THE GOSPEL OF THE HEBREWS (1st - mid 2nd century) Questions.

[alon]

Aug 15, 2019 14:14:54 GMT -8 rakovsky said:

Well, I don't want you to feel bad for expressing your views. You were not being hostile toward me. I appreciate your replies and that we can have the discussion. There is another Messianic forum called Eliyah that I would like to join, but it requires "Belief that we should... use the original names for the Father and the Messiah instead of substitutes... such as Adonai, the LORD, HaShem." I don't know that I would be truthful if I signed up for such a forum, since I think it's fine to refer to the Most High in such ways as He is called by holy people in the Bible. So I am glad that you and I can have this discussion and being allowed to ask and answer our questions instead of being censored out. 

I don't feel bad, but a lot of people come here and read but don't post. I didn't want to offend anyone. And I've been called out on my straightforward manner of speaking by regular posters here, so I figure I should listen. I can't modify my speech much and remain truthful, but I can apologize and explain! So I do.

rakovsky said: I've seen Orthodox writers point to Messianic Judaism as evidence for the validity of basic belief in Yeshua as the Messiah, so actually Messianic Judaism appears to have value even for Eastern Orthodox, even if in other ways Orthodox were to disagree with it. There are also Eastern Orthodox who keep like Messianic Jews. But that is a topic for another thread.

By "Orthodox" I assume you mean Eastern or Greek Orthodox writers. And I write my replies knowing you and all Orthodoxy disagree with some of what I say. I'm just glad you find value in some of it!


Dan C 

[rakovsky]

Thanks for your replies, Dan.

For Question 6 (the meaning of the name Barabbas), Barabbas is Greek and comes from the Aramaic term Bar Abba בּר אבא‎ , which apparently means "Son of the Father". Abba in Aramaic is "Father", like "Av" in Hebrew. It shows up this way in Romans 8:15 ("You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by which we [like Yeshua] call out, 'Abba! Father!").

Normally the manuscripts have him just called Barabbas, but a few Greek manuscripts have Pilate ask the crowd: "Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?" According to one theory, the text originally said "Jesus", but later editors removed this as offensive. For example, Origen knew of this text variant and theorized that the text did not originally have "Jesus" for the robber's first name because, Origen claimed, no other sinners are called Jesus in the Bible.

In my mind, the robber's name of "Jesus Barabbas" would accord with the Yom Kippur ritual where one goat was released and another was killed. It could also allude to Yeshua being the "Son of the Father" (ie. the Son of God) and contrasting him with Jesus Barabbas, whose name literally means the same thing. Yeshua referred to God as His "Father" and he was often called "teacher" (rabban).

Paul Sumner notes that Josephus called rebel Sicarii "deceivers" and pretended to "exhibit manifest wonders and signs". According to one hypothesis, Pilate's offer of a choice between the two Yeshuas is typological, where the crowd can decide whether it wants the kind of Yeshua that the Nazarene represents or the other kind who is an anti-Roman murderous rebel. Regarding the historicity of the Roman practice of setting a prisoner free annually, the Jewish Encyclopedia notes the story of the madman Carabbas in Philo, section VI, whom in Alexandria, Egypt, was set up for a day as a mock king.

Wikipedia's entry on Barabbas notes that "Abba has been found as a personal name in a 1st-century burial at Giv'at ha-Mivtar, and Abba also appears as a personal name frequently in the Gemara section of the Talmud, dating from AD 200–400." So it theoretically could have been a real name of "Barabbas'" father. There is a theory that the setting up of Carabbas as a mock king was part of a custom of having annual mock kings in the ancient world.

Someone wrote on Hermeneutics Stack Exchange:

In the Talmud Abba is a name of a person and bar Abba is a patronymic , in the Seder has Dorot are cited dozens of rabbis who are called Abba , we also have mention of a Yeshua bar Abba , of course this is not purely and simply identified with Barabbas in the gospel... It is possible, if not likely, that both Mark and Matthew have meant reporting what was not a patronymic form, which could only correspond to the "son of Abba " , but a nickname, a nom de guerre of what in effect is defined as brigand , a bandit who was in prison.

A piece of evidence in favor of this being a nickname is that in Mark and Matthew 27 it is said that he "is called Barabbas", in contrast to Yeshua the Nazarene whom Matthew 27 says is "called the Messiah".

Barabbas' name as possibly referring to a master or "teacher":

Jerome's commentary On Matthew xxvii.16 says: "This man [Barabbas] is interpreted in the gospel which is written according to the Hebrews as the son of their master, who was condemned on account of sedition and homicide." In his essay "Yeshua bar Abba", Paul Sumner writes: "In later rabbinic Judaism, abba became a title for distinguished sages and teachers (rabbis) and even as a personal name (as in Abba bar Abba, a Babylonian Amoraic rabbi)."

