Posted by Bible Probe on July 11, 2005 at 14:52:52:
THE FRIDAY CRUCIFIXION THEORY BEGINS BELOW.
FAR BELOW IS THE ALTERNATE ARGUMENT (ALSO VERY GOOD) FOR A WEDNESDAY CRUCIFIXION:
The day of the crucifixion of Jesus was a Wednesday, Thursday or a Friday. That day on the Jewish calendar was Nisan 14 or Nisan 15, depending on whether the day was reckoned from sunrise or sunset. There are six possible combinations leading to four possible dates of the crucifixion. These dates are Thursday, April 6, 30 A.D., Friday, April 7, 30 A.D., Wednesday, March 28, 31 A.D. and Friday, April 3, 33 A.D. On which day was Jesus nailed to the cross?
W. A. Criswell in his book Why I Preach That The Bible is Literally True says, "The so-called errors of the Bible are a slippery lot. Just when you think you have your hands on one it evades you and disappears. In essence, these are not errors, but difficulties which can be solved or explained."
Jesus was crucified on Friday, and not on Thursday, or even on Wednesday as some theories hold.
When one recognizes that the Jews reckoned a part of a day as a whole day, Jesus' death on Friday does not present a real problem -- except for "types and foreshadows".
This Friday crucifixion theory begins with --- Some have denied this based on a simplistic reading of the gospels, the confusion on what constitutes an idiom (3 days and 3 nights). Keep in the back of your mind just who was Jesus addressing. Who asked for a sign of His divinity? It was the Pharisees and Scribes who knew a Jewish idiom when they heard it (3 days and 3 nights). "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."
When talking to His disciples, Jesus clarified this idiom. Matthew 17:22-23 records how Jesus told his disciples that he would be betrayed and killed. Jesus also states that on the third day he would be raised again. So by the last portion of Matthew 12:40, Jesus meant that he would be in the grave three days and three nights; just as Jonah was in the whale's belly for three days and three nights.
Many good Christians get confused because they completely dismiss ancient Hebrew customs--especially the ones which the Savior lived by/with. Many Christians have this false idea of 24 hour days and that a day begins after midnight. This was in no way how ancient Jews reckoned their days and nights. Our concept of a day has nothing at all to do with how Jews reckoned a day during Jesus' time. Forget entirely, the 24 hour period.
Around the year 100 A.D., Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah explained this ancient Jewish thinking in effect during Jesus' day when he said: "A day and a night make a whole day, and a portion of a whole day is reckoned as a whole day." So, the phrase "three days and three nights" did not necessarily mean a 72-hour period, but a period including at least the portions of three days and three nights.
Ancient Jewish tradition used in the 1st century says; "A day and a night make an Onah, and a part of an Onah is as the whole." Thus, Christ may truly be said to have been in his grave three Onah, or three natural days even when yet the greatest part of the first day was wanting, and the night altogether, and the greatest part by far of the third day also. For, "the least part of the Onah concluded the whole."
In Matthew 12:40, Jesus truthfully states the idiom: "as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth". This confounds many good Christians.
It is very important that one understands that Jews did not begin the reckoning of the day at midnight. A day to a first century Jew was reckoned from the previous sundown. Thus Sunday, the first day of the week, would actually begin on what we would today call sundown on Saturday. Keep this in mind.
First off, start by weighing the evidence for or against a Friday crucifixion.
Evidence from scr1pture is enormous -saying that Jesus died on Friday and was hastily buried (before sundown Friday)! Friday was the "Day of Preparation" for the Sabbath (Saturday).
John 19:31 "Since it was the Day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away."
John 19:42 "So because of the Jewish Day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid
Jesus there."
Matthew 27:62 "Next day, that is, after the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate"
John 19:14 "Now it was the Day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, 'Behold your King!'"
Luke 23:54 tells us: "It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin"
Mark 15:42-53 "And when evening had come, since it was the Day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea ... took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus"
Now the time in the tomb
All the following tell us that Jesus rose on the 3rd day.
11 times this fact is mentioned:
Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, 27:64; Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24:46; Acts 10:40, and 1 Cor. 15:4
10 times scr1pture says Jesus was raised after three days
Matthew 26:61; 27:40, 27:63; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; 14:58; 15:29; John 2:19-20
The Idiom "three days and three nights" appears in Matthew 12:40 only. This is the only passage that talks about Jesus being in the grave "three days and three nights". Except for this one passage, nearly all scholars would agree on a Friday crucifixion. So is it all as simply tracking down this idiom?
Today, tomorrow, and the next day would be 3 days to an ancient Jew. Evidence for this is in: Luke 13:32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.
Ancient Jewish Time Reckoning
(1) Any portion of a day was referred to as a day. Thus Jesus' resurrection on Sunday (Saturday evening) counts as one day.
(2) Saturday day and Friday evening counts as a second day
(3) Friday day counts as the third day.
Now the statement made by Jesus Himself in Matthew 12:40 (three days and three nights)
Protestant Scholar R. T. France author of "The Evidence for Jesus" wrote:
"Three days and three nights was a Jewish idiom to a period covering only two nights".
Protestant Conservative (and controversal) Scholar and Professor Donald A. Carson wrote:
"In rabbinical thought a day and a night make an onah, and a part of an onah, is as the whole".
So, according to Jewish tradition, "three days and three nights" need mean no more than "three days" or the combination of any part of three separate days.
