Margaret argues that while Paul makes a connection to Christ and the Passover that link is overemphasized by christians relative to the other festivals.
Temple Mysticism excerpt
Some early Christian writers quote ‘Scripture’ that cannot now be found in the Old Testament. The Letter of Barnabas, for example, a Christian text from the second or third generation,56 quotes frequently from unknown scriptures: ‘A heart that glorifies its maker is a sweet savour to the LORD’; ‘I am now making the last things even as I made the first’; ‘If my sons keep the Sabbath I will show mercy upon them’ and many more.57 Of considerable interest is a quotation about the day of atonement sacrifice that would link it directly to the original understanding of the Eucharist. ‘And what does it say in the prophet. “Let them eat of the goat which is offered for their sins at the fast, and [note this carefully] let all the priests but nobody else, eat of its inward parts, unwashed and with vinegar.”’ Jesus drank vinegar just before he died, said Barnabas, to prepare himself as the atonement sacrifice that the priests consumed.58 This would explain why the Eucharist has the imagery of consuming blood, an otherwise un-Jewish practice. Blood was consumed with the unwashed sacrifice on the day of atonement. Thus the Eucharist is not drawn just from Passover, but, as set out in Hebrews, from the day of atonement also (Heb. 9.11–14).
King of the jews temple Theology and John's gospel excerpts big wall of text from searching the word Passover in kindle scrolling up from the bottom so these are in reverse order of the book
The Jews did not enter the Praetorium, to maintain their ritual purity for eating Passover, and presumably, since there were priests in the group, the purity required for serving in the temple that afternoon at the time of the Passover sacrifices.34 Many have commented that John here illustrates the Jews’ concern for ritual purity but not for a human life. These Passover precautions are a clear indication that for John, the last supper was not a Passover meal, which agrees with the account in the Talmud, that Jesus was hanged on the eve of Passover. The ritual impurity could have been what Peter feared before he went to visit Cornelius, the Roman centurion. There must have been a major change in the thinking of the first Christians, prompted by Peter’s vision at Joppa, when it was revealed to him that he should no longer consider the house of a Gentile unclean.35 Thus when he entered the centurion’s house, he said: ‘You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation …’ (Acts 10.28). In addition, there would have been the Passover requirement to have no leaven or leaven product in the house, and Pilate’s residence would certainly have had some of the forbidden substances: perhaps not Babylonian porridge or Egyptian barley beer, but almost certainly a kneading trough for making bread and writer’s paste.36
Verses 38b–40 Pilate goes out again to the Jews and says that Jesus has committed no crime. Mindful of the need to respect Jewish customs, he suggests releasing at Passover the prisoner Jesus, the King of the Jews, but the crowd want Bar-Abbas the robber. Mark and Matthew seem to imply that this was Roman custom (Mark 15.6–8; Matt. 27.15), but whatever its origin, this is the only evidence for such a custom. It was seen as significant and therefore mentioned, because the random choice between two people, one of whom was released and the other killed, was an obvious allusion to the Day of Atonement. The ancient ritual had two goats: one representing Azazel, who was driven out into the desert; and the other representing the LORD, who was sacrificed and whose blood/life was used to purify and renew the temple/creation. I suggested some years ago that the original understanding ofthe death of Jesus was not the Passover lamb but the goat offered on the Day of Atonement,50 and others have explored, independently, some aspects of this.51 The Barabbas question is likely to remain unanswered as there is insufficient evidence to reach any conclusion. The problem is that Bar-Abbas means ‘son of the father’ and so is very similar to the title given to Jesus. A few texts of Matthew 27.16, 17 even name Barabbas as ‘Jesus Barabbas’, making the two names exactly similar. It is not impossible that the robber had this name, but an addition to the text could have been made to emphasize the allusion to the two goats on the Day of Atonement. The Mishnah says the two goats had to be identical ‘in appearance, in size and in value, and bought at the same time’.52 Not long after Jesus’ death, and quite likely around the Day of Atonement in the same year, Peter was speaking in the temple and comparing the death of Jesus to the high priest who had taken blood into the holy of holies and would return to bring renewal (Acts 3.19–21). The writer of Hebrews developed this understanding of the death of Jesus in great detail (Heb. 9.11–14), as did Barnabas, who was a Levite (Acts 4.36) and so was well acquainted with temple practice. He was the first named among the prophets and teachers in the church at Antioch, and was sent on a missionary journey, accompanied by Saul
