The Final Passover

This book is the result of a study I began during the Easter season of 1986. It was then that I made an first earnest attempts to study of events in the New Testament surrounding the last days of the mortal life of Jesus Christ and the first days following His resurrection from the dead. I wanted to fold together the story of the Passion as told in the gospel accounts of the New Testament so as not to miss any of the precious details.
The gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each provide unique details about the events leading to Jesus’ death and resurrection. My goal in this book is to: (1) identify and highlight the unique details from each of the gospels relating to the Passion; (2) to unify that material; and (3) to present the material in chart format, so that it could be easily identified.

The source for this book is the King James Version (1611) of the New Testament, with the help of Thomas M. Mumford’s Horizontal Harmony of the Four Gospels in Parallel Columns. No changes have been made to the original Biblical text, other than my own organizational changes.


Here are some highlights of the methods used for organizing the text.

• Most of the text provides word-for-word comparisons, where possible, but phrase-for-phrase comparisons are also made.

• Many times, words that have different meaning but have a similar function are also compared.

• If a phrase used the same or similar words but the words are transposed, most of the time, the transposition is allowed to stand.

• Where appropriate, words or phrases may be moved and placed in square brackets in order to show word or phrase comparisons.

The Passion of Christ is a story of tragedy and triumph. I have never found anything more inspiring and moving to me than the story of the last days of Jesus’ mortal life. I know that Jesus was more than a man. He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

Behold the Man

This book began over two decades ago as a study of events surrounding the last week of the mortal life of Jesus Christ, as found in the New Testament.

I began then to put together in my own mind the enormous puzzle of the accounts of the Passion of Christ as told in the gospel accounts of the New Testament. The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each provide unique details about the events leading to Jesus’ death. My goal in this book is to: (1) identify the unique details from each of the gospels relating to the Passion; (2) to unify that material; and (3) to present it in an easy-to-read, narrative or story format.

The source for this book is the King James Version (1611) of the New Testament. While the book is completely based on scripture, I have updated the punctuation and paragraphing, altered some capitalization and pronouns, and added single and double quotation marks where appropriate. I have also added conjunctive or transitional words, without setting them off with brackets, or deleted some works, to help the flow of the narrative.

The Passion of Christ is the story of the greatest tragedy and triumph in history. I have never found anything to compare with it. I have faith and a sure witness that Jesus was more than a man. He is the Only Begotten Son of God, the Savior of the world.

About Michael James Fitzgerald

Michael James Fitzgerald is an author, writer and programmer with 25 years of experience. He is the author of a number of technical books (published by John Wiley & Sons and O'Reilly) that have appeared in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese. He is also the author of numerous technical articles. In addition to technical books, he has also written travel articles and features for newspapers and magazines, children's books, religious and nonfiction books.