Holy Week has arrived. It is time to take a break from political 4D chess and talk about something more important: religion.
Rule 7 is worth following even if America is doomed to dissolve or worse. Rule 7 is worth following even if today's woke financial system is actually the Number of the Beast prophecy being fulfilled before our eyes. Indeed, if these things are true, other Christian duties trump political activism by a wide margin.
Mind you, I am not saying that all Christians should follow Rule 7. But for the big brained types who hang out at Substack, Rule 7 is your easiest opportunity for missionary work. And Treasures in Heaven are a better inflation hedge than even gold.
For those just tuning in, Rule 7 is about marketing Christianity to the over-educated, the power software geeks, the nitpickers, the hyper-logical -- the Vulcans among us, if you will. In the first installment, we covered the dire consequences of dumbing down ceremony in favor of forced emotionalism and repetitive praise and worship music. In the second installment we looked into a glaring contradiction in common theologies; Vulcans don't like contradictions.
My planned third installment was to explore science vs. the Bible. This has proven to be a big effort, and I like to do religion chapters right. I have 2400 words so far in my first draft and it's nowhere near finished. So, for now I am just going to jump to the end and focus on what Jesus said was the most important sign, The Sign of Jonah. [For readability, all quotes are from the New English Translation unless otherwise stated.]
Mat 12:38 Then some of the experts in the law along with some Pharisees answered him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
Mat 12:39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Mat 12:40 For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.
This passage bothers me. Jesus gave all sorts of signs and wonders during his ministry. Was he being very specific here, such as a sign that the resurrection of the dead will happen? Or was he using hyperbole to emphasize the importance of The Sign of Jonah. If the latter, we have a plus big problem if standard church doctrines are correct. If Jesus died on Good Friday afternoon, and was already resurrected by the following Sunday morning, then Jesus was only in the ground for two nights and one day. That's half of what he prophesied.
And yes, there are passages that seem to say that Jesus died just before sunset on a Friday. For example, in Luke:
Luk 23:54 It was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was beginning.
Luk 23:55 The women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it.
Luk 23:56 Then they returned and prepared aromatic spices and perfumes. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
In John's account:
Joh 19:31 Then, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies should not stay on the crosses on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was an especially important one), the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to have the victims’ legs broken and the bodies taken down.
Joh 19:32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men who had been crucified with Jesus, first the one and then the other.
Joh 19:33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
So Jesus did die just before a Sabbath, but notice that John wrote that this was "an especially important one." This is a very important clue.
The Annual Sabbaths
Let's scroll up a bit in John's account:
Joh 19:14 (Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover, about noon.) Pilate said to the Jewish leaders, “Look, here is your king!”
It was a day of preparation for the Passover.1 This does not necessarily fall on a Friday. Let's turn next to Leviticus:
Lev 23:4 “‘These are the LORD’s appointed times, holy assemblies, which you must proclaim at their appointed time.
Lev 23:5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, is a Passover offering to the LORD.
Lev 23:6 Then on the fifteenth day of the same month will be the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
Lev 23:7 On the first day there will be a holy assembly for you; you must not do any regular work.
Lev 23:8 You must present a gift to the LORD for seven days, and the seventh day is a holy assembly; you must not do any regular work.’”
The Passover sacrifice is to happen late on the fourteenth day of the first month. Since lunar months are not an exact multiple of seven days, this means the fourteenth day of the month can fall on different days of the week depending on month. Then notice what happens on the fifteenth of the month: there is to be a holy assembly and no work is to be done.
There are seven such annual holy days listed in Leviticus 23. No work is to be done on any of them. One of them, the Day of Atonement is even referred to as a Sabbath:
Lev 23:27 “The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It is to be a holy assembly for you, and you must humble yourselves and present a gift to the LORD.
Lev 23:28 You must not do any work on this particular day, because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for yourselves before the LORD your God.
Lev 23:29 Indeed, any person who does not behave with humility on this particular day will be cut off from his people.
Lev 23:30 As for any person who does any work on this particular day, I will exterminate that person from the midst of his people!
Lev 23:31 You must not do any work. This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all the places where you live.
Lev 23:32 It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you must humble yourselves on the ninth day of the month in the evening, from evening until evening you must observe your Sabbath.”
Therefore, according to John's account, the Crucifixion could have happened on any day of the week based on the passages above. If Passover that year fell on a Wednesday, then Jesus could have fulfilled the Sign of Jonah exactly. And his resurrection would have happened either late Saturday or just after sunset (which would be first day of the week under the Jewish reckoning).
Detective Work Needed
But what about those passages from Luke? Let's take a second look, this time using the King James Version, with some verses on either side:
Luk 23:50 And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just:
Luk 23:51 (The same had not consented to the counsel and deed of them;) he was of Arimathaea, a city of the Jews: who also himself waited for the kingdom of God.
