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Christians all over the world commemorate the Crucifixion on Good Friday, but some argue that Jesus wasn’t crucified on a Friday at all. Instead, they claim that he was crucified on a Wednesday.
In this episode, Jimmy Akin looks at the evidence from all four Gospels and reveals what we really can say with confidence about when Jesus was Crucified.
TRANSCRIPT:
Coming Up
Every year, Christians all over the world commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus on the Friday before Easter—or what we refer to in English as Good Friday.
But was Jesus really crucified on a Friday?
And . . . why do we call it Good Friday, anyway?
Let’s get into it!
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Howdy, folks!
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“Good Friday”
First, let’s talk about the day on which Christians around the world commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus, or Good Friday.
It’s the Friday before Easter Sunday, which is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the Spring Equinox.
This is because the Jewish people used a lunar calendar—that is, a calendar based on the cycles of our sister planet, the Moon.
We can go into the details of how Easter Sunday works in a future episode, but Good Friday is the Friday before Easter.
But . . . why do we call it Good Friday?
I mean, if that was the day Jesus was crucified, being crucified wasn’t really a good thing—certainly not if you were the one being crucified! It wasn’t very good for you at all!
And that leads to the first Folk Etymology or Supposed Word Origin for the term Good Friday. According to this view, being crucified wasn’t good for Jesus, but it was good for us—it’s how he saved us all from our sins—and so that’s why we call it Good Friday.
However, folk etymologies are really just popular guesses about where a word came from, and they’re often not accurate.
That leads us to a second folk etymology, which holds that Good Friday was originally known as God’s Friday, and that if you say God the right way—God’s Friday—it becomes Good Friday.
This folk etymology is actually based on an element of truth, because sometimes we do use expressions in English that turn the word God into good.
This is the case—for example—with the word good-bye. It’s a contraction of God be with ye.
I, myself, ran into this explanation a number of years ago.
And there really are expressions in English where God has become good.
Unfortunately, Good Friday isn’t one of them.
It turns out that the phrase Good Friday is based on a meaning that the word good used to have. In Middle English, good had the sense of “holy” or “sacred,” and that’s where we get Good Friday. Holy/Sacred Friday—that is, the Friday of Holy Week—thus became Good Friday.
So that’s one mystery solved, but how do we know that Christ was crucified on a Friday at all?
Doubts About Friday
In Matthew 12, Jesus says:
Matthew 12:40
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
This has widely—and correctly—been understood as a reference to the period he spent in the tomb, between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.
However, it raises a question about the timing of these events. Many people ask, if Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, how could he rise on Easter Sunday? That’s not “three days and three nights” later—at least not by our reckoning.
If Christ died on Friday afternoon and rose from the dead early Sunday morning then that’s not three full days. It’s only one day plus parts of two others.
To solve this dilemma, some propose that Jesus was actually crucified earlier—on a Wednesday. That way he could lie in the tomb all of Thursday, all of Friday, and all of Saturday, only to be raised early on Sunday.
Every year, I get messages from people telling me that I—and the vast majority of Bible scholars, both Catholic and Protestant alike—don’t know what we’re talking about when we place the Crucifixion on Friday.
And Matthew 12:40 is presented as conclusive proof of this, as something that we chronologers—apparently—have never thought about before.
But we have.
Not a Matter of Faith
Let’s start by noting that, although the Church commemorates Jesus’ death on Good Friday, the traditional chronology of Holy Week is not a dogma of the Faith, and scholars can explore other options.
For example, in his Jesus of Nazareth series, Pope Benedict XVI discussed the views of the French scholar Annie Jaubert, who proposed that the Last Supper actually took place on Holy Tuesday rather than Holy Thursday.
That view is commonly shared by advocates of a Wednesday Crucifixion, although Jaubert still places the Crucifixion itself on Good Friday.
After exploring the arguments proposed by Jaubert, Benedict observes that
Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2, p. 111
Annie Jaubert’s theory—so fascinating on first sight—is rejected by the majority of exegetes.
