An overview of the suffering and death of Jesus across Passion Week — what the Gospels narrate and how the four accounts relate.
'Passion' (from Latin passio, suffering) names the final days of Jesus: the triumphal entry, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, betrayal, the Jewish and Roman trials, scourging, crucifixion, death, and burial. The passion narratives are, by scholarly consensus (Raymond Brown), the earliest connected tradition in the Gospels — the story the first communities told most carefully. The four accounts agree on the core sequence while differing in emphasis: Mark's stark abandonment, Luke's note of mercy ('Father, forgive them'), John's sovereign 'It is finished.' Reading them well means holding three layers distinct: the historical core (a real execution under Pilate, attested even by hostile Roman sources), the scriptural reflection (the Gospels read the event through Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22), and the theological claim (that this death atones for sin). Each is labeled here as what it is.
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