Most scholars believe that the New Testament contains either some mistranslations or perhaps even some contradictions as to what day in relation to Passover Jesus was crucified on. For example, John clearly states that the Last Supper took place one night “before the feast of the passover” (John 13:1; emphasis added). John also states that on the following morning—the morning Jesus was crucified—the Jewish hierarchy in Jerusalem had not yet eaten their Passover meals (see John 18:28). All this seems to indicate that Jesus was crucified on Passover, or the day following the Last Supper.

Conversely, Matthew, Mark, and Luke indicate that, on the day of the Last Supper, the Apostles “made ready the Passover” (Mark 14:16),[1] implying that the Last Supper itself was the Passover meal. This interpretation would place the Crucifixion on the day following Passover.

However, when Matthew, Mark, and Luke state that Jesus’ disciples “made ready the passover” on the day of the Last Supper (Mark 14:16), research indicates that they were simply beginning their preparations for the Passover meal a full day in advance. Biblical scholar T. Alex Tennent observes that preparing for the Passover meal a full day in advance would allow the Apostles enough time to adequately “prepare a location that was ritually pure by having all leaven removed,”[2] which legally had to be done before 12:00 noon on Passover, or the fourteenth day of Nisan.

Tennent further explains that while the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each mention that this Passover meal preparation was done on “the first day of unleavened bread” (Mark 14:12)[3]—a day often associated with the beginning of Passover—a more accurate translation from the original Greek should read, “And [in reference to] the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover?” (Mark 14:12).[4]

When translated in this light, Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s accounts do not state that the Apostles made ready the Passover on the First Day of Unleavened Bread, but that they were making preparations for the Passover, in anticipation of the First Day of Unleavened Bread, which suggests that this holiday may have occurred a full day later than their texts imply. When read in this light, the Matthew, Mark, and Luke accounts do not contradict John’s record, leading us to believe that the Last Supper took place the night before Passover.

In fact, in the NKJV translation of the New Testament, Christ prophesied that he would be “delivered up to be crucified” (NKJV Matthew 26:2) on “the feast of the passover” (Matthew 26:2). This translation from the original Greek has Matthew agreeing with John’s record and is a better fit than the KJV translation of this same verse, thus allowing the Passover and the Crucifixion to occur on the same day.

Other evidence concurs with this conclusion as well. For example, the Last Supper could not have been the Passover meal simply because Christ served leavened bread to his Apostles at the Last Supper as opposed to unleavened bread. This is significant because, as Tennent noted:

“When referring to what was eaten at the Last Supper, the scriptures all use the Greek word arton for daily leavened bread.”[5]

“Had it actually been the Passover, serving such ‘bread’ would have been illegal according to the law of Moses…. [However, it] was perfectly acceptable to eat regular, leavened bread (arton in Greek) instead of unleavened (azumos in Greek) only because the Last Supper took place the evening before the Passover sacrifice.”[6]3

In addition, Tennent also referenced several Jewish and Christian documents dating back to the First and Second Centuries AD, which show that according to their earliest oral and written traditions, “Jesus was crucified on the fourteenth of Nisan and therefore could not have eaten the Jewish Passover at the Last Supper.”[7]

It is important to remember however that the setting of the sun on the night of the Last Supper (on the thirteenth day of the month) did technically mark the very beginning of Passover, for in Judaism, days began at sundown, not at midnight like they do in our culture.[8] However, while Passover officially began at sunset on the night of the Last Supper, it was illegal according to the law of Moses to eat the Passover meal that night. The law of Moses clearly stated that the Passover Lamb was not to be slain until the following day, on the fourteenth of the month (see Exodus 12:6).[9] Furthermore, after the Passover Lamb was slain on the fourteenth, the Israelites then had to wait several more hours for the sun to set before they could legally eat the Passover meal (see Exodus 12:8).

