349 ON JESUS’ LAST SUPPER on the following day before sunset, but they disagree on the Passover eve: for the Synoptics, it was on Thursday evening, but for John it was one day later, with the Passover that year falling on a Sabbath. Many attempts were made to solve the discrepancy, until the breakthrough proposed by Annie Jaubert 2, who proposed the use of different calendars: John followed the Babylonian lunar calendar of the Temple and the Synoptics adopted the Biblical solar calendar described in the book of Jubilees. Her proposal followed the recent discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, some of which displayed the use of the solar calendar. One of the major features of this calendar is that the year is divided into four thirteen-week quarters, with each quarter starting on a Wednesday; consequently, the eve of Passover, the 14th of the first month, always falls on a Tuesday evening. Since, according to Jubilees, this was supposed to be the restoration of a lost Biblical calendar that stressed the Sabbath rest, she endeavored to find some traces of it in the Biblical narratives. Jubilees rewrites the primeval history and provides many dates. Observing that no event ever occurs on a Sabbath in this account, she successfully tried to apply the same pattern to the Biblical dates in the months that are numbered, and not named. Then she moved to some ancient Christian texts and discovered some signs indicating that Jesus’ Last Supper took place on a Tuesday evening. This, she concluded, was the historical date of Jesus’ last Passover. Her theory has been challenged, especially by J. Jeremias. In his classical study, he first summarizes the previous attempts to solve the discrepancy. His own solution is to stick to the authority and testimony of the Synoptics, and to remove, one by one, the objections drawn from the fourth Gospel 3. Following Schürer and many others, he assumes that Rabbinic Judaism accurately reflects circumstances in Jesus’ time, a view that was current before the Qumran discoveries. Thus, he does not accept the idea of two calendars and discards any hint of divergence among the early Christian writers. Consequently, he refuses Jaubert’s hypothesis. Jeremias’ way of solving the problems raised by John looks like a A. JAUBERT, The Date of the Last Supper (Staten Island, NY 1965). 2 J. JEREMIAS, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (Philadelphia, PA 1977) 3 41- 84.