Problem: At what hour was Jesus crucified? The answer is easy when you realize that two different time systems were being used.
- The third hour, Mark 15:25, “And it was the third hour [9 am?] when they crucified Him.”
- The sixth hour, John 19:14-15, “Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour [12 pm?]. And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!” 15 They, therefore, cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.’”
Solution: John probably used the Roman measurement of time when dealing with the crucifixion. This meant they measured the hours from midnight to midnight. For the most part, Matthew, Mark, and Luke used the Hebrew system of measuring a day from sundown to sunup. Therefore, it would be possible to have two different attestations of the particular hour depending on the timeframe used.
“John wrote his gospel in Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia, and therefore in regard to the civil day, he would be likely to employ the Roman reckoning.” (Archer, Gleason, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 364).
Furthermore, John is not precise because he says, “about the sixth hour.” So there is a little wiggle room as far as time goes.
The Romans divided up days into two twelve-hour periods: One for the night and one for the day. However, they did not maintain hours of uniform length because the days and nights would vary in length depending on the season. So what would be 6 AM according to the Roman system (the same as ours today) would be the first hour for the Hebrews. So let’s assume a 6 AM sunrise, which would then designate a new day. It would mean that the trial of Jesus was concluded around 9 AM, and He was led off to be crucified. Mark could refer to the crucifixion as the whole process of trial, condemnation, and the actual crucifixion, giving us the Johanian reference of the sixth hour.
