David Ben-Ariel wrote:
The Passover lamb was to be kept from Nisan 10 until the 14th (Ex. 12:1-6). It was then to be killed on the 14th. It was to be killed in the evening. How do we know for sure which evening is being discussed? Because God the Father set us a PERFECT EXAMPLE!
When did God decree that Jesus could declare “it is finished” and die on the stake? Why at the very same time that THE JEWS were sacrificing their Passover lambs at the Temple! The Jews had always killed the Passover lambs during the final hours of the 14th. It was towards the end of the 14th, not at the beginning of the 14th, that the Passover lambs were killed.
~ Ben-Ariel, David. (n.d.). The Passover Memorial.
So, let me get this straight: God gave us a “PERFECT EXAMPLE” of obedience to God’s Law through the Jews, in particular the Pharisees (as that is where modern Judaism descends from). If that is true, then why did Jesus have to give us an example of how to live again?
We are talking about the same group of people that keep the wrong date for Pentecost, after all. If they can go wrong on that account, should we take their word over the Bible on any other front?
Even Ben-Ariel admits that Jesus kept a different date:
Jesus’ last supper with His disciples offered Him the perfect opportunity to replace the traditional lamb with a bread and wine ceremony symbolic of His offered body and blood. (Even the rabbis decreed after the Temple’s destruction that it was permissible to not eat a Passover lamb).
If that was a Passover meal, and the Bible confirms this (Mt 26:18), then whose example should we follow? Jesus’ or the Pharisees’?