The Time of Jesus Crucifixion

Appendix “A”

The "Sixth Hour" of John 19:14

("The Sixth Hour" in the Three Synoptics W. E. Read By WALTER E. READ, General Field Secretory, General Conference- https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/1949/04/the-sixth-hour-in-the-three-synoptics )

Mk15:25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. (KJV)

Jn 19:14 And it was the f Preparation of the Passover; and it was about the sixth hour:  (KJV).

The time of day of Jesus' crucifixion is difficult to determine.  Mark's Gospel seems to give one time while the Gospel of John appears to have a different chronology.  Such historical questions about the Gospels are difficult to answer simply because the Gospels are not intended to give that kind of historical information.

In Hebrew time, this would mean noon (or midnight), but if John used the supposed Roman time, it would be six o'clock in the morning. The Gospel of Mark refers to Christ being crucified at the "third hour," darkness from "the sixth hour to the ninth hour," and Christ's last words shortly after the "ninth hour".

There is virtually no way historically to reconcile these accounts relating to the time of the crucifixion.  However, if we move beyond presuppositions that want to force the Bible to speak to our modern questions of absolute historical accuracy, we may have other ways to read the text in light of how it was written and how it was intended to be heard.

A careful study of the Gospels (which obviously we cannot do here) will reveal that all of the Gospel writers arrange and order the material of the Gospel traditions in order to emphasize different aspects of the Gospel. Simply looking at the material that certain Gospels include or leave out, even in the short references above, easily confirms this. The writer of John’s Gospel even tells us that he is picking and choosing material from the Gospel tradition that was available to him in order to shape his Gospel for a certain purpose (John 20:30-31):

The Roman civil and religious day began at midnight from a very early time.[8] Schlolars such as Unger (1892) and Ramsay (1896) maintain that the hours were always counted from dusk and dawn, hence that the "sixth hour" of the night or day represented midnight and midday respectively.

Jack Finegan (1964) (The Jewish world around the New Testament: collected essays I - Page 417 Richard Bauckham - 2008 "... which was the beginning of his twenty-four hours day, "the sixth hour of the night"' (458). If this is right, it is the decisive argument against the claim (adopted by Finegan) that John, unlike other New Testament writers, reckons the hours of the day from midnight" argues with little evidence that Romans counted the "sixth hour" from midnight.[9][10] This would make it ambiguous whether the New Testament refers to local Hebrew time or Roman time. For example, the Gospel of John depicts Pilate saying "behold your king" to the people of Jerusalem at "the sixth hour". In Hebrew time, this would mean noon (or midnight), but if John used the supposed Roman time, it would be six o'clock in the morning.[11] The Gospel of Mark refers to Christ being crucified at the "third hour," darkness from "the sixth hour to the ninth hour," and Christ's last words shortly after the "ninth hour".[12] If John wrote from Ephesus after AD 70, he would be writing in a more Roman milieu, and would likely be using Roman time, which Finegan thinks counted third, sixth, and ninth hours from noon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_timekeeping  

Bart Ehrman referring to the day and time of Jesus’ death states: “It is impossible [italics supplied] that both Mark’s and John’s accounts are historically accurate, since they contradict each other on the question on when Jesus died.”2

Attempts at harmonization of the gospel accounts have included the following views: 1) a confusion of the numerals 3 and 6 in the manuscript transmission of John, 2) John’s use of a Roman time reckoning system of a civil day that started the day at midnight, 3) Mark’s reference to crucifixion as a general statement that included some event(s) that led up to the actual lifting of Jesus on the cross and, 4) the times being loose approximations that can be reconciled due to the fact that modern systems of time accuracy did not exist at the time in which the events occurred.

While a harmonization of these two accounts defies a definitive solution at least a few solutions are feasible such that the time of Jesus’ crucifixion is not a decisive proof text against inerrancy. While one cannot prove what an actual harmonized solution might be, neither can one prove an actual nonharmonistic view either. Indeed what Ehrman calls “impossible” is in fact possible within any standard evangelical definition of inerrancy including the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.3 And more than possible, this paper suggests that plausible harmonizations can be made consistent with about any inerrancy definition.

John using Hebrew time in his narrative “ about the sixth hour”, would mean noon (or midnight), but if John used the supposed Roman time, it would be six o'clock in the morning. The Gospel of Mark refers to Christ being crucified at the "third hour," darkness from "the sixth hour to the ninth hour," and Christ's last words shortly after the "ninth hour". Mark is using Hebrew time.