He then offers his own conclusion, stating:
Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2, p. 112
So while I would not reject this theory outright, it cannot simply be accepted at face value, in view of the various problems that remain unresolved.
For the pope to publish a book in which he says that the theory is “fascinating at first sight” and that he doesn’t “reject this theory outright”—even though he ultimately isn’t persuaded by it—is a clear indicator that alternative chronologies are possible.
You’re not denying a teaching of the Faith if you have another view of the chronology of the Crucifixion. This is a matter to be settled by following the evidence and seeing where it leads.
So what evidence is there?
“Three Days and Three Nights”?
Let’s begin with Matthew 12:40—the verse that many take as proof that Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday.
The first thing that we need to note is that this verse is not conclusive. That is, it doesn’t actually prove the proposal under discussion.
If you consider the phrase “three days and three nights” in isolation, you realize that—taken in the most literal sense—it would be a period of 72 hours.
Anything more or less than that, and it’s not exactly three days and three nights.
For example, if it was only 70 hours instead of 72, that would be less than a full 3 days. And if it was 74 hours instead of 72, that would be more than a full three days.
But one of the things that the Gospels agree on is that Jesus died late in the day. Mark records that:
Mark 15:42-43, ESV
When evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate, and asked for the body of Jesus.
And John records that:
John 19:42, ESV
So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
They thus needed to bury Jesus quickly, because it was late in the day and night was about to begin.
They had to do this because the book of Deuteronomy required that:
Deuteronomy 21:22-23, ESV
If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day.
This was interpreted to mean that you didn’t let the sun go down on an executed man. So they needed to bury Jesus before nightfall, which is why they used Joseph’s nearby tomb.
So the model of Jesus being in the tomb Thursday, Friday, and Saturday is mistaken. Jesus would have been crucified late in the day on Wednesday, meaning that he would have been in the tomb for more than 72 hours.
The situation gets even worse when you try to make Jesus stay dead and in the tomb for exactly 72 hours.
In that case, Jesus rose from the dead before Saturday night arrived, and he either just hung out in the tomb all Saturday night and into Sunday morning or he left the tomb as soon as the 72 hours were up and it was empty the whole of Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
This is very hard to fit with the idea of the early Christians identifying the first day of the week—or Sunday—as the day Jesus rose from the dead and celebrating it as “the Lord’s Day,” as we read in Revelation 1:10.
We must therefore recognize that this expression is not to be taken fully literally—as a reference to exactly 72 hours. It involves a figurative expression.
To understand that expression, we can’t impose our own culture’s ideas. We need to look at how ancient Jewish authors used language, and here scholars are clear.
As conservative Protestant Bible scholar R. T. France notes:
Matthew, p. 213
Three days and three nights was a Jewish idiom to a period covering only two nights.
Similarly, D. A. Carson, another conservative Protestant Bible scholar, explains:
Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8, p. 296
In rabbinical thought a day and a night make an onah, and a part of an onah is as the whole. . . . Thus 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.
“Three days and three nights” is just an especially demonstrative way of saying “three days.” It doesn’t literally mean seventy-two hours.
And because of the ancients’ tendency to count parts for wholes—that is, to round numbers up—the three days of Jesus’ death were the final part of Friday, all of Saturday, and the first part of Sunday.
Of course, the phrase “three days and three nights”—with no further context—could mean seventy-two hours, but we have context for Matthew’s use of this phrase.
Ultimately, one cannot use a single verse that can be understood in more than one way to overturn all the other evidence we have from the New Testament—and from later in the Gospel of Matthew itself.
“On the Third Day”
You’ll note that in Matthew the Jewish authorities asked that Pilate to
Matthew 27:64
Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away.
This is the standard way that Jesus referred to the time he would rise.
There are at least eight cases in the Gospels indicating that he rose on “The Third Day” (Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24:31, 46).
