What year was Jesus crucified? What date? Who is right about the institution of the Lord's Supper, the Synoptics or John? Where was the communion hall? Who was the man with the watering can? Can you celebrate the Passover lamb meal without the Passover lamb? What was the first April Fool's joke? Did the Great Council used to meet in the middle of the night? What does the Hebrew inscription on the cross mean? These are some of the questions investigated in this article, which was previously published in the Svensk Pastoraltidskrift No. 5/2018.

The day when Jesus died on the cross and reconciled the world's sin with God is, together with the resurrection day, the most important day in world history. But when did these decisive events occur?

Jesus was crucified on a Friday, Good Friday, which in that year also happened to be the preparation day for the Jewish Passover. But when is the Jewish Passover, Pesach, celebrated?

– Well, after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish agricultural year (the religious year, on the other hand, begins on 1 Tishri, Rosh Hashana, in September–October). The day before, Nisan 14, is according to Ex. 12:6 the preparation day. In that year Jesus was crucified, Passover began on a Sabbath day, on a Saturday.

In our search for years that fit these conditions, let’s start from Luk. 3:1. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius when Pilate was the ruler, hegemoneuontos, of Judea. Tiberius became emperor in 14 AD, after the death of his adoptive father Augustus. In Antiquity, inclusive counting was applied, meaning that the year 14 is counted as the first year of Tiberius' reign. His fifteenth year then falls at the end of year 28 and the beginning of year 29.

According to the Gospels, during his public ministry, Jesus participated in three Easter holidays. At the earliest, these occurred in the years 29, 30 and 31. In that case, Easter in 31 AD is the earliest possible year for the crucifixion. But in that very year 31, Nisan 14 fell on a Monday. Thus the year 31 is excluded.

However, Jesus may very well have celebrated more Easter holidays than those mentioned in the Gospels, John 21:25. Nothing prevents Jesus' activity from lasting a few more years.

Isaac Newton is certainly best known as the discoverer of gravity, but his great interest was the Bible. He calculated when in the years around the year 30 there had been such a new moon that could have started the month of Nisan. He concluded that in the year 34 Nisan 14 fell on a Friday, April 23 (in fact, Nisan 14 of that year fell on a Monday, March 22).

In our time Newton's calculations have been scrutinized. Astronomer Bradley Schaefer has concluded that Newton certainly thought in the right way but got wrong assumptions. With a better basis, he would have arrived at Friday, April 3, year 33 (Lunar Visibility and the Crucifixion in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol.31, N:o. 1/March, p. 53, 1990).

Cambridge scholars Colin J. Humphreys and W. G. Waddington published papers on the date of Jesus' crucifixion, which they set at April 3, AD 33 (Dating the Crucifixion, Nature 1983, vol. 306, and Crucifixion date, Nature 1990, vol. 348). They claim that on this day there was a partial lunar eclipse over Jerusalem. It reached its maximum with 60 percent of the lunar surface in nuclear shadow at 5:15 p.m., but not until approx. At 6.20 p.m. the moon rose on the horizon of Jerusalem, and then it was 20 percent shadowed by the earth. The eclipse lasted until 6.50 p.m. They put this event in connection with the Joel quote in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts. 2. According to Joel's prophecy, "the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood until the day of the Lord comes".

However, the abovementioned Bradley Schaefer has criticized Humphreys and Waddington. He believes that the lunar eclipse hardly was visible to the naked eye, partly because it was partial, partly because it was full daylight while it was going on, which is why one would not have been able to perceive the moon as blood red (Bradley E. Schaefer, Lunar Visibility and the Crucifixion, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol.31, No. 1 March, 1990).

In 2003, the Romanian astronomers Liviu Mircea and Tiberiu Oproiu at the observatory in Cluj arrived at the same date, i.e. 3 April 33.

The computer solves the problem
Nowadays we have technological possibilities that lacked for Newton and other earlier scientists. The computer in a few seconds make calculations that earlier used to be difficult and time-consuming. A pioneer in the computer calendar field was Alan Corré, a computer literate professor of Hebrew studies at Milwaukee, who constructed a Hebrew, Julian, and Gregorian calendar converter. He sadly passed away in November 2017, and therefore his counter-equipped website was shut down.

But there are other possibilities, i.a. www.rosettacalendar.com or to www.timeanddate.com. It is calculated that April 3 in the year 33 AD according to the Julian calendar, which then was used in Rome, corresponds to Nisan 14 in the year 3793 after the creation of the world according to the Jewish calendar. Then it also was a Friday, with a full moon.

Also in AD 36, Nisan 14 fell on a Friday with a full moon, but this is too late. Then we already have arrived to the time of the Acts of the Apostles. In summer that year 36, Pontius Pilate was deposed as præfectus of Judea. The date of Jesus' crucifixion according to the Julian calendar therefore would be on Friday, April 3 AD 33.

