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And he, bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of the skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified him. . . . After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, “I thirst.” . . . When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. (John 19:17–18, 28–30)

Francisco de Zurbarán, Crucifixion. Wikimedia Commons.

Good Friday is celebrated throughout much of Christendom as a solemn day commemorating Jesus’s trial before Pilate, his abuse at the hands of the Roman soldiers, his suffering and death on the cross, and finally, his burial in a borrowed tomb. The heaviness and sadness of the events that this day recalls often make many, including Latter-day Saints, wonder, “What is so good about Good Friday?” On the one hand, it may well be because good was also an archaic way of referring to God—for instance, goodbye originally meant “God be with you.” In that case, this was God’s Friday, the day when “we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10). Yet the customary understanding that Good Friday is “holy” Friday is certainly appropriate, for it recalls how on the last day of his life, Jesus Christ, our great high priest, offered himself as a sacrifice for our sakes: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb 9:12).[1]

While formally commemorating the sad events of Good Friday is not a regular part of Latter-day Saint practice, marking the day as individuals or as families can be a powerful experience that can deepen our appreciation for all the Lord has done for us. On April 4, 1969, Elder Marion D. Hanks (1921–2011), who was called as an Assistant to the Twelve in 1968 and served as a member of the Seventy from 1976 to 1992, spoke at what was then the Friday welfare session of general conference. As he concluded, he bore testimony and said, “I bear testimony and thank God for this Good Friday, tragic as are the events which it commemorates, and for what it means to me and to all men, for what it lays before men of a future, for this day had to happen in order that Easter and its glorious events could come to pass.”[2] While Jesus took upon himself the weight of our sins, sorrows, infirmities, and heartaches in Gethsemane and began to suffer for them there, he carried this unimaginable burden to the cross, where he died for them and where they had an end.[3] Likewise, he needed to die in order to break the bands of death (see Alma 7:12), making the sadness of Good Friday a necessary prerequisite for the joy of Easter morning.

Texts: Mark 15:1–15; Matthew 27:3–10; Luke 23:4–12; John 18:28–19:16

Mark’s account of Jesus’s trial before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate is supplemented by the other Synoptics, each of which adds episodes lacking in the Marcan original. Matthew adds an account of the remorse and suicide of Judas Iscariot. Luke provides the story of Jesus’s examination by Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee who was in Jerusalem for Passover. John provides a longer account of the Roman trial, which includes an important exchange between Pilate and Jesus.

Mark

¹And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate. ²And Pilate asked him, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” And he answering said unto him, “Thou sayest it.” ³And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. ⁴And Pilate asked him again, saying, “Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee.” ⁵But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled.

⁶Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired. ⁷And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection. ⁸And the multitude crying aloud began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them. ⁹But Pilate answered them, saying, “Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?” ¹⁰For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. ¹¹But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.

¹²And Pilate answered and said again unto them, “What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?” ¹³And they cried out again, “Crucify him.” ¹⁴Then Pilate said unto them, “Why, what evil hath he done?” And they cried out the more exceedingly, “Crucify him.” ¹⁵And so Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.

Matthew

³Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, ⁴Saying, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? see thou to that.” ⁵And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. ⁶And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, “It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.” ⁷And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. ⁸Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. ⁹Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;”¹⁰ And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.

Luke

⁴Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, “I find no fault in this man.” ⁵And they were the more fierce, saying, “He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.” ⁶When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilaean. ⁷And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time.

⁸And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding glad: for he was desirous to see him of a long season, because he had heard many things of him; and he hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. ⁹Then he questioned with him in many words; but he answered him nothing. ¹⁰And the chief priests and scribes stood and vehemently accused him. ¹¹And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. ¹²And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves.

John

²⁸Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall judgment, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the passover. ²⁹Pilate then went out unto them, and said, “What accusation bring ye against this man?” ³⁰They answered and said unto him, “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee.” ³¹Then said Pilate unto them, “Take ye him, and judge him according to your law.” “The Jews” therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death:” ³²That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spake, signifying what death he should die.

³³Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, “Art thou the King of the Jews?” ³⁴Jesus answered him, “Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?” ³⁵Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done?” ³⁶Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.” ³⁷Pilate therefore said unto him, “Art thou a king then?” Jesus answered, “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.” ³⁸Pilate saith unto him, “What is truth?”

And when he had said this, he went out again unto “the Jews”, and saith unto them, “I find in him no fault at all. ³⁹But ye have a custom, that I should release unto you one at the passover: will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews?” ⁴⁰Then cried they all again, saying, “Not this man, but Barabbas.” Now Barabbas was a robber.

¹Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. ²And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, ³And said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and they smote him with their hands. ⁴Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, “Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him.” ⁵Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, “Behold the man!”

⁶When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, “Crucify him, crucify him.” Pilate saith unto them, “Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.” ⁷“The Jews” answered him, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” ⁸When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid;

⁹And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, “Whence art thou?” But Jesus gave him no answer. ¹⁰Then saith Pilate unto him, “Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?” ¹¹Jesus answered,

“Thou couldest have no power at all against me,

except it were given thee from above:

therefore he that delivered me unto thee

hath the greater sin.”

¹²And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but “the Jews” cried out, saying, “If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.” ¹³When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. ¹⁴And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto “the Jews”, “Behold your King!” ¹⁵But they cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him.” Pilate saith unto them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” ¹⁶Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.

Roman Governance of Judea

Background

When members of the Sanhedrin handed Jesus over to the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, they put him in the power of the occupying authority that had assumed control over Jerusalem and Judea in AD 6. Rome had been involved in the Holy Land in varying degrees since 160 BC, when the Jewish freedom fighter Judas Maccabeus sought an alliance with Rome in his fight against the Greek kings in Syria, an alliance renewed by Judas’s brothers Jonathan and Simon.[4] Still, Rome’s involvement was minimal and remained friendly in the ensuing decades when the priestly family of the Hasmoneans, also known as the Maccabees, established themselves as both high priests and kings of an independent Judea. Not until 63 BC did Rome intervene militarily, when the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem as part of his actions to help the pro-Roman side of a Hasmonean civil war.[5] Only when the Hasmoneans were not able to maintain Judea as a reliable Roman ally did the Romans intervene again to help put Herod the Great in power. Herod ruled as king over all of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and other regions of the Holy Land from 37 BC until his death in 4 BC. As a Roman ally, Herod ruled as a client king, sending tribute and supporting Rome but otherwise functioning with relative independence, maintaining his own military and collecting his own taxes. At Herod’s death his kingdom was divided between three of his sons, each ruling part of the territory as Roman clients.[6] One of them, Archelaus, who governed Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the southern region of Idumea, ruled so poorly that a delegation of Jewish nobles from Jerusalem actually asked Rome in AD 4 to replace him with a Roman governor.[7] Only then did these southern regions of the Holy Land become a formal Roman province, while the rest remained self-governing tetrarchies under Herod the Great’s other sons, Herod Antipas and Philip.

Above: Map of Jerusalem showing Friday's route to the cross.

Below: The current Via Dolorosa, or "way of sorrows," traces Jesus's final walk to the cross.

When Judea, Samaria, and Idumea came under direct Roman rule, it was not necessarily the heavy-handed kind of regime often depicted in biblical epic movies. Larger provinces were governed by officials responsible either to the Roman Senate or directly to the emperor; in both cases their governors were members of the senatorial aristocracy who had previously held high office in the capital. Only those provinces that were important because of their size and wealth or their position on the imperial frontier hosted actual Roman legions. The new province of Judea, however, was a minor province whose governors, or prefects, were drawn from the second class at Rome, a group known as the equestrians (from the Latin equites or “knights”). Responsible directly to the emperor rather than the Senate, such equestrian governors owed their careers completely to Rome’s ruler. Nevertheless, like all Roman governors, the prefects of the small province of Judea had three main duties: maintaining the peace, defending the borders of the province, and collecting taxes. In addition, as Roman governors they had judicial authority in any case involving a Roman citizen or when a provincial subject threatened the integrity of the Roman Empire or the dignity of its emperor. Without legions posted in them, prefects of such small provinces had only small, regionally raised forces called auxiliaries at their disposal; in the case of Judea, these auxiliary forces constituted a surprisingly small force of twenty-five hundred to three thousand foot soldiers and a single detachment of five hundred cavalry. Most of these forces were permanently stationed at the provincial capital of Caesarea on the coast with only a single cohort of five hundred men posted in Jerusalem in the Antonian fortress next to the temple to keep the peace, which sometimes meant violent suppression of demonstrations or riots.[8] As a result, the governors of Judea were heavily reliant upon the priestly aristocracy, the Sanhedrin, temple guards, and local police to maintain order. Otherwise, the Jews and other inhabitants of the province had considerable autonomy with the right to practice their religion and govern themselves according to their own laws.[9]

Pontius Pilate, the governor before whom Jesus was tried, was prefect of Roman Judea from AD 26–36. From the wealthy but non-senatorial equestrian class, officials like Pilate generally first had careers as military officers and needed influential patrons to receive imperial appointments. Pilate may have owed his own appointment to Sejanus, the powerful and dangerous minister of the emperor Tiberius. Because Sejanus was violently purged from government in AD 31, according to some chronologies of Jesus’s crucifixion, Pilate might have been in a particularly precarious political position due to his patron’s recent fall.[10] In addition, his earlier tenure as governor had been marked by some missteps, at least according to two Jewish sources, the philosopher Philo and the historian Josephus. These incidents included bringing a detachment of auxiliary troops into Jerusalem with iconic representations on them that offended Jewish sensibilities about idolatry, appropriating temple funds to build an aqueduct to improve the city’s water supply, slaughtering a group of Galilean pilgrims who had come to worship at the temple, dedicating some golden shields to the emperor Tiberius in the former palace of Herod, and violently suppressing a group of Samaritans at their holy site on Mount Gerizim.[11] While these Jewish sources portray Pilate quite negatively, as we shall see, the New Testament Gospels depict him somewhat equivocally, perhaps wanting to release Jesus but feeling pressured by the Jewish leadership.

Pilate’s encounter with Jesus took place at the governor’s official residence in Jerusalem, for which the Gospels use a Greek term borrowed from the Latin praetorium (rendered in the KJV as “judgment hall”). A Roman praetorium could be anything from the tent of a Roman general in the field to the palatial residence of a governor in a province or that of the emperor himself in Rome.[12] The governor’s residence that was the scene of the Roman trial of Jesus has traditionally been assumed to have been in the Antonia Fortress on the northwest corner of the Temple Mount, where all or part of the Roman cohort permanently assigned to Jerusalem was stationed. Accordingly, the current Via Dolorosa, or “Way of Sorrows” tracing Jesus’s final walk to the cross but whose route was not settled until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, begins near the site of the Fortress Antonia and includes twentieth-century chapels built on the sites of medieval churches recalling the Condemnation and the Flagellation of Christ.[13] However, the usual Roman practice when a client kingdom became a formal province was for the governor to take over the previous king’s palace. Accordingly, most scholars argue that when Pilate or other governors were resident in Jerusalem, they would have occupied Herod’s elaborate palace on the Western Hill of the city, just south of the current Jaffa Gate. While Pilate had his usual headquarters in Caesarea, he would have made a regular judicial circuit of the province to hear cases in the province’s major cities.[14] In the case of Jerusalem, this would usually have been done shortly before the major pilgrimage festivals, when Josephus and Philo tell us he would come with an additional cohort to reinforce the Roman military presence.[15]

Delivered to Pilate

Interpretation and Application

While the proceedings before the Jewish authorities the night before appear to have been more of a preliminary hearing than an actual trial, when the Jerusalem leadership handed Jesus over to Pilate the next morning, this began more official Roman legal proceedings. Still, the Gospel passion narratives do not provide the kind of details that would allow us to confidently reconstruct what is usually referred to as “the Roman trial of Jesus.” This has led John Welch, professor emeritus of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, to observe, “Too little is known today about the laws and legal procedures that would have been followed in Jerusalem during the second quarter of the first century AD, and too little is known about all that was done so long ago for any modern person to speak with any degree of certainty about the legal technicalities of this case.”[16] Because Jesus was an imperial subject rather than a Roman citizen, Pilate probably exercised summary jurisdiction and was empowered to render a verdict without the usual procedures followed in a formal Roman court.[17] Even so, the Gospels are primarily about theology, not history, which led Raymond Brown to note that their trial narratives are “dramatically effective as a vehicle of proclaiming who Jesus is, not telling readers how [Pilate] got his information, why he phrased it as he did, or with what legal formalities he conducted the trial.”[18] Just as the Jewish accusation of blasphemy the previous night highlighted that Jesus actually was the Son of God, the charge that the Sanhedrin lodged with Pilate against Jesus, that he was the King of the Jews, focused on his identity as the Christ. Establishing this, and giving the impression that Jesus was being falsely judged and wrongly executed (see 1 Nephi 11:32‒33; 19:9), seems to be the major function of the brief accounts of the trial presented by the Gospels.

