"in the belly of the earth three days and three nights." Jesus of Nazareth

To feel free to continue this discussion, I started this new thread.

Jesus’ prophecy was that He would be “in the belly of the earth three days and three nights.” At the time Jesus lived, the Jewish day divided into 12 equal periods of time. Hours.

“Jesus answered, are there not twelve hours in a day”? John 11:9, and the night is also divided into 12 equal periods of time, which precedes the lighted hours of each day. The 12 sun lighted hours are called day and the 12 dark hours are called night. Jesus said He would be in the grave three of each - - three periods of darkness and three periods of sunlight.

It is important to note that He did not simply state He would be buried three days. If he had said that, then there could be some logic in identifying a part of a day as a day and a part of a night as a night but the traditional interpretation of considering a part of a day as a day and a night and a part of a night also as a day and a night is far from fact and is not a rational explanation of how Jesus spent three days and three nights in the tomb.

I wouldn’t bother taking it literally myself. It’s meant to teach a lesson, that’s it.

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Jesus said he would be “three days and three nights within/in union with the heart of the earth”. How many possible meanings are there for “three days and three nights within/in union with the heart of the earth”?

I don’t count Wednesday as 1 day. God can tell time and from what I read in Scripture, He is not big on fractions.

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The chief priests and Pharisees told Pilate that Jesus had said He would arise after the third day. Pilate gave them the soldiers to guard the tomb and they could not have taken their post before Thursday. They would then guard the tomb through Saturday, the third day

If the day after Jesus’ crucifixion was Saturday, what would be the third day after his death? Surely not at the end of that same day. The women would not have come with the spices to anoint the body until after Monday was over. That would be Tuesday.

It makes a tangle when a person starts counting from the first day of the week - Sunday and counts backwards three days and three nights and tries to make Scripture fit with that notion.

You need to learn about Jewish inclusive reckoning. The Bible is a Jewish book.

Actually, he told them, “You have a guard. Make it as secure as you can.” What guard did the Jews have? Temple guards. You will have a hard job convincing me that Jewish leaders could bribe Roman soldiers to lie about what happened on their watch, say they all fell asleep on duty, and trust those Jews to keep them safe from their general’s wrath.

if Jesus died and was buried before sunset on Friday, Jewish day two if his death and burial was Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. And the third day was Saturday sunset to Sunday sunset. If he rose before dawn on Sunday, by Jewish reckoning he rose on the third day, within three days, and after three days.

The only outlier in scripture that appears to conflict is the sign of Jonah. But Jonah was not dead for the entire time he was in the belly of the whale. So, Jonah in the belly of the whale does not represent time in the grace, but time enclosed in an uncleanness, the whale being an unclean sea creature.
When did Jesus begin to bear sin? When the High priest declared him a blasphemer during Thursday night. When was Jesus acquitted and sin removed from off Jesus? Read Zec. 3 and John 20:17. On Sunday morning. Three days and three nights.

Why? Matthew wrote to Jews, Paul wrote to Gentiles. The Jews were just a small speck on the world map among all of the Gentiles of Jesus’ day.

Jews didn’t even agree with themselves as to when each day began and ended and that is true with some Jews today. Some consider a calendar day to begin and end at sunset, yet in regard to certain ceremonial days a new day begins at full darkness, particularly with the start of a new year.

You don’t want to learn about Jewish inclusive reckoning, when Matthew, Mark and John were Jews, and Luke reported eyewitnesses who were largely Jews? OK.

A dispute between sunset meaning the orb of the sun disappearing versus no light from the sun at all is not significant.

At creation, God designed the time between day and night and put the night first - the day next. Backwards from our time. The beginning of night is the beginning of day.

"God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day." Genesis 1:5 The beginning of night is the beginning of day.

God set this way of counting time for His people 2500 years before there was a Jewish nation.

If God changed this way of speaking of days and nights to His people where is the proof?

Evening is first, then the morning. The night was initiated by the arrival of “complete darkness.” Jesus was buried the evening of preparation day Luke 23, “And that day was the preparation.”

Shouldn’t that have settled it for the Jewish leaders? It should, but it didn’t. One of the days that we have been discussing “Thursday, Nissan 15” was a Holy Day. The Jews called it Passover, although it was actually Nissan 15, the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, not the 14th day of the month which God had designated as Passover. Why were His people so lax with his commands? The Passover lambs had been slain the previous evening - - - - - for those who ignored God’s command and had killed their lambs at that later time - - - - twenty one hours or more after God’s designated time, then roasted and eaten that night, prior to dawn.

No servile work was permitted this day, only the preparation of the food and there was to be no leaven anywhere in their homes for seven days - - - only unleavened bread could be eaten.

Sabbath regulations have been debated for over 3,000 years without an end to the controversy. Scripture has weightier matters as well as matters not so weighty matters, although important. Jesus gave this harsh rebuke: “They bind heavy burdens upon men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” Matthew 23.

