Monthly Archives: March 2012

Passover, Good Friday, Easter dovetail this year


I’m a sucker for calendrical serendipity.

I realize that doesn’t mean anything, but let me explain what it means: It’s when the contemporary remembrance or commemoration of an historical event lines up with the apparent event itself.

Here’s how that happens this year.

The evening of April 6, Jews will sit down to their Passover seders around sunset. That’s also a Friday evening, meaning it’s also the Sabbath, or Shabbat.

For Christians, that day is Good Friday, the day on which Yeshua was crucified.

Here’s where the calendrical serendipity or dovetailing comes in.

John’s Gospel places the crucifixion on “preparation day.” That’s seen by most scholars as a reference to the day before the weekly Sabbath, i.e., Friday before sunset. (And that’s what it is in my house, when the cooking for Sabbath and the cleaning, etc., take place.) Some others also consider “preparation day” the day on which leavened foods were removed just before Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread started. However, that is an involved process that even back then probably took more than one day.

Historically, the original Good Friday has been understood to be on, well, a Friday. In other words, preparation day for the Sabbathjust as the Feast of Passover was also about to begin that year. That would put the death of Jesus late afternoon on a Friday as people were getting their Passover lambs sacrificed and getting ready to sit down to their seders.

Now, of course, this all brings up the confusion of whether the Last Supper Yeshua had with his disciples the night before was actually a Passover seder, as is popularly believed. There is plenty of evidence that it was (Mark 14:12-16), but it may have been one according to a different reckoning, such as Sadducean or Essene. It’s very confusing, but ultimately not essential. (Here’s a piece I wrote several years ago for the Journal Star on the chronology of Holy Week. D. Thomas Lancaster of Beth Immanuel also has written on the subject.)

Who cares about all of this anyway? Well, some messianic Jewish believers in Yeshua probably do. Ultimately, we remember His death every year (we should every day, actually!) at Passover no matter what. But it really brings home the historicity of the life of the Messiah and the world in which He moved when such days come together like they do this year.

This stuff happened in space and time. It’s no fantasy.

But we also remember His resurrection at this time. Most messianics call it the Feast of First Fruits as they try to avoid any alleged pagan connection with that day called “Easter.” The Feast of First Fruits involved bringing in the first of the barley crop in Israel during the week of Unleavened Bread. Due to differing interpretations of Leviticus 23:9-14, some messianics side with (Pharisaic) Jewish tradition and mark it on the second day of Passover. Others side with a Sadduceean sect that said it was on the first day of the week. That means that some years, First Fruits would fall during the week for the followers of Pharisaic tradition, but it would always fall on the first day of the week (Saturday sunset to Sunday sunset) for those siding with the Sadduceean sect.

This year, though, all of that is washed away. With the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread on a Friday-Saturday, both interpretations land the Feast of First Fruits, and, thus, the commemoration of the Resurrection, on Saturday-Sunday. (That will also unite the two factions in their observance of Pentecost/Shavuot 49 days later. See Leviticus 23:15-21.)

It’s kind of like when Western Christians and Eastern Christians celebrate Easter at the same time.


Mike Miller also blogs at The Corner Tassel.

How Much is Life Worth?

How Much is Life Worth?

“And how much is his life worth is what I say to you?

As I sit here right now watching the evening news?

How much is his life worth, cause it can’t be true.

We’re dying over different points of view.

So how much is his life worth to you?”   Music group Native Deen


The fear of the “other.”

An assassin drives up and places a magnetic bomb on the car of an Iranian civilian scientist and kills him and his companions.

A disturbed soldier slips from his base and systematically kills women and children in a village in Afghanistan.

A misguided young man cold bloodedly guns down soldiers and school children and a rabbi in France.

A man chases, confronts and kills an unarmed black teenager talking to his girlfriend on the phone in his own neighborhood.


Innocent lives lost in the cold calculus of fear and hate for the “other.” We have devalued life to the point that taking it seems trivial.

The words of the young African American singing group should be pondered in light of this recent death toll of innocents.

Truly, as I sat and listened to the news reports from around the world I have been asking myself these questions:

At what point do we reclaim our humanity and stop the insane killing and start listening and respecting each other?

