Passover eve or Passover day
GradeDisputed
All the Gospels agree that Jesus died on a Friday at Passover; they differ on which day of the feast. Christians have long proposed ways the accounts may fit together. One is that different calendars were in use, such as the solar calendar known from Qumran, so that Jesus could have eaten a Passover meal by one reckoning before the official day (a view associated with Jaubert). Another is that Galileans and Judeans reckoned the day differently. A third is that the Last Supper was a Passover meal held in anticipation, a day early. John's timing also carries meaning: Jesus dies on "the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour" (), when the Passover lambs were slaughtered. And the astronomy (next clue) fits John's date better.
Disputed. In Mark the disciples prepare the Passover "the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover" (), and Jesus eats it that evening, so he dies on Nisan 15. In John the priests avoid defilement on the morning of the trial "that they might eat the passover" (), so he dies on Nisan 14. Both options were kept open, and the astronomy was worked out for each.
Explore the counterarguments
The harmonisations are proposals, not established solutions, and none is generally accepted. Others hold that one evangelist has moved the date: usually John, for theological reasons, to present Jesus as the Passover Lamb, or else Mark. On that view the Gospels' own data on the Passover day are inconsistent, and at least one account has adjusted the timing.