Mark also records three instances of him saying he will rise “After Three Days” (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:34), and John has him saying it will happen “In Three Days” John 2:20.
However, the standard way of referring to the timing of the event was on “The Third Day”, which is a usage also found outside the Gospels (Acts 10:40, 1 Corinthians 15:4).
To understand which day was the third, one must understand a couple things about how biblical authors counted:
- The first unit of time after something happens begins immediately after the event. We still use this convention today. It’s why a president’s “first” year in office is the one that begins immediately upon his inauguration. His first year isn’t complete until he reaches his twelve-month anniversary.
- Where the ancients differed from us is that they would often count parts for wholes. For example, they would often consider an emperor’s first year to be the time from when he took office to the beginning of the next calendar year. His “second” year would begin with New Year’s Day, meaning that his “first” year wasn’t twelve months long. But though it was only part of a twelve-month period, it was counted as a year.
The same thing applied to other units of time, such as months, weeks, days, and hours, and this has implications for the Crucifixion:
- Jesus died at around 3 p.m. on the day of preparation Luke 23:44-46, which means the first day of his death was the remainder of the day of preparation, between 3 p.m. and sunset.
- The second day then began at sunset and lasted through the entire sabbath—that is, it included Friday night and Saturday daytime.
- The third day then began at sundown on the sabbath and lasted until sunset on the first day of the week—that is, it was Saturday night and part of Sunday daytime.
This is why, on the road to Emmaus, the disciples can tell Jesus that
Luke 24:21
It is now the third day since these things [i.e., the Crucifixion] happened.
We thus have abundant evidence pointing to the Friday-Saturday-Sunday chronology, with Jesus being raised “on the third day,” or Sunday.
But we can go further than this by looking at the data that each Gospel provides to us.
To do that, though, we need to understand three terms.
The First Day of the Week
The first term we need to understand is “the first day of the week.” Today, we call this day Sunday, but the early Christians didn’t call it that.
To them, it was simply the first day of the week, which commemorated the creation of the world, when God declared “Let there be light” in Genesis (Genesis 1:5).
In a Christian context, it also came to reflect God’s new creation in Jesus Christ because of his resurrection.
Thus by the A.D. 50s, Christians were worshipping on this day (1 Corinthians 16:2).
And by the late A.D. 60s—when the book of Revelation was written—it had come to be known as “The Lord’s Day” (Revelation 1:5).
Similarly, writing around A.D. 108, the early Church father Ignatius of Antioch wrote that
Magnesians 9:1
Those [Jews] who had lived in antiquated practices came to newness of hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath but living in accordance with the Lord’s day, on which our life also arose through him [Jesus] and his death.
The Sabbath
The next term we need to understand is the sabbath.
In ordinary Jewish speech, “the sabbath” was overwhelmingly used to refer to the day of the week known to us as Saturday.
There are a few exceptions to this, where certain other holy days could be referred to as sabbaths. These included:
- The day of atonement (Lev. 16:31, 23:32)
- The feast of trumpets (Lev. 23:24)
- And The 1st and 8th days of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:39)
However, these usages were rare, and none of them occur when Jesus was crucified, which was at Passover, not Atonement, Trumpets, or Tabernacles.
So we should expect the sabbath at Jesus’ crucifixion to just be a weekly sabbath.
The Day of Preparation
Now we’re ready to introduce the third term we need to know, which is the Day of Preparation.
Modern people aren’t typically familiar with the phrase “the day of preparation,” but it was a way of referring to the day before the sabbath—or what we would call Friday.
It was called the day of preparation because devout Jews had to make preparations to rest on the sabbath. For example, they needed to prepare all the food that they would eat on Saturday. Thus, Moses declared:
Exodus 16:23
This is what the Lord has commanded: “Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay by to be kept till the morning.”