At what point do we wake up and remember that we are all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve … that we share the same globe called Earth?

When are we going to remember what ALL of our faith traditions say about the taking of life and how strongly God condemns and punishes it?

At what point do we say to the purveyors of hate that we have had enough?

When are we going to say, “I may disagree with my brother or my sister, I may not look like them or eat like them or play or sing like them … but they are my fellow human beings and for the sake of Allah (God), I still love them and pray for them?”


New Noah movie to be ‘edgy’

A new Noah movie by Darren Aronofsky is in the works, apparently, and there's talk that Russell Crowe (Gladiator) will play the title role.

That'd be cool, but here's the problematic part of the report:


But didn't we already have that in the classic mess Noah's Ark, released on NBC in 1999? That one, with Jon Voight as Noah, veered sharply away from the biblical story in a lot of aspects, and in essence mocked the whole story. It seemed to be a parody. 

It'd be nice to have a film version that's faithful to the text. If you know of any besides The Bible (1966), let me know.

Other Bible-based movies I'd like to see: one about the prophet Elijah, another about Solomon. 

How about you? What Bible movies would you like to see made?


‘Biblically Kosher': Something for messianics to chew on

Go to most messianic gatherings and one of the first things you'll figure out is that this faith group may single-handedly keep the slow-cooker industry in business.

The post-service buffet is typically covered by starch-laden foods that have been simmering for hours in their porcelain pots. But these congregations also will typically post warnings on their web sites or in their "About …" brochures for those newbies thinking about contributing to the community Crock-Pot combo the next time: "We're biblically kosher," it'll say, or "We're Leviticus 11 kosher."

But are they kosher?

"Leviticus 11 kosher" maybe. Maybe. If you're just going by which foods are allowed to be consumed by the children of Israel and which aren't. And even then it's questionable. Kashrut laws extend far beyond that chapter of the Bible. They're sprinkled throughout the Torah.

"Biblically kosher" is a safer claim. It's intended to signal that "We don't worry about the rabbinic/manmade kosher laws of the Jews." Just avoid pork and shellfish, and you're good to go.

Or not, according to Aaron Eby, author of Biblically Kosher: Revealing the Sources of Dietary Laws in Judaism (First Fruits of Zion, 190 pages, $15).

Keeping kosher according to Scripture is a lot more complicated than just avoiding pork and shellfish, Eby writes.

He develops his argument very methodically, an Eby (and FFOZ) trademark, building from the most general matters (e.g., why keeping kosher is still an issue at all) to very specific matters by the end (keeping kosher in a messianic community).

On the way, Eby (who blogs here on kashrut) lays out the case for the continued application of the kashrut laws found in Torah. He first has to respond to arguments that any of the laws given specifically to the Children of Israel were overturned when Messiah came. Eby builds his case by turning to such passages as Matthew 5:17-20, Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and Acts 15. He then deftly handles anti-kosher arguments found in interpretations of Mark 7 (where Jesus argues with Pharisees over handwashing and supposedly declares "all foods clean"), Acts 10 (Peter's vision of the sheet and animals) and other passages in the Apostolic Scriptures.

In fact, Eby's handling of Mark 7 is the clearest  explanation I've ever read of that passage. Tim Hegg discussed it also in his Why We Keep Torah: Ten Essential Questions course, but in a much more complex manner that wasn't wholly satisfactory. Eby drives home the point that a proper understanding of purity laws is essential to understanding the Master's teaching here.

Having laid that ground work, Eby gets into the particulars of keeping kosher found in the Torah. Possibly the most vitally new discussion here is that of consumption of blood and exactly what it means when it comes to slaughtering an animal. Did rabbinic tradition make up these standards? Is USDA-sanctioned slaughter or backyard butchering good enough? No, says Eby on both counts, explaining what the Torah (and the Jerusalem Council) means when it talks about "strangled meat."

This has implications not just for the messianic community, which in my experience eschews kosher-slaughtered meat as unnecessary, but for all Christians. If Acts 15 is to be understood as having meaning and force for today, then any Gentile Christian buying any kind of meat also should only be buying meat that has been kosher-slaughtered. (And what does that mean for pork lovers? Well, find a kosher butcher who handles pork and I'll let you know.)

