What is Passion Week?

Surely you have heard of Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ.” The title comes from the idea that the Messiah was so passionate about His mission that nothing would stop Him from going to the cross. Passion Week is the cumulation of days during the week of the crucifixion, starting with the Triumphal Entry commonly known as Palm Sunday, and going through until Ressurection Sunday which everyone knows as Easter. But is it really a week long? Or longer? Or is it just a tradition of the Church? We’re going to look at each day leading up to the cross and beyond as it’s recorded in the Gospels. Let’s go.

It just so happens that the Hillel II calendar this year lines up with the same days as 30 AD/CE when the crucifixion took place. I’m going to stop right here for a brief caveat. There are many different views on the calendar and which one is correct, and I won’t engage in that debate here. However, I will elucidate on the difference between the conjunction and the sliver method of determining a new month. All ancient calendars were based on observation of the moon to determine the months. The word month comes from the word moon. Think moonth. A month goes from new moon to new moon. The Hillel II calendar is a mathematical calculation based on astronomical data compiled to a 19-year cycle so that observation is no longer necessary. It was created for the Jews in the diaspora after the Temple was destroyed so that they knew when the holy days were to be held since there was no longer a Sanhedrin to declare the beginning of a new month. I say all of that to say this. If the conjunction of the moon begins the new month as the Hillel II calendar calculates fairly closely, then the crucifixion would have been Wednesday or Thursday in 30 AD/CE. If the month begins with the observation of the first sliver, then the crucifixion could have been on that Friday. The posts this week will be considered from the conjunction point of view. I believe a Wednesday or Thursday crucifixion better fits the narrative, and these posts will be from the Wednesday perspective. There’s a whole lot more than could be said to clarify all of that, but we’ll leave it there for now.

So, why is any of this necessary? It may not be, but if you’re a nerd like me, you like to know how things work. And besides, apologetics shows us that we really should know stuff like this to defend what we believe. We don’t want to be caught off guard and not have an answer for why we believe the Bible to be true. Here’s an example.

Many years ago, a Christian pastor turned atheist issued an ultimatum he called the Easter Challenge. He claims that the events of the resurrection as recorded in the Gospels cannot be reconciled with one another, and therefore, the Bible has too many errors to be believed. He not only left the faith and the pastorage, but he’s also one of the foremost atheists trying to get religion out of our lives. He’s full-on anti-christian now. The posts in the next few days will try to not only reconcile the events of the resurrection but also the several days leading up to the crucifixion. So buckle up. The Passion Week is about to begin.