When Was Jesus Crucified?

Those familiar with the Gospels know that Jesus ate a last meal with his disciples (often referred to as “The Last Supper”) before he was betrayed and crucified. The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) present that story to us as a Passover meal, a communal supper during the Jewish season of Passover to commemorate God rescuing Israel from Egypt (Exodus 12-14).

Mark 14:12 vs. John 19:14

In Mark 14:12, his disciples ask Jesus where he wants to eat the Passover. They then go and make preparations in an upper room for them to celebrate together. This story is repeated in Matthew 26:17 and Luke 22:7-9. John’s account doesn’t appear as clear on the timing of this. John 13:1-5 say that Jesus loved his disciples even “before the Feast of Passover,” then “during supper” he washes their feet. We might assume this is the same Passover supper as the Synoptics. But John 19:14 places Jesus’s crucifixion on “the day of Preparation of the Passover.” This seems to suggest Jesus was crucified before the Passover meal. If this is the case, he clearly did not eat the Passover meal with them. The supper John refers to would have to be some other supper.

So it seems John and the Synoptic Gospels are at odds. Some like John’s version of events because it means you can place the moment of Jesus’s crucifixion at the same time as the sacrifice of the Passover lamb which happened before the Passover meal. The symbolism is irresistible (especially in light of John 1:29 and Revelation 5:6). There are, however, a couple of problems with this. First, as we just noted, it creates a contradiction with the other Gospels. And second, John doesn’t say anything about the Passover lamb being sacrificed at the same time as Jesus. It’s nowhere mentioned in John 19, or anywhere in John’s Gospel, or anywhere in the whole Bible for that matter.

Do we have a contradiction between John and the other Gospels?

Jewish Days and the Feast of Passover

Thanks to the pervasiveness of Western culture and the traditions and assumptions through which we read the text, we miss a couple of important points.

First, the Jewish day is from sunset to sunset. When the sun goes down, the day is at an end, and the next calendar day begins. Jews traditionally eat the Passover meal on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nisan (Leviticus 23:5-8; Exodus 12:8; Exodus 13:7). It’s an evening meal so, technically, it’s eaten at the start of the day. This means, according to the Synoptics, the disciples went hunting for a place to meet on Nisan 14. Luke 23:44 tells us Jesus hung on the cross between noon and 3 pm. This means Jesus was crucified later on Nisan 15 since it was before sunset. John’s timeline, however, appears to place the crucifixion on the previous day, Nisan 14.

Second, Passover as it was celebrated in Jesus’s time was not just one meal on one night. According to 2 Chronicles 30:33, the Passover was to be a week-long celebration, undoubtedly with many meals and events during that week. Unfortunately, when we see “Passover,” we tend to think only of that one Passover meal on that one night. John refers to “Passover” eight times, and each of those times he is talking about the feast of Passover, the week-long celebration, not the Passover meal alone.

The Day of Preparation

John 19:14 says when Jesus was crucified it was “the day of Preparation of the Passover.” The Greek word John uses for “preparation” is paraskeuē. Here’s an interesting exercise. Pull up Google Translate and see how it translates the Greek word paraskeuē into English. In fact, here’s a link that does it for you using Greek letters. What does it say? In modern Greek, paraskeuē is the word for Friday. And the same was true in John’s day. Why? Most likely because the Sabbath begins on Saturday, so in Jewish circles Friday was the day to prepare for the Sabbath.

So when John talks about “the day of Preparation,” he’s not talking about preparing for a Passover meal, but preparing for the Sabbath. During Passover, the “paraskeuē of the Passover” would simply be Friday of Passover week. The Sabbath is normally a special day, but the Sabbath of Passover would have been a particularly special, or “high” Sabbath.

John’s Timeline Revisited

If we understand that the Passover feast lasted a week, and “day of Preparation” is the Friday of Passover week, how does this affect our reading of John’s timeline?

• John 13:1: “Before the feast of Passover…” means prior to the week-long feast of Passover.
• John 13:2: “During supper…” means during the Passover supper, which I take to be the same one that Matthew, Mark, and Luke talk about. It is, after all, the most significant supper they ate together. And I think as we read on we’ll see how it fits.
• John 13:27-29: Jesus tells Judas to go and do what he had planned to do (i.e., betray him). The others thought Jesus was telling him to get supplies for “the feast.” Not the Passover meal (they were eating that at the time), but for whatever festivities remained for the Passover feast.
• John 18:28: Jesus leaves Caiaphas’s house to go to the governor’s headquarters. It was early in the morning (still Nisan 15). The Jews wouldn’t enter the governor’s place so they would not be defiled and still be able to eat the Passover. Again, this is not a reference to the Passover meal they would have eaten the previous evening. John is saying they didn’t want to be excluded from whatever festivities remained for Passover due to defilement.
• John 19:14: Pilate presents Jesus to the crowd and says, “Behold your king!” This is on the day of Preparation of the Passover, that is, the Friday of Passover week, the day before the Sabbath: Friday, Nisan 15.
• John 19:31: The Jews ask Pilate if he would have the legs of those who had been crucified broken. They wanted to make sure they were dead so they could bury them before the Sabbath started. This fits the timeline of Jesus eating the Passover meal and being crucified on Nisan 15, the Friday before the Sabbath.

There is no contradiction between John and the other three Gospels. They all agree that Jesus ate his last supper, the Passover meal, with his disciples on Nisan 15. He was betrayed that night, and in the afternoon was crucified. Since it was not yet sundown, it was still Nisan 15. The following sundown began the Sabbath, so Nisan 15 was also the Day of Preparation, the Friday before the Sabbath of Passover week.