August 26th, 2010

The following question was found online. It is from the viewpoint of someone who does not believe in God, and is looking for questions that cannot be answered in order to justify his/her belief that there is no God. You can hear the lack of trust in God in the question. The viewpoint of my answer is from total trust in God. Each answer is a quick overview – not a detailed explanation! God is a God of truth, and the Bible is full of answers…

If Jesus was supposed to be dead for three days and three nights, then why did He die on Friday, when it is clearly not three days and three nights until Sunday?

This is a very fun question to answer, because it involves really investigating the scripture to find the timeline of the death and resurrection of Jesus according to the Bible. Through history, there have been many examples of tradition replacing truth. In the case of the Christian religion, many traditions were began without careful examination of the scripture, but simply began for the sake of tradition. For instance, the traditional day of Jesus’ birth is celebrated on December 25th. This celebration began as the church’s response to pagan celebrations happening at the same time. The Bible never states the day of Jesus’ birth, and even never tells us to celebrate his birth. (This debate is not the purpose of the blog, but evidence of tradition replacing fact.)

When it comes to the death and resurrection of Jesus, tradition has also replaced fact.

While I typically will answer every question directly on this blog, another man in our church, Dr. Steve Howard, has researched this topic for years and developed a website which is devoted to the very question at hand.

So, click on his website below, and investigate the scriptures he presents to see if his words are true… This is good scholarship.

www.signofjonah.info