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says:

For Aramaic Bar-abba = literally, "son of the father," i.e. of the master or teacher. Abba in the time of Jesus was perhaps a title of honor (Matthew 23:9), but became later a proper name. The variant Barrabban found in the 19-Harclean Syriac would mean "son of the rabbi or teacher." ... "Jesus Barabbas,"... is also found in a few cursives and in the Aramaic and the Jerusalem Syriac versions in this place only... If the name was simply Barabbas or Barrabban, it may still have meant that the man was a rabbi's son, or it may have been a purely conventional proper name, signifying nothing.

The passage in Matthew 23:9 that it references runs: "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven."

According to Wikipedia, "The Harklean version... is a Syriac language bible translation by Thomas of Harqel completed in 616 AD in Egypt."

Michael J. Wilkins writes in the Anchor Yale Dictionary: <<There are even some codices with a double “r” in the name, suggesting the possibility that Barabbas is derived from Bar Rabba(n), meaning “son of a teacher.”>>

In The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, James R. Edwards seems to criticize the idea that Barabbas should be interpreted as referring to a teacher:

Barabbas is an Aramaic name meaning "son of the father", whereas "son of their teacher" would be bar Raban. THe derivation of "son of their teacher" from "son of the father" could perhaps be explained by the fact that "father" is not infrequently used metonymically of priests, prophets, and teachers. In the NT and early church words such as abba, abunah, pater, father became honorable forms of address for teachers, mentios, and doctors of learning. ... Jerome draws a causal inference between the name and Barabbas' crime: He was called "son of their teacher... because he had been condemned for sedition and murder." If there is a relationship with "father" it would appear to be a negative metonym in his instance, as it is in John 8:44 ("your father the devil"). The name of Barabbas in the Hebrew Gospel would appear to be a wordplay on the Aramaic homophone "Bar-Rabban": that is, as a revolutionary and murderer, Barabbas was but a child of his Jewish teachers.

In New Testament Apocrypha, Volume 1, Wilhelm Schneemelcher writes that whether the name was Bar-abba or Bar-rabba,

the translation 'son of their teacher" is wrong. It is obscure why a name that was so well-known and the meaning of which was so obvious should have had to be 'interpreted' in an Aramaic gospel, and what this interpretation can have looked like ('bar-abba, ie. bar-rabba'?...); and it is altogether incredible that a person who spoke Aramaic translated his name as 'son of their teacher' and so wrongly.

Schneemelcher notes that in his Onomasticon, Jerome interprets "Barraban" as meaning "son of their teacher", without mentioning the Gospel of the Hebrews. Schneemelcher also notes that some codices like Sinaiticus had a scholion saying "Barabbas, which being interpreted is son of the teacher". Schneemelcher theorizes:

Rather we must reckon with the possibility of an error [by Jerome]. He probably found the interpretation 'son of the teacher'... in one of the commentaries which he used, of his own accord inserted the personal pronoun 'their' in order to distinguish this 'teacher' from the 'teacher' of Christians, and localized the whole in his Jewish Gospel.

My guess is that Jerome found "Barraban" in the Gospel According to the Hebews, because that is a term that he put in his Onomasticon and that he interprets as "son of their teacher". Or the Gospel of the Hebrews could have explained a theory that Barabbas got his name based on its meaning of "son of their teacher".

Do you have any more thoughts on this, Dan?

[alon]

rakovsky said: For Question 6 (the meaning of the name Barabbas), Barabbas is Greek and comes from the Aramaic term Bar Abba בּר אבא , which apparently means "Son of the Father". Abba in Aramaic is "Father", like "Av" in Hebrew. It shows up this way in Romans 8:15 ("You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by which we [like Yeshua] call out, 'Abba! Father!”).

In my mind this is evidence that at least some of the NT was translated to Greek from Aramaic source documents, which would mean they were already translated once from Hebrew to Aramaic.

