@
Adstar The Gospels all agree that Jesus died on a Friday, a few hours before the Jewish Sabbath was to begin (Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John 19:42), that he shared a Last Supper with his disciples the evening before, and was crucified the next day—and that these events occurred in the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37), when Pontius Pilate was prefect of Judaea (AD 26–36); Caiaphas, high priest in Jerusalem (circa AD 18–36); and Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee (circa 4 BC–AD 39) (Tacitus, Annals, XV.44; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XVIII.2.2, XVII.8.1; Luke 3:1–2).
But there is disagreement as to whether Jesus died before or after this last supper and whether it truly was a Passover meal. In the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke; so named because they share a similar narrative, in contrast to John), Jesus is said to have been crucified and died after the Passover meal on what then was Passover day (Nisan 15). In the Gospel of John, he died before the Passover while it still was being prepared (Nisan 14). The question is whether that Friday was the Day of Passover or the Day of Preparation.
Mark was the first Gospel to be written, probably about AD 70 when, on Passover that year, the Romans had laid siege to Jerusalem, destroying the Second Temple four months later (Josephus, The Jewish War, V.3.1, VI.4.8; cf. Mark 13:2, "there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down"). He recounts that, on "the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover [lamb]," the disciples asked Jesus where they were to prepare the meal "that thou mayest eat the passover" (14:12; also Matthew 26:17; Luke 22:15, "I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer").
judgment, Jesus was led away to be crucified. "It was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour" (noontime) (19:14, 16).
In John, Jesus died on the Day of Preparation (Nisan 14), the day before the Passover meal, sometime after noon but before sunset that evening. (Philo speaks of Passover "beginning at noonday and continuing till evening," The Special Laws, II.37.145). Having had a Last Supper the night before, Jesus does not partake of the Passover meal but is sentenced and crucified while (in the Synoptics) it still was being prepared. When Luke, example, says it was about the sixth hour (noontime) that Jesus reassured the thief on the cross that he would be with him that day in paradise (23:44), in John, Jesus still was standing before Pilate, who declared to the Jews, "Behold your King!" (19:14).