Did Christ rise on Easter Sunday? Or Good Saturday?

[Lucky_VII]

I’m still a newbie at the deeper learning of my Catholic faith & the other day someone from a church that does mass on Saturdays told me that Christ didn’t resurrect on Sunday… I looked at this article (link below) and seen a very compelling argument that backed up what I was told. My question is how, or rather “Where” can I find it in the bible that Christ did resurrect on a Sunday and that we should celebrate mass on Sundays??



Christ’s Resurrection Was NOT on Sunday

 

[adrift]

The article makes some invalid points.

. There insistence that it had to be 72 hours is not justified by the culture. It does not take into consideration how time was reckoned by the Jews. Any part of a day was considered a complete day. Jesus died on a Friday day one. He laid in the tomb Saturday day two and He resurrected on Sunday day three.
You will find the accounts of the resurrection in Matt 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 22.

Days were counted from sunset to sunset. Therefore Sunday began on Saturday evening and lasted until Sunday evening. Three of the Gospel’s state that the women arrived at dawn. Now the only time dawn occurs is around 6 in the morning. John states that it is still dark. In one account, it mentions an earthquake. It is obvious, at least to me, that the author intended to suggest that this earthquake was caused by the Resurrection.

 

[pablope]

I’m still a newbie at the deeper learning of my Catholic faith & the other day someone from a church that does mass on Saturdays told me that Christ didn’t resurrect on Sunday… I looked at this article (link below) and seen a very compelling argument that backed up what I was told. My question is how, or rather “Where” can I find it in the bible that Christ did resurrect on a Sunday and that we should celebrate mass on Sundays??



Christ’s Resurrection Was NOT on Sunday

I would take the word of the gospel writers…and the knowledge and traditon handed over 2000 years over any modern day scholar…with an agenda…

 

[po18guy]

Do yourself a huge favor and get a copy of Catholicism for Dummies. It is an excellent resource that will teach you all of the basics, with their reasons, contained within the Catholic faith.

The website hat you linked is founded on very limited knowledge of Church history.

 

[Reuben_J]

Jesus raised from the dead on Easter Sunday, three days after the crucifixion.

“… suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;”

 

[Gusto]

It is true, you will find at first glance compelling cases for whatever Biblical position someone may hold, however what we all must do is:

1. 
   Understand it is the Church and not an individual that decides what the Christian faith is!
   
   • 
     Understand that it is wise (this is an understatement) to compare someones opinion with Church teaching in the form of modern respected faithful catholic apologists, who in turn almost always quote previous Christians that lead back to the Apostles. This way you see the continuous teaching from the time of Jesus and most people would be humble enough to know they probably know the Bible better than me/you.
     
     A good habit to form is to google a topic and add the word catholic in it
     ALSO,
     bookmark a list of respected catholic apologist websites
     eg: catholic.com
     ewtn.com
     
     Responding to your topic however read this
     catholic.com/quickquestions/did-the-early-church-move-the-sabbath-from-saturday-to-sunday
     
     It all started in a garden in Genesis
     It ended in a garden - Gethsemane
     It all started again in a garden when the women went to see Jesus’ Tomb which was found empty. Jesus rose on the third day as He himself predicted - Sunday - the first day of the week.

 

[JerryZ]

I’m still a newbie at the deeper learning of my Catholic faith & the other day someone from a church that does mass on Saturdays told me that Christ didn’t resurrect on Sunday… I looked at this article (link below) and seen a very compelling argument that backed up what I was told. My question is how, or rather “Where” can I find it in the bible that Christ did resurrect on a Sunday and that we should celebrate mass on Sundays??



Christ’s Resurrection Was NOT on Sunday

My dear friend.

Mark 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, that they might come and anoint him.
16:2 And very early on the first day of the week, they come to the tomb when the sun was risen.
16:3 And they were saying among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the tomb?

16:9 Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons

Acts 20:7 And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, intending to depart on the morrow;

**Mattew **27:64 Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply his disciples come and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first.
27:65 Pilate said unto them, Ye have a guard: go, make it as sure as ye can.
27:66 So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, the guard being with them.

Isaiah profetized that Jesus would return after 3 days and all the gospels attest to that.

