The date of the crucifixion.

That's a good question. Jesus misleads people about His intentions in John 7. Look at verse 8. Jesus tells people one thing, then does what he claimed he would not do.

But is that's what happening in Matthew 26? I don't think so. Jesus tells people to secure the room by telling the owners that He'll keep passover there, but in fact Jesus is the passover. So he'll actually keep passover on the cross the next day on the 14th. The reader should already have known that Christ was the Passover Lamb. In light of that, it is well known that Passover includes the preparation day and the traditional preparation meal which is partaken of on the Nisan 13th/14th evening. This is before the Passover proper which occurs at sundown on the 14th/15th boundary. The passover meal proper is much more strict, being eaten standing up, staff in hand, in haste, sandal-shod, to commemorate the first Passover in Egypt. It's not a meal taken reclining.

Thus we know that the upper-room meal was eaten on the 13th/14th evening. This was a traditional preparation meal, not a passover meal. Jesus and His disciples eat reclining, taking their time, talking, discussing, eating bread with a sop -- all things you don't do when you eat a real passover according the the Law.

 

That's another topic, but my argument doesn't depend upon this.

 

The verses you cite describe preparation for passover, not eating passover.

 

Not according to Matthew 26:20-21

"... Now when evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the twelve. And as they were eating..."​

 

Every 7 years Nisan 15 is on a Thursday. So 23AD and 30AD. The day falls on a Sunday, Saturday, and Tuesday besides Thursday. No other days of the week.

 

John 13:23

I'm trying to picture eating with your belt on, sandals on, staff in hand and reclining, with someone's head in your bosom. I must confess, I don't see it.

 

In the year 26, 14 Nisan begins on what we would call Wednesday evening (Nisan 13/14 boundary) which means that the passover meal is next day (Thursday) at the Nisan 14/15 boundary.

This year works well with the known dates of Herod's death some few years "BC". Jesus would have been born at least 2 years before Herod's death. So year 26 for the Passion clicks into the date puzzle very nicely.

The meal in the upper room was on Wednesday on the Nisan 13/14 boundary. They were not eating a passover meal but rather the traditional preparation day meal which was in those days part of "keeping passover". 13 Nisan was considered to be "the first of unleavened" according to tradition because it was the preparation for the passover/unleavened feasts and it had its own meal, according to tradition.

An anolog to this in our culture would be black Friday as the unofficial "first day" of the Christmas festival season.

 

Yes! That day, 14/15 Nisan, Thursday, is the day of the crucifixion -- Passover.

The previous day/evening (13/14 boundary) was the meal in the upper room. John 13:1-2.

 

Yes, my mistake. I should have said year 27. My eye mis-tracked on the chart.

John 12:1-2 From the Greek gloss:

"[1] Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come, this that He would depart out of the world to the father, having love, the own who were in the world, to the end He loved them, [2] and supper taking place, the Devil already having put into the heart of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, that he should betray Him..."
​

This is all one sentence in Greek. The present participle in "supper taking place" puts this meal before the Passover feast. So this meal is on the 13th/14th boundary.

 

Supper being ended, before the Passover (verse 1). It's all one sentence in Greek. Before Passover and supper being ended...

Before the Passover, the supper was already wrapping up. Therefore, they have not just eaten the Passover. There is only one possible interpretation of that.

 

In case clarification is needed, in Greek, verses 1 through 4 are all one sentence. Everything in the sentence (verses 1-4) is prefaced by "Now before the feast of passover..." Nothing in that sentence is grammatically during or after "The feast of the passover". Grammatically, all the events are before the feast of the passover, including Jesus' realizations (that His hour had come, that He should soon depart, that He had loved his own, etc.) which are expressed as active participles. Grammatically, the meal in the upper room takes place before the feast of the passover. According to the sentence, the meal having ended, has ended "before the feast of the passover" has even begun. That puts it 24 hours before the passover meal. There are no two ways about it.