Marilyn,
First
let me apologize for sounding so arrogant or rude in the last letter even though
I didn't intend it to be, I still did so in my zeal. I know that you are a
student of our Lord and I admire all who search the Scriptures. I don't claim
to know everything and acknowledge that we are looking through a mirror dimly 1
Cor. 13:12. Thanks for challenging me in Scriptures; it is where iron sharpens
iron.
Having
said that, I would like to say, prootos can be translated first like
in Matt. 10:2, 19:30, 20:10 and so on. It is not inappropriate to do so. If we
translated as you say using the word before this would be its
translation… Mark2014:12 And the
before day of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the
Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go and make
preparations for you to eat the Passover?"
The
Greek word for (the) tee would not be there. It would just say And
before the day of Unleavened Bread but it is in the Greek and therefore the
word prootos is translated first, And the first day of Unleavened
Bread.
In
Exodus 12:17-18 it specifically gives the day, Celebrate the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions
out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a
lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat
bread made without yeast, from the
evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day
NIV. So the evening of the 14th day would be the beginning of the
15th day. The Jews used the term Passover and First day of Unleavened
Bread interchangeably.
Taking
Exodus 12: 17-18 at face value and comparing it with Mark 14:12 we have a mirror
image of the same words and meaning. Therefore Mark tells us that on the first
day of unleavened bread which begins on the eve of 14th which really is the 15th at
sundown not indicating it was the 15th but it was the 14th
hence when the Passover was to be sacrificed the disciples therefore celebrated
Passover with Jesus.
That
night on the 13th at 6P.M. was the 1 4th; they celebrated
the Passover early that day, sundown, because Jesus was to be the true lamb to
be sacrificed with all the others. Jesus was betrayed that night and by morning
He was crucified still the 14th.
It was
the preparation for the Passover that was to be sacrificed at 3 P.M. John 19:30, 31
say, "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said,
it is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. The Jews
therefore, because IT WAS THE PREPARATION, that the bodies should not remain
upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day [Passover, the annual
Sabbath] was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and
that
they might be taken away."
The
fact that they asked Pilate for the bodies was because they didn't want
the bodies to remain on the cross on the Sabbath. We know that that
Sabbath was a High Sabbath or a Festival Sabbath. Ex 12:16 On the
first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day.
Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to
eat — that is all you may do NIV. Lev 23:6-7, On the fifteenth day
of that month the Lord's Feast of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven
days you must eat bread made without yeast. On the first day hold a sacred assembly and do
no regular work NIV. As you agree, Jesus was sacrificed on Thursday and
Friday would not be the weekly Sabbath, but a High Sabbath. Saturday is the
weekly Sabbath.
The day after
Passover was to be a Sabbath day. If this be true then look at John 19:30, 31
closely. If they wanted the bodies down before the Sabbath which was only 3
hours a way this would tell us that the 15th was about to begin, 6
P.M on the 14th. It is right there in the very verse you sent me!=2
0So this verse defines that the day of preparation was the 14th. God
is awesome! I love it, don't you? Everything adds up so nicely in
Scripture.