JESUS WAS BURIED AFTER THE NEW DAY BEGAN AT EVENING: The KJV translators put Mark 15:42-43 this way: "And now when the even was come . . . Joseph of Arimathaea . . . went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus." That is a correct translation. "When evening had already come. . ." would be just as good or better. Two Greek words used here bear this out. The first is ηδη, ede, which is always translated "already" ( e.g. Matt. 5:28), or "now" , (e.g. Matt. 3:10), to indicate that an important time has arrived. This same word is used in another place in our passage, where "Pilate marveled if [Jesus] were already dead", Mark. 15:44.
The second Greek word used here to indicate that an important time has arrived is γενομενης, genomenes. This is an aorist participle. When this Greek participle is in the aorist tense, we know the action is complete. This is because an aorist participle generally refers to a past action that is complete at the time of the main verb, which in our case is "went". Joseph went to Pilate after evening had come. All New Testament verses that use genomenes with respect to time have that same kind of time indication. Mark 15:33 is a handy example; being in the same chapter, it is excellent proof of his use of the word at this point in the narrative: "And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour." Can there be any doubt at all that the sixth hour had fully arrived when the darkness began?


OT COMPARISONS BETWEEN "THREE DAYS" AND "THE THIRD DAY" ARE NOT ALWAYS USEFUL:
Here are some comparisons that have been brought up from time to time:
Example 1: Judges 14:17-18. People who mention these verses may think that "the seventh day" is being used interchangeably with "seven days". That is not the case. A careful reading shows that Sampson made a customary seven day feast for his would-be wife's Philistine parents and thirty friends. As part of the entertainment, and a way of outsmarting these Philistines, Samson posed a riddle for them. He asked them to solve it within the seven days of the feast. Before the week was over, his girl friend beguiled him into telling her the meaning of the riddle. She then passed the answer on to the Philistines. They came back with the answer just before the evening that would have ended the seventh day. What we see here are two periods of time, one for the feast and and the other for the riddle. The first is an unconditional period of seven days but the second is conditional, for it is only scheduled to last till the riddle is solved, "within the seven days" or up to seven days. If the riddle had been between friends, answering it would have had nothing to do with the time the feast would end. A conditional seven days cannot be compared to an unconditional period of seven days and the coming of the Philistines "on the seventh day" does not change the length of the feast. All that is meant by "she wept before him the seven days" is that every day she came to him crying and trying to get him to tell her the answer to the riddle.
Example 2: Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh's butler, Gen.40:12ff. Three branches were said to stand for three days. From the method later used to interpret Pharaoh's dream of seven fat cows and seven lean ones, we might conclude that dream symbols always stand for complete years or days. As predicted, there were exactly seven years of plenty before the famine came, Gen. 41:26-57. However, we must not fail to notice that Joseph explicitly said the cows stood for the number of years of plenty and famine. The case of the butler's dream is different. Joseph only said that the branches stood for days. He did not say there would be three days before the butler was to be restored. Rather, Joseph said that restoration would take place "within three days". Young's Literal Translation also has "within". If that is correct, Joseph did not predict anything would happen at the end of three days. The expression "the third day", Gen.40:20, tells us about Pharaoh. It was the third day since the butler had his dream and that third day was Pharaoh's birthday all day long. We do not know what time that day the butler was restored. Since Joseph did not specifically say that the three branches stood for the period of time until the butler would be lifted up, we cannot say that either. All we know is that he was made Pharaoh's butler again "within" three days. It may indeed have been the last thing Pharaoh did before his birthday celebration was over, making the period of time between the dream itself and its fulfillment 72 hours, but we do not have to conclude that. For those who are curious, a predictive dream late Wednesday evening that was fulfilled late Saturday evening would involve a period of 72 hours, exactly three days, and that fulfillment would still be "within" three days of the time Joseph interpreted the dream and made the prediction. The reader can use the chart here to get a better picture of that timeframe.


