Crucifixion Day

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● Matt 12:40 . . As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

If we reckon Sunday to be the third day; then:

Saturday would've been the second day, and Friday the first.

Saturday night would've been the third night, Friday night the second, and Thursday night the first.

The so-called last supper would've taken took place Wednesday night.

Jesus' interview with Pilate would've taken place Thursday morning and he would've been executed that afternoon.

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Re: Crucifixion Day

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● John 2:19-21 . . Jesus answered them: Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days. The Jews replied: It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days? But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

The preponderance of evidence indicates that Christ's crucified dead body returned to life on the third day rather than after the third day was completely over and done with. In other words: Christ wasn't deceased three full days.

Matt 17:22-23
Mark 9:31
Luke 9:22
Luke 24:21-23
Luke 24:46
Acts 10:40
1Cor 15:4

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[WatchmanOnTheWall]

Much debate and confusion exists around Jesus' 3 days and 3 nights in the Heart of the Earth. The answer to this is simpler than many believe. Here are the relevant verses:

Matthew 12
39He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Mark 15:42-43
42 It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.

Matthew 28:1
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

Jesus died at about 3pm on the 14th Aviv (Preparation day). He was put in the tomb just before sunset at about 6pm which began the Sabbath. The day after the Sabbath He rose at sunrise on the 16th Aviv (The day of First Fruits) at about 6am. This means He was in the tomb for 3 days and 2 nights at most (about 36 hours). However the term 'Heart of the Earth' that Jesus spoke of was not the tomb. The Bible interprets the Bible and elsewhere we can find what Jesus meant by this phrase:

Matthew 15:19
For out of the heart come evil thoughts; murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Therefore 'The Heart of the Earth' is the wickedness of the whole Earth. The moment Jesus entered the wicked heart of the Earth was when He allowed Himself to be arrested and this is what He said at that moment:

Luke 22:53
“Every day I was with you in the temple courts and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour--when darkness reigns."

So it is from this moment that Jesus enters into the Heart of the Earth, which was around midnight on the 14th Aviv and means that He was indeed in the Heart of the Earth three days and three nights.

 

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Re: Crucifixion Day

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Much debate and confusion exists around Jesus' 3 days and 3 nights in the Heart of the Earth.

The preponderance of evidence indicates that Christ's crucified dead body returned to life on the third day rather than after the third day was completely over and done with. In other words: Christ wasn't deceased three full days.

● Matt 17:22-23 . . Jesus said unto them: The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again.

● Mark 9:31 . . He taught his disciples, and said unto them: The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.

● Luke 9:22 . . The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

● Luke 24:21-23 . .We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulcher; and when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

● Luke 24:46 . . He said unto them: Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day

● Acts 10:40 . . God raised him up the third day

● 1Cor 15:4 . . he rose again the third day

It takes a pretty clever amalgam of sophistry and double speak to make those passages say that Christ rose from the dead after the third day was over and done with.

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[WeberHome]

Re: Crucifixion Day

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I've participated on several Good Friday forums in the last 21 years and it never fails that somebody comes along to muddy the waters with 24-hour civil time and/or Nisan dating; thus making it virtually impossible for curious visitors to make any sense out of the chronology of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.

Jesus Christ-- whom John 1:1-3 and John 1:14 testify is God --was a citizen in the land of Israel 2,000 years ago; so I think that he, as both God and citizen, would know better than anybody alive today how to count and/or define days and nights back then.

According to Jesus Christ's understanding-- as both God and citizen --days were when the sun is up and nights were when the sun is down.

● John 11:9-10 . . Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.

This world's light is of course the sun as per Gen 1:14-18. So then, "day" is when the sun is up rather than when the sun is not up; i.e. day is daytime and night is nighttime; viz: the three days and three nights of Matt 12:40 indicate three times when the sun was up, and three times when the sun was down; i.e. relative to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection: days begin with sunrise and nights begin with sundown.

NOTE: Days divided into twelve equal periods of sunlight were regulated by what's known as temporal hours; which vary in length in accordance with the time of year. There are times of the year at Jerusalem's latitude when this world's light consists of less than 12 normal hours of sun, and sometimes more; but when Jesus was here; the official number of hours was always twelve regardless.

I don't exactly know why the Jews of that era divided their days into twelve equal periods of sunlight regardless of the seasons, but I suspect it was just a convenient way to operate the government and conduct civil affairs; including the Temple's activities (e.g. the daily morning and evening sacrifices)

Anyway; I trust God's intelligence; and I believe in His son Jesus Christ. I don't think either one of them are ever wrong about anything, especially something as elementary as the properties of day and night.

● Gen 1:5 . . God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.

In order to avoid confusion over the meanings of day and night relative to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, I highly recommend that we avoid thinking in terms of 24-hour civil time and/or creation's evening and morning criteria. I suggest that we fall in line with Christ's definition because who better than anyone else is qualified to tell us how to understand the beginning and the ending of days and nights as they were understood during the years when he himself was living in Israel.

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Re: Crucifixion Day

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● Matt 12:40 . . For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Any child able to do simple arithmetic on the fingers of one hand can instantly deduce that Good Friday doesn't fit Matt 12:40 because there just isn't enough nights between Friday and Sunday-- there's only two; Jesus' prediction calls for three. The Good Friday model comes up short because it omits one of the two sabbaths during the week that Jesus was crucified.

