Jesus was crucified during the feast of Passover around 30 AD and was raised to life three days later. Since then, faithful Christians have commemorated this historic event every year. But what is the proper date to celebrate this holiday?
This was one of the many questions that early believers debated during the first three centuries of Christianity, with various factions of the religion celebrating on different days. Amidst disagreement as to which day was the correct day, in 325 AD the Roman Emperor Constantine gathered hundreds of bishops from around the world to settle this question (and several others) once and for all. By the end of the council, an official date for Pascha[1] (the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Pesach, meaning “Passover”) was not set, but two determinations were made:
- All Christians should celebrate on the same day
“It was determined by common consent that everyone, everywhere should celebrate it on one and the same day. For what can be more appropriate, or what more solemn, than that this feast from which we have received the hope of immortality, should be kept by all without variation, using the same order and a clear arrangement?”[2]
- The date of Pascha should be determined independent of the Jewish community
“It seemed very unworthy for us to keep this most sacred feast following the custom of the Jews… Since we have cast aside their way of calculating the date of the festival, we can ensure that future generations can celebrate this observance at the more accurate time which we have kept from the first day of the passion until the present time… Therefore have nothing in common with that most hostile people, the Jews. We have received another way from the Savior. In our holy religion we have set before us a course which is both valid and accurate.”[3]
Nowadays the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter generally coincide, except for three years[4] out of every nineteen-year cycle. As faithful Christians who want to honor Jesus on the correct day, should we celebrate during Jewish Passover or on Easter Sunday? Should we observe Jesus’ resurrection at the same time that the Jews observe the deliverance from Egypt, or were the Nicene bishops correct to separate themselves from the Jewish calculations?
What the Bible Says
Even before the crucifixion of Jesus, Passover was about more than the escape from Egyptian slavery. It seems that God placed many deliverances during this week-long festival. To name just a few,
- Lot was delivered from Sodom and Gomorrah during Passover
- Joshua entered the Promised Land during Passover
- Daniel received the vision of the return from Babylonian captivity during Passover
- Esther’s fast for the deliverance of the Jews from Haman occurred during Passover
The original Passover had become the template for God’s great and ever-present salvation. In fact, Passover had become so synonymous with God’s deliverance that Jeremiah prophesied the Messiah’s eventual deliverance of mankind would mirror and yet outshine the original Passover (Jeremiah 16:14-16, 23:5-8).
Given the history, symbolism, and importance of Passover, it’s no surprise that Jesus died on the cross during this feast. Just as Jesus had rescued the Israelites from slavery to Egypt during Passover (Jude 1:5), so too did He rescue humanity from slavery to sin and death during this feast.
Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, God repeatedly gave the date of the Passover as the fourteenth day of Abib—the first month:
“In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at the evening, you shall eat unleavened bread…” (Exodus 12:18)
“The Feast of Unleavened Bread[5] you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.” (Exodus 34:18)
“On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day[6] of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord…” (Leviticus 23:5, 6)
“Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.” (Deuteronomy 16:1)
Turning to the New Testament accounts, all four gospels record that Jesus’ crucifixion occurred during Passover:
“Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And [Pilate] said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’ …Then he delivered Him to [the chief priests] to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led Him away.” (John 19:14, 16[7])
If the people of God are looking for the date on which they should celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the days during the weeklong celebration of Passover/Unleavened Bread would be the answer.
More specifically, Jesus’ death and burial would have taken place on the first Friday of the Passover week:
“Now when evening had come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath [the day before Saturday, i.e., Friday]… he laid Him in a tomb…” (Mark 15:42, 46)
…while His glorious resurrection would have taken place during the first Sunday of Passover:
“Now on the first day of the week [Sunday] Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.” (John 20:1)
Jesus was crucified before sunset on the 14th day of the first month (a Friday); He was in the tomb on the 15th day of the first month (a Saturday); and He rose from the dead shortly before sunrise on the 16th day of the first month (a Sunday).[8]
What the Jews Do
In determining the proper dates to recognize these historical events, one must examine when the Jewish community and Christian community celebrate these holidays—and how they arrived at those dates. Today, observant Jews enjoy a Passover meal at sundown, just after the fourteenth day ends and the fifteenth day begins, during what they consider the first month of the year—the month of Nisan. This appears accurate to the biblical commission, but when does their first month begin—and why do they call it Nisan rather than Abib?