Again, Eby prowls through this topic carefully and thoroughly, as he does the milk-meat-mixture topic.

Whether someone keeping kosher should also abstain from mixing meat and dairy products in dishes and even at the same meal has long been regarded as "a classic example of a non-biblical rabbinic ruling." Eby shows, however, that it's a legitimate interpretation of the verses stating that "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk" (Exodus 23:19 and 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21). He does not, though, make a definitive statement on whether he believes milk and meat should be kept separate, instead laying out the evidence and letting the reader decide.

He finally discusses the issues raised in messianic communities, and argues for "an atmosphere of diversity of practice and mutual acceptance." Messianic believers are notorious for coming up with individual standards or being critical of those with higher or lower standards than they have. Eby says that one should both respect the other's level of kashrut while at the same time striving to maintain table fellowship.

Finally, he points out the benefit for Gentile believers of keeping some level of kosher on a spiritual level. He also discusses the Acts 15 mandates from the Apostles and points out that "By purchasing certified kosher meat, Gentiles are able to observe the prohibition of consuming blood while honoring the Jewish people who preserved this Torah practice for thousands of years."

Biblically Kosher is a useful and needed guide in today's still-young messianic movement. It brings balance and clarity to the discussion of kashrut, and should be a step toward greater observance of biblical law by both Jewish and Gentiles believers in the Messiah. Hopefully, it'll also be food for thought at those starchy messianic onegs.

This was originally posted on The Corner Tassel.

Is there a common mistake about faithfulness?

One of the most mistaken ideas is:  What is faithfulness?

The most common idea seems to be:  Faithfulness means always believing what you have always believed.  For example, during times of persecution or peer pressure.  Not caving in.   That's fine. But faithfulness gets stretched even to mean:  What you were told in Sunday school as a youngster–about Noah's Flood and Adam & Eve and God creating the world in 6 days–that's still what you are to believe as an adult!

In the Bible itself, faithfulness is often exemplified not by stubborn belief–rather, by changing!

In the day of Jesus, people typically thought that infirmity was caused by punishment from God. "Whose sin caused this man to be born blind–his parents' or his own?" the Apostles asked Jesus.  "Neither," He replied.

Here's new information.  Can people adjust?

Jesus often dealt with religious authorities who would not change with the new information He was presenting to them–thus He employed the parable of new wine being poured into old wineskins (which were too worn out to hold the wine).

In the day of the Old Testament, people typically thought that wealth was a blessing from God.  Jesus disabused people of this notion:  The rich, He said, will have a more difficult time gaining access to heaven than a camel going through the eye of a needle.

Jesus turned on its head the common correlation that wealth meant God's favor.  People had to adjust to this new information.

Above all, what people had to adjust to was–the Messiah Himself.  Typically, people thought the Messiah would bring about an overthrow of the Roman authority, restoring the ancient Kingdom of Israel.  One of Jesus' most difficult assignments was convincing people that he wasn't THAT kind of Messiah.

By the time the Epistles and Gospels were written, believers had learned to adjust.  God was no longer thought of as blessing people with physical things like wealth nor cursing others with illness nor favoring  one people vs. another (like favoring believers over pagans, since God makes the rain to fall and the Sun to shine on all).

But what remains as one of the most stubborn beliefs is–the belief that faithfulness means NOT adjusting.

To me, the most dynamic and exciting faithfulness is–GROWING.  To grow in relation to new truth is a "leap of faith." It shows impressive confidence in God.  God will not abandon those who dare risk learning something new.

Evolution has often been opposed on the grounds that it means being unfaithful to the Bible.  How many people are wedded to belief in creationism because of a mistaken idea of faithfulness?  Rather than growing with new truth, they think faithfulness means hunkering down to insist on creationism though scientific evidence to the contrary abounds.  Paleontologist Niles Eldredge of the American Musem of Natural History calls such stubbornness "willful ignorance."

I'm continuing a series of talks on "Evolution and the Bible–how to believe BOTH" on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. at the Westminster Presbyterian Church.   Two more sessions are scheduled.  This week the topic will be Noah's Flood.