James Tissot, Jesus before Pilate, First Interview. Wikimedia Commons.

While harmonizing the four trial narratives is difficult, Mark, followed by Matthew, presents the basic order of events, though many details seem to be missing. After the Jerusalem authorities deliver Jesus to Pilate, the Roman governor immediately asks Jesus whether he is the King of the Jews, suggesting that the Jewish authorities had shifted their strategy from a religious charge to a political accusation that would more clearly fall within the governor’s competence. In response to Pilate’s question, Jesus simply acknowledges, “That is what you say” (Mark 15:2, authors’ translation; parallel Matt 27:11). After Jesus’s opponents accuse him of further, unspecified charges, Jesus responds with dignified silence (Mark 15:3‒5; parallel Matt 27:12‒14),[19] recalling the Suffering Servant prophesied by Isaiah, who “was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isa 53:7).[20] In Matthew’s version, Pilate’s interrogation of Jesus is interrupted by a digression recording Judas’s reaction (Matt 27:3‒10). Seeing Jesus actually brought to a Roman trial fills Judas with remorse, lending some credence to the suggestion that Judas had not intended to bring about Jesus’s condemnation but might instead have been trying to force Jesus’s hand, hoping that he would miraculously resist arrest and then bring about the revolution that Judas had hoped would liberate Israel.[21] Unable to live with himself when he realized that Jesus was allowing himself to be condemned, Judas hangs himself, an action reminiscent of the suicide of Ahithophel, the erstwhile advisor of David who had betrayed his king by siding with the rebellion of David’s son Absalom (2 Sam 17:23).[22]

In Luke’s account, representatives of the Jewish council directly accuse Jesus of misleading the nation, forbidding the payment of taxes, and, finally, of claiming to be “Christ, a king” (Luke 23:2). In this version, when Jesus says that it is as Pilate says, the governor surprisingly tells the chief priests and the gathered crowd that he found no grounds for legal action against him, leading the priests to insist, “He has been inciting the people with his teaching throughout all Judea, beginning in Galilee even to right here” (Luke 23:5, authors’ translation).[23] According to Luke, hearing that Jesus was from Galilee leads Pilate to send Jesus to Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee who was in Jerusalem for Passover, presumably for a legal recommendation, given that the Herodians regularly served as advisors to the Romans on Jewish law and practice.[24] Eager to see a miracle performed by Jesus, Antipas questions him at length, but Jesus refuses to answer him, providing for Luke another fulfillment of Isaiah 53:7. After allowing his guards to ridicule Jesus, Antipas sends him back to Pilate dressed in “brightly shining clothing” (Greek, esthēta lampran; KJV, “a gorgeous robe”), perhaps replacing his earlier tattered apparel with clean clothing as an indication that Antipas has found him innocent of any of the charges.[25]

Mihály Munkácsy, Christ in Front of Pilate. Wikimedia Commons.

John’s account of Pilate’s interaction with Jesus is considerably expanded and frequently quite different from the versions presented by the Synoptics. When the Jewish leaders bring Jesus to Pilate, they refuse to enter the governor’s residence because, according to John’s chronology, Passover would begin at sunset that day, and they did not want to ritually defile themselves by entering a Gentile dwelling where a number of different impurities might prevent them from eating the Passover meal that evening (John 18:28‒29).[26] Instead, Pilate goes outside to meet them, asking them what charge they are lodging against Jesus. Rather than directly articulate the accusation that Jesus had tried to make himself a king, John has them simply call Jesus “someone who had done something wrong” (Greek, kakon poiōn; literally, “an evildoer,” or KJV, “malefactor”), which might have been this Gospel’s way of showing that Jesus was fulfilling Isaiah 53:9, which portrayed the Suffering Servant as being numbered among the wicked (Hebrew, ��əšʿ��î��; LXX Greek ��Dz�ŧ���dzܲ�).[27] Pilate curtly tells them that in that case, they should judge him according to Jewish law, leading the Jerusalem leadership to claim, “Putting someone to death is not lawful for us” (John 18:31, authors’ translation). While there were instances when Rome curtailed the ability of local authorities to execute convicted criminals, usually giving the governor the power to review capital cases to avoid instances of judicial murder aimed at political opponents, it is just as likely that the Sanhedrin could not execute anyone according to Jewish law because of the nearness of Passover.[28] Whereas Jewish capital punishment consisted of stoning (which was the penalty for blasphemy), burning, beheading, or even strangling,[29] the Roman penalty for treason or rebellion by subjects of the empire was crucifixion, which, we shall see, fulfilled Jesus’s repeated prophecy that he would be “lifted up” (see John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32).

In John’s trial narrative, the scene next shifts as Pilate reenters the governor’s residence, where he conducts an interview with Jesus (John 18:33‒38).[30] When Pilate asks whether Jesus is in fact the King of the Jews, a claim that could be seen as treasonous to Roman rule, Jesus counters that his kingdom is not of this world, explaining, “You are saying that I am a king. I was born for this, and for this I came into the world: to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37, authors’ translation). The shift of the discussion from kingship to truth accomplishes two things. First, Jesus’s bearing witness of the truth is, in effect, a witness of himself inasmuch as he had taught his disciples in the Farewell Discourses, “I Am the Way / and the Truth / and the Life” (John 14:6), which in our semi-poetic rendering in chapter 6 identifies him first of all as YHWH, or Jehovah, of the Old Testament (rendered in Greek, egō eimi or “I Am”) and also with three overarching, cosmic concepts, which we have capitalized for emphasis: he is the one and only Way to God, he is the source and embodiment of Truth, and he is the ultimate source of Life, both earthly and eternal. Second, when he continues by saying, “Every person who is on the side of truth hears my voice,” Jesus, himself on trial, instead puts Pilate, and all of us, on trial, calling upon us to take his side. While Pilate fails to accept Jesus as the Truth he actually is, Pilate nonetheless returns to “the Jews” waiting outside and announces that he has found no grounds for legal complaint against him.[31]

The Release of Barabbas

Interpretation and Application

Despite the variations between the accounts, all four Gospels agree that Pilate presented Jesus to a gathered crowd and gave them a choice as to whether he should release Jesus or another prisoner named Barabbas (Mark 15:6–15; parallels Matt 27:15–26; Luke 23:17–25; also John 18:38b‒40). Whether this was Pilate’s own practice (Mark 15:6), possibly that of all Roman governors (Matt 27:15; Luke 23:17), or a Jewish custom that Pilate had adopted is unclear; nevertheless, freeing a prisoner certainly accorded with an important theme of Passover, which was the deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage.[32] While the KJV of John 18:40 describes Barabbas as “a robber” (the Greek term it translates [��ŧ������ŧ��] can mean a “bandit” or “brigand”), references in the Synoptic accounts to revolutionaries (Greek, stasiastai) and an uprising (Greek, stasis) make it clear that Barabbas was an insurgent of some kind.[33] In other words, he was guilty of actual insurrection against Rome, the very thing that the Jewish leadership implied Jesus was fomenting by claiming that he was the Messiah. The use of the term “the crowd” (Greek, ho ochlos; KJV, “multitude”) suggests that many more than the chief priests and other representatives of the Sanhedrin were involved in making the choice between Jesus and Barabbas, but it does not make clear who exactly made up this crowd. If it consisted of a growing gathering of people from the city who had heard that Jesus had been arrested, we immediately wonder how their feelings towards Jesus had changed so markedly given the rapturous welcome they had given Jesus at his triumphal entry. On the other hand, the crowd might have consisted primarily of a large group of retainers and other supporters of the chief priests—what is called a claque—who could be expected to express themselves in accordance with the preference of their leaders (for this, see Mark 15:11; parallel Matt 27:20).[34]

William Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat. Wikimedia Commons.

The name of Barabbas itself raises several interesting and important issues.[35] While the Gospels’ authors explain that the prisoner in the story is named “Barabbas,” some early manuscripts of Matthew claim that his first name was actually “Jesus”[36]: “At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. So after they had gathered, Pilate said to them, ‘Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?’” (Matt 27:16–17 NRSV; emphasis added).[37] The name Barabbas could be Aramaic for, among other possibilities, “son of the father” (bar ʾabbāʾ) and “son of a teacher” (bar Rabba[n]).[38] In this episode, bar could refer to a literal “son,” or it could be used as a generic term, a synecdoche, for “one who is.” Thus, Barabbas’s name was likely “Jesus, son of the father,” or “Jesus, who is a teacher.” As a result, “Barabbas” was not a proper name but a title or nickname,[39] nicknames being common in Second Temple Judaism.[40] Matthew attests that both Jesuses had nicknames or titles: “They had a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. . . . ‘Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?’” (Matt 27:16–17; emphasis added). This nickname of Jesus Barabbas sets the prisoner up in great irony against Jesus of Nazareth who also had other informal titles, some of them being “teacher” and a “son of the Father” (as he referred to God as his Abba, or Father). The fact that these two prisoners had the same personal name and similar nicknames suggests either an embellishment to the original story to create dramatic irony, an actual historical conspiracy on the part of Pilate, the chief priests, or both.

One argument is that the chief priests engineered the pardon by handpicking Jesus Barabbas to stand beside Jesus; therefore, if the crowd yelled, “We want Jesus” or “Release our teacher Jesus,” the priests could say, “Pilate, they want you to release Jesus Barabbas” even if the crowd had wanted Jesus of Nazareth to be released.[41] They probably expected the crowd would call for Jesus’s release because just a few days prior when they had sought to arrest Jesus in the temple courts, they could not because of the pro-Jesus crowd (Mark 12:12; parallels Matt 21:46; Luke 20:19). Thus, the chief priests would have had to be clever in their manipulation of the process to prevent Jesus’s release.[42]

Another theory is that Pilate was not the puppet in this story as the Gospels portray him to be—releasing whomever the Jewish council demanded.[43] Pilate himself may have decided to set Barabbas up against Jesus. He may have wanted to agitate and embarrass Jesus’s followers who, earlier in the week, had held a provocative parade for their messiah and shouted out his messianic identity while he rode on a donkey. On this occasion, however, it was Pilate who acted as provocateur by creating space for Jesus’s followers to again shout out on his behalf. Pilate could then humiliate Jesus and his followers by releasing “Jesus Barabbas” regardless of which “Jesus” the crowd wanted to be released. Although somewhat speculative on the part of scholars, this interpretation of Pilate harassing Jews and humiliating messianic candidates is congruous with what we know about Pilate from Josephus, who portrayed the governor as ruthless and without patience for messianic agitation.[44] According to Philo, Pilate had a reputation as “a man of very inflexible disposition” and being “very merciless”; further, he was described as “a man of most ferocious passions” responsible for “continual murders of people untried and uncondemned.”[45] However, if Pilate had not purposefully planned for the crowd to pick Barabbas over Jesus, by pairing Jesus with a known murderer, Pilate might have been contrasting the two and emphasizing Jesus’s innocence.[46]

In addition to these historical possibilities, the release of Barabbas serves a particular symbolic role, particularly in the Gospel of John. Because we understand that Jesus’s death was a central part of his atonement, we correctly see it as a sacrifice for sin. Nevertheless, both John’s chronology and its emphasis on Jesus’s being “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, authors’ translation) identify him as the ultimate paschal lamb. However, the Passover sacrifice was not a sin offering. Rather, the blood of the first paschal sacrifice caused death to “pass over” those who it covered (see Exod 12:6‒7, 13).[47] Additionally, the paschal sacrifice, at both the first and all subsequent Passovers, provided worshippers with a communal meal that celebrated their fellowship with God,[48] even as Jesus in his Bread of Life Discourse had emphasized that his “flesh” would be a source of eternal life (see John 6:51‒57). Most likely John’s Lamb of God is a composite symbol that represented the paschal lamb, the daily temple offering of a lamb each morning and night (Exod 29:39), Isaiah’s Suffering Servant who was “brought as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isa 53:7), and even the ram that took the place of Isaac.[49] In this setting, John’s reference to taking away the sin of the world also connects it to the two goats of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. One of them, the scapegoat, was released into the wilderness to symbolically carry away the sins of Israel (see Lev 16:8‒10), while the other was sacrificed and its blood used as an expiation upon the mercy seat within the Holy of Holies (Lev 16:15).[50] By this interpretation, Barabbas was released as the scapegoat, while Jesus was handed over to be crucified as the sacrificed goat.[51]

Jesus Condemned

Interpretation and Application

James Tissot, The Message of Pilate's Wife. Wikimedia Commons.

