Why did the apostles have a hard time staying awake with Jesus while he prayed?

Answer 1

It was only nine o'clock in the evening when Jesus and the apostles went to the Garden of Gethsemene, so it seems implausible that all of those present would fall asleep so quickly. And it seems unlikely in the extreme that they would fall asleep three times, after being upbraided so strongly by Jesus each time for doing so.

It seems more likely that the three times that the disciples fell asleep was originally a literary device in Mark's Gospel to mark off the time, just as the three denials by Peter were a literary device to mark off the time until the cock crowed.

Mark organised the narrative account of the death of Jesus in a twenty-four hour cycle, neatly divided into eight three-hour segments. He started the story "when it was evening" (14:17). In this ancient world without electricity, that would mean when the sun went down, or approximately 6 pm. Mark knew that the duration of the Passover meal was three hours and that it concluded with the singing of a hymn. So at the end of his segment he noted, "And when they had sung a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives". This is how we know it was about 9 o'clock when Jesus went to pray.

The arrest was to take place at exactly midnight, the darkest hour, so Mark told us that Jesus prayed for just three hours. "Could you not watch one hour?" Jesus asked (14:37). The process was repeated two more times. The disciples could not watch one, two or three hours. Exactly as Jesus returned for the third time, thus at the end of three hours, Judas arrived with the arresting party. The account continues, with Mark indicating to us precisely when each period of three hours had elapsed, until the Sabbath began, at 6 'clock the next evening. The other evangelists relied on Mark directly or indirectly and incorporated this material in their gospels.