{"texts":[{"id":"holy-week:en","table":["Palm Sunday","Sun","The entry into Jerusalem","Jesus rides a colt down the Mount of Olives while the crowd spreads cloaks and branches on the road; he weeps over the city, enters the temple, looks around, and goes back to Bethany for the night.","Monday","Mon","The fig tree and the temple","On the way in from Bethany Jesus curses a fig tree with no fruit; in the temple he drives out the traders and overturns the tables of the money changers.","Tuesday","Tue","A day of questions and teaching","In the temple courts the leaders question Jesus' authority; he answers with parables, sees a widow give all she has, and in the evening speaks on the Mount of Olives about the temple's end and his coming.","Wednesday","Wed","The plot and the anointing","Two days before the Passover the chief priests look for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth. Mark tells here of a woman at Bethany pouring costly ointment on his head, and of Judas going to the chief priests to hand him over. The Gospels date the anointing only loosely: the stop follows Mark's order.","Thursday","Thu","The Last Supper, Gethsemane and the arrest","On the first day of Unleavened Bread Jesus eats the Passover with the Twelve in an upper room, washes their feet and gives them the bread and the cup. At night he prays in Gethsemane and is arrested, taken to the high priest's house, and denied three times by Peter.","Good Friday","Fri","The trial and the crucifixion","At daybreak the council hands Jesus over to Pilate, who has him flogged and crucified. From the sixth hour to the ninth there is darkness over the land; Jesus dies, and before the Sabbath begins Joseph of Arimathea lays his body in a new tomb.","Saturday","Sat","The Sabbath at the sealed tomb","The women rest on the Sabbath according to the commandment. Matthew tells how the chief priests and Pharisees had the stone sealed and a guard set.","Easter Sunday","Sun","The empty tomb","Very early on the first day of the week the women come to the tomb with spices and find the stone rolled away. They are told that Jesus has risen.","Where was the high priest's house?","The Upper City, near the traditional Mount Zion","Upper City","The high priestly families were wealthy and lived in the Upper City on the western hill, where large houses of the period have been excavated. Byzantine and later Armenian tradition places Caiaphas's house near the Cenacle on Mount Zion.","Mansions of the priestly class, with ritual baths and fine rooms, have been excavated in the Upper City.","Josephus mentions the house of the high priest Ananias burned by rebels in AD 66, together with the royal palaces of the upper part of the city.","It is close to the traditional site of the upper room, so the night's events stay within a short walk.","No inscription or find names Caiaphas at any house, and the tradition for the site is centuries later.","St Peter in Gallicantu, on the eastern slope of Mount Zion","Gallicantu","A church on the eastern slope of Mount Zion remembers Peter's denial and repentance. Below it are rock-cut chambers and a deep pit that pilgrims visit as the place where Jesus was held.","A Byzantine church here commemorated Peter's repentance, and a stepped street of the period runs down the slope beside it.","The chambers are more likely cisterns, storerooms or tombs, and the earliest pilgrims placed Caiaphas's house higher on Mount Zion, not here.","Where did Pilate judge Jesus?","Herod's palace on the western hill","Herod's palace","The Roman governors lived in Caesarea and stayed in Herod's great palace, beside the three towers on the western hill, when they came up to Jerusalem for the feasts. Most scholars now place the praetorium and the Stone Pavement there.","Philo says Pilate set up gilded shields in Herod's palace in Jerusalem, where he resided.","Josephus tells how the governor Florus lodged at the palace and had a tribunal set up in front of it to judge the city's leaders.","Excavations in the Tower of David citadel and the Armenian Garden have found parts of the palace's foundations.","No pavement matching John's Stone Pavement has been identified there, and the palace plan is known only in part.","The Antonia Fortress, north-west of the Temple","Antonia","The Antonia was the fortress at the north-west corner of the Temple Mount, where a Roman garrison watched the temple courts. Since the Middle Ages the Via Dolorosa has begun here, and a stone pavement under the Sisters of Sion convent was long shown as the Gabbatha.","A Roman garrison was stationed there, and soldiers came down from it into the temple courts (Acts 21:31-35).","It is the traditional starting point of the Via Dolorosa.","The pavement under the convent belongs to a square built by Hadrian in the 2nd century, over a pool that was open in Jesus' day.","The Antonia was a barracks; governors are recorded residing in Herod's palace.","Where was Jesus crucified and buried?","The Church of the Holy Sepulchre","Holy