Contrary to what millions of Christians believe, a new study revealed that the Last Supper really took place on a Wednesday and not on Maundy Thursday.

This was the main conclusion in the new book written by Professor Colin Humphreys, a scientist at the University of Cambridge, saying that he has found the answer to what the eminent Biblical scholar F.F. Bruce called as “the thorniest problem in the New Testament.”

For hundreds of years, researchers have wondered about the precise nature and timing of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. The problem lies with the contrasting accounts given by the four Evangelists. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all share a similar assertion that the Last Supper was held to start the Jewish Festival of Passover. On the other hand, John’s account says that the meal happened prior to the beginning of the Passover.

In his book “The Mystery of the Last Supper,” Professor Humphreys derived a new solution using a combination of Biblical, historical, and astronomical research. He argues that Jesus used a different calendar from that of the commonly accepted by the Jews at that period. Based on this system, the Last Supper would have been on a Wednesday and not Thursday when it is commonly celebrated.

However, the main problem with this model is that if the Last Supper did happen on a Thursday, for Jesus to have been executed on a Friday morning, a series of events would have transpired throughout the night such as his arrest, interrogation, and separate trials by the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate, and Herod. It was against the laws of the Jews for the Sanhedrin to have a meeting at night.

The new finding was based from an earlier research Professor Humphreys conducted with the Oxford astrophysicist, Graeme Waddington in 1983. The study set the date of the crucifixion as the morning of Friday, April 3^rd in the year AD 33, which has become the accepted date by other scholars.

If Jesus was indeed crucified on April 3, the conventional calendar adopted by the Jews of AD 33 would have set his death on the 14^th day of the Jewish month of Nisan. However, the Passover meal falls on the 15^th which supports John’s account and not of the three others.

Professor Humphreys was not the only researcher to assume that Jesus was using a different calendar altogether. In 2007, the Pope believed that Jesus was adopting the solar calendar of the Qumran community, which was used by the Essenes and is described in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Using this calendar, the Passover meal was held a week later after Jesus has already died and resurrected.

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