Question about Matthew 12:40

[rstrats]

So far the possible explanations are:

1. Any part of a calendar day could be considered and counted as a daytime and a night time.
2. The 3 hours of darkness from the 6th hour to the 9th hour could be counted as a night time.
3. One of the links suggested that the count began at the night time in the garden when the Messiah was arrested.

Is there an official vatican position on the issue?

 

[Gorgias]

Is there an official vatican position on the issue?

Yes: Jesus predicted it and it came to pass.

 

[jcrichton]

So basically, what we can get from this is since Jesus was crucified (Sacrificed) before Sunset on Friday, Thursday night (the day preceding Friday) is counted as night 1. After sunset Friday is night 2 and after sunset Saturday is night 3.

This fully makes sense!

It the cultural (contextual) gradation that hindsight often tramples upon missing the forest for the trees!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

I don’t know if this a troll thread or not.

It seems like one of those “gotcha” arguments that some people are keen to developing (in their minds) as the “defeating” the Christ “thing.”

Yet, as Scriptures has it:

19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. 20 And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. (1 Corinthians 3)

…as it has been pointed out… this thread is only a copy of an attempt that has failed previously; while practice does makes “perfect,” this only happens at the expense of ignorance–for perfection to form/sprout/be born one must give up what is proven as imperfection.

The root of the problem is not a missing period or a flaw in Jesus’ statement; the root is in hindsight wisdom operating from a fixed erroneous understanding of the past.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[MT1926]

Is there an official vatican position on the issue?

NOPE.

That’s the beauty of the Catholic Faith. The Church gives us certain guidelines, she is not a dogma making machine.

She actually only puts a strict interpretation on something like 9 verses of scripture. Other than those we are free to interpret the Bible literally or figuratively, as long as they we don’t contradict a teaching of the faith.

It is so freeing. We can accept any one of those 3 as the interpretation of Matthew 12:40. Doesn’t really matter the only thing we can’t do here is try to claim this slight variance is somehow evidence that Jesus did not rise from the dead.

Hope this helps,

God Bless

 

[jcrichton]

Is there an official vatican position on the issue?

How much clarification do you need?

1. A Jewish statement, by a Jewish person (Jesus), Who lived in a Jewish environment where a day was understood to be sun set to sun set.
2. Present understanding of a day cycle vs. the Jewish custom is a mute argument.
3. Your query has been fully resolved–even if you scrape the bottom of the pot you will not be able to change the understanding and practices of the past–heard of the set in stone rule?

Why is it that while it has been proven that the earth revolves around the sun we still say: “sun rise/up” and “sun set/down?”

Day (period) 1: Sun set Thursday to sun set Friday
Day (period) 2: Sun set Friday to sun set Saturday
Day (period) 3: Sun set Saturday to sun set Sunday

Now, if you can prove that Jesus meant three (3) twenty-four-hour periods… well, that would be something!

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Psalms62]

See Matthew 20:3, The workers in the vineyard, Going out about 9 o’clock, Matthew 20:5,And he went out again about 5 o’clock, Matthew 20:8, When it was evening…Summon the Laborers and give them their pay.

Mark 13:35, Whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning.

This is based on Genesis 1 and John 1 - In the beginning

Set of hours: The Counting of ‘Day’ and ‘Night’
Meir M. Ydit
‘‘Teach us to count our days, that we may get a wise heart’’ (Psalm 90: 12).
The day as a unit of the calendar was calculated differently in various ancient cultures. The Babylonians counted as one day the time from sunrise to sunrise. The Greeks employed the opposite method; they counted as one day the time from sunset to sunset. The Romans established the modern calendar with the famous reform by Julius Caesar, in the year 46 B.C.E. In the Julian calendar one day consists of 24 equal hours, whether in winter or in summer. This was later modified by the universal adoption of the Meridian Standard Time (MST), divided into 24 time zones, with Greenwich, Eng- land, as point zero. Accordingly, each “day” starts at midnight and lasts exactly 24 hours.
In the Jewish tradition it is customary to count the day from the onset of night (i.e., the visibility of three stars in the sky) until after the sunset of the following day. Thus the halakhic ruling: Ha/ailah nimshakh abarei hayom, the night follows (i.e., is part of) the day which comes after it. This method of counting was based upon the language of the Bible in the creation story (Gen. 1) where it says several times “and it was evening, and it was morning, the first (second, third, etc.) day.” Because of the language of the Bible, in which the evening is antecedent to the morning, it was reasoned that in the counting of the unit “day,” the evening is reckoned to belong to the day which comes after it.
However, a more precise scrutiny of this text shows that the opposite is true. No doubt, prior to creation there was neither day nor night but only “darkness over the surface of the deep” (Gen. 1:2). With the process of creation, which started with the divine fiat "Let there be light,’’ the first daylight began and lasted until the arrival of evening. As the darkness, too, ran its course, the entire day ended and a new day began. This is what the Bible really expresses:
“and it was evening[= after the daylight ended], and it was morning[= a new day arrived, therefore it was the definite end of] the first [second, third, etc.) day.”

