Bob Dylan: Cooking Up More Mythologies (Part XIV)

An index to the full “Cooking Up More Mythologies” series appears at the end of this article.

by Larry Fyffe

Throw a Passover feast at the time that Jesus Christ is nailed to the cross by the Romans, and the narratives presented in the Holy Bible get rather tangled up.

The following song lyrics, at one level of meaning, apparently take a cheeky look at attempts to untangle the confusion as to the timeline of the crucifixion:

Tomorrow's Friday
We'll see what it brings
Everybody's talking 
'Bout the early Roman kings
(Bob Dylan: Early Roman Kings)

The Jewish Sabbath, a day of rest, begins Friday evening; ends Saturday evening.

The standard Christian interpretation be that Jesus gives up the ghost on Friday afternoon before the Jewish Sabbath begins.

Saith the biblical verses below:

In the end of the Sabbath
As it began to dawn toward the first day of the week
Came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary
To see the sepulchre ....
"He is not here for he is risen, as He said
Come, see the place where the Lord lay"
(Matthew 28:1,6)

So far so good, but the Jewish Passover (the holiday celebrating the passing over of households by the Angel of Death on which lamb’s blood marks the door) is happening at this time.

In the biblical verses beneath, Jesus is said to partake of the Passover feast:

Then came the day of the unleavened bread
When the Passover must be killed ....
And when the hour was come, He sat down
And the twelve apostles with Him
(Luke 22: 7,14)

Then along comes the gnostic-like Gospel of John wherein the timeline of the crucifixion is messed with – Jesus, symbolized as the the Passover Lamb, sacrificed on the day of the feast:

Christ’s eaten a last supper, but apparently not a Passover feast, with his disciples:

Now before the feast of the Passover 
When Jesus knew that His hour was come
That He should depart of this world ...
And the supper ended, the devil now put into the heart
Of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him
(John 13: 1,2)

According to the Gospel of John, Christ becomes the Passover Lamb, sacrificed on the cross; consumed at the feast of the unleavened bread.

The narrative confirmed earlier by John the Baptist:
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto  him
And saith, "Behold the Lamb of God
Which taketh away the sin of the world"
(John 1:29)

The chief priests had determined things wouldn’t happen this way:

And consulted that they might take
Jesus by subtilty, and kill Him
But they said, "Not on the feast day
Lest there be an uproar among the people"
(Matthew 26: 4,5)

It’s supposedly a non-Passover supper that Jesus attends with His disciples:

And as they did eat, Jesus took the bread
And blessed it, and break it, and gave it to them
And said, "Take, eat it: this is my body"
And He took the cup, and when he had given thanks
He gave it to them, and they drank it, and He said unto them, "This is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many"

(Mark 14: 22, 23, 24)

The narrator in the following song lyrics takes exception to the shift in the tmeline of the crucifixion story as told by the Gospel of John:

Never could learn to drink that blood
And call it wine
Never could learn to hold you, love
And call you mine
(Bob Dylan: Tight Connection To My Heart)

Bob Dylan: Cooking Up More Mythologies (Part XIV)

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