Sepulchre","The Church of the Holy Sepulchre covers both a rock outcrop remembered as Golgotha and a rock-cut tomb. In Jesus' day the area lay just outside the city wall, in a disused quarry with tombs cut into its sides.","Excavations show the area was outside the Second Wall before the city expanded in the 40s AD.","It was an old quarry with Jewish tombs of the period (kokhim tombs are still visible inside the church).","The Christians of Jerusalem remembered the place; Eusebius tells how Constantine's builders removed a Roman temple in the 320s and uncovered the tomb.","Today it lies inside the Old City walls, which surprises visitors; the rock and the tomb have been cut back and rebuilt over the centuries.","The Garden Tomb, north of the Damascus Gate","Garden Tomb","In the 19th century some visitors, including General Charles Gordon, proposed a cliff north of the Damascus Gate whose hollows look like a skull, with a rock-cut tomb in a garden nearby. It is a quiet, well-kept garden that helps many to picture the Gospel accounts.","It is outside the city walls, by a road, with a garden and a rock-cut tomb, as the Gospels describe.","The tomb belongs to a group of tombs cut in the 8th to 7th centuries BC, in the Iron Age, so it was not a new tomb in Jesus' day.","The skull-like face of the cliff is modern erosion, and no tradition before the 19th century connects the site with the crucifixion.","Labs · Places of Jesus · 3D","Holy Week in Jerusalem","From Palm Sunday to the empty tomb, day by day","Walk through the last week of Jesus' life in the city of his day: down the Mount of Olives among the branches, into the temple courts, over the hill to a supper at Bethany, to the upper room, Gethsemane, the high priest's courtyard, Pilate's judgment seat, Golgotha and the tomb at dawn. Each stop has the Gospel passages, where the Gospels differ, and how sure we can be of each place.","← Places of Jesus map","The Temple Mount in 3D","Bible Labs","Holy Week in Jerusalem","A study aid, not a photograph.","The city is a reconstruction, the figures are stylized and faceless, and the crucifixion is shown with reverence, at a distance. Several places, such as the upper room, the high priest's house, Pilate's praetorium and Golgotha itself, are debated; each is marked with how sure we can be, and the options are shown side by side.","English Scripture: King James Version (1769).","Chinese Scripture: Chinese Union Version (1919), public domain.","The Temple Mount and city are the model from our Temple Mount lab. Rock and paving textures: Poly Haven (CC0). Everything else is procedural; no AI imagery is used.","Holy Week in Jerusalem","Walk day by day through Jesus' last week in 3D Jerusalem: Palm Sunday, the temple, the upper room, Gethsemane, Pilate, Golgotha and the empty tomb, with the Gospels side by side.","Holy Week in Jerusalem: Jesus' Last Week in 3D","Holy Week day by day in 3D Jerusalem: the triumphal entry, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, Pilate, Golgotha and the empty tomb, with Scripture and evidence for each place.","From the branches of Palm Sunday to the open tomb at dawn: ten stops in and around the Jerusalem of Jesus' day.","Jerusalem seen from the Mount of Olives in the afternoon light: the Temple across the Kidron Valley, and a crowd with branches on the road below","Jerusalem, Herod's palace and the siege of AD 70.","Herod's rebuilding of the temple and the Royal Stoa.","Pilate's shields in Herod's palace.","Later rabbinic tradition on Passover, the temple tax and the temple.","The uncovering of the tomb and the building of the first church.","The earliest Christian pilgrim's description of Jerusalem.","Bethany and the tomb of Lazarus shown there.","Nard, its source in India and its price.","The sermon that joined Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene and the woman of Luke 7.","The Holy Week services of 4th-century Jerusalem.","A small church on Mount Zion linked with the upper room.","The excavated mansions of the Upper City.","Dates the Garden Tomb to the Iron Age.","The quarry, the tombs and the Second Wall under the church.","The archaeology of the places of the Passion.","The Herodian Temple Mount.","The astronomy of the Passover moons of AD 26–36.","The proposal of two calendars.","Sunday afternoon","The entry into Jerusalem","Palm Sunday","The Mount of Olives, from Bethphage down to the city","Near Bethphage and Bethany Jesus sent two disciples to bring a colt that no one had ridden. They threw their cloaks on it, and he rode down the Mount of Olives while many spread their cloaks and branches on the road and shouted Hosanna. When he came near and saw the city, he wept over it. He went into the temple, looked around at everything, and as it was already late went out to Bethany with the Twelve.","The descent","Down the Mount of Olives on a colt, with cloaks and branches spread on the road and the crowd crying Hosanna.","Weeping over the city","Where the road comes over the