[Diego1618]

So I guess to get your "72 hours" (as though the biblical writers were thinking according to stopwatches), you must not hold to a Good Friday, either.

I get my time line from scripture....you evidently get yours from tradition. The traditional view of a "Good Friday" burial and an "Easter" morning resurrection cannot be reconciled with Jesus Christ's own statements about how long he would be in the tomb. They cannot both be right.

John explains it best in 19:31 when he calls the upcoming Sabbath a "Special Sabbath", not to be confused with the normal Saturday Sabbath. In Luke 23:56 we see the women going home to prepare spices and then resting on the Sabbath. Earlier, in Mark 16:1 they buy the spices after the Sabbath is over.

On the surface this appears to be a contradiction until you realize that the High Sabbath is the 1st day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The next day is the day the women buy and prepare the spices after resting on the "High Sabbath. The day after that is the weekly Sabbath and they, after preparing the spices, rest again. Coincidently....this is also resurrection day shortly before sundown, [Matthew 28:1]

[Charles Henrickson]

There are many resources showing that the stock phrase, "three days and three nights," is not to be heard as a mathematical calculation meaning, "at least 72 hours." Rather, this idiomatic way of speaking could well be used to talk about something that occurs "on the third day," a phrase that is also used in the Bible to refer to Christ's Resurrection. Using your line of reasoning, though, that should really read, "on the fourth day"!