Q: In Matthew 12:40, Jesus said that As Jonah 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. But the gospels say that Jesus was only in the tomb from Friday evening to Sunday morning, which adds up to one full day, and two nights. Isnt this a stark contradiction?
A: This is an example of a problem which is elicited by differences between the connotations of something said in a speakers language and culture, and the connotations of the same thing said in a different language and culture. Most modern readers, when they read the words three days and three nights, naturally assume that the default meaning of this period of time is interchangeable with 72 hours. But thats not the case! At least, that was not the case in the Holy Land in the first century. At www.new-life.net/3_days.htm one can find a nice, easy-to-read article about Jesus use of inclusive reckoning which addresses this passage and its parallels, and helpfully points out other Biblical instances of inclusive reckoning.
In Esther 4:16, Esther sends a message to Mordecai, instructing him to fast on her behald: Fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king. So they fasted for 72 hours, right? No: in Esther 5:1, Esther went to the king on the third day.
And in Matthew 27:63, the chief priests and Pharisees say that Jesus said, After three days I will rise again, and in response Pilate commands that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Pilate seems to have thus regarded the preceding day -- Friday -- as a whole day, even though Jesus had only been entombed from some point in the evening.
The idiom that Jesus is using here was not universal even in the first century -- three days and three nights could mean exactly that, the span of time that includes three sunsets and three sunrises. But it didnt /have/ to mean that. Part of a day-and-night period could be reckoned as one full day, or one onah, a dayspan. It might be helpful to provide links to some references of this usage in the Talmud.
At www.come-and-hear.com/sha...th_86.html in a discussion about the timing of the expiration of a menstrating womans ritual uncleanness, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah is cited as saying that a day and a night are an onah, and the portion of an onah is as the whole of it. In other words, while a complete day-and-night = a dayspan, a portion of a dayspan may be counted as one whole dayspan when reckoning when uncleanness starts and stops. So if, say, a woman is considered unclean for three days from the onset of uncleanness, and in one case a womans onset of uncleanness begins at, say, 4:00 p.m. on a Monday, that Monday = one onah, even though it is actually only a few hours from 4:00 till sunset.
Now, you may wonder what a rabbinical opinion about how to measure the proper uncleanness-period for a menstruating woman has to do with measuring how long Jesus was in the tomb. There is a connection: menstruation and death both caused ritual uncleanness. So it seems reasonable to extrapolate that the same means of measurement were used for uncleanness-by-death that was used for uncleanness-by-menstruation. Again the Talmud may be helpful: in a post which is one small component of a vveerryy lleeennggtthhyy discussion about the 3-days-&-3-nights issue at Internet Infidels Discussion Forum, poster Amlodhi tells GakuseiDon (who has posted at the SAB-Board also) the following: (Ive rewritten the text in order to assure that I dont violate any reproduction-limits which might exist for I.I.D.F.)
In Pesachim 4a, the Gemara relates how Rav, in order to avoid being a bearer of bad news, reported his parents deaths by not reporting them. Now, Rav was Rabbi Chiyas nephew, and Rabbi Chiya was not only Ravs fathers brother (they shared the same father), but was also Rabs mothers brother (they shared the same mother). When Rav went from Babylonia to the land of Israel, Rabbi Chiya asked him Is your father alive? Rav replied, Wont you ask me whether my mother is alive? So Rabbi Chiya asked, Is your mother alive? and Rav replied, Are you so sure that my father is alive? -- and Rabbi Chiya perceived that they both had died. So he said to his servant, Remove my shoes from my feet, and carry my bathing-clothes after me to the baths.
From this anecdote three laws can be derived:
(1) The wearing of shoes is forbidden when one is mourning.
(2) When the news of a death is not received until after 30 days after it occurred, mourning is observed for one day only, instead of seven.
(3) a part of the day counts as an entire day, since Rabbi Chiya intended to go to the baths after an hour, instead of waiting a full day.
This is drawn from Ein Yaakov, the Ethical and Inspirational Teachings of the Talmud; compliled in the 16th cent. by Rabbi Yaakov Ibn Chaviv, pgs. 156-157, Jason Aronson inc. pub., Jerusalem.
The unrevised post may be found at www.iidb.org/vbb/showthre...?p=1715167 . (The baths which are referred to, I am guessing, are miqveh, used for purification-washing such as one would undergo after a period of uncleanness.)
Now, just how a rabbi, or a society, could conclude that this is a good way of measurement is a separate question. What matters as far as my resolution is concerned is that when uncleanness-periods were involved, a part of a day could be reckoned as a whole dayspan, even though a dayspan normally meant the elapsement of a day-and-night cycle. (Perhaps technically one could also say that an onah = a period of daylight and two onahs (or onoth) = two periods of daylight and not the invervening night-time, but since on our planet the periods of daylight are, in most populated areas, separated by periods of night-time, the elapsement of a day-and-night cycle is still implied, unless one resides above the Arctic Circle. But I digress.)
Now lets take a look at Jesus time in the sepulchre:
Part of Friday = one dayspan.
All of Saturday = one dayspan.
Part of Sunday = one dayspan.