rakovsky said: Normally the manuscripts have him just called Barabbas, but a few Greek manuscripts have Pilate ask the crowd: "Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?" According to one theory, the text originally said "Jesus", but later editors removed this as offensive. For example, Origen knew of this text variant and theorized that the text did not originally have "Jesus" for the robber's first name because, Origen claimed, no other sinners are called Jesus in the Bible. … Wikipedia's entry on Barabbas notes that "Abba has been found as a personal name in a 1st-century burial at Giv'at ha-Mivtar, and Abba also appears as a personal name frequently in the Gemara section of the Talmud, dating from AD 200–400." So it theoretically could have been a real name of "Barabbas'" father. … In the Talmud Abba is a name of a person and bar Abba is a patronymic , in the Seder has Dorot are cited dozens of rabbis who are called Abba , we also have mention of a Yeshua bar Abba , of course this is not purely and simply identified with Barabbas in the gospel... It is possible, if not likely, that both Mark and Matthew have meant reporting what was not a patronymic form, which could only correspond to the "son of Abba " , but a nickname, a nom de guerre of what in effect is defined as brigand , a bandit who was in prison. … A piece of evidence in favor of this being a nickname is that in Mark and Matthew 27 it is said that he "is called Barabbas", in contrast to Yeshua the Nazarene whom Matthew 27 says is "called the Messiah".

Origen had some weird ides, to say the least!

Both Yeshua and some form of Abba were common names of the period. The Jews were actively looking for their Messiah at the time, which was reflected in the names given children. So it would be possible that one or both names would be given Barabbas, either as a proper name, or a sobriquet.

rakovsky said: In my mind, the robber's name of "Jesus Barabbas" would accord with the Yom Kippur ritual where one goat was released and another was killed. It could also allude to Yeshua being the "Son of the Father" (ie. the Son of God) and contrasting him with Jesus Barabbas, whose name literally means the same thing. Yeshua referred to God as His "Father" and he was often called "teacher" (rabban). … According to one hypothesis, Pilate's offer of a choice between the two Yeshuas is typological, where the crowd can decide whether it wants the kind of Yeshua that the Nazarene represents or the other kind who is an anti-Roman murderous rebel.

Good call! The Spring and fall feasts are tied in many ways. Just the fact Yeshua was born on Sukkot and died on Pesach ties them right off. In you scenario, Barabbas would represent Moshiach Ben’Dovid, the Conquering King, and the Suffering Servant, Yeshua Ben’Yoseph. They of course chose the king they wanted to lead them in a fight to expel Rome. Yeshua came the first time as the Suffering servant who would lead all men to salvation. Resurrected, He will later return as the Conquering King. But at the point where Pilate asked who to release the only ones there were Sadducees, and they did not believe in a resurrection. They wanted their king now! They had already tried to make Him king once, and He refused. So they conspired to have Him killed.

rakovsky said: Paul Sumner notes that Josephus called rebel Sicarii "deceivers" and pretended to "exhibit manifest wonders and signs".

Josephus was a treasonous Jew who always conspired to preserve his own life at the expense of his people. When captured by Rome, he completely went over to their side. He was instrumental in convincing many Jews not to fight against Rome. Had he not, the revolt of 132 CE (Bar Kochba) may have happened earlier, and the Jews might have won! He would have hated the Sicarii, because he would have feared them They assonated anyone who supported Rome- Jews first then Roman officials. His other notable trait was his own self aggrandizement while libeling better men in his writings. He was no historian; more a propagandist- for the other side! When I think of Ole'Jo, I think of Lord Haw-Haw, only more effective.

[alon]

rakovsky said:

Barabbas' name as possibly referring to a master or "teacher":
Jerome's commentary On Matthew xxvii.16 says: "This man [Barabbas] is interpreted in the gospel which is written according to the Hebrews as the son of their master, who was condemned on account of sedition and homicide." In his essay "Yeshua bar Abba", Paul Sumner writes: "In later rabbinic Judaism, abba became a title for distinguished sages and teachers (rabbis) and even as a personal name (as in Abba bar Abba, a Babylonian Amoraic rabbi)."

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says:
For Aramaic Bar-abba = literally, "son of the father," i.e. of the master or teacher. Abba in the time of Jesus was perhaps a title of honor (Matthew 23:9), but became later a proper name. The variant Barrabban found in the 19-Harclean Syriac would mean "son of the rabbi or teacher." ... "Jesus Barabbas,"... is also found in a few cursives and in the Aramaic and the Jerusalem Syriac versions in this place only... If the name was simply Barabbas or Barrabban, it may still have meant that the man was a rabbi's son, or it may have been a purely conventional proper name, signifying nothing.

