Posted on 04/03/2007 6:31:28 AM PDT by DouglasKC
39 posted on 04/03/2007 10:09:43 AM MDT by pgkdan
The observances of Good Friday and Easter Sunday have perpetuated the traditional chronology that the crucifixion took place on a Friday, and that the Lord's body was buried on that day at about 6:00 p.m., and that he rose from the dead early on the following Sunday morning. There are some, however, that feel this tradition is at variance with the Scriptural record. One of the problems is reckoning "three days" between Friday evening and Sunday morning. Our Lord's definitive statement is one of the problems: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40)." The mention of nights, as well as the number of days, makes it hard to render this as simply an idiomatic rhetorical device rather than a statement of fact. The Sabbaths Nowhere in the Gospels does it assert that Christ was crucified on a Friday. In Mark 15:42, it refers to "...the day before the sabbath." This may be the root of the misunderstanding. The Jews had other sabbaths in addition to the weekly shabbat (Saturday). In addition to the weekly sabbaths, there were seven "high sabbaths" each year, and the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the 15th of Nisan, was one of them. Further, Matthew 28:1 should read, "At the end of the sabbaths," (which is plural in the Greek), implying there was a plurality of sabbaths that week. If Passover, the 14th of Nisan, fell earlier in the week, the 15th could have been any day prior to Saturday, the weekly Sabbath. "When the sabbaths were past" would, of course, be Sunday (actually, Saturday after sundown), in accordance to the Feast of First Fruits. (Some hold to a Thursday crucifixion on a similar basis.) The 17th of Nisan Jesus had declared that He would be in the grave three days, and yet was to be resurrected "on the morrow after the sabbath," on the day of the Feast of First Fruits. It is interesting that the authorities, anxious to get the body off the cross before sundown, unknowingly were fulfilling God's predetermined plan, "according to the Scriptures." Noah's flood ended on the 17th day of the 7th month. This month becomes the 1st month at the institution of the Passover. Our new beginning in Christ was on the anniversary of the Earth's "new beginning" under Noah! Israel's new beginning, the crossing of the Red Sea, is believed to have been on the 17th of Nisan. Also, in their flight after Passover, Israel retrieved the body of Joseph from his tomb. After Passover, Jesus was retrieved from another Joseph's tomb on this date. The Jericho Journey Another problem with a Friday crucifixion is John 12:1: "Then Jesus six days before the Passover came to Bethany..." (from Jericho). If the Friday view can be accepted, then six days earlier was the weekly shabbat, and on this day such a journey was legally out of the question for a devout Jew. Summary As for the Friday or Wednesday issue, there are many good scholars on each side of this controversy. I personally have become rather cynical toward any tradition that is not supported by Scripture. Good Friday is the "traditional" view. The Wednesday crucifixion is known as the "reconstructed view." This article is intended to stimulate study and constructive conversation during this precious season. However the important thing is that the tomb was empty. The authorities made sure that this was indisputable. Indeed, He is risen!
FRIDAY OR WEDNESDAY? -
b'shem Yah'shua
And what's your point?
Maybe you don't understand the point. Judaism had to be kept separate from the goyim, as a sort of "incubator" for the Redeemer.
Now the Redeemer has arrived. He is King over all. Everything that is good, belongs to him, because he made it. Everything that is good, ought to be devoted to the worship of God. (And no, that doesn't mean that you ought to barbecue steaks in church. It means you ought to offer the act of barbecuing steaks for your family to God in union with the work of Christ. Everything we do, unless it's sinful, ought to be an act of worship.)
Well that should tell you somethng about gospel worship ... simplicity. No bells and smells. No altars ... no priests ... no sacrifices. And no annual holy days.
Silence is not evidence, topcat, not evidence of anything.
Truth is objective and found in divine revelation.
True enough. But the silence of Scripture on any topic is not divine revelation, and neither are the writings of John Calvin.
You're okay with violating Scripture, sometimes?
How do you, within a Biblical context, explain not only Easter eggs and rabbits, but mistletoe, Yule logs and Christmas Trees?
Ohfergoodnesssakes.
Christmas trees probably developed from the trees used in medieval morality plays depicting the Fall. That's pretty Biblical.
Eggs have an obvious symbolic relationship to the resurrection, and eggs are traditionally eaten in the Passover Seder. Traditionally, in the Slavic countries, Easter eggs are decorated with Christian symbols.
The other things are pagan customs which have no relationship to the Christian faith.
