Looking at the Death of Yehoshua (Joshua) from the Perspective of First Century Orthodox, Judaic Judaism and Essenism
The First Pesach in the Land of Egypt
By Robert Mock M.D.
April (Passover) 2007
Part Three
Topics
Passover compared with the Festival of Unleavened Bread
Passover in the Days of the Rabbi called Yehoshua Ha Notzri (Jesus the Nazarene)
Model for the Calendar of Events on the Passover on 30 CE
The Pesach Traditions of the Last Supper
The Pesach Traditions of the “High Sabbath”
Pesach and the Three Days of the “Sign” of Jonah
Behind the Railing, the Ancient First Century Maccabean Pathway felt used by Yehoshua and His Disciples – Photo by Robert Mock
As early as 1550 BCE, the Hebrews living in Egypt were in the throes of a major catastrophic era that catapulted them into to a new era: redemptions from slavery and restoration to the Land promised to their forefather, Abraham. This was the land of Canaan in the land of Israel today.
On the day of redemption, when the “blood” of the slain lamb was sprinkled on the door post, the “first born” of that family was saved from the avenging angel of death passing over Egypt. The march to a new life also began with eating of the paschal lamb on that first Passover. While the Passover is HaShem’s Passover (Exodus 12:11, Leviticus 23:5, Numbers 28:16, and II Chronicles 35:1), we can also call it the Hebrew’s Passover.
Almost a thousand years later, the remnant of the Hebrews was being redeemed from their 70 years of bondage in Babylon and Persia. Here the Judeans (Jews) from the southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin returned to resettle Jerusalem. Now, new ways of observing the Torah festivals were instituted and with it the Passover Seder as we know it today.
The modern Torah Seder is not the same that the Hebrews observed while in Egypt and the Sinai desert. Babylonian influence, such as the Seder egg, crept into the more primitive Palestinian Seder rites that soon disappeared after being augmented by the influence of the Babylonian Haggadah.
In a way, we can call the modern Passover Seder a Jewish festival where the instructions on how to practice or perform this Seder is spelled out in instructional manuals, called “The Haggadah”.
Was it not the commands of the Go- of Israel at Sinai, who stated?
Walking further down the Ancient First Century Maccabean Pathway from the House of Caiaphas to the Kidron Valley below – Photo by Robert Mock
Leviticus 23:5-6 – “On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord.” (See also Numbers 28:16-17)
When Moshe (Moses) was in Egypt, he was given special instructions that the Israelites were not to hold a festival in the land of Egypt. Therefore, Moses went to the Pharaoh seeking permission to go to the land of Goshen so that the Israelites could a festival.
Exodus 5:1 – “Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, ’thus says the L-rd G-d of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”
Why was such a strange command given by G-d to Moses? Was it His divine purpose just to say, “I won’t permit it?” The reality appears that HaShem, the G-d of Israel did have a divine purpose for He intended to deal with the Pharaoh, the representative of Egypt’s divine god, Ra, person to Person. He did not want the Israelites to become involved, so that none of them would be hurt or killed.
A festival by the Israelites in Egypt would have been offensive to the Egyptian priesthood. The festivals would have been celebrated with animal sacrifices and grain sacrifices, yet the Egyptians worshipped the animals and the grains as their deities. It was these deities that the Israelites were going to sacrifice to the G-d of Israel. Such an act would have been detestable with the Egyptian priests of Ra and could have provoked the death warrant for Moses and many Hebrews.
Exodus 8:25-26 – “Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, ‘Go, sacrifice to your G-d in the land.’ And Moses said, ‘It is not right to do so, for we would be sacrificing the abomination of the Egyptians to the L-rd our G-d. If we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, then will they not stone us? We will go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the L-rd our G-d as He will command us.’”
The Egyptian Temple in Dendura where the goddess of Hathor resided in the Days of the Exodus
Was not the goddess of Hathor in Dendura portrayed as the sacred cow? Was not the sacred bull that was worshipped as Apis, the actual embodiment of Ptah, Atum-Ra, and later Osiris to the Egyptians?
These bulls were housed in the temple for their entire life, then embalmed, and given their funerary rites while being encased in giant monolithic stone sarcophagi in the Serapeum at Saqqara.
