A common claimed contradiction and/or discrepancy in
the Bible that skeptics bring up is the question of when Jesus was
actually crucified.
1. Did Jesus Christ's crucifixion occur the day before the Passover meal was eaten, as John explicitly says, or did it occur after it was eaten as Mark explicitly says? (paraphrase of skeptic Bart Ehrman's often asked question)
2. Was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday?
For a long while in my Christian youth I rejected a Friday crucifixion. But after doing a bit more study,
I've concluded that the traditional position of a Friday crucifixion
fits all of the available Biblical data better. What really helped me come to the traditional view was James White's discussion on the topic which can be purchased at his website (
the current direct link is here). When it comes to other finer details, I haven't come to any firm conclusions. However, the following quotes and articles can help people come to their own conclusions.
April 3, AD 33 by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Justin Taylor
The Jewish Calendar, A Lunar Eclipse and the Date of Christ's Crucifixion by Colin J. Humphreys and W.G. Waddington
Friday crucifixion Sunday resurrection
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
Read the warning below about this link↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
While there are many doctrinal issues that I disagree with from the
website that the above article comes from, this particular article
argues persuasively for a Friday crucifixion (even if not all its facts are accurate). The creators of the website are sub-Evangelical. I recommend one reads this article after one reads the following quotes.
MARK 14:12ff- Did Jesus institute the
Lord's Supper on the day of the Passover or the day before?
PROBLEM: If the first three
Gospels (synoptics) are correct, then Jesus instituted the Lord's
Supper "on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the
Passover lamb" (cf. Matt. 26:17; Luke 22:1). But John places it "before
the feast of the Passover" (13:1), the day before the crucifixion on
which "they might eat the Passover" (18:28).
SOLUTION: There are two basic
positions embraced by evangelical scholars on this point. Those who
hold that Jesus ate the Passover lamb (and instituted the Lord's Supper
at the end of it) on the same day it was observed by the Jews, support
their view as follows: (1) It was the day required by the OT Law, and
Jesus said He did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it (Matt.
5:17-18). (2) It seems to be the meaning of Mark 14:12 which says it
was "on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the
Passover lamb." (3) When John 19:14 speaks of it being "the Preparation
Day of the Passover" they take this to mean simply the preparation for
the Sabbath which occurred in that paschal week.
Other scholars contend that Jesus ate the Passover
lamb on the day before the Jews did because: (1) He had to eat it a day
early (Thursday) in order that He might offer Himself the next day
(Good Friday) as the Passover Lamb (cf. John 1:29) to the Jews, in
fulfillment of OT type on the very day they were eating the Passover
lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). (2) The plain reading of John 19:14 is that it was
"the Preparation Day of the
Passover"
[not the Sabbath], or in other words, the day before the Passover was
eaten by the Jews. (3) Likewise, John 18:28 affirms that the Jews did
not want to be defiled on the day Jesus was crucified "that they might
eat the Passover."
Either view is possible without contradiction.
However, the latter view seems to explain the texts forthrightly.
- From The Big Book of
Bible
Difficulties by Norman Geisler
and Thomas Howe page 375 (previously titled When Critics Ask: A Popular
Handbook on Bible Difficulties)
Lord's
supper instituted at Passover.
Matt. xxvi. 17-30; Mark xiv.
12-26;
Luke xxii. 1, 13-20.
|
Upon
the preceding day.
John xiii. 1,2; xviii. 28.
|
Of the two leading theories the first is, that the Lord's supper was
instituted on the evening following the fourteenth day of Nisan, at the
legal time of the passover. Robinson
4 maintains that the
term "passover" sometimes comprises the
whole paschal festival, or the
feast of unleavened bread which began with the passover proper; that
the expression "to eat the passover" may mean "to keep the paschal
festival"; and that the "preparation of the passover," John xix. 14,
denotes simply the customary "preparation"
for the Sabbath, which occurred in
that paschal week. In this view, which relieves the difficulty, a host
of critics
5 substantially concur.
4 English Harmony, pp. 200-205.
5 So Andrews, Bochart, Davidson, Fairbairn, Gardiner, Hengstenberg,
Lange, Lewin, Lightfoot, Milligan, Norton, Olshausen, Robinson,
Schoettgen, Stier, Tholuck, and Wieseler.
-From Alleged
Discrepancies of the Bible by
John W. Haley p. 423
Was Christ crucified on Thursday or
Friday?
The uniform impression conveyed by the synoptic
Gospels is that the Crucifixion took place on Friday of Holy Week.
If
it were not for John 19:14, the point would never have come up for
debate. But John 19:14 says (according to NASB): "Now it was
the day of
preparation [
paraskeuē] for
the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he [Pilate] said to the
Jews, 'Behold, your King!' " The NIV suggests a somewhat less difficult
handling of the apparent discrepancy: "It was the day of Preparation of
Passover Week, about the sixth hour." This latter translation takes
note of two very important matters of usage.
