Events relating to Holy Week

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

In most Christian denominations, we are approaching Holy Week. In TWI,chapters from The Word's Way and Jesus Christ Our Passover, along with materials from Bullinger, Lamsa, and Pillai about Palm Sunday, Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Saturday(Easter Vigil) were repeated about Holy Communion, crucifixion, resurrection that Wierwille kept teaching for several years(including the Armstrongs, JW's, Rocco Errico, etc.). Do you still accept TWI's understanding, or do you go with traditional denominational teachings?

Edited April 5, 2019 by Thomas Loy Bumgarner

[Raf]

If those are the only options, this belongs in doctrinal.

If one of the options is "the majority of this story is horsehockey," then you've picked the right subforum.

I don't believe Jesus rode into Jerusalem on two donkeys like Matthew says.

I don't think he overturned tables at the Temple once at the beginning of his ministry, like it says in John, and once near the end, like the other gospels say.

I don't think he predicted Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed and three more times before the cock crowed again.

I don't think Pilate wanted to let him go but caved to the pressure of the mob. Pilate put down mobs. He didn't cave to them.

I don't think Pilate gave the people a choice between Jesus, the Son of the Father, and Jesus Barabbas (which means son of the father). They didn't have that tradition.

I don't think Jesus was crucified between two robbers AND two evildoers... because they. didn't. crucify. robbers.

I do't believe Joseph of Arimathea (which didn't exist but actually means "best disciple") was a member of the unanimous Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus, but he was the shy and quiet type who happened to have an unused tomb and, shucks, let's just give it to Jesus. Oh, and then I'll disappear from the story never to be heard from again.

 

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

That is why I posted it here and not in About The Way

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

Most of traditional Christianity is focusing on Luke's gospel for this year and celebrations such as congregation waving palms in procession, Tenebrae, Stations of the Cross, Maundy Thursday stripping of altar, Proper Good Friday Liturgy, post sunset Easter Vigil Saturday evening with multiple scripture readings, baptism/confirmation renewal. Btw, I always thought it strange Wierwille suggested red candles to use for Holy Communion instead of white.

[Raf]

I think i'm not being clear.

This is a subforum of Doctrinal that expects an exploration of unbelief. An atheist corner, if you will.

Doctrinal seems to be the place where you want this thread, not questioning faith. We will move it if that's ok with you

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

great, thanks Raf

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

I did post an announcement in In The Way forum about this topic

[Raf]

No prob.

My personal belief is the gospel writers disagreed with each other on what happened. Why? off topic. enjoy

[Infoabsorption]

It's been so long since I've read JCOP that I've forgotten which year TWI set for Christ's crucifixion. I remember that according to TWI the crucifixion must have been on a Wednesday and the resurrection must have been on a Saturday to fulfill the "3 days & nights" prophecy. According to Jewish calendars this Wed -Sat timeline could only occur in 34AD. Tradition has the crucifixion occurring on Friday April 3rd 33AD & the resurrection occurring on Sunday April 5th.

Correction - It could have been 28AD, 31AD, 34AD

 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Infoabsorption
Wrong info

[Raf]

That would make Jesus too old.

It also raises a ton of questions. Maybe I moved this thread too soon? lol

[DontWorryBeHappy]

Hi Info!

Pardon me, but it was E.W. Bullinger who provided the “chronology” of Christ’s crucifixion, NOT dicto paul. He plagiarized that!

Edited April 9, 2019 by DontWorryBeHappy
Spelling

[Infoabsorption]

2 minutes ago, Raf said:

That would make Jesus too old.

It also raises a ton of questions. Maybe I moved this thread too soon? lol

 Exactly Raf! However,  I made a correction based on other Jewish calendars that I came across on the net. The 34AD date would place Jesus at least 34 years old and 36 years if he was born 3 BC.

[Infoabsorption]

1 minute ago, DontWorryBeHappy said:

Hi Info!

Pardon me, but it was E.W. Bullinger who provide the “chronology” of Christ’s crucifixion, NOT dicto paul. He plagiarized that!

I agree 100% DWBH. but I'm referring to TWI's official position.

[DontWorryBeHappy]

Thanks, Info.

[Raf]

Ok, so, looking at the calendar I have access to (and with gratitude for your corrections)

28 AD: Nisan 14 falls on a Wednesday. Jesus is 31 by TWI's reckoning. This actually lines up fairly well for them. He's actually too YOUNG, though. If he gets baptized when he's 30, then that's Sept. of 28, five months AFTER that passover. Did Jesus not have to wait until he was 30 because an old piece of literature says he didn't have to? There's another problem. Luke 3 says Jesus was baptized in the 15th year of Tiberius. We know when that is. That's 29 AD. Jesus is 30 if baptized before his birthday, 31 if after.

