Mark 15:25 – Was Jesus crucified on the third hour or the sixth hour?

Problem: John records that Jesus was still on trial at the “sixth hour” (Jn. 19:14). Likewise, Matthew records that the darkness fell from “the sixth hour… until the ninth hour” (Mt. 27:45; Lk. 23:44). However, Mark records, “It was the third hour when they crucified Him” (Mk. 15:25). Mark writes that Jesus was crucified at 9am or “the third hour” (Mk. 15:25), while John records that he was crucified at noon or “the sixth hour” (Jn. 19:14). Mark agrees that the darkness occurred from noon until 3pm (Mk. 15:33; cf. Lk. 23:44), yet they disagree on the beginning of Jesus crucifixion. How could John record that Jesus was on trial at the sixth hour, when Mark states that he was already being crucified? How can we resolve this?

Solution: OPTION #1. This is a later gloss. Matthew and Luke do not record this “third hour” time frame from Mark, and neither does the (pseudepigraphical) Gospel of Peter. This is an odd omission, because these other texts mention the darkness from noon until 3pm—yet they omit this first time signature. Even though verse 25 has “firm textual support,” Lane holds that this is “gloss inserted by an early reviser who noticed that Mark had failed to state the hour when Jesus was nailed to the cross.”[1]

OPTION #2. This was a copyist error. As we have already pointed out (c.f. Ex. 12:37), numbers were very easy to distort as a copyist. Wessel writes, “An early copyist has confused a Greek Γ—the letter that stands for three—with a ϝ [digamma]—the letter that stands for six.”[2] Therefore, it is possible that an early copyist erred in recording Mark’s time (i.e. the third hour). Since numbers were difficult to pass along, this is entirely possible.

OPTION #3. John used a Roman clock, while Mark used a Jewish clock. John was prone to do this (c.f. Jn. 13:1). Under this view, John was using a Roman clock in his gospel, but the other authors were using a Jewish clock.

John states that Jesus was preaching in the “tenth hour” (Jn. 1:39). On the Roman clock, this would be 10 a.m. This makes more sense than the Jewish clock, which would be 4 a.m. Moreover, when Jesus spoke with the woman at the well, John writes, “Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour” (Jn. 4:6). This would fit with the normal time that people would visit the well, having travelled all day long (6 p.m.).

[1] Lane, W. L. (1974). The Gospel of Mark (p. 567). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

[2] Wessel, W. W. Mark. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke (F. E. Gaebelein, Ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. 1984. 780.

[3] We should also point out that these time measurements were approximate times. The evangelists didn’t have Timex watches. They were judging the time by the position of the sun in the sky.


“And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. (Nark 15:25)

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