So, we have to think like a Jew. (Not that their brains work differently, but they have different assumptions).

For example, Jewish days start at sunset, not at midnight like ours do. And for tying things to our modern clocks, sunset is basically 6pm. So Jewish Saturday goes from 6pm on our Friday to 6pm on our Saturday.
And also this means that any Sabbath starts at 6pm, goes all night, all the next day, and ends at 6pm.

Also, for Jews counting how many “days” something was… even part of a day counts as a day. So when we read that Jonah was in the fish for 3 nights and 3 days… this is really 2 full nights, 2 full days, and 1 partial night, 1 partial day. But to Jews this is 3 nights and 3 days.

Now John 19 says:
Then when he took the wine, Yeshua said, “It’s finished”, and he lowered his head, and he handed over his spirit. Then, so the bodies wouldn’t remain on the stake on the Sabbath, (since it was preparation, for that Sabbath was a great day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs would be broken, and they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and indeed broke the legs of the first one, and of the other one who was executed with him. But when they came to Yeshua, they saw that he’d already died, and they didn’t break his legs. But one of the soldiers punctured his side with a spear, and straightaway blood and water came out.

What does “that Sabbath was a great day” mean? (Some translations say, “high day”). Basically this was a special Sabbath. Not just the regular Sabbath they had every Saturday.
Even special Sabbaths can still be on a Saturday, but definitely all Sabbaths aren’t Saturdays. And in fact, most of the special ones aren’t.

Passover is not a Sabbath. It is the day of preparation for the High Sabbath which is the first day of the (seven day) Feast of Unleavened Bread.
So Yeshua, (the real passover lamb of God), died on Passover, but his body was taken down before sunset, which began the High Sabbath, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So here’s something interesting.
In AD30, Nisan 15 began at sundown on Thursday, and continued into Friday. So, the Passover meal was Thursday night. And so the first day of unleavened bread… fell on the Friday. And that made the Friday a special Sabbath.
So if Yeshua died in AD30, then he died on the Thursday afternoon, (not on Friday, because that Friday was a Sabbath).
And then he spent part of Thursday day, all of what we call Thursday night, Friday day, Friday night, Saturday day, and most of Saturday night, (rising before dawn), in the tomb…
3 days and 3 nights.





I borrowed the idea for the image from Maurice Lloyd
Who obviously came to the same conclusions as me.

Now, after the crucifixion, the women came back to where they were staying, but it was only a couple of hours to the Sabbath starting at 6pm. So they only had time to prepare the spices, but not to take them to the body before the Sabbath started and they were no longer allowed to do any work.

Then they had to wait for the special Sabbath, (Unleavened Bread), and then the normal Sabbath, and then finally, early Sunday morning, (after sunrise, so after 6am), they headed off to the tomb to embalm the body.
Matthew 28 literally in the Greek says Sabbaths in verse 1. Mark 16 says “one of the Sabbaths”, (so also explicitly mentioning two Sabbaths), and so do Luke 24 and John 20.
And they all used Sabbath singular in other verses, so it’s not just that they all suddenly had bad Greek.
And we already noted that John 19 says the first Sabbath was a special Sabbath, (not the regular Saturday one).

So… Yeshua was in the tomb, a partial day, a night, a day, a night, a day, a partial night. So three days and three nights.
Just like Yonah (Jonah).

So I know most Christians assume that Yeshua died on a Friday, (“Good Friday”). But the Bible doesn’t explicitly say Friday, it says it was the day before the Sabbath, so we assume it was Friday. Basically I’m saying I think that’s wrong, and it seems to me that the crucifixion was Thursday afternoon, followed by two Sabbaths, followed by resurrection on Sunday morning.

Leviticus 23 says, “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month in the evening, is Yahweh’s Passover. On the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to Yahweh. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. In the first day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no regular work.  But you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh seven days. In the seventh day is a holy convocation: you shall do no regular work.”

Yeshua was THE passover lamb.
So he had to die on the same day as the passover lambs…
He did.

Luke 23
Yeshua said to him, “Amen, I say to you, you’ll be with me in paradise today.” 
And it was about the sixth hour (midday), and darkness came over the whole of the land until the ninth hour (3pm). The sun was darkened, and the curtain of the temple was torn down the middle.  And when he’d called out in a loud voice, Yeshua said, “Father, I’ll place my spirit into your hands.” And when he’d said these things, he breathed his last.

The Jews left Egypt on the morning of Nisan 15. So they would have eaten the passover the night before to prepare.

I hope this helps clear up some of the timing, and helps explain how we determine years later which exact year Yeshua was crucified.

Importantly, in 2030, that will be exactly 2,000 years later. And if you look at other articles from my website, you’ll see that AD30 was already 4,000 years since Creation. That seems to fit very neatly, especially when Revelation says Yeshua will return to reign for 1,000 years before ending it all and creating a new Earth and a new sky.

Ready?