When was the Resurrection of Jesus?

Understanding the Passover Connection...

Every year I get asked when the resurrection of Yeshua likely occurred in relation to the date of Passover. The reason for the confusion, I think, is that the Jewish calendar is different than the secular calendar, and the date for Passover is not fixed in relation to it. To get an understanding of the issues, we must first keep in mind that the biblical “Day” (capitalized) begins at nightfall, which may seem a bit counter-intuitive. This is based on the Torah’s definition of a day as the time between “evening and the morning” (עֶרֶב וָבֹקְר) repeatedly used in the account of the creation. Hence we speak of Passover as occurring just after nightfall of Nisan 15, and continuing through the night and throughout the day until the following nightfall, which then becomes Nisan 16. Remember that together the “night-day” span of time is considered a biblical “Day.”

Now with this distinction carefully in mind, we can try to make sense of the time of the early Passover of Yeshua and his resurrection from the dead three nights and days later...

First, we know that Yeshua had an early Passover seder with his disciples, because as the “Lamb of God,” he would have to be sacrificed on Nisan 14, during the time the Passover lambs were slaughtered at the Temple (recall that the original Passover lamb was slaughtered and its blood daubed on the doorways before nightfall in Egypt (Exod. 12:6-7). Therefore Yeshua's seder would be on afternoon of Nisan 13 (a Wednesday), which would move into the first hours of the Nisan 14 after the seder was complete. After the seder, then, on Wednesday night, Yeshua left for the grove of Gethsemane (גת שמנים) at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where he underwent his agony, was betrayed by Judas, and was arrested (Matt. 26:30-50).

Early in early morning of Nisan 14 (i.e., Thursday morning) the “chief priests and elders” conspired to take Yeshua before Pilate to be executed (Matt. 27:1-33). Because it was the day before Passover, however, they asked Pilate to break the legs of those being crucified so that their bodies would not remain on the cross during the Passover "High Sabbath" (John 19:31). This meant that Yeshua would have to be quickly tried and judged so that he would be dead before the Passover began at nightfall... Hence the priests and elders roused the rabble to call for Yeshua's immediate condemnation, despite Pilate's protestations (Mark 15:9-15). Yeshua was condemned to die by crucifixion sometime the late morning of Nisan 14.

Therefore on Nisan 14, from noon until three in the afternoon on Thursday, darkness covered the land, and Yeshua then cried out אֵלִי אֵלִי לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). A few moments later, He died upon the cross (his legs were left unbroken because he had already died before the Roman soldiers executed the order to break the legs). At the moment of his death, however, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom, there was an earthquake that shook the area, and many miracles occurred (Matt. 27:50-54). Later that afternoon, Joseph of Arimathaea asked Pilate for permission to bury the body of Yeshua before the sun would set that day (Matt. 27:57-58).

So we see that Yeshua was crucified and died on the day before the Passover, during the afternoon of Nisan 14, which is considered a “half day” in the “three days and nights” of being in the earth before his resurrection from the dead (Matt. 12:40).

Yeshua remained in the tomb throughout the first two (full) Days of Passover, that is, from Nisan 15 (from nightfall until following nightfall on Friday) and on Nisan 16 (from nightfall until following nightfall on Saturday), and He was resurrected sometime at on the night of Nisan 17, before sunrise on Sunday morning when the women at the tomb discovered the stone had been rolled away and Yeshua's body was gone (Matt 28:1; John 20:1).

So, transposing this to the secular calendar for this year, Yeshua held his early Passover seder on Nisan 13th (Wednesday), which became Nisan 14th at sundown. That night he was betrayed and arrested, and early the following morning (Thursday) he was brought to Pilate for judgment by crucifixion. He died later that afternoon, at the time of the sacrifice of the lambs at the Temple, on Nisan 14, and was buried before sundown. He was in the tomb for all of Nisan 15 and Nisan 16, and was raised from the dead sometime during the night of Nisan 17 (Saturday) -- before the women discovered the empty tomb (Sunday morning). Again, the benefit of this reckoning is that it accounts for the prophecy of Yeshua that he would be in the earth for “three days and three nights.”

­

I realize there may be questions about this way of understanding the timing of the resurrection of Yeshua, but this account is in harmony with the basic facts of the Passover holiday and how it served as a “type” or foretelling of the death, burial, and resurrection of our LORD. Happy Passover and Yom Bikkurim, chaverim!

­

Psalm 16:10

כִּי לֹא־תַעֲזֹב נַפְשִׁי לִשְׁאוֹל
לֹא־תִתֵּן חֲסִידְךָ לִרְאוֹת שָׁחַת

“For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol;
you will not permit your holy one to see destruction.”

­

­

Psalm 16:10 Hebrew page (pdf)

­