There are more sabbaths in the Bible besides the usual week-ender. For example:

Yom Kippur (Lev 23:32)
Feast of Trumpets (Lev 23:23-25)
Feast of Unleavened Bread; a,k.a. Passover. (Ex 12:16, Lev 23:5-8)

Passover sabbath is interesting. The usual sabbath always falls on the very same day of the week every time. But Passover sabbath floats because the feast of Unleavened Bread is keyed to the lunar cycle; hence Passover sabbath can, and it does, occur on any given day of the week; sometimes even coincident with the usual sabbath; for example 2018, and sometimes consecutive with the usual sabbath; for example 2008.

● John 19:31 . . Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath-- for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one --the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down.

The solemn sabbath that John mentioned is the Passover sabbath. It was consecutive with the regular sabbath that year. As a result the Jews had to observe two sabbaths in a row.

Weaving the Passover sabbath into the chronology of Matt 12:40 in order to obtain a third night is actually fairly easy once you're made aware of it. But be forewarned; there are a number of Good Friday's resolute defenders who refuse to allow the solemn sabbath to be other than the usual sabbath; and they've concocted some very convincing sophistry to support their view; by doing so they've chained themselves to a model that cannot, by any sensible stretch of the imagination, produce a third night.

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[WeberHome]

Re: Crucifixion Day

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While discussing Good Friday with one of its defenders, my opponent suggested that the darkness that took place while Jesus was nailed to the cross was one of the three nights that he predicted at Matt 12:40.

Well; of course that doesn't work because Jesus was alive during those hours of darkness on the cross. The three nights he predicted at Matt 12:40 were to take place while he was deceased and tucked away in the heart of the earth.

Now when you think about it; Jesus' corpse was never in the heart of the earth. It wasn't even in the earth's soil. His corpse was laid to rest on the surface of the earth in a rock-hewn tomb.

Jesus compared his experience with Jonah's nautical adventure. A careful examination of the finer points of the second chapter of his prophecy reveals that although Jonah was alive while in the fish, he wasn't alive the whole time. No, at some point in his ordeal, Jonah went to a place called sheol, which he described as the bottoms of the mountains.

Well; even a school kid with an elementary knowledge of science knows that the bottoms of the mountains aren't in the tummy of a fish; nor are the bottoms of the mountains in the sea. No; the bottoms of the mountains are many, many, miles below both the fish and the sea.

If what I'm saying here is true, then at some point in his adventure; Jonah was quite dead.

"To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O Yhvh my God. (Jonah 2:6)

The Hebrew word translated "pit" sometimes refers to putrefaction. In other words "brought up my life" speaks of Jonah's resurrection.

According to Ps 16:8-10 and Acts 2:25-31 Jesus too was spared putrefaction by means of his resurrection.

According to Matt 10:28, the body and the soul are perishable. However; though the body is perishable by any means, the soul is perishable only by divine means; i.e. the deaths of body and soul aren't simultaneous, which readily indicates that once the body and the soul are separated, it becomes possible to relocate the soul. In the cases of Jonah and Jesus; their souls were transferred to the bottoms of the mountains.

This it all came to pass just as predicted: "as Jonah . . . so the Son of Man."

Both underwent death, both were buried, both spent some time in the netherworld, and both their bodies were raised from the dead within the space of three days and three nights.

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[WeberHome]

Re: Crucifixion Day

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● Luke 23:54-56 . . And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.

● Mark 16:1-2 . . And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

This is precisely where a good many of Good Friday's defenders drop the ball. They're unaware, either innocently or by design, that the sabbath spoken of in Luke 23:54-56 commences the feast of unleavened bread; beginning that night with the Passover lamb dinner. That particular sabbath is one of the most sacred holy days in Judaism; I'd say probably even more sacred than Yom Kippur.

The sabbath in Mark 16:1-2 is the regular weekly sabbath. It's always followed by the first day of the week; which, in our day and age, is Sunday.

So then; Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Salome, observed two sabbaths in a row that year: Passover's sabbath followed by the regular weekly sabbath.

NOTE: There's quite a bit of debate going around related to the time of the women's arrival at the cemetery.

The Greek word that speaks of the women's journey is somewhat ambiguous. It can not only mean came, but also went, i.e. it can indicate travel as well as arrival and/or coming as well as going.

Seeing as how there are no less than seven verses that clearly, conclusively, and without ambiguity testify that Jesus' dead body revived on the third day rather than during the third night-- viz: his body revived when the sun was up rather than when the sun was not yet up, --then it's safe to conclude that in the women's case "went" is the appropriate translation of the Greek word erchomai, i.e. the women left their homes during morning twilight; and by the time they met together and journeyed to the cemetery, the sun was fully up. (I cannot imagine any woman of good sense walking around a graveyard in the dark; especially when back in that day nobody as yet had access to electric lighting of any kind, not even a flashlight.)

NOTE: The original languages of the Bible contain numerous ambiguous words that translators are not always sure how best to interpret; so sometimes the onus is upon Bible students to do a little research of their own. Caveat Lector.

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