The Mystery of Ephraim

A Critique of John Ritenbaugh’s Passover (Ie)
Passover On The 14th or 15th?

Pastor — John W. Ritenbaugh

Church of the Great God
10409 Barberville Rd.
Fort Mill, SC 29707-9132

Passover (Part 9)

Deuteronomy 16 and Passover
John W. Ritenbaugh
Sermon; #020; 69 minutes
Given 16-May-92

Draft Ie

This is a Critique of John Ritenbaugh’s Passover (Part 9), a transcript posted on the Church of the Great God’s website in 1992. Besides the main issue of whether the Passover is on the early or late fourteenth of Nisan, of equal importance is whether a Temple-based Passover had replaced a “domestic Passover” during Christ’s time.

Quoted are John Ritenbaugh’s sermon posted with a transcript. The excerpts from the transcript are in block form, in PINK, and indented so as to differentiate it from other quotes or comments. The Scriptures, in RED, must be our primary focus and guide, and sometimes the Scriptures, which include the Septuagint and the Targum, say things very different from what we think!

And so with that in mind, we’ll start:

In Part 9 John Ritenbaugh quoted a lot about a German scholar named Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918). So who was Julius Wellhausen? He was credited with writing the documentary hypothesis (DH), one of the models historically used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible). It reject that the Torah is not a unified work from a single author, Moses but is made up of sources combined over many centuries by many hands, a “product of a long evolutionary process.”

He was one of these scholars (along with Hupfeld, Eduard Eugène Reuss, and Graf) who started a critical study of doublets (parallel accounts of the same incidents), inconsistencies, and changes in style and vocabulary in the Torah. As a result of their studies and publications, and I quote: “Modern scholars of Israel’s religion have become much more circumspect in how they use the Old Testament, not least because many have concluded that the Bible is not a reliable witness to the religion of ancient Israel and Judah” (Documentary Hypothesis; Wikipedia).

Despite claiming he hated scholarship as given in Part I of this Passover series, now John Ritenbaugh embraced an evolutionist with some doublespeak in his search for truth. Or is this double-talk? “Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words.” Whereas “Double-talk is a language that appears to be earnest and meaningful but in fact is a mixture of sense and nonsense.”

Wellhausen is a man that I normally would not quote. He is a man most hated by many biblical scholars. Wellhausen was not a theologian. He was among the first of the German rationalists, and it is he who is credited with what is called “the Graf-Wellhausen theory” regarding the Bible. Wellhausen looked at the Bible as a literary device rather than a source of truth from God. But in looking at it, he could very clearly see that there is a contradiction between Deuteronomy 16 and all of the other information that is given in regard to Passover. His conclusion was that Deuteronomy 16 represents an attempt by a group of people to abolish the home-killed Passover sacrifice.

So you see, plain and simple, here is “a mixture of sense and nonsense.” Wellhausen wasn’t a theologian. Actually he studied a distorted form of theology, became an atheist and an evolutionist, supported the idea that the Torah was “the product of a long evolutionary process,” and as quoted above, that the later Israelites “abolish the home-killed Passover sacrifice.” Why would John Ritenbaugh quote a madman to study an important subject such as the Passover? The Bible says explicitly Moses wrote the Torah, but Wellhausen said it was evolved from many framentary sources hundreds of years after Moses. In Exodus 24:4 it states, “And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord . . .” In Deuteronomy 31:24 it says, “Moses finished writing the words of this law in a book until they were complete.” And in John 5:46 Jesus testifies: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me.”

Why John Ritenbaugh would quote a madman for authority to study the Bible bewilder me. Is he a madman also? We should look to the Scriptures, should we? But before we go into the details about King Hezekiah and King Josiah, it’s important to review some earlier truths, and this is, again, from the Scriptures itself. That it is God who told King Solomon that He had chosen for Himself to move the place of sacrifice to Jerusalem. Hence a Temple-centered sacrifice is a God-ordained command:

II Chronicles 7:11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house; and all that came into Solomon’s heart to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house, he prosperously effected.12 And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said unto him: “I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself for a house of sacrifice.

