CHAPTER 3
THE PREPARATION DAY
The Jews even now refer to Friday as
"Preparation Day". The reason is simple. On Fridays Jewish
housewives prepare dinners for two days, so that on the Sabbath they can
rest from their normal weekly work. It is the regulation contained in the Law
of Moses, and every Jew takes it for granted. Ask them what they mean by the
expression, and they look bemused that you don’t already know all about it!
So
imagine how shocked I was when reading the following statement from a book of
daily Bible readings from the Gospels, where Harriman, the author, was quoting
a work by Professor C. A. L. Totten, entitled Harmony of the Gospels,
published in 1900. "Another fact worth noting here is that the words
"preparation day" are nowhere in all Scripture used to mean Friday,
or the day preceding the Sabbath, despite the many references to that holy day
from Genesis on."
On
reading further I found that Harriman and Totten both believed Preparation Day
was exclusively the day before the Passover. Now clearly both of these
assertions cannot be true, so how can we determine what to believe? Or should I
say, does it matter what we believe? And the answer to that
question is yes, it matters greatly what we believe, because we have to
establish the day of the week on which the crucifixion occurred. The following
investigation I made from the Bible and other literature that combined to
establish a clear answer to the question.
Before
proceeding very far with that investigation I found that those who don’t accept
Friday as the preparation day were always the ones who wanted to prove that
Jesus was not crucified on Friday, but either Wednesday or Thursday. I
even found these words written by one author - "It was the
‘Apostolic Fathers’ steeped in pagan traditions who began to
teach that the crucifixion occurred on Friday." I am amazed
that such dogmatic statements can find their way into print when a minimal
amount of research will throw up the utter nonsense of the assertion. However,
let’s get back to the actual evidence, and see what the Bible and other
literature have to say, to substantiate the simple and straightforward position
of the Jews.
One of
the early church fathers, Justin Martyr, wrote his famous document entitled Apology
for the Christians, and presented it to the Roman Emperor Antoninus
Pius. Within it he wrote these words, "For He (Jesus Christ) was
crucified on the day before that of Saturn." The day
before Saturday was therefore the day on which the early church believed Jesus
was crucified. Nothing could be clearer. Now let’s see how this compares with
the quotations in the Gospels.
Luke
23:54-56. "And that day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew
on. And the women also, which came with Him from
How can
words such as these be wrenched out of their simplicity to suggest something
other than the ordinary Friday and Sabbath? But suppose, for the sake of
argument, that the days of the week were arranged differently that year, so
that the Passover occurred mid-week. Then the Gospel writers would have used
different language to describe the circumstances. Let’s imagine such a case to
exemplify what I mean. Suppose the Lord was crucified on Tuesday, 14th
of Nisan that year. The following day, Wednesday, would by regulation have
been a High Day, a "Holy Convocation". Luke 23:54-56 would then have
read something like this - "And that day was the third day of the
week, and the next day was the High Day of the Feast. - - - and they rested on
the High Day according to the commandment."
But
surely, if any further proof be needed, the wording of John
One
further reference may be adduced, this time from Mark 15:42. "And
since it was already eventide, being the Preparation Day, that is
the day before the Sabbath - - - ." The words "the
day before the Sabbath" are PROSABBATON in Greek. All one
word. It was just another name given to Friday as well as PARASKEUE, the
Preparation Day. Now we shall see how PROSABBATION was used in the
Septuagint ("Seventy") Greek Version of the Old Testament.
In the
O.T., the "Seventy" Translators added extra headings to some of the
Psalms, which do not appear in the Massoretic Hebrew Text. Although these
headings are of little value in themselves, they do cast light on our subject,
as we shall see. There are five of them altogether -
Psalm 24. "Psalm
of David for the First Day of the Week." (Lit. first of the
Sabbath)
Psalm 48 "Psalm
of David for the Second Day of the Week." (Lit. the second
of the Sabbath)
Psalm 92 "Psalm
of a song for the Sabbath Day."
Psalm 93 "For
the Day before the Sabbath" (PROSABBATON)
Psalm 94 "Psalm
of David for the Fourth Day of the Week." (Lit. the fourth
of the Sabbath)"
It seems
impossible to misunderstand the meaning of these headings. Different Psalms
were used for different days of the week, clearly defined, and one of them was
considered best used on Friday, the "Day before the Sabbath."
But we
have further evidence, this time from the writings of Josephus. In Ant.XVI.6.2.
he says that under the government of Augustus, Jews were "not
obliged to go before any Judge on the Sabbath-day, nor on the Day
of Preparation to it (Gr. PARASKEUE), after the ninth hour."
In other words, in Josephus’s days, it was the custom of Jewish people to use
the last three hours of the day (i.e.
The
persistence of tradition is sometimes quite strange. The word PARASKEUE is
still used in modern Greek for Friday. Whereas in Jewish nomenclature is was
reserved for just three hours on Friday, but in due course came to be applied
to the whole day.
One
other reference may be adduced, this time from the Didaché,
otherwise known as The Teaching of the Apostles. In Section VIII,
we read "Let not your fastings be with the hypocrites,
for they fast on the second and the fifth day of the week, but do you keep your
fast on the fourth day and on the preparation." (Lit. the
"second of the Sabbath", the "fifth of the Sabbath", the "fourth of the Sabbath", and
"PARASKEUE").
It is
utterly impossible to assume that the word PARASKEUE can mean anything but
Friday. The fact that it was used of the Passover on one occasion in the Gospel
of John (