There is no exact history on when the first month of the biblical calendar was supposed to begin, but what is known is that the methodology for calculating the start of this month has changed several times throughout the history of the Jewish people. From the time that the Passover was given to Moses and the Israelites (1446 BC) until the time of the Babylonian captivity (586 BC), the first month was called Abib—Hebrew for “barley ripening.” It is unknown how the new year was determined during this period, but it is agreed that the first day of each month was announced upon the first observation of the crescent moon immediately following a new moon and that the first month began near the spring equinox.[9] Each year typically had twelve months, and every few years a thirteenth “leap month” was added to keep Passover from drifting too close to winter.[10]
After the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered in 586 BC, Jews en masse were exiled to Babylon. Here they were introduced to the more sophisticated calendar of Babylonia, which was based not on agriculture but strictly on the movements of the sun and the moon. The exiled Jews quickly adopted the precise Babylonian methodology (and a new Babylonian name for the first month of the year—Nisan, meaning “beginning”) while living in a foreign land, and—upon their return to the Promised Land in 539 BC—continued determining their feasts based on astronomy.
Using the Babylonian method to sort their calendar, the first day of the year (1 Nisan) would fall on the day after the new moon closest to the spring equinox, while Passover (14 Nisan) would always fall on the first full moon on or after the spring equinox.
This rationale continued from the Babylonian captivity until well into the first century AD. In The Antiquities of the Jews, which was written in 93 AD, Josephus writes:
“But in the month of Xanthicus, which is by us called Nisan, and is the beginning of our year, on the fourteenth day of the Lunar month, when the sun is in Aries;[11] for on this month it was that we were delivered from bondage under the Egyptians: the law ordained that we should every year slay that sacrifice which I before told you we slew when we came out of Egypt; and which is called the Passover.” (The Antiquities of the Jews, 3.10.5)
This system was not without its problems. Given that the first month could begin fourteen days before the spring equinox, adherence to this system required both an accurate observation of new moons as well as a foreknowledge of when the spring equinox would begin.[12] When the Sanhedrin was confident that the stars had aligned properly, they would announce the new year and the people could begin preparing for the upcoming Passover.[13]
After the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD, the determination for the Hebrew new year—and thus the proper dating for the Passover—became fractured within the Jewish community, with various groups using different standards and thus celebrating on different days. For instance, Rabbi Jose ben Halafta suggested the following criteria for establishing a new year:
“A year may be intercalated on three grounds: for the ripening of the grain, for the fruit of the trees, and for the equinox. Any two of these can justify intercalation, but not one alone.” (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 11b)
Rabbi Shimeon ben Gamaliel offered a different view, suggesting that the month of Nisan should be pushed back thirty days if “the pigeons are still tender and the spring lambs thin” (Sanhedrin 11a). Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi said the new year should be delayed a month if the spring equinox is over twenty days away, while others suggested it should be delayed if the equinox is only sixteen days (Mishnah Sanhedrin 12b). There was also disagreement concerning whether a leap month could be added to adjust the timing of Sukkot,[14] as well as whether leap months could be used during successive years or during sabbath years.
Without an objective, universal standard, the Sanhedrin would end up deciding when the new year had begun based on some combination of the above rationales, and these often varied from year to year. Those abroad had no way to know when the new year would begin, which led to scattered communities either waiting for messengers to arrive with the message that Nisan had officially been declared or celebrating Passover on the day they figured it would most likely fall on. This disparate methodology continued for almost a thousand years, with historical records revealing many distinct dates and competing calculations for Passover throughout the first millennium AD, even in the same year.
According to a tenth century tradition, Hillel the Nasi[15] proposed a fixed nineteen-year calendar in the year 359 AD.[16] However, this idea didn’t gain widespread attention until the ninth century. Sometime after 836 AD, the Jewish community began using a repeating nineteen-year cycle to determine the beginning of the month of Nisan. Adjustments were made over the next ninety years, and around 924 AD this new calendar system reached its modern form by applying the nineteen-year cycle to the Julian Calendar. This system is still in use by the Jewish community today.