Even the grain sacrifices of the Hebrews would have been offensive, for Nepri was the grain god, Ermutet was the goddess of the crops, and the jackal-headed Anubis was the guardian of the fields. Above all, was Osiris, a member of the Egyptian sacred trinity, was the god of agriculture. Now the Israelites were going to sacrifice the Egyptian gods to the Almighty One of Israel.
Yet, the Passover was held in Egypt. Why? The Passover was a memorial, not a festival, to an event that occurred in Egypt. It would also point to a more profound event that would occur in the future. The mood of Passover was symbolized by pain and suffering. On the afternoon of the 14th day of Nisan, the Hebrews were to sacrifice their favorite unblemished lamb, the best of their flock.
For the Hebrews, who did have faith (emuna) in the sovereignty of their G-d, the blood of this lamb was to literally “save” the firstborn sons of their family and the firstborn of all their sheep, goats, and cattle. It was take a lot of faith, emuna, to believe their Sovereign G-d in asking them to do such an incomprehensible task; slay the lamb, take the blood and put it on the doorpost of their dwelling and their firstborn sons and animals would be saved from death.
The shadow-picture in Egypt to the Israelites was now about to see its complete fulfillment sixteen hundred years, or 40 generations later. Only a few hours after the Last Supper, the “Only Begotten” firstborn “Son of G-d” would be impaled, like the Korban lamb, His blood splattered on the upright wooden tree (stake) so that all the world, who had “emuna” (faith) in the sovereign G-d of Israel would be saved from eternal death.
John 3:16 – “For HaShem so loved the world, that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life. For HaShem did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Him, might be saved.”
Passover compared with the Festival of Unleavened Bread
The Secured Nazarene Michvahs nearby to the Tomb of King David – Photo by Robert Mock
While the Passover was a Memorial Day symbolizing suffering and death, the Festival of Unleavened Bread was a celebration of joy for the Hebrews. Their days of slavery and servitude to the Egyptians were over. While the Passover had only one sacrifice, many sacrifices were to be offered these seven days during the Festival of Unleavened Bread, as an aroma that was pleasing to the Almighty One of Israel.
Numbers 28:24-25 – “In this manner you shall offer the food of the offering made by fire daily for seven days, as a sweet aroma to the L-rd; it shall be offered besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work.”
While the 14th day of Nisan was day of Passover, the 15th day of Nisan was the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread. There were several distinctions that separated the Passover from the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
- The Passover was a memorial of suffering and grief, while the Festival was a festival of joy.
- The Passover was a work day. It was a preparation day for a memorial that would culminate in a feast of bitter-delight. The first day of the Festival was a High Sabbath, like the Seventh-day Shabbat, in which no work was to be done.
- While the Passover was a work day, buying and selling was done in the temple bazaars, where the lambs were purchased to be used for the memorial feast, the High Sabbath of the Festival, was a Shabbat, where buying and selling was prohibited.
- The Passover was highlighted by one sacrifice, the Pesach lamb, the blood of sacrifice for salvation from death, and a meal of bitter-sweet remembrance. The Festival was highlighted by many sacrifices that were to be a delight to the Lord.
- The unleavened bread at Passover was to represent the slain life of the Pesach lamb looking forward to the future slain “body” of the Korban Pesach Lamb of G-d that was without sin (Matthew 26:26). The unleavened bread at the Festival was to represent “sincerity and truth” in our relationship with the divine with a transparent life without the leavening of sin.
- The Passover was a memorial that was to be observed by only the circumcised Hebrews while the Festival of Unleavened Bread was a festival open to all participants; circumcised and uncircumcised; Jews and Gentiles alike. (Exodus 12:19 vs. Exodus 2:43)
Yet, something happened, when the Jews were taken to Babylon in the 6th century BCE. The Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread began to merge into one festival. This historical fact is confirmed by the Encyclopaedia Judaica:
Encyclopaedia Judaica – “The feast of Passover consists of two parts: The Passover ceremony and the feast of Unleavened Bread. Originally, both parts existed separately; but at the beginning of the (Babylonian) exile, they were combined.” (Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 13, p. 169)
Passover in the Days of the Rabbi called Yehoshua Ha Notzri (Jesus the Nazarene)
By the time of the first century, when Prince of David called Yehoshua began his rabbinic yeshiva in “Halachic Torah observation’, there was practiced during the Passover Festival season several different times in which the Passover Seder was observed.