The idiom "three days and three nights" can be read to be "part of three daytimes and part of three nightimes". This can be illustrated by studying the word "onah" (ayin-vav-nun-heh) which means "season." In this context "onah" refers to the two natural divisions of the day, that is, the daytime is an onah and the nightime is an onah.
The Jerusalem Talmud fixed a day for an Onah, and a night for an Onah: but the tradition is, that a day and a night make an Onah, and a part of an Onah is as the whole."
WAS THE AFTERNOON DARKNESS ANOTHER NIGHT?
Some have postulated that the darkness that occurred during the afternoon of the crucifixion
(Matt. 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44-45) should count as the third night, and this is possible.
THE SUN AND MOON STOOD STILL FOR JOSHUA
Joshua prayed and the sun stood still for 36 hours. The sun and moon stood still for six-and-thirty hours: for when the fight was on the eve of the sabbath, Joshua feared lest the Israelites might break the sabbath: therefore he spread abroad his hands, that the sun might stand still on the sixth day, according to the measure of the day of the sabbath, and the moon, according to the measure of the night of the sabbath, and of the going-out of the sabbath; which amounts to six-and-thirty hours."
Of interest here the number of hours that passed from our Saviour's giving up the ghost upon the cross to his resurrection. Almost the same number of hours; and yet that space is called by him "three days and three nights." This idiom accounts for the only two nights and one complete day.
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NOW FOR THE ALTERNATE ARGUMENT FOR WEDNESDAY, which is quite as Good also:
Following are the requirements of the passover lamb,
which Christ fulfilled to the letter:
It must be male.
It must be without spot or blemish.
It must be selected on the 10th day of the month.
It must be killed on the 14th day and the blood applied.
THE SCENARIO: This argument says:
Jesus was crucified on the eve of the 14th (Wednesday).
He laid in the grave Wednesday night (1 night)
Thursday day (1 day)
Thursday night (2 nights)
Friday day (2 days)
Friday night (3 nights)
Saturday day (3 days)
He arose from the dead Saturday evening just as the Jewish "day" changed to the first day of the week (Sunday).
That makes a full three days and a full three nights fulfilling the sign of the prophet Jonah in detail yet keeping in perfect accordance with carrying out all the details of being the Lamb, and also coinciding with the record of Jesus' last days before his crucifixion.
By reading Exodus Chapter 12 we find that on the 10th day of the month the Jews were to select a lamb without blemish and keep it until the 14th day of the month and kill it in the evening.
In Exodus 12:14-19 God commands the Israelites how they must observe the Passover Feast and that the first day of the week immediately following the Passover Supper will always be considered a holy day to the Jews. So the Jews are to kill the lamb on the 14th day and beginning the 15th day they will observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread which will last for seven days, and the first day of that Feast of Unleavened Bread will be considered an exceptionally holy day. In the 16th verse of Exodus 12, it even states that "no manner of work shall be done in that day, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you."
So the 15th day was considered a very holy day, or like a Sabbath to the Jew. This day would be a "Sabbath" to the Jew and during the Feast of Unleavened Bread his week would not only have the regular 7th day of the week Sabbath when he could do no work, but also have the first and last day of the feast Sabbaths when he could do no work.
So on Tuesday, the 13th day of the month, Jesus had his disciples prepare for the Passover Supper. Then in the evening they ate the Passover or Last Supper and went to the Garden of Gethsemane. The following day, the day of the 14th, was spent in the trial of Jesus, the chosen Lamb.
The Jewish authorities were in a hurry to get the crucifixion over before their holy day which began at sunset, so Jesus was crucified on the evening of the 14th of the month, which was Wednesday.
Justin Martyr also "places the crucifixion at the time of the sacrifice of the lamb, Nisan 14th 11.
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Those who advocate a Wednesday crucifixion must adhere to a Saturday afternoon resurrection, what to do with Mark 16:9? Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week; he appeared first to Mary Magdalene...
WHAT THEN DO WE MAKE OF THESE?
The tradition of Jesus' riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is confirmed in "The Triumphal Entry." Only the crucifixion on the following Good Friday being Nisan 15, the day after Passover, satisfies this tradition. The crucifixion on Nisan 14 requires Jesus' Triumphal Entry to be on Monday. Paul's claims that Jesus was "our Passover" and the "first fruits" of the resurrection is considered. It is concluded that His crucifixion on Nisan 14 or Nisan 15 may be appropriate. His resurrection as "first fruits" might then occur on either Nisan 16 or Sunday. Only a Wednesday crucifixion cannot meet the requirement of His resurrection as "first fruits," as this would have been Saturday, Nisan 18.
A pagan historian by the name of Thallus, who lived shortly after the resurrection of Christ. In about A.D. 52 he wrote concerning a miraculous darkness that covered the earth at the Passover of A.D. 32 and attempted to explain it as an eclipse of the sun.
Julius Africanus, a Christian teacher in North Africa in A.D. 215, wrote concerning this historian's assertions, "Thallus, in the third book of his histories, explains away this darkness as an eclipse of the sun - unreasonably as it seems to me." Julius contends, and modern astronomers confirm, that the Paschal full moon in which the Passover occurred (the Passover in which Christ was crucified) could not have been eclipsed. Thus, no known natural explanation can be presented to explain the darkness referred to in the Bible as occurring during Christ's crucifixion.
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