First, the word paraskeuē had already by the first
century A.D. become a technical term for "Friday," since every Friday
was the day of preparation for Saturday, that is, the Sabbath. In
Modern Greek the word for "Friday" is paraskeuē.
Second,
the Greek term tou pascha (lit., "of the
Passover") is taken to be equivalent to the Passover Week. This
refers
to the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread (Heb.
maṣṣôṯ) that immediately
followed the initial slaughtering and eating of the Passover lamb on
the evening of the fourteenth day of the month Abib, which by Hebrew
reckoning would mean the commencement of the fifteenth day, right after
sunset.
The week of maṣṣô-t,
coming right on the heels of Passover itself (during which maṣṣô-t were actually eaten,
along with the lamb, bitter herbs, etc.) very naturally came to be
known as Passover Week (cf. Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 14th ed.,
12:1041), extending from the fifteenth to
the twenty-first of Abib, inclusively. (Arndt and Gingrich [Greek-English
Lexicon, pp. 638-39]
state: "This [i.e., Passover] was followed immediately by the Feast of
Unleavened Bread...on the 15th to the 21st. Popular usage merged the
two festivals and treated them as a unity, as they were for practical
purposes.") It was unnecessary to insert a specific term for "week"
(such as šā-bȗaʻ) for it to
be understood as such. Therefore, that which might be translated
literally as "the preparation of the Passover" must in this context be
rendered "Friday of Passover Week."
It turns out,
therefore, that John affirms just as
clearly as the Synoptics that Christ was crucified on Friday and that
His sacrificial death represented an antitypical fulfillment of the
Passover ordinance itself, which was instituted by God in the
days of
the Exodus as a means of making Calvary available by faith to the
ancient people of God even before the coming of Christ.
Note that in 1 Corinthians 5:7 Jesus is referred to
as the Passover Lamb for believers: "Purge out the old leaven, so that
you may be a new lump, just as you were unleavened. For Christ our Lamb
was sacrificed for us." The statement of E. C. Hoskyns on John 19:14 is
very appropriate here: "The hour of double sacrifice is drawing near.
It is midday. The Passover lambs are being prepared for sacrifice, and
the Lamb of God is likewise sentenced to death" (
The Fourth Gospel [London:
Farber and Farber, 1940], ad loc.). It simply needs to be pointed out
that the lambs referred to here are not those that were slaughtered and
eaten in private homes--a rite Jesus had already observed with His
disciples the night before ("Maundy Thursday")--but the lambs to be
offered
on the altar of the
Lord on behalf of the whole nation of Israel. (For the household
observance on the evening of the fourteenth of Abib, cf. Exod. 12:6;
for the public sacrifice on the altar, cf. Exod. 12:16-17; Lev. 23:4-8;
2 Chron. 30:15-19; 35:11-16. These were all known as Passover
sacrifices, since they were presented during Passover week.)
Thus it turns
out that there has been a simple
misunderstanding of the phrase paraskeuē
tou pascha that has
occasioned such perplexity that even Guthrie
(New
Bible Commentary, p. 964)
deduced an original error, for which he had no solution to offer.
The
various ingenious explantions offered by others, that Christ held His
personal Passover a night early, knowing that He would be crucified
before the evening of the fourteenth; that Christ and His movement held
to a different calendar, reckoning the fourteenth to be a day earlier
than the calendar of the official Jerusalem priesthood; or that He was
following a revised calendar observed by the Essenes at Qumran--all
these theories are quite improbable and altogether unnecessary. There
is no contradiction whatever between John and the Synoptics as to the
day on which Christ died--it was Friday.
- From Encyclopedia of
Bible Difficulties by Gleason
L. Archer pp. 375-376.
14. The Length of Our Lord's Stay in the Tomb
Quite an effort is made in some quarters to show that Jesus remained in
the tomb seventy-two hours, three full days and nights. The effort
seems due to a desire to give full value to the expression "three days"
and to vindicate scripture. But a minutely literal interpretation of
this phrase makes "on the third day" flatly erroneous. A good deal of
labor has been expended in the impossible attempt to make three and
four equal to each other. There are three sets of expressions used
about the matter, besides the express statements of the Gospels about
the days of the crucifixion, and resurrection.