The passage in Matthew 23:9 that it references runs: "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven."
According to Wikipedia, "The Harklean version... is a Syriac language bible translation by Thomas of Harqel completed in 616 AD in Egypt."
Michael J. Wilkins writes in the Anchor Yale Dictionary: <<There are even some codices with a double “r” in the name, suggesting the possibility that Barabbas is derived from Bar Rabba(n), meaning “son of a teacher.”>>

In The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, James R. Edwards seems to criticize the idea that Barabbas should be interpreted as referring to a teacher:
Barabbas is an Aramaic name meaning "son of the father", whereas "son of their teacher" would be bar Raban. THe derivation of "son of their teacher" from "son of the father" could perhaps be explained by the fact that "father" is not infrequently used metonymically of priests, prophets, and teachers. In the NT and early church words such as abba, abunah, pater, father became honorable forms of address for teachers, mentios, and doctors of learning. ... Jerome draws a causal inference between the name and Barabbas' crime: He was called "son of their teacher... because he had been condemned for sedition and murder." If there is a relationship with "father" it would appear to be a negative metonym in his instance, as it is in John 8:44 ("your father the devil"). The name of Barabbas in the Hebrew Gospel would appear to be a wordplay on the Aramaic homophone "Bar-Rabban": that is, as a revolutionary and murderer, Barabbas was but a child of his Jewish teachers.

In New Testament Apocrypha, Volume 1, Wilhelm Schneemelcher writes that whether the name was Bar-abba or Bar-rabba,
the translation 'son of their teacher" is wrong. It is obscure why a name that was so well-known and the meaning of which was so obvious should have had to be 'interpreted' in an Aramaic gospel, and what this interpretation can have looked like ('bar-abba, ie. bar-rabba'?...); and it is altogether incredible that a person who spoke Aramaic translated his name as 'son of their teacher' and so wrongly.

Schneemelcher notes that in his Onomasticon, Jerome interprets "Barraban" as meaning "son of their teacher", without mentioning the Gospel of the Hebrews. Schneemelcher also notes that some codices like Sinaiticus had a scholion saying "Barabbas, which being interpreted is son of the teacher". Schneemelcher theorizes:
Rather we must reckon with the possibility of an error [by Jerome]. He probably found the interpretation 'son of the teacher'... in one of the commentaries which he used, of his own accord inserted the personal pronoun 'their' in order to distinguish this 'teacher' from the 'teacher' of Christians, and localized the whole in his Jewish Gospel.

My guess is that Jerome found "Barraban" in the Gospel According to the Hebews, because that is a term that he put in his Onomasticon and that he interprets as "son of their teacher". Or the Gospel of the Hebrews could have explained a theory that Barabbas got his name based on its meaning of "son of their teacher".

Do you have any more thoughts on this, Dan?

My only thought is it is an informative compilation of scholarly works which can give understanding. It can also confuse the heck out of those who like a clear, concise answer. But there is none. The best we can do is take all this into consideration, then focus on what we can glean from scripture as absolute truth and then what might be inferred from the possibilities here. But if you are OCD, don’t dwell on this!

Dan (a bit OCD, but workin' on it  ) C

[rakovsky]

Dan, I feel like we generally cleared up the preceding questions. Thanks for helping clear up Question 6 (Have you heard of the theory about the resurrection in Vaticanus Latinus 49, and does it refer to how Jesus showed up in John 20 about 8 days after the resurrection to visit His disciples. But actually that would be about ten days after Passover, since Jesus resurrected on the second day of Passover, right?) when you replied, "Yes, it was on the 2nd day of Pesach, on Saturday between sundown and midnight."

The Latin manuscript must not be referring to the 8th day after Christ's resurrection as "these eight days of Passover." Rather, it must be referring to the 8 days from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday as "these eight days of Passover."

The quote from the Latin manuscript runs:

Likewise these eight days of Passover in which Christ the son of God resurrected signify eight days after the remission of Passover in which the entire seed of Adam will be judged, as is announced in the gospel of the Hebrews, and therefore wise men suppose that the day of judgment is at the time of the Passover, since on that day Christ resurrected so that on that same day the saints might rise up again.

What confused me is that as I understand it, Passover can be considered a holiday that runs 7 days starting on the 15th of Nisan. The Passover lamb was killed in the daytime of the 14th of Nisan and eaten later that evening, which would be the 15th of Nisan. When Diaspora Jews celebrate the Passover 8 days, does this mean that they start the holiday on the same day as those in Jerusalem, but just add an extra day afterwards?

So wouldn't calling Holy Week (from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday) "Passover week" be in conflict with how either the Wednesday with the Last Supper, or else Good Friday, was the day of the sacrifice of the Passover lamb that started the 7 days of the Passover holiday?
In other words, the Christian reference to Passover Week appears to run:
Palm Sunday ... Wednesday with perhaps the lambs' sacrifice & Last Supper ... Good Friday with perhaps the lambs' sacrifice & Crucifixion ... Easter Sunday
But the Jewish term for Passover that lasts 7 days (a week) runs:
The day of the sacrifice of the lamb and the night of the Passover Seder ------ another 7 days and 6 nights

Perhaps "Holy Week", the period in the gospels from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, is sometimes referred to as "Passover Week". This could be because one of the days of Holy Week was the start of Passover, or because Christ's death and resurrection is sometimes called "Christ's Passover", in which He passed through death to a new life. Or it could be because in Latin, Greek, and Russian, "Passover" and "Easter" are the same word, pascha.