slope, the whole city lies open across the Kidron. Luke alone tells that Jesus wept over it.","Jesus rode a colt, and the people spread their cloaks and cut branches on the road ahead of him.","All four Gospels tell the entry.","Only John names palm branches. Matthew and Mark speak of branches cut from the trees or the fields, and Luke mentions only cloaks.","The name Palm Sunday comes from John 12:13; the scene mixes palm fronds with other branches.","Matthew and John see in the entry Zechariah's promise of a king coming humble, riding on a donkey; the crowd's cry echoes Psalm 118.","Our road runs from the ridge of the Mount of Olives down its western slope and across the Kidron. The Gospels name Bethphage, Bethany and the descent of the Mount of Olives, but not the exact path.","Bethany lies over the ridge to the east, so any road from it to the city crosses the Mount of Olives.","The entry was on the Sunday before Passover: John puts the dinner at Bethany six days before the Passover and the entry on the next day.","How many people, the colours of their clothes and the faceless figures are our choices. Matthew speaks of a very great multitude.","One animal or two?","Matthew mentions a donkey and her colt; Mark, Luke and John speak of one young animal. A likely reading is that the mother came along with the colt Jesus rode, and Matthew names both to match the two lines of Zechariah 9:9.","Monday morning","Cleansing the Temple","The Temple","The Royal Stoa and the Court of the Gentiles","On the way in from Bethany Jesus was hungry and found a fig tree with leaves but no fruit, and he cursed it. In the temple he began to drive out those who sold and bought, overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, and would not let anyone carry goods through the temple courts. He taught them from Isaiah and Jeremiah that God's house was to be a house of prayer for all the nations. The chief priests and scribes looked for a way to destroy him, because the crowd was amazed at his teaching.","The tables overturned","In the outer court, by the Royal Stoa: money changers at their tables and sellers of doves and animals. Jesus overturns the tables.","Jesus drove out the sellers and buyers, overturned the money changers' tables and the dove sellers' seats, and stopped people carrying goods through.","Mark alone keeps the words \"of all nations\" from Isaiah 56:7. The outer court was the one part of the temple Gentiles could enter.","Josephus and two surviving Greek inscriptions warn foreigners not to pass the barrier into the inner courts.","The trading most likely went on in the Court of the Gentiles, perhaps in or beside the Royal Stoa along the south side. The Gospels say only \"the temple\", the whole sacred precinct.","Josephus describes the Royal Stoa as a great basilica on the south side of the court; the Gospels do not locate the stalls.","The money changers exchanged pilgrims' coins for those accepted for the temple tax, usually the silver shekels of Tyre.","The Mishnah says tables were set up in the temple before the tax was due; Tyrian shekels are common in finds of the period.","The Temple Mount is the reconstruction from our Temple Mount lab, built from Josephus, the Mishnah and archaeology. The stalls, animals and figures are illustrative, and so are the white stone pilasters framing the sanctuary's gold plates; its tall gateway follows Josephus (70 by 25 cubits; the Mishnah gives 40 by 20).","Which day, and how many times?","Mark says Jesus only looked around the temple on the evening of the entry and cleansed it the next day; Matthew and Luke tell the cleansing straight after the entry, without marking a new day. John tells a cleansing near the start of Jesus' ministry. Many readers see Matthew and Luke as shortening the sequence; for John, some see a second, earlier cleansing and others a story placed by theme.","The fig tree","Mark tells the fig tree in two parts around the cleansing, the cursing on Monday and the withered tree seen on Tuesday morning; Matthew tells it in one piece, with the tree withering at once. Mark's framing lets the barren tree comment on the temple.","Tuesday","In the temple courts and on the Mount of Olives","Teaching","The temple courts; the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple","Back in the temple the next day, Jesus was questioned by the chief priests, scribes and elders about his authority, by Pharisees and Herodians about paying taxes to Caesar, and by Sadducees about the resurrection. He told the parable of the tenants of the vineyard, named the greatest commandment, and watched a poor widow put two small coins into the treasury. As he left, a disciple admired the great stones; Jesus said not one would be left on another. Sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, he spoke to Peter, James, John and Andrew about the things to come.","In the temple courts","In the Court of Women, by the offering chests of the treasury: a poor widow gives two small coins, all she