Bible Study series: Mark 14:1-2. Courage to stay in Jerusalem, knowing what’s coming.
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If you would like to see the original Greek, please click here:
At that link, I also offer more commentary and a Summary and Conclusion, geared towards discipleship. Scroll down to the bottom and check it out!
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Mark 14:1-2
1 There was the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread after two days. The chief priests and teachers of the law were looking for ways to arrest him by deceit and kill him. 2 They were saying, “Not during the festival, in case there will be an uproar from the populace.” (Mark 14:1-2)
Comments:
This another intercalation or “sandwich” from 14:1-2 and 10-11. The plot to arrest Jesus is interrupted by the anointing scene.
The anointing scene marks the beginning of the Passion Narrative.
1-2:
“two days”: John says “six days before Passover” (12:1), and then Jesus is anointed. However, read v. 2 more carefully. This was two days before Passover when the high priest and the chief priests met together. It is not necessarily talking about the anointing scene in v. 3. We will soon learn in v. 3 that the time marker “And while” is vague (built the participle only and the very common conjunction kai). “And while Jesus was in Bethany.” So the anointing scene may have happened six days before Passover as John says. Mark may have thematically shifted the anointing scene without a concern for precise chronology. Gospel writers gave themselves permission to move pericopes around when this suited their overall purpose.
Matthew’s Gospel is really clear about when the meeting of the chief priests happened two days before Passover.
At that link, scroll down to v. 2
Once again, will your faith snap in two when these differences and special permissions crop up? Don’t let it. Relax and calm down. Read the Gospels as they present themselves, not as some uptight Bible hyper-inerrantist says the Gospel writers must present their data.
13. Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
Celebrate the huge number of similarities, not these few differences of timing, resolved by thematic purposes.
“Passover”: This is one of three spring festivals required by law (Tabernacles or Booths and Pentecost are the other two). The noun Passover comes from the noun pascha (pronounced pah-skha, for the -ch- is hard). Let’s define it. BDAG is considered by many to be the authoritative lexicon of the Greek NT. It says: (1) An annual Israelite festival commemorating Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the Passover, celebrated on the 14th of the month Nisan and continuing into the early hours of the 15th … Ex 12-13 … This was followed immediately by the Feast of Unleavened Bread on the 15th to 21st. Popular usage merged the two festivals and treated them as a unity, as they were for practical purposes (see Lk 22:1 and Mk 14:12)”…. (2) “the lamb sacrificed for observance of the Passover, Passover lamb …figurative of Christ and his bloody death 1 Cor. 5:7 … eat the Passover Mt 26:17; Mk 14:12b, 14; Lk 22:11, 15; J 18:28.” (3) “The Passover meal Mt 26:19; Mk 14:16; Lk 22:8” …. (4) “in later Christian usage the Easter festival.”
The key points in that definition: popular usage merged Passover and Unleavened Bread for practical reasons; the Greek can be translated as the lamb itself, so the figurative usage is easy to apply to Christ’s sacrifice (1 Cor. 5:7). (To this day, modern Greeks celebrate the pascha by eating a lamb.) The latter usage of the term “Easter” is the church’s choice to take over a pagan festival. You can certainly skip the term if it bothers your conscience and biblical values.
Here are the basic facts about the two festivals:
(1).. Passover
Time of year in OT: First Month: Aviv / Nisan 14th day (for one day)
Time of Year in Modern Calendar: March / April (second Passover is one month later according to Num. 9:10-11)
Festivals in Leviticus 23 from a NT Perspective
The Passover ritual had no place for the words “this is my body.” It must have been stunning for these twelve disciples to hear these words. The same is true of the cup of wine. Drinking “blood” (so to speak) symbolized by wine must have seemed strange to them. Streamlining it to its essence, Jesus raised up the Passover to a whole different level. He made it his own. It now speaks of intimacy and relationship with him (John 15).
“chief priests”:
“elders”:
You can read about them in this post, where the Jewish groups are placed in alphabetical order:
Quick Reference to Jewish Groups in Gospels and Acts
They did not want to arrest or seize Jesus because they did not want a riot among the people. Numerous Galileans were in Jerusalem for the Passover, and Jesus was their “home-boy,” to borrow a term from pop culture. And no doubt others, like the Jerusalemites, treasured him too. The crowd acclaimed him as a Messiah (Mark 11:1-11). At this stage they would have rioted on seeing his arrest. Incidentally, “uproar” can be translated as “riot.”
