Good Friday.

Tarheel Baptist

Tarheel Baptist

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Do some here believe that it is more likely to be Good Wednesday? I haven’t seen that view postulated for a few years now.
 
Maybe that nonsense has finally run its course.

(Meanwhile, the Gospels still say the crucifixion took place on the paraskeue or prosabbaton--the ordinary Greek words for the sixth day of the week.)
 
Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, Mark 9:31, 10:34, Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24: 46, 1 Corinthians 15:4 all indicate that Christ was resurrected on "the third day." If He was crucified on Friday, then Sunday was the third day. If He was crucified on Wednesday, then Sunday was the fifth day. I don't see anything in the Bible about "rising again on the fifth day" so I am not sure why this issue keeps popping up. Not that it really makes a whole lot of difference, but the New Testament is quite clear that our Lord was crucified on a Friday.
 
Really? Jesus Himself said that He would be 3 days and three nights in the earth. He was buried in haste before the start of the sabbath, which (if He was crucified on Friday) would be roughly before 6pm on our Friday evening (Jewish Saturday evening). I don't see how one gets "three days and three nights" between then and early Sunday morning. One would have Jewish Saturday evening, Saturday morning, Sunday evening... that's one and a half full days.
I hadn't realized that God had decreed that there was sabbath days other than Saturday: apparently, some feasts also had non-Saturday sabbaths. I understand that Passover is one of them. If He were crucified Wednesday and buried before ~6pm, that would mean He was in the tomb (going by Jewish days): Thu evening, Thu morning, Fri evening, Fri morning ,Sat evening, Sat morning: Three days and three nights. He arose on the first day of the week (our Saturday evening), and the women found the tomb empty early Sunday morning.
I'm always willing to learn, but the Wednesday theory seems to have some pretty solid basis.
 
Ransom said:
Maybe that nonsense has finally run its course.

(Meanwhile, the Gospels still say the crucifixion took place on the paraskeue or prosabbaton--the ordinary Greek words for the sixth day of the week.)
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Look at Twisted's chart and recant your position.
After all, his chart is in COLOR!!!
 
Another bit on the idomatic way Jewish literature reckons days:

Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.” Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace. . . . And Esther said, “If it please the king,[a] let the king and Haman come today to a feast that I have prepared for the king.” (Esther 4:15-5;1,5:4)​

Esther committed to fasting for three days, night and day--clearly, in a literal sense, synonymous with "three days and three nights." Yet "on the third day" she invited the king and Haman to a feast--which, if she was still fasting for "three days, night or day," would had to have been held on the next day.

Solution: It's a figure of speech, not a literal block of 72 contiguous hours.
 
Ransom said:
(Meanwhile, the Gospels still say the crucifixion took place on the paraskeue or prosabbaton--the ordinary Greek words for the sixth day of the week.)
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prosabbaton looks like the roots of the word mean 'before the sabbath', and if that week had a special sabbath, the day before that would also fit that word. On normal weeks, the day before the Sabbath is Friday.
I had forgotten about the discussion last year.
 
Justin Martyr, 140 AD: "Sunday is the day on which . . . Jesus Christ our Savior . . . rose from the dead. For he was crucified on the day before that of Saturn; and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the sun, having appeared to his apostles and disciples, he taught them." ("Apology", chapter 67). Sure sounds like a Friday crucifixion to me.

"'In rabbinical thought,' says The Expositor's Commentary, 'a day and a night make an "onah," and part of an "onah" is as the whole.' A source for this statement is Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah who lived around 100 AD. Figured on this basis, from Friday afternoon until early Sunday morning, because it spans 3 units of day and night, could be called 'three days and three nights.'" Ralph Woodrow, "Three Days and Three Nights Reconsidered in Light of Scripture," p. 44.
 
illinoisguy said:
Sure sounds like a Friday crucifixion to me.
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The difficulty with positing a Wednesday or Thursday crucifixion is that the biblical narrative, read in its plainest sense, only accounts for three days: the day of crucifixion, the Sabbath, and the day of resurrection. Assuming the crucifixion took place earlier introduces difficulties.

The traditional alternative is Wednesday: the following day, Thursday, was a special Sabbath in addition to the regular seventh-day Sabbath. But then why did the women wait until Sunday morning to take the burial spices to the tomb? This was a task of some urgency, for obvious reasons; if the "high Sabbath" was on Thursday, they could have gone and anoint Christ's body on Friday. Besides, Wednesday is too soon.

