Passover Date

[philipmarus]

I had protestant today accuse the Church of incorrectly setting the date of Easter in order to show the church wrong on other matters. The argument was made that Chirst was likely crucified in the winter because the synoptic gospels refer to Peter warming himself by the fire shortly before he denied Christ. I am sure the Jewish authorities kept a calendar and knew when their own passover was.

 

[sweetchuck]

As a person who lives in a subtropical climate (Virginia), which is also the same climate that Jerusalem is classified as (roughly close to the same longitude), I can say that frequently, nights in April and May are quite cold.

You could also try and refute your friend by looking up the record lows for May or June in Jerusalem. I’m sure there’s a way you can find that out.

 

[kepha1]

Perhaps you could ask your friend why the word “Easter” only appears in the King James Bible, and not in any Catholic Bible.

 

[kepha1]

This Protestant is following a Catholic lesser tradition by following the calender that places New Years Day on January 1. Ask him why he doesn’t have April 1 as New Years Day, since up until the 1500’s, the Pope changed it from April 1 to Jan. 1.

The rules for determining the date for Easter began with the Council of Nicae in 325 AD. They also dealt with the Arian heretics. If this guy rejects the council of Nicaea, then he must also reject the Nicene Creed, a creed that is accepted by 99% of Christians today. If he rejects the council of Nicaea, then he must accept Arianism, and follow the majority of erroneous bishops, which means he is much like a Jehovahs Witness, and interestingly enough, this is the same argument they use.

Dates for special holidays are set by the Church because she has the authority to do so.

 

[Grolsch]

philipmarus:

I had protestant today accuse the Church of incorrectly setting the date of Easter in order to show the church wrong on other matters. The argument was made that Chirst was likely crucified in the winter because the synoptic gospels refer to Peter warming himself by the fire shortly before he denied Christ. I am sure the Jewish authorities kept a calendar and knew when their own passover was.

Another case of knowing scripture but being totally ignorant of nature. Israel has an arid climate which means temperatures are warm during the day but fall sharply at night. A simple look through a travel guide could have easily refuted him:

Much of the country has a desert climate, with hot days and cool evenings. In hilly Jerusalem, temperature differences can be dramatic and even in the height of summer a sweater is often necessary at night. Warm sweaters are recommended in winter as central heating in private homes is rare in Tel Aviv and often inadequate in Jerusalem. Tel Aviv, along the coast, is far more humid and evenings are warmer.

link2exports.co.uk/regions.asp?lsid=1967&pid=1472

 

[mercygate]

sweetchuck:

As a person who lives in a subtropical climate (Virginia), which is also the same climate that Jerusalem is classified as (roughly close to the same longitude), I can say that frequently, nights in April and May are quite cold.

You could also try and refute your friend by looking up the record lows for May or June in Jerusalem. I’m sure there’s a way you can find that out.

Passover more likely occurs in March April. The average low in the 1st week of April is 47 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s cold enough to want a fire if you’ve been up all night, much of it outdoors in a garden and standing around in a stone courtyard. The Church didn’t set the date of Passover. And Easter is, like Passover, based on the lunar cycle.

 

[Fidelis]

Q: How is Easter Sunday determined? Palm Sunday? Ash Wednesday?

A: Jesus rose from the dead on the first Sunday following the feast of Passover. (Technically, he may have risen Saturday night, but that still counts as Sunday on the Jewish reckoning, which begins each day at sunset instead of at midnight.)

The date of Passover is a complicated thing. Theoretically, the date should be the fourteenth of the Jewish month of Nisan, and it should correspond to a full moon (the Jewish calendar being partly lunar). In practice, it didn’t always work out that way. The month-moon cycles got out of synch, and sometimes feasts would be held on a “liturgical” full moon even when it was not an astronomical full moon. As a result, rabbis periodically had to announce when Passover would be celebrated.

Christians didn’t like being dependent on the pronouncements of rabbis for how to celebrate Christian feasts, so they came up with another way of determining the date. They decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after (never on) the Paschal full moon.

Theoretically, the Paschal full moon is the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox. However, this day can be reckoned in different ways. One way is by looking at the sky, which yields the astronomicalspring equinox. But since this shifts from year to year, most people follow the calendrical spring equinox, which is reckoned as March 21.

On the Gregorian calendar (the one that we use), Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after March 21. Easter thus always falls between March 22 and April 25.

Now, to find Palm Sunday (the sixth Sunday of Lent) you start with the date of Easter and back up one week: It is the Sunday before Easter Sunday.

To find Ash Wednesday, you start with the date of Easter Sunday, back up six weeks (that gives you the first Sunday of Lent), and then back up four more days: Ash Wednesday is the Wednesday before the first Sunday of Lent.

catholic.com/thisrock/2002/0201qq.asp

 

[Buzzard]

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=308985&postcount=3

kepha1:

Perhaps you could ask your friend why the word “Easter” only appears in the King James Bible, and not in any Catholic Bible.

I saved this from somewhere but I don’t have a link

“And when he [King Herod] had apprehended him [Peter], he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.”

Why did the translators revert to the earlier – Tyndale, Coverdale, Great Bible and Bishop’s Bible’s – translation of “Easter” rather than “Passover”? The answer is found in Acts 12:1-3, which describes the scene and establishes the time-frame for this passage:

“Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)”

According to Exodus 12:6, the Passover lamb was slain on the 14th day of the first month which was Abib. Exodus 12:17 equates the Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread: “And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore ye shall observe this day in your generations for ever.”

Exodus 12:15 requires that Israelites eat unleavened bread for the full week following: “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.”

The original Passover occurred on the 14th Abib and the exodus from Egypt began the following day, the 15th. Numbers 33:3 states: “And they departed from Ramses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians.”

In Deuteronomy 16:6, however, God changed the day of celebration of the Passover to the 15th of Abib: “But at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt.”

 

[Buzzard]

cont

In the New Testament, Luke 22:1 also equates the Feast of Unleavened Bread with the Passover celebration and other Scripture verses indicate that these interchangeable terms referred to one day which would have been the 15th day of Nisan, which was 15 Abib before the Babylonian captivity. Mark 14:1,2 indicate that the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover were identical and verse 12 refers to “. . .the first day of unleavened bread when they killed the passover.”

The week following the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread is referred to in Acts 12:3 as “the days of unleavened bread.” It was during this week that Herod imprisoned Peter, whom he intended to bring forth to the people – not after the Passover, for that day was past – but after Easter, the pagan festival of Astarte, which was yet to come.

It is important to note that Scripture differentiates between the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread which was only the first day of unleavened bread and the “days of unleavened bread.” This explains why the AV translators did not confuse the “feast of Passover” with all seven “days of unleavened bread.” Although modern Jews commonly refer to a full week of Passover observance, there seem to be no Scriptural references to a week-long observance of Passover, but only one feast day followed by the “days of unleavened bread.” For this reason, it would have been less accurate for the translators to state that Herod would bring Peter forth after the Passover, which was already past.