Jesus told the thief on the cross:

> "Today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).

It is asked, 'How could they have entered paradise that day when Jesus lay in the tomb for three days?' This objection assumes a strict modern physical location for Paradise. Paradise, of course, was the Jewish concept of the abode of the spirits (not the physical bodies) of the righteous dead. This is conceptually similar to someone saying today, 'I'll see you in heaven' with a time prior to the physical resurrection of all men in mind.

> Jonah 1:17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah...
> Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly...

Does the use of "whale" in Matthew and "fish" in Jonah constitute an error? This objection relies on modern biological categories, an innovation of the last few centuries, forcing them upon ancient texts.

Furthermore, this issue arises from relying on an English translation instead of the original languages. The Greek word translated as "whale" in the Authorized Version (Matt 12:40) is ketos, which standard lexicons define as "sea-monster," "great fish," or "huge fish." The texts know nothing of modern biological classifications, and the original Greek accurately conveys a massive sea creature.

The most frequent reference to Jesus’ resurrection reveals that He rose from the grave on the third day of His entombment. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus as prophesying that He would arise from the grave on this day (Matthew 17:23; Mark 9:31; Luke 9:22). The apostle Paul wrote in his first epistle to the Corinthians that Jesus arose from the grave “the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4). What’s more, while preaching to Cornelius and his household, Peter taught that God raised Jesus up “on the third day” (Acts 10:40, emp. added). The fact is, however, Jesus also taught (and Mark recorded) “that the Son of Man” would “be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31, emp. added). Furthermore, Jesus elsewhere prophesied that He would be in the heart of the Earth for “three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40). So which is it? Did Jesus rise from the dead on the third day or after three days?
While to the 21st-century reader these statements may initially appear to contradict one another, in reality, they harmonize perfectly if one understands the different, and sometimes more liberal, methods ancients often used when reckoning time. In the first century, any part of a day could be computed for the whole day and the night following it (cf. Lightfoot, 1979, pp. 210-211). The Jerusalem Talmud quotes rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah, who lived around A.D. 100, as saying: “A day and night are an Onah [‘a portion of time’] and the portion of an Onah is as the whole of it” (from Jerusalem Talmud: Shabbath ix. 3, as quoted in Hoehner, 1974, pp. 248-249, bracketed comment in orig.). Azariah indicated that a portion of a 24-hour period could be considered the same “as the whole of it.” Thus, as awkward as it may sound to an American living in the 21st century, a person in ancient times could legitimately speak of something occurring “on the third day,” “after three days,” or after “three days and three nights,” yet still be referring to the same exact day.

The Scriptures contain several examples which clearly show that in Bible times a part of a day was often equivalent to the whole day.

• According to Genesis 7:12, the rain of the Noahic Flood was upon the Earth “forty days and forty nights.” Verse 17 of that same chapter says it was on the Earth for just “forty days.” Who would argue that it had to rain precisely 960 hours (40 days x 24 hours) for both of these statements to be true?

In Genesis 42:17 Joseph incarcerated his brothers for three days. Then, according to verse 18, he spoke to them on the third day and released them (all but one, that is).

• In 1 Samuel 30:12,13, the phrases “three days and three nights” and “three days” are used interchangeably.

When Queen Esther was about to risk her life by going before the king uninvited, she instructed her fellow Jews to follow her example by not eating “for three days, night or day” (Esther 4:16). The text goes on to tell us that Esther went in unto the king “on the third day” (5:1, emp. added).

Perhaps the most compelling Old Testament passage which clearly testifies that the ancients (at least occasionally) considered a portion of a twenty-four hour period “as the whole of it” is found in 2 Chronicles 10. When Israel asked King Rehoboam to lighten their burdens, he wanted time to contemplate their request, so he instructed Jeroboam and the people of Israel to return “after three days” (2 Chronicles 10:5, emp. added). Verse 12, however, indicates that Jeroboam and the people of Israel came to Rehoboam “on the third day, as the king had directed, saying, ‘ Come back to me the third day’ ” (emp. added). Fascinating, is it not, that even though Rehoboam instructed his people to return “after three days,” they understood this to mean “on the third day.”

