What the text says. Passover falls in the first month and is the reason for journeys all through the Gospels. Luke reports of Jesus' family that "his parents went every year to Jerusalem at the feast of the passover" (Luke 2:41, ASV). John dates three separate visits by it, "And the passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem" (John 2:13, ASV), and notes the traffic it generated: "Now the passover of the Jews was at hand: and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the passover, to purify themselves" (John 11:55, ASV). Mark records the authorities' problem with the crowd: the chief priests "sought how they might take him with subtlety, and kill him" (Mark 14:1, ASV), and their stated reason was the feast.
How many people, the ancient claim, and the objection to it. Josephus, a Jewish priest and eyewitness of the war of AD 66-70 writing for a Roman audience, gives the only ancient head-count. He reports that the governor Cestius, wanting to show Nero the size of the nation, asked the high priests to number the people; they counted the Passover sacrifices, since a company of not fewer than ten shared each lamb, and "found the number of sacrifices was two hundred and fifty-six thousand five hundred; which, upon the allowance of no more than ten that feast together, amounts to two millions seven hundred thousand and two hundred persons that were pure and holy" (Wars 6.9.3, Whiston's translation). ⚠️ That is Josephus' figure, not a modern estimate, and it is widely doubted. Modern historians generally regard both the lamb count and the multiplier as inflated, Josephus' numbers elsewhere are demonstrably high, and a city of Jerusalem's measured area could not hold 2.7 million people. What survives the objection is the smaller and better-attested point: at Passover the resident population was swollen by pilgrims to a multiple of itself, and the authorities' fear of a crowd in Mark 14:2 is the fear of that.
The chronology of the Last Supper is genuinely disputed, both readings, no winner. The Synoptic Gospels present the last meal as a Passover meal: Mark dates it "on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the passover" (Mark 14:12, ASV). John appears to place the crucifixion before the Passover meal was eaten, the accusers "entered not into the Prætorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover" (John 18:28, ASV), and the trial happens on "the Preparation of the passover" (John 19:14, ASV). Three families of explanation are current, each argued by competent scholars: (1) the accounts date the same day differently, because two reckonings of when a day began, or two festival calendars, were in use, a solution associated with Annie Jaubert in its calendar form and with others who appeal to a Galilean/Judean divergence; (2) John's terms are being read too narrowly, "eat the passover" can denote the festival week's offerings rather than the Seder itself, and "Preparation" can mean the Friday of Passover week; (3) the accounts genuinely differ, and John has shaped his dating so that Jesus dies as the lambs are killed. Each has been argued and answered, and no consensus is supplied here. What is not in dispute is that the arrest and execution happened at Passover, in a city at its fullest.
Sources: Luke 2:41; John 2:13; John 11:55; John 18:28; John 19:14; Mark 14:1-2, 14:12; Josephus, Wars 6.9.3; Mishnah Pesachim; ISBE 1915, "Passover".
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