Since the modern Hebrew calendar is based on a fixed timeline and not the actual movements of the sun, it is slightly out-of-sync with the solar year. As a result, the Hebrew calendar drifts by approximately two hours every nineteen years, which has led to a roughly five-day shift since its inception in the tenth century. Eventually this discrepancy will push Passover into summer, Sukkot into winter, and Hanukkah into spring. Jewish scholars have suggested that this shift will need to be rectified eventually, but currently there are no plans to adjust the calendar.
What the Christians Do
After the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus occurred during the Passover festival, followers of Jesus continued celebrating the Passover in the context of this momentous event. Evidence in the Book of Acts demonstrates that the apostle Paul and his ministry team observed Passover while living in gentile Philippi (Acts 20:6), and Paul explicitly connects Jesus’ passion to the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1 Corinthians 5:7).
While there was general agreement among Christians that the crucifixion and resurrection should be celebrated during the month of Nisan, disagreement arose concerning on which day of the month it should be observed. Bishops in the East, led by Polycrates of Ephesus, “held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Jews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should be observed as the feast of the Savior’s Passover.”[17] In a 195 AD letter, Polycrates cited half a dozen Christians throughout history, including the apostle John and Polycarp of Smyrna, who also observed the crucifixion on the fourteenth day of Nisan.
On the other hand, bishops in the west, led by the Roman African Bishop Victor I, contended that the resurrection should always be celebrated on a Sunday—albeit the Sunday during the weeklong Feast of Unleavened Bread. This necessitated that the crucifixion be observed on a Friday during Passover, which wouldn’t always fall on the fourteenth.
Though much ink and several synods were convened, no decision was reached. All parties involved agreed to live peaceably despite the difference and their various congregations continued observing these holidays between 14 Nisan and 22 Nisan.
This tacit arrangement continued for the next century and a half, but dissatisfaction arose concerning the method of deciding when Nisan had officially begun. During this time the Jewish people lacked a consistent technique for determining the new year. As such, Christian churches depended on an announcement from their local Jewish community. And depending on where you lived, the date you received from the Jews in your region might differ by as much as thirty days from the date celebrated a few towns away.
There was also a general acknowledgement that the dates provided by the Jews, inconsistent or not, were based on a relative system foreign to the calculations of old. Anatolius of Laodicea wrote in 260 AD that the Jews, whose newer system could place the Passover before the spring equinox, had “committed no slight or common blunder” in abandoning the calendar system used from the sixth century BC until the destruction of the second temple. He continued,
“And this is not an opinion of our own, but it was known to the Jews of old, even before Christ, and was carefully observed by them.”
Looking back into Jewish history, he cited Philo, Josephus, Musaeus, “and not only them, but also those yet more ancient, the two Agathobuli, surnamed ‘masters,’ and the famous Aristobulus, who was chosen among the seventy interpreters of the sacred and divine Hebrew Scriptures” as those who used the older system:
“These writers, explaining questions in regard to the Exodus, say that all alike should sacrifice the Passover offerings after the spring equinox, in the middle of the first month.”[18]
The growing sentiment was that—since the Jewish community had abandoned the calendar which was in place during the latter years of the Hebrew Scriptures, during the life and ministry of Jesus, and during the early church—it didn’t make sense to rely on their inconsistent and constantly evolving guidance in determining the official dates of Passover.
Disagreement continued for another sixty years, until, amid growing confusion, Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to address this topic (along with the Arian heresy). At the council, bishops from around the world argued for a variety of possible solutions. Some wanted to rely on the Jewish calendar, while others wanted to break away and return to the ancient and thus “correct” system for dating Nisan. Some felt the observance should always occur on Sunday, while others felt it should always occur on the 14th day of the lunar month.
