A common thesis among contemporary biblical scholars is that the Gospel of John took more liberties than the Synoptics when it comes to “theological narration”; that is, modifying the details of the stories about Jesus to make a theological point. A popular example of this pertains to the timing of the crucifixion.
While in the Synoptics, Jesus is crucified on Nisan 15, the day after the Passover lambs are killed, the Gospel of John supposedly has Jesus crucified on Nisan 14 to more directly portray him as the Passover lamb. In his book The Resurrection of Jesus: A Critical Inquiry, Michael J. Alter claims that this contradiction is “unequivocal” and "indisputable” [1]. There are scholars across the theological spectrum who advocate for a Johannine adaptation of the paschal chronology: on the skeptical side, Bart Ehrman; on the conservative side, Craig Keener and, to a lesser extent, Michael Licona. There are five verses, as well as a typological argument pertaining to the Lamb of God, commonly used to argue for this conclusion. I will discuss all of these here. The verses are John 13.1-2, 13.29, 18.39, 19.14, and 19.31 (all NASB).
Remember: the Passover lambs were killed on Nisan 14. At sunset, it becomes Nisan 15 and the Passover feast is celebrated. The crucifixion is the following day, still Nisan 15. So John allegedly has the Passover feast the night before the Synoptics (Nisan 14) and the crucifixion the following day (still Nisan 14), which is the day before the Synoptics have the Last Supper and the crucifixion (Nisan 15).
John 13.1-2
“Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that His hour had come that He would depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. And during supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him…”
The relevant phrases here are “Before the Feast of the Passover” and “during supper”. Some scholars argue that this establishes the Last Supper as happening before the Passover Festival.
However, given that the Passover Festival is mentioned in the initial verse, it is entirely plausible to interpret the second verse as referring to the Passover feast itself. Lydia McGrew [2] quotes Craig Blomberg [3]:
“Imagine if I were to write about a comparable treasured annual American festival, Thanksgiving. ... ‘Now before the Thanksgiving Feast, my grandmother, knowing that her days were numbered, decided to go all out for her family and shower her love on us.’ Then imagine that, after a pause, my narrative continued, ‘When dinner time came…’ Without reference to any other meals anywhere in the context, would any American reader think of any dinner other than the eagerly expected Thanksgiving dinner?...Surely the same is true for the dinner of John 13.2, after the reference to the Passover in verse 1.”
While it is certainly possible to interpret “supper” as referring to a meal before the Passover feast, it is equally if not more plausible to interpret it as referring to the Passover feast itself. Given the ease with which this passage can be harmonized with the Synoptic account, it shouldn’t be regarded as any evidence that John moved the Passover. If anything, it supports the Synoptic chronology.
John 13.29
“For some were assuming, since Judas kept the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, ‘Buy the things we need for the feast’; or else, that he was to give something to the poor.”
The objection here is that the disciples’ conjecture of Judas buying what was needed for the festival indicates that the Passover feast is yet to come, rather than presently happening. It is also objected that purchasing food on Nisan 15 violates Leviticus 23.7 (“On the first day [of the festival of Unleavened Bread] you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.”)
In his commentary on the Gospel of John, D.A. Carson offers a response to these concerns. It is worth quoting at length:
“These objections are far from convincing. One might wonder, on these premises, why Jesus should send Judas out for purchases for a feast still twenty-four hours away. The next day would have left ample time. It is best to think of this as taking place on the night of Passover, 15 Nisan. Judas was sent out (so the disciples thought) to purchase what was needed for the Feast, i.e., not the feast of Passover, but the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which began that night and lasted for seven days. The next day, still Friday 15 Nisan, was a high feast day; the following day was Sabbath. It might seem best to make necessary purchases (e.g. more unleavened bread) immediately. Purchases on that Thursday evening were in all likelihood possible, though inconvenient. The rabbinic authorities were in dispute on the matter (cf. Mishna Pesahim 4:5. One could buy necessities even on a Sabbath if it fell before Passover, provided it was done by leaving something in trust rather than paying cash (Mishna Shabbath 23:1. Moreover, it was customary to give alms to the poor on Passover night, the temple gates being left open from midnight on, allowing beggars to congregate there. On any night other than Passover it is hard to imagine why the disciples might have thought Jesus was sending Judas out to give something to the poor: the next day would have done just as well.” [4]
In summary, this verse also fails to support the thesis that the Passover feast, and thus, the crucifixion, were yet to come. It also gives a slight indication that this was the Passover feast via Judas being sent out to give something to the poor.