To give an example of how in modern speech "Holy Week" is called "Passover Week", the "Passover Week" webpage on the website of the European American Evangelistic Crusades has a timeline for the events of Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, and it prefaces its list by saying, "Using the Bible as a timeline, we can know exactly what transpired during the Passover Week and follow Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on Sunday until His crucifixion on Wednesday and subsequent resurrection three days later."

In Eve Clarity's "Overview of the Jewish Feasts", she notes how in the Passover instructions in Exodus 12, each Israelite family selects a lamb on the 10th of Nisan, and then cares for it and sacrifices it four days later on the 14th. She lines up the day of the lamb's selection in Exodus with Palm Sunday and pointing to Tuesday evening as the Seder. But this doesn't seem to work well, because her list would go:

• Nisan 9 (night-day): "6 days before the Passover" celebration and explicitly one day before Palm Sunday, Jesus eats dinner with Lazarus according to John 12:1,12
  
  Nisan 10 (night-day): Selection of Lambs & Palm Sunday (daytime)
  
  Nisan 11 (night-day), 12, 13: Caring for Lambs, Monday (day), Tuesday, and Wednesday, and killing the lambs on Wednesday night.
  
  Nisan 14 (night-day) Seder & the Last Supper on a Thursday
  Nisan 15: Good Friday should be the day of the Passover based on the timing of John 12:1,12.

It seems more likely to me that the timing should run either with

(A) the Selection of the Lambs on Nisan 10 lining up with the night of Lazarus' Saturday dinner with Yeshua, and then the Passover Seder on Nisan 15 lining up with the Last Supper on Wednesday night, or

(B) the Selection of the Lambs on Nisan 10 lining up with Palm Sunday and then the Slaughter of the Lambs on Nisan 14 lining up with the Crucifixion.

But to explain the "8 days of Passover" in the Latin manuscript, the best explanation appears to be that in Latin it says "pascha", and so this can mean either "Passover" or "Easter" in English.

The text is saying that the 8 days of Pascha (Passover/Easter) when Christ resurrected point to 8 days after the remission/stopping of Passover in which humanity will be judged, according to the Gospel of the Hebrews. The text then supports the theory that Judgment Day will be in the Paschal season since this was when Christ resurrected.

I read that one reason at least that Christ was theorized to have been born December 25 was that according to one theory, a person would die on the date of their conception, leaving the world the same day that they entered it. Some of those holding this view had a date for Christ's death for March 25, and so they theorized that Christ had been conceived in the womb also on a March 25, and thus was born 9 months later on a December 25. Based on this attitude about dates, I suppose they could theorize that since Christ died during Passover, that he would return or perform the Last Judgment on this same date.

The idea that we can foresee the time of the Judgment somewhat runs against Matt. 24:36: " But of that day and hour nobody knoweth, neither the Angels of heaven, but the Father alone." But the prediction about Judgment Day in the Latin manuscript is not specified as to the specific day in the Passover season.

Gregory the Great (c. 600 AD) connected Christ's Second Coming to the time of His first Advent, ie. the Christmas season.

In his essay "3 Times Jesus Connected His Second Coming to Passover", Travis Snow notes that Yeshua said at the Last Supper in Matthew 23: “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.'" This is found in Psalm 118, which says “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD", and is a benediction said at Passover. Snow theorizes that this refers to people recognizing Yeshua as the Messiah and then seeing Him at His Second Coming in the Passover season. Snow notes that when the crowds earlier had greeted Yeshua on Palm Sunday, they also shouted about Him, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD". He sees this as further emphasis on Yeshua's arrival in the Passover season.

In his book Temple--Its Ministry and Services, Alfred Edersheim thinks that Jewish Tradition connects the Final Judgments on "Edom" with the Passover ritual:

Jewish tradition has this curious conceit: that the most important events in Israel’s history were connected with the Paschal season. ... And so also in the last days it would be the Paschal night when the final judgments should come upon ‘Edom,’ and the glorious deliverance of Israel take place. Hence to this day, in every Jewish home, at a certain part of the Paschal service—just after the ‘third cup,’ or the ‘cup of blessing,’ has been drunk—the door is opened to admit Elijah the prophet as forerunner of the Messiah, while appropriate passages are at the same time read which foretell the destruction of all heathen nations (Psa 79:6; 69:25; Lam 3:66).

