The slaughtering of lambs

[jesusmademe]

Was there two Lamb slaughter in Egypt?
I mean, I only remeber there being one slaughtering but I read that the Jews slaughtered lambs on two different ocassions in the Passover celebrations. One for the Passover Jesus ate and the other when he was crucified.
But I only remember there being one slaughtering of lambs in Egypt.
This is one of the most important thing about our religion but yet nobody has ever really explained it to me.

 

[De_Maria]

Was there two Lamb slaughter in Egypt?

One per family.

I mean, I only remeber there being one slaughtering but I read that the Jews slaughtered lambs on two different ocassions in the Passover celebrations.

They slaughtered thousands.

One for the Passover Jesus ate and the other when he was crucified.

You mean at the Last Supper. In the Last Supper, there in the Upper Room, there is no lamb indicated. Jesus converted the Toda sacrifice of Melchizedek:

Genesis 14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.

Into the Eucharistic Sacrifice wherein He replaced the Passover lamb with His Body and Blood in the guise of bread and wine.

Matthew 26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. 27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; 28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

But I only remember there being one slaughtering of lambs in Egypt.

One per family.

This is one of the most important thing about our religion but yet nobody has ever really explained it to me.

I hope that explains it for you.

 

[qui_est_ce]

John’s Gospel uses a different calendars than the synoptics. He places the Passover on Saturday. According to John, Jesus died on Friday as the lambs were being brought into the Temple for slaughter for the Passover meal, which would have been eaten on Friday night after sundown.

It’s debatable whether or not there was a lamb at the Last Supper. Scott Hahn says there was a lamb.

 

[Thom18]

John’s Gospel uses a different calendars than the synoptics. He places the Passover on Saturday. According to John, Jesus died on Friday as the lambs were being brought into the Temple for slaughter for the Passover meal, which would have been eaten on Friday night after sundown.

It’s debatable whether or not there was a lamb at the Last Supper. Scott Hahn says there was a lamb.

Of course there was a lamb. The Lamb was Christ, just as the one loaf of bread in the boat was Christ

 

[qui_est_ce]

Of course there was a lamb. The Lamb was Christ, just as the one loaf of bread in the boat was Christ

I believe that too, but Scott Hahn says there was an actual lamb. The Gospels say nothing of a lamb though. I’m looking it up right now on St. Paul’s Center. I’ll get back to you.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Was There a Passover Lamb at the Last Supper? – St. Paul Center

This is quite clear in the Gospel accounts—not first and foremost in the the words of institution—but in the accounts of Jesus sending the disciples (Peter and John) into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover (Mark 14:12-16 parr.)

“When they Sacrificed the Passover Lamb (Pascha)”

So, for example, in the Gospel of Mark, we read:

“And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the pascha, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the pascha”? And he sent two of his disciples, and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you…” (Mark 14:12-13)

Though English Bibles translate these with two different words, there is no way for the first use of pascha to refer to the Passover lamb that was sacrificed to be eaten and for the second use of pascha to refer to the now-popular idea of a “lambless Passover meal.” The only way to make this work would be to wrench the second occurrence completely out of context.

“Go and Prepare the Pascha, that We May Eat it”

The presence of the Passover lamb at the Last Supper is even more explicit in the Gospel of Luke. According to his account of Holy Thursday afternoon, the following took place:

“Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the pascha had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the pascha for us, that we may eat it.” They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” (Luke 22:7-8)

Same problem: there is no way I can see in which the first use of pascha in v. 7 refers to the Passover lamb, while in v. 8 pascha refers to a lamb-less Passover meal (if such a thing were even possible in the 1st century A.D.). The meal which they are preparing for Jesus and the disciples to eat in the upper room that evening clearly consists of the passover lamb which had been sacrificed that day.

 

[BenYosef]

As a Jew, I might be able to help explain this. (If it doesn’t, just toss away what you don’t find compatible. I’m just trying to help, not stir up controversy.)

There was only one lamb slaughtered. The confusion comes with the fact that Jewish days begin at sundown.

The Passover lamb was to be slaughtered on Nisan 14, the day of Passover, which begins with an evening and ends at an evening.

There is a difference with Passover that does not occur with other nights (and this is where the confusion comes in with non-Jews trying to figure out what day is what). The evening of the 15th of Nisan is also considered the first day of Passover, because on that night we have to consume the sacrifice of Lamb. It would usually be the second day of Passover, but that is not how it works out for the night of Nisan 15. Thus Passover is a very long day.

Could Jesus have sat down to a legitimate Passover Seder and still be crucified on and laid in a tomb on the first day of Passover? Yes, because of the way that Passover gets carried out.

Exodus 12.6 states that the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered “between the two evenings” of Nisan 14 and 15. Some English Bible translations saw “twilight,” but the reference is actually to carrying out the sacrifice between the two evenings of the first day so that Jews would be able to have a lamb for the Seder no later than the evening of Nisan 15. This is why today Jews observe the Passover Seder on the 15th, not the 14th. The lamb used to be picked and slaughtered starting at the beginning of sunset on the 14th and the slaughtering continued until all had a lamb by evening on the 15th.

