This is perhaps the most confusing passage in the New Testament. Three events of great importance to our faith are given in the four Gospels but the order of the events that happened seem to conflict. From the past studies we suspect that this is most likely not a contradiction but it is only different perspective on the same event written for different reasons (thus a remez or hint).
"Now on the first {Day} of the Unleavened Bread approached the disciples came to Jesus saying, 'Where do you want us to make the preparations for You to eat the Passover?" Matt.26.17
"On the first Day of Unleavened Bread when the LAMB IS SACRIFCED, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and make the preparations for You to eat the Passover." Mk.14.12
"Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover Lamb had to be sacrificed." Lk.22.7
"Now before the Festival of Passover, Jesus knew that the hour had come to depart from this world and go unto His Father." Jn.13.1
"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month between the evenings (byn ha-atabim) is the L-rd's Passover." Lev.23.5
Byn ha-atabim means "between the evenings" where atab is that period of the day when night mixes with light or dusk. Therefore we read this to say the Pascal lamb had to be sacrificed (Ex.12.6, Lev.23.5, and Num.9.3-4) between the two evenings of the fourteenth; that is the one, which began the fourteenth, and the one that brought its end. Consequently we believe Jesus told His disciples to prepare this feast just as this first evening of the fourteenth was approaching as Matthew says. Yet in minds of some of these disciples the Passover had already come because it was so close. Still if this is true how do we explain John's words, "Now before the Festival of Passover"?
Our suspicion is that not all of Jesus' disciples were drawn from the same branch of Judaism. Hence, the first three Gospel narratives saw Passover coming at that first evening, which at that time were traditionally two Jewish groups- Aristocratic and the "neo-Aristocratic" or legal/common day. However, another group among the council that delivered Yeshua up saw the "correct day" of the feast as the second evening or rather just before the beginning of that second evening (late afternoon) as was the custom of the Orthodox community of His day (WHICH John by implication seemed to be a part). This way these men did not enter the praetorium, "so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover" (Jn.18.28) because they ate their feast late on the fourteenth and finished literally in the fifteenth day of Feast of Unleavened Bread. However both groups we believe were kosher in their keeping of Pesach according to Torah because it only stipulates that we keep this "between" those two "dusks" and does not exactly say where this must be placed in-between. Therefore we literally have a twenty-four hour period to prepare for the feast (please note that Torah does not state when it must end) before the evening of the Feast of Unleavened Bread).
As for use of term "Unleavened Bread" in the Synoptic Gospels as opposed to using "Passover" we have learned somewhere that these two terms became mingled together and interchangeable after the Babylonian period to where both came to mean the same thing. Technically, Passover is single feast on the 14th (not a day as John rightly saw) and Feast of Unleavened Bread was that seven-day holiday (feast) that followed Passover. However for those that kept this feast within the first few hours of the 14th (as our Messiah did), Feast of Unleavened Bread was indeed ushered in because it begins with that Passover Feast. Therefore, if we eat the feast early on the day we add another day to our week of fasting from leavening. Of course Jesus had to eat His Passover Feast at the common time because He would be occupied at the time the Orthodox community would be consuming theirs.
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