In Matthew’s account, the Barabbas episode is interrupted by a brief cameo featuring Pilate’s wife, who sends him a message relating a troubling dream she had had about Jesus and entreats her husband to not condemn him (Matt 27:19). Although she appears in only a single verse, this verse connects her with other characters in this Gospel and adds weight to her brief appearance. First, as the recipient of an inspired dream, Pilate’s wife, who in later tradition is named Claudia Procula or Procla, is in a similar category to Joseph the Carpenter and the Magi, or Wise Men, who likewise received revelatory dreams (see Matt 1:20; 2:12–13, 19, 22). Second, her positive response to Jesus has parallels not only with the Magi but also other Gentile characters, including the centurion whose faith led to his servant being healed (Matt 5:5–13), the Canaanite woman who begged Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter (Matt 15:21–28), and the centurion who later at the foot of the cross proclaims that Jesus “Truly was the Son of God” (Matt 27:54). Finally, she claims to have “suffered many things” (Greek polla gar epathon) due to her dream, echoing the very wording of the first passion prediction (see Matt 16:21) and thereby connecting her in a way with Jesus’s own sufferings.[52] In all this, she serves as a foil to both her husband, who reacts indecisively to Jesus, and the Jewish leaders, who actively seek his condemnation.[53]

Luke’s version adds that because Pilate thinks that Jesus is innocent, he offers to have him beaten (Greek, paideusas; KJV, “chastise”) as a lesser punishment so that he can then let Jesus go (Luke 23:22).[54] In the longer trial narrative of John, Pilate actually follows through and has Jesus whipped (Greek, �𳾲����پ���ō�����), which is a more severe form of flogging or beating threatened in Luke and one similar to the serious but not fatal Jewish punishment of “thirty-nine stripes” (see Deut 22:18; 25:2‒3; 2 Cor 11:24).[55] After Pilate allows his men to force a crown of thorns upon Jesus’s head, mock him by dressing him in a purple robe, and beat him, he then presents Jesus to the crowd, saying, “Look at the man!” (John 19:5; KJV, “Behold the man!” and traditionally rendered with the Latin Ecce homo!). While Pilate might have intended to sway the crowd with the sight of a tortured and bleeding Jesus,[56] the Lord’s marred appearance was, in fact, a fulfillment of the prophesied image of the Suffering Servant (Isa 52:14; 53:5, 10). Rather than taking pity on Jesus, the chief priests and their retainers begin to cry, “Crucify him, crucify him!” (John 19:6). Still determined to release Jesus, Pilate takes him back inside the governor’s residence to interview him again. When Jesus refuses to speak to him, Pilate tells Jesus he has power to either release or crucify him, leading Jesus to say, “You do not have any authority over me except what was given to you from above” (John 19:11, authors’ translation).

John’s account then portrays Pilate as endeavoring all the more to release Jesus, which leads “the Jews” to cry out, “If you release him, you are not a friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king acts in opposition to Caesar” (John 19:12, authors’ translation). Here, as is so often the case in this Gospel, we have put the translation of the Greek hoi Ioudaioi in quotations as a reminder that in John this expression usually refers to the Jewish leadership and not to all Jewish people. Indeed, shortly before this, right after the chief priests and their retainers began calling for Jesus to be crucified, they were likely “the Jews” who say to Pilate, “We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die because he pretended that to be the Son of God” (John 19:7, authors’ translation). Threatening to report Pilate to authorities in Rome if he releases Jesus would have made a powerful impression upon Pilate, given the flurry of treason trials in Rome over real and perceived conspiracies against the emperor Tiberius at that time.[57] In fact, because Pilate’s possible patron, Sejanus, had recently been purged for a plot against the emperor, Pilate may have felt in jeopardy himself, making him particularly susceptible to this kind of pressure.[58] What follows in John’s trial narrative is one of the clearest examples of actual Roman judicial procedure in the trial narratives (John 19:32): Pilate brings Jesus to a place called “Strewn Stones” (Greek, �����ٳ�Dz��ٰ�ō�ٴDz�; KJV, “the Pavement”) and takes his seat on a tribunal (Greek, epi tou bēmatos; KJV, “in the judgment seat”). Traditionally, part of this “pavement” was thought to be found in the flagstones outside of the current Chapel of the Condemnation, which Christian tradition incorrectly believed was part of original Fortress Antonia complex.[59] Instead, “Strewn Stones” most likely refers to the famous and expensive mosaic flooring of the courtyard of the former Palace of Herod the Great, which consisted of white cubes intermixed with colored stones.[60] The “tribunal” referred to both the platform on which the judge’s official seat was placed and the chair itself, which in the case of a Roman magistrate was the sella curulis, or chair of state.[61] Pilate’s setting up his tribunal here thus suggested both the official power of Rome and the power of the previous king, Herod, whom the Roman governors had replaced. Nevertheless, while John’s setting of Pilate sitting on the tribunal, a setting also shared by Matthew 27:19, suggests formal legal action, Luke alone preserves formal judicial language, recording that “Pilate gave sentence” (Luke 23:24, emphasis added; Greek, epikrinen).[62] Jesus’s condemnation, whether it results from a formal legal process or is the result of a governor’s arbitrary exercise of his authority, nonetheless represents part of a series of events that began in Gethsemane whereby Jesus descended below all things (Doctrine and Covenants 88:6; 122:8) and experienced the worst that humans can experience from each other—betrayal, abandonment, rejection, denial, abuse, and now false judgment.[63]

Antonio Ciseri, Ecce Homo. Wikimedia Commons.

Mark’s account places the trial “first thing in the morning” before Jesus was crucified at the third hour, or nine o’clock (see Mark 15:1, 25), which hardly provides enough time for all the procedures the trial narratives suggest. Instead, John’s account places Pilate’s formal sentencing of Jesus at the sixth hour, or noon.[64] Then, in response to renewed cries that Pilate crucify Jesus, he asks whether he should crucify their king, “but ‘the Jews’ shout, saying, ‘If you release him, you are not a friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king acts in opposition to Caesar’” (John 19:15, authors’ translation). Cowed by this threat, Pilate then hands Jesus over (Greek, �貹�����ō����; KJV, “delivered”) to be crucified. In Mark and Matthew, Pilate then has Jesus scourged (Greek, �������������ō������), a terrible and severe whipping preliminary to execution that could kill the condemned even before crucifixion (Mark 15:15; parallel Matt 27:26).[65] Luke avoids describing this horrible punishment or any of the subsequent mocking of Jesus, but all three Synoptics similarly have Pilate deliver Jesus to be crucified, each using the same form of the verb “hand over” (Greek, �貹�����ō����; Mark 15:15; parallels Matt 27:26; Luke 23:25), which puts Pilate in the chain of figures, divine and human, who hand Jesus over to be sacrificed.[66]

Matthew’s account has Pilate symbolically wash his hands,[67] illustrating his claim that he was innocent of Jesus’s death and shifting responsibility to the gathered crowd that has been calling for his crucifixion. This leads to a problematic passage in which those in the mob shout “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matt 27:24‒25). Whereas references to “the Jews” in John can often be explained as referring to the Jewish leadership, this presents what is sometimes called the anti-Semitic libel in Matthew,[68] which tragically allowed Christians from late antiquity to the mid-twentieth century to accuse Jews of being “Christ killers.”[69] Indeed, Raymond Brown has said, “No line in the passion narratives has done more to embitter Jewish and Christian relations than this.”[70] The challenge of interpreting this passage is that we lack the full context of the event. Who was in the crowd, and did they all really yell out in unison this exact phrase? It seems that if Jesus had been a largely unknown, insignificant figure, why would the hundreds of thousands of Jews who traveled to Jerusalem care to attend this event on the morning after Passover (following a late night with their families) to rally for a criminal whom they did not know? If Jesus had been a well-known and admired healer as the Gospels attest, then why would a large crowd of peasant Jews from the countryside gather and call for his crucifixion? Both scenarios make little sense. Identifying the nature and dynamics of the crowd is crucial for understanding this event and for avoiding an anti-Semitic interpretation.

James Tissot, Pilate Washes His Hands. Painters/Alamy stock photo.

First, it is unlikely that a very large crowd of commoners would have been present when Pilate presented Jesus and had those gathered select between him and Barabbas. Even if “the trial” took place, as tradition holds, at the Fortress Antonia, which could normally garrison no more than a single cohort of five hundred troops, there would not have been space for the crowd of thousands as popular perception usually imagines. Archaeologist Shimon Gibson suggests that Pilate presented Jesus to the crowd at the more likely site of Herod’s Palace at a gate that opened outside the city to the west.[71] While this location could have accommodated larger crowds, our interpretation of John 19:13 suggests that the final sentencing that subsequently took place occurred in the expensively paved inner court of the palace, where probably only the Jewish leaders and their immediate retinue would have been admitted. At either site, assuming that large crowds were present, why were the priests not intimidated by them like they were a few days prior in the temple complex? The author of Mark mentions that the chief priests “stirred up the crowds” (Mark 15:11), which might imply that they planted people in the crowd after instructing them to ask for Barabbas’s release. Manipulating the entire crowd would not have been difficult if Jesus’s disciples were not present, the reason for their absence being that the men at least had all deserted Jesus and fled about twelve hours before, when he was arrested at Gethsemane.

Second, even if we grant that a large Jewish crowd was present, it is unlikely that they would have yelled out in unison, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt 27:25). Such a detail may well have been an embellishment, written at a time when the Jewish Christians in the original audience of Matthew had been forced out of the synagogues and relations with traditional Jews were strained.[72] Pharisaic Jews and the later rabbis were ardent followers of the Mosaic Law—a law that rejects the precept of the sins of the parents falling to subsequent generations. For example, “Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death” (Deut 24:16), and “A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own” (Ezek 18:20).[73] Thus, it is highly unlikely that large numbers of Jewish pilgrims would yell, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Rather, it is likely the case that the crowd was composed of a small priestly group with very few Pharisee-following Jews in attendance.

Another problem with the “Crucify him!” episode is that Pilate is portrayed as indecisive and politically naive, unable to understand why the Jewish crowd wanted Jesus crucified. As we have noted, despite the more ambivalent portrait of Pilate that the Gospels present, Jewish sources such as Philo and Josephus depict him as a ruthless leader who threatened Jews on many occasions and punished other messianic candidates. Inasmuch as he needed to be ruthless to ensure peace in the rebellious Judean frontier of the Roman Empire, the historical Pilate would have been wary of releasing a popular figure during Passover who some thought should be their king. Also, because Jesus had entered the city in triumph and then rioted in the temple courtyards, some historians wonder whether Pilate really would have said, “I . . . have found no fault in this man” (Luke 23:14; John 18:38) or “What evil has he done?” (Matt 27:23; Mark 15:14). If Pilate failed to maintain order in his province, then the emperor would have punished him or removed him from power.

James Tissot, Annas and Caiaphas. Wikimedia Commons.

Failing to nuance or understand the context of potentially anti-Semitic passages such as this one poses another danger to Latter-day Saint readers, who might likewise misinterpret passages of Restoration scripture such as 2 Nephi 10:3–6, thereby inadvertently perpetuating anti-Jewish attitudes. Nevertheless, in his study of the portrayal of Jews and Israel in the Book of Mormon, Bradley Kramer, an independent Latter-day Saint scholar, suggests that Restoration scripture does much to counter the apparent anti-Semitism of problematic passages in the New Testament.[74] In regard to Jacob’s prophesy about the crucifixion of Jesus in 2 Nephi 10, Kramer proposes that after Jacob refers to Christ’s coming among “the Jews” (verse 3), he then narrows this group to those “at Jerusalem” (verse 5), which “shrinks the number of Jews connected to Jesus’s death geographically, place by place, from all Jews everywhere, to ‘those who are the more wicked part of the world,’ to just those Jews living in Jerusalem during the early first century.”[75] We agree and go further, arguing that when this passage foretells that Christ “should come forth among the Jews,” it is referring to a particular subset of the Jewish people—their leaders—as is the case for “the Jews” in John. These would be the “more wicked part” who had authority to crucify Christ, and during the time of Jesus, a group that consisted of the mainly Sadducean priestly establishment that collaborated with the Roman occupation. Given the reputation of this group in later Jewish sources,[76] its desire to maintain its wealth and power over the people accords with what Jacob meant when he explained that they killed Jesus “because of priestcrafts” (verse 5). This understanding appears to be echoed in the prediction of Caiaphas, who worried that if the Jerusalem council did nothing about Jesus, “the Romans shall come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48; emphasis added). By this interpretation, when Jacob speaks of a “nation” that would “crucify their God” (verse 3) and “because of their iniquities . . . be scattered among the nations” (verse 6), he was not referring to all Jewish people, over six million of whom were already spread throughout the Roman Empire. Instead, he might have had particularly in mind the leaders of the people in Jerusalem,[77] whose actions, together with the zealotry of particular political groups, led to the Jewish revolt of AD 66‒72, which resulted in the destruction of the temple and the death and enslavement of much of the population of Judea.

