by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #132, posted on February 3, 2022
Section 1 – Preamble
In Volume 2 of my book, A Biblical View of Nearly Everything, I have argued that Tiberius 15 commenced in August 29 AD, that Messiah was baptized by John-the-Baptist in mid-August 29 AD, that Messiah’s 30th birthday occurred on August 28, 29 AD, that Messiah spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, and that Messiah’s Ministry commenced in on October 7, 29 AD, lasted 3.5 years, and ended with Holy Week in early April 33 AD – arguably one of the two most important weeks in human history.[1]
Section 2 – Source of Confusion
The configuration of Holy Week may seem simple and clear at first, but it is actually quite complicated and confusing. One source of confusion is the six-hour difference in the beginning and ending of days in the Jewish and Gentile calendars.
● The Jewish calendar day starts at 6 pm [2] and ends 24 hours later at 6 pm. It is divided as follows: (1) night, which lasts 12 hours (6 pm to 6 am[3]), which is sometimes sub-divided into (1a) evening (6 pm to midnight) and (1b) madrugada [4] (midnight to 6 am) and then (2) day, which lasts 12 hours (6 am to 6 pm), which is usually divided into (2a) morning (6 am to noon) and (2b) afternoon (noon to 6 pm).
● The Gentile calendar day starts at midnight and ends 24 hours later at midnight. It is divided as follows: (1) the last half of the night or madrugada (midnight to 6 am), (2) the first half of the day or morning (6 am to noon), (3) the second half of the day or afternoon (noon to 6 pm), and (4) the first half of the night or evening (6 pm to midnight).
As a result of the above, the Jewish and Gentile calendars are six hours out of phase. Just for example: Assume that Passover occurs on both Nisan 14 in the Jewish calendar and April 2 in the Gregorian calendar. One has to keep in mind that Nisan 14 and April 2 share only 18 hours of the day (midnight to 6:00 pm). Six hours (6 pm to midnight) of Nisan 14 falls on April 1 and eighteen hours of April 2 (midnight-6 pm) falls on Nisan 15. This distinction easily gets lost when trying to configure Holy Week.
Section 3 – Two Disparate Versions of Holy Week
Regarding the chronology of Holy Week, there is an irreconcilable disparity between the Church’s version, which most people understand, and the Biblical version, which most people do not understand.
Subsection 3A – The Church’s version of Holy Week
In the Church’s version of Holy Week, it is described as follows: Palm Sunday (end of Nisan 11, a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week); Monday (end of Nisan 12, a normal day); Tuesday (end of Nisan 13); Wednesday (end of Nisan 12, a normal day); Thursday (end of Nisan 13, the Day of Preparation); Friday (end of Nisan 14, the Passover); Saturday (end of Nisan 15, the Sabbath); and Easter Sunday (end of Nisan 16, a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week).
The foregoing calendar can be expanded as follows:
● Nisan 8 (the Sabbath) (a) began at 6 pm on Friday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Saturday.
● Nisan 9 (a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week) (a) began at 6 pm on Saturday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Palm Sunday. Messiah (a) rode into Jerusalem on a donkey walking on palm fronds, (b) cleansed the Temple of money-lenders, and (c) delivered the Olivet Discourse to His disciples.
● Nisan 10 (a normal day) (a) began at 6 PM on Palm Sunday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Monday.
● Nisan 11 (a normal day) (a) began at 6 pm on Monday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Tuesday.
● Nisan 12 (a normal day) (a) began at 6 pm on Tuesday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Wednesday.
● Nisan 13 (the Day of Preparation) (a) began at 6 pm on Wednesday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Thursday. During the day, Messiah told His disciples to meet Him in the Upper Room for the Passover Supper, and the disciples killed the unblemished lamb to eat at the supper.
● Nisan 14 (the Passover) (a) began at 6 pm on Thursday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Friday. Between 6pm and midnight, Messiah and His disciples celebrated the Passover supper (known as the Last Supper) and then retired to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Messiah prayed to His Father. Then Messiah’s ordeal began: (a) He was arrested by the Temple guard; (b) He was tried by the Sanhedrin; (c) He was interrogated by Pontius Pilate; (d) He was interrogated King Herod; (e) He was rejected by His people in favor of Barabbas; and (f) He was delivered into the hands of the Roman garrison about midnight; (g) He was verbally and physically abuse by the Roman soldiers for roughly eight hours; (h) He was required to carry His cross from the Roman station to Golgotha; (i) He was crucified at 9:00 am on Friday morning and hung on the cross for six hours, during which darkness descended on the land for three hours (noon to 3 pm). At 3 pm, Messiah died. During the next three hours, Joseph of Arimathea asked for Pilate’s permission to take custody of Messiah’s body, then he and some disciples transported it to his own tomb in a nearby garden. There some women cleansed the body and wrapped it in burial cloths. Finally, at 6 pm, a Roman garrison sealed the entrance to the tomb and commenced a round-the-clock vigil to ensure that no one tampered with its contents.
