![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Joshua-Schachterle-Bart-Ehrman-Author-1-1.png\" "\\"Joshua")
<\/span><\/p>\nWritten by <\/a>Joshua Schachterle, Ph.D<\/a><\/p>\n Author | Professor | Scholar<\/p>\n Author | Professor | BE Contributor<\/p>\n Verified! See our editorial guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n Verified! See our guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n\nDate written: November 2nd, 2023\n \nDate written: November 2nd, 2023<\/p>\n Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. – Dr. Bart D. Ehrman<\/p>\n What day did Jesus die?<\/strong> To many, this might seem like a silly question: Jesus died on Good Friday! Everyone knows that!<\/p>\n While this is indeed the tradition within Christianity, scholars know that it\u2019s far from certain. In this article, I\u2019ll show the contradiction between Gospels that raises this question, the basics of the Jewish calendar, and a likely answer to the question of when Jesus died<\/a>.<\/p>\n All of the Gospels actually agree that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The real question we’ll dive into here isn\u2019t the weekday, but how that Friday lines up with the Jewish Passover. That\u2019s where things get interesting and where the Gospels disagree.<\/p>\n Before we get into the exact day Jesus died, you\u2019ll need some background on the Jewish calendar. This is a big topic, but for our purposes I\u2019ll just discuss the way days are measured. Unlike the Gregorian calendar most of us use, the Jewish calendar measures a day from sunset to sunset<\/a>. This is why, for example, the Sabbath in Judaism starts on Friday evening.<\/p>\n The calendar also has its own months, and since all the Gospels agree that Jesus died during the week of Passover, he probably died in the month known as Nisan which coincides with March-April on the civil calendar.<\/p>\n As you may know, there are many differences between all the Gospels. However, the Synoptic Gospels<\/a> \u2013 Matthew, Mark, and Luke \u2013 tend to agree with each other on many things, specifically the timeline of Jesus\u2019 life. John, on the other hand, is very different from the Synoptics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Scholars agree that Mark<\/a> is our earliest written Gospel and that Matthew and Luke copied Mark, adding material and embellishing Mark\u2019s account. So according to Mark, when is Jesus crucified?<\/p>\n Mark says that Jesus\u2019 Last Supper was a Passover<\/a> meal. This was the most important celebration for 1st-century Jews as it commemorated God\u2019s salvation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.<\/p>\n For Mark, this takes place on a Thursday evening. How do we know this? Because Mark 15:42 tells us that Jesus\u2019 death and burial happen on the day before the Sabbath, which is always from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. <\/p>\n At this Passover meal, Jesus adds additional significance to the meal, claiming that the bread and wine are his body and blood.<\/p>\n Not long after this meal, Jesus is arrested, spends the night in jail, and is tried by Pilate in the morning. He is then crucified at 9:00 AM. Because Passover started the evening before, he is crucified on the day of Passover: Jesus died on Good Friday<\/strong>.<\/p>\n For those of us thinking in terms of a Western calendar, he would have had his last supper on Thursday night, died on Friday morning (Good Friday), which was the day before the Sabbath on Saturday.<\/p>\n special easter bundle<\/p>\n What Really Happened After Jesus Died?<\/p>\n Dive into the historical evidence, doubts, and accounts of Jesus\u2019 resurrection with three compelling courses by Dr. Bart Ehrman.<\/p>\n __CONFIG_colors_palette__{“active_palette”:0,”config”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“name”:”Main Accent”,”parent”:-1}},”gradients”:[]},”palettes”:[{“name”:”Default”,”value”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(212, 175, 55)”}},”gradients”:[]},”original”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(19, 114, 211)”,”hsl”:{“h”:210,”s”:0.83,”l”:0.45,”a”:1}}},”gradients”:[]}}]}__CONFIG_colors_palette__ <\/span> START LEARNING TODAY<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/a> <\/p>\n April bonus: Get 3 Additional Resurrection Lessons for Free!<\/em><\/p>\n “When did Jesus die?” may seem like a question with a simple enough answer, but as it turns out, it depends on which Gospel you read!<\/strong><\/p>\n In the Gospel of John, while the Passover begins on Friday at sundown, Jesus\u2019 Last Supper occurs on Thursday, the evening before. This means that in John, the Last Supper is not a Passover meal.<\/p>\n After this supper, Jesus is arrested, spends the night in jail, and is tried by Pilate in the morning. He is finally crucified just after noon on the day before the Passover meal is celebrated. Additionally, John has this Passover coincide with the Sabbath, which didn\u2019t always happen.<\/p>\n In Mark, the Last Supper is the only Passover in the life of Jesus. In John, three Passovers are mentioned, although the Last Supper isn\u2019t one of them. Like the Synoptics, John still places Jesus\u2019 death on a Friday, the day of preparation before the Sabbath, but he shifts it to the day before Passover.