Indeed, the question of culpability for Jesus’s death is not a question of whether the Jewish leaders who delivered Jesus or the Romans who carried out his crucifixion are responsible for his death. First, theologically, Jesus needed to die to complete his atoning act of redemption and to put him in a position to overcome death through his resurrection. Ultimately, it was God the Father who “so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Second, from a literary perspective, the passion narratives signal parallel acts of abuse, cruelty, and judgment on the parts of the Jewish and Roman authorities.[78] Inasmuch that, broadly speaking, “the Jews” represent Israel and by extension the people of God, then the Romans represent Gentiles more generally—that is, those not in a covenant relationship with the Lord. All people, believers and non-believers alike, are fallen men and women subject to death, and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Thus, in a very real way we are all responsible for the circumstances of that terrible day.[79] As Ernst Bammel (1923–1996), professor emeritus of Jewish and Early Christian Studies, put it, “Everyone became guilty . . . so that everyone might have a share in the fruits of Christ’s death.”[80]

Texts: Mark 15:16–37; Luke 23:27‒46; John 19:17–37

Mark’s concise account of Jesus’s crucifixion serves as the foundation for the synoptic portrayal of the episode, yet while Matthew largely follows Mark’s prototype, Luke makes important additions. As always, the Johannine account stands apart, largely because of its high Christology and the symbolism that it marshals.

Mark

¹⁶And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Praetorium; and they call together the whole band. ¹⁷And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, ¹⁸And began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!” ¹⁹And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped him. ²⁰And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.

²¹And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. ²²And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, “The place of a skull.” ²³And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not. ²⁴And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.

²⁵And it was the third hour, and they crucified him. ²⁶And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁷And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. [²⁸And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, “And he was numbered with the transgressors.”] ²⁹And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, ³⁰Save thyself, and come down from the cross. ³¹Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, “He saved others; himself he cannot save. ³²Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” And they that were crucified with him reviled him.

³³And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. ³⁴And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” ³⁵And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, “Behold, he calleth Elias.” ³⁶And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, “Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down.” ³⁷And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.

³⁸And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. ³⁹And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” ⁴⁰There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome; ⁴¹(Who also, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered unto him;) and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem.

Luke

²⁷And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. ²⁸But Jesus turning unto them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. ²⁹For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.’ ³⁰Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us;’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ ³¹For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?”

³²And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. ³³And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. ³⁴Then said Jesus, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. ³⁵And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.” ³⁶And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar, ³⁷And saying, “If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.” ³⁸And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

³⁹And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, “If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.” ⁴⁰But the other answering rebuked him, saying, “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? ⁴¹And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.” ⁴²And he said unto Jesus, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.” ⁴³And Jesus said unto him, “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

⁴⁴And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. ⁴⁵And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. ⁴⁶And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:” and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

John

19 ¹⁷And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: ¹⁸Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. ¹⁹And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁰This title then read many of “the Jews”: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. ²¹Then said the chief priests of “the Jews” to Pilate, “Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

²³Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. ²⁴They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, “They parted my raiment among them / and for my vesture they did cast lots.” These things therefore the soldiers did.

²⁵Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, “Woman, behold thy son!” ²⁷Then saith he to the disciple, “Behold thy mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

²⁸After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, “I thirst.” ²⁹Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. ³⁰When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished”: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

³¹“The Jews” therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. ³²Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. ³³But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: ³⁴But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. ³⁵And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. ³⁶For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, “A bone of him shall not be broken.” ³⁷And again another scripture saith, “They shall look on him whom they pierced.”

The Crucifixion

Interpretation and Application

Caravaggio, The Crown of Thorns. Wikimedia Commons.

Mark and Matthew describe how Jesus, after he is scourged, is brought into the courtyard of the governor’s residence, where the soldiers mock his status as “king of the Jews” by dressing him in a purple cloak, crowning him with thorns, and pretending to salute him. They then strike him on the head, no doubt driving the thorns deeper into his scalp and forehead, spit on him, and offer him feigned obeisance (Mark 15:16‒20; parallel Matt 27:27‒31).[81] While these acts were meant to demean him, they also fulfilled prophecies in both Isaiah and the Book of Mormon (Isa 50:6; 53:3‒7; 1 Nephi 19:9; 2 Nephi 6:9; Mosiah 3:9).[82]

The soldiers who lead Jesus away to be crucified compel him, as was common for convicted criminals, to carry his cross to the place of execution—though contrary to popular depictions, Jesus probably only carried the crossbeam itself.[83] According to the Synoptic accounts, Jesus, apparently exhausted from the ordeals of the previous night and that morning, is unable to do this alone, so the soldiers press a man from the crowd, Simon from Cyrene, to help him carry it (Mark 15:21; parallels Matt 27:32; Luke 23:26). Mark adds the curious detail that Simon is the father of two specific men, Alexander and Rufus, leading some commentators to suggest that these were people familiar to Mark’s original audience in Rome.[84] While we have no indication that Simon himself had been a disciple of Jesus before this time, this detail suggests that the experience of being so close to Jesus at that critical time might have made a powerful impact on Simon, perhaps leading to his conversion and later to that of his sons.[85]

Luke alone adds the detail of Jesus encountering a group of lamenting women along the way, whom he enjoins to weep not for him but for themselves because of the tribulations and destructions that are coming to Jerusalem, echoing the prophecies in Hosea 10:8 (Luke 23:27‒32). In addition to drawing our attention back to the prophecies of the Olivet Discourse, this encounter reflects the interest of this Gospel in female characters even as it reminds us that despite the mob calling for Jesus’s crucifixion in front of Pilate, there were women who mourned what was happening to Jesus. John, on the other hand, portrays Jesus’s path to the cross very differently: Jesus proceeds to his death in noble silence, carrying his own cross the entire way (John 19:17). The symbolism here reflects the high Christology of John, where Jesus is a divine figure who needs no help and will choose to lay down his own life rather than have it taken from him.[86]

Above: Rock of Golgotha in the Holy Sepulchre. Eric D. Huntsman, used by permission. Below: Skull Hill at Garden Tomb. Eric D. Huntsman, used by permission.

Three Gospels record that the name of the place where Jesus was crucified was Golgotha (Aramaic, ��û������������ʾ, “skull” or “head”), but their differing syntax makes it unclear whether they meant that the spot was called “Skull” or “Place of the Skull” (see Mark 15:22; Matt 27:33; John 19:17).[87] Luke only uses the Greek term for skull, kranion, which the translators of the KJV rendered “Calvary,” from the Latin term with which they were familiar from the Vulgate. Commentators remain divided whether the name of the place referred to its appearance—meaning that it was a hill or rocky crag that looked like a skull—or to its function as a place of execution. Additionally, later Christians adopted a Jewish tradition that Adam was buried in the vicinity of the temple; by the Middle Ages, Adam’s tomb was believed to lie under the rock of Golgotha, making the bones of the first mortal the first that were touched by the redeeming blood of Christ as it streamed down his cross.[88] When Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, came to Jerusalem about AD 325 seeking the sites of pivotal moments in Jesus’s life, local Christians pointed out the site of a Roman temple to Venus, which Hadrian built there to appropriate the site that an early tradition associated with the death, the burial, and resurrection of Jesus. When Constantine had the temple dismantled to build the first Church of the Holy Sepulchre between AD 325‒35, a rocky outcropping that was uncovered was thought to be Golgotha.[89] Because the site had been outside the city walls in Jesus’s time and was also near an abandoned quarry that had been used for tombs, many archaeologists, as well as most historic Christian churches, accept this as near the likely site of the crucifixion, even if the “Rock of Calvary” enshrined in Constantine’s church and its successors is not the exact spot.[90] In 1883, however, Charles Gordon, a visiting British general, noticed a rock hill face north of the Damascus Gate of the later Turkish walls that looked much like a skull.[91] Because of its striking appearance, as well as due to general Protestant discomfort with the unfamiliar, very ritualized performances and ornamentation of the later Church of the Holy Sepulchre, “Gordon’s Calvary” next to the beautifully developed Garden Tomb complex has become the preferred site for some evangelical Christians as well as many Latter-day Saints (see the further discussion of the possible sites of the tomb in our discussion of the events of Saturday below).[92]

At Golgotha, the Gospel texts declare that Jesus was crucified between two other condemned prisoners (Mark 15:22‒28; parallels Matt 27:33‒38; Luke 23:33‒34, 38; John 19:17‒24), whom Mark and Matthew describe as “bandits” (Greek, ��ŧ�����ٲ���; KJV, “robbers”), which in this context might have meant rebels or insurrectionists like Barabbas. Although the verse, “And the scripture was fulfilled that read, ‘And he was counted among the criminals’” (Mark 15:28, authors’ translation) is missing in some of the early manuscripts, it reflects an understanding that Jesus’s execution between two condemned criminals fulfilled Isaiah 53:12b: “he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”[93] Indeed, Jesus might have been executed in the very place where Barabbas would have been crucified if he had not been chosen by the crowd for pardon. While Mark places the crucifixion at the third hour, or nine o’clock in the morning (Mark 15:25), John puts it at some point after the sixth hour, or noon, the time when this Gospel has Pilate pronounce Jesus’s sentence (John 19:14‒16). John’s timing not only allows more time for the morning’s events, it also accords with the higher Christology in that Gospel, which downplays any mortal weakness and has Jesus hang—and suffer—on the cross for less time. Most significantly, it supports John’s paschal chronology by having Jesus, the true Lamb of God, hang and then die on the cross during the very hours that the priests are performing the Passover sacrifices in the temple.[94]

Right before they crucify Jesus, his executioners offer him wine mixed with myrrh, which might have been intended to serve as some sort of narcotic to lessen the pain (see Prov 31:6). Jesus refuses it, perhaps because it was necessary for him to endure the full experience of crucifixion (Mark 15:23; parallel Matt 27:34).[95] Beyond this, the Gospels do not provide any of the graphic descriptions of the crucifixion that became common in later Christian art and literature, though other ancient sources[96] and modern discussion contribute to our understanding of the both the procedures and effects of this terrible form of capital punishment (see Appendix G: “The Crucifixion” by Gaye Strathearn). Only Luke, whose Gospel consistently presents a compassionate and merciful Jesus, records that he forgave the very men who were crucifying him (Luke 23:34). All four describe the official notice, or placard (Latin, titulus), that is attached to the cross, with John giving the full form of form of the charge written in three languages: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”[97]

William Brassey Hole, Jesus Being Crucified. Wikimedia Commons.

A common indignity imposed on victims of crucifixion was the shame of being exposed naked publicly. Because soldiers had a right to the property of those whom they executed, all four Gospels recount their casting lots to divide various items of Jesus’s clothing, Matthew and John seeing this as an explicit fulfillment of Psalm 22:18: “They parted my garments among them / and upon my vesture did they cast lots” (emphasis added). John takes the symbolism one step further, separating the two parallel lines from the psalm to see Jesus’s outer garments (Greek, ta himatia; KJV, “raiment”) as the items described in the first line and his inner tunic (ton chitōna; KJV, “coat”) as the vesture from the second. He then adds an additional level of symbolism, noting that the inner tunic “was seamless, woven from the top all the way through” (John 19:23, authors’ translation). If the implication was that this seamless inner tunic represented the specially woven inner garment of the high priest (see Exod 39:22‒26), then this Gospel presents Jesus as a priestly messiah, about to offer himself as a sacrifice for us (see Heb 9:11‒14. 23‒28).[98]

Although the Synoptics disagree on some details, they recount that while Jesus is on the cross, he is mocked three times.[99] The first time, those passing by call upon Jesus to save himself, though Luke puts this sneer in the mouths of the rulers rather than the common people (Mark 15:30; parallels Matt 27:39‒40; Luke 23:35). While context has led us to translate the verb describing their action as “they demeaned him” (Greek, �𳾲����������ŧ���dzܲ�; KJV, “railed”), the word literally means “they blasphemed,” perhaps suggesting that they were actually speaking ill of deity. The second time, in Mark and Matthew the religious leaders and in Luke soldiers mock Jesus, telling him that if he is actually the King of Israel, he should come down from the cross (Mark 15:31‒32; parallels Matt 27:41‒43; Luke 23:36‒37). Finally, one or both of those crucified with Jesus insult him (Mark 15:32, Greek ō�Ա𾱻徱���Dz�, KJV, “revile”; parallels Matt 27:44; Luke 23:39). In Luke’s account, only one of those crucified with Jesus reviles him, leading the other to rebuke him, attesting Jesus’s innocence and asking Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. This leads Jesus to tell him that today the man will be with him in Paradise (Luke 23:39‒43), which Joseph Smith taught meant that the man would soon be in the spirit world, where he could learn the fullness of the gospel and repent (see 2 Nephi 9:13, Alma 40:12, Moroni 10:34).[100]

