The sixth hour “contradiction”

The sixth hour “contradiction”

               The unbelievers in the world claim that there are over 200 so called contradictions in the bible. One of them is different between the John 19:14 and Mark 15:25 account of the crucifixion. The claim is that the bible cannot be trusted because it is not consistent in it’s testimony. These “contradictions” are usually easily explained.

The sixth hour in John 19:14 does not refers to noon but refers to about 6am under Roman time. Julius Caesar imposed the Julian calendar in 40 B.C. and the first hour is midnight. Jews did not adopt the Julian calendar and still maintained the lunar calendar and time sequence in which 6 a.m. was the first hour. The Gospel of John was specifically written to the Roman world and used Roman time chronology. Examine John 4:6 (KJV) - "Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour." Here Jesus is weary because he has been traveling a good ways at night and it is now 6am. This can only be Roman time for two reasons. First, night travel was very common especially in groups such as Jesus and his disciple which carried weapons (Luke 22:38). Many ancient caravans were well known to use the stars to guide their routes and even the wise men when visiting Christ used a particular star. This suggests night travel.

Secondly, consider the account when Jesus first met Peter: "And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net." Luke 5:1-5 (KJV).

Did you pick up on the fact that Peter, a fisherman, had worked all night and was just now coming back in for the day? Fisherman always worked at night. They had to because during the day the fish could see and avoid the nets. Not until recent days in the history of man has fishing become a daylight career. Did you also pick up on the fact that there was already a large crowd "pressed" upon Jesus and that he was teaching at this very early hour of the morning? In Luke chapter 4 we see that Jesus was last in Capernaum, a city a few miles away, but for chapter 5 he comes to the lake of Gennesaret early in the morning with a large, awake crowd following him.

Also consider the parable of the ten virgins recorded in Matthew 25. The wedding party traveled at night hence the need for the virgins to be ready with oil. These are indicators that there were many instances of social and economic reason for night travel and that it was common. Hence when Jesus arrived at the well "the sixth hour" in John 4, He was referring to 6am Roman time. When reading the Gospels you must understand the audience to which the Gospel was written. John was written to the Roman world, Matthew to the Hebrews. Mark was to the Diaspora Hebrews and Luke to the Greeks using Jewish quotations and sources.

Several recent modern paraphrases have come out which are thought based interpretations as opposed to word based translations. In order words, they translate the scriptures according to their preexisting doctrine and write what they think it should mean instead of what is really says. What they think it means and they end up contradicting not only the rest of Scripture but each other and this brings shame on the Christians for their intellectual laziness. If they translated this passage with the Roman references it would have been translated correctly. Here are some of the translations that are incorrect:

•  NET version completely misses it - 9:14 (Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover, about noon. Pilate said to the Jewish leaders, “Look, here is your king!” The Greek text does not says “about NOON”, and if it did, then it would contradict Mark 15:25 where it says it was the THIRD hour (9:00 a.m. Hebrew time) and they crucified Him!
•  Amplified – “Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover, and it was about the sixth hour (about twelve o'clock noon). He said to the Jews, See, [here is] your King!”
• New Living Translation – “It was now about noon of the day of preparation for the Passover. And Pilate said to the people, "Here is your king!"”
• Easy to Read Version – “It was now almost noon on Preparation day of Passover week. Pilate said to the Jews, "Here is your king!"”
• The Message – “It was the preparation day for Passover. The hour was noon. Pilate said to the Jews, "Here is your king."”
•  NRSV – “Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, "Here is your King!"”   The previous RSV and the subsequent ESV go back to the Greek reading of “the sixth hour”, though the ESV erroneously footnotes “That is, about noon.”
•  International Standard Version also gets it wrong - “Now it was the Preparation Day for the Passover, about twelve noon. He said to the Jews, "Here is your king!"”

To concluded, Mark 15:25 (KJV) reads "And it was the third hour, and they crucified him." This was when they nailed him to the cross not when he died because Mark 15:34 (KJV) reads "And 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?” The ninth hour, in Hebrew time is 3pm.