The Crucifixion

As we know, there was much that happened to the Savior during this important 24-hour period. Once the sun set on the thirteenth day of Nisan, Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his Apostles, then suffered in Gethsemane for “some three or four hours”[10] at which time he was arrested by an angry Jewish mob. He was tried late into the evening by the Jewish leaders Annas and Caiaphas, and tried a second time by Caiaphas very early the following morning. Following this morning trial, Jesus was bound and taken to Pilot, then to Herod, and eventually back to Pilot. At this point, Jesus was scourged and finally crucified at about 9 a.m. that morning (see Mark 15:25).[11] Clearly, the Jewish leaders were trying to get Jesus sentenced to death and on the cross before his followers could awaken and put up resistance.

The majority of these events, including the scourging and Crucifixion, all occurred on the morning of the fourteenth day of Nisan, which, as we have already established, coincided with the day of Passover. Knowing that Christ was on the cross for six hours, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (see Mark 15:25, 33),[12] we can therefore pinpoint the timing of Christ’s death to have occurred on Passover, the fourteenth day of Nisan, at, or very near, 3pm.

This means that as Christ was on the cross, the Passover meal was just a few hours away (eaten at sunset). During these important hours leading up to sunset, the Israelites, in preparation for this meal, were instructed to kill a lamb “at the going down of the sun” (Deuteronomy 16:6), which according to Jewish tradition, did not mean at sunset, but rather, any time after noon, or the time when the sun began to fall in the sky.[13]

If Christ died at 3 p.m. (see Matthew 27:45), then the timing of his death would certainly qualify as having occurred “at the going down of the sun” (Deuteronomy 16:6). It is incredible to think that the death of Christ occurred during the very window of time that the Passover Lambs were being slain in Jerusalem. Thomas Perdue noted: “The Passover lamb would have been sacrificed at [approximately] 3:00 p.m. on Nisan 14, and would have been eaten after sunset…. Thus the death of our Lord at the ninth hour [3pm] agrees with the time of the offering of the Passover Lamb.”[14]

Truly, as the apostle Paul stated, “Christ our passover [was] sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Stated differently, Christ fulfilled the Passover not only in theme, but also on the very day and hour it was meant to be observed.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread

The Feast of Unleavened Bread began at the same time as the Passover meal itself, or as soon as the sun set on the fourteenth day of Nisan.[15] But rather than lasting only one day like Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted seven days, from the fifteenth day of Nisan to the twenty-first day of Nisan (see Leviticus 23:5-6). According to Howard: “Because the Feast of Unleavened Bread (a seven-day holiday) begins the day after Passover (a one-day holiday), often the two holidays are blurred together and collectively referred to as ‘the eight days of Passover.’ In the days of the Second Temple (in Jesus’ time), it was also common to call all eight days the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Luke 22:1, 7).”[16]

It should be noted that the setting of the sun on the fourteenth day of the month not only marked the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but it also marked the beginning of an annual Sabbath day as well. This annual Sabbath day (the first day of Unleavened Bread) was somewhat different from the weekly Sabbath (Saturday), but the same rules of no work performed thereon still applied (see Leviticus 23:7). Knowing that work was not permitted on this First Day of Unleavened Bread, and knowing that the First Day of Unleavened Bread began at sunset shortly after Jesus died on the cross (Passover), the Jewish leaders made every effort possible to get Christ’s body down from the cross before sunset so as not to break this important commandment. We read: “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away” (John 19:31; emphasis added).

Many have interpreted this scripture as meaning the weekly Sabbath (or Saturday), and have therefore assumed that the Crucifixion of Christ took place on a Friday. However, knowing that Christ was resurrected on a Sunday morning (see John 20:1), and knowing that Christ was in the tomb for three days and three nights (see Matthew 12:40), a Thursday Crucifixion seems to fit much better in this context. If the Sabbath day spoken of by John was in fact the First Day of Unleavened Bread, as opposed to the weekly Sabbath, then a Thursday Crucifixion would allow for Christ to be resurrected on a Sunday morning and still be in the tomb for three days and three nights.

A Thursday Crucifixion is all but required because as we know, Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday, which was referred to in the scriptures as “the first day of the week” (Luke 24:1). According to Luke, Jesus was resurrected on “the third day since” the Crucifixion (see Luke 24:19-21). A Thursday Crucifixion is the only day of the week that would fulfil this important requirement. According to this model, Christ would have been dead for three days (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), and three nights (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), thus fulfilling the requirement of “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40; emphasis added).