<\/p>\n Are there any other sources for the date of Jesus\u2019 crucifixion<\/a>? One very significant Jewish source, the Babylonian Talmud<\/a>, says this:<\/p>\n And it was taught: On the eve of the Passover Yeshua [the Nazarene] was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place a herald went forth and cried, “He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come and plead on his behalf.” And since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of Passover.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This source agrees with John\u2019s chronology that Jesus was killed the day before Passover.<\/strong><\/p>\n There is a problem, though. This source was written between the 3rd and the 6th centuries, long after the events it describes. As such, its historical value for what happened in the 1st century is negligible.<\/p>\n Many in the early Church commemorated the day of Jesus\u2019 death according to John\u2019s timeline as well, on the 14th of the month of Nisan. They then celebrated Easter two days later. However, starting in about 164 CE, there were ongoing controversies about the dating of Easter.<\/p>\n In 200 CE, a Christian author named Hippolytus wrote furiously that an unnamed Christian had claimed that Jesus had eaten a Passover meal the day before his crucifixion (as it says in Mark). This was impossible, Hippolytus wrote, because Jesus was the sacrifice. John the Baptist says as much in the John 1:29, calling Jesus \u201cthe Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n John\u2019s Gospel is the only one, by the way, that calls Jesus the Lamb of God, a direct reference to Passover. This suggests an interesting possibility.<\/p>\n When I was in graduate school, one of my professors frequently reminded us that the most important question for any scholarly work is \u201cSo What?\u201d In other words, if you have a new historical theory, why should anyone care when Jesus died? What\u2019s at stake?<\/p>\n With this in mind, Bart Ehrman<\/a> gives us an intriguing option to answer the \u201cso what?\u201d question. If you’re asking, “when did Jesus die?”, why does it matter if he died on the day of Passover or on the day before Passover?<\/p>\n As I wrote earlier, Mark is our earliest written Gospel, written around 70 CE, while John is our fourth and latest written Gospel, written sometime between 90 and 120. This means that Mark was written about 40 years after Jesus\u2019 death while John was written 60 or more years after Jesus\u2019 death.<\/p>\n Most scholars agree, then, that Mark\u2019s Gospel would have contained the more accurate timeline, being so much closer to the date of events it describes than John\u2019s Gospel. In fact, Mark’s Gospel typically contains the most historical version of Jesus<\/a>.<\/p>\n In addition, Ehrman notes that in the Gospel of John \u201cJesus\u2019 death represents the salvation of God, just as the sacrifice of the lamb represented salvation for the ancient Israelites during the first Passover.\u201d<\/p>\n He goes on to write that because of this, it is far more likely that the author of John changed the traditional date of Jesus\u2019 death so that it wouldn\u2019t coincide with Passover. Why? Because Jesus himself was the sacrificial Lamb. As Bart says, \u201cPerhaps John (or his source) made a change in the day and hour of Jesus\u2019 death precisely to reinforce this theological point.\u201d<\/p>\n How were days measured in the Jewish calendar? A day was measured from sunset to sunset. This means that in Mark, Jesus ate a Passover meal in the evening and was killed the next morning, which was the same day: Passover. For John, Jesus ate a non-Passover meal the day before Passover and was then killed the next day, which was still the day before Passover.<\/p>\n What other sources do we have for the date of Jesus\u2019 death? A Jewish source says Jesus was killed the day before Passover. This source is far too late, however, to give us much historical value. An early Christian author, Hippolytus, said that Jesus couldn\u2019t have eaten a Passover meal before dying because he himself was the Lamb of God sacrificed.<\/p>\n Why is there a discrepancy between John and the Synoptics on Jesus\u2019 death? While we can\u2019t know for certain, John\u2019s designation of Jesus as the Lamb of God may mean that John changed the date of Jesus\u2019 death to reflect that theological opinion.<\/p>\n So did Jesus die on Good Friday? In terms of the day of the week, all of our sources agree: yes. But when we ask how that day relates to Passover, the Gospels give us two different answers.<\/p>\n special easter bundle<\/p>\n What Really Happened After Jesus Died?<\/p>\n Dive into the historical evidence, doubts, and accounts of Jesus\u2019 resurrection with three compelling courses by Dr. Bart Ehrman.