So it could have logistically been possible to have had a lamb slaughtered and ready and a Seder undertaken by the late night of the 14th and therefore have Jesus die on the Cross on the afternoon of the 14th and be laid to rest on the night of the 15th, but it still be considered the first day of Passover.

 

[De_Maria]

The OP is conflating/combining Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God and the Paschal Lamb. Thus he is saying two lambs sacrificed.

In my explanation, I tried to explain that the Last Supper narratives do not mention the paschal lamb because Jesus Christ transformed the Pasch into the Eucharist via the Todah ritual which was first seen in the offering of Melchizedek.

The paschal lamb may have been present. But Jesus focused on the Eucharistic Sacrifice of His Body and Blood.

Hebrews 10:4-6 New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

4 for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins. 5 For this reason, when he came into the world, he said:[a]

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6 holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight in.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[BenYosef]

Ah, well, then I’m totally off point here. I appreciate your correction and being able to explain things correctly. As I pointed out.

…just toss away what you don’t find compatible. I’m just trying to help…

Thanks.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Exodus 12.6 states that the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered “between the two evenings” of Nisan 14 and 15. Some English Bible translations saw “twilight,” but the reference is actually to carrying out the sacrifice between the two evenings of the first day so that Jews would be able to have a lamb for the Seder no later than the evening of Nisan 15. This is why today Jews observe the Passover Seder on the 15th, not the 14th. The lamb used to be picked and slaughtered starting at the beginning of sunset on the 14th and the slaughtering continued until all had a lamb by evening on the 15th.

Thank you for this!!! Our readings say “twilight” and this thoroughly confused me.

Your explanation is very helpful!

 

[Mintaka]

The other factor was that there used to be the actual Passover lambs eaten for actual Passover, and the Passover lambs eaten on the Sabbath after Passover. So yup, they were slaughtering Passover lambs (for the Passover sabbath) on Friday, the preparation day for the Sabbath.

Brant Pitre gets into this. I don’t know if it is a thing for post-Temple Jews, but he had tons of Jewish sources about practices in Temple times.

 

[Mintaka]

Found it! The “other” lamb is the Passover peace offering, or “the passover” for short. It got eaten over the whole seven days, with unleavened bread, and there was a whole bunch of this going on. The actual Passover lamb was one thing, and all these other “pesachim” were another.

So yeah, Jesus put Himself in place of the actual Passover lamb, by serving bread and making it His Body, and making wine the sacrificial blood of the Covenant. And then His execution made Him also like the pesachim lambs, a peace offering.

It is pretty amazing stuff.

 

[De_Maria]

It sounds exciting. Could you post a link? I love Brandt Pitre’s explanations.

 

[jesusmademe]

So what of all this something that I need to know and what iis just an interesting subject?
I bet most of the Catholics just attend the Liturgies without understanding this at all.
This stuff is also not really mentioned in the private devotions since such devotions focus on the syffering of Jesus.
Is this just uneccesary theory stuff or should Catholics study this subject? I mean, there have to be a very good reason why this subjects is not very much discussed in the Lenten talks.
What do you say?

 

[Nita]

It’s not something you need to know in the sense that you’re committing a sin if you don’t learn it; that is, get books & study it. But there are many benefits in learning about it. To name a few:
*For Catholics, it expands our understanding of a prayer we say at every Mass - the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the word, have mercy on us.)
*It helps us to understand why Jesus appeared to John as a lamb so often in the vision he received and which he recorded in the Book of Revelation.
*It helps us be on the lookout for other times when OT events and/or words of God in the Old Testament were actually prefigurements and preparations that would serve to help people recognize fulfillments as they unfolded in New Testament times. You begin to understand various ways God has worked in human history to bring back fallen mankind.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Pope Benedict XVI explained the contradictions about the Gospels in his book, Jesus of Nazareth.

He wrote that most scholars are leaning on John’s Gospel as being the most accurate chronologically, when it comes to the arrest, crucifixion and death of Jesus.

Accordingly, the Passover Supper Jesus celebrated with his Apostles when he instituted the Holy Eucharist, was not the official Passover Meal, but His, because He knew he would not be alive for the official meal. It’s probable that Jesus celebrated it on Wednesday Evening, not Thursday Evening as we observe today.

He also wrote how it’s believed that Jesus death at 3pm on the Eve of Passover, was the time the lambs were slaughtered for the official Passover Meal.

I tend to like St John’s Gospel the most followed by St Matthew’s.

St Luke’s, I tend to be skeptical about it’s historical accuracy.

Jim

 

[runningdude]

The Passover lamb was to be slaughtered on Nisan 14, the day of Passover, which begins with an evening and ends at an evening.

There is a difference with Passover that does not occur with other nights (and this is where the confusion comes in with non-Jews trying to figure out what day is what). The evening of the 15th of Nisan is also considered the first day of Passover, because on that night we have to consume the sacrifice of Lamb. It would usually be the second day of Passover, but that is not how it works out for the night of Nisan 15. Thus Passover is a very long day.

Awesome, Thanks! Is this why Passover lasts “8” days?

 

[Nita]

…
I bet most of the Catholics just attend the Liturgies without understanding this at all.
…

Yes, that’s true. And they may be very good Catholics who love God and their neighbor, and who accept Church teachings and follow Church regulations.