Let us examine these
lines of evidence. 1. Luke settles the matter pointedly by mentioning
all the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection (Luke
23:50-24:3). The burial took place Friday afternoon just before the
Sabbath drew on (Luke 23:54). The women rested on the Sabbath
(Saturday) (Luke 23:56), and went to the sepulchre early Sunday
morning, the first day of the week (Luke 24:1). There is no escaping
this piece of chronology. This is all the time there was between the
two events. Jesus then lay in the tomb from late in the afternoon of
Friday till early Sunday morning. The other Gospels agree with this
reckoning of the time, as we have already seen. 2. But how about
the
prediction of Jesus, repeatedly made, and once illustrated by the case
of Jonah, that he would rise after three days? Are two nights and a day
and two pieces of days three days? Let us see.
(a) The well-known
custom of the Jews was to count a part of a day as a whole day of
twenty-four hours. Hence a part of a day or night would be counted as a
whole day, the term day obviously having two senses, as night and day,
or day contrasted with night. So then the part of Friday would count as
one day, Saturday another, and the part of Sunday the third day. This
method of reckoning gives no trouble to a Jew or to modern men, for
that matter. In free vernacular we speak the same way today.
(b)
Besides, the phrase "on the third day" is obliged to mean that the
resurrection took place on that day, for, if it occurred after the
third day, it would be on the fourth day and not on the third. Now it
so happens that this term "third day" is applied seven times to the
resurrection of Christ (Matt. 16:21; Matt. 17:23; Matt. 20:19; Luke
27:7, 21, 46; 1 Cor. 15:4). These numerous passages of Scripture, both
prophecy and statement of history, agree with the record of the fact
that Jesus did rise on the third day. (Luke 24:7.) (c) Moreover, the
phrase "after three days" is used by the same writers (Matthew and
Luke) in connection with the former one, "the third day," as meaning
the same thing. Hence the definite and clear expressions must explain
the one that is less so. The chief priests and Pharisees
remember
(Matt. 27:63) that Jesus said, after three days I rise again. Hence
they urge Pilate to keep a guard over the tomb until the third day
(Matt. 27:64). This is their own interpretation of the Saviour's words.
Besides, in parallel passages in the different Gospels, one will have
one expression and another the other, naturally suggesting that they
regarded them as equivalent. (Cf . Mark 8:31 with Matt. 16:21, Luke
9:22 with Mark 10:34.) On the third day cannot mean on the fourth day,
while after three days can be used as meaning on the third day. (d)
Matthew 12:40 is urged as conclusive the other way. But the "three days
and three nights" may be nothing more than a longer way of saying three
days, using day in its long sense. And we have already seen that the
Jews counted any part of this full day (day and night) as a whole day
(day and night). Hence this passage may mean nothing more than the
common "after three days" above mentioned, and, like that expression,
must be interpreted in accordance with the definite term "on the third
day" and with the clear chronological data given by Luke and the rest.
They seemed to be conscious of no discrepancy in these various
expressions. Most likely they understood them as well as we do at any
rate.
-
excerpt from A Harmony
of
the Gospels For Students of the Life of Christ by A.T. Robertson
https://archive.org/details/harmonyofthegosp012598mbp
...The Jews take a particular
notice of the third day as remarkable for
many things they observe {e}, as
"of the third day Abraham lift up
his eyes, Ge 22:4 of the third day of
the tribes, Ge 42:18 of the third day of the spies, Jos 2:16 of the
third day of the giving of the law, Ex 19:16 of the third day of Jonah,
Jon 1:17 of the third day of them that came out of the captivity, Ezr
8:15 of the third day of the resurrection of the dead, as it is
written, Ho 6:2 "after two days will he revive us, in the third day he
will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight".''
From which passage, it is clear,
that they under stood the prophecy in
Hosea of the resurrection of the dead; and it is observable, that among
the remarkable third days they take notice of, are the two instances of
Isaac's and Jonah's deliverances, which were Scripture types of
Christ's resurrection. From which observations they establish this as a
maxim {f}, that
"God does not leave the righteous
in distress more than three days.''...
-
John Gill's comments on 1 Cor. 15:4http://www.studylight.org/com/geb/view.cgi?bk=45&ch=15
...That Christ means himself by the "son of man", there is no reason to
doubt; and his being laid in a tomb, dug out of a rock, is sufficient
to answer this phrase, "the heart of the earth", in distinction from
the surface of it; but some difficulty arises about the time of his
continuing there, and the prediction here made agreeable to the type:
for it was on the sixth day of the week, we commonly call "Friday",
towards the close, on the day of the preparation for the sabbath, and
when the sabbath drew on, that the body of Christ was laid in the
sepulchre; where it lay all the next day, which was the sabbath of the
Jews, and what we commonly call "Saturday"; and early on the first of
the week, usually called "Sunday", or the Lord's day, he rose from the
dead; so that he was but one whole day, and part of two, in the grave.
