It used to be a scholarly consensus that he was crucified on April 7th, year 30. Of course, not everybody agrees with this view. Some favour the year 30 without specifying the precise day or month (G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (London: SCM, 1998), 160). E. P. Sanders accepts 30 as a useful approximation, but makes it quite clear that specific dates are impossible (and not really useful); more broadly he seems to prefer something in the range of 29-30 (The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 54, 282-90). Other propose more idiosyncratic dates: For example, J. Vardaman argues for Friday Nisan 15, 21 CE (‘Jesus’ Life: A New Chronology’ in J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi [eds.], Chronos, Kairos, Christos: Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan [Eisenbrauns, 1989], 55-82); L. Depuydt argues for 29 (‘The Date of the Death of Jesus of Nazareth,’ JAOS 122 [2002], 466-80); as does D. J. Lasker (‘The Date of the Death of Jesus: Further Reconsiderations,’ JAOS 124 [2004], 95-99); and N. Kokkinos suggests Friday Nisan 14, 36 (‘Crucifixion in AD 36: The Keystone for Dating the Birth of Jesus,’ in J. Vardaman E. M. Yamauchi [eds.], Chronos, Kairos, Christos, 133-64).
Why 7th April 30 CE?
As is well known, the Synoptic and Johannine accounts have both similarities and contradictions. It’s filled with contradictions actually. The major chronological discrepancy between the two accounts lies in the precise way in which events map onto the Passover. In Mark, both Jesus’ last meal and his death take place on the feast day itself, while in John both events take place on the day of Preparation (Jn 19.14, 18.28, 19.31).
- All attempts at harmonising the two traditions, however, are beset by the same four problems:
- First, there is little evidence for any widespread use of alternative calendars in first century Palestine. In a thorough overview of the much-fêted Qumran calendar, Jonathan Ben-Dov and Sephane Saulnier show that recent scholarship has concluded that the calendar was neither strictly lunar nor solar, but rather composed of a rigid 364 day year (J. Ben-Dov and S. Saulnier, ‘Qumran Calendars: A Survey of Scholarship 1980-2007,’ CBR 7 (2008), 124-68). The fact that this calendar made no provision for intercalations is problematic, and, as Sasha Stern points out, prolonged use over an extended period of time would have quite substantially severed the link between agricultural festivals and the cycle of the crops. In all probability, he suggests, schematic calendars such as that at Qumran (and also those of 1Enoch 72-82 and Jubilees) served not as living calendars, but as idealistic or theoretical models related to a future world order. In Stern’s view, calendrical sectarianism had ceased by the first century (S. Stern, Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar 2nd Century BCE – 10th Century CE)
- Second, Jesus’ teaching shows no interest in the calendar, and both Jesus and his early followers in Acts appear to have visited the Temple at exactly the same time as other Jews. If they routinely used a different calendar, it is strange that it does not show up elsewhere in the tradition. This point is also made by G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus, 160.
- Third, if Jesus had celebrated the Passover according to a different calendar, it seems very odd that one of his followers (usually thought to be John) blatantly dated the last events in his master’s life not by his preferred system of reckoning, but by that used by his chief priestly opponents.
- Finally, one further difficulty with the theories of Jaubert and Humphreys in particular is that by their reckoning the Last Supper was celebrated on either a Tuesday (so Jaubert) or a Wednesday (so Humphreys). Yet we have already seen that one of the few things that the Synoptic and the Johannine traditions agree on is that Jesus’ last meal took place on a Thursday. By attempting to solve one discrepancy, these reconstructions have created another.
- Faced with these significant difficulties, most scholars accept that we simply have to choose between the two options. But which one – John or the Synoptics? Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, recent scholars have tended to give preference to John. While Joachim Jeremias famously supported Mark’s dating (The Eucharistic Words of Jesus [London: SCM, 1966], 20-33), a majority of more recent Jesus scholars have favoured John: J. Blinzler, Trial of Jesus, 101-8; R. E. Brown, Death, 1351-73; J. P. Meier, Marginal, 1:395-401; G. Theissen and A. Merz, Historical Jesus, 37; J. D. Crossan, Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 100; and P. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews (New York: Vintage, 1999), 221. At first sight, John’s scheme has two great advantages over that of the Synoptics: first, John’s account is internally consistent while Mark’s (as we shall see in a moment) is riddled with difficulties. Second, John’s low-key account of Jesus’ informal Jewish hearing on the day of Preparation chimes much more harmoniously with what we know of Jewish jurisprudence in the first century than the Synoptic record of a grand meeting of a Sanhedrin convening a capital case on the very night of Passover. See the detailed discussions (E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE – 66 CE (London: SCM, 1992), 458-90; J. S. McLaren, Power and Politics in Palestine: the Jews and the Governing of their Land, 100 BC – AD 70 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991); also H. K. Bond, Caiaphas: Judge of Jesus and Friend of Rome? (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 57-72).
- The Implications of this Date and the Evidence of Mark We have the two most popular dates for Jesus’ death today, with those who favour a shorter ministry (or who date Lk 3.1-2 reasonably early) favouring 7 th April 30, and the smaller group who favour a longer ministry opting for 3rd April 33.