But the reason for this being Jesus’ ‘hour’ (cf. 2.4; 7.30; 8.20; 12.23) was that the eve of Passover, according to the calendar of the second temple, fell that year on a Friday.70 In the second temple, Passover was the feast of the spring equinox, and the Day of Atonement and Tabernacles was the feast of the autumn equinox. In Ezekiel’s vision for the restored temple, however, he saw both the spring and autumn equinox festivals as similar: both were days of atonement to purify the temple. On the first day of the first month and on the seventh day, the priest had to atone the temple with the blood of a young bull, to purge away the result of any inadvertent sin. On the fourteenth day it was the feast of Passover with unleavened bread, when the prince had to provide a young bull as a sin offering for himself and his people, and for the seven days after that he had to provide daily offerings of animals and grain (Ezek. 45.18–25). This is very different from the Passover prescribed in Exodus 12.1–20, although Ezekiel’s festival may be what Passover became after Josiah had made it a temple pilgrimage. But Ezekiel’s Passover is identical with his prescription for the autumn festival – the Day of Atonement and Tabernacles (Ezek. 45.25) – and it is like the Pentateuch’s prescription for the duration of Tabernacles: a festival of seven (or eight) days71 beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (Lev. 23.33–36). If Jesus was restoring the ways of the first temple, his ‘Passover’ would have been a day of atonement, and in the old solar calendar still used by the Qumran community, the Day of Atonement always fell on a Friday. The Damascus Document describes people who were keeping to the old ways, holding fast to the commandments of God, preserving the hidden things in which all Israel had gone astray, which included the calendar: the Sabbaths and glorious feasts;72 and Enoch also knew that sinners had changed the calendar such that the stars did not appear at their appointed times.73
In the synoptic accounts of the last supper, Jesus transforms the Passover table into a highpriestly table (Melchi-Zedek’s table?). He takes only the bread and the wine, but has no place in his new ritual for the lamb which was the central feature of a Passover table in Jerusalem. He then renews the everlasting covenant which was entrusted to the priests and upheld by atonement (Num. 25.10–13). In the synoptic Gospels the bread becomes the bread of the Presence and as such the most holy food of the high priests, their privilege. The wine becomes the covenant blood, which the disciples consume and thus become a part of the covenant/atonement sacrifice, their duty. John describes another element. With the footwashing, the new high priests are purified for their role as part of the restored high priesthood, and what follows in the farewell discourse is the teaching that was exclusive to the high priests, the secret things of God. A generation after John compiled his Gospel, Ignatius of Antioch wrote using the same imagery as John: The priests of old I admit were estimable men; but our own High Priest is greater, for he has been entrusted with the most holy things and to him alone are the secret things of God committed. He is the doorway to the Father, and it is by him that Abraham and Isaac and the prophets go in, no less than the apostles and the whole church; for all these have their part in God’s unity.11
Facing east to pray, as in the first temple, was one of the traditions about Christian worship passed down unwritten by the Apostles, according to Basil.24 All four New Testament Gospels say the people were calling out words from Psalm 118, one of the Hallel psalms sung at Tabernacles and Passover. Only John says it was the people from Jerusalem who sang this psalm. At Tabernacles, the pilgrims carrying palms sang the whole psalm, waving their palms during the first and last verses but also at the Hosanna,25 but the priests used to carry willow branches and process around the altar each day saying [singing?], ‘We beseech you, LORD, save us [= hȏšȋ‘ȃnā’]! We beseech you, LORD, make us prosper’ (Ps. 118.25, my translation).26 The Hebrew Scriptures say nothing of the reason for carrying the branches at Tabernacles; the huts of leafy branches are explained,27 but the procession with branches could well have originated in a sunrise procession when the king came from the east into the temple. Solomon entered the city from the east after he had been anointed at the Gihon spring. He rode up the hill on the king’s mule, and the city was in uproar from the rejoicing (1 Kings 1.44–45).