Bible chapter guide

John 19

Pilate has Jesus flogged and presents him, crowned with thorns: 'Behold, the man!' At the Stone Pavement he hands him over to be crucified at Golgotha. Jesus entrusts his mother to the beloved disciple, says 'It is finished,' and dies; Joseph and Nicodemus bury him in a new tomb in a garden.

Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.

What happens in this chapter

Pilate has Jesus flogged, the soldiers crown him with thorns and dress him in purple, and Pilate brings him out and says, 'Behold, the man!' When the leaders warn that releasing him would make Pilate no friend of Caesar, he sits on the judgment seat at the place called the Pavement, Gabbatha in Hebrew, at about the sixth hour on the day of Preparation, and hands Jesus over. Jesus goes out carrying his own cross to Golgotha, near the city, where the charge above him is written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek; from the cross he gives his mother into the care of the disciple he loved, says 'It is finished', and dies. A soldier's spear brings blood and water from his side, and Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, with about a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, lay him in a new tomb in a garden close by.

What the lab shows, and where to look

Open Before Pilate: Pilate sits on the judgment seat at the Stone Pavement in the early morning, with the crowd in front of him. John names the place but not where it was, so the lab lets you move the court between Herod's palace on the western hill (rated strong) and the Antonia fortress beside the temple (speculative), where the medieval Via Dolorosa begins. At the crucifixion stop you can do the same with Golgotha: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (strong) or the Garden Tomb (speculative), and the tomb stop follows your choice. In Jerusalem through the Ages, the Second Wall shows why the Holy Sepulchre site could lie outside the city in Jesus' day, though the wall's line is itself a reasoned guess.

Questions people ask

Where was Gabbatha, the Stone Pavement?

John gives the name, the Pavement, Gabbatha in Hebrew (19:13), but not the place. Most scholars now put Pilate's court at Herod's palace on the western hill, where Roman governors stayed when they came up from Caesarea; Philo and Josephus both tell of governors there. The older tradition puts it at the Antonia fortress north-west of the temple, where a stone pavement under the Sisters of Sion convent was long shown as Gabbatha; that pavement is now dated to a square built by Hadrian in the 2nd century. The lab rates the palace strong and the Antonia speculative.

Strongly supported

Where was Jesus crucified: the Holy Sepulchre or the Garden Tomb?

John says the place was near the city, with a garden and a new rock-cut tomb close by (19:20, 41). The Church of the Holy Sepulchre covers both a rock outcrop remembered as Golgotha and a rock-cut tomb; excavation shows the area was a disused quarry outside the wall in Jesus' day, and the lab rates it strong. The Garden Tomb, north of the Damascus Gate, was proposed in the 19th century for a cliff that looks like a skull, but its tomb was cut in the 8th to 7th centuries BC, so it was not new in Jesus' day; it is a quiet place that helps many picture the scene, and the lab rates it speculative.

Strongly supported

What time was Jesus crucified?

Mark says it was the third hour when they crucified him (Mark 15:25); John says Pilate's verdict came at about the sixth hour (19:14). One answer is that people reckoned time loosely in three-hour blocks, so a mid-morning event could be named by either. Others suggest John counts from midnight in the Roman way, or that a numeral was miscopied early on; these are weaker.

Plausible

See it in the Labs

Also in this chapter

Trials before the high priest and Pilate The Second Wall The crucifixion Burial in a new tomb The tomb and the resurrection morning Before Pilate The crucifixion

How sure can we be?

Textually stated
John names the place: the Stone Pavement, Gabbatha in Hebrew, where Pilate sat on the judgment seat. Where it was is not said.
Textually stated
Jesus was crucified near the city, outside its gate, at a place called Golgotha, and buried in a new tomb in a garden close by.
All four Gospels give the name; John adds the garden and the nearness to the city, and Hebrews the gate.
Textually stated
Golgotha was near the city and outside its gate, by a road where people passed by.
Textually stated
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.
Strongly supported
Where did Pilate judge Jesus? Herod's palace on the western hill.
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.
Strongly supported
Where was Jesus crucified and buried? The Church of the 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.

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King James Version (KJV) Chinese Union Version, 1919 (Wikisource)