RABBI DR. MEIR M. YDIT, who presently lives in Western Germanv, was founder and spiritual leader of Adar Shalom synagogue in Rehovot.
Conservative Judaism
25

 

[Psalms62]

Each hour has it own strengths …

For example, midnight - Exodus

•     The severity of the tenth plague brought quick results from Pharaoh (Exod. 12:29-36). He called for Moses and Aaron that same night and told them that Israel could leave the land.

•     The next day all Israel began the long awaited move out of Egypt.

Another: King David prayed in the evening & midnight

I arose early in the evening” — in the first half of the night — contemplating God’s word.

“At midnight I rise to thank You” refers to the second half of the night.

In the parable of the vineyard, the workers were paid at which hour? Evening…i believe that each hour has its own significance.

 

[rstrats]

Since my 2 questions have been answered, i.e., some explanations for the lack of a 3rd night, and is there an official Catholic position on the issue, I shall move on an not take up anymore bandwidth.

BTW, Gorgias, this topic is with regard to a different issue from the one in the topic you mention in your post #16.

 

[Gorgias]

BTW, Gorgias, this topic is with regard to a different issue from the one in the topic you mention in your post #16.

Are you sure about that? Let’s see…

This thread:

What is the explanation for the lack of a third night?

The thread two years ago:

How do you account for the missing night time?

The original post was questioning the lack of the 3rd night time of Matthew 12:40

So… a different issue? Umm… ok; if you say so.

 

[Bon_Croix]

Oh…

He said the only sign to be given would be the sign of Jonah. Which I believe means he would bring salvation to the whole world (it was not just for Jews). Even the Ninevites put on sack cloth and repented of their sins.

What goes along with this is the parable of the vineyard owner. The explanation being that salvation would occur through the Church and not through Judaism.

 

[Cathoholic]

rstrats . . .

Since my 2 questions have been answered, i.e., some explanations for the lack of a 3rd night . . .

Actually if I recall correctly rstrats, I think I also told you about Jesus being in the “belly of the earth” a third night too at one time.

(There is no “lack of a third night”)

It is in oral tradition. History. It is not explicitly in Scriture.

The night Jesus was taken from the Mount of Olives, He was taken to be questioned by the Sanhedrin several times.

Between these times, Jesus was hoisted down into an earthen hole. A large hole. There Jesus remained between interrogations (h

There to this day, exists a blood stain on the wall where Jesus leaned bac;which is unexplinable by our routine methods.

 

[rstrats]

Gorgias,
re: “Are you sure about that?”

Yes. The OP issue of the other topic had to do with the commonality of saying that a daytime or a night time would be involved with an event when no part of a daytime or no part of a night time could occur. And I pointed that out at the time; “For the original purpose of this topic, I have no objections. If someone thinks that the crucifixion occurred on the 6th day of the week, and thinks that the “heart of the earth” refers to the tomb, and tries to explain the lack of the third night time forecast in Matthew 12:40 by saying that the verse is employing common Jewish idiomatic/figure of speech/colloquial language of the time, I would simply like to see examples to support the idea that it is common.”

However, there were several off issue posts by folks for which I allowed myself to respond. I had forgotten that one of those issues dealt with this topic’s issue.

 

[jcrichton]

Hi!

I agree with you that there could be specifics (religious/devotional significance) attributed to the various hours in a day; however, the argument is about Jesus’ statement ('as Jonah’s 3 days and 3 nights)–did Jesus mean three twenty-four hour periods or three day periods?

The explanation offered about the Jewish custom is that a day was understood to be midnight to midnight (Monday being measured as midnight Sunday to midnight Monday) as opposed to modern day’s twenty-four hour period where the day period must account for a particular day’s (say Monday) twenty-hour period.

So understanding that midnight Thursday to midnight Friday is the first day that Jesus’ statement would include, it can be reasoned that there’s no missing period nor flaw in Jesus’ statement.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[rstrats]

jcrichton,
re: “I agree with you that there could be specifics (religious/devotional significance) attributed to the various hours in a day; however, the argument is about Jesus’ statement ('as Jonah’s 3 days and 3 nights)–did Jesus mean three twenty-four hour periods or three day periods?”

