Three days and Passover dates confusion... let's clear this up

TWO Questions come up in calendar confusion related to Passover. Let's get these sorted and remember what the holiday is all about. And what Christians can learn from this Jewish holiday. But first, what day was it?

Passover is the holiday that celebrates 'once we were slaves, now we are free.' Deliverance after hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. God rescued the Jewish people and set a date, 14 Nisan, for us to remember the anniversary under a full moon each year.

Christians also have a day in this season related to Holy Week, the time of the death and resurrection of the Saviour Yeshua/ Jesus. 

There is some overlap and then of course, some real questions. Here are two of them asked, and hopefully answered for you.

QUESTION 1:        3 Days and 3 Nights in the grave

People often ask, “If Jesus said he would be in the ground three days and three nights… how does this work if Good Friday was when he was killed and buried to Easter Sunday when he arose?” That’s more like 36 hours.

Here’s the key:
The Bible uses Jewish time reckoning, not modern Western precision. This is not a Swiss watch.
In Jewish thinking, “Passover” can mean more than one thing.

1. The meal itself (the Seder, 15th of Nisan evening) 

1. The lamb sacrifice (14th of Nisan daytime) 

1. The entire festival week (Passover + Unleavened Bread)

the Passover lambs were being sacrificed. Different calendars; one fulfillment.

In Jewish thinking, any part of a day counts as a whole day. So look at the timeline: Jesus is buried on Friday before sunset — that’s Day 1 which includes Thursday night. He is in the tomb on Saturday, the Sabbath — that’s Day 2 which includes Friday night. And He rises early on Sunday — that’s Day 3 which includes Saturday night.
So Friday, Saturday, Sunday… three days.

Now what about “three days and three nights”? Two answers. 1) As I showed you just now, Friday daytime IS part of the same day as Thursday night. And similarly, Saturday day is Friday night. And Sunday day is Saturday night. Three days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Three nights, Thursday to Saturday.

But I prefer unpacking this in a 2^nd way. Why? Since this phrase is a Hebraic expression—a common Jewish way of saying a period spanning three days, not necessarily 72 hours. In fact, no matter what day you start with (and some start with Wednesday, you will never get 72 hours on the dot. He died in the afternoon, and he arose early in the morning. 

But the Hebraic expression is not about 72 hours. It’s a common Jewish way of saying a period spanning three days. Esther fasts and leads the people to fast for “three days, night and day” → yet goes in on the third day (not after 72 hours) (Chapter 4, verse 16)

The Bible itself says repeatedly…He would rise “on the third day.” so there’s no contradiction. It’s not about counting hours—it’s about understanding how Jewish people counted time. And when you do…Friday to Sunday fits perfectly. Sometimes the answer isn’t changing the Bible— it’s understanding the culture in which it was written.
 
Question 2… Was the Last Supper a Passover meal? 

People often notice something in the Gospels that seems to be a contradiction, but it isn’t. Let me explain. Matthew, Mark, and Luke say the Last Supper took place on Passover. And many believers see similarities between the Jewish Passover seder and the Last Supper.

But the apostle John seems to say Jesus died before Passover. So which is it? Who is right? Or can both of them be accurate?

Here’s the key:
The Synoptic Gospels are focusing on the meal, that is, Jesus eating Passover with His disciples. But John is focusing on the timing of the sacrifice. In fact, in John’s Gospel, Jesus is crucified at the very time the Passover lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple.

That’s not a contradiction—that’s theology. Jesus didn’t just celebrate Passover. He became the Passover Lamb. It’s very possible that Jesus followed a Galilean reckoning of Passover, celebrating it with His disciples—while the Temple in Jerusalem followed a different schedule, so that when Jesus died, the official Passover lambs were being sacrificed.

Jesus kept the meal… and became the Lamb.

How do we explain the different timings of Passover in the Gospels? 

Here’s a possibility many people don’t know:
In the first century, not everyone kept the calendar exactly the same way. Jesus and His disciples were from up north in Galilee, while the Temple authorities were in Jerusalem. Some scholars believe Galileans may have reckoned the day differently, thus allowing them to celebrate Passover a little earlier.

That means Jesus could eat a true Passover meal, the seder, with his disciples, and then, the next day which was the same Hebrew calendar date, as the official lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple, Jesus is on the cross. So again, not a contradiction, but a convergence. He keeps the Passover meal, and then he becomes the Passover Lamb. Different calendars, one perfect fulfilment.