In as much as Prince Yehoshua (Joshua) was a Jewish rabbi, the practice of a Passover Seder would be whether He accepted the traditions of the Sadducees (“Sunrise Reckoning where the day begins at sunrise”), the Pharisees (“Sunset Reckoning where the day begins at sunset”), the Essenes (the Passover was always celebrated on the eve of Wednesday, per their (solar calendar), or the Galileans and other pilgrims from the Diaspora where a “Double Passover” was observed.
It was a little more complex, as the Pharisees in control of the synagogues and religious education in Judea in the days of Jesus were from the School of Shammai.
The Pharisaic traditions of the Essenes were probably more closely akin to the revered School of Hillel the Great. Here is where we see the great debates of Rabbi Yehoshua who sided with the Pharisees of School of Hillel.
Yehoshua was challenging the halakhic rulings of the Pharisees of the School of Shammai, in defense of the Hasidic Pharisees of the School of Hillel the Great.
Excavated Site of the Subterranean Mikvahs for the Hebrew Nazarene Synagogue (Ecclesia) next to the Tomb of King David – Photo by Robert Mock
To add even more complexity, Yehoshua the Rabbi was from Galilee, and could have observed the “Double Passover Seder” per the traditions of the Galileans in the Diaspora. Yet, as a Hasidic rabbi, who followed the Torah, above the letter of the law, the Prince of David and now Rabbi Yehoshua adhered more closely to the Passover observations of the great Rabbi Hillel and his Av Beis Din, the “Father of the Court” of Hillel’s Sanhedrin; Menahem the Essene.
Therefore, Yehoshua may have observed the Passover in a manner closer to the non-sacrificial observing, vegetarian Essenes who rejected the corrupt “traditions of men” by the Pharisees of the School of Shammai and the corrupted temple sacrifices by the Sadducee high priests.
As the month of Nisan, it was the month in which the Festival Year of the L-rd began. Per the biblical commands of the L-rd, it was to begin on the sighting of the “New Moon” over Jerusalem, called the Rosh Chodesh Nisan (First day of the month of Nisan).
Yet, there were neither telecommunications nor international media to notify the Jews around the Roman Empire, or the Babylonian Diaspora that the Jewish Passover season had now begun.
Pilgrims coming from Babylon had to make personal preparations in advance in order to participate in the Temple of King Herod Passover season in Jerusalem. Knowing with great certitude when the festival would begin was of great importance.
Even the sighting of the New Moon could have been in question, so a “Double Passover” began to be observed; on the 15th and 16th days following a 29 day month, and the 14th and 15th days after a 30 day month.
Either way, the 15th day of Nisan was observed as the “High Shabbat” of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was also a “High Shabbat”, or a second “Sabbath” which made the Festival of Unleavened Bread an eight-day festival like the fall Festival of Sukkot (Feast of Thanksgiving).
Model for the Calendar of Events on the Passover on 30 CE
On the 1st day of Nisan in 30 CE, the signal flares spread from Jerusalem to the Euphrates Valley where most of the Jewish pilgrims came from. As explained in the Mishnah in Rosh Hashanah 22b:
Rosh Hashanah 22b – “At first they used to kindle flares, but after the misleading deeds of the Samaritans it was decided that messengers go forth...And where did they kindle the flares? From the top of the Mount of Olives (they signaled) to Sarteba, and from Sarteba to Agrippina, and from Agrippina to Hauran to Bet Baltin (a Babylonian city near the Euphrates). They did not go beyond Bet Baltin, but there the flare was waved to and fro and up and down until a man could see the whole diaspora before him like a sea of fire.”
During the next 14 days, we witnessed the following: the Passover Lamb was selected in the fields on the 10th day, and brought into the city of Jerusalem, just after Yehoshua strode in through the northern Damascus Gate on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem to the awaiting throngs of pilgrims with palm branches, waving and shouting, “Hosannah to the Son of David, Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the L-rd. Hosannah in the Highest” (Matthew 20:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19)
The Stone Carved Steps Leading into the Subterranean Mikvahs of the Hasidic Nazarenes – Photo by Robert Mock
The next three days (10th, 11th and 12th), the Pesach Lamb was inspected for its ritual purity within the courts of the temple. At the same time, the Lamb of G-d was inspected for His theological and Torah observance purity according to the Torah: the Law given to Moses.