Luk 23:52 This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus.
Luk 23:53 And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
Luk 23:54 And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.
Luk 23:55 And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
Luk 23:56 And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment.
Luk 24:1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.
This version can be read that the women beheld the sepulchre and prepared spices and ointments after the first Day of Unleavened Bread. Maybe. But it can also be read that they followed Joseph of Arimathaea and then prepared spices before sunset.
This is where I wish I could read New Testament era Greek.
Let's turn back to John:
Joh 19:38 After this, Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus (but secretly, because he feared the Jewish leaders), asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission, so he went and took the body away.
Joh 19:39 Nicodemus, the man who had previously come to Jesus at night, accompanied Joseph, carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about seventy-five pounds.
Joh 19:40 Then they took Jesus’ body and wrapped it, with the aromatic spices, in strips of linen cloth according to Jewish burial customs.
Joh 19:41 Now at the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb where no one had yet been buried.
Joh 19:42 And so, because it was the Jewish day of preparation and the tomb was nearby, they placed Jesus’ body there.
According to John, Nicodemus already had embalming spices ready, and he and Joseph of Arimathea took care of the embalming. If the women mentioned in Luke had accompanied Joseph immediately to the burial site, they would have known this.
So either the accounts in John and Luke are in conflict, or the women did their spice preparation on the day after the annual Sabbath.
The question then arises as to why the women didn't try to embalm Jesus' body on Friday. Did it take an entire day to prepare the spices and ointments?
Let's turn to Matthew:
Mat 27:62 The next day (which is after the day of preparation) the chief priests and the Pharisees assembled before Pilate
Mat 27:63 and said, “Sir, we remember that while that deceiver was still alive he said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’
Mat 27:64 So give orders to secure the tomb until the third day. Otherwise his disciples may come and steal his body and say to the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception will be worse than the first.”
Mat 27:65 Pilate said to them, “Take a guard of soldiers. Go and make it as secure as you can.”
Mat 27:66 So they went with the soldiers of the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.
Maybe the women didn't go into the tomb because of the guard. But this explanation conflicts with Luke in that the women did behold how the body was laid according to Luke.
It's all quite confusing.
Let's wind up with Matthew 28:
Mat 28:1 Now after the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb
That looks familiar enough. But let's take that same verse using Young's Literal Translation:
Mat 28:1 And on the eve of the sabbaths, at the dawn, toward the first of the sabbaths, came Mary the Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre,
Notice the plural: "sabbaths." Some years back I read on some web site -- I think it was Harold Camping back when he was making his over bold prediction of the End Time -- that this plural indicated that this was the end of all sabbaths. The author used this as a justification for moving worship from the Jewish sabbath to Sunday.
I think the sabbath-keeping Christian explanation here is more straighforward: the two Maries came to the tomb after two sabbaths had passed: the annual sabbath and the weekly sabbath.
Case closed? I cannot make such a bold claim. There is much left for Vulcans to ponder.
There are many other interesting Easter eggs buried in scripture as well, for those who look closely.
Some Final Thoughts
I did not discover the lines of reasoning and research found in this article. I was taught them when I joined a tiny Sabbath-keeping church, one which kept the annual as well as the weekly Sabbaths. I cannot take the credit for any cleverness.
But I can take the blame for the mistakes. I somewhat hastily rederived lessons learned from past sermons with the help of E-Sword.
Regarding annual Sabbaths, let me end with this tidbit. From John's account:
Joh 20:11 But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent down and looked into the tomb.
Joh 20:12 And she saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus’ body had been lying, one at the head and one at the feet.
Joh 20:13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” Mary replied, “They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him!”
Joh 20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
Joh 20:15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” Because she thought he was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him.”
Joh 20:16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni” (which means Teacher).
Joh 20:17 Jesus replied, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Joh 20:18 Mary Magdalene came and informed the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what Jesus had said to her.
Notice verse 20. Jesus didn't want to be touched until he had ascended to his Father. Later in the chapter he did touch people, so it appears that he did ascend and come back for a few appearances.
Now compare this with
Lev 23:9 The LORD spoke to Moses:
Lev 23:10 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am about to give to you and you gather in its harvest, then you must bring the sheaf of the first portion of your harvest to the priest,
Lev 23:11 and he must wave the sheaf before the LORD to be accepted for your benefit – on the day after the Sabbath the priest is to wave it.
Lev 23:12 On the day you wave the sheaf you must also offer a flawless yearling lamb for a burnt offering to the LORD,
Lev 23:13 along with its grain offering, two tenths of an ephah of choice wheat flour mixed with olive oil, as a gift to the LORD, a soothing aroma, and its drink offering, one fourth of a hin of wine.
Lev 23:14 You must not eat bread, roasted grain, or fresh grain until this very day, until you bring the offering of your God. This is a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all the places where you live.