● Nisan 15 (the Sabbath) (a) began at 6 pm on Friday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Saturday. Messiah remained in the tomb for the entire time.
● Nisan 16 (a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week) (a) began at 6 pm on Saturday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Easter Sunday. The women bearing additional oil, spices, and burial cloths, which they would have had no opportunity to buy on Friday, Saturday, or during the madrugada on Sunday, arrived at the garden around 6 am and found the tomb open and empty.
Here I will note a couple of things:
● First, the Church’s view of Holy Week completely ignores Matthew 12:40, in which Messiah states to the scribes and Pharisees: “…as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (KJV), thereby going out of His way to emphasize that He would spend exactly 72 hours in the grave. As a result, it flat out contradicts the testimony of Scripture.
● Second, the Church has never settled on a time for the resurrection despite much disputation on the subject. I note with interest, however, that Easter Sunday has always been considered Day 1 in the countdown to Day 40 (Ascension Friday), and Day 50 (Pentecost Sunday), which leads me to believe that the early church must have known that Messiah was resurrected just before 6 pm on Day 0 (the Sabbath).
Subsection 3B – The Biblical version of Holy Week
In the Biblical view of Holy Week, it is described as follows: Saturday (end of Nisan 10, the Sabbath); Palm Sunday (end of Nisan 11, a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week); Monday (end of Nisan 12, a normal day); Tuesday (end of Nisan 13, the Day of Preparation); Wednesday (end of Nisan 14, the Passover); Thursday (end of Nisan 15, Annual Feast Day); Friday (end of Nisan 16, a normal day); Saturday (end of Nisan 17, the Sabbath); and Easter Sunday (end of Nisan 18, a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week).
The foregoing calendar can be expanded as follows (please excuse the amount of repetition, but I want my readers to compare the two accounts and perceive the degree to which a single error changes the story).
● Nisan 9 (a normal day) (a) began at 6 pm on Thursday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Friday.
● Nisan 10 (the Sabbath) (a) began at 6 pm on Friday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Saturday.
● Nisan 11 (a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week) (a) began at 6 m on Saturday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Palm Sunday. Messiah (a) rode into Jerusalem on a donkey walking on palm fronds, (b) cleansed the Temple of money-lenders, and (c) delivered the Olivet Discourse to His disciples.
● Nisan 12 (a normal day) (a) began at 6 PM on Palm Sunday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Monday.
● Nisan 13 (the Day of Preparation) (a) began at 6 pm on Monday (b) ended at 6 pm on Tuesday. During the day, Messiah told His disciples to meet Him in the Upper Room for the Passover Supper, and the disciples killed the unblemished lamb to eat at the supper.
● Nisan 14 (the Passover) (a) began at 6 pm on Tuesday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Wednesday. Between 6 pm and midnight, Messiah and His disciples celebrated the Passover supper (known as the Last Supper) and then retired to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Messiah prayed to His Father. Then Messiah’s ordeal began: (a) He was arrested by the Temple guard about 9 pm; (b) He was tried by the Sanhedrin; (c) He was interrogated by Pontius Pilate; (d) He was interrogated King Herod; (e) He was rejected by His people in favor of Barabbas; and (f) He was delivered into the hands of the Roman garrison about midnight; (g) He was verbally and physically abuse by the Roman soldiers for the next roughly eight hours; (h) He was required to carry His cross from the Roman station to Golgotha; (i) He was crucified at 9:00 am on Friday morning and hung on the cross for six hours, during which darkness descended on the land for three hours (noon to 3 pm). At 3 pm, Messiah died. During the next three hours (3-6 pm), Joseph of Arimathea asked for Pilate’s permission to take custody of Messiah’s body, and then he and some disciples transported the body to his own tomb in a nearby garden. There some women cleansed the body and wrapped it in burial cloths. Finally, at 6 pm a Roman garrison sealed the entrance to the tomb and commenced a round-the-clock vigil to ensure that no one tampered with its contents.
