Sabbath Resurrection: Chapter 8 -- The Preparation

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The Preparation ***

§189 The word "preparation" (Greek: ) is used six times, in reference to the day Christ died, that is, in Matthew 27:62; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; and John 19:14, 31, and 42. Sunday traditionalists argue that this word proves Christ died on Friday. However, Friday was not the only "preparation." The day before the annual Passover Sabbath was also called "preparation," regardless of the day of the week.
§190 But, before we show "preparation" was used for the day preceeding the Passover feast day, let us examine each of its uses. First, in Matthew 27:62, the text reads:

And on the morrow, which was after the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate.

§191         In this case, "preparation" refers to the work in preparing for the Passover on the preceeding day. Passover preparations were more extensive than the regular Friday preparations. The lamb had to be slaughtered and cooked. Unleavened bread had to be made ready along with bitter herbs, and the houses had to be given the most thorough cleaning of the entire year. Hence, the eve of the Passover was a day of preparation.
§192         A day of preparation is any day devoted to preparations. For example, in English, the day before a camping trip might be called a day of (for) preparation. In Judea, it was customary to devote the day before the Passover to preparation. It was the most important day of preparation in the entire year.
§193         Mark 15:42 also refers to preparation:

Since it was a preparation, which is before a Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea ... asked for the body of Yeshua.

§194 Mark adds "before a Sabbath."^§240 He means the Passover holy day, which is called "the Sabbath" (cf. Hebrew text, Lev. 23:11)^§241. The Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, also calls the Passover rest day "the Sabbath," (Greek:

) in Leviticus 23:15. That this sabbath is the "first day of unleavened bread," and not the weekly Sabbath, is also indicated by the Septuagint in Lev. 23:11. Thus, Mark's reference "before a Sabbath" means the eve of the Passover, which would have been a Wednesday.
§195 Luke 23:54:

And a day, it was, of preparation, and a Sabbath^§242 was beginning.

§196 Luke refers to "a day of preparation," that is, the 14th of Abib, which was devoted to preparations until sunset. John 19:14, 31, 42:

And it was a preparation of the Passover (John 19:14). ..., since a preparation, it was, ... (John 19:31). ..., because of the preparation of the Jews ... (John 19:42).

§197 John leaves little room for ambiguity. He explicitly calls it "a preparation of the Passover" (John 19:14). Traditionalists wish to render this "Friday of Passover [week]." Such a rendering requires them to assume that the word Passover (Greek:

) means Passover week, and not the Passover Seder. The meaning of "Passover [week]," however, is secondary to its other meanings, and in the context, there is nothing to suggest that John means "Passover [week]," hence we must defer to the more common understanding of the term "Passover," i.e. the Seder meal.
§198         The foregoing makes the rendering "Friday of Passover [week]" extremely awkward; in fact, the circumstance of extensive preparations on the eve of the passover makes it certain that at every utterring of the words in common Greek, the listener's attention will be drawn to those preparations.
§199         Moreover, John mentions "the preparation of the Jews" (John 19:42). Again "preparation" refers to making ready all the elements of the Passover meal. Traditionalists would have this refer to "the Friday of the Jews," which is a bit awkward. And if "preparation" is a technical word, why the definite article? "The preparation" sounds like a reference to a specific type of preparing.
§200         Nevertheless, some Christian Scholars persist in the unfounded claim that "preparation" is only a technical term for Friday:

The fact must be faced that no example of the use of is cited for any day other than Friday. (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, 1971, pg. 777).

§201 This statement is certainly misleading, since the Septuagint uses

in such contexts as

in Exodus 35:24 where the word refers to preparations involving work on the Tabernacle. It translates, "... all the work of preparation ..." where clearly it does not mean any Friday. Other examples, where it is equally plain that Friday is not meant, are found in Judith 2:17, 4:5; 1 Mac. 9:35; and 2 Mac. 15:21. These passages show that "preparation" is a completely generic word.
§202 We should recognize that Morris' argument is, at best, an argument from silence. It does not prove that

cannot refer to the eve of the festival days. It does not prove that it never was used that way either.
§203         Furthermore, Morris, and others who share his opinion, are quite presumptuous^§243 to say "preparation" cannot refer to the eve of the Passover so many hundreds of years after the fact; to absolutely assert such a claim runs counter to a basic law of language. This law, or rule of thumb, says that any meaningful combination of words is possible. Is referring "preparation" to the eve of a festival meaningful? Very much so, and especially in the case of the Passover, when the most involved preparations are necessary.
§204         The traditionalists, therefore, cannot claim proof for their position, because we lack an example. On the other hand, would they change their position if an example were found? Probably not.    Since neither side can prove it's position at this point, the case must be decided upon other evidence, i.e. Yayshua rose "after three days," he was in the grave "three nights," and he rose "on the first of the Sabbaths." These are facts which we can explain, but they cannot.
§205         In spite of this, an appeal is made to Mark 15:42 for a definition of