And this place is in Jerusalem: “(God) have chosen Jerusalem, that My name might be there,” (II Chronicles 6:6). And many people, seeking the Lord God of Israel, went to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices:

II Chronicles 11:16 And after them, out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.

So the faithful went to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the Temple that God has instituted. But John Ritenbaugh has taken inspiration from an evolutionist position “that Deuteronomy 16 represents an attempt by a group of people to abolish the home-killed Passover sacrifice.” Ironically Ritenbaugh still claims himself a pastor with “more than fifty years of experience in the ministry” but no longer has the faith of God that His Word is inspired? So much absurdity and hypocrisy!

We are going to begin to focus on the contradictions between Deuteronomy 16 and the other scriptures. We have seen two of them already.

» The month of Abib is connected with the word Passover in Deuteronomy 16:1. In every other place in Scripture that phrase “month of Abib” is used only in connection with Unleavened Bread.

» Deuteronomy 16:1 appears to state that Passover commemorates leaving Egypt. Exodus 12 and Numbers 9 specifically command us to remember Passover as “the night of passing over.” Passover in the Bible does not commemorate the Exodus.

We have only looked at one verse, and that is two differences already.

Here is a so-called pastor who had entrapped himself, and when Scriptures doesn’t match up with his misconception, he attacks the writer of these Scriptures, or even perhaps attacks the One who inspires these Scriptures!

Deuteronomy 16:5-6 You may not sacrifice the Passover offering within any of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, but at the place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell in. There you shall sacrifice the Passover offering at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came forth out of Egypt.

Here God specifies that the Israelites, after their settlement in the promised land, should no longer be at liberty to sacrifice the Passover “within any of thy gates” or cities, because cities usually had gates around them; but only in the city of Jerusalem, the only place the Lord had chosen for Himself, that they might kill and eat the Passover, plus other Passover offerings.

Below is what John Ritenbaugh commented on Deuteronomy 16:6 where the time to sacrifice the Passover is ba erev, different from ben ha arbayim as used in Exodus 12:6:

You cannot see that very clearly in your Bible, but the phrase “at even” is not ben ha arbayim. It may be translated in your Bible “twilight,” but it is not in the Hebrew. It is ba erev. This clearly contradicts the command given in Exodus 12 to kill the lamb at ben ha arbayim.

Exodus 12:6 Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at [ben ha arbayim] twilight.

The same situation here. John Ritenbaugh has misdefined what ben ha arbayim is and got himself trapped like a wounded beast, crying foul, and now struggling to get out by attacking the Scriptures. But allow me to repeat what the true definition of ben ha arbayim is:

Ben ha arbayim is the time between the two eves (erevs). It is the time between the eve of the first decline of the day and the eve of the night. Another way of saying is this: there are two evenings, one from the time the sun begins to decline is one evening, and the other evening is after the sun has gone down. Both are approximately six hours during spring time.

Or, explaining ben ha arbayim in another way:

“Between the two evenings” is from the time when the sun begins to incline towards the west, which is from the sixth hour [noon or 12 o’clock] and onwards. It is erevim [“evenings”] because there are two evenings; and “between the two evenings” is from the time that the sun begins to decline as one evening, and the other evening is after the sun has gone down. Ben ha arbayim is the space of time in between which is meant by “between the two evenings.”

And this ba erev for the time to sacrifice the Passover at Gilgal was reaffirmed in Joshua 5:10 after the Children of Israel had crossed the Jordan:

Joshua 5:10 And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening (ba·erev) in the plains of Jericho.

The Scriptures are made up of pieces of jigsaw puzzles, and if placed correctly, it slowly forms a beautiful picture. There are two evenings (erevim). The first evening (erev) coincides with ben ha arbayim. To start a Sabbath is from the second evening (erev). So there is nothing wrong to say that a day starts and ends with erev although there are of two different evenings (erevim). For God it is His glory to conceal a mystery, sometimes to hide the truth and to hook out those having a contemptuous attitude.

Deuteronomy 16:18 “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

Deuteronomy 17:11 According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. 12 And the man who will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest who standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die.