According to the autobiography of Emperor Augustus, he issued a census order in 8 BC, the one mentioned in Luke. 2:1 (it was his second tax write-off of a total of three). King Herod passed away in 4 BC. By then he already had carried out the murders in Bethlehem of two-year-old boys, Matt. 2:16. Jesus was born in between 1 to 2 years before the infanticides, about 6 to 7 years before the beginning of our era. As his earthly life ended with the crucifixion in the year 33, it means that his destitute time on earth covered forty years, perhaps "at once", 2 Cor. 11:24.

In the Bible the number forty appears in connection with consequences of sin and the state outside paradise. The deluge lasted for forty days. For forty years the children of Israel sojourned in the desert. Moses prayed for Israel for forty days. The Ninevites fasted for forty days. The mother's impurity lasted just as long after the birth of a boy. Forty days and nights Jesus fasted in the desert before the devil tempted him.

But when sin was atoned for on the cross, the curse also was lifted from the number forty. Then it is said that "for forty days he allowed himself to be seen by them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God", Acts. 1:3.

Different calendars
Regarding Jesus' last Passover a calendar problem, the apparent contradiction between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John, has long been intractable. The former seem to assume that the Passover meal, according to Jewish custom, took place on the evening of Nisan 14, while the Gospel of John, on the other hand, assumes that Jesus and his disciples gathered before that, "before the Passover". After the celebration of the Lord's Supper, Jesus was imprisoned, taken to the high priest and later to Pilate. John writes about this in 18:28: »From Caiaphas they brought Jesus to the residence. It was early in the morning. They themselves stayed outside, so as not to become unclean but to be able to eat the Passover meal.» But when Jesus stood before Pilate, contrary to the crowd, he already had celebrated the Passover lamb meal.

This means that the crucifixion itself took place on the preparation day of the Passover, on Good Friday, the day before the Sabbath, at the same time as the Passover lambs were slaughtered before the evening Seder meal (i.e. the lambs that were raised by the high priests' employed shepherds in the meadows outside Bethlehem). They were in a hurry to remove the crucifixion before the beginning of the Sabbath in the evening.

The solution to this problem was highlighted by Annie Jaubert (1912–1980), professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris. In 1957 she put forward a theory that Jesus celebrated the Passover meal according to the Essene calendar applied i.a. by the Qumran congregation down by the Dead Sea. They followed a solar calendar, which always had the beginning of Easter on a Wednesday. In the official lunar calendar used at the Temple of Jerusalem, however, the day of the week shifted (Annie Jaubert, La date de la Cène. Calendrier biblique et liturgie chrétienne, «Études Bibliques», J. Gabalda & Gle, Paris, 1957, gr. in-12 de 160 p and Annie Jaubert, The Calendar of Qumran and the Passion Narrative in John, pp. 62–75 in John and the Dead Sea Scolls, ed. by James H. Charlesworth, Christian Origins Library, New York, 1990).

Annie Jaubert

She was able to explain the apparent contradiction according to these different calendars. The synoptics, who followed an older tradition within the Christian congregation, would then, like Jesus himself, have followed the Essene calendar. According to this, the Passover meal took place on the evening before Nisan 15. Since then there were no ritually slaughtered lambs from the Jerusalem temple available, the Passover meal was celebrated without a lamb, as still is the case among all Jews after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. The deeper meaning is that no Passover lamb was needed because Jesus himself is the true Passover lamb.

The later added Gospel of John, on the other hand, followed the official calendar applied by the priests at the temple. According to the official calendar, Jesus and the disciples were gathered "before the Passover", which made it possible to carry out the crucifixion on the day before the Sabbath, i.e. on Friday.

Annie Jaubert's hypothesis about the two calendars at the time was met with skepticism by most exegetes. What was the reason for Jesus to follow the calendar of the Essenes?

Through the archaeologist Bargil Pixner (1921–2002) the question came into new light. For many years Pixner was active in the Dormition Monastery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. In 1977 he there excavated a city gate, which he identified with the Essene gate mentioned by Josephus (Josephus, Jewish War 5.145). Below the gate he found the remains of a latrine and some miqva’ot baths for purification. For various reasons, he concluded that on the site of the present communion hall (Coenaculum) in the time of Jesus there was an Essene community, a monastery (see Bargil Pixner, Sion III, "Nea Sion", Topographische und geschichtliche Untersuchung des Sitzes der Urkirche und seiner Bewohner samt Der Sion, Sitz Zweier Religionsgemeinschaften, der Essener und der Judenchristlichen Kirche, in Das heilige Land, no. 2-3/1981, as well as With Jesus in Jerusalem, 1996. p. 85 ff and Jerusalem´s Essene Gateway, Where the Community Lived in Jesus Time, in Biblical Archaeology Review May/June 1997).

Bargil Pixner at home at Mount Zion, February 1982

When the disciples Peter and John were going to prepare the Passover meal, According to Mark. 14:13–15 Jesus exhorted them: »Enter the city. There you will meet a man carrying a pot of water. Follow him. And where he enters you shall ask him who is in charge of the house: 'The Master asks: Where is my shelter where I will eat the Passover lamb with my disciples?' Then he will show you a large upper floor, carpeted and ready-made.''