The modern Orthodox writer David Bentley Hart theorizes that Christ's crucifixion and resurrection is a direct part of the Judgment:

History, it would seem, is not simply the time prepared for us before the final judgment, the occasion of moral labor before the appointed end. The judgment has already come, out of season; history’s great crisis has appeared now, in our midst, and has rendered all our certitudes concerning the cosmos and history untrustworthy. Time itself is fallen; its ultimate consummation is not simply the final expression of a truth it already possesses in potentia... The history that God confirms as the path to his truth is the unique story of Christ, from the incarnation to the resurrection; this is the story he raises up, and seals with an eschatological verdict; and, in so doing, he also pronounces his final verdict upon the fabulous tales that humanity tells about itself, and upon the historical “logic” that leads to the building of crosses... In a sense, the resurrection of Christ–understood as the revelation of God’s final judgment within time–calls humanity to a second naïveté, a postreligious return to our most primordial intuition of death as something unnatural, obscene, and intrinsically evil, and a return consequently to our inextinguishable disquiet before the power of death to interrupt our “natural” orientation toward an unlimited future.

In his article "Before the Judgment Seat of Christ", Fr. Stephen Freeman considers Christ's judgment seat to be on His cross. He writes:

Kings are normally crowned while sitting on a throne. This King is crowned as He “sits” upon the Cross. It is proclaimed for all to see: “King of the Jews.” Orthodox iconography makes the irony yet more clear, by changing the description hanging above the crucified Christ into the “King of Glory.” ...
There is so much lost in this modern mis-reading of Revelation. The champion of that book is the “Lamb who was slain,” and it is this Lamb who is most closely associated with “Him who sits upon the throne.” The Great Irony of the Christian gospel, is that all of these images of power are most clearly manifest in the Crucified Christ. Thus St. Paul says that he is determined to know only “Christ Crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:2) St. Paul does not treat this as a temporary, passing image, but the very image of God: “Christ crucified…the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor. 2:2-3). This is not a momentary diversion. The Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world. It is an eternal image and revelation. ...
It is Christ Crucified that reveals all things to be what they truly are. It unmasks every pretense of uprightness and self-justification. It welcomes the thief while the hypocrisy of others drives them away.

"Sunday of the Last Judgment" is a holiday in the Orthodox Church marked 10 Sundays before Pascha/Easter that focuses attention on people's judgments at the Last Judgment. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese's webpage on this holiday connects Pascha with the Last Judgment:

This Sunday sets before us the eschatological dimension of Lent: the Great Fast is a preparation for the Second Coming of the Savior, for the eternal Passover in the Age to Come, a theme that is also the focus of the first three days of Holy Week. But the judgment is not only in the future. Here and now, each day and each hour, in hardening our hearts toward others and in failing to respond to the opportunities we are given of helping them, we are already passing judgment on ourselves.

The website of the Greek Orthodox Church of St Andrew says about the Great Fast of Lent:

This Sunday sets before us the 'eschatological' dimension of holy Lent: the Great Fast is a preparation for the Second Coming of the Savior, for the Eternal Passover (Pascha) in the Age to Come. (This is a theme that will be taken up in the first three days of Holy and Great Week.)

In Michelangelo's Last Judgment: The Renaissance Response, Bernadine Barnes sees the theme of Jonah's liberation from the whale as connected with the Last Judgment in the art plans for the Sistine Chapel. He thinks that the story of Jonah is linked to the Last Judgment because for example in Matthew 12:40-42, Yeshua says:

40. For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
42. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

However, I wasn't able to find anywhere specifically saying in Orthodox or Catholic writings that the Last Judgment in particular will happen in the Passover season. Sure, I was able to find spiritual connections between the two events, but a teaching by theologians in the past that it would happen specifically in that season seems pretty obscure. The logic that the Latin manuscript is rational - when Christ was crucified and resurrected the gospel reports that some ancient saints resurrected. So this can prefigure a future moment when they will resurrect.

[alon]

Aug 16, 2019 13:49:50 GMT -8 rakovsky said:

Dan, I feel like we generally cleared up the preceding questions. Thanks for helping clear up Question 6 (Have you heard of the theory about the resurrection in Vaticanus Latinus 49, and does it refer to how Jesus showed up in John 20 about 8 days after the resurrection to visit His disciples. But actually that would be about ten days after Passover, since Jesus resurrected on the second day of Passover, right?) when you replied, "Yes, it was on the 2nd day of Pesach, on Saturday between sundown and midnight."

The Latin manuscript must not be referring to the 8th day after Christ's resurrection as "these eight days of Passover." Rather, it must be referring to the 8 days from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday as "these eight days of Passover."

Yeshua went to claim the heavenly High Priesthood. The reason the church never gets this ight is they are willfully ignorant of anything Jewish- those things God Himself established. 8 days was the required length of time for purification of a priest. 

The quote from the Latin manuscript runs:

Likewise these eight days of Passover in which Christ the son of God resurrected signify eight days after the remission of Passover in which the entire seed of Adam will be judged, as is announced in the gospel of the Hebrews, and therefore wise men suppose that the day of judgment is at the time of the Passover, since on that day Christ resurrected so that on that same day the saints might rise up again.

Judgement is in the Fall Feasts, Yom Kippur, to be exact. The above quote was born again out of ignorance, as well as a vile hatred of the Jews.

What confused me is that as I understand it, Passover can be considered a holiday that runs 7 days starting on the 15th of Nisan. The Passover lamb was killed in the daytime of the 14th of Nisan and eaten later that
evening, which would be the 15th of Nisan. When Diaspora Jews celebrate the Passover 8 days, does this mean that they start the holiday on the same day as those in Jerusalem, but just add an extra day afterwards?

Yes.

So wouldn't calling Holy Week (from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday) "Passover week" be in conflict with how either the Wednesday with the Last Supper, or else Good Friday, was the day of the sacrifice of the Passover lamb that started the 7 days of the Passover holiday?
In other words, the Christian reference to Passover Week appears to run:
Palm Sunday ... Wednesday with perhaps the lambs' sacrifice & Last Supper ... Good Friday with perhaps the lambs' sacrifice & Crucifixion ... Easter Sunday
But the Jewish term for Passover that lasts 7 days (a week) runs:
The day of the sacrifice of the lamb and the night of the Passover Seder ------ another 7 days and 6 nights

The week of Passover, "Passover Week" as you call it, is really the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the entire Christian construct of "Holy Week" is in conflict with scripture. It has nothing in common Judaism.

Deleted a bunch. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out the timeline of the crucifixion, especially with all the Christian baggage you bring to the task. Even in Messianic understanding we go rounds with this timeline, each fighting for his own version! Every sect, synagogue, denomination and church does the same.

But to explain the "8 days of Passover" in the Latin manuscript, the best explanation appears to be that in Latin it says "pascha", and so this can mean either "Passover" or "Easter" in English.

No, it can't. Easter was put in the KJV as a slap at the Jews who were being expelled from England at the time of its writing. It also backed up church doctrine. However it was a lie from the start. And that is the only Bible I know of where the term "Easter" appears. It was even dropped in the NKJV. Easter was an invention of the church meant to replace the Spring Feasts, thus eradicating yet one more bit of Judaism from their "new" religion.

The text is saying that the 8 days of Pascha (Passover/Easter) when Christ resurrected point to 8 days after the remission/stopping of Passover in which humanity will be judged, according to the Gospel of the Hebrews. The text then supports the theory that Judgment Day will be in the Paschal season since this was when Christ resurrected.

The church turned this on its head too in their mania to remove any taint of Judaism from their new religion. Again, Yom Kippur is the day God set up for judgement, and the church can just go whistle. They are wrong; intentionally wrong! 

I read that one reason at least that Christ was theorized to have been born December 25 was that according to one theory, a person would die on the date of their conception, leaving the world the same day that they entered it. Some of those holding this view had a date for Christ's death for March 25, and so they theorized that Christ had been conceived in the womb also on a March 25, and thus was born 9 months later on a December 25. Based on this attitude about dates, I suppose they could theorize that since Christ died during Passover, that he would return or perform the Last Judgment on this same date.

Yeshua was conceived and born on the same anual holiday, with the normal 9 mo gestation period. This was a thing only God could do, and He didn't "spiritualize" it either!. He just did it. 

Conceived on Chanukkah, born on Sukkot; the Light of the World was conceived on the Festival of Lights, and came to dwell amongst us on Sukkot, dwellings. And He was born in a sukkah, not a manger as well. 

Sukkot was established after the Maccabees retook the Temple, cleansed it and relit the Menorah. A legend grew up around this about 1 barrell lasting 8 days, but it's only in the Talmud. So probably not true as an event like that would certainly be in scripture somewhere. But because they were at war and had to retake, repair, and cleanse the Temple they delayed Sukkot that year! So Chanukkah is a delayed Sukkot!

The idea that we can foresee the time of the Judgment somewhat runs against Matt. 24:36: " But of that day and hour nobody knoweth, neither the Angels of heaven, but the Father alone." But the prediction about Judgment Day in the Latin manuscript is not specified as to the specific day in the Passover season.

