Did the Sadducees Observe an Early-14th Passover?
Every now and then, you’ll hear someone confidently assert that the two major Jewish parties of Jesus’ day, the Pharisees and Sadducees, disagreed about when to observe Passover. I’ve heard or read this claim a handful of times in recent years, and from more than one person. They declare that the Sadducees killed the Passover lambs as soon as the sun set at the end of the Nisan/Abib 13, at the beginning of the 14th, and ate them that night, the night of the 14th. So how about it? Is this true? A few months ago, we published a study entitled, “ Eyewitnesses to History: When Were the Passover Lambs Killed? ” In it, we noted that every eyewitness account — such as the Bible, Philo, and Josephus — places the Passover sacrifice from mid to late afternoon on Nisan 14, which is both the same day and the same time that Jesus Christ died as our Passover Lamb. Later Jewish traditions written in the Mishnah and both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds fully agree. Regarding the Sadducees, ...