The Passion Week

The Days of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection

I was in a discussion with a friend yesterday who challenged my view that the crucifixion of Jesus was on a Friday. It got me thinking and so I decided to put together this chart to help me think through the events outlined in the Gospels. It did not take long to see that it is not easy to reconcile all the biblical information about the final days of Jesus’ life. To be clear, I do not think any conflict lies in the various accounts, but difficulty arises because of the separation between us and these ancient cultures. Below is my attempt to reconcile the accounts given in the four Gospels while taking into consideration the cultural practices of the day. In creating the chart below, I relied heavily on the work of Harold W. Hoehner and also consulted with my friend H.Wayne House (check out Wayne’s Visual Study Bible online here).

While not all scholars agree, I think the evidence supports a Friday crucifixion. Hoehner summarizes this view below:

Jesus predicted that He would die and be raised on the third day (Matt. 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22). When one reads these events in the gospels, one clearly receives the impression that Jesus rose on the third day. Jesus’ body was laid in the tomb on the evening of the day of preparation (Friday), the day before the Sabbath (Matt. 27:62; 28:1; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54, 56; John 19:31, 42). The women returned home and rested on the Sabbath (Saturday, Luke 23:56). Early on the first day of the week (Sunday), they went to the tomb (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1–2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1) which was empty. Furthermore, on the same day He arose from the grave, Jesus walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13), and they told Him that their Master was crucified and “now it is the third day since this occurred” (Luke 24:21). This, then, points to His crucifixion as having occurred on Friday. With all this evidence, the only viable conclusion is that Jesus was crucified on Friday and rose on Sunday.

This view also fits well with Old Testament typology. On Monday, Nisan 10, Jesus presented Himself as the Paschal lamb at the triumphal entry. On Nisan 14 He was sacrificed as the Paschal lamb (1 Cor. 5:7), and on Nisan 16 His resurrection was a type of the offering of First Fruits (1 Cor. 15:23).

In conclusion then, with the most natural reading of the New Testament, one would conclude that Jesus was crucified on Friday and was resurrected on Sunday. This is also the common concensus of the Church Fathers and scholars throughout church history, and it is the generally accepted view today.

Harold W. Hoehner, “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ Part IV: The Day of Christ’s Crucifixion,” Bibliotheca Sacra 131 (1974): 246–247.

Building off of this information, below is the summary of the final days of Jesus’ life as I see them unfold in the biblical text. I am open to discussing any critiques and improving its accuracy.

Two Calendars

The key features you will notice are first, the Galilean vs. the Judaean way of marking the calendar. Hoehner concludes the following:

“It is generally accepted that different calendars for reckoning the Passover were used by various groups and regions. This makes it difficult to know which ones were in operation during the time of the last week of Christ’s ministry….

…the most viable solution is to recognize that the Galileans, and with them Jesus and His disciples, reckoned from sunrise to sunrise while the Judeans reckoned from sunset to sunset.”

Harold W. Hoehner, “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ Part IV: The Day of Christ’s Crucifixion,” Bibliotheca Sacra 131 (1974): 262.

So it is critical to recognize that sometimes in Scripture we have days that are counted from sunrise to sunrise and others that are counted from sunset to sunset. While this all gets very confusing at times, we have to recognize this is a culture that is thousand of years in our past. Imagine anyone from that time coming into our world and trying to understand the differences between time zones and then add the complexity of Daylight Savings Time. You can see why some confusion creeps in.

Two Passover Meals

One of the things may jumps out in the image above is that there are two occurrences of slaughtering the passover lamb: one for the Pharisees and another for the Sadducees. This is not my field of expertise, so I will let Hoehner unpack this theory along with its potential problems. 