Last Hours and Death

Interpretation and Application

J. Kirk Richards, Grey Day in Golgotha. Used by permission.

While the Synoptic Gospels portray Jesus as being largely alone at the cross, with only a handful of his female followers from Galilee watching from a distance (Mark 15:40‒41; parallels Matt 27:55‒56; Luke 23:49), John describes several women who were close to Jesus standing at the foot of the cross (John 19:25‒26). The unusual syntax makes punctuating the list difficult, with some commentators seeing three and others four women standing together.[101] Assuming the latter, the women were Jesus’s mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas (KJV, “Cleophas”), and Mary of Magdala, all of whom were either family or otherwise close to Jesus.[102] With them also was the disciple whom Jesus loved, traditionally associated with the apostle John. While Jesus’s entrusting of the care of his mother to this disciple is usually seen as a concern for her well-being after his death and later resurrection and ascension, perhaps more important is the possible symbolism in the scene. Neither the mother of Jesus nor the Beloved Disciple is named in the Gospel of John, supporting the suggestion that they were intended as types representing disciples more generally. In this case, the significance of seeming adoption of the Beloved Disciple to the mother of Jesus is more in the new family relationship that it created between the disciple and Jesus himself. Whereas previously he had been a follower and student of the Master, through what is occurring on the cross, the disciple—and by extent all of us as believers—are brought into a deeper relationship with the Savior.[103]

According to the Synoptics, at noon, or “the sixth hour,” darkness fell upon the land (Mark 15:33; parallels Matt 27:45; Luke 22:44‒45). Old Testament precedents for this darkness include the first plague on Egypt (Exod 10:23‒23), which also was connected with the Passover, and the gloom and darkness prophesied the wrath and judgment that would accompany “the day of the Lord” (see Zeph 1:15; Joel 2:2; 3:4; Amos 8:9‒10).[104] Perhaps even more striking are suggestions in the Book of Mormon (Helaman 14:20; 3 Nephi 8:1‒10:10) and by Latter-day authorities that this darkness represented that the life of Jesus, the Light of the World, was ebbing out.[105] For instance, Elder McConkie testified, “Then the heavens grew black. Darkness covered the land for the space of three hours, as it did among the Nephites. There was a mighty storm, as though the very God of Nature was in agony. And truly he was, for while he was hanging on the cross for another three hours, from noon to 3 p.m., all the infinite agonies and merciless pains of Gethsemane recurred.”[106] This was the main reason, according to Elder McConkie, why Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15:34, authors’ translation; parallel Matt 27:46). While bystanders incorrectly heard Jesus’s cry in Aramaic of Eloi, Eloi to have been a call to Elijah rather than God, Jesus was, in fact, quoting from Psalm 22:1. Shon Hopkin, associate professor and chair of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, notes that this cry calls to mind the entire Psalm, which can be seen to prophetically refer to everything beginning with the suffering in Gethsemane, include the abuse he suffered at the hands of Jewish and Roman authorities and the mocking just experienced on the cross, and culminate with the devastating sense of abandonment symbolized by the darkness that had fallen upon and around him.[107]

While the darkness and abandonment seem to reflect the necessity of experiencing the withdrawal of the God’s spirit as a necessary part of Jesus’s atoning experience,[108] Elder Melvin J. Ballard (1873‒1939), a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from 1919 to 1939, also saw in it a poignantly powerful experience for the Father: “In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even he could not endure it any longer . . . so he bowed his head, and hid in some part of his universe, his great heart almost breaking for the love that he had for his Son.”[109] Neither Luke nor John includes this episode, which is unsurprising given that Luke’s compassionate theology would downplay any such abandonment and the fact that John’s Jesus was never truly separated from his Father (see John 8:29; 16:32; 17:21). A resolution of these Gospels with the testimonies of Mark, Matthew, Elder McConkie, and Elder Ballard might be found in the words of Elder Holland, who testified:

Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence . . . For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.[110]

James Tissot, "I Thirst": The Vinegar Given to Jesus. Artkoloro/Alamy stock photo.

The presentation of cheap, vinegary wine to Jesus was the final prophecy that Jesus fulfilled upon the cross: “They gave me also gall for my meat / and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Ps 69:1). Unlike the sweet wine (Greek, oinon) mingled with myrrh that Jesus had initially refused (Mark 15:23; parallel Matt 27:34), this was a much cheaper wine vinegar (Greek, oxous) with which a soldier filled a sponge that he raised to Jesus’s lips on a long reed (Mark 15:36; parallel Matt 27:48). In John, however, Jesus purposely asks for something to drink in order to fulfill scripture, and, interestingly, the soldier uses a hyssop branch to lift it to his mouth (John 19:28‒29). The flimsy stalk of the bushy hyssop, however, could not bear a sodden sponge. Because the hyssop had been used to paint the doorposts of the Israelites’ homes with the blood of the first Passover (Exod 12:22), John seems to be yet again emphasizing the paschal aspect of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.[111]

While Mark and Matthew simply have Jesus cry out before he draws his last breath (Greek, exepneusen; literally “let go his last breath,” KJV, “gave up the ghost”); Luke preserves a tender, intimate interchange with God, having him say, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit” (Luke 23:46, authors’ translation; see Ps 31:5). In John, Jesus declares, “It is completed!” (Greek, tetelestai; KJV, “It is finished”), bows his head, and “handed over his spirit” (Greek, �貹�����ō����; KJV, again, “gave up the ghost”). The implication of the verb translated “it is completed” is that Jesus had not just finished his mission, but he had brought it to its intended purpose or intended end.[112] “Handing over” his spirit not only continues the chain of handing Jesus over to his destined death, but it also is in harmony with the Christology of John: because he had life in himself, no one could take his life, but rather he lay it down on his own accord (see John 1:4; 5:26; 10:17‒18).[113]

At Jesus’s death, the veil of the temple was ripped from top to bottom, indicating that God tore it from above rather than it being destroyed by any human agency (Mark 15:38; Matt 27:51; Luke 23:45). This veil separated the Holy of Holies, representing the presence of God, from any mortal except for the high priest, who could pass through it only once a year on the Day of Atonement to stand and minister before the Ark of the Covenant. Now Christ, our Great High Priest, had entered once and for all by virtue of his own blood, sitting down on the throne of God and opening the way for all who accept him to enter also (see Heb 9:11‒12, 24‒26). The Roman centurion, or commander, who was present then exclaims either “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39; Matt 27:54) or “Certainly this was a righteous man” (Luke 23:47), his reaction explained by Matthew’s addition that at Jesus’s death a sudden earthquake struck. When the people who had gathered realized what had happened, they mourned while they returned to the city (Luke 23:48), while the women who had followed Jesus from Galilee watched from a distance, witnessing how their Lord had died (Mark 15:40‒41; parallels Matt 27:55‒56; Luke 23:49).

Liz Lemon Swindle, It Is Finished. ldsart.com

John concludes his account of Jesus’s death by noting signs confirming Jesus’s identity and salvific work (John 19:31‒37). Because both Passover and probably the weekly Sabbath will begin at the setting of the sun according to this Gospel’s chronology, the Jewish leaders ask that the legs of the condemned be broken to hasten their deaths. When the soldiers come to Jesus and find him already dead, they do not break his legs, thus fulfilling both the prophecy of Psalm 34:20 and the requirement that the paschal lamb’s legs not be broken (see Exod 12:46; Num 9:12). Instead, to confirm that Jesus is actually dead, they pierce his side with a spear, causing blood and water to pour out of the wound. The flowing blood and water present several possible symbolic meanings. First, as the blood of the first Passover was spread on the wooden doorframes of each Israelite home to ward off the angel of death (see Exod 12:23), even now the blood of Jesus stains the wood of the cross, symbolizing that through him death will pass us over. Additionally, the flowing water represents the everlasting life that comes from Jesus (see John 4:13‒14; 7:37‒38). Finally, because blood and water in John represent mortality and divinity, respectively, their appearance here could suggest that as the mortal son of Mary, Jesus had died for our sins; as the divine Son of God, his sacrifice was both infinite and eternal (see Mosiah 15:1‒5; Alma 34:10‒12). As the source of life, he was able to rise again and share immortality and eternal life with us.[114] Further, with blood and water being elements present in the birth process, Jesus’s death is thus tied paradoxically to birth imagery, helping explain how his atoning death enables him to become a new parent to those who accept him.[115] Thus, to the source or author of the Gospel attributed to John, the flowing blood and water constituted a sign, which would bring people to believe in Jesus’s atoning sacrifice or strengthen the belief that they already had.[116]

The Symbolism of the Cross

Reflection

While the cross has become the paramount symbol of the saving work of Jesus Christ for most traditional Christians, as an image it is less familiar, and probably less comfortable, for Latter-day Saints.[117] While we commonly explain the lack of cross iconography in the Church by our emphasis on the living Risen Lord, some of its absence may also be due to historical and cultural factors. First, many of the first Latter-day Saints came from New England, with a mostly Puritan background that was largely aniconic, meaning that they eschewed the use of almost all images. As a result, we do not have the tradition of using cross imagery in our church buildings, and it appears relatively rarely in our religious art. Additionally, two other factors have combined and resulted in a tendency to actually avoid it. On the one hand, as Millet describes it, we have a propensity to “teach to our distinctives,” sometimes leading us to emphasize Jesus’s suffering in Gethsemane rather than at Golgotha. On the other, sometimes we may react against what we see as the overemphasis of some of our other Christian friends to focus on Jesus’s suffering and death.[118]

Carl Heinrich Bloch, The Burial of Christ. Artepics/Alamy stock photo.

One of the reasons that the Jewish leaders may have wanted the Romans to execute Jesus, in addition to shifting the blame from themselves to the occupying power, was because death by Roman crucifixion would demonstrate that Jesus had been rejected by God more clearly than the Jewish penalty of stoning would have. The Mosaic law had taught “cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree” (Deut 21:23), thereby demonstrating that Jesus could not have been “the Christ, the son of the Blessed” (Mark 14:61). Because he understood that Christ had actually become a curse for us by dying on the cross (Gal 3:13), Paul more than any other New Testament author embraced the image of the cross (1 Cor 1:18, 22‒24; 2 Cor 13:4; Gal 5:11; 6:14; Phil 2:8; see also Col 1:20; 2:14; Eph 2:16). Yet it is not the image of the cross itself that is significant, though we should respect its importance to other Christians. Historically, in fact, there were many different shapes and forms of the cross—in addition to the traditional Greek and Latin crosses of Christian art, it could be T-shaped or consist of an upright pole or scaffolding to which criminals were nailed.[119]

What is significant is what Jesus did on the cross, as he not only suffered but, most of all, died to discharge the burden that he had carried there from Gethsemane, bringing an end to our sins, infirmities, pains, and sorrows. Further, three times Jesus had testified that he “must be lifted up” (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32), an image that he repeated and expanded in the Book of Mormon when he testified, “My Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross, . . . and for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore, according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works” (3 Nephi 27:14–15). Like the brazen serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness, Jesus’s atonement is raised high for all to see, and all who will look will live (see Num 21:9; 2 Nephi 25:20; Alma 33:19; Helaman 8:14‒15). In the very address in which he suggested that the real symbol of our faith is the reality of Christ in our lives, President Hinckley testified, “No member of this Church must ever forget the terrible price paid by our Redeemer, who gave His life that all men might live. . . . This was the cross on which He hung and died on Golgotha’s lonely summit. We cannot forget that. We must never forget it, for here our Savior, our Redeemer, the Son of God, gave Himself, a vicarious sacrifice for each of us.”[120]

Texts: Mark 15:42‒47; John 19:38‒42

Mark

⁴²And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, ⁴³Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus. ⁴⁴And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead. ⁴⁵And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.

⁴⁶And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre. ⁴⁷And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.

John

³⁸And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of “the Jews”, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. ³⁹And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. ⁴⁰Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. ⁴¹Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. ⁴²There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

The Burial

Interpretation and Application

.

Top: Michelangelo, �ʾ����à. Middle: Hugo van der Goes, Dolenti che compiangono Cristo (The Mourning of Christ). Wikimedia Commons. Below: Dutch Master around 1525, Deposition of Christ. Wikimedia Commons.

