Interlude: Three days and three nights

 I ran across this in my study today and thought I'd better share it before I forgot. It has nothing to do with the current series on gifts and won't affect anyone's salvation, but it does affect truth; and Jesus said, "The truth shall make you free."

My wife and I have long held that when Jesus said he would be crucified, die, and be buried for three days and three nights, that he meant exactly what he said. However, this wreaks havoc with conventional and traditional chronology of the passion week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. It revolves around the Sabbath, which everyone knows starts at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. Thus, tradition says he must have been crucified, die, and be buried before sundown on Friday, since they wanted to get him in the grave before the Sabbath. That constitutes Good Friday, which also allocates the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, in church tradition. The explanation that is used is that three days and three nights is a Hebrew idiom for any parts of three days.

However, today I found this from E. W. Bullinger's The Companion Bible:

Appendix 144

THE "THREE DAYS" AND "THREE NIGHTS"
OF
Mat_12:40.

The fact that "three days" is used by Hebrew idiom for any part of three days and three nights is not disputed; because that was the common way of reckoning, just as it was when used of years. Three or any number of years was used inclusively of any part of those years was used inclusively of any part of those years, as may be seen in the reckoning of the reigns of any of the kings of Israel or Judah.

But, when the number of "nights" is stated as well as the number of "days", then the expression ceases to be an idiom, and becomes a literal statement of fact.

Moreover, as the Hebrew day began at sunset the day was reckoned from one sunset to another, the "twelve hours in the day" (Joh_11:9) being reckoned from sunrise, and the twelve hours of the night from sunset. An evening-morning was thus used for a whole day of twenty-four hours, as in the first chapter of Genesis. Hence the expression "a night and a day" in 2Co_11:25 denotes a complete day (Gr. nuchthemeron ).

When Esther says (Est_4:16) "fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days", she defines her meaning as being three complete days, because she adds (being a Jewess) "night or day". And when it is written that the fast ended on "the third day" (Mat_5:1), "the third day" must have succeeded and included the third night.

In like manner the sacred record states that the young man (in 1Sa_30:12) "had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights". Hence, when the young man explains the reason, he says, "because three days agone I fell sick". He means therefore three complete days and nights, because, being an Egyptian ( vv . MATT. 11, 13) he naturally reckoned his day as beginning at sunrise according to the Egyptian manner (see Encycl. Brit. , 11th (Cambridge) ed., vol. xi. p. 77). His "three days agone" refers to the beginning of his sickness and includes the whole period, giving the reason for his having gone without food during the whole period stated.

Hence, when it says that "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights" (Jon_1:17) it means exactly what it says, and that this can be the only meaning of the expression in Mat_12:40; Mat_16:4. Luk_11:30, is shown in Ap. 156.

In the expression, "the heart of the earth" (Mat_12:40), the meaning is the same as "the heart of the sea", "heart" being put by the Fig. Metonymy (of the Subject), Ap. 6 for "the midst", and is frequently so translated. See Psa_46:2. Jer_51:1. Eze_27:4; Eze_27:25-27; Eze_28:2. It is used of ships when sailing "in the heart of the seas", i.e., in or on the sea. See Eze_27:25-26; Eze_28:8; also of people dwelling in the heart of the seas, i.e. on islands (Eze_28:2). Jonah uses the Heb. beten ( = womb) in the same way (2.2).

Now, if you are still stubbornly holding to your church tradition for the chronology of the Passion Week, try this on for size:

Yes, the seventh day of each week was a Shabbat, a day of rest. However, there are at least three other Shabbats in the Jewish calendar, one of them being the Passover Shabbat. Now, we know that the monk who established the Gregorian calendar (under Pope Gregory) miscalculated by 4 to 6 years and that Jesus was born (by Gregorian calendar reckoning) between 4 and 6 B.C. (or B.C.E., if you are particularly antitheist). We know that Jesus' ministry ran for approximately three years; however, we don't know the exact date it started. We assume it began at about the age of 30 because that was Jewish tradition when a man began his life's work on his own and under normal circumstances would marry and begin a family. The only thing we are sure of is the context in which his ministry came to a climax (it did not end) at Passover when he became the embodiment of the Passover lamb and was killed as a sacrifice for sin.