During these three days, Yehoshua had virtual control of the temple as the people were flocking to witness the healing physical, and spiritual power of the Galilean rabbi who brought in living color how the “kingdom of G-d” could become a living reality someday in the future when the “Era of the Messiah” will begin.
On Tuesday evening, the 13th of Nisan, the Nazarene met with His disciples in the Essene Quarters, and there in the Upper Terrace over the Tomb of King David, he as a human being participated in a Passover with his disciples without the Pesach Lamb, ala vegetarian per the customs of the Essenes in Qumran, in what we know today as the Last Supper.
When the Last Supper was over, Yehoshua with His disciples left for the final time, towards the Mount called Zion. Yehoshua was now outside the protective custody of the Essenes. Together they walked down the paved Maccabean pathway near to the gate near the Palace of the High Priest, and then down into the Kidron Valley and beyond.
They were going to a place where they could rest in the garden district of the Mount of Olives looking directly towards the temple of Yahweh. The night was one of agony, broken with the sounds of an armed multitude.
The Stone Steps Leading Down into the Mikvah Baths of the Early Nazarenes under the Leadership of James the Just, brother of Yehoshua – Photo by Robert Mock
The hopes of the messianic fulfillment for the redemption of National Judah from Rome were on the verge of being crushed. Bound by a mob, Yehoshua was taken back to the palace of the high priests where he would undergo interrogation, torture, imprisonment and abuse.
On Wednesday, the 14th day of Nisan, as daylight began to break over the western slopes of the Hills of Moab east of Jerusalem, Yehoshua was taken to the Council of Hewn Stones, where the Great Sanhedrin met in an emergency meeting, near the high priest’s temple residence.
Here Caiphas was residing in ritual purity for the preparation of the lambs that were to be slain on the temple mount that day. It is estimated that upwards to 300,000 lambs were prepared to be eaten by the Jewish pilgrims over the next twenty-our hours for the three million Jewish Passover participants.
It was on Wednesday evening, the eve of the 15th of Nisan, per the traditions of the Sadducee’s, that the first Passover Seders were conducted. This was in observance to the Temple calendar that was in the control by the Sadducees ruled by the families of the high priests, the House of Ananias.
As the Passover lamb was being slain on the court of the Temple at the ninth hour, the Pesach Lamb of G-d was hanging from a tree with a cross-arm gallows in fulfillment of the commands of the Torah:
Deuteronomy 21:20-23 – “And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.
If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you shall hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your G-d is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of G-d.”
This sounds reminiscent of the charges by provocateurs that were placed against Yehoshua. These charges would later set the stage for the accusations that He would face during the interrogation proceedings, imprisonment in the Palace of the High Priest, and the trial later in the Great Sanhedrin that eventually led to His acquittal but eventual conviction of death for blasphemy by the High Priest Caiphas of the House of Ananias:
Matthew 11:19 – “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors, and sinners!’ but wisdom is justified by her children.’”
With the Passover festival was over, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread arrived on Thursday, the 15th of Nisan. As ruled, according to the “Double Passover” traditions, the Diaspora Jews continued to arrive from Galilee and the Babylonian Diaspora.
The 15th day the Passover was celebrated and supported by the Shammaite Pharisees. This second “sunrise” Passover influenced by the Babylonian pilgrims would be celebrated twenty- four hours after the traditional “sunset” Sadducee Passover Seder, on the 14th of Nisan.
By the 16th of Nisan, Friday, the preparation day for the weekly Shabbat, Yehoshua had been in the tomb for two nights and two days. Then Yehoshua rested in the grave on the seventh-day Shabbat, the 17th of Nisan, this time in celebration of the creative act of His Father, who through Yehoshua, the incarnated “Soul of Metatron”, the Angel of the Presence of the Divine who stood as the defense attorney before the Court in Heaven in the 7th Heaven of the Tiferet of the Sefirot of the World of the Divine.
