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THE Resurrection Numbers The Nicaean Gospels
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Matthew 16:3-4
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Genesis The importance of the Jewish religious calendar is a fundamental theme of this chapter. As mentioned several times before, in classical times religious- and philosophic scholars constantly searched for a higher level of understanding of the many mysteries of existence. It was understood that God had left keys of understanding hidden in natural phenomena such as the laws of astronomy or mathematics and in religious texts such as the Torah. The Judaic religious tradition is highly focused on the phenomenon of time, a cyclical movement strongly connected with light and darkness. It al starts with the story of creation in Genesis 1, where God creates the world in six days and rests on the seventh. "And God said, Let there be light" "and he separated the light from the darkness" "and there was evening, and there was morning - the first day" It is no surprise that the Jewish religious tradition makes such wide scale use of symbolic numbers that are connected to cyclic experience of time connected to the phases of the moon and the seasons of the solar year. The Jewish calendar deserves specific attention in order to obtain a deeper insight into the symbolism that is hidden in the passion of Christ. The Nicaean Gospel The crucifixion of Jesus as described in the four gospels has always been a source of dispute when it comes to whether the succession of events match the dates and times mentioned by the evangelists. Considering the Jewish tradition it is very difficult to imagine that the Jewish High Counsel choose the the preparation day before Pesach for the arrest, condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus. The strict religious laws prohibit similar actions during the preparation day. Even more strange is the haste that was involved in the entire operation. It is impossible to imagine how the Jews that captured Jesus managed in a period of less than three hours between the break of day and the start of the crucifixion, to bring Jesus before the Roman governor Pontius Pilatus for interrogation, a visit to king Herod including a long interrogation and after that back to Pilatus for flogging, presentation to the crowds together with another prisoner and his final condemnation. Most historians agree on the fact that whatever really happened to Jesus has been modified in order to give a specific religious meaning to his death. By the time that the Roman emperor Constantinus decided on the future of Christian religion through the council of Nicaea in 325AD, the passion story was clearly considered the cornerstone of the newborn Church of Rome. The most useful element was the fact that the final guilt for Jesus death did not reside with the Romans but instead with the Jews. On a religious level, Jesus death was explained as the symbolical slaughter of the Passover lamb as final sacrifice for all human sin, a fact that was symbolized during the Last Supper and the Catholic celebration of Mass These key messages could have also been easily expressed without the hectic and complicating story that pushed so many events into one single day; the highly unlikely preparation day of a rare "major" Passover on which Passover and Sabbath coincided. The celebration of Passover became the most important religious feast in the new Catholic church and probably because of its importance much effort was done to follow the original Jewish calendar rules in order to determine the day of its celebration. This fact is rather peculiar because it would have been much easier just to lock the Passover holydays into the Julian solar calendar. The symbolic events of the Passion of Jesus do in fact follow a very specific religious order, but it is the question if the Nicaenean gospel editors were aware of this hidden layer of symbolic value. If they would, they might not have risked promoting a story that is so clearly constructed that it risks losing credibility because of its inherent prefabricated character, once the mechanism behind it becomes clear. The sources of this hidden layer are Judaic and Hellenistic mysticism. Between the burning of books, Diaspora and prosecutions of Jews the key to this symbolism remained at safe distance, with only episodically dangerous situations when Christian culture came into close contact with Middle Eastern knowledge. The historical origin of the narrative gospels is supposed to date from no earlier than the second half of the first century, expanding in a typical Homeric style on older material such as the letters written by Paul, while later also introducing material from the Gnostic "sayings gospels" such as the gospel of Thomas. The gospel stories were written in the midst of the Jewish Diaspora in a period in which the many original Christian sects of Judaism started to integrate with the Hellenistic culture of the gentiles. This historical setting provided just about every possible cultural influence needed to create the most suitable Messianic resurrection symbolism. The theological attractiveness of the events described in the gospels resides in the possibility for Jesus to celebrate the Last Supper with his disciples, during which, through a ritual meal of bread and wine (as substitute for body and blood of the Christ) his upcoming death could be directly linked to the Jewish traditional slaughtering of the Passover lamb later that day. The deeper religious meaning of Passover for the Jews was the celebration of their liberation from slavery in Egypt, a moment that is seen as the starting point of the Hebrew nation. Passover takes place at about the spring equinox and marks the end of the "winter" of the Jewish people as slaves in Egypt. For this reason Exodus 12 mentions the month of Nissan as the start of the new year: The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. The Covenant It is curious how Jesus, during his anticipated Passover meal, changes the religious meaning of this ritual and turns it into a celebration of "the new covenant" (Marc 14:24 - Mathew 26:28) This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. By itself the Passover feast and the Pesach lamb have no more specific meaning with regard to the covenant between God and his chosen people than any other Jewish feast. Although the covenant has no special annual celebration day (it is permanently symbolized through the circumcision) it is usually celebrated during the Shavout, also called the festival of weeks because it takes place exactly seven weeks after Passover. The Shavout celebrations is a harvest feast that also commemorates the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, explained as a reconfirmation of the covenant between God and the children of Israel. The original covenant through circumcision dates back to Abraham blessing his descendants as his chosen people (Gen 17). Before Abraham, God also made a similar covenant (without circumcision) with Noah (Gen 9). The circumcision is seen as a direct reference to the "original sin" in the Garden of Eden where man and woman ate fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2:25) The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Gen 3:7) Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Just as the original sin was manifested through the shame for the sexual organs, this sinfulness is symbolically removed by cutting off the foreskin in circumcision. The original sin resulted in the expulsion from paradise and the curse of man.
