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Eyewitnesses to History: When Were the Passover Lambs Killed?

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  Recently, we published a blog post entitled “‘Historical Context’ and the Word of God,” showing that we don’t have to rely on history books or reconstructions of ancient history to understand the Word of God. The Word of God is sufficient to teach us what God requires. When it comes to Passover, the same holds true. We don’t need to rely on history books to know what day or what time of day God commanded for the Passover lambs to be killed; the Word of God is sufficient to teach us what God requires. God commanded the Israelites to kill the Passover lambs on the 14th day of the first month (Ex. 12:6; Lev. 23:5; etc.). This month was first called Abib (Ex. 13:4; 34:18; Deut. 16:1), and later came to be called Nisan (Est. 3:7), as it still is to this day. But what time of day on the 14th? God told the Israelites to kill the lambs “between the two evenings,” or bayn ha-arbayim in Hebrew. Simply by examining how God’s Word uses this phrase, we can see that it applies to the latter ...
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Major Mistakes in “Passover Observance History”!

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  A brother in the faith recently sent me a document called “Passover Observance History,” which is the appendix to a book recently released by a pastor in the United Church of God. While I haven’t read the rest of the work, it seems (based on the title) to be a harmony of the Gospels and not specifically about Passover. But this appendix makes claims about the history of Passover observance which deserve careful, Berean-style scrutiny. Here’s a summary of its five major claims: That Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread began as two separate feasts, That the Jews drifted in their understanding of Passover, moved the Passover sacrifice from the beginning of Nisan 14 to the end, and merged the two feasts into one, That this happened because the Jews briefly abandoned the Scriptural practice of beginning days at sunset and copied the Egyptian custom of beginning days at sunrise, That it wasn’t possible to kill all the Passover lambs at the temple, And that there were therefore t...
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