Monday, April 01, 2013

The Ultimate April Fools tomfoolery


Ask Prof. Colin Humphreys of Cambridge University about April 1st [1]. He is bound to tell you that on that day in 33 A.D (when in reality, the calendar would not have been devised and divided into B.C and A.D, only to be changed some 2,000 years later to BCE and CE) Jesus had his last supper with his disciples, at least some of whom later became the Apostles, if I am not mistaken.
[A] Cambridge University professor, Colin Humphreys, has made a proposal. Using a mixture of literary and astronomical sources, he thinks the actual date of crucifixion was April 3rd in the year 33AD. That places the last supper (which he thinks happened on Wednesday, not Thursday as traditionally believed) on April 1st, and the resurrection on April 5th. So, he is asking, why not celebrate Christianity's defining event on, or as near as possible, the day it happened?
I say AMEN to this proposal, but not for any religious reasons. It is at that fateful supper Jesus asked the original congregants to bite into the bread thinking it is his body and drink wine thinking it is his blood. The disciples duly complied. And, in my way of thinking, that is the supreme April Fool tomfoolery!
If only it had remained that.
Raghuram Ekambaram
P.S I am assuming that Prof. Humphreys did his calculations and all that on the basis of Gregorian Calendar, the so-called secular calendar for the world.
References



No comments: