The book offers a solution to the difficulties of the timing of the events of passion week. There are disparities between the timetable in John’s gospel and the synoptics to say nothing of the number of different trials that seem to be fitted into the short time between Jesus arrest after the last supper and his crucifixion at 9am on Good Friday morning. It also suggests a date for the crucifixion.

The latter is worked out using modern computing and astronomical knowledge to calculate the phases of the moon between AD 26 and 36. Passover has to be half way through the spring month and on a Thursday or perhaps Friday. With an astrophysicist he has worked out the dates for those years and can eliminate the years when the dates are not Thursday or Friday. After various other factors are introduced he narrows it down further. All this was written up in the journal Nature!

The writer, Colin Humphreys, is a knight of the realm but that is I imagine for his work as professor of material Science at Cambridge University. He does his bible research in his spare time.

As a taster to his methods see chapter 5 where he points out that Luke specifies the date that John the Baptist started his ministry, Luke 3 1-3, this was AD 29 at the earliest more likely AD 30. So assuming Jesus had 2 years ministry the earliest date for crucifixion is AD 31. He takes John 2 20 46 years building the temple to be 46 years since inner sanctuary built taking us to AD 30 at the time of that argument with the Jews, (although that rather takes away the force of the Jews reply to Jesus.)

Be that as it may the main force of Humphrey’s argument is that the gospels can be reconciled as they are using different calendars. The previous Pope came to the same conclusion a few years ago saying that the calendar they were using in Qumran would solve the problem but this writer does not think that is the case.

Apparently different groups in Palestine at the time worked on different calendars, and furthermore some people used two different calendars at the same time, a political and a religious.

The author thinks that before the exile the Jews would have used an Egyptian calendar, starting at daybreak, with the month counting from the disappearance of the old moon. After the exile they had adopted the Babylonian calendar with the day starting at sunset and the month counting from the first appearance of the new moon.

If Jesus and others reverted to the old calendar then this explains Mark14 12 “On the first day of unleavened bread, when the Passover Lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations” the day begins in the morning.

It means that he was arrested late Wednesday night and they assessed things first with the previous high priest Annas then had the proper trial before Caiaphas on Thursday in daytime, then confirmed that next day first thing before moving him on to Pilate and Herod on Friday morning. John in his gospel is using the Jewish official calendar so says in John 13:1 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Jesus would actually sacrifice the lamb a day early on his pre-exilic calendar and the majority of the Jews would be sacrificing next day, at the time of the crucifixion.
Jewish law said that capital trials should be in daylight and the verdict confirmed next day, it has always been thought that they ignored the rules for Jesus, but this allows the rule to continue.

The book seems to offer important new insights in the dabate about the differing gospel account. ( )

Science and history combine to explain apparent discrepancies in the Gospel accounts of Christ's last days and to establish the date of Christ's death with almost 100% certainty. The Gospel of John, long thought to force facts to fit theology, is shown to be accurate. This was such a thrilling read I could scarcely wait for each day's few minutes with it. ( )