"3 days and 3 nights" was a figure of speech; in fact and precision, Jesus rose on the 3rd day after only 2 nights.
If that is true ….scripture would bear that out …. And we won’t have to attempt to correlate what religion has taught us…. (which has been wrong on so many accounts.)
It is easy enough to count the days and nights if we have a starting point….And God gave us one.
The Sign
Mat 12:39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
This account in
Matthew ….. Jesus states ….that He would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
That was the sign to the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees to whom He was speaking. Why 3 days & nights. According to Jewish law, a person was not counted as “officially dead” until after three full days (72 hours)
Whenever the term
day or
night is used singularly in the Bible it can mean all or part of a day or evening (night). But the term
night (evening) and day together always indicates a 24 hour period. In
Gen 1:5,
8,13,19,&23 …. God sets the standard for a full day… of which Jesus was fully aware of as noted in
John 11:9.
Some try to qualify Jesus’s statement of 3 days and 3 nights with their own twisting and reference to a biblical idiom … The problem is --- they are trying to qualify man’s tradition to fit their belief …but it doesn’t work that way. God sets the standard for truth …not man! ….. the only way to verify what man states…. is to check it with what God says. …and for me…. the Word is the final authority for Truth.
We can track the precise day that Jesus was crucified by counting forward or backward. Forward from
John 12:1 or backward from the Passover (which is Nisan 14) or The feast of unleavened bread which was Nisan 15 ....at sunset of the 14th….. (as that is when the next day begins.)
Passover is the 14th but the Passover meal is eaten at the beginning of the 15th (evening)
. The feast of unleavened bread lasts for 7 days and the
first day (Thursday 15th) and
last day (
Wednesday 21st) of the feast are high days …
{that is not 4/20 with the devils lettuce
} A high day is a special sabbath as dictated by God →
Num 28:18 and
Num 28:25 . A special sabbath is different from the weekly sabbath which falls on Saturday. A special sabbath would be like when Christmas (which is always celebrated on 12/25) fell on a Wednesday …it would a special sabbath …but does not negate the weekly sabbath on our Sunday. The special sabbath (high day) for the first day of the feast of unleavened bread (Thursday Nisan 15) is noted in
John 19:31 The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) …
Days
6 days before the Passover.
John 12:1 Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom He raised from the dead.
We know from the Word that Passover was on the
14th of Nisan (formally called
Abid)
Num 28:16 And in the fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover of the LORD.
17 And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.
Thursday Nisan 8 – Is six days before Passover.
John 12:1
Friday Nisan 9 - Jesus makes his
first entry into Jerusalem (on an
ass's colt.)
Mar 11:1-11 / Luk 19:29-44 / Jhn 12:12-19
Saturday Nisan 10 - weekly sabbath / second entry into Jerusalem (
ass “and” a colt) /the Passover lamb is selected
Mat 21:1-17 /Mar 11:12-19 / Luk 19:45 & 46
Sunday Nisan 11 - first day of the week /Jesus taught in Temple confronted by Sadducees, Pharisees & Herodians.
Mat 21:18 - 26:5 / Mar 11:20 - 14:2 / Luk 20:1 - 22:2
Monday Nisan 12 – Dinner at Simon the Leper / Jesus sends Peter & John to secure a place for Passover
Mat 26:6-19 / Mar 14:3-16 / Luk 22:3-13
Tuesday Nisan 13 – Last supper (not Passover) / garden of Gethsemane / Jesus taken by solders possibly around 9 or 10 pm…. interrogated and tortured throughout the night and day of the 13th.
Mat 26:20 - 27:31a / Mar 14:17 - 15:20a / Luk 22:14 - 23:25 / Jhn 13:1-19a
Wednesday Nisan 14 – Interrogation and torture continued late into the evening of the 14 and crucified at 9am on the morning of the 14th (nearly 40 hours of interrogation and torture.)
Jesus gave His life up at 3 pm (our time). He was wrapped in a linen by Joseph of Arimathea and placed in the tomb provided by Joseph. Shortly afterwards (sometime
before sunset) Nicodemus came with the myrrh and aloes and did the grave wrappings on Jesus.
Mat 27:31b-61 / Mar 15:20b-47 / Luk 23:26-55 / Jhn 19:16b-42
Thursday Nisan 15 - High day special sabbath. (Unleavened bread) No work to be done
Mat 27:62-66
Friday Nisan 16 women buy the spices to perform proper burial “unaware of Nicodemus’s prior actions”.
Mar 16:1 / Luk 23:56a
Saturday Nisan 17 weekly sabbath No work to be done
God raises Jesus sometime before sunset 72 hours
Mat 28:1-4 / Luk 23:56b
Notation on Nisan 17:
Mat 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn “toward the first” of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
The word
dawn is confusing…. the Greek word is
epiphōskō used biblically of
dusk. the women came to
see = (
theōreō) gaze upon, observe.
(
epiphōskō is used in
Luk 23:54 referring to dusk, not dawn)
Sunday Nisan 18 - Mary sees Jesus/ First wave offerings
Mat 28:5-15 / Mar 16:2-14 / Luk 24:1-45 / Jhn 20:1-24