SEVEN STEPS TO BETHLEHEM 
STEP ONE

DARKNESS OVER THE LAND AT THE CRUCIFIXION

    There is adequate historical evidence relating to the strange darkness that covered the land of Israel for three  hours during the Crucifixion. But before this evidence can be brought forward, there are some preliminaries that need attention, such as -

1.      On which day of the week did Jesus die?

2.  Which day was this, 14th or 15th Nisan?

3. Was He in the grave for "three days and three nights"?

4. On which day of the week did Jesus rise from the dead?

5. Can we know what calendars were in force at the time?

    All this will need to be addressed before it's possible to evaluate the usefulness of the historical evidence about the darkness. The nine chapters in this part are therefore designed to tackle these problems.

 

CHAPTER 1

“GOOD FRIDAY”, or was it “GOOD WEDNESDAY”
or maybe “GOOD THURSDAY”?

    Until the beginning of this century the day of the Crucifixion had hardly ever been questioned. It was always “Good Friday.” But more and more of recent days there has been a move to think otherwise. This has been spawned by a desire to show a greater faithfulness to the literal words of Jesus, “the Son of Man shall be THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:40) Exponents of the newer theories say that such words cannot satisfy the traditional view of one whole day and two nights.

    Many years ago I was greatly enamoured by the presentation shown by Dr.E.W.Bullinger in his “Companion Bible”, (an excellent study Bible,) whereby he tried to prove that Jesus died on Wednesday and rose towards the end of Saturday. It certainly allowed for a full “three days and three nights”, and at the time I imagined he had solved the problem. Some friends of the fellowship I attended in the 1950s were also of this mind, and presented an article in a journal published by The Lamp Press, Old Town, Clapham Common, London, entitled “Thy Testimonies”. The key to this “solution” they said, lay in the words of John in his gospel, (John 19:31) “The Jews therefore, because it was the Day of Preparation, so that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, (for THAT Sabbath was an High Day) asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.”

    Allow me to explain why they thought this was the key. The words in parentheses are the ones that matter. In the Greek original there is an emphasis which I’ve conveyed by using the upper case - THAT. Those who espouse the Wednesday crucifixion model say that John was referring to the following day, (Thursday,) as a High Sabbath, whereas those who retain the more traditional view accept that John
was merely saying that the next day, Saturday, was a special day because it was a feast day.

    “THAT Sabbath was an High Day.” Yes, these words were used by John to explain to his readers, many of whom he knew would be Gentiles, that in the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread, there were to be two special days which had to be treated as if they were Sabbaths, even if they occurred mid-week. The regulation was spelled out in Leviticus 23:5-8. “In the 14th day of the 1st month at even is the Lord’s Passover. And on the 15th day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Lord. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. In the 1st day you shall have a Holy Convocation, you shall do no laborious work therein. - - In the 7th day is a Holy Convocation, you shall do no laborious work therein.”

    It will be helpful at this stage to draw up a simple time diagram to show three models, three proposed schemes for presenting the “three days and three nights.”

Type 1  was presented by Bullinger in the Companion Bible,
Type 2 espoused around the turn of the century by Professor Totten, (who argued that Jesus was crucified on Thursday,)
Type 3  the more traditional view of a Friday crucifixion and Sunday resurrection.

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

 

P

1HD

2

3

4

5

6

7HD

 

 

 

Type 1

 

P

1HD

2

3

4

5

6

7HD

 

 

Type 2

 

 

P

1HD

2

3

4

5

6

7HD

 

Type 3

Legend:-  P =  Passover Day, 14th Nisan, when lambs were slain, according to Lev.23.
1,2,3,4,5,6,7 = the seven days of Unleavened Bread, as required by Mosaic law.
HD = High Days, as delineated in Lev.23, and treated as Sabbaths.
Numbers in bold type show the day considered for resurrection.
     
    A strange new theory of recent years comes from Frank Paine, (“Miracle of Time” 1994) who contended that Jesus was crucified on Friday, but raised on Monday, which to my way of thinking flies in the face of all factual evidence, and has been omitted from the time chart.

    Is there any way of deciding which of these three theories is correct? It is crucial to our investigation to know which Type is the correct one. Without that knowledge, the way forward will be uncertain, problematic, and unyielding for reasons that will become more apparent as we proceed.

    In the following chapters I shall address these problems from the statements found in the Gospel records to show that the new theories only arose because of a mistaken reverence for the literality of words of Scripture. Without a proper understanding of figures of speech, there can be no real appreciation of meanings. We ourselves use 101 different figures of speech on a daily basis, and if these were translated literally into Chinese or Swahili, or example, they would cause immense problems for readers in China and Kenya!