From Acts 10, we can glean further insight into the ancient practice of counting consecutive days (in part or in whole) as complete days. Luke recorded how an angel appeared to Cornelius at “about the ninth hour of the day” (approximately 3:00 p.m.; Acts 10:3). “The next day” (10:9) Peter received a vision from God and welcomed visitors sent by Cornelius. “On the next day” (10:23) Peter and the servants of Cornelius departed for Caesarea. “And the following day they entered Caesarea” where Peter taught Cornelius and his household the Gospel (10:24). At one point during Peter’s visit,Cornelius spoke about his encounter with the angel of God. Notice carefully how he began the rehearsal of the event. He stated: “Four days ago to this hour, I was praying in my house during the ninth hour…” (10:30, NASB, emp. added). Although the event actually had occurred only 72 hours (or three literal days) earlier, Cornelius spoke of it as taking place “four days ago to this hour.” Why four days instead of three? Because according to the first-century method of reckoning time, a part of the first day and a part of the fourth day could be counted as whole days. Surely one can see how this information aligns itself perfectly with Jesus’ burial taking place on Friday and His resurrection occurring on Sunday. A part of Friday, all day Saturday, and a part of Sunday would be considered three days in ancient times, not one or two.

Even though in modern times some may find this reasoning somewhat confusing, similar idiomatic expressions frequently are used today. For example, we consider a baseball game that ends after only completing 8½ innings a “9-inning game.” And even though the losing pitcher on the visiting team only pitched 8 innings (and not 9 innings like the winning pitcher from the home team), he is said to have pitched a complete game. Consider also the guest at a hotel who checks in at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, and checks out at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday—less than 24 hours later. Did the man stay one day or two days at the hotel? Technically, the guest was there for less than one full day (24-hour period), yet the hotel legally can charge him for two days since he did not leave before the mandatory 11:00 a.m. checkout time. Considering how flexible we are in measuring time, depending on the context, perhaps we should not be surprised at how liberal the ancients could be in calculating time.
Further evidence proving that Jesus’ statements regarding His burial were not contradictory centers around the fact that even His enemies did not accuse Him of contradicting Himself. No doubt this was due to their familiarity with and use of the flexible, customary method of stating time. In fact, the chief priests and Pharisees even said to Pilate the day after Jesus was crucified: “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day” (Matthew 27:63-64, emp. added). The phrase “after three days” must have been equivalent to “the third day,” else surely the Pharisees would have asked for a guard of soldiers until the fourth day. Interesting, is it not, that modern skeptics charge Jesus with contradicting Himself, but not the hypercritical Pharisees of His own day.

The idiomatic expressions that Jesus and the Bible writers employed to denote how long Jesus would remain in the grave do not mean that He literally was buried for 72 hours. If we interpret the account of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection in light of the cultural setting of the first century, and not according to the present-day (mis)understanding of skeptics, we find no errors in any of the expressions that Jesus and the gospel writers used.

The book of Jonah reveals that “[t]he Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (1:17, emp. added). About 800 years later, Jesus alluded to this amazing event (Matthew 12:39-41). According to the King James translation of Matthew 12:40, Jesus referred to Jonah being “three days and three nights in the whale’s belly” (emp. added). Since fish and whales are different creatures, skeptics accuse Jesus and the Bible writers of making a mistake (cf. Wells, 2012). Longtime Bible critic Dennis McKinsey alleged that Matthew 12:40 is “[p]robably the most famous scientific error by Jesus” (1995, p. 142). “Apparently Jesus hadn’t read the Old Testament very closely… Anyone with even a minimum of biological knowledge knows that a whale is not a fish and a fish is not a whale” (pp. 142-143).

Such a criticism of Jesus and the Bible writers epitomizes the impotence of skeptics’ attacks on God and His Word. McKinsey bases his criticism solely on an English translation made nearly 1,600 years after Jesus spoke these words. The skeptic never bothered to compare translations. He never asked about the word that Jesus originally spoke or that Matthew recorded. He did nothing but make a cursory criticism that might sound sensible on the surface, yet with only a little investigation, is easily and rationally explained.

What was the underlying Greek word that is translated “whale” in the KJV (as well as a few other versions)? A brief look in various respected Greek dictionaries quickly reveals that the word is ketos and is defined broadly as a “large sea creature” (Newman, 1971, p. 100), “sea monster” (Danker, et al., 2000, p. 544), or “huge fish” (Vine, 1952, p. 209). Jesus indicated that Jonah was swallowed by a “large sea creature,” which was not necessarily a whale, but may have been.

Nearly 300 years before Jesus spoke of Jonah being swallowed by a ketos *(Matthew 12:40), translators of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) used this same Greek word (ketos) to translate the Hebrew word (dahg, fish) found in Jonah 1:17, 2:1, and 2:10. Early Christians relied heavily on the Septuagint and understood that this word encompassed any large aquatic creature. The fact is, as Hebrew and Greek scholar Jack Lewis concluded, both *dahg and ketos “designate sea creatures of undefined species” (1976, 2:178). In no way did Jesus, the Creator of all things (John 1:3), make a mistake about what kind of animal God “had prepared” to swallow Jonah. The animal was a great sea creature, and not necessarily a great “fish” according to our modern, more limited, definition of the word. It may very well have been a type of fish (e.g., shark), water-living mammal (e.g., whale), or extinct, dinosaur-like, water-living reptile. We simply cannot be sure. As Dave Miller concluded: “Both the Hebrew and Greek languages lacked the precision to identify with specificity the identity of the creature that swallowed Jonah” (2003).