Let’s discuss the Passover in relation to the Last Supper. There are three options if one intends to harmonize the four Gospel accounts.
(1).. The Last Supper was not on the Passover but was a “New Passover” which Jesus inaugurated and celebrated early with the disciples. The Jewish Passover (Nisan 15) began on Friday evening as John’s Gospel indicates and continued through Saturday afternoon. Jesus inaugurated the New Passover on Nisan 14, which began on Thursday evening, running through Friday.
(2).. The Last Supper was the Jewish Passover. Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples on Thursday evening (Nisan 15) as the Synoptics suggest and was crucified the next morning (still Nisan 15, which ran Thursday evening through Friday afternoon). John’s reference to “the Preparation of the Passover (John 19:14; cf. 19:31, 42) does not means preparation for the day of Passover week, the day the lambs were slaughtered but preparation for the Sabbath of Passover week (i.e. Friday before sundown). This meaning of “preparation” is common and appears in Mark 15:42. To eat the Passover (John 18:28) means the general sense to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
(3).. The Jewish Passover was celebrated at two different times. Nisan falls on two days for two groups or the Passover was spread out over two days, perhaps because of the large number of lambs to be slaughtered. Celebrated on two days for the (a) Sadducees and Pharisees; (b) Galileans and Judeans; (c) visiting pilgrims and local residents. Or Jesus was following the solar calendar used at Qumran and in the Book of Jubilees, where Nisan 15 began on Tuesday. The religious leaders were following the traditional lunar calendar, where Nisan 15 fell on Friday evening.
Strauss, pp. 617-18.
Also see John 13 (after the first long pericope) for more explanations of harmonization of the four Gospels:
At that link, the discussion is narrowed down more than Strauss has done.
Maybe R. T France can help. In his introductory comments on 14:12-25, here’s how commentator France see the sequencing of the Last Supper and the Passover meal:
Western commentators instinctively assume that the evening which followed the slaughter of the lambs in the afternoon belongs to the same ‘day’, but since the Jewish day was normally understood to begin at sunset it is in fact part of the following ‘day’. Thus when Mk. 14:12, which is the key text for the supposed ‘synoptic chronology’, sets the time of preparation for the supper on the ‘day’ when the lambs were sacrificed, this would, on the normal Jewish method of reckoning days, only be on the evening following the sacrifice if the preparations were made before sunset. If, however, the meal was prepared (as it was certainly eaten) after sunset, it would only be on the same ‘day’ as the sacrifice if it took place on the previous evening. On that understanding, Mark’s careful note of time in fact places the last supper, as John does, on the evening which began Nisan 14, not on that which followed it. In other words, he was as clearly aware as John was that Jesus held his Passover meal not on the official day, but deliberately one day early. (p. 561)
So Mark and John are right.
France produces a table (which I slightly modify):
After sunset: disciples ask about and make preparations
During the night: Passover meal held; walk out to Gethsemane; arrest and preliminary hearing of Jesus
At daybreak: transfer to Pilate; formal trial and conviction
Morning/noon: crucifixion
Afternoon: official date for sacrifice of lambs
Also see this offsite commentary: Barry D. Smith, “The Chronology of the Last Supper,” Westminster Theological Journal 53:1 (1991): 29-45. He too stretches out the meal and says that the labels “Passover” and “Unleavened Bread” were used interchangeably, in the NT and various Jewish sources.
Here is a shorter version of Smith’s study:
Thomas Brewer. “Does John’s last supper chronology differ from the other Gospels?” Christian Post. 13 May 2022.
If either of those offsite links go dead, just copy and paste the bibliographical references in a search engine.
Once again, you can decide or work up your own chronology.
See the table on Passion Week at the bottom of this link.
GrowApp for Mark 1:1-2
1. Jesus showed a lot of courage to walk into Jerusalem, where he was going to die. Where has God enabled you to show courage in your own life?
RELATED
10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel
2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
For bibliographical data, please click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
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