John 18.28
“Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter the Praetorium, so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.”
Supposedly, the concern about being able to “eat the Passover” indicates that the Passover feast hadn’t occurred yet. On the face of it, this seems convincing, but there are good reasons to interpret the verse as referring to a different meal during Passover week, not the main feast at the beginning of the week.
Blomberg responds:
“John 18.28 actually makes better sense on the assumption that the main, initial meal of the Passover had occurred the night before. Ritual uncleanness due to entering an unclean house typically only lasted until the end of that day, and Jews calculated each day from sundown to sundown. So, if the Jewish leaders were worrying about not being able to eat the Passover after dark that night, then their worry seems unnecessary; the new day would have rendered them clean. But if they were concerned about the hagigah, the special lunch served midday after the start of Passover, then the text makes good sense. Indeed, the Mishnah would later devote an entire tractate to mid-festival days (Moed Katan) and another to the festal offerings (Hagigah), including the offerings brought in between the first and last days of feasts (e.g., Hag. 1.3.)” [5]
Lydia McGrew comments:
“It is helpful at this point to back up and consider what these scholars are alleging and how strange it truly is. John's Gentile readers might very well not have known on what day the Passover lambs were killed anyway, and John does not mention lambs anywhere at all in the Passion narrative. He certainly does not state or emphasize that Jesus was killed on the day that the lambs were killed. As Blomberg notes, the only references in the Passion narratives to Passover lambs occur in the Synoptics, not in John. We are therefore to think that John, without bothering to mention any Passover lambs anywhere in the vicinity, invented a scruple on the part of the Jewish religious leaders that they never felt and narrates as if they had such a scruple merely in order to imply hyper-subtly that Jesus died on a day when he did not really die, in order to convey a symbolic meaning, based on a false fact, to any Jewish readers who happened to catch it and probably to no one else If anything is strained or forced, it is this theory, not the perfectly sensible answer to it.” [6]
McGrew goes on to say that John’s comment about the scruple of the religious leaders makes better sense in the narrative as an eyewitness recalling what happened, rather than a subtle clue that the date of the crucifixion had been changed.
As with the other verses, this verse could be referring to the actual Passover feast, but there's an entirely plausible alternative interpretation that doesn't require a Johannine chronological adaptation. If anything, this verse supports the Synoptic paschal chronology due to laws on Jewish uncleanliness.
John 19.14
“Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, ‘Look, your King!’”
The phrase “the day of preparation for the Passover” is taken by some scholars to mean that the Passover hadn’t yet happened. But that phrase can also be translated as “the day of preparation of the Passover”. There are two ways to interpret this verse: 1) the preparation for the Passover is taking place on this day, or 2) this is the day of preparation for the Sabbath that takes place during the Passover feast. Blomberg summarizes this effectively:
“As for John 19.14 and 31, the “day of Preparation” could refer to preparing for the Passover, but it more likely refers to preparing for the Sabbath. Verse 31 makes it explicit that the next day was to be a Sabbath, so both verses may well be using the term in that sense only. Even to this day, Paraskeuê in Greek is the standard name for Friday, the day before Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.” [7]
The word “Passover” can also be used of the Passover week as a whole. For example, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in Antiquities of the Jews Book XIV, 2.1, says “As this happened at the time when the feast of unleavened bread was celebrated, which we call the passover…” So “Passover” need not be taken as a reference to the main Passover feast.
Given that in the same chapter, verse 31 probably refers to the Passover, it makes more sense that John is using the same meaning of the phrase in verse 14. This would mean the second option listed above is the most plausible meaning. This interpretation doesn't support either theory about the date of the crucifixion in John's gospel—it's irrelevant to the question.
The significance of “the sixth hour” and the alleged contradiction with Mark's Gospel is a topic that won’t be discussed here. A good treatment of it can be found in Lydia McGrew’s aforementioned book on John.
John 19.31
“Now then, since it was the day of preparation, to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews requested of Pilate that their legs be broken, and the bodies be taken away.”
