Michael LeFebvre on the Date of the Crucifixion in the Synoptics and John and Harmonisation

Commenting on the difference between the dating of the crucifixion in the Synoptics and John, Michael LeFebvre, a pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church (so someone who would hold to the inerrancy of the autographia), wrote the following about the problematic nature of being too quick to engage in harmonisation:

 

Under the conventions of modern historical narrative, these differences in date and time seem "contradictory," as though someone got their facts wrong. Many attempts have been made to "reconcile" the chronology of the Synoptics and that of John. However, the best explanation is found not by resolving or smoothing over these differences but by listening to them. These crucifixion accounts were not so poorly compiled as to overlook such obvious timing differences. These divergent timelines give a harmonious witness that Jesus is our Passover Lamb, but they do so by differently aligning the crucifixion events with their shadows in the Jewish Passover rituals.

 

Notably, the Synoptics, which describe the Last Supper as a Passover meal, also describe that meal as the setting for the Eucharist (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:15-20). John has many other things to say about Jesus' final meal with his disciples, but he does not include the Eucharist in his description. The Synoptics align Jesus' Last Supper with the Passover meal because it is this meal and its message of peace with God through sacrifice that provides the basis for the New Testament Communion table. In the Eucharist, Christians celebrate our peace with God through the final Passover Lamb (1 Cor 5:7-8). The crucifixion timeline in the Synoptic Gospels shows us that Jesus is the Passover Lamb by aligning the Communion table with the Passover meal.

 

John also shows us that Jesus is our Passover Lamb, but he does so by a different alignment of events. In John's narrative, the Last Supper takes place on the night "before the Feast of Passover" (Jn 13:1), and he says nothing about the institution of the Eucharist at that dinner. Instead, John dates the crucifixion to the afternoon before the Passover meal, at that time when the people were bringing their lambs for slaughter, "Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover," John writes, "It was the sixth hour . . . So [Pilate] delivered him over to them to be crucified" (Jn 19:14-16). The "day of Preparation of the Passover" refers to the daylight hours when preparations were being made for the Passover meal that night. Jon shows that Jesus is our Passover Lamb by aligning his crucifixion with the time when lambs were being gathered for the festival slaughter. Thus, all four Gospel authors relate the timing of the crucifixion to Passover, but they do so using different chronological scenarios.

 

These details teach us about the nature of Christ's crucifixion. They also open a window into a different world of calendars than our own. The Gospel writers introduce Passover into their narratives almost like one of the characters of the story, whose points of coming and going can be interpreted differently depending on the narrated perspective taken on the event. A modern historian would not have that latitude, because we view calendars (and time) differently in the present day. A contemporary historian would treat a festival date like Passover as a fixed, immovable part of the story's framework.

 

For a comparison, a historian of American independence would be expected to identify Tuesday, July 2, 1776, as the date Congress declared independence from Great Britain. Even though Americans celebrate Independence Day on the Fourth of July each year, an accurate historian would report that independence was enacted two days prior. (July 4th was not the date of American independence but the date when that previously adopted Declaration of Independence was finally signed and published.) But a historian operating by ancient conventions might ascribe the independence event to its celebration date (July 4) without violating the integrity of his report by doing so. The Gospel crucifixion narratives illustrate this ancient way of using dates in historical narratives. John ascribes the crucifixion of Jesus to Passover afternoon, while the Synoptics date the same event to the day after Passover.

 

Granting an author latitude in how he or she represents chronology grates on our modern notions of a trustworthy report. In fact, an entire genre in biblical studies called Gospel harmonies attempts to resolve such chronological (and other) differences between the Gospels. A "Gospel harmony" may help assuage one's discomfort with those differences that, if found in a modern work of history, would be problematic. But those "harmonies" come at a cost. It is often necessary to strain the narratives or to add extra assumptions into them in order to bring them into greater "agreement." "O that most excellent Harmony," Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote, "which can only reconcile two contradictory reports, both stemming from the evangelists, by inventing a third report, not a syllable of which is to be found in any individual evanagelist!"

 

Harmonization efforts have generally been regarded as unpersuasive. We should not base the trustworthiness of the Gospels on our ability to harmonize, for example, their different chronologies for the crucifixion. It is better to face the differences and consider why the authors used their descriptive latitude to record events as they did. The journalistic way we expect timestamps to function today is not a reliable standard by which to assess timestamps in the Bible. Furthermore, imposing anachronistic expectations about calendars cold hinder our full appreciation of a biblical author's reason for drawing out particular date alignments. (Michael LeFebvre, The Liturgy of Creation: Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context [Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2019], 3-5)

 

Such is a refreshing change of pace from LeFebvre's co-religoinists, including one who is the embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect:

The other three accounts also draw specific attention to the bright or white garments of the messengers. This otherwise extraneous detail makes it quite clear in Luke, as we have just seen in Mark, that the “men” were in fact angels, heavenly beings. The women respond to seeing these two figures by being “frightened,” and they “bowed their heads to the ground” (Luke 24:5a). This response rather clearly indicates that the two figures are angels exhibiting a supernatural or numinous presence, not ordinary men. Indeed, later Luke explicitly quotes the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as referring to the messengers as “angels” (Luke 24:23). This one fact proves that Luke is not contradicting Matthew regarding what sort of being spoke to the women.

Whether one angel or two angels spoke to the women is a notorious question but does not involve contradiction or conflict among the accounts. Neither Matthew nor Mark says there was “one angel” or “one young man.” They simply do not mention that there was a second figure alongside the angel the texts do mention. The importance of the angel(s) in the logic of the narratives is unaffected by whether one or two angels appeared. It is entirely plausible that the women saw two angels but that only one of the angels actually spoke . . . None of the differences in the empty tomb accounts has any significance for whether the tomb was empty, or for whether Jesus rose from the dead, or for any theological issue. At worst they are minor discrepancies over incidental aspects of what happened (e.g., whether the women saw one angel or two). More likely, the differences are merely variations in perspective or the way the same events were reported from different sources. Such variations do not in any way undermine the historical reliability of the accounts. (Robert M. Bowman Jr., Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism [Tampa, Fla.: DeWard Publishing Company, 2020], 89-90, emphasis added)