ContradictionsReading order 213Bible context 2 min read
Was Jesus crucified before or after the Passover meal?
John's preparation-day sentencing differs from the other Gospels' placement of preparations for Jesus' Passover meal on the festival's sacrificial day.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Major
- A major event or claim with wider implications.
The festival markers surrounding the supper and sentencing differ, but the supplied excerpts omit steps needed to establish the entire meal-to-crucifixion sequence.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
John places Jesus' sentencing during preparation for Passover
Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him;
John 13:1-2
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:John 13
And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Cesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.