- there is strong evidence that the raising of Lazarus was always connected with the Sunday which began Holy Week in the East.
- the idea that a Sunday resurrection counts as 'three days' from a Friday crucifixion has always seemed forced. Given that Clement of Alexandria identifies the crucifixion as taking place on 14 Nisan, the Resurrection must have originally been understood to take place on 17 Nisan and could only be an 'eighth day' by virtue of a counting from 10 Nisan.
- all the evidence from the Catholic sources themselves suggest that the Roman emphasis of the 'eighth day' as a Sunday was forced upon an original Jewish calculation that assumed that the 'eighth day' was merely an ordinal value.
Everything that developed in the West regarding the veneration of the original historic 'event' associated with 'the Passion' was deliberately moved away from any association with Jewish roots. Not only do the so-called 'Quartodecimans' (i.e. those who calculated Easter according to a Jewish calendar) become heretical but we see in Alexandria quite specifically that as late as the fourth and fifth centuries Jewish calendars were used to calculate Easter but also important dates associated with the tradition's patron saint Mark.
What I am now beginning to see is that the first addition to the longer gospel of Mark witnessed by the Letter to Theodore might well preserve the most Jewish form of Christianity. The date of 10 Nisan is no accident. As the great Dutch scholar Jan van Goudoever notes there was a very early identification of both (a) the New Year being held on this date and (b) a seven day festival preceding this celebration:
The tenth day of the first month In the Israelite calendars there is a definite balance between spring and autumn, between Nisan and Tishri. The tenth day of the seventh month has the character of 'New Year'. We shall see that the tenth day of Nisan (the first month) bore the same character. It is the day on which the Passover lamb must be taken (Exodus 12.3). If the tenth day indeed indicated New Year (ie the spring-equinox), we may conclude that according to the Israelite calendar Passover must be kept after the spring equinox. Only after this day had passed could the lamb be taken.
The tenth day of the first month is also the day on which the people of Israel came up out of the Jordan and encamped in Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho (Josh 4:9). We may interpret this indication of time like this: the people entered into the Promised Land on 'New Year.' On a small scroll found in Qumran Cave I we can read these words: For your fathers were wanderers in the wilderness until the tenth day of the (seventh) month 34. Then follows the description of the Day of Atonement. The meaning is apparently that the people entered into the Promised Land in a Sabbatic or in a Jubilee Year. From the context we must conclude that it was a Sabbatic year. A tradition preserved in the Talmud tells us that the first year of the entry into the Promised Land was a Year of Release (and of Jubilee) (b Arak 12, 13a). Such a year is opened on the tenth day of Tishri. In the Samaritan Book of Joshua there is still another tradition regarding the day of the entry into Canaan. The people entered on the first day of the first month (Samar. Book of Joshua 15). Since the days VII/10 and I/1 both can mean 'New Year', though in different calendars, the day I/10 can also bear the same character.
The Greek version of Ezekiel xl. 1 reads that Ezekiel saw the Temple in a vision on the tenth day of the first month. The words 'New Year' are missing in the Greek; whereas the Hebrew text reads 'on New Year, on the tenth day of the seventh month'. The balance between the tenth day in the first and in the seventh month is clear here too.
The Sabbath before Passover is called by modern Jews the 'Great Sabbath'. On this Sabbath they expect Elijah's return. The origin of this Great Sabbath seems to be 10 Nisan. In the Samaritan Liturgy the Great Sabbath before Passover is kept in commemoration of the taking of the lamb. The expression 'Great Sabbath' for 10 Nisan is reminiscent of the name 'Sabbath of Sabbaths' for the Day of Atonement 38. The tenth day of the first month probably lost its character of 'New Year', at least in some traditions, immediately after the Exile. New Year was kept on 1 Nisan instead of on 10 Nisan. In Exodus xl we can read that Moses erected the Tabernacle on the first day of the first month (Exod. 40, 2 17). On this day the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle (Exod. 40.35). Morgenstern has made it clear that there was a festival of seven days before 1 Nisan, a festival which can be compared to that before the Day of Atonement. The post-exilic Temple is not dedicated in the seventh month as was the pre-exilic Temple. In Esdras (LXX Ezra) vii. 5, the House of the Lord is finished on 23 Adar (ie twelfth month). The original Hebrew text says 3 Adar, which is either wrong or incomprehensible (Ezra 6.15 Jos. Antiq 11. 107). On 23 Adar according to the Greek version they celebrated the dedication (the hanukkah) of the House of the Lord with joy (Esdras 7.7; Ezra 6:16,17). The festival probably lasted for seven days, and since Adar only numbered 29 days, the eighth day of the festival fell on 1 Nisan. This festival of seven days before 1 Nisan is indeed found in the Seder Olam (± 150 AD) Here Moses dedicated the Tabernacle from 23 Adar to 1 Nisan (Seder Olam 7; jYom 1.1; NuR 13.2) In the Seder Olam the months alternately number 30 and 29 days. According to the Seder Olam, in the year of the erection of the Tabernacle 1 Nisan fell on a Sunday, so the eight days of the dedication ran from Sunday to Sunday.
In the Israelite calendars the year is divided into two equal parts. One part begins in Nisan, the other in Tishri. The tenth day of Nisan and that of Tishri were in former times equidistant in the liturgical year. There was perhaps a time when the first day of Nisan and the tenth day of Tishri were in balance. By the time of Ezekiel 18-20, the first day of the first month and that of the seventh month form the opposite poles of the year, suitable days for cleansing of the Temple; in the Book of Jubilees the altars were erected on these two days. [J. van Goudoever Biblical Calendars 42 - 44]
All we have to do is look at the strange wording in Exodus chapter 12 to see a confirmation of van Goudoever's point:
And the LORD spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: 'This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household be too little for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbour next unto his house take one according to the number of the souls; according to every man's eating ye shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year; ye shall take it from the sheep, or from the goats and ye shall keep it unto the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at dusk. [Exod 12. 1 - 6]
When you really look at the passage there is absolutely no reference to the idea that the first of the first month is the beginning of the New Year. It is just an unconscious projection on our part. As Reinhard Pummer notes about the Samaritan tradition:
With the Samaritans neither the first day of the first month (Nisan) nor that of the seventh month (Tishri) form part of the calendar of festivals, even though the term 'New Year' has been applied to both days. This is probably due to an imitation of the Jewish usage. Nevertheless, it is a Samaritan custom to begin the year with the Festival of the Seventh Month, although this is not in agreement with Exodus 12.2 [Companion to Samaritan Studies p. 172]
What the original custom of the Samaritans was with respect to the start of the New Year is anyone's guess though there is a clear tendency of Samaritans to begin the religious calendar in the first month. I think it highly probable that the year actually began on 1/10.
We should consider something else very significant. If there was an accompanying tradition that the dedication of the temple actually started on the tenth of the first month it is difficult not to see how various allusions to the individual being a 'temple of God' (cf. I Cor. 3:16; also 2 Thess 2.4) would develop from the initiation ritual in the 'Secret Gospel of Mark.' We have the exact same seven day lead up to the sanctification and then the 'glory' abiding within the 'inner sanctum' of the individual. It is seriously worth considering this in much greater detail.