In the book of Deuteronomy Moses spoke and explained unto all Israel “according unto all that the Lord had given him” as to how to keep all the laws, the blessing they would have if they obey, or cursing if they disobey, in a language they could understand. Men may have good intentions, but may do things seen as presumptuously. So what is presumptuous or presumptuously?

Here are their synonyms: arrogant, bumptious, cavalier, chesty, haughty, high-and-mighty, high-handed, high-hat, huffish, huffy, imperious, important, lofty, lordly, masterful, overweening, peremptory, pompous, presuming, pretentious, self-asserting, self-assertive, sniffy, supercilious, superior, uppish, uppity. And Moses warned those found to be guilty of persisting with this contemptuous spirit, a serious charge, would be put to death.

We are going to concentrate here on the phrase “of the flock and the herd.”

Exodus 12:3-5 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: On the tenth day of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.

That clearly instructs the Israelites to use a male lamb or a male kid of the goats from their flocks only. Note that it says male kid, and not the herd. If we take the word that is given in Deuteronomy 16:2, where it says “the flock and the herd,” it would then be possible to have a Passover calf. That word there translated into English “herd” is baqar. That word means “bovine” in English.

The two feasts were a composite festival right from the start, and the Exodus 12 account shows that the original distinction between the two feasts were well interweaved. Participating in unleavening the house starts on the fourteenth and the taking of unleavened bread starts six hours before the beginning of the fifteenth. In fact Passover and Unleavened Bread overlaps: they start at the same time. Second, the Feast of Unleavened Bread over the next seven days is an integral part of observing Passover! That is, partaking of Passover involves the ordinance of eating unleavened bread for seven days! Moses knew he would not be crossing the Jordan with the Israelites, so when he wrote Deuteronomy 16, he interchanged Passover and Unleavened Bread in a language they could understand. Only those with a contemptuous spirit won’t.

Lastly, if Ezra had edited Deuteronomy 16, a comparison would show by comparing the difference, if any, with the Samaritans’ version of their Pentateuch. The Samaritan religion was established, around 740 BC, some 200 years earlier than Ezra. Since after settling in their new land, the Samaritans had brought a priest from one of the Northern Kingdom back to teach them the way of the God of the land so as not to be haunted by lions. They should have the original version for comparison, and any alteration or editing by Ezra, if any, will show.

The Masoretic Text: Deuteronomy 16:1-8 (KJ21)

1“Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the Lord thy God; for in the month of Abib the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. 2 Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the Passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose to place His name there. 3 Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste, that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.4 And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy borders seven days, neither shall there anything of the flesh, which thou sacrificed the first day at evening, remain all night until the morning.
5 Thou mayest not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee; 6 but at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place His name in, there thou shalt sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. 7 And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and thou shalt turn in the morning and go unto thy tents. 8 Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord thy God. Thou shalt do no work therein.

And now for comparison, the Samaritan Pentateuch (by Aleksandr Sigalov)

Deuteronomy 16:1-8
1 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. 2 Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the LORD thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD God of you shall choose to place his name there. 3 Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. 4 And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days; neither shall there any thing of the flesh, which thou sacrificedst the first day between the even, remain all night until the morning. 5 And thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee: 6 But in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name there, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. 7 And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the LORD thy God shall choose: and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents. 8 Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day shall be a celebration to the LORD thy God: thou shalt not do any work of service therein.

Even though the Samaritans consider the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as two distinct festivals, their Pentateuch remains much the same as the Masoretic Text in Deuteronomy 16:1-8. The difference, if any, is no more than the difference between the KJ21 and the NKJV, or the difference between the RSV and the ESV.

All the cries about editing are nothing but Bull Shits. Blind Guides! All those complaining and murmuring are foul air from that same Bull Shits.

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A Critique of John Ritenbaugh’s Passover (Part 10)

Passover in the New Testament
John W. Ritenbaugh
Sermon; #021; 70 minutes
Given 23-May-92

This is a continuing Critique of John Ritenbaugh’s Passover (Part 10), a transcript posted on the Church of the Great God’s website.