Israeli Tour Guide, Ronni, at the Site of the Hebrew Nazarene Mikva Baths – Photo by Robert Mock
The Pesach Traditions of the Last Supper
In the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum 21, there was reported an ancient tradition that Yehoshua ate the Pesach meal on Tuesday evening, the eve of the 13th of Nisan. He was later arrested on Wednesday and crucified on Friday. (J. Danielou, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Primitive Christianity” (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1958, rep. 1979, 26-29; J. Jeremias, “The Eucharist Words of Jesus” (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), 24-25; quoted by Kenneth F. Doig, “Doig’s Biblical Chronology – Exact Dating of the Exodus and Birth and Crucifixion of Jesus”)
The ancient third century Syrian Eastern Catholic Christian traditions, called the “Catholic doctrine of the Twelve Apostles and the Holy Disciples of our L-rd”, relate that the Last Supper was a Pesach meal, per the solar sunset calendar of the Essenes.
It was the Essenes and the Hasidim, who opposed the Sadducees as corrupt priests. This Passover Seder even occurred before the slaying of the lambs which happened on Friday as prescribed by the Sadducean Temple Lunar Sunset Calendar; three-days later on the eve of the seventh-day Shabbat.
We also have the ancient traditions of the Essenes that are now more fully understood after the revelations of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran. It was on July 2006, that BibleSearchers introduced the life and works of the Torah giant, Rabbi Yacov Emben, defender of the Torah in the days of the messianic heresy of Shabbatai Zevi, and later the studies on Rabbi Jacob Emden, by orthodox Rabbi Harvey Falk, in the BibleSearchers reflection articles, titled, “Jesus the Pharisee from the School of (Beit) Hillel in the Eyes of Talmudic Scholar, Rabbi Jacob Emden” and “Rabbi Harvey Falk defends ‘Jesus the Nazarene’s Mission to the Gentiles”.
These were later followed up with the articles, “The Essenes, the Hasidim and the Righteous Gentile of the Nations” on September 2006 and “Jesus the Nazarene and the Pharisees of Beit Shammai” on April 2007.
It is interesting that the Last Supper does not reflect any roasted lamb and would reflect a vegetarian tradition, as accepted in the Essene tradition, who felt that the first century temple culture of the Sadducees and the Pharisee of Shammai was corrupted.
It is also interesting that this vegetarian tradition is reflected also in the modern Jewish Pesach Seder, where the Pesach Lamb in symbolized by a lamb shank bone, but no meat is eaten, where we know that the Passover lamb could not be sacrificed in the temple court with the destruction of the Temple of Herod in 70 CE.
During this same era of time, the disciples and followers of the Nazarene were now under the leadership of James the Just, the brother of Yehoshua, who was known for his great piety.
Also during this same era, it is believed that the “House with the Upper Room” was converted into an Hasidic Orthodox synagogue called the “Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia This ultra-Orthodox synagogue did institute historically a non-sacrificial Passover Seder and festival in the Temple of Herod that was presided by James the Just, the brother of Yehoshua, who represented the Nazarenes as their high priest.
James the Just, in accordance with the ancient literature also became the Nasi of the Nazarene Sanhedrin and served as the High Priest of the of Israel. Clearly the traditions do reflect that the real Pesach Lamb of G-d that was slain, fulfilled the role of the traditional Pesach Lamb.
As the Omens against the Jewish temple service unfolded over the next forty years, the evidence became more clear that the temple sacrificial service presided by the Sadducean high priests was not pleasing to the G-d of Israel and was rejected.
The Site of the Last Supper, located over the Tomb of King David – Photo by Robert Mock
As accounted in the Gospel of the Apostle John, after giving them the re-Newed Covenant with partaking of the Bread and Wine, Yehoshua confronted Judas Ischariot with his demonic mission and offered to him leavened bread sopped in wine in symbolism that the last of the leavening was leaving this upper terrace as the time for the Passover had now arrived in the land.
The Pesach Traditions of the “High Sabbath”
John 19:31, 33 – “Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a ‘high day”), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away…But when they came to Yehoshua and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.”
This apparent insertion into the gospel text, of unknown origin and date, has set the tone and the dating for the death of Yehoshua for almost two thousand years. In the Hebrew traditions, the High Sabbath was called the “Shabbat haGadol” or the Shabbot, or mandatory rest days during festival or feast days. (Leviticus 23:7, 8, 21, 24, 27, 28, 32, 36, and the 39) The weekly seventh-day Shabbat always occurred on the seventh-day of the Jewish weekly cycle-. Yet, the festival “High Shabbat” was a floating Sabbath that occurred any day of the week.