It should be noted that this Thursday model counts Thursday as day one in the grave, even though Christ did not die until 3pm on that day. However nowhere does it state that the Lord spent three full days and three full nights in the tomb, which means that a partial day on Thursday could have very well been included as one of Christ’s three days in the grave. A Friday Crucifixion only contains two nights before a Sunday morning resurrection, and a Wednesday Crucifixion would mean Jesus was resurrected the “fourth day since” the Crucifixion rather than the “third day since” as required by Luke 24:19-21.[17]

Furthermore, if the Sabbath day spoken of by John was the First Day of Unleavened Bread, then technically there would have been two Sabbath days (one weekly, and one annual) that fell in-between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. As it turns out, this two Sabbath day theory is confirmed in Matthew 28:1, which, when translated from the original Greek reads, “in the end of the Sabbaths” (plural) “came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre” (Matthew 28:1).[18]

In Conclusion

From this, we can conclude two things: First, Christ partook of the Last Supper on the night before Passover and therefore did not eat the traditional Passover meal that evening. Second, Christ was crucified on a Thursday—not on Good Friday, as is commonly believed.

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Notes:
[1] See also Matthew 26:19; Luke 22:12.

[2] Tennent, The Messianic Feast, p. 385.

[3] See also Matthew 26:17; Luke 22:7.

[4] See Tennent, The Messianic Feast, pp. 377-82. In addition to Mark 14:12, this Greek translation, which conveys the added phrase, “in reference to” in the text, can also be applied to Matthew 26:17 and Luke 22:7.

[5] Tennent, The Messianic Feast, p. 75.

[6] Tennent, The Messianic Feast, p. 71.

[7] Tennent, The Messianic Feast, p. 10.

[8] This reckoning stems from how the Lord originally determined the beginning of a day during the seven days of Earth’s creation, “And the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:5).

[9] In other words, Passover began at the setting of the sun on the thirteenth day of Nisan, and ended at the setting of the sun on the fourteenth day of Nisan. According to Perdue, “Nisan 14 begins at sunset [between 6:00-6:30 p.m.] on Nisan 13, and ends on Nisan 14 [at sunset]” (Perdue, Passover & Sukkot, p. 82).

[10] McConkie, “The Purifying Power of Gethsemane,” Ensign, May 1985, p. 9.

[11] It should be noted that John places the Crucifixion at 12:00 noon (see John 19:14), which differs somewhat from the Matthew, Mark, and Luke accounts (compare Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:25; Luke 23:44).

[12] It should be noted that John places the death of Christ at 6 p.m. (see John 19:14). Matthew, Mark, and Luke all put the death of Christ at 3 p.m. (compare Mark 15:25,33; Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44).

[13] Similarly, we read in Exodus that the Passover Lamb was to be slain “in the evening” (Exodus 12:6), which in Hebrew was also translated to mean in the afternoon. According to Tennent, the phrases “at the going down of the sun,” (Deuteronomy 16:6) and “in the evening” (Exodus 12:6), simply meant anytime “between noon and sunset” (Tennent, The Messianic Feast, p. 451). Research shows that this was the traditional time frame that the Jews at the time of Jesus killed their Passover Lambs. For example, the famous Jewish historian Josephus, who was born shortly after the Crucifixion, noted that the Passover Lamb was typically slain in his days between the hours of 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. (see Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, 6:9:3).

[14] Perdue, Passover & Sukkot, p. 82; emphasis in original.

[15] “The Feast of Unleavened Bread, is the Feast which begins at about 6:15 p.m. [at sunset on Nisan 14]…. And on the same evening after the sacrifice, the paschal meal was eaten, and the Jewish day changed from Nisan 14 to Nisan 15. This was the First day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Perdue, Passover & Sukkot, p. 82).

[16] Howard and Rosenthal, The Feasts of the Lord, p. 112.

[17] See Tennent, The Messianic Feast, p. 394.

​[18] See Missler, The Feasts of Israel, p. 34; Tennent, The Messianic Feast, p. 375.