:Because Moses set forth the Feast of Passover as immediately preceding the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12), many students of the Bible and various commentators have mistakenly interpreted the first century New Testament mention of Passover as being strictly limited to one day only, an [[Eisegesis|eisegetical]] assumption which does not take account of the context of the whole of the Bible ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+16%3A1-8&version=KJV '''Deuteronomy 16:1-8'''] ''note the plural '''!''' '') and betrays an ignorance of first century Jewish culture which called the feast of Unleavened Bread Passover and Passover Unleavened Bread. Their erroneous misperception of the meaning of the "''days of Passover''" in the first century as being "one day only" has falsely presented them with an apparently insoluble (and unnecessary) [[Historical-critical method (Higher criticism)|textual critical problem]] of the particular dating of the Lord's Supper on the night of His betrayal and arrest before the morning of His being brought to the praetorium to stand before Pilate—"''and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover.''" John 18:28b (KJV). They assume that John is testifying that the Jews had not yet eaten the Passover, that he claims the day of Passover had not yet arrived, but is indicating that it would take place later that evening after sunset, after the crucifixion, at the end of the day that Jesus was executed, after He was laid in the tomb, the Passover being celebrated at the beginning of the next day according to the Jewish reckoning of the beginning of a day at sundown, followed by the night and then the morning of Passover. Liberal critics of the Bible readily point to this superficially apparent discrepancy as "proof" that the Bible taken together in all of its parts as a whole is inconsistent and contradicts itself, and that John cannot be reconciled with Matthew, Mark and Luke.
:Some apologists attempt to present the "Passover of Jesus" as not being the official night of the observance of the Passover among the Jews, but that instead, because of His foreknowledge that he would be crucified, he observed "by way of accommodation" the ritual form of the Passover ''seder'' as an "anticipation" of the feast, "because he would not be able to observe it the next evening after sunset, when he was in the tomb." If He is Lord of the sabbath, He is Lord of the Passover(Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5; John 5:16, 18). The Bible says it was the Passover when Jesus "sat down with the twelve" and "desired with desire to eat this passover with you". But these apologists in their commentaries say that if John is correct it could not have been the actual evening of the Passover—the Bible says it was, they say it was not. They point to John 18:28 where (according to their interpretive reading) they claim he declares "the Jews had not yet eaten the Passover". (See [http://biblehub.com/commentaries/john/18-28.htm commentaries on John 18:28].) But no text of the Bible says, "not yet eaten". Their [[Hermeneutics|hermeneutical]] position is a contradiction of scripture as a whole and the whole of consistent Christian tradition traceable back to the first century and the Church Fathers of the second through the fourth centuries. Moreover, they read a conflicting essential contradiction between John and the [[Synoptic gospels|Synoptics]], and in doing so present a Bible that is not the infallibly inerrant word of God, but a collection of the conflicting and unreliable opinions of men who invented their narratives in their struggle with fading memory of those times to explain their faith in Jesus long after the events had occurred.
:But God as the overriding infallible Author Who inspired the Four Gospels, "that cannot lie" ([http://biblehub.com/titus/1-2.htm Titus 1:2]) "cannot contradict himself" ([http://biblehub.com/2_timothy/2-13.htm 2 Timothy 2:13]). It is God the Holy Spirit Himself Who did "bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" ([http://biblehub.com/john/14-26.htm John 14:26]). There is in fact no real contradiction between John and Matthew, Mark and Luke. Every [[exegesis]] of [[Historical-critical method (Higher criticism)#The literal sense of scripture|''the literal sense of scripture'']] must, of necessity, to be valid, carefully take account of the whole of the historical context, the cultural context, the normal mode of expression of the time of writing and the ''intent of the author'' within the context of the whole of the Bible, and just as importantly, what the text does '''not''' say. When this is not done, erroneous conclusions and misleading inferences can be drawn, inadvertently introducing superficially apparent, difficult problems of interpretation, where none actually exist, difficulties which could have been avoided with reasonable care and a decent respect for the material.