 

[Nemo_Has]

I’ve been looking into this myself, and there’s not a whole lot about it, in fact I was hoping to find some answers here. But, eventually I found this, which is by far the best of what I’ve seen;
catholicbridge.com/catholic/was_jesus_crucified_on_friday.php

Hope this helps!

 

[stevekehl]

I’m still a newbie at the deeper learning of my Catholic faith & the other day someone from a church that does mass on Saturdays told me that Christ didn’t resurrect on Sunday… I looked at this article (link below) and seen a very compelling argument that backed up what I was told. My question is how, or rather “Where” can I find it in the bible that Christ did resurrect on a Sunday and that we should celebrate mass on Sundays??



Christ’s Resurrection Was NOT on Sunday

Is rising from the dead considered work? If so Jesus couldn’t violate the Sabbath.

 

[Nine_Two]

Is rising from the dead considered work? If so Jesus couldn’t violate the Sabbath.

Luke 6:1-5 would indicate otherwise, 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath."
There was nothing to magically prevent Christ from doing what he pleased on the sabbath.

To the OP: We count days exclusively (don’t count partial days), the Jews, and in fact most people, counted inclusively (partial days count). This was the norm until quite late, you can still see it in the system of naming years, where 1 BC is followed by 1 AD, with no year 0 in between.

 

[JonNC]

Jesus raised from the dead on Easter Sunday, **three days after the crucifixion. **
“… suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into Hell; the third day He rose again from the dead;”

Reuben,
I think part of the misperception is in the idea of the part I bolded. A more correct term, ISTM, is “on the third day”. So, He was dead on Friday (day 1), dead on Holy saturday (day 2), and was dead then resurrected on Easter Sunday (day 3).

Maybe I’m wrong about that (I often am ), but that’s always been my understanding.

Jon

 

[Reuben_J]

Reuben,
I think part of the misperception is in the idea of the part I bolded. A more correct term, ISTM, is “on the third day”. So, He was dead on Friday (day 1), dead on Holy saturday (day 2), and was dead then resurrected on Easter Sunday (day 3).

Maybe I’m wrong about that (I often am ), but that’s always been my understanding.

Jon

Hi Jon. You are right of course. Me mentioning the three days was intentional, perhaps was pulling some legs . No, I didn’t try to ‘gotcha you’ but credit to you, you saw the fallacy. I was talking from the Jewish context of what it means for one day, example, even one hour into the next day is considered one day - another day, to try to give an explanation to the baffled OP on why we consider Jesus to rise after three days.

Today if we say three days, it invariably means 72 hours and perhaps this causes the misunderstanding which you rightly said so.

God bless.

 

[LEMAITRE]

Adrift is 100% correct.

During the time of the Apostles and Jesus the Hebrews counted mere hours as a full day. An example for today would be a person who dies at 11pm, according to the Jewish way of counting days during NT times, that person would still be counted as having been dead for a day.

Therefore Jesus died on Friday at 3pm (Day1), Saturday (Day2) and he rose on Sunday (Day3).

According to Jewish tradition of the time a person was not considered dead unless 3days had passed. Jesus being the perfect Jew knew this, which is why he specifically waited for 4days before he brought Lazarus back from the dead, to show the Jews of the day that Lazarus was indeed dead and that Jesus does have power over death.

The Bible doesn’t mention how long Jairus daughter and the widows son at Nain had been dead for before Jesus raised them from the dead.

Catholics celebrate Mass every day but Sunday is a Mass which should not be missed because that is the day of the resurrection.

 

[JonNC]

Hi Jon. You are right of course. Me mentioning the three days was intentional, perhaps was pulling some legs . No, I didn’t try to ‘gotcha you’ but credit to you, you saw the fallacy. I was talking from the Jewish context of what it means for one day, example, even one hour into the next day is considered one day - another day, to try to give an explanation to the baffled OP on why we consider Jesus to rise after three days.

Today if we say three days, it invariably means 72 hours and perhaps this causes the misunderstanding which you rightly said so.

God bless.

Thanks, Reuben, for seeing my comments as conversational and not critical. I completely agree with what you say here.

Jon

 

[Reuben_J]

Thanks, Reuben, for seeing my comments as conversational and not critical. I completely agree with what you say here.

Jon

It’s my privilege. Having seen and knowing how you post, it’s never a problem here.