had to live on.","On the Mount of Olives","Evening on the Mount of Olives: Jesus sits opposite the temple with Peter, James, John and Andrew and speaks of what is to come.","These debates fall on the day after the cleansing in Mark's sequence, which is why they are usually counted as Tuesday.","The Mishnah tells of thirteen trumpet-shaped offering chests in the temple. Placing them in the Court of Women follows later tradition and modern reconstructions.","Mark names the four who asked Jesus privately on the Mount of Olives: Peter, James, John and Andrew.","The temple was destroyed by the Roman army in AD 70. Herodian stones thrown down from the walls still lie on the street below the south-west corner.","Josephus describes the destruction; the fallen stones were uncovered in excavations beside the Western Wall.","The sunset light is our choice. Mark says only that Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives after leaving the temple; Luke says he spent the nights there.","Where was the discourse given?","Mark and Matthew set the discourse on the Mount of Olives, told privately to the disciples; Luke's account reads as if it were spoken in the temple. A common view is that Luke gathers the teaching of these days without marking the change of place.","Wednesday evening, in Mark's order","The anointing at Bethany","Bethany","The house of Simon the leper at Bethany, over the Mount of Olives","Two days before the Passover, while the chief priests looked for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth, he was at Bethany, at table in the house of Simon the leper. A woman came with an alabaster jar of pure nard, very costly, broke the jar and poured the ointment over his head. Some there were indignant: it could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor. Jesus told them to leave her alone. She had done a good work for him and anointed his body beforehand for burial, and wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her. Then Judas went to the chief priests to hand him over.","At Simon's house","Evening at Bethany, a village on the far slope of the Mount of Olives: Jesus and the disciples come to a meal at the house of Simon the leper.","The alabaster jar","As he reclines at table, a woman breaks an alabaster jar of pure nard and pours it over his head. Some at the table grumble at the waste.","In memory of her","Jesus defends her: she has anointed his body for burial, and wherever the gospel is preached, what she has done will be told in memory of her.","Mark and Matthew set the meal at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, with Jesus reclining at table. Nothing more is told of Simon; he may have been healed, since a man with leprosy could not have hosted guests.","That Simon had been healed is an inference (Leviticus 13:45-46 kept a person with leprosy outside the camp), not a statement of the text.","The jar was alabaster and she broke it; the ointment was pure nard, an oil from a plant of the Himalayas, worth more than three hundred denarii, about a year's wages for a labourer.","A denarius was a day's wage for a labourer in Jesus' parable of the vineyard. Nard's origin in the Himalayas is from ancient writers on spices (Pliny, Natural History 12.26), not from the Gospels.","Mark and Matthew do not name the woman, and the scene does not either. John's account names Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. Identifying her with Mary Magdalene, or with the woman who was a sinner in Luke 7, is a later Western tradition, not the Gospels.","Gregory the Great joined the three women in a sermon of AD 591; the Eastern churches have always kept them apart.","Bethany is the village of al-Eizariya, about fifteen stadia (under 3 km) east of Jerusalem on the far slope of the Mount of Olives, out of sight of the city. Its Arabic name keeps the name of Lazarus. In the scene it stands nearer the city than it was, at the edge of the model.","John gives the distance; Eusebius and the pilgrim Egeria in the 4th century knew the village and the tomb of Lazarus there.","The house is our reconstruction of a village house: fieldstone walls, a plastered room with an earth floor, reed mats and cushions round a low table, clay lamps, and a small courtyard. Who else was at table, where each reclines, the woman's clothes, and the oil drawn as a thin stream are our choices. The room is lit more brightly than clay lamps would, with a soft light on Jesus; it is a way of showing the scene, not a halo.","Mark's anointing and John's: one event or two?","John tells a supper at Bethany where Martha served and Lazarus was at table, and Mary anointed Jesus' feet with a pound of nard and wiped them with her hair; Judas objected. Mark has an unnamed woman pouring the ointment on his head in Simon's house, and \"some\" object. The village, the costly nard, the three hundred denarii, the complaint about the poor and Jesus' answer about his burial are shared, so many readers take them as one event remembered in