To those who believe in a 15th Passover, Deuteronomy 16 is the cornerstone of their beliefs. It is their only proof-text of a 15th Passover. The reason for this is because all other Scriptures clearly show a 14th Passover. But Deuteronomy 16, as it appears in most modern Bibles, has clearly been incorrectly edited. The scriptural truth is that God never commanded a 15th Passover at any time. It is only a tradition of the Jews, and that is what Wellhausen—that German rationalist scholar—clearly saw when he stated that it seemed to him an attempt to abolish the home-sacrificed-lamb practice that had been going on all the time since Exodus 12.

No, there is no need to rely on Deuteronomy 16 to prove that Passover starts on a late fourteenth. The two feasts were a composite festival right from Exodus 12, where they were already interwoven and interlaced, overlapped and superimposed right from the start. This amalgamation was reaffirmed in Ezekiel 45:21 where it describes the Passover to a stiff-necked people as a seven-day festival! “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the Passover, a feast of seven days. Unleavened bread shall be eaten.” The Targum translates and explains this single integrated feast in Exodus 12 in a very simple and clear language, in verse 8: “And you shall eat the flesh on that night, the fifteenth of Nisan . . .” Even without Deuteronomy 16, the evidence are still there to confirm this amalgamation. The only difference is that Moses wrote Deuteronomy with new expressions as a personal message and warning to his people. It was no longer “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, ‘Speak unto the children of Israel . . . ’” but “Moses spoke to all Israel” (Deuteronomy 1:1). Moses was now speaking in his authority.

Who would have the authority to make such a change from Unleavened Bread to Passover in Deuteronomy 16? The finger of history points to someone during or after the time of Ezra. . .

Their intentions were good, but no matter how well-intentioned these men (Hezekiah, Josiah, Ezra, or whoever) were, they had no authority to make an everlasting change from what God had originally commanded.

This is a departure from the original Passover in Egypt where they were to stay in their houses. After departing from Egypt, the command is exactly the opposite! That they should “not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gate” (Deuteronomy 16:5). They shouldn’t sacrifice the Passover within their gates, but where?.

After Moses and the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, God Himself had expressed His desire to dwell with His people. So a Sanctuary was built, along with the details expressed in Exodus 25-30: — the wall of the Sanctuary, the Ark of the Covenant, the Inner Court, the Holy of Holies, vessels and utensils and all the garments for the high priest and his sons. But the most significant of these instructions was the altar for sacrifices to be offered.

When the children of Israel settled in their designated land, the Ark of the Covenant moved to various places. But the altar was always set in front near the Sanctuary where the sacrifices were performed. The altar was made of shittim wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad, its height three cubits, and for over four hundred years during the times of the judges, it moved whenever the Sanctuary moved. However, when King Solomon had finished building the Temple for God, it was then established firmly in one location:

I King 9:25 And three times a year Solomon offered burnt offerings and peace offerings upon the altar which he built unto the Lord, and he burned incense upon the altar that was before the Lord. So he finished the house.

II Chronicles 7:11 Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s house; and all that came into Solomon’s heart to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house, he prosperously effected.12 And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night and said unto him: “I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself for a house of sacrifice.

II Chronicles 11:16 And after them, out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the Lord God of their fathers.

And where is this place? It is in Jerusalem: “but I (God) have chosen Jerusalem, that My name might be there,” (II Chronicles 6:6). And many people, seeking the Lord God of Israel, went to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices.

There are historical records of how many people were keeping Passover. Among these is a record that was left to us, or given to us, by Josephus. I am going to read to you from Wars of the Jews by Josephus, Book 6, Chapter 9, Section 3. I’m not going to be quoting the entire section, but I am going to be quoting two parts of Section 3. He is describing the keeping of the Passover in Jerusalem.

Wars of the Jews by Josephus, Book Six, Chapter 9, Section 3:

So these priests upon the coming of their feast which is called the Passover, when they slay their sacrifices, from the ninth hour to the eleventh, but so that a company not less than ten belong to every sacrifice, . . .