OT COMPARISONS TO TAKE LITERALLY: People who believe in a Friday crucifixion say we should not take literally the "three days" and the "after three days" used in the Gospels to indicate the length of time involved in Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. They say he was not raised to life three days after he died, but was only dead for 24 hours, or a little more.. They claim that a first century Jew used references to time figuratively and did not need to be accurate.. Then they point to the expression "the third day" as their guiding light and claim this term must dominate the discussion, overshadowing completely the more specific terms as though those are of little or no concern in the matter. To push their attitude on others, the contenders then use a great deal of repetition, implying that the Jews of Jesus' time, and earlier, were nearly always inexact in their calculations of time.
Is that really the attitude we should have when we study Bible subjects? Not when text and context do not force us to an extreme of inexactness. We all use non-specific expressions of time once in a while. We are forced to do that when we do not have sufficient information to be more accurate. However, we do not substitute what is less specific for what is more so. We never insist that "after three days" should be reduced to something like "about three days", not unless there is some hidden motive for doing so, like a desire to avoid the truth.
It is appropriate to establish a rule of interpretation here. Since the Gospels contain several indications of the time in question and some of them are specific, these more accurate terms should always be emphasized over what invites doubt. To combat the tendency of deceivers to use what is non-specific and ambiguous, we must always look for what is most clear and meaningful.
When the proponent of the Friday theory resorts to the Old Testament in the attempt to justify his method of slip-shod interpretation, he inevitably chooses what is less accurate and emphasizes it at the expense of what is more to the point. To defeat that method, we need only begin with the idea that the Bible writer wanted to communicate the same way any writer wants to, as precisely as possible. His more specific expressions of time always convey what he hoped the reader would accept as truth.
Several OT verses can be used to teach that Jews did think accurately. They regularly used expressions like "three days" to mean a full three days. We also find them using "after three days" in the same way we would use that expression today. Consider Joshua 2:16 as found in the Septuagint (LXX), a Greek translation of the Old Testament made a comparatively short time before Christ. The translators used "after three days" (Greek: meta treis hemeras) in that verse just like it was later used by the Gospel writers with respect to the time between Christ's death and resurrection. He arose over three days after he died on the Cross. In the former passage Rahab instructed the spies Joshua had sent to remain hidden in the hills for three days to avoid detection. Perhaps she intended to bring them word after that period. Joshua 9:16 likewise tells of a full three days in which Joshua allowed the people to camp at the Jordan before crossing into the promised land. Daniel 3:2 speaks of "three years" that must be taken literally. The Babylonians specified that length of time for training young men for the king's service. The Persians, who occupied the land just east of Babylonia, did the same thing. According to Plato (Alcib. i. 37), the Persians selected boys who were fourteen years old and kept them in training until they were seventeen. That is exactly three years. These verses show that Jews who lived just before Christ, and who translated the Old Testament into Greek, thought about time in exactly the same way we do. When they wrote, "after three days (or years)", they did not mean before that three days had ended.
Since "the third day" can mean as much as three days, we should take it that way, especially when the context shows that a three day activity was scheduled. We are not authorized to change an expression like "three days". That is even more true of "after three days". Anyone can see that viewing "the third day" as the longest day possible is permitted but the practice of changing specific terms to agree with our theological preference is not acceptable. So we cannot view "the third day" as the shortest length of time sometimes associated in our culture with that term. That is what some people want to do, and then to allow their view to contradict both Jesus and his apostles. The Christian is called to believe the Word, not to change it so that it agrees with what his church teaches.


AFTER HE WAS BURIED JESUS' AROSE THE THIRD DAY "ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES": 1 Cor 15:3-4: This may be the only passage in the New Testament that deliberately spells out that Jesus was buried and then rose again the third day. And it may be the very first time the phrase, "the third day", was ever written down by a New Testament writer. The whole section is certainly the most detailed of all the accounts that use that catchphrase. The New Testament writers who wrote later did not separate Jesus' death and burial when writing the phrase. They all excluded the burial and I think I can understand why. As the church developed, it needed a brief saying that would work as both a maxim for the past and present and a formula for the future. To achieve the goals of Christianity in an extremely hostile first century environment, people had to wrap their hearts around something meaningful to them personally as well as to the group. A popular saying must have a specific aim and it did not need all the details attached. Since Jews always buried their dead, and since they always did so on the same day as death occurred, excluding such a well understood event does make sense when making an initial appeal to them. Jesus' suffering at the hands of the leading Jews of the time and his being killed upon their demand are what is initially important to understanding and appreciation and it is the simple fact of Jesus' death and resurrection that needed to be closely connected in a brief saying. I hesitate to call the finished product a slogan because of unhelpful overtones that may be attached to that word, but the final terse saying certainly did act as a favorite byword and a rallying call for centuries to come.