two ways (plausible); others see two anointings. The scene follows Mark and shows the head; John's details are a parallel tradition, given here and not drawn. Luke 7:36-50 tells a different anointing, in Galilee, earlier in Jesus' ministry.","When was Jesus anointed at Bethany?","Mark and Matthew tell the anointing after saying the Passover was two days away, but they do not say it happened that day; John sets the dinner at Bethany six days before the Passover, before the entry into Jerusalem. Many readers take John's date as the time of the meal and Mark as placing the story beside Judas's betrayal on purpose. The lab puts the stop on Wednesday because that is where Mark tells it, not because the day is known.","Who objected?","Mark says \"some\" were indignant, Matthew \"the disciples\", and John names Judas, adding that he kept the money box and stole from it. The scene shows a few of the disciples objecting, which fits all three.","Thursday evening","The Last Supper","Upper room","A large upper room in the city","On the first day of Unleavened Bread two disciples followed a man carrying a jar of water to a house with a large upper room, furnished and ready, and there prepared the Passover. In the evening Jesus came with the Twelve. John tells how he laid aside his outer garment and washed their feet. As they reclined and ate, he said one of them would betray him; then he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them, and afterwards the cup. When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.","The foot washing","Jesus lays aside his outer garment, ties a towel round himself, and washes the disciples' feet.","The bread and the cup","At the table he takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it to them; then the cup.","The meal was in a large upper room, furnished and ready, in a house in the city.","They reclined, not sat: diners lay on cushions or couches on their left side around low tables, leaning on the left elbow, as at a Greek or Roman banquet. The disciple Jesus loved lay next to him.","The Gospels use the Greek words for reclining at table; the Mishnah says that on Passover night even the poorest must recline.","We set the tables in a U, a triclinium, with Jesus near the middle. The Gospels do not describe the tables; the arrangement is a common reconstruction.","Who lies where: the disciple Jesus loved is just in front of him, so that leaning back he is at Jesus' breast; Judas is near enough on his other side to be handed the piece of bread; Peter is across the corner of the tables, facing them, near enough to signal to John. The Gospels give only these hints.","John 13:23-26: the beloved disciple reclines next to Jesus and leans back on his breast, Peter beckons to him, and Jesus dips the piece of bread and gives it to Judas. Which side each lay on, and where Peter was, is read from these verses; they do not say it.","Tradition places the upper room on Mount Zion, where the Cenacle stands today; the present hall is from the Crusader era. The Gospels say only that it was in the city.","A church on Mount Zion linked with the upper room is mentioned from the 4th century.","The lamps, the plaster and beams of the room, the bread and cup, the places of the other disciples, and Jesus sitting up to break the bread are our choices. The room is lit more brightly than a few clay lamps would light it, with a soft light on Jesus, so that faces and hands read on a screen; it is a way of showing the scene, not a halo.","Was the Last Supper a Passover meal?","Matthew, Mark and Luke present the supper as the Passover meal. John has the leaders avoiding defilement on Friday morning so that they could still eat the Passover, and places the crucifixion on the day of Preparation of the Passover. Proposed answers: John's \"Passover\" can mean the whole week-long feast and \"Preparation\" the Friday of that week (plausible); Jesus held the meal a day early, knowing he would die (plausible); the two accounts follow different calendars, for example the one used at Qumran (speculative). Either way, John shows Jesus dying as the Passover lambs were being prepared.","One cup or two?","Luke mentions a cup before the bread and another after supper; Matthew and Mark one cup after the bread. The Passover meal as the Mishnah later describes it had four cups of wine, so Luke may name two of them.","Thursday night","Gethsemane","Gethsemane","A garden across the Kidron, on the Mount of Olives","After the supper they crossed the Kidron to a place called Gethsemane. Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and was deeply distressed. Going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him, yet not what he willed but what the Father willed. Three times he came back and found them sleeping. Then Judas came with a crowd from the chief priests, with swords and clubs, and greeted him with a kiss; they seized Jesus, and all the disciples left him and fled.","The prayer","Moonlight in the olive grove: Jesus prays alone, about a stone's throw away, while Peter, James and John sleep.","The arrest","Torches and lanterns coming down from the city across the Kidron: Judas with soldiers and officers from the chief priests.","Gethsemane means \"oil press\" in Aramaic (gat shemanim). An olive grove with a press fits the name; John calls the place a garden.","Passover fell in the middle of the month of Nisan, at the full moon, so the night was probably bright, unless clouds covered the moon. John still mentions torches and lanterns.","The Jewish months began at the new moon; the 14th and 15th are at or near the full moon.","The traditional site at the foot of the Mount of Olives, by today's Church of All Nations, fits the Gospels: across the Kidron, on the Mount of Olives. The exact spot is not known.","John speaks of a detachment of soldiers and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees; Mark of a crowd with swords and clubs. Our party shows both.","The trees, the press and the terraces follow ancient olive growing in Judea. The olives are drawn as old trees, with short, split, twisting trunks and open, silver-green crowns; no particular tree is shown. The old trees at the traditional site today are not from Jesus' day: Josephus says the Romans cut down the trees around the city in the siege of AD 70.","A soft light falls on Jesus at prayer, a little brighter than the moon alone, so that he can be seen on a screen. It is a way of showing the scene, not a halo or a claim about that night.","Four tellings of one night","Mark and Matthew tell of three returns to the sleeping disciples; Luke tells of one, and of an angel strengthening Jesus and sweat like drops of blood (verses missing from some early manuscripts). John has no prayer scene in the garden but tells how the arresting party drew back and fell to the ground. Each Gospel chooses what to tell; the accounts fit together.","Thursday night until dawn","The high priest's house","Caiaphas","The house of Caiaphas the high priest","They led Jesus to the high priest's house; John says he was taken first to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas. The chief priests and the whole council gathered and looked for testimony against him. Peter had followed at a distance right into the courtyard and sat with the officers, warming himself at the fire. When a servant girl and then others said he had been with Jesus, he denied it three times. Then the rooster crowed, and Peter remembered what Jesus had said, and wept.","By the fire","Night in the courtyard: Peter warms himself at the charcoal fire with the servants and officers, while Jesus is questioned inside.","The rooster crows","Before dawn the rooster crows. Peter remembers Jesus' words, goes out, and weeps bitterly.","Peter was below in the courtyard while Jesus was questioned: the hearing was held in the house above or beside it.","John says Jesus was taken first to Annas, a former high priest and Caiaphas's father-in-law, and then sent bound to Caiaphas.","Luke alone tells that at the rooster's crow the Lord turned and looked at Peter.","Our house follows the priestly mansions excavated in the Upper City: rooms and an upper storey around a paved courtyard, with a gateway passage to the street.","Wealthy houses of the 1st century excavated in the Jewish Quarter had courtyards, ritual baths and fine rooms.","The rooster may have been a real bird, or \"cockcrow\" the Roman name for the night watch ending about three in the morning. Either way it was before dawn.","Once or twice?","In Mark, Jesus says Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows twice, and the rooster crows a second time at the end; Matthew, Luke and John speak of the rooster crowing once. Mark gives the fuller detail; the others keep the main point.","Who questioned Peter?","The Gospels differ on who challenged Peter: the servant girl, another girl, a man, the bystanders, a relative of the man whose ear was cut off. In a crowded courtyard several people would have spoken up; each account keeps three denials.","Friday, early morning","Before Pilate","Pilate","The praetorium, the Roman governor's headquarters","Early in the morning the council bound Jesus and handed him over to Pilate, the Roman governor. The leaders would not go into the praetorium, so Pilate came out to them. He questioned Jesus about being King of the Jews, found no case against him, and offered to release him at the feast; the crowd asked for Barabbas instead. Pilate sat down on the judgment seat at the place called the Stone Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha, and handed Jesus over to be crucified.","The judgment seat","Early morning: Pilate on the judgment seat at the Stone Pavement, the crowd in front of him.","John names the place: the Stone Pavement, Gabbatha in Hebrew, where Pilate sat on the judgment seat. Where it was is not said.","The leaders did not enter the praetorium, so as not to be defiled before the Passover; Pilate went out to them and back in to