What he is saying is that ten people was the general number of people that partook of each lamb that was sacrificed.

… found the number of sacrifices [in Jerusalem in the keeping of this Passover thought to be the Passover in 4 BC] was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred [256,500 lambs]; which, upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amounts to two million seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were pure and holy was 256,500 lambs.

There is absolutely no problem of sacrificing 256,500 lambs in the quoted testimony by Josephus (Jewish Wars 6, 9, 3). The date wasn’t 4 BC but 70 AD, the year that Jerusalem was besieged, captives killed or taken away as prisoners and the city burnt by the Roman soldiers under Titus (39 AD – 81 AD). “In 70, he [Titus] besieged and captured Jerusalem, and destroyed the city and the Second Temple” (Wikipedia).

The Scriptures have already provided such a scenario of people making sacrifices in Jerusalem, “inside or outside the camp,” at the Temple courtyard, so long as the blood from the sacrificial animals were collected and splinked by a priest on the altar, on pain of death. God, who knows the end from the beginning has already made provisions right from the beginning, in Leviticus 17 which says if one were to make a sacrifice, “in the camp or out of the camp,” the blood must be brought to the tabernacle, and the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar. The critical performance of a sacrifice, including the Passover sacrifice, is that “the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the tabernacle” (verse 6).

So the 256,500 lambs mentioned by Josephus need not be sacrificed within the Temple courtyard. In fact, most of them could be sacrificed outside, but not too far, least during the trip to the altar in front of the Temple the blood collected in their bowls could set down, and they might coagulate before a priest could sprinkle the blood upon the altar before the Lord. So there is absolutely no doubt about the accuracy of Josephus’ testimony.

Second, the slaughtering of the Passover lamb needed not be done by a Levite or a priest. Any layman, usually head of household, were allowed to kill the Passover lamb, provided they were ceremonially clean, otherwise the Levites or priests might have to do it for them (II Chronicles 30:1). Hence, there is no problem with another complaint by John Ritenbaugh in an earlier post (Part 6):

Now, if you ever do any more extensive study of things pertaining to the Bible, you are eventually going to run into a man by the name of Philo. Philo was a Jew who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. He was a Greek-educated man, and he would have to be considered as one of the greats of this world. He left behind him a great number of writings. . .

Philo’s book is called The Decalogue (“the ten”). On page 159 [he states]:

. . .the day called by the Hebrews in their own tongue, the Pasch [meaning Passover], on which [Listen to this.] the whole people sacrifice, every member of them, without waiting for the priests, because the law has granted to the whole nation for one special day in every year the right of the priesthood and of performing the sacrifice themselves.

The whole assembly could kill their lamb, and most would have done so beyond the Temple courtyard, even if the number of lambs was a staggering 256,500. The requirements were that the ones who did the killing must have to be circumcised and be ceremonially clean to do so. Then the blood had to be carried by others in a bowl and passed on to the Temple courtyard for a priest to sprinkle upon the altar as commanded in Leviticus 17. Any person offering a sacrifice inside or outside the camp but its blood not carried to the Temple be offered at the altar before the Lord risked being “cut off from among his people” (Leviticus 17:3-4); that man “is liable to the death penalty” (Rashi). “Blood shall be reckoned to that man; he hath shed blood, and that man shall be destroyed from his people” (Targum).

If the symbolism is to be carried over to the New Testament period, Jesus Christ didn’t die in the Temple Courtyard, but outside, even outside the city walls — “outside the camp” — outside the Walls of Jerusalem.

The Walls of Jerusalem: the length of the walls is 4,018 meters (2.4966 mi), their average height is 12 meters (39.37 feet) and the average thickness is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet). The walls contain 34 watchtowers and seven main gates open for traffic, with two minor gates reopened by archaeologists “Wikipedia).

And if Ron Wyatt’s testimony is to be believed, the blood of the true Lamb was miraculously brought “into the camp,” and it wasn’t just sprinkled on an outer court altar, but upon the Mercy Seat before the Lord. Amazing Parallel! Christ’s Sacrifice was a Special Offering. Are you stunned? I am. It is The Mystery of Mysteries!

