Do the Gospels Give Contradictory Dates for the Crucifixion of Jesus?
Skeptics of the New Testament’s reliability sometimes make the assertion that the gospel
of John gives a different date for the crucifixion of Jesus than the Synoptic gospels – Matthew,
Mark and Luke.
This position has been championed by prominent agnostic New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman
as substance for his own skepticism.
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Has the Church embraced a catch-22 for 2,000 years regarding the date of Jesus’ crucifixion?
Or are these charges based on a misreading of the New Testament?
Let’s begin with a look at the testimony of the Synoptic gospels. Matthew, Mark and
Luke are in agreement that Jesus sent Peter and John to make preparation for eating the
Passover meal on the first day of unleavened bread.
The first day of unleavened bread was the first day of the Passover week. Recall that
the Torah prescribed that the Passover would be a week-long celebration.
Before we go any further, it’s important to point out the Jewish context of the gospel
accounts. In the Jewish calendar, a day began at sunset (rather than at midnight as we observe
today). With this in mind, let’s now examine John’s testimony. John begins his account
of the passion of Jesus in John 13:1 where he states, “…before the Feast of the Passover…”
This verse begins the story of how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet at the last supper.
Ehrman and others point to this verse to assert that the date John is recalling is the day
before the start of the Passover week (“before” being assumed to mean, “the day before.”).
However, this is not what the text says. All that is required by the text is that we acknowledge
the setting as prior to the inaugural meal of the Passover week, hence John’s use of
the phrase, “Feast of the Passover.”
This is substantiated by John’s acknowledgment of Jesus performing various acts during the
supper in the very next verses.
There is not a 24 hour gap between verses 1 and 2 of John 13. There are only a matter
of minutes being described here – before they started eating and after they had started
eating. Further, the context of the supper described in John 13 is the same as the last
supper in the Synoptics, as all of the gospels record this meal as the one where Jesus predicts
His betrayal.
Thus, all of the gospels are in agreement that the last supper took place as the inaugural
Passover meal. This means that the episodes of Jesus’ passion following the last supper
– His prayer and capture in Gethsemane, His trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate,
His flogging and crucifixion – having taken place through the night and into the following
day, occurred on the second day of the Passover week.
Moving into John 18, John records in verse 28 that, following His trial before the Sanhedrin,
the Jews…
“…led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did
not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.”
(John 18:28)
The assertion of Ehrman and others who maintain a contradiction between the gospel authors
is that John’s reference to the Passover in this verse is to the inaugural meal. However,
this assertion is not a mandatory reading of the text, since Passover took place over
a whole week. Given that the context of the supper described in John 13 is the same as
the last supper described in the Synoptics, we have more reason to believe that John is
here speaking of the second day of the Passover week.
Later that same day, at the conclusion of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, John records
in John 19:14, “it was the day of preparation for the Passover…”
The assertion of Ehrman et al. here is that, “the day of preparation for the Passover”
should be understood as during the day before the inaugural Passover meal.
The word here translated as, “day of preparation,” is παρασκευή. This same word is used,
to this day, in the Greek language, as the word for Friday. παρασκευή is not
to be understood as during the day before the inaugural Passover meal; it is a reference
to the Friday of the Passover week.
This understanding is confirmed in Mark 15:42 where he describes the day of Jesus’ crucifixion
(παρασκευή) as, “…the preparation day, that is, the day before the Sabbath…”
When we look at the entirety of the gospel accounts, we see that Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John all record Jesus’ crucifixion as having taken place on the Friday of Passover
week. There are no contradictions in their respective testimonies as Ehrman has asserted.
But, what about the time of the crucifixion?
The Synoptics are unanimous in stating that Jesus was crucified between the sixth and
ninth hours of the day. However, John records that Jesus’ trial with Pilate took place
at the sixth hour of the day.
Surely this is a blatant discrepancy between the gospel accounts isn’t it? The problem
here is that the gospels are not basing their testimonies on the same system of time keeping.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all use a Jewish system, where the first hour of the day corresponds
with dawn (roughly 6:00am). This would make their references to the sixth to ninth hours
as noon-3:00pm. In contrast, John is using a Roman system, wherein the first hour corresponds
to midnight (as we observe today). This makes his reference to Jesus’ trial at the sixth
hour as taking place at 6:00am, with his crucifixion, death and burial following later in the day.
Rather than observing a discrepancy, we see that the gospel accounts, again, are in agreement
in their testimony; Jesus was tried in the morning and crucified in the afternoon.
Though a surface-level reading of the New Testament could be construed to support the
idea that the gospels are contradictory accounts, a contextual examination of what they record
simply doesn’t support these assertions.