as being the day "before [the] Sabbath." The Greek, however, is

, which means literally "before a Sabbath." Also, it is sometimes forgotten that

can just as easily be two words as one compound word, in which case it would not be a technical term for Friday, but simply a day before any rest day, which would include all the feast days. The Passover holy day is called "the Sabbath," so by this definition, the day before it would also be a "preparation."
§206 Failing to prove their case from the Greek of Mark 15:42, some scholars resort to Aramaic. One example is C.C. Torrey of Yale University who tried to prove that "preparation" always means Friday. But he was thoroughly refuted by Solomon Zeitlin. Zeitlin says:

The word is not a Jewish technical term at all (pg. 268). Rather, the word , which has in Greek the meaning of preparation, became a pagan technical term for the Eve of Sabbath, as well as for the Eve of other holidays (pg. 269), (Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 51-52, 1932-33, pp. 263-271, my underlines.)

§207 Not only does he say it is not a technical term, but he says that it can refer to the "Eve of other holidays," which can fall on any day of the week. Most reputable lexicons do admit this truth. For example, Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich say:

... lit. preparation, in our lit. only of a definite day, as the day of preparation for a festival;

§208 Bauer, Arndt and Gingrich go on to expand on the traditional definition, but they do note "Against Torrey, SZeitlin, JBL 51, '32, 263-71."
§209 Other scholars are also willing to say that Zeitlin has refuted Torrey:

Torrey's theory (JBL 50 [1931], 227-41) that Passover should be understood as the festival period of seven days and that John is speaking of Friday within Passover week has been refuted by S. Zeitlin, JBL (1932), 263-71 (Brown, Raymod E. The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1970, John 19:14, pg. 882).

§210 Zeitlin also pointed out that Passover refered to the sacrifice of the lamb, or the Seders, not to the whole feast. The rest of the feast was called the "feast of unleavened bread" before the destruction of the second Temple. The use of "Passover" to designate the whole feast, or Passover "week" was a later inovation. This renders the interpretation of John 19:14 as "Friday of Passover [week]" exceedingly tenuous.
§211 Thayer also admits the truth:

, ... 1. a making ready, preparation, equipping. 2. that which is preapared, equipment. 3. in the N.T. in a Jewish sense, the day of preparation, i.e. the day on which the Jews made the necessary preparation to celebrate a sabbath or a feast (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Zondervan).

§212         The underlined portion is mine. Zeitlin is correct when he says that "preparation" is equivalent to "the eve of the Sabbath," but he is incorrect in calling it a only a pagan term. Rather we may say that the term was occasionally used by Greek speaking Jews in the first century for the "eve of the Sabbath."
§213         E. Lohse, in The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, writes: "The day of preparation is erev shabath, "the evening before the Sabbath" (pg. 6, Vol. VII).
§214         My reason for the above can be deduced from a decree by Agustus Caesar:

... and that they be not obliged to go before any judge on the Sabbath-day, nor on the day of preparation to it, after the ninth hour; (J. Ant. 16.6.2).

§215 The intent of this decree, no doubt, included the seven major Biblical festival sabbaths. If the Hellenistic Jews were not in the habit of using the word "preparation" before these holidays yet, they now had a motive to, at least when talking to the pagans, so as not to let the Romans forget that Augustus' decree also covered the eve of the festivals. On the other hand, Josephus wrote this after A.D. 70, which means he may be translating Augustus' degree and not quoting it, eliminating even this text as an example of "preparation." Augustus may have used

.
§216 Nevertheless, we may suppose that the Greek speaking Jews referred to the day before a Sabbath as "preparation," when they wished to speak with a pagan, while the Hebrew speaking Jews called it the "Eve of the Sabbath." They could not call it the 6th day of the week with pagans. For pagans often numbered the days differently. Nor could they call it "Friday." For the planetary week was idolatrous, and hence it was not used by the Jews. Zeitlin does point out that the Hellenistic Jews did call the 6th day

, that is the day before the sabbath, among themselves (Jud. 8:6; Mark 15:42).
§217 Torrey, who argues that the Aramaic arubta is equivalent to "preparation," does admit that arubta (eve) can apply to the Passover:

... but the possibility may be admitted that it was given an equally early application to the principal festal days. It is thus used frequently in the later rabbinical Aramaic, sometimes in the construct relation ..., sometimes after the pattern of arubta deshabbatha. There is in the Midrash Ruth (one of the latest of the midrashim), near the end of the section "qaton wegadol," an example of arubta pesacha meaning, "the day before the paschal feast" (pg. 237, JBL 50, '30).