Soon after Jesus’s death, a respected, wealthy member of the Sanhedrin named Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for permission to bury him. Described as one who “waited for the kingdom of God” in Luke, the other Gospels identify him as one of Jesus’s disciples, though John says he kept his discipleship secret because of his fear of his fellow Jewish leaders (Mark 15:42‒45; parallels Matt 27:57‒58; Luke 23:50‒52; John 19:38). The Gospels do not provide any further details about the scene at the cross as Joseph took down the body of Jesus, though Christian tradition and art have filled in the details, concentrating particularly on the grief felt by his mother as she mourned over her son’s corpse. For instance, the Deposition and Lamentation of Christ are two common themes in Christian art from the Medieval through Baroque periods, and Michelangelo’s famous statue �ʾ����à has moved countless viewers since he carved it in 1498‒99. These artistic depictions capture the pain that the prophet Simeon had predicted when he addressed Mary at the presentation of the Baby Jesus, saying, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also” (Luke 2:35).

In John’s account, Joseph was joined by Nicodemus, a Pharisee and another member of the Sanhedrin, who brought a kingly amount of spices, about seventy-five pounds in modern measurements, to use in burying Jesus (John 19:39‒40).[121] Nicodemus had been introduced earlier in the Gospel when he came by night to visit with Jesus, whom he recognized as a teacher sent by God. Unable to understand all that Jesus taught him in that instance, Jesus prophesied that just as Moses had raised the brazen serpent up in the wilderness, “even so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14). Nicodemus was so favorably impressed by Jesus that he hesitantly spoke up on his behalf when the Sanhedrin determined to arrest Jesus, but he apparently pressed no further when his intercession was met with derision (John 7:50‒53). Now, having seen Jesus lifted up upon the cross, he may have realized that he had witnessed the fulfilment of Jesus’s earlier prophecy, which gave him the courage to come out publicly as a friend and possibly a disciple of Jesus. Like many characters in the Gospel of John, Nicodemus can serve as a type of believers today, in this case perhaps of one who is more intellectually or philosophically inclined. Still, though his walk of faith was different than others, it ended up at the same place when he came to the Lord at the foot of the cross.[122]

Wrapping Jesus’s body in a linen cloth, Joseph and Nicodemus laid it in the tomb that had been intended as Joseph’s own. Dying with two condemned prisoners and being buried in the borrowed tomb of a rich friend was thus seen as fulfilling the prophecy that God’s Suffering Servant would make “his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death” (Isa 53:9). John describes the tomb as being in garden near the execution site and specifies that it was a new tomb that had not yet been used (John 19:40‒42).[123] Mary Magdalene and one or more of the women who had been following Jesus since Galilee watched the hasty burial as the Sabbath approached at sunset (Mark 15:47; parallels Matt 27:61; Luke 23:54‒56).[124] Having seen Jesus die on the cross and now witnessing where his body was laid, they could affirm that the tomb that they would find empty Easter morning was, in fact, the one that had held Jesus.[125]

Celebrating Good Friday in the Christian Tradition

As with other days of Holy Week, much of the observance of Good Friday emerged from liturgical changes—how the worship services and prayers have developed over time. Because Latter-day Saints’ worship and performance of ordinances outside of the temple is simple, the involved liturgical practices of many other Christians are largely foreign to many of us. Traditional observances discussed in previous chapters have provided a taste of such liturgical practices for Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and many “high church” Protestants; celebrating Good Friday has also been particularly rich in liturgy for Eastern Christians. While these practices are perhaps unfamiliar, they provide opportunities for deep contemplation and might provide fertile material for the development of personal and family traditions.

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, Christ with Joseph of Arimathea. Wikimedia Commons.

As with other days of Holy Week, the earliest recorded celebrations of Good Friday date to at least the fourth century. Egeria explained that a crowd of Christian worshippers kept a vigil, staying awake the entire night before Good Friday began. Before dawn, they moved from location to location around Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives retracing Jesus’s steps. In the early morning, a crowd would gather at Gethsemane to pray, read, and sing. As the sun arose from behind the Mount of Olives, the crowd followed the bishop of Jerusalem into the city to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They observed the day on which Jesus was scourged and placed on the cross by reading the accounts of Jesus before Pilate, after which the bishop encouraged worshippers to be cheerful and hopeful as they had labored all night in their devotion to Christ. Their hunger, fatigue, and crankiness from their fasts and all-night worship helped them relate to what Jesus experienced the night of his trial. After a short break in their homes, the crowd returned to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pass by the supposed true cross one by one. For the next three hours, worshippers remained in the church to read aloud the passages detailing the crucifixion and burial.[126]

Good Friday observances and other traditions developed throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. These included venerating the cross, partaking of the Eucharist from bread and wine consecrated in Maundy Thursday services the previous evening, and listening to the story of Christ’s passion read from one of the Gospels. Jesus’s suffering was also dramatized in passion plays, folk dramas that acted out his final hours. An unfortunate outgrowth of such church readings, passion plays, and other customs was the blame they often cast upon Jews as being responsible for Jesus’s death.[127] Fortunately, the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church formally renounced such responsibility in 1965, declaring, “What happened in Christ’s passion cannot be blamed without distinction upon all Jews then living, nor upon the Jews today. . . . The Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if such views followed from the Holy Scriptures.”[128] Still, Raymond Brown, himself a Roman Catholic priest, argues there is yet a need for all leading Good Friday services “to preach forcefully that such hostility between Christian and Jew cannot be continued today and is against our fundamental understanding of Christianity.”[129]

Coptic priests and pilgrims pray, Good Friday, Holy Sepulchre Church. dreamstime.

Another popular tradition on Good Friday started in early Christian times, reached maturity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and has continued until today.[130] This was the retracing of Jesus’s steps from the place of Pilate’s judgment, assumed by that time to be near the Fortress Antonia, to the place of the crucifixion and burial in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, detailing every nuance of the narrative as they walked. Known as the Via Dolorosa, Latin for “Way of Sorrow,” this procession includes nine stations along the route with an additional five stations inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[131] These stations are marked with pictures or crosses, and as Christians walked, sometimes carrying a wooden cross, they would stop at each station to remember an event described in the Gospels or apocryphal tradition. For instance, one station commemorates how a legendary figure, Veronica, wiped Jesus’s face with her veil, and another remembers how Simon of Cyrene helped Jesus carry the cross (Mark 15:21). Today many churches have these fourteen stations of the cross marked in their own sanctuaries, allowing those who cannot make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to have a similar experience in their own places of worship, especially on Good Friday.[132]

Churches throughout much of the Christian world continue to hold services on Good Friday. As in the Middle Ages these frequently include scriptural readings, may involve receiving communion, and can feature beautiful and poignant musical settings of “The Last Words of Christ” or the Latin hymn Stabat Mater, which recounts Mary’s grief as she stood by the cross.[133] Many Christians also fast on Good Friday, seeking to share, as did the Jerusalem pilgrims in Egeria’s day, some of the suffering of Jesus, who cried from the cross, “I thirst.” In more recent centuries, many Christian congregations began holding the Three-Hours’ Service on Good Friday. This service originated in Lima, Peru, in the seventeenth century but has since become popular throughout the world, especially in America, including some Protestant churches. This service lasts for three hours, from noon to three, the hours Jesus spent on the cross according to the Gospel of John.[134] Good Friday is celebrated in various ways depending on the country or culture. In England, Christians bake hot cross buns. These pastries are marked with a cross and hung in the house for protection from evil. In Spain, Christians construct elaborate floats illustrating the scenes of Jesus’s trial and crucifixion, and they display them during a procession. In Mexico, Good Friday is a somber day. Churches are made dark by covering windows. Worshippers hold a funeral for Jesus—a proper funeral that he never received. Realistic effigies of the crucified Jesus are carried in a procession through the streets.[135]

Suggestions for Latter-day Saints

In some ways, Good Friday bears the same relationship to Easter Sunday as Christmas Eve does to Christmas Day—we cannot have one without the other. How we observe Good Friday does much to shape our experience with Easter, its solemnity and sadness setting in high relief the joy we feel as we celebrate the Resurrection. Much can be done to set the tone by the art that is displayed and the music that is played in our homes on this day. While Latter-day Saints do not normally employ many images of the suffering or crucifixion of Christ, this is a day when displaying art such as Caravaggio’s “The Crown of Thorns,” Antonio Ciseri’s “Ecce Homo,” any of the scenes powerfully depicted by Tissot, or renditions of the crucifixion such as those done by Carl Bloch, Harry Anderson, or J. Kirk Richards might be appropriate (see appendix H for a full list of other possibilities). Playing movements 39‒68 of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, all of his St. John Passion, Part 2 of Handel’s Messiah, or appropriate movements of Latter-day Saint composer Robert Cundick’s The Redeemer can bring a solemn and powerful spirit into the home. Families may want to begin the day by watching a video about the last day of Jesus’s life, his trial, and crucifixion, such as Lamb of God.

Harry Anderson, The Crucifixion. Courtesy of Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, President Nelson encouraged members to join in a worldwide fast for relief and healing. The day he chose that year happened to be Good Friday, leading us to join with other Christians across the earth in solemnly marking the anniversary of Jesus’s healing, redeeming sacrifice: “I invite all, including those not of our faith, to fast and pray on Good Friday, April 10, that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers protected, the economy strengthened, and life normalized. . . . Good Friday would be the perfect day to have our Heavenly Father and His Son hear us!”[136] With that in mind, some families may want to fast together each Good Friday, not only to importune the Lord for needed blessings but also to commemorate what Jesus suffered for us that day. Having a special meal as a family to break that fast, perhaps midafternoon at the time Jesus’s own hunger and thirst ended, might connect the experience more closely with the events of that day.

Regardless of whatever other traditions a family might establish, holding a family devotional where we can read the scriptural accounts of Jesus’s last day in mortality, discussing his trial, abuse, crucifixion, and death, and then testifying to each other that he died for us can deepen faith. Singing hymns such as “O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown” (Hymns, no. 197), “Upon the Cross of Calvary” (Hymns, no. 184), “Behold the Great Redeemer Die” (Hymns, no. 191), or “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” (Hymns, no. 194) can bring a powerful spirit to such a devotional.

Marking Good Friday

Taking time to mark Good Friday through prayer, reading scriptures, singing hymns, enjoying inspiring art and uplifting music, worshipping with our families, and reflecting privately can deepen our love for Jesus and strengthen our faith in his atonement. Just as there would be no Christmas without Easter, there would be no Easter without Good Friday. On this day what began in Gethsemane culminated with the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, setting the stage for his glorious resurrection. As President Howard W. Hunter (1907–1995), fourteenth president of the Church from 1994 to 1995, testified, “With the suffering of Gethsemane, the sacrifice of Calvary, and the resurrection from a garden tomb, Jesus fulfilled the ancient law and ushered in a new dispensation based on a higher, holier understanding of the law of sacrifice. No more would men be required to offer the firstborn lamb from their flock, because the Firstborn of God had come to offer himself as an ‘infinite and eternal sacrifice.’ This is the majesty of the Atonement and Resurrection, not just a passover from death, but a gift of eternal life by an infinite sacrifice.”[137] §

For Further Reading

Borg and Crossan. The Last Week, 137–64.

Brown. Death of the Messiah, 665–1313.

Hatch. A Stranger in Jerusalem, 185–201.

Hilton, John, III. Considering the Cross: How Calvary Connects Us with Christ. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021.

———. “Teaching the Scriptural Emphasis on the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.” Religious Educator 20, no. 3 (2019): 133–53.

Hilton, John, III, Emily K. Hyde, and McKenna Grace Trussel. “The Teachings of Church Leaders Regarding the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ: 1852–2018.” BYU Studies 59, no. 1 (2020): 49–90.

Holzapfel. A Lively Hope, 54‒74, 100‒111, 119‒25, 146‒56.

Huntsman. God So Loved the World, 49–70.

Huntsman, Eric D. “Before the Romans.” In Holzapfel and Wayment, From the Last Supper through the Resurrection, 269–317.

———. “The Lamb of God: Unique Aspects of the Passion Narrative in John.” In Behold the Lamb of God: The Fourth Annual BYU Religious Education Easter Conference, edited by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Frank F. Judd Jr., and Thomas A. Wayment, 49–70. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2008.

———. “Preaching Jesus, and Him Crucified.” In His Majesty and Mission, edited by Nicholas J. Frederick and Keith J. Wilson, 55–76. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017.

Jackson, Kent P. “The Crucifixion.” In Holzapfel and Wayment, From the Last Supper to the Resurrection, 318–37.

Millar, F. B. G. “Reflections on the Trials of Jesus.” In A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays on Jewish and Christian Literature and History, edited by P. R. Davies and R. T. White, 355–81. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990.

