O.K., Which day was it?
Ok I’m going into the theological abyss here, because I’m going to be butting heads with Church Tradition. The question is what day of the week did Jesus die? If we are true to the Bible we can’t say that Jesus died on Friday, can we (Not even with Aggie math!)? I spent about an hour and a half studying this yesterday. The best I can come up with is that Jesus died on Thursday, possibly Wednesday. Trying to jive the Jewish day and the Roman day got me confused. Here are some questions that I have pondered as I look at this.
1. Jesus said that he would be in the grave 3 days and 3 nights (Mt. 12:40). The Friday death would put Jesus in
the grave only 2 nights. To me Jesus meant 3 days/3 nights.
2. We know from Scripture that Jesus died before the Sabbath. It seems that most think this was the weekly
Sabbath, i.e. Saturday. However, special holy days of the the Jewish Faith are Sabbaths as well. Thus
Passover would have been a Sabbath.
3. From what I understand Mt. 28:1 reads according the to the Greek text “Now after the Sabbaths”, not “Now
after the Sabbath”.
4. We do know that the disciples found the empty tomb early on the first day of the week (Sunday).
1. Jesus said that he would be in the grave 3 days and 3 nights (Mt. 12:40). The Friday death would put Jesus in
the grave only 2 nights. To me Jesus meant 3 days/3 nights.
2. We know from Scripture that Jesus died before the Sabbath. It seems that most think this was the weekly
Sabbath, i.e. Saturday. However, special holy days of the the Jewish Faith are Sabbaths as well. Thus
Passover would have been a Sabbath.
3. From what I understand Mt. 28:1 reads according the to the Greek text “Now after the Sabbaths”, not “Now
after the Sabbath”.
4. We do know that the disciples found the empty tomb early on the first day of the week (Sunday).
Anyway, I’m curious to know what you smarter people think. This is a hot topic among some of my church members. Some carry it too far, but it does prove interesting discussion.
Why is this important? Well, we need to be able to answer this question for those who are unbelievers, do we not? What we celebrate and what Scripture seems to say does not jive with each other. This is a potential stumbling block to an unbeliever. In my opinion we must be ready to respond to this question. What do you think?
Posted by
at
16:45:28
We celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25th, yet our best guess is that he may have been born in early January. So, we don’t celebrate his birth on his birthday. Its never been a problem before.
So, if we don’t celebrate Easter on what some would consider the real “Easter,” does it matter? Why would this have to be a stumbling block? Very few people are argued into Heaven. It seems that this would be a very small thing to worry about. However, I’m sure there are smarter people out there than me concerning this issue.
Tim