§218         Hence arbuta does not always mean "Friday." It simply means "evening" of a given day, no matter what day of the week it might preceed (execpt in the Church's ecclesiatical Aramaic). However, Torrey argues that arubta was not used this way in the first century. How convenient for him!^§245 He escapes into Aramaic to prove his case; however, that the Hebrew equivalent erev did apply to the "eve of the Passover" is attested in the Mishnah, and arubta was most certainly a generic word equivalent to erev in the first century, before the Church saw fit to corrupt its meaning. Torrey's exclusion of the first century, therefore, is invalid.   (And it is certain that John did not write his gospel in Aramaic).
§219         Since, "preparation" (arubta) can refer to the "eve of the passover," we are justified in interpreting "preparation of the Passover," (John 19:14) as the day on which preparations were made for the Passover meal. I remind the reader that to say this means "Friday of Passover [week]," sounds terribly strained, when it more naturally means "Passover preparation."
§220         Zeitlin replies in another place:

The words in verse Mark 15.42, "And when even was now come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath" do not prove at all that the word parasque was used to designate Friday only, but not the eve of holidays. We clearly see from John 19.14, "and it was the parasque of the Passover" that the word parasque may refer also to the eve of the holidays. (The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. XLII, 1952.)

§221 Church scholars justify their equation of "preparation" with Friday based upon the Church's use of the word from the second century on. This is because before this time no evidence exists that the word was used only for Friday. And in fact, there are almost no examples of "preparation" used for Friday before the second century (A.D. 100).
§222 It is said that the earliest attested use of the term for Friday is in the Martyrdom of Polycarp. F.F. Bruce states:

The first clear occurrence of Gk. in the sense of "Friday" is in the Martyrdom of Polycarp 7.1 A.D. 156 (pg. 381, note 12, The Gospel of John).

§223         However, even in this source the word does not necessarily mean "Friday." Polycarp was Martyred just before the "Great Sabbath" of Passover. "Great Sabbath" may refer to the Passover holy day, and not the weekly Sabbath (John 19:31; Lev. 23:11). In addition, there are other notes of time in the Martyrdom which show that the account is unreliable.
§224         The term "Great Sabbath" has been equated with the weekly Sabbath falling within Passover week by the Church. Later, even the Jews picked up this usage from the Church. They are known to have called the weekly Sabbath in Passover week "The Great Sabbath."
§225         However, the equation of "Great Sabbath" with the weekly Sabbath is unknown before the second century. Christian scholars argue that when the 15th or 16th of Abib falls on the weekly Sabbath, it becomes "Great." This may have been the case after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., but not before.
§226         The truth is "The Great Sabbath" is the 15th of Abib regardless of which day of the week it falls on. For the Jews (except the Sadducees and Essenes) call the Passover holy day "The Sabbath," (Lev. 23:11, 15) and this Sabbath was "Great" on account of the Passover feast which was held on it (John 19:31).
§227             On the other hand, the Sadducees wished to exalt the weekly Sabbath in Passover week, because they held that Lev. 23:11, 15 refered to the weekly Sabbath. They would have been quite happy to call that Sabbath "The Great Sabbath," for this would detract from the Pharisees' interpretation of Lev. 23:11.   Naturally, the Pharisees would react to this and refuse to call the weekly Sabbath in Passover week "The Great Sabbath."
§228         Yeshua said "the scribes and Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses" (Matthew 23:1-3). He did not mention Sadducees. In spite of the fact that Yeshua recognized the authority of the Pharisees (when subject to the scripture), he did not recognize the Sadducees as any kind of authority at all.
§229         Nevertheless, the second century Church adopted the Sadducean Pentecost from the outset. They always celebrated it on a Sunday. Since the Sadducean Pentecost was counted from that particular weekly Sabbath after Passover, it would be no surprise for them to call it "The Great Sabbath," and then to turn around and deny that the Passover holy day was called "The Sabbath." And this is the position we find in the Church to this very day.
§230         We digressed onto the "Great Sabbath" here to show that the Martyrdom does not necessarily provide an example of "preparation" meaning "Friday." A more hermanuetically correct way of finding the meaning of "preparation" is to look in sources contemporary with the gospels. The later usage of the Church in the second century was a database the first readers of the gospels did not have. What it meant later had no impact on them.
§231         Furthermore, we should observe that the number of uses of the word, for the day before a Sabbath, outside of the New Testament, found in the literature before 70 A.D., can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Not only that, the Passover preparation would occur near or on only 1/52 of those Sabbaths. This shows that the lack of an example of a Passover "preparation" is not significant. For pure statistics predicts the lack of an example without respect to the meaning of the word.
§232         At the risk of repeating ourselves somewhat, we would like to emphasize the fact that