Peek, Cecilia M. “The Burial.” In Holzapfel and Wayment, From the Last Supper through the Resurrection, 338–77.

Pheysey, Dawn C. “Picturing the Crucifixion.” In Holzapfel, Judd, and Wayment, Behold the Lamb of God: An Easter Celebration, 155–64.

Smith. The Gospel according to Mark, 775–820.

Strathearn, Gaye. “The Crucifixion.” In The New Testament History, Culture, and Society: A Background to the Texts of the New Testament, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, 358–76. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019. Reproduced as appendix G.

Notes

[1] Huntsman, God So Loved the World, 71–72, and “Preaching Jesus, and Him Crucified,” 55–57.

[2] Marion D. Hanks, Official Report of the One Hundred Thirty-Ninth Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 4‒6, 1969): 25.

[3] Huntsman, “Preaching Jesus, and Him Crucified,” 69, 70–71, 75.

[4] 1 Macc 8:1‒31; 12:1‒4; 14:16‒19, 24; Josephus, Ant. 12.10.6 §414–419; 13.5.8, 7.3 §164‒65, 227 (Whiston, 415, 429, 434); Emil ������ü�����, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. and ed. Géza Vermes and Fergus Millar, 3 vols. (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1973), 1.171, 184, 194–95.

[5] Josephus, Ant. 14.3‒4 §34‒79 (Whiston 456‒60); War 1.7 §141‒58 (Whiston, 679‒80); ������ü�����, History of the Jewish People, 1.238–41; Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 75‒80, 95‒103.

[6] Josephus, Ant. 14.14.4‒5 §381‒89; 17.8.1‒3, 11.4 §188‒199 (Whiston, 483, 570‒71); War. 1.14.4 §282‒85, 1.33.8‒9 §665‒73, 2.6.3 §93‒100 (Whiston, 692, 726‒27, 734‒35); ������ü�����, History of the Jewish People, 1.281–86, 326–55; Richardson, Herod, 15‒25, 36‒38, 121‒62, 298‒300, 301‒13.

[7] Josephus, Ant. 17.13.2 §342‒44 (Whiston, 583‒84); 18.1.1 §1, 2.2 §29 (Whiston, 585, 588); War 2.7.3 §111, 2.8.1 §117 (Whiston, 735‒36); ������ü�����, History of the Jewish People, 1.356–57; Richardson, Herod, 300‒301.

[8] See, for instances, Josephus Ant. 20.6 §3; War 1.4 §3; 2.12 §1; and the discussion of Caldecott, Herod’s Temple, 261–64.

[9] For a more detailed discussion of Roman governance of Judea, the exact nature of the forces available to its governor, and the need for collaboration with local authorities, see Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 272–80. See also the earlier standard treatments of ������ü�����, History of the Jewish People, 1.357–81; E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, 2nd ed. (Boston: Brill, 1981; repr. 2001), 144–56.

[10] Harold W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 1978), 105‒111; Brown, Death of the Messiah, 693‒95, 843‒44.

[11] Philo, Embassys 38 §299‒305 (Yonge, 784‒85); Josephus, Ant..18.3.1‒2 §55‒62 (Whiston, 590); War 2.9.2‒4 §169‒77 (Whiston, 740‒41); ������ü�����, History of the Jewish People, 1.383‒87; Smallwood, Jews under Roman Rule, 160‒67; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 280‒83.

[12] John Brian Campbell, “praetorium,” Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., ed. Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1241.

[13] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 706‒7, 710; �ѳܰ�����-��※��DzԲԴǰ�, Holy Land, 34‒38. Jesus’s route in the Byzantine Period (fourth century), which we discuss below from the evidence from Egeria, was considerably different, and in the eighth century there were two competing routes even in the Latin tradition, one starting in the south at Mount Zion and the other north of the temple, perhaps in the vicinity of the Antonia. After interruptions during the Islamic Period, the Franciscans established a different walk in the fourteenth century, and the current walk was not settled until the eighteenth century, although the Antonia site itself was not added until the nineteenth.

[14] ������ü�����, History of the Jewish People, 1.361; Smallwood, Jews under Roman Rule, 74‒75, 146‒47; Brown, Death of the Messiah, 707‒9; �ѳܰ�����-��※��DzԲԴǰ�, Holy Land, 38; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 283‒85; Shimon Gibson, The Final Days of Jesus: The Archaeological Evidence (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 82, 90‒93.

[15] Philo, Embassy 38 §299 (Yonge, 784); Josephus, War 2.14.8 §301, 2.15.5 §328 (Whiston, 750, 752).

[16] John W. Welch, “Latter-day Saint Reflections on the Trial and Death of Jesus,” Clark Memorandum, Fall 2000, 4.

[17] These procedures included the governor’s power of coercitio, or the ability to enforce Roman law, followed by the consultation of his consilium, or panel of assistants and experts, before his rendering of a judgment. In the case of common crimes, especially in the case of non-citizens like Jesus, a governor such as Pilate could exercise summary jurisdiction and render a verdict extra ordinem, or outside the cumbersome judicial procedure of the regular courts. See Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 285‒96.

[18] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 725; emphasis added.

[19] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 732‒36, 1403.

[20] Sandra M. Schneiders, “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s) in the Fourth Gospel,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 73, no. 1 (2011): 17.

[21] Again, see Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1402‒3, who notes the original suggestion by W. A. Cox, “Judas Iscariot,” Interpreter 3 (1906‒7): 420‒21.

[22] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 643‒44, 1406‒7; Levine, Entering the Passion, 117‒18.

[23] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 736‒43.

[24] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 756, 761‒68, notes that while consulting Antipas shows historical verisimilitude, it also has interesting parallels with the trial of Paul before Festus, who consulted another Herodian, Agrippa II.

[25] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 768‒86; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 300‒303.

[26] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 744‒46. Roger T. Beckwith, Calendar and Chronology, Jewish and Christian: Biblical, Intertestamental and Patristic Studies, AGJU 33 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 295, on the other hand, argues that this verse refers not to eating the paschal lamb in the main Passover meal but to subsequent sacred meals, such as the peace offering, later in the week of Passover.

[27] Brown, Driver, Briggs, “ršʿa,” BDB, 957; Bauer, “ponēros,” BDAG, 851–52.

[28] Paul Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, 2nd ed., rev. T. A. Burkill and Geza Vermes (New York: de Gruyter, 1974), 110‒30; Brown, Death of the Messiah, 747‒49; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 288‒90, and God So Loved the World, 72‒73.

[29] Stoning, burning, and beheading were all forms of execution mandated by the law of Moses for certain crimes and were likely to have been the ones enforced by the Sanhedrin, which in the Second Temple period was under Sadducean control and would have kept strictly to the written law. Strangling was only attested in this period by Herod, though it appears that it might have been countenanced in the post-Temple legal commentaries as a way of enforcing the verdicts of religious courts at a time when the Romans had taken away their right to inflict capital punishment. See Winter, On the Trial of Jesus, 102‒9, and Chapman and Eckhard, Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus, 31‒82.

[30] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 711‒12, discussed possible ways that information regarding the trial, especially seemingly private interviews such as this, might have come to the evangelists. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, 633‒34, wondered whether believers might have arrived to witness the proceedings, at least the public parts of them. Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 297, considers the possibility that the Risen Lord himself would have reported details to his disciples after the resurrection.

[31] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 749‒53; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 297‒99, and God So Loved the World, 73‒74.

[32] Ernst Bammel, “The Trial before Pilate,” in Jesus and the Politics of His Day, ed. E. Bammel and C. F. D. Moule (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 428; Brown, Death of the Messiah, 793‒96, 814‒820; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 303‒5.

[33] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 796‒97.

[34] Bammel, “The Trial before Pilate,” 430‒31.

[35] A similar, longer version of this Barabbas section was published in Hatch, Stranger in Jerusalem, 194–97.

[36] Metzger, Textual Commentary, 56; Omanson, Textual Guide to the Greek New Testament, 49; Zeba A. Crook, Parallel Gospels: A Synopsis of Early Christian Writing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 283–85, footnote a.

[37] The reason why “Jesus” as Barabbas’s first name is not found in several modern English translations is because later Christians omitted “Jesus” in these verses to avoid having a criminal share a name with Jesus of Nazareth. Omanson, Textual Guide, 49, notes that Origen (a third-century theologian) opined that the early manuscripts were mistaken in identifying Barabbas’s first name as Jesus: “In the whole range of the scriptures we know that no one who is a sinner is called Jesus.” See also the discussion of Brown, Death of the Messiah, 797‒99.

[38] See Hyam Maccoby, “Jesus and Barabbas,” New Testament Studies 16 (1970): 55–60; Michael J. Wilkins, “Barabbas,” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols., ed. David N. Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1:607; Brown, Death of the Messiah, 799‒800.

[39] Stevan Davies, “Who Is Called Bar Abbas?,” New Testament Studies 27, no. 2 (1981): 260–62.

[40] The New Testament itself gives us Simon who is called Peter (John 1:42), John who is called “the Baptist” (Luke 7:20, 28, 33), James and John who are called “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17), Simon who is called “the Zealot” (Acts 1:13), and Joseph who is “called Barsabbas” (Acts 1:23).

[41] Hatch, Stranger in Jerusalem, 195–96.

[42] Adela Y. Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 720.

[43] Hatch, Stranger in Jerusalem, 199–200.

[44] Josephus Ant., 18.3.1–2 §55‒62; 18.4.1 §85‒87 (Whiston, 590, 592).

[45] Philo, Embassy 38 §301‒302 (Yonge, 784).

[46] Bammel, “The Trial before Pilate,” 420; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 305.

[47] Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, and Community, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 220‒21; Huntsman, “Lamb of God,” 64.

[48] Schneiders, “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s),” 18n34.

[49] George L. Carey, “The Lamb of God and Atonement Theories,” Tyndale Bulletin 32 (1981): 101‒11; Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, 221‒23.

[50] Dorothy A. Lee, “Paschal Imagery in the Gospel of John: A Narrative and Symbolic Reading,” Pacifica: Australasian Theological Studies 24 (2011): 16.

[51] A. H. Wratislaw, “The Scapegoat-Barabbas,” Expository Times 3, no. 9 (1891‒92): 400‒403; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 605; Jennifer K. Berenson Maclean, “Barabbas, the Scapegoat Ritual, and the Development of the Passion Narrative,” Harvard Theological Review 100, no. 3 (2007): 309–34; Abhau, “Taking Away the Sin of the World,” 51‒52.

[52] For a discussion of the many issues surrounding Pilate’s wife, who by tradition was named Procula, and her dream, see Brown, Death of the Messiah, 803‒7, and Ian Boxall, “From the Magi to Pilate’s Wife: David Brown, Tradition, and the Reception of Matthew’s Text,” in The Moving Text: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on David Brown and Bible (London: SCM Press, 2018), 18–25, 21–32.

[53] Boxall, “From the Magi to Pilate’s Wife,” 25–28.

[54] Gerhard Schneider, “�貹������ō,” EDNT 3.3‒4, notes that the term, coming from “to train a child,” literally means “to discipline,” in this case by a beating or relatively mild scourging.

[55] Horst Balz, “�������پ�����ō,” EDNT 2.395‒96.

[56] Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 306.

[57] For an overview, see Barbara Levick, Tiberius the Politician (Abingdon-on-Thames, UK: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 199), 158–79.

[58] Smallwood, Jews under Roman Rule, 169; Brown, Death of the Messiah, 843‒44; Huntsman, “Before the Romans,” 307.

[59] In reality, these paving stones were part of the forum built by Hadrian when he rebuilt Jerusalem as the Roman city Aelia Capitolina in AD 135. See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 710, 845; �ѳܰ�����-��※��DzԲԴǰ�, Holy Land, 35‒36.

[60] While Bauer, BDAG, 596, suggests that lithostrōtos, ‒on, can be either “pavement” or “mosaic,” Josephus, War 5.4.4 §178 (Whiston, 853), suggests the latter, noting the variety of precious and colored stones (hē poiklia tōn lithōn). For Roman descriptions of such colored �����ٳ�Dz��ٰ�ō�ٴDz�, see Varro, De re rustica 3.1.10, and Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia 36.184. For a picture of such �����ٳ�Dz��ٰ�ō�ٴDz� paving, see the image in Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Eric D. Huntsman, and Thomas A. Wayment, Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2006), 142.

[61] Berndt Schaller, “bēma,” EDNT 1.215‒16; Piero Treves and Tim J. Cornell, “sella curulis,” Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1382; Brown, Death of the Messiah, 844‒45, 1388‒93.

[62] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 853.

[63] Huntsman, “Jesus’ Lonely Atoning Journey,” in God So Loved the World, 66, and “Preaching Jesus, and Him Crucified,” 90‒61.