The alternative to the alternative is a Thursday crucifixion--thought up, I'm convinced, because someone realized a Sunday crucifixion meant three days and four nights, and didn't actually solve the problem. I could dismiss it offhand for being a post hoc rationalization. Nonetheless, it does treat Matthew 12:40 literally. The problem with this interpretation is that two Gospels (Matthew and Mark) record the disciples as discovering the empty tomb after the Sabbath, and a third (Luke) says they rested on the Sabbath. Always Sabbath--never Sabbaths, even though there were allegedly two of them. That would seem like a significant plot point. Are we meant to understand that the Gospel authors simply ignored an entire day (or two) as if they never existed? I mean, half of John's Gospel is about the Passion, crucifixion, and resurrection. You'd think he'd at least make a note of it.

"Three days and three nights" is a peculiarity of Matthew's Gospel, and he's not even relating a narrative of the crucifixion; it's Jesus making a simile. All the Gospels say that Jesus was crucified the day before a Sabbath and rose again "on the third day," which was the first day of the week. The most natural reading of all of Scripture is that Jesus was crucified before sundown on the day before the Sabbath (the first day), which was the normal seventh-day Sabbath that fell during the Passover week, and rose again sometime before dawn on the day after the Sabbath (the third day).
 
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Ransom said:
The difficulty with positing a Wednesday or Thursday crucifixion is that the biblical narrative, read in its plainest sense, only accounts for three days: the day of crucifixion, the Sabbath, and the day of resurrection. Assuming the crucifixion took place earlier introduces difficulties.

The traditional alternative is Wednesday: the following day, Thursday, was a special Sabbath in addition to the regular seventh-day Sabbath. But then why did the women wait until Sunday morning to take the burial spices to the tomb? This was a task of some urgency, for obvious reasons; if the "high Sabbath" was on Thursday, they could have gone and anoint Christ's body on Friday. Besides, Wednesday is too soon.

The alternative to the alternative is a Thursday crucifixion--thought up, I'm convinced, because someone realized a Sunday crucifixion meant three days and four nights, and didn't actually solve the problem. I could dismiss it offhand for being a post hoc rationalization. Nonetheless, it does treat Matthew 12:40 literally. The problem with this interpretation is that two Gospels (Matthew and Mark) record the disciples as discovering the empty tomb after the Sabbath, and a third (Luke) says they rested on the Sabbath. Always Sabbath--never Sabbaths, even though there were allegedly two of them. That would seem like a significant plot point. Are we meant to understand that the Gospel authors simply ignored an entire day (or two) as if they never existed? I mean, half of John's Gospel is about the Passion, crucifixion, and resurrection. You'd think he'd at least make a note of it.

"Three days and three nights" is a peculiarity of Matthew's Gospel, and he's not even relating a narrative of the crucifixion; it's Jesus making a simile. All the Gospels say that Jesus was crucified the day before a Sabbath and rose again "on the third day," which was the first day of the week. The most natural reading of all of Scripture is that Jesus was crucified before sundown on the day before the Sabbath (the first day), which was the normal seventh-day Sabbath that fell during the Passover week, and rose again sometime before dawn on the day after the Sabbath (the third day).
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Thanks for this... I'm doing my research with a view to changing my mind. In addition to the "three days and three nights" only occurring once, there is also the disciples on the road to Emmaus; it clearly states there that it was the same day that the women found the tomb empty... those men tell Jesus (before they knew Him) that "today is the third day since those things were done". If Sunday was the third day, Saturday was the second day, and Friday was either the day it happened or the first day after it happened. There is no way it could be Wednesday and have Sunday be the third day. It does seem to be true that the people of that time (perhaps just the Jews) counted the current day when numbering; thus, in John 20, one week later is called "eight days" instead of seven (as we would say).
I write this to say that all discussion is NOT pointless. Good points have been made.
As I told the family when we were discussing this - the Biblical point of view is the fact of Jesus death, not so much when it was. While the Scripture is clear that He rose from the dead on the first day of the week, the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
 
Walt said:
I write this to say that all discussion is NOT pointless. Good points have been made.
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I concur. There have been a lot of pointless posts on this forum over the years, but I stick around because I have learned a lot about the scriptures here (much more than "every time the doors were open" IFBx services I attended for so many years).
 
A lot of commentators agree that "3 days and 3 nights" does not necessarily mean a literal 72 hour period.