I am glad Paul initially spelled out the details though. The very first time we encounter the formula we learn that the resurrection was on the third day after the burial of Jesus' body. That gives us a length of time to work with and it agrees completely with Jesus' prediction that he would be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. Jesus was, of course, including the fact that his body was in the tomb for the same period of time Paul later specified by his formulation. The only difference is that the emphasis of Paul to the Corinthians was on the physical body, while the main emphasis of Jesus was on where his soul would be while his body was in that tomb. He would be in the heart of the earth, i.e., in the Paradise section of Hades, a fact that the apostles and Luke were later careful to point out in their writings.
Paul's traveling companion, Mark, also came to the rescue, but in a slightly different way. His very first statement of Jesus' prediction with regard to his suffering and death was written for accuracy. He recorded the fact that Jesus' resurrection was separated from his suffering and death by more than three days. "After three days" he arose from death.
That is a beautiful statement. The only problem is that as a maxim it lacks the salability of Paul's original assertion. Mark was smart though. He knew that accuracy only needs one clear statement and from then on in his Gospel, Mark could aim for acceptability. Paul had achieved that by linking the resurrection to the Old Testament scriptures. Jesus died "according to the scriptures" and his physical body was resurrected the third day "according to the scriptures", Paul had boldly asserted to the doubting Corinthians. Throughout the rest of his Gospel, Mark adopted Paul's affirmation, "the third day". Mark knew the reader would already understand the truth from Mark's first record on the matter so there was no need to add details at this point.
A few years later Matthew and Luke wrote their Gospels. By this time everyone knew the truth from Mark but there was still the need to convince others using the revered Scriptures. So even when quoting Jesus' words from the same, or from a similar occasion as Mark had first recorded, these men saw no need to spell out the length of time from Jesus' death to his resurrection. Luke simply included the Pauline formula all the way through. So did Matthew, except when the need arose to accurately quote the words of Jesus as remembered by those who wanted to seal the tomb so his body would not be stolen to create a hoax, Mat. 27:63. Matthew's accuracy at that point is proof positive that he knew exactly what Jesus had originally taught on the matter, that his resurrection would not come until after he had been in Paradise/Hades for a full "three days and three nights". As a matter of fact, it was Matthew who put that statement down for the record, Mat.12:40, and like Mark, it was the first and most accurate statement of Jesus' prediction concerning his death and resurrection. We now have three writers, all three of which began their writing on the subject of Jesus' death by inserting a bold record concerning the length of time involved in Jesus' death, burial and resurrection.
Like Mark, Matthew did not have to repeat what was now a matter of public record. In the rest of his Gospel, the formulation simply consists of Jesus' prediction of his suffering and death at the hands of the Jews and that death is tied to his resurrection and made credible and acceptable to other Jews through its Pauline quotation from their Holy Scriptures.
The reader today must start from the very beginning if he hopes to get a complete, accurate picture. He must read Paul's original statement to the Corinthians concerning the time from the burial of Jesus' body to his resurrection. Then the reader must read Mark's entire Gospel, noting how his original statement sets the record straight concerning the length of time from Jesus' death until his resurrection. The reader must do exactly the same with Matthew. Having by then gained a familiarity with the basic chronological facts, one is now equipped to sing the praises of the Lord use the truncated theme so aptly included everywhere else. Filling in the blanks at any time is easy. Just go back to Matthew. Jesus was dead for more than three days, but his body was buried three hours after his death. So while it was only in the tomb till "the third day", Jesus was actually in the heart of the earth for a full three days and three nights.
Knowing that difference may or may not be essential to the preaching of the Gospel, but it sure makes us intellectual types perk up our ears and start praising the Lord.