Or at least a portion of each one of three daytimes and at least a portion of each one of three night times?

 

[jcrichton]

Or at least a portion of each one of three daytimes and at least a portion of each one of three night times?

What I understood from the information provided was that the Jewish (as other nations then) attributed any portion of the midnight to midnight period as day and night–hence; Jesus’ statement made it possible for Him to be Crucified on Friday (Sabbath’s eve) an Resurrect on Sunday (1st day of the week) and still be within the three days and three night period: midnight Thursday to Sunday morning (not a seventy-two straight hours period).

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[rstrats]

jcrichton,

Using a midnight to midnight calendar day would actually result in 4 night times with a Friday afternoon death/Sunday morning resurrection.

 

[Psalms62]

Correct me on this - the gospel of Matthew. So reading from the information below, I thought we would have to turn toward the Jewish calendar when trying to under the verse on the sign of jonah matthew 12:38-45. Wouldn’t we have to understand the verse in what language it was written or understood?

But this tradition also says that Matthew’s gospel was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. Papias (ca 65 - 150 AD) writes: “Matthew has written these words (Greek logia ) in the Hebrew language, but everybody translated them as best they could.” The interpretation of this is not easy, and there have been various explanations. The view of the more recent scholars is that the gospel was neither written by Matthew nor in Hebrew or Aramaic. They believe that the writer was no apostle, that he wrote the gospel in Greek and based it on two sources: the gospel of Mark and a so-called “Logia Source Q”, which only exists in theory. The reason for the assumption that the apostle Matthew could not have been the author of this gospel is that an eye witness could not have written like this, and that it is unthinkable that an apostle would have based his writings on the work of a non-apostle like Mark. But both arguments miss out that the Holy Scriptures have been written by men, who were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Who led them in their writings with regard to contents as well as form (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:13-14, 2 Peter 1:21 ). On the other hand it is possible that at the beginning there was a collection of the words of Jesus in Aramaic, but this remains a theory if not confirmed by text findings. The text of Matthew’s gospel is now generally viewed as Greek original, and not as a translation.

 

[Psalms62]

This would coordinate with the Jewish Passover and when the Redemption started, @midnight . John 17 was so important and the contents of Jesus’s prayer. In the prayer itself he was asking God not to scatter the apostles. It was so important to Christianity because this was the whole basis of the beginning of our faith. When Jesus was praying this prayer it was so intensified remember that Jesus sweated blood.

There is another verse in the Old Testament or in the Torah that talks about the Jews that were scattered and that the high priest was responsible for that scattering and God is condemning this action. So when I think of John 17 I am thinking in the same way that Jesus is asking and praying intensely for this religion or Christian faith to take hold. The prayer is intensified he’s asking God to protect them under his name. In the same way Moses was asking to protect his son-in-law under God’s name.

Underneath the verse that I mentioned evening midnight, cockcrow and morning are the four points of that night when Jesus was arrested. But he said to Peter you will deny me three times when the cock crows. That is between the hours of 3 a.m. so what does that say? The arrest would have had taken place at the time of the Redemption @ midnight or 9 pm to midnight - the start of the Redemption for Passover was a little before midnight , evening . They started to round up the Israelites @midnight . We have to not only go by the days but by the hours. If you look at the hours down below and read the verse with it, Jesus is saying be watchful. But this verse talks about the second return, and now we can talk about the vineyard and when the laborers get paid. Hope this makes sense.

whether at evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning” (v. 35c). These are the four Roman nightly watches:

• Evening watch ([6:00 – 9:00 ](calendar:T1:6:00 – 9:00 )p.m.)
• Midnight watch (9:00 – midnight)
• Cockcrow watch (midnight – 3:00 a.m.)
• Dawn watch ([3:00 – 6:00 ](calendar:T1:3:00 – 6:00 )a.m.)

These are all nighttime watches. We expect the master to return during the day, when traveling is easy, but you never know! Night is the time when we are likely to be least alert, so the message is that we need to be fully ready even in our least ready moments. It is a serious call to serious discipleship.

 

[Psalms62]

Regarding some of the information posted: I know that we are discussing the Sign of Jonah and the three days. I guess the point is that the hour and day is important in order to be able to figure out the three days and where it started. There was much to look over in the scripture -

Scattering: Jeremiah 23 - "Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” Back then, the process of returning the Jewish people back to Israel was in the process (Restoration). In the verse: And I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, saith the LORD. {S}

He who scattered Israel will gather them
and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’ Jeremiah 31:10