is simply the generic Greek word for "preparation." Liddel and Scott inform us of the meaning of

in contexts where it cannot possibly mean Friday; they give

, which means "preparation of the supper," and

, which means "preparation of corn." Both usages are remarkably similar to John 19:14, which has

tou pasca, which is simply "preparation of the Passover."
§233 Indeed, the word is used with and without that which is said to be prepared directly modifying the word (see Exodus 35:24, LXX). When used alone, it refers to "preparation" of some item, or items in the context. For example, Liddell and Scott give

which means "to speak from preparation."
§234 Furthermore, when John says "

", he means "Passover preparation," not "Friday of the Passover [week]." For the latter meaning would be secondary. Not only that, but such a secondary meaning would have to be explained again and again to Grecian Jews, who would naturally take it to mean "passover preparation." For the semantic sense of "preparation," in the generic sense cannot fail to manifiest itself in the use of the word.
§235 Having to be explained as "Friday of Passover [week]" shows that the usage would always be ambiguious. For the explanation is not necessary if the meaning is plain, and none would be sought except someone said it did not mean "Passover preparation." Yet John simply writes the phrase with no explanation, as if it is perfectly unambiguous. Therefore, one can only conclude that the phrase always was unambiguous in the time that John wrote it.
§236 A few more usages should be noted. Exodus 39.22 (42), in the Alexandrian Codex, has

, which means "all the preparation." Judith 2:17 has

, which means "for the preparation of them." Judith 4:5 has

, which means "for preparation of war."
§237 Another passage like John 19:14 is John 19:42, which has

, meaning "the preparation of the Judeans." Compare this to the Judith 2:17 passage above, and it will again be apparent that "the Friday of the Judeans" cannot be meant.
§238 Traditionalists feel compelled to quote Mark 15:42 as a definition for "preparation," that is, "the day before a Sabbath." However, I must note that Zeiltin reports "Some MSS omit the words

(Studies in the Early History of Judaism, New York: KTAV, 1973, vol. 1, pg. 210.), and that the Concordant Version notes the words are missing from SB¹. Clearly the evidence needs to be recollated.
§239 Indeed many MSS read

instead of

. See A B² L G Y ^f13 23.33. 565. 700. 892. 1010 pm for

vs. a B* C K W D Q 0112. 0212 f1 1241. 1424 pm for

. The evidence is very divided on this text, so much so that the aparatus of the Majority Text reads "42

M^pt E, TR Cr vs.

M^ptA.

means "toward [a] sabbath," so that the text would read, "since it was [a] preparation, that is, toward [a] sabbath" (Mark 15:42). However, the definition holds for the Passover Sabbath whatever the correct reading is.
. End Notes

§240         Although some MSS lack these words.
§241         The proof of this is covered in another chapter. In brief, the Jewish interpretation of "the Sabbath" in Lev. 23:11 and 23:15 is that "Sabbath" refers to the Passover holy day, and not the weekly Sabbath.
§242         I.e. "rest day," or "cessation." The word "Sabbath" does not mean "seventh day," although the seventh day is "the Sabbath," otherwise God would not have had to tell the Israelites that the seventh day was the Sabbath. God has other Sabbaths (rest days) and this one in Luke 23:54 was one of them.
§243         Morris, and the few scholars who agree with him, might be excused because he most commendably wishes to reconcile the apparent contradiction between John and the synoptic gospels, and can find no other way to do it.
§245         But this is hypocritical. For "preparation" is not clearly used to mean "Friday" in the first century either.
§245.1         "Dalman has, we believe correctly, pointed out: Neither could the author (of Jn. 19:14) have meant ... by the expression the, 'Eve of the Passover' anything other than the day which the Jews call in Hebrew, 'ereb pesah', and in Aramaic 'arubat pisha', i.e. the day which preceeded the Festival; never the Friday in the festive week, as Zahn suggests." (Jesus-Jeshua, pg. 88.) (Journal of Biblical Literature, pg. 270, Zeitlin, "The Date of the Crucifixion", 1932-33).

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