Many Christian traditions later following the Orthodox Roman Catholic Church’s tradition that Yehoshua died on the “cross” on Friday, the preparation day for the Jewish Shabbat. Unfortunately, that acknowledgment of the seventh-day Sabbath by the Christian traditions did not reflect in the Catholic recognition of the sanctity of that sacred day in celebration of the creation of the world, as commanded in the 4th Command of the Decalogue.
Exodus 20:8 – “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your Go-d. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the L-rd blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
The messianic Nazarenes, or the Jewish followers of Yehoshua as their Jewish messiah, could easily reflect that Yehoshua did lay in the tomb and “rested” on the day that He and His Father in heaven celebrated as a day of rest from their mighty “Acts of the Creation” of this Planet Earth.
During the Festival of Passover (Pesach), the 15th and the 21st days of Nisan were “High Sabbaths”, yet they did not necessarily fall on the seventh-day Sabbath as they were floating Sabbaths. Yet the days before the 15th and the 21st day were preparation days for the festival Sabbaths.
This difference in the interpretations in the “High Sabbath” between the Jewish and Catholic Christian traditions makes a profound difference in the interpretation of which day Yehoshua (Joshua/Jesus) was crucified, or hanged from a tree.
The Christian Catholic tradition has proclaimed that the preparation day before the crucifixion of Yehoshua was on Friday before the Passover Sabbath that was the seventh-day, which happened to be the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath. The Hebrew-Jewish traditions do not recognize the Catholic Christian traditions that the “High Sabbath” was the merging of the Seventh-day Sabbath and the Festival Sabbath of Passover.
Instead the Jews proclaim that the “High Sabbath” was the Festival Sabbath that was on any day of the week, Sunday through Saturday. The Christian Catholic traditions have “High Holy Days” that are associated with their Christian festivals but the Hebrew-Jewish traditions do not have any references in the Torah, the TaNaKh, or the Talmud of any “High Holy Days” associated with the Jewish festivals.
There is yet another interesting “Sabbath” that also is identified with the Passover Shabbat. The “Great Sabbath of Passover” is called the “Shabbat haGadol” or the “Sabbath” that is five days prior to the day that the Hebrews were to leave Egypt.
As recorded in the Jewish traditions and their oral writings, called the Oral Torah, the Israelites were commanded by Moses to take a lamb and tie it to their bedpost on the 10th day of Nisan.
Suddenly the Egyptian people noticed that a significant number of lambs were being bought on the Egyptian market and inquired why. They were informed that the lambs were to be used as a Paschal Offering, sacrificed in preparation for the next coming plague, the Plague of the Firstborn.
The Egyptian firstborn were inflamed and demanded that the Pharaoh immediately release the Hebrews, which he refused. A civil war broke out and the Egyptian firstborn attacked the Egyptian army of the Pharaoh which resulted in the death of many of the Egyptians that committed atrocities to the Hebrews. Even though the Egyptian priesthood was incensed that the Israelites were sacrificing an Egyptian deity, a lamb, they also were helpless and powerless to intervene.
It is interesting that the day of the “Great Sabbath of Passover”, “Shabbat haGadol” on the 10th of Nisan in 30 CE, the high priest was returning from the fields to bring in the chosen Pesach lamb. Coincidently, simultaneous to that moment of time, according to the testimony in the 1st Temple of Herod Era CE” that Yehoshua rode in through the northern Damascus Gate into Jerusalem on a donkey, arriving as a Davidian royal claimant, they were also bringing in the Pesach Land and the historical tradition stayed
that he symbolically became the Pesach Lamb of G-d.
The Exterior of the Upper Terrace of the House where the Last Supper was Held with Yehoshua and His Twelve Apostles – Photo by Robert Mock
Pesach and the Three Days of the “Sign” of Jonah
It was early in his ministry, the wedding at Cana was over and Yehoshua was heading to Jerusalem with his new disciples in the spring of 28 CE. He promptly went into the temple’s Bazaar of Hanan and there made a very political and provocative move.