Lev 23:15 “‘You must count for yourselves seven weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day you bring the wave offering sheaf; they must be complete weeks.
Lev 23:16 You must count fifty days – until the day after the seventh Sabbath – and then you must present a new grain offering to the LORD.
Go read the entire chapter for full context. The gist is that the day after [correction!] the first weekly Sabbath after the First Day of Unleavened Bread is the time for the wave sheaf offering. The First Fruits. The Old Testament wave sheaf offering corresponds to Easter. Seven weeks later is Pentecost. Both days are always on a Sunday — even before Christ.
Two events on the Old Testament holy calendar have great Christian significance. Some say that the other annual holy days in Leviticus also have relevance for Christians. I'll leave that question as an exercise to the reader.
The first three Gospels appear to have Jesus having the Last Supper on Passover. Either Jesus and his disciples celebreated Passover early because He knew what was coming, or we have a contradiction between the first three Gospels and John’s Gospel.
you may have accidentally made a typo here:
"The gist is that the first weekly Sabbath after the First Day of Unleavened Bread is the time for the wave sheaf offering. The First Fruits... Both days are always on a Sunday — even before Christ."
rather than upon a Sabbath (as you stated later in the paragraph), the day of First Fruits actually does fall on the *first day* of the week during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. i believe Judaism has commonly practiced the ritual of waving the first fruits of barley shortly after Sabbath sunset in the dark, which is Biblically technically the beginning of the first day of the week. of course, Christ didn't ascend to into heaven to the Father until later on sometime that day.
Roger recently shared this is the first holy week he recalls recognizing that not only do the Biblical holy days fall identically with the crucifixion week, but also mainstream Christianity has placed Easter to fall on the sunday which is the day of First Fruits.
regarding:
"The first three Gospels appear to have Jesus having the Last Supper on Passover. Either Jesus and his disciples celebreated Passover early because He knew what was coming, or we have a contradiction between the first three Gospels and John’s Gospel."
much of the confusion over time has been caused by those teaching that the so called "last supper" *was* Passover. the scriptures in no way suggest this, nor do they use the phrase "last supper". it would be more accurate to understand this was merely the last time Jesus dined in the flesh (after resurrection and ascension He does exemplify dining while in His spiritual form).
confusion has also been caused by the misunderstand of Passover taught as being a day. however, no where in the Bible is Passover exemplified as *being* a day, in like manner as every other weekly and annual holy day. rather, Passover is an *event* which falls upon the *preparation day* of the 14th of God's first month according to His sacred time/.calendar. this is a special preparation day for a special Sabbath: the First Day of Unleavened Bread (God's first Sabbath of His sacred year).
i subscribe to the understanding that Christ instituted the new covenant symbols (unleavened bread & wine) as being the new covenant Passover, observed in the evening of the 14th ("early" 14th), while His sacrifice was completed in the middle of the afternoon ("late" 14th around 3PM) as many old covenant Passover lambs were being sacrificed. this perfectly exemplifies one understanding of "between the evenings", during which the Passover sacrifice is to occur — upon the 14th day of the first month of God's sacred year, in accordance with God's initial command found in Exodus 12:2-3.
God knew the physical temple would be destroyed within the generation of people during His time in the flesh, therefore, He made a way for the Passover symbolism of eating His body and blood to be maintained by updating the physical symbols which now solely point to the spiritual temple which is within each believer where God's Holy Spirit resides.
therefore, while the Old Covenant Passover metaphorically represents the physical exodus of God’s children (Israel) from the temporal bondage of Egypt (a type of sin), the New Covenant Passover metaphorically represents the spiritual exodus of God’s children from sin eternally.
of course, doctrines exist among believers which vary from this perspective. such is why the so called "Passover controversy" continues. regardless, i believe this is a Biblically accurate understanding of the new vs. old covenant Passover.
thank you for bringing all this to light! 8-)
Yes but what is this "heart of earth" Jesus spoke of? Does he mean the grave, or the Underworld, or that-which-decides-what-"earth"-does? After all, the "heart of man" is effectivelly the man's decision-making faculty, his conscious deciding. Is "heart of earth" the same? Or is it merely the physical center of ... the earth? The Earth? Jesus didn't go to the center of the Earth, I'm pretty sure of that. So what does he mean? The Underworld, where the souls of dead languished, waiting to enter Heaven?
After all, you could argue, Jesus was given over to "the deciders of earth" on Thursday night, according to the traditional interpretation. Luke 22:53 is a guide. Did Jesus enter "the heart of earth" then, or when he died, or when he was laid into the grave? Funny question.
At any rate, if he entered the "heart of earth" when he was taken into custody, then we count the night between Thursday and Friday as 1 night, and we count Sunday as 1 day, and we end up with a total of 3 nights and 3 days.
In real life, prophecies are never as clean as they are in D&D.