That is marriage terminology. We don't know the year. But all the Feasts of the Lord are prophetic, and Yom Kippur is the day God set for judgement. And if the Spring feasts were mostly (some as yet are to be filled) a minute by minute dress rehearsal for the events of Passover and the days before and after, especially the crucifixion which is pictured in detail, and including Pentecost (which the Jews were praticing for and celebrating 1500 yrs before it happened). I used to like to go to the Pentecostal church my wife goes to and ask them every year at that time if they knew what tie of year it was. Got a lot of blank stares. But the missus found out what I was up to, so I have to be careful now. But Jews still celebrate it every year as Shavuot.

Gregory the Great (c. 600 AD) connected Christ's Second Coming to the time of His first Advent, ie. the Christmas season.

He was a buffoon.  

In his essay "3 Times Jesus Connected His Second Coming to Passover", Travis Snow notes that Yeshua said at the Last Supper in Matthew 23: “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.'" This is found in Psalm 118, which says “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD", and is a benediction said at Passover. Snow theorizes that this refers to people recognizing Yeshua as the Messiah and then seeing Him at His Second Coming in the Passover season. Snow notes that when the crowds earlier had greeted Yeshua on Palm Sunday, they also shouted about Him, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD". He sees this as further emphasis on Yeshua's arrival in the Passover season.

Matthew 12:39 (ESV) But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Christian leaders look for signs everywhere and lo and behold they find them! All over the place!ut they will be destroyed in their sin.

They are all looking in the wrong end of it! David Bentley Hart is the new darling of the EO community, so I hate to disagree with im- but I always do anyhow (I argue with another EO person on another venue), so I'm just going to go ahead and do it! He too is focusing on Pesach, because that's what everyone else does. And the biggest reason for his popularity is he just regurgitates what they already believe! 

Catholicism of all stripes needs to repent, beg the Jews forgiveness, and start asking them about some of this stuff. If it deals with Yeshua, of course they should ask Messianics, as you are.

[rakovsky]

Regarding Question 6, Wikipedia's article on Quartodecimianism lays out a theory that early Christians expected the Messiah to return at Passover:

In his study The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, the Lutheran scriptural scholar Joachim Jeremias made a compelling argument that... For Christians, the central events of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, i.e., his passion, death and resurrection, also are obviously associated with Passover. Thus it was inevitable that the very earliest Christians expected the imminent return of Christ to also occur during their Passover celebrations. Jeremias notes that Quartodecimans began their Christian Passover celebrations by reading the appropriate readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, i.e., the twelve readings from the Hebrew Scriptures that still are read at the Easter Vigil in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Armenian traditions. At midnight, when Christ had not reappeared to inaugurate the great eschatological banquet, the Christians would celebrate the Paschal Eucharist in anticipation of that final act of the drama of the redemption of Christ. ... the Eastern Orthodox Troparion for Great and Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which warns the Christian community "Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night and blessed are those servants he shall find awake..." In short, no one knows when Christ will appear at the end of time, but given other central events of redemption which occurred during Passover, the earliest Christians assumed that Christ would probably appear during the Paschal Eucharist, just as he first appeared to his original disciples during their meal on the first Easter Sunday.

[alon]

Sept 3, 2019 21:02:44 GMT -8 rakovsky said:

Regarding Question 6, Wikipedia's article on Quartodecimianism lays out a theory that early Christians expected the Messiah to return at Passover:

In his study The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, the Lutheran scriptural scholar Joachim Jeremias made a compelling argument that... For Christians, the central events of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, i.e., his passion, death and resurrection, also are obviously associated with Passover. Thus it was inevitable that the very earliest Christians expected the imminent return of Christ to also occur during their Passover celebrations. Jeremias notes that Quartodecimans began their Christian Passover celebrations by reading the appropriate readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, i.e., the twelve readings from the Hebrew Scriptures that still are read at the Easter Vigil in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Armenian traditions. At midnight, when Christ had not reappeared to inaugurate the great eschatological banquet, the Christians would celebrate the Paschal Eucharist in anticipation of that final act of the drama of the redemption of Christ. ... the Eastern Orthodox Troparion for Great and Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, which warns the Christian community "Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night and blessed are those servants he shall find awake..." In short, no one knows when Christ will appear at the end of time, but given other central events of redemption which occurred during Passover, the earliest Christians assumed that Christ would probably appear during the Paschal Eucharist, just as he first appeared to his original disciples during their meal on the first Easter Sunday.

The events of His first coming were prophesied in the Spring feasts. This is one reason I think all Christians should observe the feasts of the Lord. Because the events of the end days when Yeshua will return are clearly prophesied in the Fall feasts. Anyone who wants to tell me about prophecy, my first question for them is "Do you observe the Feasts of the Lord?" If not, they have nothing to teach me. Because those feasts are the foundation on which all other prophecy concerning the coming of the Messiah is built on.