Jesus.","Roman governors stayed in Herod's palace when they came up to Jerusalem: Philo tells of Pilate setting up shields there, and Josephus of the governor Florus judging from a tribunal set before it.","Luke alone tells that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod Antipas, who was in Jerusalem for the feast, and that Herod sent him back.","Our palace, pavement and judgment seat are simplified: the plan of Herod's palace is known only in part, and the size of the crowd is our choice.","The Passover release","Mark, Matthew and John speak of a custom of releasing one prisoner at the feast. No source outside the Gospels mentions it; it may have been a local practice of Pilate's time.","Friday, from the third hour to the ninth","The crucifixion","Golgotha","Golgotha, outside the city wall by a road","The soldiers led Jesus out and forced a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, to carry his cross. At Golgotha, the Place of a Skull, they crucified him between two robbers, with the charge written above him: the King of the Jews. People passing by mocked him. From the sixth hour to the ninth there was darkness over the whole land. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last; the curtain of the temple was torn in two, and the centurion said that he was truly the Son of God. Women watched from a distance.","The way out","The third hour: the procession leaves the city by the gate, and Simon of Cyrene carries the cross behind Jesus.","The darkness","From the sixth hour to the ninth, darkness over the land. We show the crosses only from a distance.","Golgotha was near the city and outside its gate, by a road where people passed by.","We show a low rock outcrop beside the road. The Gospels never call Golgotha a hill; the name means \"skull\", and the green hill of hymns is later imagery.","The darkness cannot have been a solar eclipse: Passover fell at the full moon, when an eclipse of the sun is impossible. The Gospels present it as a sign.","It was the day of Preparation, the day before the Sabbath: a Friday. The year was most likely AD 30 or AD 33, when the 14th of Nisan fell on a Friday (plausible).","The figures are stylized and seen from a distance, and no wounds are shown. The Gospels themselves tell the crucifixion in very few words.","The third hour or the sixth?","Mark says it was the third hour when they crucified him; John says Pilate's verdict came at about the sixth hour. Proposed answers: people reckoned time loosely in blocks of three hours, so a mid-morning event could be named by either (plausible); John counts from midnight in the Roman way (speculative); an early copying error in the numerals (speculative).","Who carried the cross?","John says Jesus went out carrying his own cross; Matthew, Mark and Luke say the soldiers made Simon of Cyrene carry it. Most readers see both: Jesus set out with it, and Simon was pressed into carrying it on the way.","The Sabbath, and the first day of the week at dawn","The tomb and the resurrection morning","The tomb","A new tomb cut in the rock, in a garden near Golgotha","Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body, wrapped it in linen and laid it in a tomb cut out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the door. On the Sabbath the chief priests had the stone sealed and a guard set. When the Sabbath was over, very early on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other women came with spices and found the stone rolled away. A young man in white told them that Jesus had risen and was going before them to Galilee.","The sealed tomb","The Sabbath: the stone is sealed and a guard keeps watch at the tomb.","Easter dawn","Very early on the first day of the week: the stone is rolled away and the tomb is open.","In the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden, and in it a new tomb where no one had yet been laid, cut in the rock.","A large stone was rolled against the door. Round rolling stones are known from wealthy tombs of the period, though most tombs were closed with a squared block.","Matthew alone tells that the chief priests and Pharisees asked Pilate for a guard, sealed the stone and set the watch.","Inside, a bench cut in the rock where the body lay; the young man sat on the right side.","The young man in white is shown only as a soft light in the tomb, and the women are stylized. The garden's trees and the shape of the rock face are our choices.","Still dark, or sunrise?","John says Mary Magdalene came while it was still dark; Matthew as the day was dawning; Mark very early, when the sun had risen. A natural reading is that the women set out in the dark and reached the tomb as the sun came up.","One messenger or two?","Mark tells of a young man in white sitting inside; Matthew of an angel who rolled back the stone and sat on it; Luke of two men in dazzling clothes; John of two angels whom Mary saw later. Each writer tells what he chose to focus on; mentioning one does not deny a second."]}],"zh":{}}