This is perhaps the most confusing passage in the Brith Hadoshah. Three events of great importance to our faith are given in the four Gospels but the order of the events that happened seem to conflict. From the past studies we suspect that this is most likely not a contradiction but it is only different perspective on the same event written for different reasons (thus a remez or hint).
"Now on the first {Day} of the Unleavened Bread approached the disciples came to Yeshua saying, 'Where do you want us to make the preparations for You to eat the Passover?" Matt.26.17
"On the first Day of Unleavened Bread when the LAMB IS SACRIFCED, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and make the preparations for You to eat the Passover." Mk.14.12
"Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover Lamb had to be sacrificed." Lk.22.7
"Now before the Festival of Passover, Yeshua knew that the hour had come to depart from this world and go unto His Father." Jn.13.1
"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month between the evenings (byn ha-atabim) is the L-rd's Passover." Lev.23.5
Byn ha-atabim means "between the evenings" where arab is that period of the day when night mixes with light or dusk. Therefore we read this to say the Pascal lamb had to be sacrificed (Ex.12.6, Lev.23.5, and Num.9.3-4) between the two evenings of the fourteenth; that is the one, which began the fourteenth, and the one that brought its end. Consequently we believe Yeshua told His disciples to prepare this feast just as this first evening of the fourteenth was approaching as Matthew says. Yet in minds of some of these disciples the Passover had already come because it was so close. Still if this is true how do we explain John's words, "Now before the Festival of Passover"?
Our suspicion is that not all of Yeshua's disciples were drawn from the same branch of Judaism. Hence, the first three Gospel narratives saw Pesach coming at that first evening, which at that time were traditionally two Jewish groups- Aristocratic and the "neo-Aristocratic" or legal/common day. However another group among the council that delivered Yeshua up saw the "correct day" of the feast as the second evening or rather just before the beginning of that second evening (late afternoon) as was the custom of the Chassidic community of His day (WHICH John by implication seemed to be a part). This way these men did not enter the praetorium, "so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover" (Jn.18.28) because they ate their feast late on the fourteenth and finished literally in the fifteenth day of Chag HaMotzi. However both groups we believe were kosher in their keeping of Pesach according to Torah because it only stipulates that we keep this "between" those two "dusks" a nd does not exactly say where this must be placed in-between. Therefore we literally have a twenty-four hour period to prepare for the feast (please note that Torah does not state when it must end) before the evening of Chag HaMotzi (the first day of Unleavened Bread).
As for use of term "Unleavened Bread" in the Synoptic Gospels as opposed to using "Pesach" we have learned somewhere that these two terms became mingled together and interchangeable after the Babylonian period to where both came to mean the same thing. Technically, Pesach is single feast on the 14th (not a day as John rightly saw) and Chag HaMotzi was that seven-day holiday (feast) that followed Pesach. However for those that kept this feast within the first few hours of the 14th (as our Messiah did), Chag HaMotzi was indeed ushered in because it begins with that Pesach Feast. Therefore, if we eat the feast early on the day we add another day to our week of fasting from hamatz (leavening). Of course Yeshua had to eat His Pesach Feast at the common time because He would be occupied at the time the Chassidic community would be consuming theirs.
To go onto the Seder means Order follow this link or you can return to the Contents.
