Czarcasm,
re: “Is the OP looking for… evidence that ‘three days and three nights’ means something other that what is stated?”
Close. I’m looking for evidence/documentation that shows that the phrase “three days and three nights” was used in the first century or before to designate a period of time that couldn’t have included at least parts of three day and at least parts of three nights.
Talking about the crucixion and resurrection, the two major stories you’re going to see are the traditional Friday to Sunday timeline and then the next most common is Wednesday to Saturday. It’s been a while since I’ve really researched or discussed this but I’ll throw out a few things to take into account.
The accounts are pretty clear about the two sabbaths. In general, the Friday-Sunday runs on the assumption that they were the same day whereas the Wednesday-Saturday one runs that they were different days. I think the biggest confusion here is in regard to whether some things that are described happening after the sabbath in two different verses are describing the same events or two different sets of events and you’ll have both sides argue about whether they’re the same or not.
But in general, the Friday-SSunday timeline goes that he dies Friday and is buried shortly before sundown counting one day, sabbath is on Saturday counting day two, and sometime either Saturday evening or early Sunday morning he rose and he was discovered missing shortly thereafter and that counts the third day. The Wed-Sat timeline would hold that he died Wednesday and was buried shorly before sundown, he was in the tomb for all of the sabbath on Thursday, on Friday whatever it was happened (I want to say it’s generally said that it was annointing with oil to finish the rites they didn’t have time for), then rose at some point on Saturday to be discovered missing on Sunday
Another interesting thing to consider is the year. If I recall correctly, Jesus is generally believed to be 33 when he died and, interestingly enough, 33 AD is a year when the preparation sabbath falls on a Saturday and that doesn’t really jive with when he was likely born (IIRC 4-6 BC). However, if he was born any time after passover in 4 BC, he would have been 33 in 31 AD which lines up with the second timeline with a Thursday for that sabbath. So in order for the first timeline to really work, either he wasn’t 33 or he was crucified several years different, which then runs into problems with aligning with other historical events.
If you really just want to get down to the words though, there’s tons and tons about how those different verses should be interpretted and, really, I was never particularly convinced that either side had an airtight case about how it should be interpretted. I do remember some cases being pointed out as day meaning only the light part of a 24 hour cycle and some where it might mean some portion, so you really need someone who can translate the original without an agenda.
All I can say is that I was raised with the first timeline and always had trouble with it and I felt like the second required a lot less fudging and things just seemed to line up a lot better. Either way, I felt like the whole discussion is kind of a waste of time since, either he died for your sins or he didn’t; if your particular interpretation is wrong but it happened in line with the other, does that somehow undermine your faith?
Well, one thing you must consider is that our earliest sources show people assuming the Friday to Sunday interpretation. Hence “Good Friday.”
BTW, I’ve also heard of a Thursday burial.
BigT,
re: “BTW, I’ve also heard of a Thursday burial.”
Matthew 12:40 and Luke 24:21 indicate that the crucifixion could not have occurred any later than the 5th day.
Anyone?
Sometimes when you pray for something like, say, a resolution to a Biblical contradiction, the answer is “no”.
Czarcasm,
Why do you say no? Isn’t it possible that someone new looking might know of an author?
And my question to you is, at what point do you decide that the two just aren’t going to match up-when every single person in the world tells you “Sorry-can’t find such a reference that reconciles the two”? The theory that you can find anything if you just look hard enough only works if what you are looking for exists in the first place.
Czarcasm,
re: " The theory that you can find anything if you just look hard enough only works if what you are looking for exists in the first place."
So you’re saying that nowhere has the the phrase “three days and three nights” been used to designate a period of time that doesn’t include at least parts of three days and at least parts of three nights?
Also, that “every single person in the world” says the same thing?
Not at all-I’m asking you what it would take to convince you that there probably isn’t any such reference to be found. At what point do you quit looking?
Czarcasm,
re: “I’m asking you what it would take to convince you that there probably isn’t any such reference to be found. At what point do you quit looking?”
I can’t think of anything that would convince me or that would cause me to stop looking - except of course a positive answer to my request.
rstrats, it’s not clear from your posts whether you understand inclusive counting, used by ancient Romans, Greeks, and Jews. In English, we usually use the exclusive system 0-1-2-3 for time, so that if today is Monday, three days later is Thursday (Monday = 0, Tues. = 1, Weds. = 2, Thurs. = 3). Inclusive counting would make Wednesday three days later (Monday = 1, Tues. = 2, Weds. = 3). So while the language might literally, word for word, say “three days and three nights,” that could mean “three 12-hour periods followed by three more twelve-hour periods, but including the ones we’re in right now.” This can have double-counting sometimes: the Roman eight-day week’s weekly market was the nundiae, “ninth day,” held every eight days by our reckoning.