Could it possibly be that the Lord's Supper was instituted among the Essenes on Mount Zion? Pixner asks some questions, which can be answered with the essay hypothesis:

a) Where in Jerusalem at that time could you get water? – Only at the Siloam dam. So there the disciples met the man with the water pot.

b) Why was a man fetching water? It is always a woman's job in the Orient. Maybe it was a man without a wife, an Essene monk?

c) For what purpose was this water used? – Maybe for the ritual baths. In that case, a lot of water was used. The monks often were down by the Pool of Siloam filling their pots, so the disciples didn't have to wait long before any of them appeared.

d) Why didn't the disciples went in with the man? Did they have to wait at the gate for the monk who looked after the visitors?

e) Why would they ask for the "shelter", katalyma, the same word that appears when Joseph and Mary looked for room in Bethlehem? Was it about the guest house of the Essenes? The Essenes were known for hospitality. They had guesthouses for groups who wanted to celebrate Easter with them. Why did the disciples ask for "my shelter", katalyma mou? Was Jesus expected?

Pixner's archaeological discoveries and observations in the Bible strengthen Annie Jaubert's proposal to solve the calendar problem. No one has probably been able to present a better solution so far.

Tuesday instead of Thursday
Thus Jesus would have instituted the Lord's Supper on Tuesday evening, March 31, and then been with the disciples in Gethsemane during the night of Wednesday, April 1, when he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. Judas tricked him with a kiss of greeting, which thus became the first "April Fool's joke".

No longer we have to wonder how it was possible to conduct interrogations with the high priest, the Great Council and Herod Antipas in a few hours in the middle of the night between Thursday and Friday, and then in the early hours of the morning get priority before Pilate. As far as the dating is concerned, we should also not lock ourselves into the fact that, according to church custom, we celebrate the institution of the Lord's Supper on Maundy Thursday. That custom first arose in the fourth century.

Thus Jesus was brought before the high priest and others on Wednesday and Thursday and before Pilate on Friday, after which he was taken out to Calvary. He died on the cross at the same time as all the Passover lambs were slaughtered in the temple. On following Sabbath, our Passover eve, he preached to the spirits held captive in prison, 1 Pet. 3:19, »the descent into Hades». On the third day, the first day of the week, Sunday, he rose from the dead.

Thus, in contrast to the Synoptics, John did not care to connect to the Essene calendar. He did not write his Gospel until the end of the first century, and by then the various centers of the Essenes already were obliterated. Quite a few Essenes might have become Christians. The Johannine-influenced congregations in Asia Minor therefore came to celebrate Easter on the evening of Nisan 15.

In Rome and Alexandria, however, they used the older time schedule, which was based on the calendar of the Essenes. There they celebrated the capture of Jesus on Wednesday, the crucifixion on Friday and the resurrection on Sunday. Wednesday and Friday became fasting days throughout the year and have so remained.

These different traditions eventually led to one of the most serious controversies in the early church about the right time for Easter Celebration. It culminated when the Pope trying for the first time to assert his primacy and enforce the Roman position also in the Church of the East.

The title on the cross
When Jesus had been hung on the cross, a sign was put up to indicate why he had been crucified. His "crime" was being called "King of the Jews". The text on the sign was perhaps meant ironically, something along the lines of the soldiers putting a red cloak and a king's crown on him. But in this case Pilate himself had formulated it. Therefore, he refused to yield to the high priests' desire for change: "What I have written, I have written," an attitude reminiscent of what King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) said in Esther 8:8: "For a letter issued in the king's name and sealed with the king's ring cannot be revoked."

Apparently the inscription on the cross had an important meaning, since all the four evangelists mention it. The most detailed account is found in John 19:19. It says that "many of the Jews read that headline". It thus attracted a lot of attention. Furthermore, it is particularly emphasized that it was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.

In our churches, which maintain the Western Latin tradition, the crucifix is often provided with a sign with the initial letters of the Latin text, INRI, which is an abbreviation for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum. An old custom is to use only this four-letter abbreviation. Seldom the entire text is reproduced. How old is this custom of specially emphasizing the four initial letters? Could it date back to biblical times?

We can find out the text in Greek by reading the basic Greek text of the Gospel of John. But what happens if you try to reconstruct the Hebrew text?

The well-known writer and rabbi Shalom Ben-Chorin has made an attempt in his book Bruder Jesus, Der Nazarener in jüdischer Sicht, which was published in 1967. Ben-Chorin believes it should be read Jeschu Hanozri W(u)melech Hajehudim. [Hanozri, from Nazareth, from netzer = root, refers to Isaiah 11:1 and descent from King David.]

Then the four initial letters are to be read YHWH, which is the so-called the tetragrammaton, i.e. the sacred unpronounceable name of God.

Was this the reason of the chief priests’ reaction? Jesus was accused of blasphemy. Did they experienced the ultimate blasphemy, the dying Jesus with God's name as on a name tag? Was this Pilate's way of getting revenge on the chief priests who pressured him to pass the death sentence of Jesus? Was it a prophecy that Jesus would be recognized in Rome but not among the Jews?

"Therefore God has also exalted him above all and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue may confess, to the glory of God the Father, that Jesus Christ is YHWH" (Phil. 2:9–11).