1 Estimates for the year of crucifixion usually settle on 30 or 33 CE, with preference for the former (Blinzler, Trial, 72-80; Brown, Death, 1373-76; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:402), including by myself (for the latter, see e.g., Duriez, Year). Still, because of potential early Jewish observational mistakes the astronomical evidence for any date remains indeterminate (Sanders, Figure, 284).
2 With Borchert, “Passover,” 316; Yee, Feasts, 68. Much of what follows is adapted from Keener, Matthew, 622-23.
3 This makes harmonization difficult (though Story, “Chronology,” thinks John agreed with Synoptic chronology here).
4 Cf. e.g., Byron, “Passover”; Boring et al., Commentary, 147.
6 Later tradition also permits apostates to partake of the meal except the lamb (Stauffer, Jesus, 210), but this prohibition is probably irrelevant here.
7 Reicke, Era, 179-82; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:396. See our fuller discussion of Jaubert’s thesis below.
11 Mk 15:42. Despite disagreement on the relation to the festival, most commentators agree that the crucifixion occurred on a Friday (Brown, Death, 1350-51). Even by the third century rabbis were not unanimous about trying and executing someone on a Sabbath (p. Sanh. 4:6, §2).
12 On the Sanhedrin wishing to kill Jesus before the feast, see comment on Matt 26:1-2, in Keener, Matthew, 617.
18 Cf. Jub. 49:10, 14; Herr, “Calendar.” The calendar of Jubilees may have had some impact on public policy in the second century BCE (Wirgin, Jubilees, 12-17, 42-43) and has some parallels with later rabbinic calendrical halakah (Grintz, “Jubilees,” 325), but in contrast to what became mainstream Judaism preserves the older solar calendar (Morgenstern, “Calendar”; cf. Marcus, “Scrolls,” 12), for which some even (probably wrongly) label it pre-Hasmonean (Zeitlin, “Jubilees,” 224; cf. Zeitlin, “Character,” 8-16). Opposition to the lunar calendar is implied even in its creation narrative (Jub. 2:9-10; cf. 6:36). This places Jubilees much closer to Qumran thought than to Pharisaism (e.g., Brownlee, “Jubilees,” 32; Baumgarten, “Beginning”; Grintz, “Jubilees,” 324); Rivkin, “Jubilees,” even thinks that Jubilees writes polemically against the Pharisaic calendar, but that could be later.
22 Cf. Brown, Essays, 207-17, arguing that John reports the real date, whereas the Synoptics report Jesus’ Last Supper a day early.
23 Shepherd, “Date.” Carson, “Matthew,” 529 also mentions other proposals, e.g., that Pharisees and Sadducees followed divergent calendars (Strack-Billerbeck) or that the Galileans followed the Pharisaic (and Synoptic) one and Judeans the Sadducean (and Johannine) one (though Josephus places most Pharisees in Jerusalem). But I suspect that a major difference in observance in the Temple would have left more trace in extant first-century sources concerning feasts (like Josephus).
25 France, Matthew, 365. One cannot argue this, however, from the lack of mention of purification or lamb; these would be taken for granted (everyone in the Roman Empire expected animal sacrifices and purifications for festivals), and it would be their omission that would have required comment (Sanders, Figure, 251).
26 See Blomberg, Reliability, 238, 254 (citing esp. Smith, “Chronology of Supper”; Carson, John, 589-90, 622; Geldenhuys, Luke, 649-70; and linguistic data in Billerbeck, Kommentar, 837-38), taking the “high” Sabbath as a Sabbath that falls on a festival (19:31), and John’s “preparation” (19:14) as for the sabbath (cf. Mk 15:42) and merely during Passover (Jn 19:14). If we did not have the Synoptic tradition, however, no one would pursue such expedients; the language more naturally suggests the preparation was for Passover as well as the sabbath. This is not to deny that John may depend on historical tradition here (with this as possibly the most workable suggestion), but to suggest that he at least exploits the ambiguity to present Jesus as the passover lamb (1:29; 19:36).