Friday thus became known as the day of preparation. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes:
Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Calendar”
The idea of preparation is expressed by the Greek name paraskeuê, given by Josephus (Ant. 16:6:2) to that day (compare Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; Matt. 27:62; John 19:42). In Yer. Pesaḥim 4:1 the day is called ‘Yoma da-’Arubta’ (Day of Preparation).
The Evidence of Mark
So with this as background, let’s look at what the four Gospels have to say about when Jesus was crucified.
We’ll begin with the earliest Gospel, or the Gospel of Mark, and we’re going to walk backwards—from the morning when the women find the tomb empty.
The first verse we want to look at is Mark 16:2, which says:
Mark 16:2, ESV
And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.
The women then find the tomb empty, and they encounter angels who tell them that Jesus has risen. Mark said this happened very early on the first day of the week—or what we would call Sunday.
But Mark gives us more information about this day. If we back up just one verse, we read:
Mark 16:1, ESV
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.
So this tells us that the women went to anoint him very early on the first day of the week when the sabbath was past.
That reveals that the day before the first day of the week was the sabbath. And since the regular weekly sabbath is the last day of the week—or what we would call Saturday—it was a regular, weekly sabbath.
We can now back up into Mark chapter 15 and learn about the Crucifixion. Beginning with verse 42, we read:
Mark 15:42-43, 46, ESV
And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.
So this tells us that Jesus was buried when evening had come, since it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath.
Mark even identifies for us that the day of preparation was the day before the sabbath, and we’ve already seen that the sabbath was the day before the first day of the week, or Sunday.
So from our first Gospel—Mark—we learn that:
- Jesus was crucified and buried on a Friday
- His followers rested on the Saturday sabbath
- And they found the tomb empty on Sunday
The Evidence of Luke
Now let’s see what the next Gospel to be written has to say, which I have proposed to be the Gospel of Luke.
Again, we’ll start with when the tomb is discovered empty. Luke says:
Luke 24:1-3, ESV
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
So Luke agrees with Mark that they found the tomb empty on the first day of the week, at early dawn—or what we would call Sunday morning.
The day before this—or what we would call Saturday—would be a weekly sabbath, so let’s back up and see what Luke says about that:
Luke 23:56b, ESV
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
So that’s just what you’d expect of a group of observant Jews.
Now let’s back up again to the Crucifixion.
Luke 23:50, 52-56a, ESV
Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea.
This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning.
The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.
So Luke indicates that Jesus was crucified and buried on the day of preparation—or what we would call Friday—and this was done hurriedly because the sabbath was beginning on Friday evening and they needed to start their sabbath rest.
So Luke agrees with Mark that:
- Jesus was crucified and buried on a Friday
- His followers rested on the Saturday sabbath
- And they found the tomb empty on Sunday
The Evidence of Matthew
Now let’s see what evidence we have from the third Gospel to be written, which I have proposed was Matthew’s Gospel.
Concerning the discovery of the empty tomb, Matthew says:
Matthew 28:1b, ESV
. . . toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
So Matthew agrees with Mark and Luke that the empty tomb was discovered toward the dawn of the first day of the week, or Sunday.
Now let’s back up to learn about the day before. And we don’t have to back up far, because what we’ve just quoted is the second part of a sentence. If we read the whole sentence, it says this:
Matthew 28:1, ESV
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
So this confirms that the empty tomb was discovered on the first day of the week after the sabbath, or what we would call Saturday.
Matthew also reveals something else that happened on this Saturday. If we back up to Matthew 27:62, we learn that:
Matthew 27:62-64, ESV
The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.”
So Matthew indicates that on the Sabbath—that is, after the day of preparation—the Pharisees asked Pilate to set a guard on the tomb until the third day, since Jesus had said after three days I will rise.
Day 1 (Friday): The Crucifixion
Day 2 (Saturday): The request for a guard
Day 3 (Sunday): “The third day”/day Jesus said he would rise
They thus identify the first day as the day of the Crucifixion, the second day as the day they’re making this request, and the third day as the day Jesus said he would rise.