Likewise, “a day and a night” can be one twelve-hour period and then another, or it can be a phrase which means “a 24-hour day, as opposed to just the daytime bit.” Furthermore, both Greeks and Jews began the day at sunset rather than midnight, so you have to take that into consideration.
In that sense, almost every work from a Roman, Greek, or Jewish context that talks about “three days” (whether they’re specific about nights or not) means what we would call “two days,” simply because we don’t usually count today as part of the three.
So depending on language and context, this phrase could refer to anything from 48 hours to 72. If, as is tradition, it’s Friday (day) + Friday evening / Saturday + Saturday evening / Sunday (day), that’s 2–2½ days, which is 3 full days in the way it would have been counted.
Dr. Drake,
re: “…it’s not clear from your posts whether you understand inclusive counting…”
Indeed I do, and as regards the Jewish practice of counting any part of a day as a whole day I would agree; but when “nights” is added to “days” to yield the phrase “ x days AND x nights” it normally refers to a measurement of a consecutive time period where “day” refers to the light portion of a calendar day and “night” refers to the dark portion of a calendar day. No one In the history of apologetics as far as I know has ever presented any historical documentation that the phrase “ x days AND x nights” was a unique first century idiom of Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek which could mean something different than what the phrase means in English - at least parts of three light periods and at least parts of three dark periods. If you have such documentation, I would very much like to see it.
I can’t speak for these languages (except maybe Greek, but I’m no expert there.) Are you saying that “day and night” cannot be a merism for the 24-hour day in those languages? If “day and night” = “day” (merism, yet to be established for Greek), then “3 days and 3 nights” = “3 days.”
Just googling “day and night” “merism”, there is a lot of commentary on its usage in the Bible, including Hebrew. That’s before the first century, of course, but there’s no reason to believe that they would not have also had it. The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament discusses your exact phrase, in the Jonah passage, in volume 7, p. 536, where is says that the numbers before “days” and “nights” indicates the duration of time. “40 days and 40 nights” (Hebrew) = “40 days” (English).
I don’t particularly care whether or how long Jesus did anything, so I have no god in this fight.
Dr. Drake,
re: “Are you saying that ‘day and night’ cannot be a merism for the 24-hour day in those languages?”
I’m not asking about the general phrase “day and night” - I’m asking about the phrase “x days and x nights”. If I said that I studied for one day and one night would you ever think that at least part of one light period and at least part of one dark period wasn’t involved?
Yes, that’s what I mean by merism, and that’s apparently (according to the source I referenced) how it works in Hebrew. “day and night” or “40 days and 40 nights” does not require a literal understanding of day(the daylight period) and night(the nighttime period), but is to be understood as having a sngle referent, what English speakers mean when they say “day” (not counting when English speakers specify day-as-opposed-to-night).
Sorry, the last post wasn’t clear.
According to the source I looked at, “X days and X nights” is simply the plural of “day and night,” and the repetition of the number X shouldn’t mislead you into thinking that “days” and “nights” aren’t a unit—they still are.
Actually, if you look hard enough (and the signal-to-noise ratio is low enough) you’ll find it even if it’s not there.
Dr. Drake,
I guess I’m not smart enough to understand what you’re saying about “merism” but I’m pretty sure that it doesn’t have anything thing to do with what I’m requesting in the OP.
I would like to see a specific example from the first century or before where the phrase “x days AND x nights” is used to designate a period of time that absolutely does not include at least parts of x days and at least parts of x nights.
I can’t remember the specific example, but even today there are legal and/or taxation situations where part-days are not recognized, so, if I held something from 11:59 PM to 12:01 AM (two minutes), legally it would be treated as “two days”. (IANAL, but my parents are, and the subject came up, and they advised me, which is how I learned this.)
The idea of “merism” is simply that sometimes, a thing is called by a compound name when a simple one would do. In any case, it’s going to be difficult for you to find a specific example where some document includes a citation of time in two different ways so that it’s clear that “x days and x nights” means “x days, inclusive”. Good luck finding it. Not finding it isn’t evidence of much.
As a programmer, the ambiguity (even today, in careless speech) of phrases like “in three days” or even “next Wednesday” annoy me, and this kind of text in the Bible seems confusing and contradictory. But, that’s how people talk, and how (evidently) they wrote. It also bugs me that in some languages, double negatives don’t cancel out; in fact they’re required. Seems illogical to me, but my opinion doesn’t matter.