Good Wednesday

By James M. Irwin

The Bible does not say on what day of the week Jesus was crucified. The Bible says that Jesus was crucified on Preparation Day and the next day was a special Sabbath. Most Christians assumed that the special Sabbath was a Saturday. Hence they concluded that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. This is not a good assumption. The special Sabbath occurs on Nisan 15th, a day of the Hebrew calendar, whose weekday changes every year. Hence the assumption that Preparation Day was a Friday on the year Jesus was crucified is not necessarily valid. In the fourth century AD the church made the assumption that Preparation Day was a Friday using the faulty logic described earlier to institutionalize Good Friday. The assumption that Preparation Day was a Friday caused some contradictions with the scriptures. Most notably, Jesus failed the sign of the Messiah by not spending three full days in the tomb. There have been some unconvincing attempts to rationalize Jesus spending less than two days in the tomb. Jesus says that scripture will be fulfilled to the slightest punctuation mark. The author noticed problems with conversation of the road to Emmaus due to the Friday Preparation Day assumption. The author also noticed problems with the scriptures about the women preparing spices due to the Friday Preparation Day assumption as well. All of these scriptural problems disappear if a Preparation Day of Wednesday is assumed. The church has put up with these problems for centuries rather than correcting the Friday Preparation Day assumption made in the fourth century AD.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Mar 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781499098204

James M. Irwin

The author is a retired computer programmer. The author has always been concerned that the common Easter narrative of a Friday evening burial and Sunday morning resurrection did not satisfy the sign of the Messiah. The sign of the Messiah required Jesus to spend three full days in the tomb before the resurrection. Arguments that the shorter time in the tomb was OK seemed unconvincing to the author. Jesus said that even the smallest punctuation mark of scripture must be fulfilled. The Bible does not say that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The Bible says Jesus was crucified on Preparation Day and the following day was a special Sabbath. A special Sabbath is not necessarily a Saturday so it does not follow Preparation Day was a Friday. This assumption that Preparation Day was a Friday was made by the church in the fourth century AD. The author technique was to assume that Preparation Day was a Friday and then ask questions. The Roman guard was posted till the third day which would have been till Monday at sundown. Would the women go the tomb Sunday while the Roman guard was posted? Would the Roman soldiers agree to say on Sunday that they were asleep while on duty? This is very unlikely since it would cost them their necks. The author noted that the Friday Preparation Day assumption also caused problems with conversation on the road to Emmaus. The Friday Preparation Day caused problems with scriptures about the women preparing spices. The author's questions expose the problems in the common Easter narrative. All these problems including the sign of the Messiah could be fixed by assuming Preparation Day was a Wednesday the year Jesus was crucified.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by James M. Irwin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Rev. date: 03/09/2016

Xlibris

0-800-443-678

www.Xlibris.co.nz

735363

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 Preparation Day

2 The Women Go To The Tomb

3 The Road To Emmaus

4 What Year Was Jesus Crucified?

5 Epilogue

About The Author

Dedication

With great appreciation for Tillie Day

Preface

The common Easter narrative is that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. However, the Bible does not say that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. The Bible says that Jesus was crucified on Preparation Day and the following day was a special Sabbath. Many people assume that a special Sabbath is a Saturday. This is not true. The special Sabbath occurs on Nisan 15th which is a day of the Hebrew calendar. The actual weekday of the special Sabbath occurs on a different weekday each year just like your birthday. So it cannot be assumed that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. When the scriptures are examined closely it can be determined that Preparation Day was a Wednesday the year Jesus was crucified. So the title of this book is Good Wednesday.

Introduction

I believe in the inerrancy of scripture. One of the things that troubled me about the common Easter narrative of a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday morning resurrection was that it did not satisfy the sign of Jonah. Jesus very clearly said that he would be in the grave for three full days. In the common Easter narrative Jesus is not even in the grave two full days. So the common Easter narrative does not agree with the successful fulfillment of the sign of Jonah. I was also troubled why so many Christians believed in a dawn resurrection of Jesus. Mary Magdalene makes three trips to the tomb of Jesus on the first day of the week. The third trip to the tomb with the other Mary was at dawn. However, the resurrection of Jesus had already happened before her first trip to the