Gen 3:17-19) "Cursed is the ground because
of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants
of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you
return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are The story of the flood and Gods covenant with Noah makes it clear that God considered his creation of man a disastrous failure that could only be remedied by exterminating all of them. (Gen 6:5-6) The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. This is the Judaic context that links the covenant to the original sin, the curse and expulsion from paradise of man and woman and the failed creation of man on the sixth day resolved by their extermination during the flood. The "new" Covenant As mentioned before, Jesus turns his anticipated Passover meal into a ceremony of a new covenant. Christian tradition says that later that day (in accordance to the tradition of Orphic mysticism), Jesus descended to the underworld in order to personally liberate the deemed sinners of their chains and challenge Satan. This occasion, that took place during the sixth hour lasting crucifixion, when darkness came over the land, from the sixth till the ninth hour of the day. Besides this, the gospels also mention some other very spectacular events: (Mat 26:51-53) At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. (It remains strange that Josephus in his Jewish history books never mentions Jesus, nor the Christians, nor any of these spectacular events.) All this time the question remains; why did the passion of Jesus have to coincide with the celebration of the Jewish Passover and the regular weekly Sabbath? The Jewish Passover lamb had no specific meaning as a "sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins" as Jesus later that day sacrifices himself for the sins of the world. Instead, the blood of the lamb was used to mark those to be spared from Gods wrath over the first born sons of Egypt. The innovative concept of Christianity that sets it apart from the earlier covenants is the fact that the salvation from sin is generic. As such there is a major discrepancy between the Jewish Passover lamb and the theological message of the Christian "Lamb of God". (John 1:29) "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (1 Corinthians 5:7) "... For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed". Also the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples has nothing to do with the traditional Passover meal (that was to be prepared and eaten the next day). Still the gospels specifically mention the preparations for this meal as being for a Jewish Passover meal. (Mat 26:17) On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" Even if we ignore the inconsistency of the times mentioned in the gospels and accept it as an anticipated Passover meal, this still does not explain the completely different character of the Last Supper that seems to have very little comparison with the standard traditional Jewish Passover celebration. (Mat 26:20) When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. This laying down at the table is mentioned as if it is was the most normal thing to do, but in fact, Jews did not lay down at a Passover meal, they eat standing with their travel cloth on and a walking stick in the hand, in great haste with their shoes on in order to commemorate the escape from Egypt. In a whole, no reference to any of these acts nor the religious context that characterizes the Jewish Passover meal is made by Jesus and his followers. Instead Jesus washes the feet of his disciples (John 13:12) and lays down at the table to eat. The Last Supper as described in the gospels has nothing to do with the Passover meal that they claim to have prepared. Instead it appears to be much more similar to a ritual messianic "end-time" meal such as mentioned in the Qumran scrolls. |
The Messianic promise It is clear that the meticulously described events of the Passion week are either inconsistent or should be explained in a different way, taking in account what by now we know about the strong influence of Hellenistic and Messianic mysticism that ruled in that period. The correct interpretation of the time scheme of events of the Passion is closely connected to the expectancy of the end of time and the beginning of a new era, as the promised Messiah was supposed to establish through his coming. The symbolic reference point provided by the Passover week was entirely different from the Christianized sacrifice of the Pesach lamb for forgiveness of human sin. The true meaning leys in the unique possibilities that the chosen period offers to mark a symbolical end of time, and a symbolical beginning of a new era, within the intricate framework of the Hebrew religious calendar. The Jewish calendar is unique in its sort. No effort is to big to make the lunar cycles match the solar year. A complex system of corrections has to assure that the calendar manages to function. The only reason for all this effort is the enormous religious and cultural importance of the celebration of the many Jewish holydays on the exact days that are mentioned in the Torah. Considering this importance of the calendar, it is also understandable why the Qumran findings included a divergent calendar, especially since in the first century AD the correct Jewish religious calendar was a highly disputed subject. The week of the Passover feast offers some unique calendar possibilities. According to the religious regulations, the Jewish Passover was celebrated on the day of the first full moon in the first month of the year. Even though the Jews in a later period for religious reasons changed the beginning of the year to autumn (according to Genesis darkness precedes light), the religious new year originally started in the month of Nissan, the month of spring, first season of the new year, in accordance to the Biblical instructions of Exodus 12:2. The exact start of spring was fixed on the day of the full moon of the month of Nissan, the same day as the Passover feast. Some old religious texts mention four starting dates for the new year:
1st of Nisan, for kings(*) and festivities. (*) Jesus was commonly seen as the Messiah. Within the Jewish tradition existed some indistinctness regarding the earthly or heavenly meaning of such a Messiah. The gospels clearly depict this field of misunderstanding. The recent Qumran findings give some more insight when they specifically talk about two types of Messiahs; the King David-like worldly liberator and the Priestly - spiritual liberator. Both Messiahs would join at the table of the ritual end-time meal (Last Supper). Regarding Passover it should be noticed that this day has four names in Jewish religion. One of those names is simply "the Spring feast". Pesach - Passover in
Hebrew language. As explicitly mentioned in the gospels, the Passover feast in the passion week of Jesus coincided with a regular Sabbath. This conjunction of Pesach and Sabbath happens on average once every seven years and is called a Major Passover. Regarding the Jewish Sabbath it should be noticed that only this day of the week had its own name. The other days were simply called, first-day, second-day, third-day, etc. This fact is due to the strong religious connection with the creation story of Genesis, which took place in six days, with God resting on the seventh day, the holy Sabbath. As such, in the Jewish time conception, Jesus was not crucified on Friday, but on the "sixth-day" and his resurrection did not take place on a Sunday but on the "first-day". The 6 6 6 symbolism As mentioned above, the specific religious meaning of the passion week should be sought in the planning of the time scheme of Jesus' death and resurrection as a symbolic end to the old time and the beginning of a new era. While the old world was created by God in six days, so was it corrupted by man and Satan through the original sin. It was this old world that stopped to exist on the sixth day of the passion week, on the same sixth day that it was originally finalized through the creation of man, God's final (unfortunately rather unsuccessful), creative act. As such, all time-moments that are related to this sixth day of the passion of Jesus are connected to the number six. It was on the sixth day that Jesus, during his six hour lasing crucifixion, during the sixth (or eighteenth) hour of the day descended to hell in order to liberate the world of the original sin. It was at this moment that he symbolically closed the Old Time through his own suffering for the sin of mankind. On the Sabbath, the holy resting day of God and the Jews, Jesus also rested in his grave. It is symbolical that his death (and victory over evil) occurred on the twenty-first hour of previous day. Just as his suffering on the cross was symbolized by the "threefold six", so was his rest in the grave symbolized by the "threefold seven". Jesus resurrection "on the third day" occurred on the "eighths day" of the week. As such the first day of the new era was symbolized by the same "threefold-eight" that is hidden in Jesus very name (the numeric value of the Greek name Ιησους adds up to 888). The diagram below provides a timeline of the events involved in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
An alert observer will have noticed that one moment has been introduced that does not appear in the gospels, and that is the hour of Jesus arrest in the garden of Gethsemane. This moment, that has been chosen to have taken place at midnight, does however follow a strict logic. Considering the analogy that Jesus chose between the celebration of the Pesach meal and his own "anticipated concept of Pesach" or Last Supper it is logic that Jesus (who was also a "first born son") was taken prisoner at the exact moment that the angel of death stroke the first born sons of Egypt. (Exodus 12:29) At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. This hour of the capture of Jesus is in complete concordance with the typically value of the number six in the conspiracy against Jesus through Satan's helper Judas Iscariot and his later crucifixion and descending to the underworld. (Luke 22:3) Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. (Luke 22:53) "Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour - when darkness reigns." The diagram above reveals another interesting symbolic number; How could it have been else than that the time that elapsed between his death and his appearance on the morning of the first day, is exactly forty hours, the number of "ordeal", such as Jonah's stay in the belly of the whale or the days of Noah's flood. Returning to the six hours of Jesus' crucifixion: The matrix below adds some interesting symbolical value to the three hours mentioned in the gospels regarding the crucifixion.
In three separate rows the internal sum of the same three hours are provided as a normal 12 hour-day, on the middle row as in a 24 hour-day and on the bottom row as in the 168 hour-week. The internal sums of these hours (blue numbers), both vertically up an down as horizontally left and right, add up to the number 18.
18 = 3 x 6
(Revelation 13:18) This calls for
wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast,
for it is man's number. |
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