At the conclusion of the Nicene Council, the bishops had formally resolved the issue. While no formal calculation was established, it was agreed that Pascha would be determined independently from the Jews. Within a century, the Church widely adopted a calendar system based on the methodology that had been in place during the life of Jesus[19]: the fourteenth of Nisan would fall on the first full moon on or after the spring equinox, and Pascha in turn would be celebrated on the following Sunday.[20] The consensus was that this calculation wasn’t new but instead was that “which we have kept from the first day of the passion,” and by returning to this tradition they had “set before us a course which is both valid and accurate.”[21]
Differences Between the Calendars
Today both the Christians and the Jews use a nineteen-year calendar first developed by Anatolius. While the calendars mostly align, the Jewish calendar places Jewish Passover a month after Christian Easter three times every nineteen-year cycle. This is because the Christian calculation is based on the spring equinox while the Jewish calculation is fixed to the now defunct Julian calendar. As a result, the dates for Jewish Passover are slowing shifting toward summer. Unless Jewish calendar is updated, more and more dates on the nineteen-year cycle will shift further from the spring equinox over the coming centuries.[22]
Which System Should Christians Use Today?
The proper date to observe Pascha is during the week of Passover/Unleavened Bread, from 14 Nisan to 22 Nisan. Both the Jews and the Christians agree on this but disagree on when the month of Nisan begins. And throughout history, the standard for calculating the month of Nisan has changed many times, with (according to many scholars) a seemingly foreign system adopted from Babylon even being used during the ministry of Jesus (not to mention replacing the Hebrew name of the month with the Babylonian name).
As the Jews and Christians each believe they are celebrating during the correct month of Nisan and the Bible doesn’t define when Nisan should begin, it could be argued that both are striving for the spirit of the law and thus neither are provably in error.
However, while neither system can be condemned, it is my opinion that the current Christian system is more faithful than the others, for the following three reasons:
First, it was the system in place during the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. According to a plethora of Jewish sources, Jesus would have celebrated Passover during the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. He would have eaten His last supper and died upon the cross during the Nisan based on this system. And He would have been raised from the dead on the Sunday following the fourteenth of this Nisan. Additionally, Peter, Paul, and the rest of the early church would have observed the feast using this system.
Secondly, third century Christians had the authority to break from the Jews and adopt this system. As has been mentioned, the Jews changed their calendar on multiple occasions. In fact, several of these changes occurred after they had rejected the Messiah, rendering their religious service unfaithful to the Torah. If the Jesus-denying Jewish community had the authority to break from the past and update their calendar, how much more would a Church submitted to Christ have the authority to break from the present and return to the ways of old?
Finally, the Christian system is based on the motions of the sun while the Jewish system is based on a defunct Roman calendar. While the Christian system was established within the context of the Roman Empire, it doesn’t actually place the celebration of Pascha within the confines of a Roman calendar; it instead uses the spring equinox and the phases of the moon. The Jewish calendar, on the other hand, uses a Roman calendar established by Julius Caesar rather than the equinox. And given the slight inaccuracy of the Julian calendar, the Jewish system will have to eventually be changed yet again.
For these reasons, it is my belief that the Christian Pascha is the more accurate date to celebrate Christ our Passover. However, Jesus isn’t only the Lamb of God on the fourteenth of Nisan, nor is He only alive on Sundays.
“I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.” (Revelation 1:18)
As believers in the Messiah, we should remember His broken body and His shed blood whenever we gather together, and we should rejoice in the power of His resurrection at all times. The most proper day to observe the Passover Lamb is every day, and he who recognizes the Lordship of Christ shall not be condemned, whether he recognizes it using my preferred Paschal system or not.
[1] Pascha is the common and historical name for Easter. To this day, most languages refer to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection as some form of Pascha (Spanish: Pascua, French: Pâques, Dutch: Pasen, Filipino: Pasko, Hawaiian: Pakoa, Turkish: Paskalya, Swahili: Pasaka, and so on); while a handful of languages (like English, German, and Japanese) use some variant of the word Easter. The first recorded use of the word Easter was in 725, when the Venerable Bede wrote that “Eosturmonath [the month of Easter] has a name now translated ‘Paschal month,’ and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre” (The Reckoning of Time, Chapter 15: The English Months). Ironically, he was commenting how Pascha took place during the English month of Eostre (an old English deity unknown to history except for Bede’s passing reference), but his pointing this out caused the English people to adopt the name Easter for the holiday season.