"The actual period was from Friday evening to Sunday morning. The expression means that 3 periods of 24 hours, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, were wholly or partly covered." - Basil F. C. Atkinson, in "New Bible Commentary."

"The period in which He was to lie in the grave is here expressed in round numbers, according to the Jewish way of speaking, which was to regard any part of the day, however small, included within a period of days, as a full day. (See 1 Samuel 30:12, Esther 4:16 and 5:1, Matthew 27:63-64, etc)" - Jamieson, Fausset and Brown. Esther asked the Jews to prepare for her going in to Ahasuerus for "three days, night or day" but then she went in to see the king on "the third day."

"According to Jewish tradition, a day and a night make an 'onah,' and a part of an 'onah' is as the whole. Thus, '3 days and 3 nights' need mean no more than '3 days' or the combination of any part of 3 days." - Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary

"3 days and 3 nights in Jewish reckoning is inclusive, meaning no more than 3 days or the combination of any part of 3 separate days." - ESV Study Bible.

I believe this explanation makes more sense than to insist that Christ arose before sunset on Saturday (per Twisted's chart) which contradicts Mark's statement that "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. . . . " (Mark 16:9).
 
voicecrying said:
I concur. There have been a lot of pointless posts on this forum over the years, but I stick around because I have learned a lot about the scriptures here (much more than "every time the doors were open" IFBx services I attended for so many years).
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Sad, but true. I left an IFBx church years ago, and most of the people there had little spiritual maturity... they were good at doing what the preacher said, but I remember trying to have a discussion with some about the Scriptures and they looked at me like I was wasting my time.
To be fair, some people were serious Bible students, but (in my opinion), many were not: I remember my surprise to learn that one long-attending person didn't know the purpose of baptism: this person thought that one had to be baptized every time one joined a different church.
 
illinoisguy said:
A lot of commentators agree that "3 days and 3 nights" does not necessarily mean a literal 72 hour period.

"The actual period was from Friday evening to Sunday morning. The expression means that 3 periods of 24 hours, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, were wholly or partly covered." - Basil F. C. Atkinson, in "New Bible Commentary."

"The period in which He was to lie in the grave is here expressed in round numbers, according to the Jewish way of speaking, which was to regard any part of the day, however small, included within a period of days, as a full day. (See 1 Samuel 30:12, Esther 4:16 and 5:1, Matthew 27:63-64, etc)" - Jamieson, Fausset and Brown. Esther asked the Jews to prepare for her going in to Ahasuerus for "three days, night or day" but then she went in to see the king on "the third day."

"According to Jewish tradition, a day and a night make an 'onah,' and a part of an 'onah' is as the whole. Thus, '3 days and 3 nights' need mean no more than '3 days' or the combination of any part of 3 days." - Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary

"3 days and 3 nights in Jewish reckoning is inclusive, meaning no more than 3 days or the combination of any part of 3 separate days." - ESV Study Bible.

I believe this explanation makes more sense than to insist that Christ arose before sunset on Saturday (per Twisted's chart) which contradicts Mark's statement that "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. . . . " (Mark 16:9).
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Thanks... one of the issues (at least in English) is that 'day' has varied meanings... we can use 'day' to mean a 24-hour period ("there are seven days in a week")... we also use day to mean that period when the sun is shining, as opposed to "night".
The reference to Esther is quite good. It does seem as though the Jewish reckoning was to count any part of a day as a day -- thus, they (and some other cultures) will state "eight days later" and mean what we would call a week later: in the book of John, when Thomas was absent, and then, the next week, he was present... but the Scripture says "eight days later". It seems clear that it was the following week; one only gets eight days if one counts the current day.
Having said all of that, stating "three days and three nights" seems to imply that there were three days (in whole or in part) and three nights (in whole and in part)... I get the days: Friday, Sat, Sun, but the nights are hard, because there would only be the the Friday evening sabbath and the following evening. It would seem clearer if it had said "three days". I wish I knew the authority (if any) behind those statements... are they just making assumptions to have three days covered? The closest to this is Esther, but Esther doesn't use the phrase three days and three nights... to say "three nights, day and night" would fit the idea of "onah".
However, the bulk of the Scriptures support a Friday crucifixion... I was taught and believe that it is foolish to take one Scripture (in this case "three days and three nights") and build doctrine around that, especially when there are so many other Scriptures that indicate Friday.
 
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