So if that's when he's baptized, a ministry of less than one year mandates we're looking at 30 AD. Preparation day, Nisan 14, is on a ... oops... Friday.

31 AD and 34 AD: Again, Jesus is too old. We would have to assume some flexibility with the Bible's "about 30 years" statement, but I find it hard to reconcile Jesus following every aspect of the law down to the letter but being squishy about when he gets baptized. Wiggle room is what you need when you're making up a story, not when you're just telling what happened. Give Luke (whoever the actual author was) some credit here: He tells you dates you can check. Not that his dates check out (cough, Quirinius, cough), but at least he gives you something to work with.

There are other challenges, but if Luke is correct about the baptism and John is correct about Jesus dying on the preparation day, then Jesus died on a Friday, April 7, 30 AD.

 

 

[Infoabsorption]

4 minutes ago, Raf said:

Ok, so, looking at the calendar I have access to (and with gratitude for your corrections)

28 AD: Nisan 14 falls on a Wednesday. Jesus is 31 by TWI's reckoning. This actually lines up fairly well for them. He's actually too YOUNG, though. If he gets baptized when he's 30, then that's Sept. of 28, five months AFTER that passover. Did Jesus not have to wait until he was 30 because an old piece of literature says he didn't have to? There's another problem. Luke 3 says Jesus was baptized in the 15th year of Tiberius. We know when that is. That's 29 AD. Jesus is 30 if baptized before his birthday, 31 if after.

So if that's when he's baptized, a ministry of less than one year mandates we're looking at 30 AD. Preparation day, Nisan 14, is on a ... oops... Friday.

31 AD and 34 AD: Again, Jesus is too old. We would have to assume some flexibility with the Bible's "about 30 years" statement, but I find it hard to reconcile Jesus following every aspect of the law down to the letter but being squishy about when he gets baptized. Wiggle room is what you need when you're making up a story, not when you're just telling what happened. Give Luke (whoever the actual author was) some credit here: He tells you dates you can check. Not that his dates check out (cough, Quirinius, cough), but at least he gives you something to work with.

There are other challenges, but if Luke is correct about the baptism and John is correct about Jesus dying on the preparation day, then Jesus died on a Friday, April 7, 30 AD.

 

 

Raf, Passovers were special sabbaths. I read somewhere that In 30AD the preparation day for Passover would have been on Thursday. If you count the remaining day on Thursday(30AD) which would not have been very long, maybe an hour or so of daylight when Christ's body was put into the tomb, then it is possible to count 3 days & nights although it would have been just a partial day on Thursday.

[Raf]

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I'm going by these dates, but if you have a better site, I'm all ears.

On that list, the 14th (preparation day) is a Friday. Saturday (the weekly sabbath and the special sabbath) coincided. Sometimes Christmas falls on a Sunday, Happens.

 

Also, the stuff I looked at earlier kind of relies on Jesus' ministry being less than a year. If tradition is correct and it was three years, then his death was in 32 AD. Nisan 14 was a Monday.

And, of course, if Luke is wrong about AD 29 (like he was wrong about the census around the time of Jesus' birth), AND TWI was wrong about the birth date, then we've opened a number of possibilities, none of which can be verified.

 

Edited April 9, 2019 by Raf

[TLC]

6 hours ago, Raf said:

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I'm going by these dates, but if you have a better site, I'm all ears.

On that list, the 14th (preparation day) is a Friday. Saturday (the weekly sabbath and the special sabbath) coincided. Sometimes Christmas falls on a Sunday, Happens.

 

Also, the stuff I looked at earlier kind of relies on Jesus' ministry being less than a year. If tradition is correct and it was three years, then his death was in 32 AD. Nisan 14 was a Monday.

And, of course, if Luke is wrong about AD 29 (like he was wrong about the census around the time of Jesus' birth), AND TWI was wrong about the birth date, then we've opened a number of possibilities, none of which can be verified.

 

Been a while since I've read up on this, but it seems I recall the most reasonable year of the crucifixion being 28AD.  Guess I'll have to go back and check some sources (which seemed pretty thorough at the time...) 

[Infoabsorption]

Here is the way I understand this 30AD theory from everything I've read: The actual day of Passover was Friday April 7th but it actually began at the sundown the evening before which would have been Thursday April 6th. So the special sabbath(Passover) fell on the preparation day(Friday). The sabbaths were 2-in-a-row, Friday & Saturday.