It is thought by several since there were two systems of reckoning the day present in Jesus’ day, this would be a solution to the disagreement between the synoptics and John. It is thought that the Galileans used a different method of reckoning the Passover than the Judeans. The Galileans and Pharisees used the sunrise to sunrise reckoning whereas the Judeans and Sadducees used the sunset to sunset reckoning. Thus, according to the synoptics, the Last Supper was a Passover meal. Since the day is to be reckoned from sunrise, the Galileans, and with them Jesus and His disciples, had the Paschal lamb slaughtered in the late afternoon of Thursday, Nisan 14, and later that evening they ate the Passover with the unleavened bread. On the other hand, the Judean Jews who reckoned from sunset to sunset would slay the lamb on Friday afternoon which marked the end of Nisan 14 and ate the Passover lamb with the unleavened bread that night which had become Nisan 15. Thus, Jesus had consumed the Passover meal when His enemies, who had not as yet had the Passover, arrested Him. This gives good sense to John 18:28 that the Jews did not want to enter the Praetorium so as not to be defiled since later that day they would slay the victims for those who reckoned from sunset to sunset. After Jesus’ trial, He was crucified when the Paschal lambs were slain in the temple precincts. This fits well with the Gospel of John. It can be charted as shown on page 261.

This solution would mean that there were two days of slaughter. This would solve the problem of having to slaughter all of the lambs for all of those participants at the Passover season.

There are two problems with this theory. First is the problem of having two consecutive days of slaughtering Paschal lambs. Would the Sadducees allow this since they were in control of the temple? It is possible they had to. It is known that with the popular support the Pharisees had, the Sadducees would submit to their wishes at times. Finkle states that “the Pharisees determined the dates of the great festivals.” Here may be a case in point where neither parties compromised and so two days of Passover slaughter. The second problem with the theory is that there is no explicit statement to support the theory. Although one cannot be overly dogmatic, it does fit well with the data at hand. It is simple and makes good sense.

Harold W. Hoehner, “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ Part IV: The Day of Christ’s Crucifixion,” Bibliotheca Sacra 131 (1974): 259–260.

Three Days and Nights

I realize for many in the West, the idea of counting partial days as three days and nights seems “wrong” because of how we normally count a full day or night. I was sharing this with a fiend who grew up in China and he offered some great insight. I want to share his words here as they might help some people realize that while not everything in the Bible fits with the Western mindset, it does not make the Bible wrong. There is a lot we can learn from other cultures. My friend David writes:

The problem of a Friday crucifixion to Sunday early morning resurrection counting as a three day event was never an issue for me. Because I grew up in an Asian culture where the way we count calendar days (similar to the Jews) is different from that of the West.

Let me explain.  In Asian tradition when a child is born, the very same day he or she is counted as one year old (Chinese or lunar calendar). In the next calendar new year, the child is counted as 2 years old. So, if I a baby is born on December 31st, he or she is one year old. The very next day on January 1st he or she is counted as two years old.

So while this way of counting days and years may seem odd to those born in the West, we have to understand that not everyone sees time the same way. Hoehner concludes his own article with the observation that regardless of how one counts the days of passion week, there is agreement in the text that Jesus was in the tomb three days and nights.

“In conclusion, when one examines all the evidence, it seems that the New Testament, the Old Testament, and Rabbinic literature all agree that a part of a day is counted as a whole day-and-night. Thus, the expressions: “the three days and three nights,” “after three days,” and “on the third day” are all one and the same time span. These all support the fact that Christ was crucified on Friday and was resurrected on Sunday.”

Harold W. Hoehner, “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ Part IV: The Day of Christ’s Crucifixion,” Bibliotheca Sacra 131 (1974): 249.

Summary

Let me close by saying this. Faithful Christians who love God and trust in the veracity of Scripture will disagree on some of these details. There is no perfect answer that does not have some potential hurdles. However, despite these obstacles, we share a common faith in Christ Jesus. Easter week is a celebration of our Savior. So regardless of how we deal with this text or what day of the week Jesus was crucified, the historical fact of the crucifixion and his resurrection is far more significant than our potential disagreement.