Wait; were there actually different calendars in Jesus’ day?
The answer is yes. In the first century, not all Jewish groups followed the same calendar. For example, the community at Qumran—the Dead Sea Scrolls group—used a solar calendar, not the lunar one used in Jerusalem.

That meant their festivals—like Passover—could fall on completely different days. Other groups, including those connected to the Temple, followed the official lunar calendar. So when we read the Gospels, we’re stepping into a world where more than one way of counting time existed.

That helps explain how Jesus could share a Passover meal, and still be crucified at the very time
Because no matter the calendar—Yeshua is the Lamb. History may have had multiple calendars…but God had one perfect timing.

Day 6 Good Friday 2025. What Kind of God calls Good Friday "good"?

Day 6 is nicknamed "Good Friday" and the events and the sayings of the day have MUCH to say to us in 2025. What do you think?

If you are on Facebook, share the link there using this Bit ly  link:  https://bit.ly/BobGF2025 

Three Days? Three nights? How does that work?

The questions come from a Bible verse, Yeshua said, "For just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12.40) And the question gets asked every Easter. When did Jesus really die? And when did he really rise from the dead?

This might help explain how this works. Clearly whatever day Yeshua died (and I believe it was a Friday), the exact 72 hours calculation will never work. He died in the afternoon, and rose before morning.

During an online debate with Christians about the above Scripture verse, an unlikely contributor to the debate showed us something that I'd heard before, but had never seen proven. Joe Zias, ex-curator of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority, and a Jewish man who does NOT believe that Jesus rose from the dead or is the Messiah, nevertheless weighed in with a post about the idiomatic use in Jewish circles of the phrase "three days and three nights." In brief, Zias said that the phrase is found elsewhere in the Bible and in Rabbinic literature, and that it did not usually refer to a literal 72 hour period of time. He said, "It's one example of many Hebrew idioms used for inclusive time reckoning."

(For those who may have forgotten, an idiom is a word or phrase that MUST NOT be understood to mean the sum total of its parts, or it will surely be misunderstood. Every language and culture has idioms. Some examples in English are, "She went ballistic," "I hit the ceiling," and "I'll be a monkey's uncle!")

A literal interpretation by some well-meaning Christians, of the phrase "three days and three nights" as representing an exact period of 72 hours, displays ignorance of the biblical and rabbinic evidence about the idiomatic use of the phrase "a day and a night," of which "three days and three nights" is merely an expansion. In truth, the idiom refers not to an exact number of hours or of minutes, but simply to a calendrical day, whether complete or incomplete.

In the Bible, a fraction of a day or of a night was reckoned inclusively as representing the whole day or night. This method of reckoning is known as "inclusive reckoning."
[See: this link Ortho ].

A few examples from the Bible and from rabbinic literature will suffice to demonstrate its usage (I am indebted to Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D., Andrews University from his book The Time of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection for the following examples and most of the commentary):
1Samuel 30:12 speaks of an abandoned Egyptian servant who "had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights." The idiomatic usage of this expression is shown by the following verse, where the servant states that his master had left him behind "three days ago" (v. 13). If the "three days and three nights" were meant to be taken literally, then the servant should have said that he had been left behind four days before.

Esther 4:16 mentions that when Queen Esther was informed by Mordecai about the plan to exterminate the Jews, she sent this message to him: "Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king." However, we read in 5:1 that Esther went before the king "on the third day." If Esther intended the three days and three nights to be taken literally as a 72-hour period of fasting, then she should have presented herself before the king on the fourth day. These two biblical examples clearly show that the expression "three days and three nights" is sometimes used in the Scriptures idiomatically to indicate not three complete 24-hour days, but three calendric days of which the first and the third could have consisted of only a fraction of a day.

But we also have examples from ancient rabbinic literature. For instance, Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, who lived about 100 CE, said, "A day and a night are an Onah [‘a portion of time’] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it." (As quoted from the Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 9,3; see also Babylonian Talmud, Pesakhim 4a; and the Midrash Rabbah on Genesis 56.1 (commenting on Gen 22:4); Genesis 91.7 (commenting on Gen 42:17-18); Esther 9.2 (commenting on Esther 5:1). Etc. In fact, according to The Jewish Encyclopedia, a standard Jewish reference work [available for perusal online here: ], the practice of inclusive day reckoning is still in vogue among the Jews today.

