One of the things I have had, and having problems with is the idea that The Sacrifice happened on a Friday as postulated by KP. In my past understanding, perhaps wrongly, I was given to understand that Yahushua was sacrificed on Wednesday, before a High Sabbath on Thursday, and rose again on the Saturday Sabbath thus keeping the three days and three nights portion of Scripture intact. This contrasts with the Friday-Sunday/Monday understanding that is currently held by many others.
In my search for knowledge about this again, I found a few sites with this information, and am still trying to ascertain the days in the calendar during the year of The Sacrifice based on what they write. However, while I work on that, I have pasted below some information from a website which I found. Please comment on this and its' impact upon prophecy in Scripture. It will greatly aid me in deepening my understanding of some timelines.
- start -
http://www.awmach.org/FAQ/whh/lifeafterdeath.htmI said before that this was a type of the coming death of Christ. By a show of hands as I count backward from Sunday morning, when did the resurrection of Christ occur? We know that when Mary went to the tomb on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, the angel who met her told her, "Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here; behold the place where they laid him.". The weekly Sabbath had ended on Saturday night at sunset. The bodily resurrection took place at some point after that and probably very shortly after that.
Next question. When did He die? Again, counting backward from Saturday night by a show of hands, when was Christ crucified? One of the reasons I don't bother with going to Good Friday or Maundy Thursday services unless I have to for choir, is that they perpetuate falsehoods in the name of tradition. By tradition, Palm Sunday records Christ's entrance into Jerusalem when he was lauded with Palm branches along the way. Maundy Thursday represents the time of the Last Supper. Good Friday represents the day that Christ was crucified. That is not at all what the Bible declares, folks.
Jesus declares in Matthew 12:40, "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Eph. 4:7-11 declares that while His body was in the grave, His soul went into the bowels of the earth and took the souls of the righteous dead to heaven when He ascended. Since Christ declared that He would be in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights, counting backward from Saturday sunset, that puts his death at sometime on Wednesday and not on Friday. According to Matthew 27:45 there was darkness over the land from the sixth to the ninth hour which would be from noon to 3 p.m. on Wednesday. Shortly after 3 p.m., He gave up the ghost, and the veil of the temple separating the Holy of Holies from the rest was rent in two by God. This was a 60 foot long veil and quite thick. The rending indicated that the division between God and man was now not needed and man would have access directly to the Father through the blood of Jesus. That should have gotten some Jewish priest's attention.
A side effect of a death on Wednesday is that this pushes the Last Supper back to Tuesday or earlier.
How does this correspond to the scriptures? The scriptures say that He had to be taken down from the cross and buried quickly because the Sabbath was coming. Most in the Christian church today, think of that Sabbath as starting Friday at sunset through Saturday sunset. The Sabbath they were referring to was a special High Sabbath or High Holy Day due to the Passover celebration that was going on and was not a normal weekly Sabbath.
Passover (The Feast of Unleavened Bread) comes on the 14th day of the 1st month of the Jewish calendar. It starts at sunset and follows through to sunset of the Passover day. The Passover Sedar, which is the Last Supper that was mentioned above, would have been eaten on Tuesday. So Christ was executed on Passover. That is wholly fitting when you look at Passover as a type for Christ's death. On that day, a Passover lamb shed his blood to save those who were in the house where the blood was sprinkled from the death of all the firstborn that God was planning. Even so, Christ's blood on the cross is a sacrifice that saves all that accepts it and Him.
This Sabbath would have been the 15th day of the 1st month of their calendar. This Sabbath lasted from Wednesday sunset to Thursday sunset and was celebrated the day after Passover. It was this special High Holy Day sabbath that is referred to in scripture that was upcoming that the body had to be buried before. This interpretation also gives the women a day to shop for the spices to anoint the body on Friday before the normal Sabbath so they would be prepared to go to the tomb to anoint the body early Sunday morning. They wouldn't have had an opportunity to do this on either the mid-week High Holy Day or the normal Sabbath. For more information see Antipas.net.
If we really want to celebrate the resurrection Sunday when Christ was risen, we should celebrate on the Sunday following Passover. This Sunday frequently coincides with the traditional date of Easter. But this is not always true. About 20% of the time it is after. Next year, for example, Easter will be celebrated on March 23, but the first day of Passover is actually April 20. Likewise, Pentecost Sunday should always be 50 days after the Sunday after Passover and not whenever Easter happens to fall on a particular year. There's always risks modeling your Christian Holidays after Pagan festivals.
This would make a human life span of approximately 33 1/2 years from October 4, BC 4 (Tishri 15, 3757 in the Hebrew Calendar during the Feast of Tabernacles) to Apr 24, CE 31 (Nisan 15, 3790 in the Hebrew Calendar). That's right - he wasn't born on Christmas either!
This time of crucifixion to time of resurrection thus corresponds directly to both Jonah's time dead in the whale's belly (the Bible never says he was kept alive all that time you know), and the time that Lazarus was dead and buried. Thus we have both Old and New Testament examples of God's power to restore life as a type to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The only difference between Christ and the rest is that Christ didn't die again. All of the other people who were brought back to life died again. It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment. Some got to go through the experience twice. Even the two individuals who have not yet tasted death, Enoch (Gen. 5:22, Heb. 11:5) and Elijah (2 Kings 2), will come back to Earth in the time of the tribulation to be the two witnesses in Jerusalem after the anti-Christ takes over the temple. They will testify, prophesy, and witness of God to the people for just under 3 1/2 years. They will have power to devour their enemies with fire. When their period of testimony is finished, they will suffer death at the hands of the beast and they will lie dead in the street while everyone parties for 3 1/2 days. At that point, they will be resurrected bodily and will ascend to heaven. (There is that 3 day time period again Rev. 11:3-11).
- end -
Edit:
Another website (http://www.abdicate.net/cal.aspx) shows that 14 Nisan 3787 or 9 April 27 CE was the day of The Sacrifice, also a Wednesday. Rather confusing as to which was the correct year. I guess I'll have to go look again at FH to make sense of all of this. Maybe that's why Yahushua said that we do not know the day or hour... we've messed it up! Hahahaha! Sigh!
Edited by user Friday, January 4, 2008 2:14:54 AM(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified