At what hour of the day was Jesus crucified? - Answers (2024)

A:In Mark's Gospel, followed more or less faithfully by Matthew and Luke, the time of day that Jesus was crucified (9 am) was important because it fitted into the chiastic structure that broke the last twenty four hours into exactly 8 periods of 3 hours each:

• We start with the Last Supper, which began "when it was evening" (Mark 14:17), or when the sun went down: approximately 6 pm.
• Mark knew that the duration of the Passover meal was three hours and that it concluded with the singing of a hymn, so the first thing Jesus did was to sing a hymn with his disciples. Then Mark says, "And when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives". It was about 9 p.m.
• Mark then has Jesus and the disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus went to pray. His disciples, Peter, James and John, were not able to remain awake. "Could you not watch one hour?" Jesus asked. The process was repeated two more times. The disciples could not watch one, two or three hours. It was now midnight.
• The act of betrayal, the darkest deed in human history, came next, occurring at the stroke of midnight.
• At 3:00 a.m., Jesus was led away for a trial before the high priest and other senior priests and elders. This governing body then judged him, on the basis of his messianic claim, to be worthy of death.
• The watch of the night between 3 am and 6 am was called co*ckcrow. Peter's threefold denial of Jesus, once each hour until the co*ck crowed, marked the end of that phase of the night. That makes it 6 am.
• "As soon as it was morning", which would be 6 am, Jesus was led by the chief priests, scribes and elders to Pontius Pilate for judgement.
• "It was the third hour when they crucified him," that is, 9 o'clock.
• When "the sixth hour had come" (12 noon), darkness covered the whole earth, reflecting the betrayal at 12 midnight.
• After three hours of darkness, at 3 p.m., Jesus cried out and gave up the ghost.
• Joseph of Arimathea then asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, so that he could be buried before the Sabbath began. Jesus was buried in the final period from 3 to 6 pm, before the sun went down.

John's Gospel changes the time that Jesus was sent to be crucified to 12 noon (John 19:14). This was important for theological reasons and also to minimise the time that Jesus spent suffering on the cross.

Jesus was crucified at 9 o'clock in the morning and died at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We know this because Mark's Gospel, the first gospel to be written, divides the last twenty four hours of Jesus' life up into eight periods of just three hours each. These include:

• "As soon as it was morning", which would be 6 am, Jesus was led by the chief priests, scribes and elders to Pontius Pilate for judgement.
• Mark told his readers, " It was the third hour," or 9 am "when they crucified him".
• When "the sixth hour had come" (12 noon), darkness covered the whole earth, reflecting the betrayal at 12 midnight.
• After three hours of darkness, Jesus said "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" At 3 pm, Jesus gave up the ghost.
• Jesus was buried in the final period from 3 to 6 pm, before the sun went down, beginning the Jewish Sabbath.

These times are followed more or less faithfully by the later synoptic gospels. John alters the time, to have Jesus crucified at the sixth hour, which is 12 o'clock.