The Shadow of Nazareth Jesus. Both Barrabas and Jesus are sentenced to die by crucifixion, but Jewish custom allows the release of a prisoner on the day of the Passover feast. Pontius Pilate, the Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, has the authority to decide whether to free Barabbas or Jesus in honor of the Passover. However, Pilate is unwilling to make the decision himself, so he lets a crowd that has gathered before him choose who is to live. The crowd chooses Barabbas, who is set free, and Jesus, who is innocent of any wrongdoing, dies on the cross. Following the crucifixion,
Chronology of Jesus been introduced that year, but this was favoured by Newton. In the twentieth century, the standard view became that of J. K. Fotheringham, who in 1910 suggested 3 April AD 33 on the basis of its coincidence with a lunar eclipse. In the 1990s Bradley E. Schaefer and J. P. Pratt, following a similar method, arrived at the same date. Also according to Humphreys and Waddington, the lunar Jewish calendar leaves only two plausible dates within the reign of Pontius Pilate for Jesus' death, and both of these would have been a 14 Nisan as specified in the Gospel of