John 6:3-4 And Jesus went up on a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.

John 11:55 And the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went from the country up to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves.

Now notice the difference when John begins to write about the last Passover that Jesus kept.

John 12:1 Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead.

Do you see a difference? Jesus is going to keep a Passover, and it is not “the Passover of the Jews.” It is in direct contradistinction to “the Passovers of the Jews” that He mentioned in the previous four or five verses that appear in chapter 11.

Look now at John 13:1. The chronology has us here on the 14th of Abib, in the evening. The Passover lamb has been slain. Jesus is keeping the Passover.

John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, [It is “the” Passover, definite article], when Jesus knew that His hour had come.

When was His hour to come? In the afternoon of the 14th. And so we have here in the chronology a time period that agrees precisely with the Passover of Exodus 12, Numbers 9, and Leviticus 23. Jesus is keeping it. It is not called “the Passover of the Jews.” It is called “the Passover.” A very clear distinction.

John lived the longest among the Gospel writers, and he was there when there arose a revolting movement by the Gentiles to get rid of anything that had to do with being Jewish. With that in mind, John emphasized the Jewishness of those feasts by reiterating “Passover of the Jews” or “feast of the Jews.” He also mentioned a Jewish feast of tabernacles too in John 7:2 “Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.”

John emphasised their Jewishness simply because there was a real Samaritan counterfeit nearby: they practiced another version of the Passover [like John Ritenbaugh’s], which were observed on a Samaritan calendar an early fourteenth of Nisan, at twilight, on Mount Gerizim. These rivalries were so intense and hence imbuled their perception that Samaritans were having a devil (John 8:48).

Being Galileans, John and the other disciples have to travel numerous times passing Samaritan territories, including Jacob’s well, to come to Jerusalem to keep the three annual feasts. So bad and threatening to these Jewish faith and practises since Ezra’s time that eventually the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans, (John 4:9). So when John was writing, he emphasized “of the Jews.” And to put a sting to their Jewishness, John even recorded Jesus in Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah), which all the other Gospel writers ignored, for it says in John 10:22 “And it was at Jerusalem the Feast of Dedication,” where Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s Porch.

The sacrificing of the home-killed sacrifice—the domestic-killed sacrifices—was going on at the very time the disciples asked this question. I will tell you, that is a bombshell which shows that the people out in the public were not having their lambs sacrificed at the Temple. They were doing it themselves, and they were doing it at home, or they were doing it at the inns. They were doing it themselves, and they were doing it at the beginning of the 14th.

If Jesus and his disciples were to keep a “domestic Passover” they would need to keep the feast in Galilee where their houses were, as in Exodus. They would have to eat “with loins girded, shoes on their feet, and staves in their hands.” They would have to take a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the blood and strike the lintel and the two side posts, and to eat “in haste,” pretending to flee. All Bullshit! Jesus and His disciples would have to remain indoors in their houses back in Galilee until daybreak, but they sped off to the Garden of Gethsemane well before sunrise, in Jerusalem. Those were all the ordinances of a “domestic Passover,” weren’t they? “And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning [sunrise]” Ex. 12:21-22). All the foul air from that same Bullshit!

It is entirely likely that the master of the house had already slain the lamb by the time the disciples got there, and maybe even the lamb was in the process of being roasted so that when Jesus arrived there with His disciples there was little or no delay before the actual Passover meal began.

So this man must have killed the Passover lamb before the start of the fourteenth, at even. He was breaking the law, sinning, on behalf of Jesus and His disciples? Again, all Bullshit!

Truly Satan the devil, that arch-enemy of all mankind, has “deceived ALL NATIONS” (Rev 12:9). And he is actively trying to cover up the true Passover. He has suckered the “whole world” into following him, masquerading as “an angel of light” (II Cor 11:13-15). His ministers, therefore, appear “as ministers of righteousness,” deceiving and deluding millions.

((( END OF CRITIQUE OF RITENBAUGH PASSOVER )))

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~ by Joel Huan on December 9, 2019.

Posted in Passover