To solve this difficulty, and set the matter in a clear light, let it
be observed, that the three days and three nights, mean three natural
days, consisting of day and night, or twenty four hours, and are what
the Greeks call nucyhmera, "night days"; but the Jews have no other way
of expressing them, but as here; and with them it is a well known rule,
and used on all occasions, as in the computation of their feasts and
times of mourning, in the observance of the passover, circumcision, and
divers purifications, that wlwkk Mwyh tuqm, "a part of a day is as the
whole" {n}: and so, whatever was done before sun setting, or after, if
but an hour, or ever so small a time, before or after it, it was
reckoned as the whole preceding, or following day; and whether this was
in the night part, or day part of the night day, or natural day, it
mattered not, it was accounted as the whole night day: by this rule,
the case here is easily adjusted; Christ was laid in the grave towards
the close of the sixth day, a little before sun setting, and this being
a part of the night day preceding, is reckoned as the whole; he
continued there the whole night day following, being the seventh day;
and rose again early on the first day, which being after sun setting,
though it might be even before sun rising, yet being a part of the
night day following, is to be esteemed as the whole; and thus the son
of man was to be, and was three days and three nights in the grave; and
which was very easy to be understood by the Jews; and it is a question
whether Jonas was longer in the belly of the fish.
{l} R. David Kimchi & Jarchi, in Jonah i. 17. & ii. 1. Zohar in
Exod. fol. 20. 3. & 78. 3. {m} Antiq. 1. 9. c. 18. {n} T. Hieros.
Pesach. fol. 31. 2. T. Bab. Moed. Katon, fol. 16. 2. 17. 2. 19. 2.
& 20. 2. Bechorot, fol. 20. 2. & 21. 1, Nidda, fol. 33. 1.
Maimon. Hilch. Ebel, c. 7. sect. 1, 2, 3. Aben Ezra in Lev. xii. 3....
-
John Gill's comments on Matt. 12:40
http://www.studylight.org/com/geb/view.cgi?bk=39&ch=12
Verse 40. Three days and three nights] Our Lord rose from the grave on
the day but one after his crucifixion: so that, in the computation in
this verse, the part of the day on which he was crucified, and the part
of that on which he rose again, are severally estimated as an entire
day; and this, no doubt, exactly corresponded to the time in which
Jonah was in the belly of the fish. Our Lord says, As Jonah was, so
shall the Son of man be, &c.
Evening and morning, or night and
day, is the Hebrew phrase for a
natural day, which the Greeks termed nuxqhmeron, nuchthemeron. The very
same quantity of time which is here termed three days and three nights,
and which, in reality, was only one whole day, a part of two others,
and two whole nights, is termed three days and three nights, in the
book of Esther: Go; neither eat nor drink THREE DAYS, NIGHT or DAY, and
so I will go in unto the king: Esth. iv. 16. Afterwards it follows,
Esther v. 1. On the THIRD DAY, Esther stood in the inner court of the
king's house. Many examples might be produced, from both the sacred and
profane writers, in vindication of the propriety of the expression in
the text. For farther satisfaction, the reader, if he please, may
consult Whitby and Wakefield, and take the following from Lightfoot.
"I. The Jewish writers extend that memorable station of the unmoving
sun, at Joshua's prayer, to six and thirty hours; for so Kimchi upon
that place: 'According to more exact interpretation, 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.' "II. If you number the hours that pass from our
saviour's giving up the ghost upon the cross to his resurrection, you
shall find almost the same number of hours; and yet that space is
called by him three days and three nights, whereas two nights only came
between, and one complete day.
Nevertheless, while he speaks
these words, he is not without the
consent both of the Jewish schools and their computation. Weigh well
that which is disputed in the tract Scabbath, concerning the separation
of a woman for three days; where many things are discussed by the
Gemarists, concerning the computation of this space of three days.
Among other things these words occur: R. Ismael saith, Sometimes it
contains four hwnwa onoth, sometimes five, sometimes six. But how much
is the space of an hnwa onah? R. Jochanan saith, Either a day or a
night. And so also the Jerusalem Talmud: 'R. Akiba fixed a DAY for an
onah, and a NIGHT for an onah.' But the tradition is, that R. Eliazar
ben Azariah said, A day and a night make an onah: and a PART of an onah
is as the WHOLE. And a little after, R.
Ismael computed a part of the onah
for the whole." Thus, then, three
days and three nights, according to this Jewish method of reckoning,
included any part of the first day; the whole of the following night;
the next day and its night; and any part of the succeeding or third
day...
- Adam Clarke's comments on Matt. 12:40
http://www.studylight.org/com/acc/view.cgi?bk=39&ch=12
Other Resources:
John's Passion week chronology by Steve Hays
Inerrancy and the Resurrection by William Lane Craig (this article addresses the issue along with other issues).