Finally, one crucial truth that many (especially the Bible critics) miss in a discussion about God and the Bible writers’ naming and classifying of animals is that God did not classify animals thousands of years ago according to our modern classification system. As far back as Creation, God divided animals into very basic, natural groups. He made aquatic and aerial creatures on day five and terrestrial animals on day six (Genesis 1:20-23,24-25). Just as God sensibly classified bats with “birds,” since they both fly (Leviticus 11:13-19; see Lyons, 2009), He could classify whales as “fish,” since they both maneuver by swimming. To accuse Jesus or the Bible writers of incorrectly categorizing an animal based upon Carolus Linnaeus’ 18^th^-century classification of animals, or any other modern method of classifying animals, is both illogical and unjust.

NOTE: For more information on the Hebrew and Greek words dahg and ketos, see [Miller, 2003.]

Problem: Christ rose on Sunday (Matt. 28:1), but He stated that He would be “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” If Christ was crucified on Friday, how could He have been three days and three nights in the earth and rise on Sunday only two days later?”

Solution 1: Some scholars believe Jesus was in the grave for three full days and nights (72 hours), being crucified on Wednesday. They offer the following in support of this contention.

First, they insist that this is the literal meaning of the phrase “three days and nights.” Second, they point out that, on the view that Jesus was crucified on Friday, there is no explanation for what He did on Wednesday. All other days are accounted for. Third, they argue that the passover was not a fixed day (Friday), but floated.

Solution 2: Most biblical scholars believe that Jesus was crucified on Friday. They take the phrase “three days and nights” to be a Hebrew figure of speech referring to any part of three days and nights. They offer the following in support of their position.

First, the phrase “day and night” does not necessarily mean a complete 24 hour period. The psalmist’s reference to meditating “day and night” on God’s Word does not mean one has to read the Bible all day and all night (Ps. 1:2).

Second, it is clear from the use of the phrase “three days and three nights” in the Book of Esther that it does not mean 72 hours. For, although they fasted three days and nights (4:16) between the time they started and the time she appeared before the king, the passage states that Esther appeared before the king “on the third day” (5:1). If they began on Friday, then the third day would be Sunday. Hence, “three days and nights” must mean any part of three days and nights.

Third, Jesus used the phrase “on the third day” to describe the time of His resurrection after His crucifixion (Matt 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; cf. 26:61). But, “on the third day” cannot mean “after three days” which 72 hours demands. On the other hand, the phrase “on the third day” or “three days and nights” can be understood to mean within three days and nights.

Fourth, this view fits best with the chronological order of events as given by Mark (cf. 14:1), as well as the fact that Jesus died on Passover day (Friday) to fulfill the conditions of being our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7; cf. Lev. 23:5–15).

The two views can be compared as follows:

# Three Days and Three Nights: Chronology of the Resurrection

Fitting the Days into the Timeline

Jesus prophesied that He would be in the grave for three days and three nights:
> For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:40)

If Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and rose on Easter Sunday morning, how do we account for three days and three nights?

Inclusive Counting

The solution lies in understanding how time was measured in the ancient Near East and first-century Judaism. The Jewish method of reckoning time utilized "inclusive counting," where any part of a day was counted as a full day and night.

A parallel example of this idiom is found in the Book of Esther. Esther tells the Jews to fast, saying, “Neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day” (Esther 4:16). Yet just two verses later, we read: “Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace” (Esther 5:1). If three full 24-hour periods had to pass, she could not have gone to the king until the fourth day. "Three days and nights" was an idiomatic expression for a period touching three distinct days.

Applying this idiom to Christ's passion:
1. Day One: Friday (Christ is crucified and buried before sundown). Even though it is a partial day, it counts as the first day.
2. Day Two: Saturday (The Sabbath). Christ rests in the tomb. This is the second full day.
3. Day Three: Sunday. Christ rises early in the morning. This partial day counts as the third day.

Through the lens of first-century inclusive counting, the chronology perfectly aligns with Jesus' prophecy. There is no need to hypothesize a Wednesday or Thursday crucifixion; the traditional timeframe of Friday to Sunday fulfills the scriptural requirement of "three days and three nights" idiomatic phrasing.