There is virtually no way historically to reconcile these accounts relating to the time of the crucifixion.  However, if we move beyond presuppositions that want to force the Bible to speak to our modern questions of absolute historical accuracy, we may have other ways to read the text in light of how it was written and how it was intended to be heard.

The differences in the gospel record on the time of Jesus’ crucifixion have long been an enigma to Bible scholars. Mark 15:25 reads that Jesus was crucified at the third hour. Under a Jewish or common reckoning time system, which started the day at sunrise, Jesus was crucified at about nine in the morning. However, in the Gospel of John, John writes that Jesus was at his final trial before Pilate at “about (ὡς)” the sixth hour (John 19:14). If John was using the same time reckoning system as Mark, Jesus was not yet on the cross around noontime that day. On the face of it then the gospels appear to present a chronological contradiction of when Jesus was lifted up on the cross.

In considering the verse John 19 ;14. It is in contradiction from the study of the records of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that the Saviour of mankind was on the cross at the sixth hour ; that was when the supernatural darkness began. (Matt. 27:45, 46; Mark 15:33; Luke 23 :44.) This, according to Jewish reckoning, would be twelve o'clock midday. It also seems evident that John uses not Jewish, but Roman, reckoning in his Gospel.

The Roman civil and religious day began at midnight from a very early time.[8] Shlolars such as Unger (1892) and Ramsay (1896) maintain that the hours were always counted from dusk and dawn, hence that the "sixth hour" of the night or day represented midnight and midday respectively. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_timekeeping )

Observe John I :39: "They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day : for it was about the tenth hour."

A. T. Robertson remarks on this passage: "Roman time and so ten o'clock in the morning. John in Ephesus at the close of the century naturally used Roman time."—A. T. ROBERT¬SON, Word Pictures of the New Testament (New York : Harpers).

See also John 4:6: "Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well : and it was about the sixth hour."

With this background, we now come more definitely to the consideration of John 19 ;14. It is evident from the study of the records of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that the Saviour of mankind was on the cross at the sixth hour ; that was when the supernatural darkness began. (Matt. 27:45, 46; Mark 15:33; Luke 23 :44.) This, according to Jewish reckoning, would be twelve o'clock midday. It also seems evident that John uses not Jewish, but Roman, reckoning in his Gospel.

Observe John I :39: "They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day: for it was about the tenth hour."

A. T. Robertson remarks on this passage: "Roman time and so ten o'clock in the morning. John in Ephesus at the close of the century naturally used Roman time."—A. T. ROBERT¬SON, Word Pictures of the New Testament (New York : Harpers).

See also John 4:6: "Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour."

Christian Wordsworth comments on this text:

"'The sixth hour'—six in the evening. It is not likely that this was at noon; that was not an usual hour for drawing water; but six in the evening was. In Genesis 24:11, the evening is described as the time that women go out to draw water."—The New Testament (London: Rivingtons, 1877).

Note the following additional extracts from writers who hold that the sixth hour of John 19:14was 6:00 A.M.

"The hour, as the 24th part of the day, is not an exclusive Roman measured time; but the method of reckoning the hours in the fourth Gospel is that of the Romans, i.e., beginning to count them at midnight. Wherever the hours are mentioned elsewhere, they conform to the Jewish method of computing, i.e., from morning to evening and from evening to morning."—"Time, ' A Standard Bible Dictionary (New York Funk and Wagnalls, 1909), p. 864.

"It appears that John, who wrote in Asia Minor, long after the destruction of Jerusalem, makes the day begin at midnight, as the Greeks and Romans did. We seem compelled so to understand him in 20:19 (Comp. Luke 24:29-39) ; and in no passage in his gospel is that view unsuitable. Here then we understand that Pilate passed the sentence about sunrise, which, at the Passover, near the vernal equinox, would be six o'clock. The intervening three hours might be occupied in preparations, and the crucifixion occurred at nine o'clock, via., the third hour as counted by the Jews (Mark /5 :25)."—A. T. ROBERT¬SON, The Harmony of the Gospels (Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Tennessee, /922), note to p. 160.

"It was about the sixth hour, 'six in the morning.' St. Mark says (xv. 25) that it was . . . nine o'clock, when they crucified Him; so that there were three hours between the hearing before Pilate and the crucifixion.

"St. John reckons his hours (as we do) from midnight to noon, and from noon to midnight. See . . . Lee on Inspiration, pp. 383, 384; and Wieseler, Chron. Synop. 410-414."—CHR. WORDSWORTH, The New Testament . . . in the Original Greek (London: Rivingtons, 1867), p. 355.

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