(Bible quotations for this article are all from the King James Version distributed by the Gideons.)

John 19:14, “And it (the day of crucifixion) was the preparation of the passover…”

    Jesus appeared before Pilate, is ordered to be executed, and is taken off and crucified.

But wait,

the author of the Gospel known as, “Mark,” writes in Chapter 14:12, “And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover (lambs), his disciples said unto him, ‘Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover?’”

And then in verse 18, “And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, ‘Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.”

Hmm…According to this writing, Jesus clearly survived the day of the preparation because he ate the Passover meal with his disciples (the Last Supper) in the “Upper Room.”

Image credit: wikicommons

One possible reason for this obvious discrepancy,

according to Bart D. Ehrman,Ph.D., Professor of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “Is it possible that John has changed historical data to make a theological point, that he’s changed the day and hour of Jesus’ death precisely to show that Jesus really was the Lamb, who was slain on the same day and at the same hour (and at the hands of the same people–the chief priests!) as the Passover lamb?”  This explanation would confirm the identification of Jesus as “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” John 1:29, 36.

Should discrapancies between Gospel accounts be considered “errors?”

Does it matter to you if the accounts of the New Testament are historically accurate?

It does to me, for reasons of my own, which are satisfactory to me.