- Yet I have to confess to being more than a little wary of placing too much historical reliability on John’s account. The problem is not simply the theological use to which John puts his material: there is of course no reason why something should not be both theological and historical; it is perfectly possible for a good theologian to craft meaning from historical events. The difficulty is a methodological one. In a gospel not generally noted for its historical accuracy, it is unclear to me on what grounds we should prefer John’s account at this point. It is undoubtedly the case that certain details here and there in the Fourth Gospel may well go back to historical reminiscences, but I wonder whether the date of Jesus’ death should really be assigned to this category. Surely a date which derived from Mark, our earliest and generally least tidy of the gospels, would be preferable. And a closer look at Mark, I suggest, is revealing.(edited)
Although Mark casts the last supper as a Passover meal, it is widely acknowledged that nothing in his account requires such a date. There is no reference to the lamb, to the bitter herbs, or the recitation of the Exodus story. Once these two passages are removed, nothing in the Markan passion narrative links the last supper – and therefore Jesus’ death itself – to the day of Passover. Furthermore, there are elements within the Markan account which sit awkwardly with the evangelist’s dating:
- 1) The note that the chief priests and scribes decided not to arrest Jesus during the feast lest there be a tumult of the people (Mk 14.2).
- 2) The release of Barabbas (Mk 15.6-15).
- 3) The note that Simon of Cyrene was ‘coming in from the country/field’ (Mk 15.21).
- 4) Jesus’ burial (Mk 15.42-46).
- 5) The impression of a holy ‘week’ in Mark is much less secure than we often imagine.
- Once the date of Jesus’ death is cut loose from the traditional alternatives (the day of Passover/the day of Preparation), it is in theory just as possible that it occurred after the feast as before. Yet, quite apart from the questionable Barabbas episode, two factors incline me towards Myllykoski’s preference for a date prior to the Passover. First, for security reasons it would have been better for both Jewish and Roman authorities to dispose of the threat posed by Jesus prior to the celebrations. Second, all our earliest Christian texts associate Jesus’ death with the Passover. Psychologically, it seems to me, the close connection between Jesus’ death and the feast is more likely if he was arrested in the midst of festal preparations, as people contemplated the meaning and significance of the feast, rather than afterwards, when pilgrims had begun to think about home and had perhaps already begun to leave the city. Certainty on this issue is clearly impossible, but the evidence seems to push in the direction of Jesus having been executed before the festivities began.
- Clearly all that was important for Paul was to set Jesus’ death against the backdrop of God’s saving acts in the past, and to appreciate its theological significance. As the first passion narratives began to be composed, however, this theological understanding had to become more concrete. The tradition known to John placed Jesus’ death at the very moment that the lambs were sacrificed in the Temple, casting him as the new paschal lamb, whose death removed the sins of the world. A different tradition linked Jesus’ last meal to the Passover, so that the eucharistic commemoration of Jesus’ death now took the place of the Passover meal, and became the symbol of the new covenant between God and his people. This is the interpretation found in Mark and enhanced in the longer version of Luke 22.14-20. Thus, both the Johannine and Markan traditions narratively represent Jesus’ death as profoundly meaningful, but both are based in the end not on any historical reminiscence, but on collective theological symbolic elaborations of the memory that Jesus died ‘around Passover.’
- Summary Helen Bond argues persuasively that the precise date of Jesus’ death can’t be recovered. All we can determine with any degree of historical certainty is that Jesus probably died some time around Passover between 29 and 34 CE.
- More
- Historians and NT scholars do not all agree that Jesus was killed in 30 CE (or another specific year). Besides, none of the Gospels is a “straightforward” historical account. When the project is a biographical one, the study of a particular character, the problems are compounded: how can we ever understand another person’s life, particularly when the sources offer a variety of opinions? And when the subject of our enquiry lived 2,000 years ago and quickly became the object of religious devotion, the fragility of any portraits, and the scope for distortion are all too obvious. This does not mean that the search for the historical Jesus is bound to fail, only that we have to be extremely careful about the way in which we go about it. We shall see in subsequent chapters that a ‘full portrait’ of Jesus is beyond our grasp. Most of the details of his life are now lost, including the precise dates of his birth and death, details of his family life and anything of his life before about 30 years of age. Furthermore, we will never know anything of his character, his private feelings, inner emotions or psychological motivations. Our sources simply do not furnish us with this data. We shall have to be content with an impression of the historical man, with broad brushstrokes on a canvas indicating some of the major contours of his life and the central elements of his teaching, some of what others thought about him and possible reasons for his death. Much else is lost in the chasm that separates his time from ours. (Helen Bond, The Historical Jesus: a Guide for the Perplexed)
- Bond place the death of Jesus around 28-33 CE, and notably examine the claim that Jesus died on the 7th of April in 30 CE (to critically examine it and explain the problems with such a specific claim/reconstruction). As she notes, Mark doesn’t give any indication of the duration of Jesus’ ministry, but people tend to assume it describes a one year ministry due to the presence of a single trip to Jerusalem (which isn’t an obvious deduction); and the notion of a two or three years ministry. https://mapcarta.bibleodyssey.com/podcast-gallery/what-day-was-jesus-crucified/
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