So where EXACTLY does the Scripture say Christ was killed on Friday? He told the religious community that he would be as Jonah in the tomb 3 days and 3 nights... And it is only in liberal math class can anybody get 3 days and 3 nights out of His death happening on Friday. Because HE was NOT in the tomb before the ‘sun’ came up on the first day of the week.
Good on you, JMT ... It HAD to have been Thursday.
This is how I see it. (part of) Friday is one day, sundown Friday to sundown Sabbath is two days, and sundown “sunday” to the morning was the third day.
Sheol. (ref. Matthew 27:51-53)
You make a good point. Here is another place where I believe that tradition breaks with the truth. When it was the time of Passover there were some years where there would be two Sabbaths in the same week.
Taking the body down from the cross before the Sabbath (before sunset) would seem to be Friday afternoon. But when the Gospel of John speaks of the high day (John 19:21) - I believe that it points to a ‘second sabbath’ which could have begun on Thursday at sunset.
Jesus’ prophecy of 3 days and 3 nights would be satisfied with the Thursday afternoon death.
Praise God for Jesus’ death and resurrection!
There is no “liberal math” in calculating 3 days from Friday, rather it is typical to Ancient Near East and Hebrew PRE-SCIENTIFIC ways of calculating.
To this day, Jews understand a day as STARTING at sundown (which is why “evening and morning” is mentioned in Genesis 1 for the days of Creation). Hence, Jesus died Friday afternoon, which is day 1, day 2 is Friday night/Saturday, day 3 is Saturday night/Sunday. No great mystery here, IF we don’t go plugging in our Western scientific-precision assumptions, completely out of context, into an ancient text.
The same logic is also behind the seeming (small) contradictions in the 4 Gospels’ resurrection accounts. Each one tells a slightly different version with the events being slightly in a different order and persons varying a little....and there appears to be no attempt by the Evangelists to harmonize these accounts. Can they be harmonized into one coherent historical account....yes, but not easily. To the original writers and readers though, that wasn’t important....4 slightly different eye-witness testmonies were accepted, as they are, without questioning them....as they totally agree on the main point: Jesus was bodily resurrected, and, they witnessed that with their own eyes.....