But which Passover? Passover does not always happen on Saturday. In the Jewish calendar (a lunar calendar), it occurs on a different day each year. Some scholars believe the Passover Shabbat occurred on Thursday that year, that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday and died at the exact time (3 p.m.) that the High Priest was slaughtering the Passover lamb in the Temple, also the time that the thick curtain separating the Holy Place in the Temple from the Most Holy Place, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, split from the top to the bottom, indicating all men now had immediate access to God.

That also means the chronology runs more like this:

1. Palm Sunday - Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, a symbol of royal humility, of a king coming not in conquest (which would be on a horse) but in peace. He immediately goes to the Temple and drives out the merchants and money changers, causing no little bit of a stir. He then sits down and begins to teach the people. At the end of the day, he retires to the house of Mary, Martha, and their now resurrected brother Lazarus in Bethsaida.
2. Maundy Tuesday - Jesus sends some disciples back into Jerusalem to prepare the upper room for the Passover meal, what we now call the Last Supper or Lord's Supper (Communion). He eats the meal (except for the wine) with his disciples. In the middle of the meal, he reveals that one of their number will betray him. Judas departs to set things up. Jesus takes the eleven that are left to a garden outside Jerusalem called Gethsemane. Here he prays for three hours, struggling against an untimely death (I'll post another blog about that later). Judas shows up with a mob to arrest him and they drag him off to the chief priests. He is brought before the Sanhedrin and illegally tried at night. 
3. We are now probably after midnight into early Wednesday morning (Good Wednesday?). The trial can't last long because they still have to get him to Pilate who has to have time to interrogate him, send him to Herod for further interrogation, have him flogged, and then sent along the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha by early morning. He is on the cross  by noon, because that's when the sky goes dark for three hours. Jesus dies at about 3 p.m. Joseph of Arimathea has just enough time to  go to Pilate, secure permission to bury Jesus, take him down from the cross, wrap his body in burial linens, and deposit the body in the tomb. It must be an open tomb because the Jewish leaders get wind of it and go to Pilate demanding that the tomb be sealed with a stone with the governor's Roman seal on it and station a guard to prevent the disciples from stealing the body. The disciples, however, are cowering in a locked room. The sun goes down, beginning the Passover Shabbat.
4. One thing the women were not able to do because of the pace of events was to procure spices to prepare the body for burial. Fortunately, the Magi had provided those when they came and worshiped him at the age of two (see my blog from Jan 6, 2017). However, the women were able to go out and buy them on Friday between the Passover Shabbat and the Saturday Shabbat, but they apparently didn't have time to go to the grave. Also, there was the stone and the guard to contend with. So apparently sundown Friday came and they rested for the Shabbat.
5. Easter Sunday - In the morning, he women go to the grave to prepare the body according to tradition. Along the way, they talk about the stone that stands in their way. However, when they arrive, they find the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. In wonder and confusion, they flee. Mary Magdalene stumbles into Jesus, thinking him the gardener. Why didn't she recognize him? Medical experts say that in circumstances of extreme stress (crucifixion?) a person's hair can turn white. This is borne out in John's Apocalypse (Revelation) where Jesus is described as having white hair. He tells her to go to the disciples and Peter and tell them that he is risen as he said.

All told, he has spent three days and three nights in the tomb, beginning at sundown on Wednesday, continuing through sundown on Thursday (1 night, 1 day), sundown on Friday (2 nights, 2 days), and ending at sundown on Saturday (3 nights, 3 days), the end of the second Shabbat that week. This, along with Bullinger's linguistic analysis above, leads me and others to believe that the common church liturgical calendar is in error and that Jesus was crucified on Wednesday of the Passion week.