There are very few details that all the gospels have exactly the same. However, there are a few things that they completely agree on. (Okay, John’s gospel states that the Passover started in the evening on Friday - which in Jewish custom would have been the beginning of Saturday; while the synoptic gospels have Passover starting in the evening on Thursday - which in Jewish custom would have been the beginning of Friday - regardless).
Sorry to resurrect a slightly older thread, but I just read something on this in an older book that offers an explanation of this matter I had not heard before, based on the documents recovered as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It’s mentioned in “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Primitive Christianity” by Fr. Jean Danielou (Mentor Books, 1958). There were more than one set of calendars in use at the time of the Crucifixion, and the Essene sect of Jews used a different calendar than the Pharisaic and the Sadduccee Jews.
As powerofk noted, there have been problems for scriptural interpreters over the years, as the synoptic Gospels describe the Last Supper as a paschal meal and fix the date as the 14th of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish priestly calendar, corresponding to March/April. But per St. John, the Crucfixion took place before Passover, so He would have been crucified on the day of the 14th of Nisan and He instituted on the Eucharist on the evening of the 13th, in which case the meal would no longer be a Passover banquet.
However, the Essene Jews of the Qumran area (of which St. John the Baptist, as well as at least some of the apostles, were members) used a different priestly calendar of 364 days, containing four trimesters of 91 days, each of which had 13 weeks, Since there were exactly 52 weeks in the year, feastdays, according to the Qumranic calendar, necessarily fell on the same day of the month and *the same day of the week. * On the Qumranic calendar, Passover always fell on a Wednesday. The night before, therefore, was a Tuesday.
There is an old, somewhat neglected tradition in which Christ is supposed to have partaken of the Passover meal on Tuesday evening, and to have been arrested on Wednesday and crucified on Friday.
Thus, if the Christ must have celebrated the Last Supper on the eve of the Passover, according to the Essenian calendar. On the other hand, He was supposed to have been crucified on the eve of the official Passover which in that year fell on a Saturday.
Once the calendar of the Essenes fell into disuse, however, this date of the Last Supper was established either on Wednesday, according to St. John the Apostle or Thursday, per the synoptics. Using the calendar that the Essenes used at the time, it becomes apparent that the multiple confrontations Christ had with Annas, with Caiaphas, and with Pilate took up the days of Wednesday and Thursday, which is more reasonable than trying to shoehorn them all into a single night.
Fr. Danielou goes into detail on the links between the apostles and the Qumranic Essenes, and also helps explain why both Josephus and Philo both described the three great Jeiwsh sects of Christ’s time as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, but while St. John the Baptist and others condemn the Pharisees and to a lesser extent, the Sadducees, but never mentions the Essene sect - in fact, they are not mentioned anywhere in the Gospels. This is likely because St. John the Baptist identified with the Essenes, and was likely raised by the monastic Essene community of Qumran. Jesus recruited his first disciples from the area around Qumran (and the mountain to which Jesus was tempted by Satan was not far from the Essene community where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. St. John the Apostle held to views that seemed to have been influenced by the Essene Jews, based on similarities between his writings and those of the Essenes, and possibly came from that tradition. It seems likely that he would have used the Qumranic calendar.
Although not mentioned by Fr. Danilou, that same Qumranic calendar has been used to fix the date of the birth of Jesus to circa December 25, based on the date St,. John the Baptist’s father’s priestly line would have been in the Temple to make the offering, the date of conception of his wife, and doing the math from the events described to establish the likely date of Mary’s conception and Jesus’ birth - which would place the event in late December, by our calendar.
I find this fascinating. Thoughts?
), they stagemanaged His ‘miracles’, they took Him down from the cross and revived Him. 