● Nisan 15 (an Annual Feast Day) (a) began at 6 pm on Wednesday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Thursday. Messiah remained in the tomb for the entire time (24 hours).
● Nisan 16 (a normal day) (a) began at 6 pm on Thursday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Friday. Messiah remained in the tomb for the entire time (24 hours).
● Nisan 17 (the Sabbath) (a) began at 6 pm on Friday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Saturday. Messiah remained in the tomb for almost the entire time (24 hours), and He was resurrected just before 6 pm.
● Nisan 18 (a normal day, the 1st Day of the Jewish Week) (a) began at 6 pm on Saturday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Easter Sunday. The women bearing additional oil, spices, and burial cloths, which they would have had an opportunity to buy on the previous Friday, arrived at the garden around 6 am and found the tomb open and empty.
● Nisan 19 (a normal day) (a) began at 6 pm on Sunday and (b) ended at 6 pm on Monday.
Here I will note a couple of things:
● First, the Biblical view of Holy Week fully conforms to Matthew 12:40, in which Messiah states to the scribes and Pharisees: “…as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (KJV), thereby going out of His way to emphasize that He would spend exactly 72 hours in the grave.
● Second, Messiah uses the same phraseology in Matthew 12:40 that God does in Genesis 1:1-2:3. In both instances, God clearly does not want us to misconstrue the fact that normal, twenty-four hour days are being described. As a result, the biblical view of Holy Week has the ring of truth to it.
Section 4 – My Predicament [5]
My next step was trying to identify a year in the vicinity of 33 AD where Passover fell on Wednesday. What I found can be seen in Table 5B – Passover Dates (26-36 AD), which turned out to be a disappointment. There are only two years that come close to satisfying all the criteria which I have described. Using their table designations, they are the following:
Subsection 4A – Passover in 30 AD
The sources that I am using to equate dates in the Jewish calendar and dates in the Gregorian calendar put Nisan 14 on Wednesday, April 1, 30 AD, which puts Messiah’s birth in 5 BC, the wrong year..
● ¶ 4A-1 – The Church’s configuration of Holy Week does not work (see Table 5C-1 – Traditional Holy Week in Apr 30 AD) – (1) Pro: It puts (a) Passover on a Wednesday and (b) Day 1 and Day 50 of the Pentecost calculation on Sundays. (2) Con: It puts (a) only 36 hours between Messiah’s burial and resurrection, thereby violating Scripture, and as noted above (b) Messiah’s birth in 5 BC, the wrong year.
● ¶ 4A-2 – The Biblical configuration of Holy Week does work partially (see Table 5C-2 – Biblical Holy Week in Apr 30 AD) – (1) Pro: It puts (a) Passover on a Wednesday, (b) 72 hours between Messiah’s burial and resurrection, thereby conforming to Scripture, and (c) Day 1 and Day 50 of the Pentecost calculation on Sundays. (2) Con: As noted above, it puts Messiah’s birth in August of 5 BC, the wrong year.
Subsection 4B – Passover in 33 AD
The sources that I am using to equate dates in the Jewish calendar and dates in the Gregorian calendar put Nisan 14 on Friday, April 1, 33 AD, which puts Messiah’s birth in late August of 2 BC, the right year.
● ¶ 4B-1 – The traditional configuration of Holy Week does not work (see Table 5D-1 – Traditional Holy Week in Apr 33 AD) – (A) Pro: It puts Messiah’s birth in the right year. (B) Con: It puts (a) only 36 hours between Messiah’s burial on the afternoon of Nisan 14 and His resurrection on the morning of Nisan 16, thereby violating Scripture, (b) the resurrection on Sunday afternoon after the women visited the tomb on Sunday morning, and (c) Day 1 and Day 50 of the Pentecost calculation on Mondays.
● ¶ 4B-2 – The Biblical configuration of Holy Week does not work (see Table 5D-2 – Biblical Holy Week in Apr 33 AD) – (A) Pro: It puts (a) Messiah’s birth in the right year and (b) 72 hours between Messiah’s burial on the afternoon of Nisan 14 and His resurrection on the afternoon of Nisan 17, thereby conforming to Scripture. (B) Con: It puts (a) the resurrection on Monday afternoon instead of Saturday afternoon and (b) the women visiting the tomb on Tuesday morning instead of Sunday morning.
