Ben Hur, the novel, part 21

We are up to Book VIII and the date is 8 or 9 Nisan. Wallace makes one of many mistakes about Passover. Simonides, who is Jewish, says tomorrow is Passover. It starts at night, which is the 14^th Nisan on the Jewish calendar.

The only time that the 10^th Nisan was important for Passover was the very first one. That time, the Israelites were told to pick out a yearling sheep (or goat) and keep it for use four days later. Mishnah Pesachim 9:5 gives a list of differences between the first Passover and all others. There is no attribution of this Mishnah so it was one generally established by 50 CE and that means it could have been in place for as much as 15 centuries.

Skipping chapter 2, you may wonder why Amrah didn’t bring matso to Judah’s family. Passover has to be celebrated in a state of taharut and leprosy is a condition of tumah.

Skipping chapter 3-7 and now we get to Wallace’s terrible horrible no-good very bad depiction of Passover. In the very first paragraph, people at various fires invite Judah to join them. That ain’t how it works.

The Passover yearling sheep or goat has to be eaten between sundown and midnight. Even if everything from the 7^th lumbar vertebrum is cut off because of gid ha-nasheh, that’s still something like 35 pounds of meat and, in fact, except for not breaking the bones (so they don’t eat the marrow), everything edible has to be consumed – lungs, brains, things we don’t eat nowadays. To make sure of eating about 35 pounds of stuff, you figure how much a healthy adult would eat and invite enough people to finish it by midnight. Every person in your group has to eat at least an olive’s bulk, so you could host 100 people using that one sheep. You don’t invite more at the last minute or you risk not meeting the olive’s bulk requirement.

Second, it’s not just eating. By this time, a recital had developed that made sure to reference all the parts of the Passover story. Judah should not have been roaming the city; he should have been with his legion going through the recital. He was not observing Passover correctly, would not be able to say nirtsah at midnight, and would owe a sacrifice two days later (individuals do not bring their olah on days like Shabbat or Passover after transgressing a positive commandment). And the same is true for every Jew in the procession Judah “saw”.

Finally, Passover has to be observed inside a house. Things have to be carried around during the ceremony and meal and Passover requires observance of the rules of Shabbat, which includes carrying only inside a house or other specified limits. The house also separates the people invited for one sheep from another group and helps insure that the above two rules are observed.

Remember, Jewish observance was not given up by Christians until the time of Paul. Jesus himself observed this Passover according to all its laws. There was no excuse for Judah to do otherwise.