[2] Source: Vita Constantini, Book III.17-20 (Eusebius).
[3] Source: ibid.
[4] While the dates currently vary three times every nineteen years, this discrepancy will grow as time goes on (albeit slowly). By the year 3000, for instance, there will be six discrepancies every nineteen years.
[5] “Passover” originally referred to the sacrificial lamb that was slain on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the first month. This was followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which began that evening and lasted seven days. Over time, the term “Passover” began to describe the meal eaten on the first night of Unleavened Bread (i.e., the Passover Seder), and nowadays it’s not uncommon for the entire weeklong festival to be called Passover.
[6] Because Genesis 1 recounts each day with the words “so the evening and the morning were the [first/second/etc.] day,” the traditional Biblical calendar day begins at sunset rather than at midnight. Thus, “the fifteenth day” began at sundown a few hours after the Passover sacrifice of the fourteenth day, not twenty-four hours later.
[7] Similar accounts are recorded in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Corinthians 5.
[8] It should be noted that, while scripture seems to indicate these were the calendar dates and weekdays of these events, there is scholarly debate as to which exact weekday and which calendar date during the weeklong festival all of these things happened. Regardless, there is universal agreement that these events took place during the Paschal season.
[9] Most scholars believe that, before the Babylonian exile, Israelites used agricultural observation rather than astronomical observance to determine when the spring equinox would occur. However, as there are no records indicating their methodology during this time, this is educated speculation.
[10] A lunar month is about 29.5 days long, meaning a twelve-month lunar year is about 354. This is a little over eleven days short of a solar year (~365.2425 days), so leap months are occasionally added to make up for this eleven-day drift into winter.
[11] That is, after the spring equinox.
[12] It is recorded that when a Jew saw the first slivers of a crescent moon, he was to report it immediately to the Sanhedrin. This witness would then select the shape and rotation of the crescent moon from a lineup of several possible choices to confirm that the shape they claimed to have seen matched the shape predicted during that time of year. Only when two witnesses had been confirmed to have seen the correct moon phase would the Sanhedrin officially declare that the new month had begun.
[13] A comical historical detail reveals that when the Sanhedrin observed a new moon, they would light signal fires to inform the nation of the change in month. The Samaritans, always a thorn in the side of the Jews, interrupted this practice by lighting fake signal fires to throw off the celebration of Biblical feasts. To ward against this, the Jews began sending messengers rather than relying on signal fires. However, this method took much longer, resulting in far-off communities missing feasts by a day or so. To be safe, Jewish communities outside of Israel would estimate the true day of the feast and begin the celebration both a day early and the next day—to ensure the feast was celebrated on the correct day. This is why modern Jewish families living in the diaspora observe feasts for two days, while those in Israel only observe for one day.
[14] Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, is an eight-day fall festival celebrated during the seventh month of the Biblical calendar.
[15] Nasi means “prince” in Hebrew, revealing Hillel II was a leader of the Sanhedrin during the fourth century.
[16] The fixed nineteen-year lunar calendar was first proposed by Christian bishop Anatolius of Laodicea almost a hundred years earlier.
[17] Source: Church History, Book V.23.1 (Eusebius).
[18] Source: Church History, Book VII.32.15-17 (Eusebius).
[19] Anatolius proposed this system in 260 AD, and in addition to being formally adopted by the Church a century later, six hundred years later it also became the basis for the Jewish calendar in use today.
[20] Not all Christian churches use this system today. The Orthodox Church, for instance, adds an additional rule to the above criteria: it must occur after Jewish Passover.
[21] Source: Vita Constantini, Book III.17-20 (Eusebius).
[22] Ironically, the impetus for the Christians breaking from the Jewish calendar was because the system of the third century placed too many Passovers before the spring equinox. The Jews’ current system—put in place during the tenth century—now places too many Passovers over a month after the spring equinox.
Garrett Milovich 