● ¶ 4B-3 – The Biblical configuration of Holy Week works (see Table 5D-3 – Biblical Holy Week in Apr 33 AD) – (1) Pro: It puts (a) Messiah’s birth in the right year, (b) 72 hours between Messiah’s burial on the afternoon of Nisan 14 and His resurrection on the afternoon of Nisan 17, thereby conforming to Scripture, and (c) Day 1 and Day 50 of the Pentecost calculation on Sundays. (2) Con: It assumes a two-day error in the synchronization of the Jewish and Gentile calendars.
Section 5 – The Situation
None of the scenarios above meet all the criteria that I have described. There is a mistake somewhere. The most obvious source of it is me. On the other hand, I am relying heavily on the work of others – particularly for (a) the astronomical calculations and (b) the calendric calculations that (a) determine the days of the week in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and then (b) synchronize them with the Jewish calendar, all of which are complicated.
I have studied this situation for over forty years now, and I still lack a solution.
Section 6 – My Decision
My proposed reconstruction of ancient history depends on identifying when Messiah’s 30th birthday occurred in Tiberius 15, which I have done by showing that (a) John-the-Baptist began his ministry in the summer of 29 AD, (b) Messiah baptism occurred in mid-August 29 AD, and (c) Messiah’s birth occurred in the last week of August 29 AD.
Moreover I have explained that Ernest Martin points out that (a) Saturday, August 28, 2 BC was Tishri 1, (b) it was the culmination of extraordinary astronomical events leading up to it, and (c) proposed that August 28, 2 BC be recognized as Messiah’s birthday. I accept his theory. It fits perfectly with my understanding of what transpired next: (a) Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus moved from the inn’s manger to a house in Bethlehem, (b) the baby Jesus was circumcised 8 days after His birth, (c) Mary completed her ritual purification 40 days after the baby’s birth, (d) the Holy Family traveled to Jerusalem, where the baby was presented to God in the Temple, (e) the Holy Family travel to Nazareth and their actual home. Meanwhile, (a) the three magi traveled from the east to Jerusalem, reaching there circa the winter solstice on December 21, (c) the magi met with King Herod, seeking directions to the Holy Family, (d) Herod directed them south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, (e) the magi then got more up-to-date information from someone and traveled north from Jerusalem to Nazareth, while the star (Jupiter per Martin) stood stationary over Bethlehem, (f) the magi visited the holy family on December 25, 2 BC and gave their gifts to the baby Jesus, (f) the magi left, traveling east toward home, (g) probably in early 1 BC, Herod issued his edict that all the Jewish boys between 0 and 2 years old be put to death, (h) the holy family fled from Nazareth to Egypt, (i) the slaughter of the innocents occurred in 1 BC, (j) a lunar eclipse occurred on December 29, 1 BC, which was undoubtedly the day on which Herod had a man named Matthias executed and another man named Matthias deprived of the position of High Priest, and (k) Herod died in early January 1 AD.[6]
Of course that leaves me with a Holy Week in 33 AD that does not conform to the requirements of Matthew 12:40, which only make sense if Messiah lay in the grave from 6:00 pm at the end of a Wednesday, which had to be Nisan 14, to 6:00 pm at the end of a Saturday, which had to be Nisan 17, whereas the current understanding among chronologists and historians in that Nisan 14 fell on Friday, April 3, 33 AD.
Nonetheless, I will identify Wednesday, April 1, 33 AD as probably Nisan 14 (Passover) and the day on which Messiah died. I will do so because (a) I regard the Scriptures as God-breathed and totally reliable, and also (b) the historical record is riddled with errors, to which my writing on ancient chronology and history attests.
© 2022 John Holbrook Jr.
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[1] The other being Creation Week.
[2] PM stands for post meridiem (Latin for noon when the sun reaches its zenith in the middle of the day).
[3] AM stands for ante meridiem (Latin for noon when the sun reaches its zenith in the middle of the day).
[4] English lacks a term for this period of the day. In Spanish, it is called madrugada.
[5] The tables referenced in this section can be found on this website by going to (a) the Main Menu, (b) Books, (c) 02-A Biblical View of Nearly Everything, and (d) Volume 2 – Ancient Chronology, where there is a list of Tables.
[6] I discuss the issue of the location of the Magi’s visit to the Christ child at some length in my blog of December 16, 2021 entitled “O Come Let Us Adore Him.” Needless to say, I am not pleased to place it in Nazareth, not Bethlehem, but I believe that this is what Scripture indicates.