Passover is one 24 hour period in the seven day Feast of Unleavened bread. The Jewish Passover occurs each year on the evening of the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
One thing we know for sure, Christ was not crucified on the day He ate the His Last Supper. But the Jews would have normally been eating the Passover meal on the day Christ was crucified, that would be Friday before dusk.
Over the centuries there have been some confusion on which day the Last Supper occurred, and the circumstances of its occurrence. So before we go on let me explain. Traditionally in this time period, on the eve before the Passover the sacrificial lamb was slain and butchered ritually. The blood was collected ritually and applied to the doorways. (This is the Passover part of the ritual of the plaque of the first born, but this changed…
Deuteronomy 16:2-6 The change was that the sacrificial lamb was slain at the doorway of the tabernacle….and then the Temple….This means that in the biblical era the Passover was a gathering of Jews at the Temple…
Then the entire lamb was cooked over a fire and eaten entirely, with unleavened bread. (The sacrifice could be either an unblemished goat or lamb. You can read about this ritual in Exodus chapter 12.) This is not exactly what happened during the evening of the Last Supper. But the Gospels use the term Passover meal to refer to the Last Supper and also reference the Passover lamb being sacrificed on Thursday evening, from there, confusion ensued. Neither the Jews or Christians call the Jewish Passover meal the Last Supper they are two different meals.
The Jewish Passover which lasts around 7 days, that year occurred on Saturday April 8th 30 AD, and started at dusk (As the Full Moon rose) on April 7th. “The Jewish day” starts at dusk. So the Jewish Sabbath and the beginning of Passover occurring on the same day, that year, at dusk. Confusing? Our days shift at midnight…Jewish days shift at dusk…dusk begins the new day.
Computerized astronomical calculations (NASA) shows a full Moon on the evening of April 7th when the Passover began at dusk. So the Passover for that year occurred on the Jewish Sabbath...Saturday but started on Friday at dusk. Two Holy events occurring on the same day. Some refer to this as a High Holy Day, High Day, or High Sabbath for the Jews.
John 19:31 The Lambs would have been killed on Friday, the afternoon of the 7th of April. But Christ would not be alive Friday evening. So in this instance there was an honorary Passover meal for Christ that we call the Last Supper because it was Christ’s last supper. As I said, we know that Christ did not eat the Last Supper on the day He was crucified. If we look at
Matthew 16:21-25 and Yeshua's disagreement with Peter, we can see that He knew what was going to happen and when.
He was the symbolic and divine sacrificial lamb and He was slain around 3:00 pm on the 7th of April, around the time that the actual sacrificial lambs were being slain. The Passover dinner for Him was held on the evening of the 6th of April...Thursday and they had a sacrificial lamb. The next day, the actual Passover lambs would be slaughtered and eaten on Friday before dusk for the Passover dinners. Christ was the sacrificial lamb for the New Covenant and He was crucified during the day on Friday, about the time the sacrificial lambs for Passover were being killed. So Christ would not be observing the normal processes of the Passover and the Passover meal, and as it turned out, the same was true for the Apostles because they would be in hiding, not sacrificing lambs at the Temple. They may have arranged for food to be brought to them, but they probably were not sacrificing lambs while Christ was being crucified.
The meal that Christ attended was a meal that the Gospels refer to as the Passover meal, a Seder meal, put it was not the actual Jewish Passover meal. As I explained, the next day was the Jewish day of preparation for the Passover...Friday...and the Jewish Passover meal would occur then. This was the day that Christ was slain.
Matthew 27:62,
Mark 15:42,
Luke 23:54,
John 19:14, 31, and 42, all confirm that the day that Christ was crucified was on the Day of Preparation, which was Friday, April 7th 30 AD.
John 18:28 also proves that early Friday morning, the day of Christ’s crucifixion, when Christ was taken to the Praetorium the Apostles had not eaten the actual Passover meal yet. The morning cock had crowed for Peter
John 18:27 So when Christ was before Pilate in the Praetorium the Apostles did not enter because they did not want to be defiled because they wanted to participate in the actual Passover meal before the start of Passover. John 18:28 Another mystery solved....
Why April 7th 30 AD?
The death of Herod is well documented, so is the date of his successors. So in order to include the story of the Herod, the Magi, the Star, and death of the innocences, Christ's birth has to happen before Herod's death. March 12th 4 BC. Now if you go to add this up from Christ's birth to the day of his Crucifixion, keep in mind that you lose 2 years between 1 BC and 1 AD. No year zero, so two years passes between April 1 BC and April 1 AD and they are the same day. So in 30 AD Christ would have been 33 years old, give or take a few months.
We can consider April 3rd 33 AD, but Christ would be 36 years old and since it was said that Christ started His ministry when He was 30 years old, that would make His ministry 6 years long. So odds are, it is 30 AD.
Now the calculation for Passover is based on the cycle of the moon. And goes like this...Passover will occur on the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Most of the time that is in April on our calendar. Then Easter is the next Sunday after that.
So Christ is crucified on Friday April 7th 30 AD and then the Passover starts that evening at dusk along with the Jewish Sabbath. That night has a Full Moon. And this goes along with the double Sabbath tradition, ie Passover falling on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday. Keep in mind that the Hebrew month always started on the New Moon, so the Passover would “always” occur 15 days later….that does not mean that the Passover would always occur on the Sabbath Saturday, because the new month did not reset the days of the week. (Jewish Sabbath Saturday…different than the Christian Sunday.) Hebrew days of the month vs Gregorian days of the month, there is a confusion factor there, but I will try to explain.
The Lunar Calculator below, shows the Full Moon on the evening of April 7th, 30 AD. This chart is based on our Gregorian calendar, but the first day of the Hebrew month started as usual on the preceding New Moon…which was on March 24th, then 15 days later on Friday, the evening of the 7th ….the Full Moon rises. Below is NASA’s calculation of the lunar cycle for April 7th-8th 30 AD.