Literally three days and three nights? No. Idiomatically three days and three nights (i.e., three dayspans), as uncleanness-periods were measured? Yes.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: This is an example of a problem which is elicited by differences between the connotations of something said in a speakers language and culture, and the connotations of the same thing said in a different language and culture. Most modern readers, when they read the words three days and three nights, naturally assume that the default meaning of this period of time is interchangeable with 72 hours. But thats not the case! At least, that was not the case in the Holy Land in the first century. At www.new-life.net/3_days.htm one can find a nice, easy-to-read article about Jesus use of inclusive reckoning which addresses this passage and its parallels, and helpfully points out other Biblical instances of inclusive reckoning.
In Esther 4:16, Esther sends a message to Mordecai, instructing him to fast on her behald: Fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king. So they fasted for 72 hours, right? No: in Esther 5:1, Esther went to the king on the third day.
And in Matthew 27:63, the chief priests and Pharisees say that Jesus said, After three days I will rise again, and in response Pilate commands that the tomb be made secure until the third day. Pilate seems to have thus regarded the preceding day -- Friday -- as a whole day, even though Jesus had only been entombed from some point in the evening.
The idiom that Jesus is using here was not universal even in the first century -- three days and three nights could mean exactly that, the span of time that includes three sunsets and three sunrises. But it didnt /have/ to mean that. Part of a day-and-night period could be reckoned as one full day, or one onah, a dayspan. It might be helpful to provide links to some references of this usage in the Talmud.
At www.come-and-hear.com/sha...th_86.html in a discussion about the timing of the expiration of a menstrating womans ritual uncleanness, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah is cited as saying that a day and a night are an onah, and the portion of an onah is as the whole of it. In other words, while a complete day-and-night = a dayspan, a portion of a dayspan may be counted as one whole dayspan when reckoning when uncleanness starts and stops. So if, say, a woman is considered unclean for three days from the onset of uncleanness, and in one case a womans onset of uncleanness begins at, say, 4:00 p.m. on a Monday, that Monday = one onah, even though it is actually only a few hours from 4:00 till sunset.
Now, you may wonder what a rabbinical opinion about how to measure the proper uncleanness-period for a menstruating woman has to do with measuring how long Jesus was in the tomb. There is a connection: menstruation and death both caused ritual uncleanness. So it seems reasonable to extrapolate that the same means of measurement were used for uncleanness-by-death that was used for uncleanness-by-menstruation. Again the Talmud may be helpful: in a post which is one small component of a vveerryy lleeennggtthhyy discussion about the 3-days-&-3-nights issue at Internet Infidels Discussion Forum, poster Amlodhi tells GakuseiDon (who has posted at the SAB-Board also) the following: (Ive rewritten the text in order to assure that I dont violate any reproduction-limits which might exist for I.I.D.F.)
In Pesachim 4a, the Gemara relates how Rav, in order to avoid being a bearer of bad news, reported his parents deaths by not reporting them. Now, Rav was Rabbi Chiyas nephew, and Rabbi Chiya was not only Ravs fathers brother (they shared the same father), but was also Rabs mothers brother (they shared the same mother). When Rav went from Babylonia to the land of Israel, Rabbi Chiya asked him Is your father alive? Rav replied, Wont you ask me whether my mother is alive? So Rabbi Chiya asked, Is your mother alive? and Rav replied, Are you so sure that my father is alive? -- and Rabbi Chiya perceived that they both had died. So he said to his servant, Remove my shoes from my feet, and carry my bathing-clothes after me to the baths.
From this anecdote three laws can be derived:
(1) The wearing of shoes is forbidden when one is mourning.
(2) When the news of a death is not received until after 30 days after it occurred, mourning is observed for one day only, instead of seven.
(3) a part of the day counts as an entire day, since Rabbi Chiya intended to go to the baths after an hour, instead of waiting a full day.
This is drawn from Ein Yaakov, the Ethical and Inspirational Teachings of the Talmud; compliled in the 16th cent. by Rabbi Yaakov Ibn Chaviv, pgs. 156-157, Jason Aronson inc. pub., Jerusalem.
The unrevised post may be found at www.iidb.org/vbb/showthre...?p=1715167 . (The baths which are referred to, I am guessing, are miqveh, used for purification-washing such as one would undergo after a period of uncleanness.)
Now, just how a rabbi, or a society, could conclude that this is a good way of measurement is a separate question. What matters as far as my resolution is concerned is that when uncleanness-periods were involved, a part of a day could be reckoned as a whole dayspan, even though a dayspan normally meant the elapsement of a day-and-night cycle. (Perhaps technically one could also say that an onah = a period of daylight and two onahs (or onoth) = two periods of daylight and not the invervening night-time, but since on our planet the periods of daylight are, in most populated areas, separated by periods of night-time, the elapsement of a day-and-night cycle is still implied, unless one resides above the Arctic Circle. But I digress.)
Now lets take a look at Jesus time in the sepulchre:
Part of Friday = one dayspan.
All of Saturday = one dayspan.
Part of Sunday = one dayspan.
Literally three days and three nights? No. Idiomatically three days and three nights (i.e., three dayspans), as uncleanness-periods were measured? Yes.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
