar years before intercalations. Then we add a 30 day month in year 3 and a 30 day month in year five, (this keeps the lunar months in line with the seasons) so that prior to adding the final month in the 8 year cycle we have 2892 days. (2832 +30+30 = 2892) Just before adding the final month we insert two extra days into the lunar calendar to keep it aligned with the observed New Moon. Now we have a cycle of 98 lunar months (12 x 8 + 2 = 98) and there are 2894 days in that cycle (2832 + 30 + 30 + 2 = 2894.)

This results in an average lunar month of 29.53061 days (2894/98 = 29.53061) which is .000023395 days more than the current observed value according to the British Royal Observatory at Greenwich. So we have a one day drift in about 4000 years when the lengthening of the month is factored in.

Then we add the final 30 day month.

This 98 month / 2984 day rule will keep the lunar part of the AB calendar accurate so long as each successive cycle of 98 months is intercalated to yield a total day count of 2894 days.

Mark, either you are using the software incorrectly or the software itself is incorrect. (I've edited this to add that a third possibility is that the software is using the Gregorian calendar projected backwards. Even if this is the case, we have a 17-day interval between the astronomical new moon and the Friday on which Christ died. No lunar calendar, precalculated or not, would give this Friday as a Nisan 14.)

This page of the Naval Observatory

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/SpringPhenom.html

can confirm that the astronomical new moon was on April 10, noon, in 31 CE.

The same page informs that the vernal equinox in that year was on March 23, a Friday. This confirms that the following Fridays were March 30, April 6, April 13, April 20 and April 27.

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If you mean that the Passover was eaten on the evening at the beginning of the 15th, then I agree.

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Yes, that’s what I mean. The paschal lamb was eaten after sunset, that is, on Nisan 15, the first day of unleavened bread.
Now did you see what she said? That "on the day the Passover was eaten He was to be sacrificed". This means He should die on a Nisan 15. If Friday was Nisan 15, Christ was raised on Nisan 17, which disagrees with her statement that the sheaf was waved on Nisan 16.

My software says Friday April 27, 31AD is a Julian date. The same day on the Gregorian calendar is Friday, April 25. Scholars like to use Julian dates because a lot of history has been recorded using that calendar, but since we're more familiar with the Gregorian calendar, I think we should use that. Is that OK with you?

Rosangela over the years, I've developed a respect for Ellen White as a Bible scholar with very few peers. Like you, I've noted certain statements that have caused me to wondered if she was being consistent but further study has always resolved the issue. She was not infallible, but I have not yet seen an incorrect interpretation of scripture from her pen.

This issue can be resolved if you're willing to entertain the possibility that Friday was the Passover, Nisan 14. That harmonizes with scripture that Christ was the Passover lamb much better than the current view of some Adventists, including myself until recently, that Christ celebrated the Passover with His disciples on the actual day and the Friday was Nisan 15. Since Christ is the anti-typical Passover lamb, Friday is by far the date that harmonizes best with this symbol.

This view also harmonizes with her statement that the sheaf was waived on the second day of Unleavened bread, Nisan 16, resurrection Sunday. If we insist that Thursday was the Passover, the symbolism breaks down again because it makes Sabbath the day of waiving the sheaf while Christ rested in the tomb – a serious problem that is solved again by making Friday the actual Passover.

The statement from Ellen White that Christ was crucified on the day the Passover was eaten means the Passover was eaten Passover evening. The scripture requires that the Passover lamb is slain and prepared and eaten on the 14th.

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23:5 In the fourteenth [day] of the first month at even [is] the LORD's passover. Lev

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It is true the meal would continue on after sundown but from the above text we see that the meal was to start before sundown on the evening of the 14th.

These things will likely not make any difference to some who have fixed views, but to me, it is exciting material. I'm indebted to you Rosangela for testing my position. For every objection you've raised, the evidence grows stronger that the Jews anciently did not follow either the Karaite or Rabbinical calendars. Isn't it time we looked at the alternatives rather than trying to prop up a calendar that cannot be harmonized with either scripture or the pivitol dates of Daniel 8 and 9?

Rosangela, I’ll be away for 8 days starting this Wednesday. In the mean time, I hope you’ll have a look at where we stand in our discussions.

In my view, after noting the statements by Ellen White on the issue here on page 4 of the thread and the agreement of those statements with Lev 23 the conclusion is inescapable that Passover was on Friday in 31AD. If that is the case we have no alternative but to look for another calendar because by Karaite reckoning, the latest Passover could be in April of that year is Thursday.

But I think this is good news. If the Karaite method is incorrect and we replace it with the calendar that was actually in use anciently, that will help to better explain bible chronology and will be a significant contribution to historic and prophetic studies. I hope you will share this with Juarez. I'd be interested in his input.