WAS JESUS CHRIST CRUCIFIED ON GOOD FRIDAY?

I have always had a penchant for courting controversy. We are made for each other. In fact, what Amitabh Bachchan once said about controversies dogging him, applies to me as well : "I just lead my life as naturally, as normally as I possibly can. But I can't help it if controversy is hounding me day in and day out. I'm quite amazed sometimes by the way they go about it. I grow a beard and it lands up in the editorial in The Times of India."

What Thomas J Watson had to say about being controversial has inspired me considerably in the past. He said : "Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost."

It is with these thoughts in mind that I reproduce in this blog the contents of a mail I received on the eve of Good Friday. It provides food for thought. It is highly illuminating. It is rational. And, I dare say, as close to the truth as possible when talking about an incident that took place 2000 years ago. I publish it at the risk of being labelled a crackpot and a non-conformist. But that does not stop me from standing up... and speaking out.

Was Jesus crucified on Good Thursday or Good Friday?

While Church tradition commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus on Good Friday, there are many debates over which day of the week Jesus died. Did Jesus really die on a Friday? Or did he die on a Wednesday or Thursday?

Jesus had prophesied that he would be dead for three days and three nights before his resurrection (Matthew 12:38-40) : When Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign to prove He was the Messiah, Jesus says plainly, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah: For 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".

There are obviously not three days and three nights between Friday evening and Sunday before dawn. If Friday is accepted as the day of crucifixion, then the only sign Jesus gave that He was the prophesied Messiah was not fulfilled and the claim of His messiahship rests on the fulfillment of His words -- it's that serious a matter!!

The Friday view is based on the wording of Mark 15:42, which says that Christ's crucifixion occurred on the 'Day of preparation', "the day before the Sabbath". Since the Hebrew weekly Sabbath is on Saturday, the Church traditionally held that Jesus was crucified on Friday.

This problem appears easily resolved by a clarification of what Mark meant by "Sabbath". Along with the weekly Saturday Sabbath day, the Jews had other "Sabbaths" throughout the year, marking high holy days. Two in particular belongs to the Feast of Unleavened bread following the Passover. It is vitally important to understand these Sabbaths, if we have to determine the day of Crucifixion.

Passover is the holy and joyous festival that commemorates Israel’s deliverance from bondage in Egypt. The Jews cried out to God in their oppression, and God sent Moses to deliver them. But Pharaoh refused to let the Israelite go, so God told Moses He would strike every Egyptian home with the death of the firstborn, both man and beast. The Jews were instructed to slay a lamb and "take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses". Then God promised, "on that night when I see the blood, I will pass over you". The death of the firstborn of Egyptian household finally breaks Pharaoh's resistance and he finally let the Israelites go. All details in Exodus 12.

Hence the term "Passover" and this was to be a lasting sacred memorial with God.

Leviticus 23:5 designates: The 14th day of the first month (Nisan) to be the day for observing Passover.

And the following day "the 15th day Nisan" is the beginning of "The feast of unleavened bread". This feast lasts for seven days from 15th day to 21st day and only unleavened bread was to be eaten during these seven days immediately following the Passover. Yet both the 15th and 21st of Nisan ( 1st and 7th day ) were set apart as holy days, "Special Sabbaths" also known as HIGH DAYS - on which no work was to be done. These are different to the normal weekly Saturday Sabbaths on the seventh day of each week. Preparations for the Passover feast took place on the 14th day of Nissan commonly known as the ‘Day of Preparation’, referred to by all four Gospels (Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, John19:14, 31, 42).“ And on that day before twilight, the Passover lamb was sacrificed at the temple in Jerusalem. After sunset, when Preparation Day had ended and the Feast of Unleavened Bread had begun, (15th day) the lamb and other specific foods for the Pesach feast were eaten.

Back to the crucifixion day, from Genesis (Chapter 2) we know that the Sabbath is the seventh day, the last day of the week. If, therefore, the regular Jewish Sabbath was the day after Jesus died, His crucifixion must have happened on a Friday, hence, ‘Good Friday’. Every Gentile in the church would have known that the Jewish Sabbath was a Saturday. So few would have questioned whether Jesus died on a Friday.

John was aware of the confusion that could have, or already had, arisen in the minds of Gentile readers of earlier Gospels, unfamiliar with Jewish customs. Therefore in his own account of the crucifixion and burial, he quotes Mark's words that “it was the day of preparation” (19:31), but then emphasises that the Sabbath that followed “was a high day” (literally, “for the day of that Sabbath was great”).That is, it wasn't just the routine weekly Sabbath. This was a special Sabbath coming up, and the day before it, on which Jesus was crucified, was that day known as “the day of preparation” (19:42).

"The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was a high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away". John 19:31 KJV

This conclusively proves that the Sabbath mentioned here and in the other narratives was the first Holy Day of the biblical Feast of Unleavened Bread, the 15th day of Nisan (Leviticus:23:4-8) and not the weekly Saturday Sabbath.

Hence the ‘special High Day Sabbath’ the 15th of Nisan (Friday) being followed by a normal Weekly Sabbath on the 16th, (Saturday) will lead to a crucifixion on Thursday afternoon- the 14th day of Nisan, the preparation day. Clearly an extra day and night added and will have the prophesied three days and three nights complete. If we allow the Scriptures to interpret themselves, an accurate harmonization of all four Gospel accounts demonstrates the accuracy and validity of Jesus' statements.

And so conclusively JESUS WAS CRUCIFIED ON GOOD THURSDAY AND NOT GOOD FRIDAY.

-QED-