Troubleshooter

Some have suggested that calculating the start of the Hebrew year with reference to the Barley Harvest...
...introduces a random element...
...that makes it impossible to accurately determine when the Passover was held in 31 AD...
...allowing a three or four day discrepancy that could make the 14th Nisan fall on a Saturday/Sabbath.

However, the timing of the Barley harvest does not obscure the timing of the cross...
...it actually serves to confirm it.

The first month of the Hebrew calendar is Nisan...
...sometimes called Abib which is a Hebrew word meaning 'spring'...
...and the beginning of the month of Nisan is determined by the New Moon.

But you may say, how did they know what New Moon to use?

There is a New Moon every Lunar cycle...
...to accurately predict the correct month to begin the new year...
...would require knowing how to determine the Vernal Equinox...
...did the Hebrews know about the Vernal Equinox?

Whether the Hebrews knew how to determine the Vernal Equinox is not important...
...they may not have known but the Barley Crop did.

You see while the Hebrew month was determined by the Lunar cycle...
...Barley ripens due to a Solar cycle...
...Barley was one of the first crops to ripen in the spring in Canaan and Egypt...
...and the barley was ripe and eared out prior to the first Passover.

Exodus 9:31-32 "...the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. 32 But the wheat and the rie were not smitten: for they were not grown up."

The plagues on Egypt preceded the first Passover.

So the beginning of Nisan could be accurately determined...
...by reference to the first New Moon that was observed following the Barley harvest...
...which just happens to be the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox...
...which brought the lunar cycle back into sync with the solar cycle each year.

The same Lord that meticulously established the first Passover...
...became "Christ our passover" 1 Cor 5:7...
...do you think the 'Lord Jesus Christ' would have been careful about the timing of His own Passover?

To make a Friday/Saturday, 14/15 Nisan and a Passover fit with 31 AD...
...you have to assume that the Hebrews to made a three or four day error in calculating the New Moon of Nisan...
...and that in 31 AD Passover was observed three or four days before or after the full moon.

Even a casual observer of the moon can tell the difference a three or four day variation can make...
...is it really possible that a culture who lived their lives by the lunar cycle...
...would allow a three or four day error in their observations of a Full Moon?


As to the determination of Passover and the Vernal Equinox...
...the Hebrews may actually have had access to a way to determine this astronomical event.

In a paper titled The Date of the Crucifixion by Colin J. Humphries and W. Graeme Waddington...
...Department of Metallurgy and Science of Materials University of Oxford.

Colin J. Humphries and W. Graeme Waddington said the following.

"It is clear from the Talmudic tract Sanhedrin 10b-13b that the Jews knew in advance when the equinox would be. We do not know the method they employed for this. There are various possibilities, for example use of the so-called 'gates of heaven' (Neugebauer36), or use of the time of the heliacal risings of particular groups of stars (e.g. the Egyptian decans) and the position of the new crescent relative to these asterisms (especially the Pleiades, as in Babylonia) to determine in advance when the equinox would be."

...and this on leap months...

"Unfortunately we possess no historical reports as to the proclamation of leap-months in the years A.D. 26-36. it is therefore possible that in some years Nisan was one month later ... on account of unusually severe weather. Calculations show that in the period A.D. 26-36, if Nisan was one month later ... Nisan 14 would not fall on a Friday in any year and Nisan 15 would only fall on a Friday in A.D. 34 (April 23)."

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1985/JA...Humphreys.html

So for the purpose of this current discussion it appears...
...the Barley Harvest was an accurate way of determining the start of the lunar year...
...that the Jews also had a way of confirming this with reference to the Vernal Equinox in the first century...
...and should a month have been added in the years 26-36 AD...
...no Passover in that period would have fallen on the required Julian Friday-Saturday-Sunday combination.

We know that Nisan 14 did not fall on a Julian Friday in 31 AD.
We know that Nisan 14 only fell on a Julian Friday April 7, 30 AD and April 3, 33 AD during the reign of Pontius Pilate.