He took a “whip of cords” and drove out the servants of Ananus the Elder that were selling the sheep and the oxen for the temple sacrifices. He then threw over the tables and stalls of the money exchequer of the temple as the money exchangers fled in terror from His presence. The exchange rates were now scalping the peasants, while the gold of the Jews was flowing into the Temple of Herod, Inc’s coffers in increasing amounts.
Yehoshua then walked to the sellers of the doves, whose prices had risen to such extravagant prices that the poor “daughters of Israel” were no longer able to redeem themselves and their child in the temple of the Lord and were now pronounced unclean. To the sellers of the doves He shouted:
John 2:16 – “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!”
The “Jews", whom the Jewish peasants called the “chief priests”, the “temple scribes”, and “synagogue rulers”, the “Pharisees of the School of Shammai”, confronted Yehoshua to question, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?” (John 2:18)
They wanted a supernatural sign to prove to them His authority that He had the authority to desecrate the business and temple management system. Yehoshua told them, they would someday see the “sign”:
John 2:19 – “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up!”
Their response was as profound as their lack of spiritual insight:
John 2:20 – “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”
The Mikvah Baths of the High Priests of the House of Ananias – Photo by Robert Mock
It was on the road to Caesarea Philippi, north of Galilee, that Yehoshua confronted His disciples with the question, “Who do men say that I am? (Mark 8:16) At that time the populous in Galilee were talking among themselves that the Nazarene was “John the Baptist”, “Elijah” or one of the prophets. He then asked, “Who do you think that I am?” It was Peter, the son of Jonah (Simon bar Jonas), who proudly proclaimed, “You are the Maschiach (Messiah).” (Mark 8:28-30)
Since the days of the kings of the Children of Israel, it has been accepted in Jewish halakha that there can be a “Messiah” in every generation of G-d’s Chosen People. It was King Hezekiah in the days of King Sennacherib when the City of Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrian Army who was chosen to be the messiah of his generation. Was not King Cyrus the Great also chosen to be a messiah of his generation, also?
As Yehoshua and his talmidim, Simon Peter, were looking eye to eye, the awkward moment became silent tense, for the Yehoshua then warned them that they were not to tell anyone their feelings about His messiahship.
The Nazarene then began to open to them the revelations about His future mission and the implications upon His and their lives.
Mark 8:31 – “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
It was near to the close of the Nazarene's ministry. The miraculous feeding of the five thousand had made Yehoshua a popular folk hero to the Galilean peasants. The account of the transfiguration of Yehoshua by the chosen three disciples had made Him a messianic hero to His chosen twelve.
He then sent out his seventy chosen disciples, who may have later made up His Nazarene Sanhedrin of Seventy to harvest the souls desiring to be participants in the “kingdom of G-d” from the surrounding villages.
They returned from reaping the harvest for souls to be put into service for the one they believed was the “Messiah of their age”. When they returned, they told of stories of their power over the agencies of Satan. The thrust of the messianic mission of Yehoshua was quickly expanding.
Then in Jerusalem, He was healing a person who was aphasic, or could not speak. He was called a “mute”, and the cause of being unable to speak, and the thrust of His healing was by casting out a demon from his body. Yehoshua was immediately attacked as being “Beelzebub, the rule of the demons”, and wanted to know His “Sign” for His healing authority.
Matthew 12:39-42 – “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except for the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and there nights in the belly of the great fish, so a will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.
A Queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater one than Solomon is here.”
The “Jews”, (temple and synagogue leadership) after His death and resurrection, were now able to reflect upon the “Sign of Jonah” that was sought by the temple rulers, Pharisees, and scribes. Spiritual understanding was now to be transformed into a literal reality.
From Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday day and night, and whole day of the Seventh-day Shabbat (Sabbath), Yehoshua a lay in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.
With the temple guards protecting the exterior of the tomb to prevent the disciples from stealing His body, Yehoshua arose in a second cataclysmic earthquake, one in which the bowels of the earth would give up Yehoshua as the “first fruits” of the “dead” along with a whole company of resurrected saints that were later carried back to that other dimensional realm where the Temple of Heaven was located.
The sun was setting over the horizon and the preparation day for the Sadducean Passover was about to begin. The disciples were clueless on what was about to shatter the reality of their life.
