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Dunno if this has been posted already on this huge thread, but this seems to address all the points in the OP.

Dunno if this has been posted already on this huge thread, but this seems to address all the points in the OP. Crucifixion Wednesday.

Thanks for the contribution. The only defense that most seem to make to explain away Jesus saying "three days and three nights" is to say that it can mean "parts" of days and nights. The author at the link uses this defense. For a rational defense see The Three Days and Three Nights of Matthew 12:40

From the article: Some advocates of a Wednesday crucifixion concede that Jesus was crucified on the day before a Sabbath, but deny that this was the regular, weekly Sabbath. In later times, the phrase "day of preparation" came to be used to refer to the day before Passover and, this argument goes, Passover counted as a Sabbath in the sense that it was a day of rest, even though it usually did not fall on the weekly Sabbath. Thus Jesus was crucified on the day before Passover and had to be buried hurriedly on that account. But this explanation will not do. In the first century, "the day of preparation" referred to Friday, not the day before Passover. Further, we know from Scripture that the Sabbath following Jesus’ crucifixion was the regular, weekly Sabbath, the seventh day of the week: "Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher" (Matt. 28:1).

Let me first just say BALDERDASH!

Luke clearly states that the day on which Our Lord was buried was the Preparation, and the Sabbath was fast approaching [Luke 23:54]. The Good Friday/Easter Sunday proponents insist that this word is a Jewish technical term which can only mean the Friday before a weekly Sabbath. However, this position is refuted by many reputable sources.

In the New Testament the day of preparation, the day on which the Hebrews made the necessary preparation to celebrate a sabbath or a feast: (page 486, Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.

PREPARATION (Gk. paraskeue, a "making ready"). In the Hebrew sense, the day of preparation was the day on which the Hebrews made the necessary preparation to celebrate a Sabbath or festival (page 1028, The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, emphasis added).

All the Gospel passages where "paraskeue" occurs identify the Hebrew day of Preparation as the day of the crucifixion of Our Lord. But inasmuch as the Sabbath mentioned in the narratives of the crucifixion is evidently the Passover Sabbath of that year [Mark 15:42]]Luke 23:54][Luke 23:56][John 19:31], and John's Gospel expressly calls the preparation day in question "the Preparation of the Passover" [John 19:14], the determination of the exact day for "the Preparation" during which Christ was crucified depends on the time when the Passover was celebrated that year.

Passover takes place on the 14th of the Hebrew lunar month Nisan, "Josephus" [Antiquities III,X,5], and is the greatest of the "Special Sabbaths" in the Hebrew year. But as a fixed date in a lunar month, its relation to the days of the week varied. Thus, while Friday is the usual day of preparation for the normal weekly Sabbath, the precise dating of the preparation for the Passover SABBATWN mentioned in the Gospels depends on the dating of the Passover for that year. (page 953, vol. 3, "Preparation, Day of," The International Standard Bible Dictionary).

The Good Friday/Easter Sunday proponents contention that "the Preparation Day" ONLY refers to Friday is clearly unsupportable. This "Preparation Day of the Passover" [John 19:14] would have been Wednesday, Nisan 14 and the resurrection Saturday morning sometime during the darkness of the 17th. Wednesday/Wednesday night =1 day 1 night/ Thursday/Thursday night = 2 days 2 nights/ Friday/Friday night = 3 days 3 nights and coming out of the tomb sometime Sabbath morning......before sunrise!

More mainstream tradition......Busted!