The burdens that the Pharisees imposed upon their people were their own interpretations of what it meant to keep the law, such as observing the Sabbath. These are preserved in the Mishnah. The Mishnah is more than twice the size of the New Testament and filled with legalisms - - - such as how many letters of the alphabet may a man write on the Sabbath. Two Rabbis disagree as to whether writing two letters of the alphabet would violate the Sabbath.

Piper,
re: “At creation, God designed the time between day and night and put the night first - the day next. Backwards from our time.”

How is that backward from our time? Either method - Sundown or midnight - begins a new calendar day at night time.

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A case of time dilation. Great mystic events can be incomprehensible and illogical as time can stand still.

Here is a Buddhist example.

“From the time that these bodhisattva-mahasattvas first issued from the earth and extolled the buddhas with all kinds of bodhisattva hymns, in the interval there had passed fifty minor kalpas. During all this time Shakyamuni Buddha sat in silence, and silent also were the four groups; [but] the fifty kalpas, through the divine power of the Buddha, seemed to the great multitude as half a day.

Yes, that is a possible explanation.

It is clear that Jewish reckoning considered any part of a day to be a whole day. That is clear from Acts 10, where a 72-hour period is referred to “four days”:

. . .about the ninth hour of the day, an angel of God coming in unto him. . .And on the next day. . . . . .And the day following he arose. . .And the morrow after, he entered into Caesarea. . . Four days ago I was fasting until this hour. Acts 10:3, 9, 23, 24, 30

There are also several example of “40 days and 40 nights” being used for emphasis. See Matthew 4:2-4, Genesis 7:12, Exodus 24:18, 1 Kings 19:8. The phrase may just be a figure of speech and not necessarily literal.

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Yes, every prediction of “within three days”, on the third day", and “after three days”, regarding Jesus’ death and resurrection, fits Jewish inclusive reckoning and a Friday afternoon death/burial and a Sunday morning resurrection.

The only outlier is the single “As Jonah…” prophecy. If one reads Jonah 2, Jonah died some time after being swallowed by the unclean whale. He cried out from Sheol, and was spat out alive again. Jesus was three days and three nights clothed with our sins, laid on Him by the High Priest, as the sins were laid on the atonement offering and the scapegoat. The Greek in 1 Peter actually says “who Himself bore our sins in His body onto the tree”, using “epi " + the accusative case, (implying motion towards: moving toward and onto the tree;) even though most translations translate it as if it were” “epi” + the dative case (no movement implied: stationed on the tree). 1 Pet. 2:24.

I believe that “en tEi kardia tEs gEs” means “in union with the heart of the earth”. As we are “en ChrisOi” in union with Christ, identified as being one with Him in God’s eyes, Jesus was " in union with the heart of the earth, identified with the heart/will of the earth in God’s eyes, from the time the High Priest placed Israel’s and the world’s sins on Him during night one, until the time our uncleanness was lifted from Him after His meeting with Mary Magdalene on day three, John 20:19, and fulfilling Zechariah’s vision in Zec . 3.

Matthew 12:40 “For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.”

5618-1063ώσπερ γαρFor as1510.7.3-*ην ΙωνάςJonah was1722ενin3588τηthe2836κοιλίαbelly3588τουof the2785κήτουςwhale5140τρειςthree2250ημέραςdays2532καιand5140τρειςthree3571νύκταςnights,3779ούτωςso1510.8.3έσταιwill [4be3588ο1the5207υιός2son3588του 444ανθρώπου3of man]1722ενin3588τηthe2588καρδίαheart3588τηςof the1093γηςearth5140τρειςthree2250ημέραςdays2532καιand5140τρειςthree3571νύκταςnights.

belly - koilia – the large cavity of the body, the belly

in - en – in the interior of some whole.

heart - kardia - feminine. Of the middle or central or inmost part of anything.

Of the earth - ge

Feminine noun. The ground, the earth as standing in place.

There is no Greek text in the passage that could possible mean “in union with.” There is no concordance for the word “union” in the New Covenant Scripture.

Jesus was telling His disciples how many days he would be gone. Like Jonah, they would see him again after three days and three nights. The only relation between Jonah and Jesus was that they were out of sight three days and three nights.

Hebrews 24 “For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

If Christ had not appeared a second time, we would still be in our sins, and Jesus would have died in vain.

If the high priests under the Law of Moses hadn’t appeared a second time, the people would have still been in their sins. As it happened, the Priests took the animal sacrifices of the Jews into the Holy of Holies in the Temple and the people waited and watched for him to reappear. When the priest appeared the second time the people knew God had accepted their sacrifice and their sins had been covered for another year.

When Jesus appeared to His disciples after his resurrection, he had not been in the presence of God for us. After he ascended to heaven, no earthly person has seen Him the same as no one has seen God.

Many translations render “in Christ” as having the sense of " in union with Christ".
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.biblestudytools.com/gnt/1-corinthians/passage/%3Fq%3D1-corinthians%2B1:5-15&ved=2ahUKEwiG_IC-8JzpAhWTT30KHTWoASwQFjAVegQIARAC&usg=AOvVaw0FG41vWpn5wp3rELgw6okq.

You are free to believe that. But no one is mandated to believe exactly as you do.