They had been learning how to be in covenant with the G-d of Israel with their Hasidic Master, who lived a life of Torah above the letter of the law. They were now given a re-Newed covenant, not a New Torah, that was coupled with the sacrificial offering of the Pesach lamb and the redemption of bondage from the slavery of sin. They began to wonder, what was coming next?
Yehoshua sat back on His sofa in the upper terrace and with his talmidim (disciples) surrounding Him sitting on mats on the floor, began a lengthy discourse. He would send their minds to the throne of the Almighty One, revisit the relationships of the World of the Divine, and begin to dismantle their messianic anticipations that were premised only on the salvation of the Jews and the Zionistic anticipation of a global messianic State of Israel.
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Seeing is believing! For over 2000 years, the world has been affixed with the drama of those few years of time that a single solitary Prince of the esteemed dynastic lineage of Kings David and Solomon shook up the then known world at that time.
His life literally became a “Drama of the Ages” that evoked such a passion in the lives of not only the entire peasantry class of Jewish people, but his fame swept across the entire Middle East changing and transforming all the inhabitants of that era.
It has been stated in hundreds of different cultures that the world as we know today would be totally different if it were not for this one life, for out of his one life, one who was a Neshama Yehudi (Jewish soul) affected so many variant cultures that out of his spiritual loins rose Three Major Religions of the world; Judaism, Christianity and over six hundred years later Islam.
The era of man is standing now on the brink of the seashore waiting to be passed through the inter dimensional veil of the “World to Come.” The day is coming soon when we will break through that inter dimensional barrier and stand on the beach of a “New World” and a “New Age” as the rising Light of the age called the “Era of the Messiah” raises to its glorious manifestation.
The day is coming soon when Hashem the One G-d of Israel will stretch forth His great hand of judgment and cleanse the earth from the great pollution of man upon Planet Earth. He will take away the “blood oaths” from between the mouths of the Palestinian Arabs, He will restore the Land of Israel back to “Am Yisra’el”, that means both the House of Joseph (All Ten Tribes of the House of Israel), and the House of Judah.
He will then redeem and restore His own “sheep” back into a living relationship with Himself. If you are chosen, as a Lost Tribal Member of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, your destiny is to return to your Homelands first in Shomron (Samaria), Israel.
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the Voice of the Turtledove.
Here is a joint Orthodox Jewish and Christian 10-Triber Vision to bring awareness of the imminent fulfillment of the Biblical Prophecies regarding the Redemption of all Israel (12 Tribes Re-conciled and Re-United). This Supernal Event of all Times will entail Establishing the Shomron (the Ancient Bible Heartland of the Patriarchs) and the Judean Wilderness as part of the Land of Israel, and preparing the “Land” for the Return of the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel and then the Redemption of All Israel.
For inquiries about Kol Ha Tor Vision for the Lost Tribes of Israel, Visit – “Shomron Lives!”, a Spiritual Retreat and Guest House in Samaria.
DISCLAIMER - Kol Ha Tor is an independent commentator and may or may not agree with the contents, the views, interpretations and opinions as expressed by the independent theological and/or political views of Destination Yisrael.
Destination Yisrael scans the world for information that has relevance on the time of the end. It is our prayer that this will allow the believers in the Almighty One of Israel to “watch and be ready”. Our readiness has nothing to do trying to halt the progression of evil on our planet earth. In our readiness, we seek to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah of Israel so that goodness and evil will be manifested in its fullest.
Our preparation is a pathway of spiritual readiness for a world of peace. Our defender is the Metatron, the Lord of hosts. The time of the end suggests that the Eternal One of Israel’s intent is to close out this chapter of earth’s history so that the perpetrators of evil, those that seek power, greed and control, will be eliminated from this planet earth. The wars of the heavens are being played out on this planet earth and humans will live through it to testify of the might, power, justice and the love of the God of Israel.
In a world of corruption and disinformation, we cannot always know what the historical truth is and who is promoting evil or mis-information. We cannot guarantee our sources but we will always seek to portray trends that can be validated in the Torah, the testimony of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament, and the writings of Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo ben Zalman (famed Vilna Gaon) called the “genius” in the 18th century, and his vision of the final redemption in his collection of writings highlighted in his supernal understanding of the Torah, the Prophets and Writings as outlined in the Kol Ha Tor.
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