DATING FOR SHAVUOT?
The whole controversy about the date for Shavuot has to do with the interpretation of “the day after the Sabbath.” The fact that the controversy has endured for more than two millennia speaks for itself.
The Sadducees, calculated Shavuot by counting fifty days from the Sunday which falls within the days of unleavened bread. They interpreted the expression “the day after the Sabbath,” found in Leviticus 23:15, from which date the count to Shavuot is to begin, as being the day after the weekly Sabbath.
Traditional Judaism (represented by the Pharisees) asserts that “Sabbath” is referring to the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread (a.k.a. “Passover Day”). Which is it?
The Pharisees, as Josephus says, however, claim it was the Passover Annual Sabbath.
Alfred Edersheim, in his book The Temple:
•“The expression ‘the morrow after the Sabbath,’ has sometimes been misunderstood as implying that the presentation of the so-called ‘first sheaf’ was to be always made on the day following the weekly Sabbath of the Passover-week. This view, rests on a misinterpretation of the word ‘Sabbath.’ As in analogous allusions to other feasts in the same chapter, it means not the weekly Sabbath, but the day of the festival. The testimony of Josephus, of Philo, and of Jewish tradition, leaves no room to doubt that in this instance we are to understand by the ‘Sabbath’ the 15th of Nisan, on whatever day of the week it might fall” (The Temple: Its Ministry and Services, p. 257)
SUMMARY
1.There were two competing views at the time of Yeshua on how to calculate the day of Shavuot. For the Sadducees, Shavuot always fell on Sunday, while the Pharisees had it on various days of the week. Yet in Acts 2:1, with a Friday Passover, both would have agreed that Shavuot fell on the first day in Acts 2:1, which was 33 AD. (But the specific year is not important.) The difference was that the Sadducees started counting 50 days after the first weekly sabbath and the Pharisees started counting 50 days after the yearly Sabbath, ie Passover.
2.The Sadducees controlled the Temple worship and the feast days at the time of Yeshua. It wasn’t until about 70 AD that the Pharisees view came into power and prominence. This means that even though both methods of calculating Shavuot agreed that it fell on the first day of the week in Acts 2:1, the Sadducces had the official say at this time to calculate the actual day. In other words, during Yeshua’s 30 years on earth as a man, Shavuot always fell on the first day (ie Sunday). However, after the destruction of the Temple in AD70, the Pharisaic tradition was adopted and has continued ever since.
3.Regardless of whether the Sadducee’s or Pharisee’s method of calculating Shavuot was used the year Yeshua died, both would calculate Shavuot in Acts 2:1 as the first day of the week.
4.This means that the discussion about whether Shavuot always fell on a Sunday is irrelevant to Acts 2:1 because even the method noted by Josephus and Philo and the Pharisees had Pentecost fall on the first day of the week in Acts 2:1.
Conclusion
Ancient records have provided us with different models used for counting the 50 days to Shavuot. The heart of the difference between all of these various systems, nonetheless, is their differing interpretations about what exactly is meant by the phrase, “on the day after the Sabbath,” as found in Leviticus, 23:11.
Nevertheless, it is important to notice that the oldest of these known systems was the Sadducees Shavuot, who said that it always falls on the first day and this was also the system deemed correct by all of the ancient Christian assemblies.
The Sadducees celebrated Shavuot on the 50th day (inclusive reckoning) from the first Sunday after Passover (taking the ‘sabbath’ of Lv. 23:15 to be the weekly sabbath); their reckoning regulated the public observance so long as the Temple stood. The Pharisees, however, interpreted the ‘sabbath’ of Lv. 23:15 as the Festival of Unleavened Bread (cf. Lv. 23:7), and their reckoning became normative in Judaism after AD 70, so that in the Jewish calendar Shavuot now falls on various days of the week.” (New Bible dictionary, 1996 Pentecost, Feast of)
The date of the feast came to be firmly fixed only in later Judaism. It was now dated on the 50th day after the Passover. Opinions varied as to the significance of the “day after the Sabbath” mentioned in Lv. 23:15. The Sadducees took this literally and counted from the first regular Sabbath (Saturday) after the first day of the Passover, so that Shavuot would always fall on a Sunday. The Pharisees, however, took the text of Lv. 23:15 to mean the first day of the Passover, the 15th Nisan, and thus counted seven full weeks from the 16th Nisan, so that Shavuot would fall exactly on the 50th day after the 16th Nisan. According to this reckoning the day of the week on which Pentecost carne would depend on the day of week the Passover began.” (Theological dictionary of the New Testament, 1976, The Jewish Feast of Pentecost).
Article adapted from: http://www.bible.ca/7-sunday-pentecost.htm