 

[Shibolet]

Did Jesus rise at all? According to Matthew 12:40, he was supposed to rise after three days and three nights. According to the same gospel writer, the next day was Sabbath, and right at the end of it, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher and saw that the tomb was empty. (Mat. 28:1) What happened then? Did the prophecy in Mat. 12:40 fail or Jesus was rather raised by someone else?

BTW, Mat. reports about an earthquake, as an angel came down from Heaven, removed the stone, and saw that the tomb was already empty. (Mat. 28:2-5) Since even the angel could not be an eyewitness to the resurrection, is the event supposed to be accepted by faith? Since knowledge cannot come by faith, how is it ever possible to know for sure if Jesus was risen or raised? I don’t know about you but I can see a difference between rising and being raised.

 

[Evan]

Even today we often count 3 days as parts of 3 days.

Example:

I would say “On the recent Veteran’s day weekend I visited my mom for 3 days.”

In fact, I travelled to where she lives on Saturday morning and got there around 11.
I left on Monday (after mass around 11) and got home about 5.

I was there 3 days: Sat, Sun, Mon but only 47 hours! Yet no-one I know would claim I only saw her for 2 days.

 

[Shibolet]

Even today we often count 3 days as parts of 3 days.

Example:

I would say “On the recent Veteran’s day weekend I visited my mom for 3 days.”

In fact, I travelled to where she lives on Saturday morning and got there around 11.
I left on Monday (after mass around 11) and got home about 5.

I was there 3 days: Sat, Sun, Mon but only 47 hours! Yet no-one I know would claim I only saw her for 2 days.

Yes, Evan. You are in tune with the Jewish tradition, that part of a day, even a few minutes of that day is considered one day. However, for two reasons the problem persists. The first is that Mat.12:40 specifies three days and three nights and we all know that the event did not occur according to that specification. The second reason is
that if you figure, even according to the Jewish inclusive method, we can’t find three days and three nights.

Jesus was crucified on that Friday and was buried just prior to that Sabbath. That’s one day for that “prior” to the Sabbath, even if it were only for a few minutes; the night from Friday to Saturday is one night. The whole day of that Saturday makes the second day. According to Mat. 28:1, when the women went to the sepulcher and saw the open tomb, never mind that it does not mention when it got empty, let us give it the second night. Two days and two nights render the prophecy of the three days and three nights of Mat.12:40 ineffective.

My question is: Do we have to accept it by faith if there is no way to verify?

 

[pablope]

Yes, Evan. You are in tune with the Jewish tradition, that part of a day, even a few minutes of that day is considered one day. However, for two reasons the problem persists. The first is that Mat.12:40 specifies three days and three nights and we all know that the event did not occur according to that specification. The second reason is
that if you figure, even according to the Jewish inclusive method, we can’t find three days and three nights.

Jesus was crucified on that Friday and was buried just prior to that Sabbath. That’s one day for that “prior” to the Sabbath, even if it were only for a few minutes; the night from Friday to Saturday is one night. The whole day of that Saturday makes the second day. According to Mat. 28:1, when the women went to the sepulcher and saw the open tomb, never mind that it does not mention when it got empty, let us give it the second night. Two days and two nights render the prophecy of the three days and three nights of Mat.12:40 ineffective.

My question is: Do we have to accept it by faith if there is no way to verify?

The other gospels say dawn…or early morning…so three days. Jesus is also beyond time.

The gospel writers, at leas we know, Matthew and John were eyewitnesses to seeing Jesus after the resurrection. So do you doubt their eyewitness account?

How do you propose to verify, 2000 yrs later, the resurrection?

 

[Reuben_J]

The first is that Mat.12:40 specifies three days and three nights and we all know that the event did not occur according to that specification.

It is just the language used and the translation says accordingly. The Semitic language is rather flowery especially for emphasis. As have been said before this, the three days and three nights are not 72 hours as what our modern day scientific and analytic mind would rightfully think.

It just mean three days to reference the prophecy before that. Perhaps the issue here is to look for a contradiction. There is none. As is always the case, a book is to be read in context, always so. In this instance, one needs to understand how the mind of the early Jews spoke and perhaps that is beyond us. But scripture does not contradict itself because the people who chose which books to include in the Bible would make sure of that. If we think there is contradiction today, it is because we do not understand the context and its literature and that is fair enough.