The elapsed time between being killed and then rising “ on the third day,” as described in 17:23, is longer than the time between rising after being buried, as discussed in 12:40. Taking the phrase in 12:40 “three days and three nights” as denoting exactly 72 hours creates an internal problem with 17:23 in the Gospel of Matthew. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life” (17:23, emphasis ours). For example, Matthew, who used the phrase “three days and three nights” to refer to the length of Jesus’ burial, also has him saying: “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. But this line of reasoning creates a contradiction. Those who believe in a Wednesday crucifixion disregard the inexactness as to time in these passages and interpret them by Matthew 12:40 in a literal manner, as exactly 72 hours. In 20 places indefinite expressions such “on the third day he will be raised” are given as the length of time between these events. However, if we read the 20 other places in the New Testament in which Jesus and the apostles refer to the length of time he would spend in the tomb, we would be forced to conclude that they do not teach a literal three-day stay in the tomb. Thus he was buried near sunset Wednesday evening and resurrected Saturday evening. This verse has Jesus saying: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Proponents of a Wednesday crucifixion say that this statement means Jesus was exactly three days and three nights – or 72 hours – in the grave. The question remains: On what day of the week was Jesus crucified and buried in the tomb? Those who believe Jesus was crucified on Wednesday refer to Matthew 12:40. It appears from these accounts that Jesus was raised sometime during the early hours of Sunday morning. The women came to the tomb around dawn on the “first day of the week” (or Sunday), and found it empty. The Gospels say that the women came to the tomb “at dawn on the first day of the week” (Matthew 28:1), “very early on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:2), “on the first day of the week, very early in the morning” (Luke 24:1), or “early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark” (John 20:1). The Gospels tell us that the day on which the women discovered that Jesus’ tomb was empty was Sunday morning. Jesus Christ: How Long Was Jesus in the Tomb?
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