<\/p>\n __CONFIG_colors_palette__{“active_palette”:0,”config”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“name”:”Main Accent”,”parent”:-1}},”gradients”:[]},”palettes”:[{“name”:”Default”,”value”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(212, 175, 55)”}},”gradients”:[]},”original”:{“colors”:{“10c55”:{“val”:”rgb(19, 114, 211)”,”hsl”:{“h”:210,”s”:0.83,”l”:0.45,”a”:1}}},”gradients”:[]}}]}__CONFIG_colors_palette__ <\/span> START LEARNING TODAY<\/strong><\/span><\/span> <\/a> <\/p>\n April bonus: Get 3 Additional Resurrection Lessons for Free!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What Day Did Jesus Die? The Good Friday Controversy Written by Joshua Schachterle, Ph.D Author | Professor | Scholar Author | Professor | BE Contributor Verified! See our editorial guidelines Verified! See our guidelines Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":10147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","tve_updated_post":" Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman<\/p><\/div> What day did Jesus die?<\/strong> To many, this might seem like a silly question: Jesus died on Good Friday! Everyone knows that!<\/p> While this is indeed the tradition within Christianity, scholars know that it\u2019s far from certain. In this article, I\u2019ll show the contradiction between Gospels that raises this question, the basics of the Jewish calendar, and a likely answer to the question of when Jesus died<\/a>.<\/p> All of the Gospels actually agree that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The real question we'll dive into here isn\u2019t the weekday, but how that Friday lines up with the Jewish Passover. That\u2019s where things get interesting and where the Gospels disagree.<\/p><\/div> Before we get into the exact day Jesus died, you\u2019ll need some background on the Jewish calendar. This is a big topic, but for our purposes I\u2019ll just discuss the way days are measured. Unlike the Gregorian calendar most of us use, the Jewish calendar measures a day from sunset to sunset<\/a>. This is why, for example, the Sabbath in Judaism starts on Friday evening.<\/p> The calendar also has its own months, and since all the Gospels agree that Jesus died during the week of Passover, he probably died in the month known as Nisan which coincides with March-April on the civil calendar.<\/p><\/div> As you may know, there are many differences between all the Gospels. However, the Synoptic Gospels<\/a> \u2013 Matthew, Mark, and Luke \u2013 tend to agree with each other on many things, specifically the timeline of Jesus\u2019 life. John, on the other hand, is very different from the Synoptics<\/a>.<\/p> Scholars agree that Mark<\/a> is our earliest written Gospel and that Matthew and Luke copied Mark, adding material and embellishing Mark\u2019s account. So according to Mark, when is Jesus crucified?<\/p> Mark says that Jesus\u2019 Last Supper was a Passover<\/a> meal. This was the most important celebration for 1st-century Jews as it commemorated God\u2019s salvation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.<\/p> For Mark, this takes place on a Thursday evening. How do we know this? Because Mark 15:42 tells us that Jesus\u2019 death and burial happen on the day before the Sabbath, which is always from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. <\/p> At this Passover meal, Jesus adds additional significance to the meal, claiming that the bread and wine are his body and blood.<\/p> Not long after this meal, Jesus is arrested, spends the night in jail, and is tried by Pilate in the morning. He is then crucified at 9:00 AM. Because Passover started the evening before, he is crucified on the day of Passover: Jesus died on Good Friday<\/strong>.<\/p> For those of us thinking in terms of a Western calendar, he would have had his last supper on Thursday night, died on Friday morning (Good Friday), which was the day before the Sabbath on Saturday.<\/p><\/div> \"When did Jesus die?\" may seem like a question with a simple enough answer, but as it turns out, it depends on which Gospel you read!<\/strong><\/p> In the Gospel of John, while the Passover begins on Friday at sundown, Jesus\u2019 Last Supper occurs on Thursday, the evening before. This means that in John, the Last Supper is not a Passover meal.<\/p> After this supper, Jesus is arrested, spends the night in jail, and is tried by Pilate in the morning. He is finally crucified just after noon on the day before the Passover meal is celebrated. Additionally, John has this Passover coincide with the Sabbath, which didn\u2019t always happen.<\/p> In Mark, the Last Supper is the only Passover in the life of Jesus. In John, three Passovers are mentioned, although the Last Supper isn\u2019t one of them. Like the Synoptics, John still places Jesus\u2019 death on a Friday, the day of preparation before the Sabbath, but he shifts it to the day before Passover.<\/p><\/div> Are there any other sources for the date of Jesus\u2019 crucifixion<\/a>? One very significant Jewish source, the Babylonian Talmud<\/a>, says this:<\/p><\/div> This source agrees with John\u2019s chronology that Jesus was killed the day before Passover.<\/strong><\/p> There is a problem, though. This source was written between the 3rd and the 6th centuries, long after the events it describes. As such, its historical value for what happened in the 1st century is negligible.