THE THIRD DAY VERSUS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS

Were the 3 days 3 nights that Jesus was in the grave a full 72 hours?
Is there a difference between "three days" and "the third day"?

There has been a long standing debate over the meaning of Matthew 12:40, “for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” In my opinion, the evidence supports the traditional view that Jesus was crucified on Friday afternoon and was in the grave part of Friday (the day of preparation cf. Luke 23:54-55), all of Saturday (Luke 23:56), and part of Sunday, the first day of the week (Luke 24:1). Some of the evidence for this is as follows:
(1) To us, three days and three nights generally means 72 hours, but we must understand the Bible historically and culturally. For the Jewish mind, this could mean any part of the first day, all of the second day, and any part of the third day. This is obvious by comparing Esther 4:16 and 5:1. Esther mentioned fasting for three days and nights and said that she would then go into the king, which she did, but 5:1 tells us clearly that it was on the third day that she went into the king, not after three days or on the fourth. This simply illustrates the way the Jews reckoned time.
(2) Further, the statement “after three days” could mean to the Jewish mind “on the third day” since any part of that day was considered the third day (cf. Matt. 27:63-64). Note the statements, “after three days” and securing the tomb until the third day. More will be said on this below.
(3) But on the third day could not mean on the fourth day, i.e., after a full 72 hours. Compare Luke 24:1 with 24:21. We read that they arrived at the tomb “on the third day” and then in verse 21 it is stated that “it is the third day.” This would be impossible to say if Jesus had stayed in the tomb for a full 72 hours for it would then be the fourth day. His resurrection would have had to be after the third day and on the fourth.
(4) Also, “the day of preparation” (Luke 23:54) could only refer to Friday before the Sabbath since no work of any kind could be done on the Sabbath, the seventh day. On other Sabbaths, holy days, domestic work could be done like making fire and cooking. No special preparation was needed for those Sabbaths or holy days, but not so on “the High Sabbath.” We might also note that the “day of preparation,” the Greek paraskeue, means Friday in modern Greek. See Ex. 16:22-23. The point here is that Friday is the only day a preparation day was needed as a preparation for the Sabbath, our Saturday.
(5) In several passages (the majority, about 4-1) it is said Jesus would rise “on the third day.” If the resurrection occurred after a full 72 hours (3 days) it would have been on the fourth. Compare Matt. 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Luke 24:7, 21, 46; 1 Cor. 15:4. See below also regarding the use of the dative case here.
(6) In my mind, comparing all that is said in Luke 23:54-24:1 and John 19:31, settles the issue because of the day of preparation, Friday, being needed to prepare for a special high day or high Sabbath along with the fact the women came to the tomb on Sunday morning which is described as the third day.
(7) Finally, the Jews who heard the Lord use the phrase “three days and three nights” in Matt. 12:40 did not seem to necessarily understand a full 72 hours. Compare their comment in Matt. 27:62-64.
62 Now on the next day (i.e., the High Sabbath, Saturday), which is the one after the preparation (i.e., Friday), the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and said, “Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I am to rise again.’ 64 “Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest the disciples come and steal Him away and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”
Note, they said, “until the third day, not until the fourth.” Matthew could have used a Greek construction here which would have stressed through (duration) the third day, but using the preposition eo„s with the genitive, it basically meant “till or up to” and does not stress the idea of duration meaning “through.” The genitive case typically stresses during, at, or within a time range. Had the accusative been used alone or with a different preposition, it could have stressed extent or duration of time.
It is probably significant that “Every occurrence of the ‘the third day’ with reference to Jesus’ resurrection in the Gospels is put in the dat. (dative case) without an accompanying preposition” (Dan Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basic, Zondervan, p. 156). The significance of this is that nouns used in the dative case like “the third day” express a point in time rather than duration of time. So it means, “at a point in time, on the third day.”