And, as pointed out to you already, you won't find any of those things in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
[Galatians 4:8] Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
Sometimes it helps to go back a little to see the context. Paul is speaking of "elements of the world" (verse 3)....idols, false gods.... the Galatians had worshiped prior to their conversion. Let us not forget, Paul was chosen as an Apostle to the Gentiles, not to the circumcised as had been the original twelve, As such, Paul evangelized many folks who had previously worshiped idols and pagan things. As Paul explained in his first letter to the Corinthian Church, idol worship is the worship of demons [I Corinthians 10:19-20].
The entities which had caused so much grief to the Galatians were evil spirits....not the Divine Laws of Our Lord. It would be very difficult for Paul, as a Lawyer and a well educated Pharisee who studied God's Laws under Gamaliel [Acts 22:3] to call the laws of God....beggarly! Yes....pagans observed days, months, seasons and years (verse 10)....but not God's Feasts and Holidays.....a big difference!
I'm not poisoning the well, just pointing out that I don't trust Bokenkotter to be an unbiased source.
Who wouldn't have known what to do with them, since they were illiterate.
Perhaps you'd like to concede my point about moving the date and changing the customs/commands?
Obviously the date was controversial, and the 14th of Nisan party lost the argument.
passover was a jewish holiday celebrating what God did for the jews the name btw NEVER CHANGED but Christians rightly felt that celebrating what Christ had done to save all man kind was a bit more memorable and that didn’t happen on a saturday but on a sunday morning!
Clearly you feel that "days, months, times and years" are referring to God's holy days. They're not and here's why:
1. The greek word used to refer to the Lord's holy days is heorte. This word isn't used in these verses.
2. Do you really believe that Paul would blaspheme the written word, the only written words they had, of the Lord our God by calling the holy days he created "weak and beggarly elements"?
I happen to think there's a better explanation. Sin is the bondage we are in. In Galatians 4, the people Paul was writing to were former pagans who observed "days, months and years" for a multitude of "gods". I think later that Jews began to influence these new Christians by saying that they HAD to adhere to all the manmade Jewish rules, laws, traditions and regulations that the Jewish religion had established over the centuries or else they didn't really know God.
I knew I should have waited a few minutes before answering this one... :-).
I hope you had a wonderful day today and found it spiritually fulfilling.
read Acts. change was the order of the day. did Christians need to be circumcised?
As pointed out earlier, the death of Christ which provided atonement for the sins of man is the essential point of Christianity. We are told to observe Christ's death until he comes again.
1Co 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes
Rom 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
The resurrection gives great hope that we too can be eternal, but everyone is going to be resurrected anyways, some in a good way and some in a bad way:
Joh 5:29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation
And the bible NEVER tells us to observe the resurrection of Christ and especially never says to do it at the expense of the holy days that the Lord Jesus Christ created.
It doesn’t come from a pagan goddess named Eostre.
It comes from the Germanic word for “East.”
There is dispute that such a name for a goddess actually ever even existed. It is an indisputable fact, on the other hand, that the words Sun and Sonne, Son and Sohn, and East and Oest all are part of religious word play among germanic peoples and that THEY are the only ones who use the word “Easter” as a name for this season. (Dutch, I believe, has the same word similarities.)
The eggs came in because eggs (meat) were not consumed but were saved during lent (pickled?) and finally brought out at the end of Lent.
The rabbit didn’t show up until about the 16th century, and I believe there is a close connection between it and the American Dutch-Germans. It was not a fertility anything. It was a bunch of dutch uncles having fun with kids.
Thank you Douglas....yes, I had a wonderful Sabbath. Thank you for posting this message about the errors of Easter.
I would agree, but in the context of eating and drinking practices, not God given commandments. As pointed out, Paul is specifically addressing an issue that the Romans were having with eating and/or drinking practices. He said pretty much the same thing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10. Most likely that's what Paul was referring to in Romans, although he could also have been referring to days devoted to fasting.
Can you provide scripture.....chapter and verse for this information? I can't seem to locate it.
If you believe that Paul is saying that we don't need to observe God given holy days, then why does he specifically tell gentile Christians to observe God given holy days:
1Co 5:2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
1Co 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
1Co 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
In the passages above, it is clearly the time of Passover and the feast of unleavened bread. Pauls numerous references to leavening are evidence of this. He then concludes with the REAL meaning of the feast of unleavened bread...that we are to diligently search our and remove sin from our lives as we search out and remove leavening. He specifically says to keep the feast!
Amazing.
It's an amazing thing to see the parallels between the Israelites freedom from the Egyptians and the freedom of Christians from sin.
My point is that the holy days that were part of the old covenant with the nation of Israel are not binding on Christians. Paul makes it clear that binding anything from the old law would make one a debtor to the whole law.
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