by Dwight A. Pryor
JESUS OF NAZARETH offered up himself as a sacrifice on behalf of humanity during the Festival of Redemption, Passover. He quickly was placed into a borrowed tomb nearby because the Sabbath was approaching. On the third day, God caused him to live again by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the consistent witness of all the Apostles.
The evidence for the resurrection is compelling, both in the multiplicity of witnesses and in the transformation of the dispirited disciples left in disarray by his shocking death. A "crucified Messiah" was a theological contradiction in their worldview. That he arose seems abundantly clear. What is less certain is the timing. When did Jesus actually come forth from the grave?
Church tradition has long celebrated the resurrection at dawn on Easter morning. All four gospels indeed attest that it occurred on Sunday, the first day of the week. But was it at sunrise? Matthew's gospel provides an interpretative key that suggests otherwise.
The Greek of Matthew 28:1 preserves ancient Hebrew terminology: "Late of the Sabbath in the dawning (lighting) toward the first day of the week." This awkward Greek construction points to the common Hebrew idiom, motza'ei Shabbat or the 'going out' of the Sabbath - i.e., the transition between the end of the Sabbath and the dawning or beginning of the next day.
Remember that in the Bible a day is reckoned from sunset to sunset (It was evening and it was morning). The Sabbath is kept from evening unto evening (Lev 23:32), and thus the first day of the week actually begins just after sunset on what we call Saturday evening, using a Roman frame of reference.
What Matthew is suggesting therefore is that Jesus arose not at dawn on Sunday morning but shortly after the Sabbath ended on Saturday evening!
DOES THIS MAKE SENSE in view of other facts recorded in the gospels? John 20:1ff is the most detailed literary account of the events surrounding the resurrection. Using it as a guide, consider the following:
- John notes that it was dark when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on the first day of the week (20:1).
- If the Sabbath ended around 6:00 p.m. why would Mary, in her great devotion (and according to Luke, her desire to properly prepare the Lord's body for burial) wait another twelve hours before going to the nearby tomb? Why not go at the first available opportunity? If she was prepared to go in the dark of the early morning hours, how much more the preceding evening?
- Mary reports the news of an empty tomb to the Apostles, who investigate (20:2-10). Following their departure she encounters the risen Messiah in the garden, who sends her to announce: "I have seen the Lord!" (20:18).
- In the next verse Jesus shows himself to the disciples who have assembled in a home. John specifies that this occurred "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week" (20:19).
- If the resurrection occurred at sunrise on Sunday morning, as we assume, then in biblical reckoning the evening later that day would not have been Sunday but the start of the second day of the week, Monday.
- For Jesus to appear to his disciples on the evening of the first day of the week, as John reports, he had to arise earlier on that same evening!
- Had he arisen at dawn and waited more than twelve hours later, after sunset, to meet with his disciples, it would have been the next day and not the "first day of the week."
- A more plausible explanation surely is that soon after his encounter with Mary Magdalene, Yeshua appeared to the Apostles also, and all this transpired duringmotza'ei Shabbat. John's record of events is consistent with Matthew's Hebrew idiom.
Jesus did arise from the grave at the 'dawning' of Sunday but in the Jewish frame of reference, not the Roman one. Thereafter, following their normal Sabbath synagogue participation, believers in the Messiah would continue to meet from house to house onmotza'ei Shabbat (cf. Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2). They assembled on the evening of the first day of the week, remembering the risen Lord.
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