Crucifixion Chronology Revisited
Back a few years ago I made up a chart to try and illustrate all the events of Jesus’ final week as a mortal, combining data from all the Gospels. But recently I took another look at it with details I hadn’t known before, especially the fact that the Greek does not say “first day of the week” but “one/the first of the sabbaths”. And there were other overlooked details, such as the fact that Jesus’ burial wasn’t finished until almost dawn. Please study this chart:
One interesting thing is that there is NO indication in the Greek of any Christians regularly doing any particular thing on every Sunday. In every case where “the Lord’s day” is mentioned, the Greek says “one/first of sabbaths”, and this means the first day after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the day the wave offering was made, which is also the Feast of Firstfruits. As noted on the chart,
Firstfruits - Sheaf of first grain waved by priest on “the day after the sabbath”. (in NT called “first of the sabbaths” or “first sabbath” - see also 1 Cor. 16:2, which means a one-time gift made on the day of the wave offering; note ref. to Pentecost in vs. 8; also Acts 20:7).So not only do we have reconciliation between “after three days and three nights” and “on the third day”, we also can see that there is no set weekly time for Christians to gather or to set aside money to give. Knowing the terminology used in the NT to describe various events in the Jewish calendar, reckoning days, and counting hours makes all the difference in how we interpret scripture.Feast of Weeks - Starting with Firstfruits, count 7 full weeks: 50 days up to the day after the 7th sabbath, and this too is a sabbath: “Pentecost”. Each week was referred to as “the nth of the sabbaths”.