The relevant portion of this verse is “that Sabbath was a high day”. Allegedly, this is a reference to the Passover. However, Carson comments: “It was a special Sabbath, not only because it fell during the Passover feast, but because the second paschal day, in this case falling on the Sabbath, was devoted to the very important sheaf offering (Lv 23.11; cf. SB 2. 582).” [8]
Lamb of God typology
An auxiliary argument for the thesis that John moved the crucifixion pertains to his alleged motives for doing it—namely, his desire to directly portray Jesus as the Passover lamb. The Passover lambs were killed on Nisan 14, so this is the date to which John allegedly moved the crucifixion. Craig Blomberg briefly replies:
“With respect to Lamb-of-God typology, it is true that the Fourth Evangelist is the only New Testament writer to apply this term to Jesus, but most of the references come in Revelation. In his Gospel, John uses the term only in chapter 1. If John had intended the passing reference to noon in 19:14 to highlight Jesus as the true Passover lamb, John kept his reference about as brief and cryptic as he possibly could have. It is not good method to allow this possible allusion to dictate the interpretation of the rest of the Passion Narrative’s chronology.” [9]
Even if you take the Gospel of John and Revelation to have different authors, this undermines even further the notion that John had a special interest in Jesus as the Passover lamb, and thus, that he was trying to emphasize it via chronological reworking.
Another point that bears mentioning is the attribution of this Christological title in 1 Corinthians 5.7: “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” The Synoptics all agree on Nisan 15 as the date of crucifixion, so if this is indeed historical, the early Christians had no problem labeling Jesus their Passover lamb even though his death didn’t perfectly line up with the date of the slaughter of the Passover lambs. So a chronological shift is not necessary to convey this theological point. And it’s not unreasonable to expect that, if John had made this shift for that reason, he would have made a reference, in the passion narrative, to Jesus as the Lamb of God to drive his point home. We see this in Mark 14:12 “On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was being sacrificed…”
While this argument from silence shouldn’t be given too much weight, the subtlety with which John would have executed this change should give us pause.
Conclusion
The late Cullen Story writes,
“By way of conclusion, we observe that John makes no overt attempt to correct the chronology of the Synoptic writers which says in effect that Jesus ate the passover meal with his disciples on Thursday evening and was crucified on Friday, "Friday of passover week" (John 19:14). In John 3:23-24, we find that the writer does make a conscious attempt to correct a possible misunderstanding by his readers of the Synoptic witness concerning the chronology of the Baptist's imprisonment. But in John 18-19, no similar effort is made to correct Synoptic passion chronology, intimating that the Johannine writer is in agreement with it.” [10]
Obviously, John’s silence on this point isn’t proof that he agrees with the Synoptic chronology, but it does bear mentioning.
In summary:
The tradition of the last supper was well-known when John wrote his Gospel, and the parallels to the Synoptic version are clear. He never explicitly corrects the Synoptic chronology. Thus, in the absence of good evidence to the contrary, we should assume that the chronology is the same.
The verses used to support the thesis that John moved the crucifixion either work better under the Synoptic chronology or work equally well under either, providing no evidence for a change.
The typological argument relating to the Lamb of God is too trivial to tip the scales one way or the other. Jesus’ death doesn’t need to line up perfectly with the killing of the Passover lambs for the title to be applicable.
Thus, there is no good evidence John moved the crucifixion, and accordingly, we should conclude that his chronology aligns with that of the Synoptics.
References
[1] Alter, Michael J. The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry. 2015, p. 110
[2] McGrew, Lydia. The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage. DeWard Publishing, 2021, p. 298
[3] Blomberg, Craig L. "A Constructive Traditional Response to New Testament Criticism" in James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary, eds. Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith Wheaton, IL Crossway Books, 2012, p. 355
[4] Carson, D. A. The Gospel According to John. Inter-Varsity Press ; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991, p. 370
[5] Blomberg, Craig L. “Passion Problems.” Apologetics, https://www.namb.net/apologetics/resource/passion-problems/. Accessed 27 Feb. 2022.
[6] McGrew, Lydia. The Eye of the Beholder, p. 300-301
[7] Blomberg, Craig L. “Passion Problems.”
[8] Carson, D. A. The Gospel According to John, p. 724
[9] Blomberg, Craig L. “Passion Problems.”
[10] Story, Cullen I.K. “The Bearing of Old Testament Terminology On the Johannine Chronology of the Final Passover of Jesus”. Novum Testamentum 31.4 (1989): 316-324. https://doi.org/10.1163/156853689X00261 Web.
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