Matthew has said that this request was made the next day, that is, after the day of preparation, so if we back up a little further, we get to the burial, and we read that on the day of preparation—or Friday:
Matthew 27:57, ESV
When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus.
And he received Jesus’ body and buried it.
So Matthew agrees with Mark and Luke that:
- Jesus was crucified and buried on a Friday
- His followers rested on the Saturday sabbath
- And they found the tomb empty on Sunday
The Evidence of John
Now let’s look at the evidence from the fourth Gospel to be written, which scholars generally hold was John. He states that:
John 20:1, ESV
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
John focuses in particular on Mary Magdalen—rather than the other women who were with her—and he reports that she discovered the empty tomb on the first day of the week . . . early, while it was still dark.
That agrees with the other three Gospels that the discovery was made early on Sunday, around the time the sun came up.
Mark says that the women were at the tomb
Mark 16:2, ESV
And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.
Luke says that they were there:
Luke 24:1-3, ESV
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.
Matthew says that they were there:
Matthew 28:1, ESV
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
And John says that they were there:
John 20:1, ESV
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
So they probably left shortly before sunrise, as John indicates and Matthew suggests, but the sun came up while they were still there, as Luke suggests and Mark indicates.
We can even calculate the time of day more precisely.
If—as I proposed in Episode 43 of The Jimmy Akin Podcast—the crucifixion happened on Friday, April 3, A.D. 33 on the (Julian Calendar), then the empty tomb was discovered around sunrise on Sunday, April 5th.
The sun rose in Jerusalem at 6:27 a.m. on Sunday, April 5th, so the women probably arrived at the tomb shortly before this and were still there shortly after this.
Setting that matter aside, John still indicates that Mary was at the tomb:
John 20:1, ESV
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
Now let’s back up and see what John has to say about the crucifixion and the sabbath. In John 19:31, he says:
John 19:31, ESV
Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain 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.
So John indicates that the Crucifixion was on the day of preparation, but they needed to get the bodies off the crosses quickly because they couldn’t remain there on the sabbath, and John adds that that sabbath was a high day because it was the sabbath that fell during Passover week.
The guards thus broke the legs of the two criminals, but Jesus was already dead, so they didn’t break his.
John 19:38, 41-42, ESV
After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body.
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
So John indicates that Jesus’ burial took place after these things on the day of preparation—or what we would call Friday. And they needed to get him into the tomb because the sabbath was beginning at sundown, so because the Jewish day of preparation was ending and the nearness of the tomb, they buried Jesus there.
John thus agrees with Mark, Luke, and Matthew that:
- Jesus was crucified and buried on a Friday
- His followers rested on the Saturday sabbath
- And they found the tomb empty on Sunday
Conclusion
We thus find that all 4 Gospels agree on the same chronology.
- All 4 indicate that Jesus was crucified on the Jewish day of preparation or what we would call Friday
- All 4 indicate that his followers rested and he lay in the tomb on the Jewish sabbath or what we would call Saturday
- And all 4 indicate that this was a weekly sabbath, because all 4 agree it was the day immediately before the first day of the week, or what we would call Sunday
The traditional Christian chronology of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter or Resurrection Sunday is thus firmly grounded in the text of all 4 Gospels.
Jesus indicated that he would rise “On the Third Day” after his crucifixion,
Day 1 (Friday): The Crucifixion
Day 2 (Saturday): The request for a guard
Day 3 (Sunday): “The third day”/day Jesus said he would rise
meaning on the Sunday that followed the weekly sabbath and the day of preparation on which he was crucified.
Because Jews frequently counted parts of days as whole days, they would say that he lay in the tomb for “Three Days”.
And in a single verse in all the Gospels—Matthew 12:40—this is phrase as
Matthew 12:40
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
But this is a figurative expression, not a literal 72 hours.
In light of all the other evidence that we have from all 4 Gospels, the fact that Jesus was crucified on a Friday and rose on a Sunday is firm.
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