Many people think that Jesus Christ was crucified on a Wednesday (or sometimes Thursday), in accord with the “three days and nights” of Jonah’s stay in the fish’s belly, or that it was not possible for Jesus to be crucified on a Friday. Orthodox Christianity has always held that Jesus was crucified and died on a Friday afternoon (hence, Good Friday), and rose from the dead in the very early morning on the following Sunday (hence the Christian day of worship and Easter Sunday). The reason for this is as follows:”Three days and three nights” is simply Hebrew idiom. The phrase “one day and one night” meant a day, even when only a part of a day was indicated. We see this, e.g., in 1 Sam 30:12-13 (cf. Gen 42:17-18).
We know that Jesus was crucified on a Friday because Scripture tells us that the Sabbath (Saturday) as approaching (e.g., Mt 27:62, Mk 15:42, Lk 23:54, Jn 19:31 – the “day of preparation” is Friday, the day before the Sabbath: Saturday, and the Sabbath was considered to begin on sundown on Friday, as with Jews to this day).
We also know from the biblical data that the discovery of His Resurrection was on a Sunday (e.g., Mk 16:1-2-,9, Mt 28:1, Lk 24:1, Jn 20:1). And we know that “three days and three nights” (Mt 12:40) is synonymous in the Hebrew mind and the Bible with “after three days” (Mk 8:31) and “on the third day” (Mt 16:21, 1 Cor 15:4). Most references to the Resurrection say that it happened on the third day. In John 2:19-22, Jesus said that He would be raised up in three days (not on the fourth day).
It would be like saying, “This is the third day I’ve been working on painting this room.” I could have started painting late Friday and made this remark on early Sunday. If I complete the task on Sunday, then the chronology would be just as Jesus’ Resurrection was. The only difference is the Hebrew idiom “three days and three nights” which was not intended in the hyper-literal sense as we might mistakenly interpret it today.
In fact, to say that Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon (apart from the biblical difficulties of this assertion) will not solve this problem for those who wish to interpret hyper-literally without taking into account idiomatic and non-literal, non-“scientific” expression. The only way to get three literal 24-hour days would be for Jesus to rise at the same time He was crucified, and then (technically) He would be rising at the beginning of a fourth 24-hour day, whereas the Bible says this happened on the “third” day.
But He died at about 3 PM (Mt 27:46, Lk 23:44-46: “the ninth hour” is 3 PM, because it was figured by the Jews from 6 AM). So a literal “three 24-hour day” interpretation of a Wednesday crucifixion would have Jesus rising at Saturday at 3 PM, and a Thursday crucifixion would have a Sunday, 3 PM Resurrection (or the discovery of same, at any rate). The Bible, however, has the disciples discovering that the Lord had risen early on Sunday morning (Lk 23:56: they rested on the Sabbath; Lk 24:1: at “early dawn, they went to the tomb”); so early, in Mary Magdalene’s case, that it was still dark (Jn 20:1).
The understanding of idiom explains all this. For both the ancient Jews (6 PM to 6 PM days) and Romans (who reckoned days from midnight to midnight), the way to refer to three separate 24-hour days (in whole or in part) was to say “days and nights.” We speak similarly in English idiom – just without adding the “nights” part. For example, we will say that we are off for a long weekend vacation, of “three days of fun” (Friday through Sunday or Saturday through Monday). But it is understood that this is not three full 24-hour days. Chances are we will depart part way through the first day and return before the third day ends. So for a Saturday through Monday vacation, if we leave at 8 AM on Saturday and return at 10 PM on Monday night, literally that is less than three full days (it would be two 24-hour days and 14 more hours: ten short of three full days).
Yet we speak of a “three-day vacation” and that we returned “after three days” or “on the third day.” A literal “three 24-hour day trip” would end at 8 AM on Tuesday. Such descriptions are understood, then, as non-literal. The ancient Jews and Romans simply added the clause “and nights” to such utterances, but understood them in the same way, as referring to any part of a whole 24-hour day.
Thus the “problem” or so-called “biblical contradiction” vanishes.