We cannot, of course, know what actually happened, but Mark’s second version, which agrees with Luke’s, sounds more likely—that the council convened in the morning, and decided that the prisoner should be kept in custody and turned over to Pilate to face charges.31 The gospel of John, relying upon a source independent of Mark’s, offers another reconstructed account that gives a plausible interpretation of these events.32 According to John, the chief priests, alarmed by the crowds Jesus attracted, feared that his presence in Jerusalem during Passover might ignite public demonstrations, “and the
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