[64] On the timing of the trial and crucifixion, see Brown, Death of the Messiah, 628‒29, 846‒47, 958‒60, who notes in particular that the Marcan schematic third, sixth, and ninth hours (Mark 15:25, 33, 34) might have corresponded to liturgical prayer hours when early Christians commemorated the events of the final day of Jesus’s life.

[65] Henning Paulsen, “���������������ō,” EDNT 3.437, describes how according to the Roman penal code the severe whipping known in Latin as verberatio was inflicted with a horribile flagellum, a leather whip with pieces of metal and bone attached to it. For the relative severity of the Lucan beating or chastisement (Greek, �貹������ō; Latin, fustigatio), the Johannine whipping (Greek, �������پ�����ō; Latin, flagellatio), and the Marcan/Matthean scourging (Greek, ���������������ō; Latin, verberatio), see Huntsman, “Before the Romans, 310‒11.

[66] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 853.

[67] Although there have been efforts to connect this with Roman practice, Pilate’s washing his hands seems to be rooted in Jewish practice, drawing upon Old Testament images and precedents such as Deuteronomy 21:1‒9; Psalms 26:6; 73:13. See the discussion of Brown, Death of the Messiah, 833‒35.

[68] A similar, longer version of this section was published in Hatch, Stranger in Jerusalem, 197–200.

[69] See the numerous examples in Jeremy Cohen, Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Mark Cohen¸ Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Michael Frassetto, ed., Christian Attitudes Toward Jews in the Middle Ages: A Casebook (New York: Routledge, 2013); Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jews and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1983).

[70] Raymond E. Brown, A Crucified Christ in Holy Week: Essays on the Four Gospel Passion Narratives (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1986), 41.

[71] Gibson, The Final Days of Jesus, 96‒106.

[72] Brown, Gospel according to John, lxxii‒lxxv, and Death of the Messiah, 61‒63.

[73] The rabbis repeat these verses in, for example, b. Š������, 55a.

[74] Bradley J. Kramer, Gathered in One: How the Book of Mormon Counters Anti-Semitism in the New Testament (Draper, UT: Kofford Books, 2019), 7‒38 and passim.

[75] Kramer, Gathered in One, 54.

[76] Josephus, Ant. 20.8.8 §179‒181 and 20.9.2 §205‒207 (Whiston, 654, 656‒57), document the avariciousness and violence of the high priestly families in this period, and the Talmud records, “Woe to the house of Annas! Woe to their serpent’s hiss! They are High Priests; their sons are keepers of the treasury, their sons-in-law are guardians of the temple, and their servants beat people with staves” (b. �ʱ����ḥ. 57a; see also t. �ѱ�Բ�ḥ. 13:21). For texts, translations, and commentary on these sources, see Chapman and Schnabel, Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus, 9‒10. See also the discussion of Joshua Schwartz, “Bar Qatros and the Priestly Families of Jerusalem,” in The Burnt House of Area B and Other Studies, ed. Hillel Geva, Jewish Quarter Excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem 4 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2010), 311‒13.

[77] Kramer, Gathered in One, 55, came to a similar conclusion, noting that “many of the first-century Jerusalemites [were] manipulated, psychologically and physically, by corrupt priests and leaders. Consequently, it is these Jewish priests and leaders who bear most of the non-Roman responsibility for Jesus’ death, not the general Jewish populace.”

[78] Smith, Gospel according to Mark, 784‒85.

[79] Huntsman, “The Problem of Culpability,” God So Loved the World, 77.

[80] Bammel, “The Trial before Pilate,” 451.

[81] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 862‒77.

[82] Huntsman, “Before the Romans, 316‒17. For a collection of sources documenting Roman abuse of convicted criminals, see Chapman and Schnabel, The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus, 269‒76.

[83] For ancient references to the condemned carrying his own patibulum, or crossbeam, see Chapman and Schnabel, The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus, 282‒92.

[84] Brown, Introduction to the New Testament, 127, 161‒63; France, Gospel of Mark, 38–41.

[85] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 913‒16, 929, and especially Witherington, Gospel of Mark, 393‒94; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 51‒52; Smith, Gospel according to Mark, 789‒90.

[86] Brown, Gospel according to John, 879‒99, 910‒18, and Death of the Messiah, 913‒17, 929; Huntsman, “Lamb of God,” 60, and God So Loved the World, 79.

[87] Martin Völkel, “Golgoltha/������Ծ��Dz�,” EDNT 1.257.

[88] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 936‒37.

[89] Eusebius, Life 3.25‒30, 42. See the discussion of �ѳܰ�����-��※��DzԲԴǰ�, Holy Land, 49‒50.

[90] �ѳܰ�����-��※��DzԲԴǰ�, Holy Land, 49‒51, Gibson, The Final Days of Jesus, 117‒18, notes that the top of the traditional Calvary is too narrow to have contained three crosses and that it was instead a well-known “marker” that identified the general execution area.

[91] Gabriel Barkay, “The Garden Tomb. Was Jesus Buried Here?,” Biblical Archaeological Review 12, no. 2 (1986): 43‒47; Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Revisiting Golgotha and the Garden Tomb,” Religious Educator 4, no. 1 (2003): 21‒23.

[92] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 937‒40; Chadwick, “Revisiting Golgotha and the Garden Tomb,” 37‒40; �ѳܰ�����-��※��DzԲԴǰ�, Holy Land, 161; Huntsman, God So Loved the World, 81.

[93] For the textual variants of Mark 15:28, see Metzger, Textual Commentary, 99, who notes that it might have been inserted from a parallel in Luke 22:37, where Jesus at the end of the Last Supper prophesies “that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors.”

[94] See Philo, Spec. Laws 2.27 §145 (Yonge, 582); Josephus, War, 6.9.3 §423 (Whiston, 906); m. �ʱ����ḥ. 5.1, 3. See the discussion of Brown, Death of the Messiah, 846‒48; Huntsman, “Lamb of God,” 60.

[95] See the discussion of Brown, Death of the Messiah, 940‒44, 1058‒60, for the complications involved in harmonizing this first offering of wine (mixed with myrrh in Mark 15:23 and gall in Matt 27:34) and a second offering of cheap wine and vinegar mixed (Mark 15:36; Matt 27:48; Luke 23:36; John 19:28‒29).

[96] For the ancient sources, see Brown, Death of the Messiah, 945‒52, and Chapman and Schnabel, The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus, 299‒324, 532‒681.

[97] See Chapman and Schnabel, The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus, 292‒98.

[98] Josephus, Ant. 3.7.4 §161 (Whiston, 125), describes the high priest’s blue robe that “was not composed of two pieces, nor was it sewed together upon the shoulders and the sides, but it was one long vestment so woven.” See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 955‒58; Huntsman, God So Loved the World, 81.

[99] See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 985‒1000, for a discussion of the similarities and differences in the three Synoptic accounts.

[100] “History, 1838–1856, volume D-1 [1 August 1842–1 July 1843],” p. 1573, The Joseph Smith Papers. See also Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969), 166‒67, and Andrew C. Skinner, Golgotha (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), 135‒40.

[101] The challenge is that there are only two instances of the conjunction kai, or “and,” in the verse, eistēkeisan de para tō_i ���ٲ��ܰ�ō_i tou Iēsou hē mētēr autou kai hē adelphē tēs metros autou Maria hē tou Klōpa kai Maria hē Magdalēnē. By reading “Maria of Clopas” in apposition to “his mother’s sister,” we have only three women listed. However, it is very unlikely that the mother of Jesus and her sister would both have been named Mary, which led Tatian and the Syriac Peshitta to insert a third kai, suggesting that there were four women. For a full discussion of all the possibilities, see Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1014‒15, and Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 204‒5.

[102] Although their identification is far from certain, some ancient sources and modern commentators suggest that the sister of Jesus’s mother here was Salome, the mother of James and John, and Mary the wife of Clopas might have been the sister of Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. In that case, the women represented family members—Jesus’s mother, a maternal aunt, and a paternal aunt—as well as Mary Magdalene, who received special mention for her discipleship in Galilee (Luke 8:3) and would be the first to see the Risen Lord after the resurrection (see John 20:11‒18). See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1016‒17; Bauckham, Gospel Women, 207‒12, 234‒37, and Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 47; Skinner, Golgotha, 139‒40.

[103] Huntsman, God So Loved the World, 83, and Becoming the Beloved Disciple, 30‒31, 33‒34, 126‒27.

[104] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1034‒37.

[105] Skinner, Golgotha, 145‒46; Huntsman, God So Loved the World, 84‒85.

[106] McConkie, “Purifying Power of Gethsemane,” 10.

[107] Shon D. Hopkin, “‘My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?’ Psalm 22 and the Mission of Christ,” BYU Studies 52, no. 4 (2013): 117‒51.

[108] Skinner, Golgotha, 146‒48.

[109] Melvin J. Ballard, quoted in Bryant S. Hinckley, Sermons and Missionary Services of Melvin Joseph Ballard (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1949), 147–57.

[110] Holland, “None Were with Him,” 87‒88.

[111] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1074‒77; Schneiders, “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s),” 17; Huntsman, “Lamb of God,” 60‒61. The hyssop was also used in certain purification rituals (see Lev 14:4‒7, 49‒52; Num 19:6; Ps 51:7).

[112] Hans Hübner, “teleioō,” EDNT 3.344‒45; see also Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1071‒72, 1078.

[113] Huntsman, “Lamb of God,” 61‒62, and God So Loved the World, 87.

[114] Huntsman, “Lamb of God,” 62‒64, “‘And the Word Was Made Flesh’: A Latter-day Saint Exegesis of the Blood and Water Imagery in the Gospel of John,” Studies in Bible and Antiquity 1 (2009): 51‒65, and God So Loved the World, 88‒91.

[115] We have noted above how John 14:18, translated in the KJV as “I will not leave you comfortless,” can better be rendered “I will not leave you orphans.” By becoming our covenant Father, we are, in the terminology of the Book of Mormon, spiritually begotten as his sons and daughters (see Mosiah 5:7; 27:25).

[116] As we will discuss further below in our discussion of the Risen Lord’s appearance to the disciples in the upper room, Metzger, Textual Commentary, 218 and 219, notes that the best textual witnesses are divided between reading �辱���ٱ��ŧ�ٱ�, “continue to believe,” and �辱���ٱ�ܲ�ŧ�ٱ�, “start” or “come to believe.”

[117] For a reflection on how the crucifixion can help Latter-day Saints reflect more effectively on the salvific suffering and death of Jesus, see Catherine Gines Taylor, “Pausing at the Cross,” .

[118] Millet, What Happened to the Cross?, 105‒7; Michael G. Reed, Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2012), 8‒36; Huntsman, “Preaching Jesus, and Him Crucified,” 58‒60; John Hilton III, Considering the Cross: How Calvary Connects Us with Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 6‒7, 14‒30.

[119] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 947‒52.

[120] Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Symbol of Our Faith,” Ensign, April 2005, 4.

[121] Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1260‒61, 1265‒68.

[122] Huntsman, Becoming the Beloved Disciple, 40‒51.

[123] Schneiders, “The Lamb of God and the Forgiveness of Sin(s),” 17.

[124] While our thinking about Mary of Magdala usually focuses on her experience at the empty tomb Easter morning, Catherine Gines Taylor has noted her moving portrayal at the burial in the artistic tradition (see “Mary Magdalene at the Tomb,” posted April 21, 2019, at https://mi.byu.edu/mary-tomb/).

[125] Huntsman, God So Loved the World, 91‒93.

[126] Itinerarium Egeriae 36.3–37.9 = McGowan and Bradshaw, Pilgrimage of Egeria, 174‒78.

[127] Gulevich, “Good Friday” and “Passion Play,” in Encyclopedia of Easter, Carnival, and Lent, 237, 456‒61. See also Hatch, Stranger in Jerusalem, 135–43.

[128] “Declaration of the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” Nostra aetate (approved October 28, 1965), 4.

[129] Brown, A Crucified Christ in Holy Week, 16.

[130] Peters, Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims, and Prophets (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 501–3.

[131] Pierce, “Holy Week and Easter in the Middle Ages,” 169.

[132] Saunders, Celebrating a Holy Catholic Easter, 35‒39, 156‒58, 161‒62.

[133] Gulevich, “Mary, Blessed Virgin,” Encyclopedia of Easter, Carnival, and Lent, 374.

[134] Senn, “Holy Week,” 585.

[135] Gulevich, “Good Friday,” Encyclopedia of Easter, Carnival, and Lent, 240.

[136] Russell M. Nelson, “Opening the Heavens for Help,” Ensign, May 2020, 74, emphasis original.

[137] Howard W. Hunter, “Christ, Our Passover,” Ensign, May 1985, 19.