<\/p> Many in the early Church commemorated the day of Jesus\u2019 death according to John\u2019s timeline as well, on the 14th of the month of Nisan. They then celebrated Easter two days later. However, starting in about 164 CE, there were ongoing controversies about the dating of Easter.<\/p> In 200 CE, a Christian author named Hippolytus wrote furiously that an unnamed Christian had claimed that Jesus had eaten a Passover meal the day before his crucifixion (as it says in Mark). This was impossible, Hippolytus wrote, because Jesus was the sacrifice. John the Baptist says as much in the John 1:29, calling Jesus \u201cthe Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.\u201d<\/p> John\u2019s Gospel is the only one, by the way, that calls Jesus the Lamb of God, a direct reference to Passover. This suggests an interesting possibility.<\/p><\/div> When I was in graduate school, one of my professors frequently reminded us that the most important question for any scholarly work is \u201cSo What?\u201d In other words, if you have a new historical theory, why should anyone care when Jesus died? What\u2019s at stake?<\/p> With this in mind, Bart Ehrman<\/a> gives us an intriguing option to answer the \u201cso what?\u201d question. If you're asking, \"when did Jesus die?\", why does it matter if he died on the day of Passover or on the day before Passover?<\/p> As I wrote earlier, Mark is our earliest written Gospel, written around 70 CE, while John is our fourth and latest written Gospel, written sometime between 90 and 120. This means that Mark was written about 40 years after Jesus\u2019 death while John was written 60 or more years after Jesus\u2019 death.<\/p> Most scholars agree, then, that Mark\u2019s Gospel would have contained the more accurate timeline, being so much closer to the date of events it describes than John\u2019s Gospel. In fact, Mark's Gospel typically contains the most historical version of Jesus<\/a>.<\/p> In addition, Ehrman notes that in the Gospel of John \u201cJesus\u2019 death represents the salvation of God, just as the sacrifice of the lamb represented salvation for the ancient Israelites during the first Passover.\u201d<\/p> He goes on to write that because of this, it is far more likely that the author of John changed the traditional date of Jesus\u2019 death so that it wouldn\u2019t coincide with Passover. Why? Because Jesus himself was the sacrificial Lamb. As Bart says, \u201cPerhaps John (or his source) made a change in the day and hour of Jesus\u2019 death precisely to reinforce this theological point.\u201d<\/p><\/div> How were days measured in the Jewish calendar? A day was measured from sunset to sunset. This means that in Mark, Jesus ate a Passover meal in the evening and was killed the next morning, which was the same day: Passover. For John, Jesus ate a non-Passover meal the day before Passover and was then killed the next day, which was still the day before Passover.<\/p> What other sources do we have for the date of Jesus\u2019 death? A Jewish source says Jesus was killed the day before Passover. This source is far too late, however, to give us much historical value. An early Christian author, Hippolytus, said that Jesus couldn\u2019t have eaten a Passover meal before dying because he himself was the Lamb of God sacrificed.<\/p> Why is there a discrepancy between John and the Synoptics on Jesus\u2019 death? While we can\u2019t know for certain, John\u2019s designation of Jesus as the Lamb of God may mean that John changed the date of Jesus\u2019 death to reflect that theological opinion.<\/p> So did Jesus die on Good Friday? In terms of the day of the week, all of our sources agree: yes. But when we ask how that day relates to Passover, the Gospels give us two different answers.<\/p><\/div>![\"What](\"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/What-Day-Did-Jesus-Die-The-Good-Friday-Controversy.png\" "\\"What")
<\/span><\/p>\nHow Are Days Measured in the Jewish Calendar?<\/h2>\n
The Crucifixion in Mark: Jesus Died on Good Friday<\/h2>\n
Mark’s Timeline of Jesus’ Death:<\/h3>\n
\n
What Day Did Jesus Die in John?<\/h2>\n
Do John or the Synoptics Have the Day Right?<\/h2>\n
![\"Did](\"https:\/\/www.bartehrman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/did-Jesus-Die-on-Good-Friday.png\" "\\"Did")
<\/span><\/p>\nWhen Was Jesus Crucified?<\/h2>\n
Conclusion: Did Jesus Die on Good Friday?<\/h2>\n
What Day Did Jesus Die? The Good Friday Controversy<\/h2><\/div>
<\/span><\/div>How Are Days Measured in the Jewish Calendar?<\/h2><\/div>
The Crucifixion in Mark: Jesus Died on Good Friday<\/h2><\/div>
Mark's Timeline of Jesus' Death:<\/h3>
What Day Did Jesus Die in John?<\/h2><\/div>
Do John or the Synoptics Have the Day Right?<\/h2><\/div>
And it was taught: On the eve of the Passover Yeshua [the Nazarene] was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place a herald went forth and cried, \"He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come and plead on his behalf.\" And since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of Passover.<\/blockquote><\/div>
<\/span><\/div>When Was Jesus Crucified?<\/h2><\/div>
Conclusion: Did Jesus Die on Good Friday?<\/h2><\/div>