Matthew 28:1 states: “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.” In Aramaic (the original language of Matthew before being translated into Greek by the apostles, renders it this way: but in the evening, in the Sabbath, when the first day of the week was beginning/dawning…
It’s clear that the women arrived Saturday evening as the weekly Sabbath had just ended and it was the “dawning of a new day” of the first day of the week. What did they find? An empty tomb!
Notice the activity among the others (disciples, Roman guards, etc.) that took place after the discovery of the empty tomb. Do the events you read about following the resurrection seem to be activities that would take place in the middle of the night or during the evening.
Jesus Fulfilled His Words about Being in the Grave for 3 Days and 3 Nights, Exactly 72 Hours.
Further Scripture in Support of Jesus Being in the Grave for a Full 72 Hours
Matthew 12:40: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Mark 9:31: “because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.”
Matthew 27:62-64: “The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, After three days I will rise again. So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day.”
John 2:19: “Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
Mark 8:31: “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.”
Mark 10:33-34: “They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”
Luke 24:18-21: “One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.”
Jesus was in the tomb exactly 3 days and three nights, 72 hours. It is significant Jesus was dead for three days before His resurrection. The resurrection after three days of death proved to Jesus’ opponents that He truly rose from the dead. Why? Because according to Jewish tradition, a person’s soul/spirit remained with his/her dead body for three days. After three days, the soul/spirit departed. If Jesus’ resurrection had occurred during the first couple days after death it would have been easier for His enemies to argue He had never truly died. Note also that Jesus waited four days after Lazarus had died before He came to resurrect Lazarus so that no one could deny the miracle (John 11:38-44).
The Passover Sabbath that year was on a Thursday. Jesus was crucified on Wednesday, the day before the Passover Sabbath at the very time called for the slaughter of the Passover lamb. He was taken down from the cross and had to be in the tomb by 6pm (twilight) because the next day on the Jewish calendar started at twilight, in this case the Passover Sabbath. From 6pm on Wednesday to 6pm on Saturday, the start of the first day of the week, was exactly 72 hours. At the beginning 6pm of the first day of the week Jesus arose. Not at sunrise on Sunday as tradition teaches but at the beginning of the first day of the week, Sunday. Scripture is correct, tradition is in error.
