First Fruits
The feast of First Fruits (Wave Sheaf Offering), which is the starting point for the count to Pentecost (+50 days), did not occur during Passover as claimed by the Jewish Mainstream, but according to the narrative thread of Leviticus 23 / Deuteronomy 16 immediately after the Passover Week, on Abib 23:
The narrative thread in both chapters advances from the beginning to the end of the year. Lev 23:8 includes Day 7 of Passover, followed by Lev 23:9-15 with the Wave Sheaf Offering, and then continues with the later feasts. To now inject 'First Fruits' in the midst of the Passover Week, would turn the biblical narrative upside down.
The offering occurred on 'the day after the Sabbaths' - the original text uses plural (Lev 23:15). A plural 'Sabbaths' usually refers to a specific 'week'. When it says 'after the week' with the explicit article 'the', then which week is meant? Is it the rather unimportant week before the Passover Week, or much rather referring to the Passover Week? It would indeed require much mental acrobatics to make this week refer to the previous week leading to the Passover, but to our surprise this particular interpretation has been widely accepted, often while not being aware of the plural.
Barley was still green at the 7th plague in Egypt (see Exo 9:31-32) and therefore at the beginning of the month of Abib (Exo 13:4, Strong's H24), and could only be harvested weeks later (usually ~4 week between green and golden heads), earliest after the Passover Week.
The Israelites did certainly not begin their harvest during the Passover feast, when most people travelled to and from Jerusalem. The harvesting operation still requires today many hours of overtime, being the busiest season of the year for a farmer.
It would interrupt as a day dedicated to bread the partial fasting of leaven (Unleavened Bread lastet one entire week)!!
JESUS died in the time of the unleavened bread and resurrected when leavened bread was eaten again (Abib 23th), being the First Fruit and the -absolute- bread of life. It would not make any sense if JESUS would have been resurrected during the time of unleavened bread. Read also Lev 23:14 and Mat 9:17. This commonly accepted schedule is nonsensical and takes away significance from His greatest sacrifice.
- The most evident point is the fact that CHRIST would have impossibly risen and resurrected in a time biblically declared as time of affliction. He died in the time of affliction and resurrected immediately after this time. Deut 16:3 says: "You shall not eat with it anything leavened; seven days you shall eat with it unleavened bread of affliction [Strong's G2561 KAKⲰCEⲰC; depression, that is, misery: - afflicted (-ion), trouble, ill-treatment, oppression.], because in haste you went out from the land of Egypt, so that you will remember the day of your going out from the land of Egypt all the days of your life."
B - Who is Beta Israel?
Beta Israel (literally, 'house of Israel' in Ge'ez) are a significant community of Jews who emigrated earliest with the Queen of Saba (10th c. BC), many during Babylon (6th c. BC) and some as late as 4th c. BC., and who preserved the biblical traditions of ancient Israel much better than Mainstream Judaism in Israel.
They had for centuries not even been aware of the 2nd fallen temple and do (or did) not know the 2nd c. Talmud, Mishna and other contextual theology (adaption to modern age). They are probably the best reference for many practices related to Ancient Judaism, but scholarship has sadly given very little attention to them.
From 1948 until 2013, a total of 3.121.000 Ethiopian Jews evacuated / immigrated to Israel through sometimes spectacular operations involving hundreds of airlifts often done in secret, and had been widely forced to conform to Mainstream Judaism and to lose (part of) their biblical traditions. Rabbi Yosef decreed a pro forma conversion to Judaism of all Beta Israel upon their arrival in the State of Israel and a declaration of submission to the way of life of Halacha, or doctrine and practice of Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism .
C, D, E, F - Why did the Essenes, Pharisees and Karaite Jews loose track of the Wave Sheaf Offering?
Their 'misinterpretation' can probably be attributed to the highly irregular observance of the Passover - with some gaps of hundreds of years. The correct interpretation of Scripture would have been easily lost, if the biblically based custom would not have been handed down from generation to generation.
Other possible reasons:
A) in order to distract from the Resurrection of CHRIST on this precise day of First Fruits only hours before the Wave Sheaf Offering took place and/or
B) simply extrapolating this date from the earlier crucifixion date erroneously based on a fast-track-trial.
Fact: The interpretation of the phrase "the morrow after the Sabbaths" has been debated for thousands of years.
The following study includes on page 4 more details about the Wave Sheaf Offering: