Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 10:40 AM, James Read wrote:

> However, I keep calling to mind that Jesus was executed on the Preparation
> of that year, which was a Friday, and asking myself whether that was a day 6
> of the week because it just fell that way that year or whether it fell that
> way every year. Could it possibly be that we have no primary source evidence
> from that period in Jewish history?

We actually have a lot of primary source evidence in the DSS.  Coming by
texts that specifically describe the calendar system in use is rare.  But in 
the
DSS we find all kinds of texts dealing with calendar systems.  Because of
the need to justify their system against others in use we find discussions of
competing systems (such as the lunisolar and the 360 day = 12 x 30 day
calendar).  Also, even the wiki page you quoted (really, wiki is not 
dependable
at all!), references the source document for the particular sentence you 
quoted
-- Tosefta Sanhedrin 2:2.  And it provides another book reference:
Sacha Stern's "Calendar and Community."  The Tosefta along with the Mishna
is a 3rd century compilation of traditions from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.
(Very rarely do these traditions go back to the early 1st century CE, though).
Regarding the date of Jesus' death, I would suggest taking your question here
over to a different list such as Biblicalist or Biblical-Studies, both
yahoo groups.
(And may I suggest, be concise and focused in your question and let the
discussion develop from there).  I personally would doubt that the NT's author
actually knew Jesus' date of death.  It seems to me more likely that the
author was working from an early tradition that commemorated the death,
and had no direct information on the actual date.

Yitzhak Sapir