"In Jewish communal life part of a day is at times reckoned as one day; e.g., the day of the funeral, even when the latter takes place late in the afternoon, is counted as the first of the seven days of mourning; a short time in the morning of the seventh day is counted as the seventh day; circumcision takes place on the eighth day, even though on the first day only a few minutes remained after the birth of the child, these being counted as one day." ("Day," vol. 6, p. 475). In fact, Joe Zias used the example of “the eighth day” regarding circumcision not necessarily being eight full days. He, being an Israeli Jew, drew it from his own personal experience with inclusive day reckoning.

The examples cited above give sufficient evidence that in biblical times (and until now) the expression "a day and a night" could mean idiomatically "a day," whether complete or incomplete. Thus, in the light of the prevailing Jewish usage, Jesus employment of the expression "three days and three nights" in Mat 12:40 does not necessarily require that Yeshua would have been entombed for 72 hours. Rather, a full day and two partial days fit the time-frame best, as ancient Christian tradition has historically understood it.

Risen, the Movie, the Review

Setting: Today a look at Capitol movie release "Risen" starring Joseph Fiennes as Clavius, a murderous and successful Roman tribune in 30 CE (AD). The setting is the Roman occupation of ancient Judea/ Israel. The title comes from the story told by the followers of Yeshua (that's the name he's called even in the movie) that their hero/ messiah is risen from the dead. Pontius Pilate charges the military tribune Clavius with the responsibility to quell the rumours which otherwise might end Pax Romana, especially before the imminent visit of the Emperor Tiberius.

The acting is real; the settings superb, recreated in Spain for the movie, which depicted the historical accounts of the messianic hopeful named in English Jesus of Nazareth. He is often titled in the movie "The Nazarene" highlighting his roots in nearby Galilee. Scenes include fishing, the healing of a leper, terrorised Jews running from Roman domination, even the end of the crucifixion scene well known in history of three criminals.

Characters:
Tom Felton (Lucius) from the Harry Potter series plays a rookie tribune-to-be and has some serious conflicts with his hero, played so well by Fiennes. Peter Firth (Pilate) had many issues, most of which had to do with keeping the calm. I liked that most characters are not one-dimensional. I say 'most' because the Jewish leadership seems always aggravated and malicious. Everything that Mel Gibson did not allow about Jewish people in his "Passion of the Christ" Kevin Reynolds (director)and Paul Aiello (scriptwriter) did. I'm disappointed with that part of the film. However, the main storyline is so good that I can somewhat overlook that (with regrets).

OTHER ISSUES:
The visual references to the Shroud of Turin, which doesn't come into history's play for over a millennium is unnecessary I thought. The sealing of the tomb of Yeshua, the love of the Nazarene and fair-go by Joseph of Arimathea are important highlights and have been well-included. The conversation with Bartholomew (Nathaniel) and Clavius highlight the issue of doubt/ faith and why anyone should ever believe in this story.

I like the character of Yeshua (Cliff Curtis, Kiwi actor) who during the first half of the movie is known only through a visual point-- his death. He doesn't move nor speak. The woman Mary Magdalene, along with the disciples Peter, John, even Thomas, come to their own as the movie continues and then the major risen character, Yeshua takes centre stage. And he's a likeable triumphant one. He appears and disappears. He instructs the fearful followers to meet him up north. He comes and goes at will. And during his post-resurrection visits he eats with them, helps them find a major fish cache, forgives and re-instructs Simon Peter, and the leper scene happens. (Which doesn't happen in the biblical record at that time). All the while Clavius, with Lucius and his colleagues, seek to finish this rumour's nonsense, find the body, and settle Jerusalem back to normal.

SPOILER ALERT:
I won't unpack the ending, but since the Bible doesn't record any interactions between Yeshua and unbelievers after the Resurrection, the encounters "Risen" show are "Hollywood"ed for us. It does make for a good story, and what Clavius determines is useful for every believer and every unbeliever who watch to the end. I like that the Hollywood add-ons are not distractions at all, but rather make the story that much fuller. After all, when CSI, NCIS, and Ben Hur come together this is a likely screenplay.

The main question anyone will have when they make their way to the parking lot is "Is that true? Did Yeshua rise from the dead?" And that's a huge question for all of us to ask. If he had risen, from the reality of the crucifixion, then what evidence is required? Two things: 1) his body was not in the grave and 2) physical appearances to many. Without the empty tomb, the appearances are mere fancy, hallucinations of madmen. Without the appearances, the empty tomb is merely evidence of some clever grave robbers and re-buriers. But with both... the evidence is in. And Clavius and every honest skeptic has to deal with that reality.

And so do you. So, watch the movie. It's worth the money. And it may impact your life more than Harry Potter. More than Fiennes' Shakespeare in Love. You never know. Give it a try soon. Before it goes to video.