TLC, yes I've read about the 28AD theory as well which would have placed Christ's birth at 6BC, maybe March 22nd or 23rd. That one is very interesting since Herod the Great died in 4BC. 2 years before that is 6BC.

[TLC]

Just now, Infoabsorption said:

Here is the way I understand this 30AD theory from everything I've read: The actual day of Passover was Friday April 7th but it actually began at the sundown the evening before which would have been Thursday April 6th. So the special sabbath(Passover) fell on the preparation day(Friday). The sabbaths were 2-in-a-row, Friday & Saturday.

TLC, yes I've read about the 28AD theory as well which would have placed Christ's birth at 6BC, maybe March 22nd or 23rd. That one is very interesting since Herod the Great died in 4BC. 2 years before that is 6BC.

I disagree with 6BC, as I'm inclined to think his ministry was less than 2 years.

[Raf]

The problem with 28 AD as the year of the crucifixion is Luke telling us that John doesn't start baptizing people until the 15th year of Tiberius  which is 29 AD.

[Raf]

17 minutes ago, Infoabsorption said:

So the special sabbath(Passover) fell on the preparation day(Friday). The sabbaths were 2-in-a-row, Friday & Saturday.

But the preparation day is not the sabbath.

[DontWorryBeHappy]

The final date of September 11, 4 BC, was arrived at by Ernest Martin and confirmed by Bernegger, McCrae, and John Crouch. That’s why it was in the book they wrote Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed.

David Wilensky and I were also involved in tracking this down, he more so than I. He actually worked with Bernegger and McCrae on the original manuscript of what Vic stole from them, covering it up by excommunicating Bernegger, Fanning, and McCrae at a public kangaroo court show trial in Emporia. I was there teaching an Old Testament History class for 3 weeks, and present at this shitshow on a Wednesday Corpse night from Emporia.

In those daze, the weekly corpse meetings with dictor paul teaching, were done on Wednesday’s (having been moved from what had been it’s “traditional” Tuesday night slot), with telephone hookups to all the “Root Locales”.....HQ, Emporia, Rome City and Gunnison. So this public hanging took place live at all four of these locations simultaneously in real time. Fortunately, since David’s involvement was “unofficial”, and based upon Bernegger and McCrae’s sincere respect for David's mathematical genius........

(no hyperbole here, it was fact!), and experience flying in and interpreting the data and photos of U2 missions, and the intelligence interpretation of satellite intelligence data for the DOD, CIA, and the FBI......

.....David avoided any part of this grand inquisition.

How ever you choose to determine the actual length of Christ’s life, whether he was 31 at crucifixion, or 33, the actual chronology of the crucifixion, death, and resurrection is determined not by the futile efforts to “harmonize” the Gospels, but by the Old Testament laws regarding the Feast of Passover as found in the Pentateuch. That is what I choose to rely upon. This chronology is not dependent upon which day of the week the Passover fell on. Also remember, the Hebrews used a lunar calendar  different from our familiar Julian calendar. At the “upper crust” levels of modern day textual criticism and research, the number of years Christ ministered “in the flesh” are still debated constantly. Heck! His very existence in the flesh is debated in these circles in places like Oxford, Cambridge, Jerusalem,  Harvard, University of Chicago, and a good number of other well-known and well reputed institutions of higher learning and religion.

So, if one chooses to accept the 4 BC theory, then the crucifixion could have taken place from 27 AD to 29 AD. Crouch himself still travels around to offshoots and splinter groups doing an excellent presentation of all this stuff. He and Gervais stopped and visited me on their way up to North Adams, MA, to teach this subject free of the dictor paul shadow and chains. Smart guy!

[TLC]

4 hours ago, DontWorryBeHappy said:

The final date of September 11, 4 BC, was arrived at by Ernest Martin and confirmed by Bernegger, McCrae, and John Crouch. That’s why it was in the book they wrote Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed.

Strange... as my copy of the book has September 11. 3 BC.

[TLC]

8 hours ago, Raf said:

The problem with 28 AD as the year of the crucifixion is Luke telling us that John doesn't start baptizing people until the 15th year of Tiberius  which is 29 AD.

That would only be true if Luke were referring to the 15th year of Tiberius in the same way as the Romans did on the Julian calendar (January 1 to January 1), starting at the first year he reigned alone.  However, when using the Judean method of reckoning civil years (from Tishri 1 to Tishri 1), the 1st year of Tiberius would have started with his co-reign with Augustus, which was somewhere between 12 and 13 AD.