the Sabbath is Saturday, always. It is given as a law that the 7th day is the Sabbath.
so the preparation day before the Sabbath, is Friday.
that is why they have "good Friday" though I suppose they're off, in that the crucifixion was Thursday but His burial was Friday evening (what we'd consider Thursday Evening)
But I suppose all of this is good exercise in showing that the Jews reckoned time differently than we do.
they start days at sundown rather than midnight, and count the day they're on rather than count the day after. When we say after 3 days we mean after 72 hours. When they say after 3 days, they mean after 48 hours and during that next 24 hours, just after the 3rd day has started rather than after it has finished.
and for instance, Hosea 6
raising up in the 3rd day.
The Passover was a Sabbath.
"And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you;
no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you." Exodus 12:14
Sometimes the 15th was on a Saturday. Sometimes the 15th was on a Tuesday. Sometimes the 15th was on a Thursday.
Those days were high Sabbaths and no work could be done on them. Sabbath does not mean Saturday nor the 7th day. Sabbath means rest and no work is supposed to be done on that day.
In 33AD the Passover was on a Saturday. In 30AD the Passover was on a Thursday. Jesus was placed in the tomb on Wednesday before 6pm to be in the tomb on Passover, Thursday. The tomb was not sealed until late Friday, because the Sanhedrin rembered that he would rise the 3rd day. They did not petition Pilate on Saturday afternoon. They did that on Friday after Jesus was already in the tomb for 2 days.
We can rule out the other years because Jesus was not in the tomb on a Tuesday. That would be too many days between Passover and Sunday morning, the first day of the week, when the tomb was opened by an angel, but already empty.
Jesus was the Passover Lamb signified by being crucified on the 14th in preparation for the Passover, the 15th, a Sabbath day. Jesus had the last supper on the evening of the 13th and went out and prayed all night until early morning in preparation for the Cross later that day.
The point is which day best allows for 3 days and 3 nights, not 1 day with a partial hour in two other days calling that 3 days. That may be 3 partial days, but certainly not 3 days and 3 nights, which is plainly expressed to avoid the confusion. No one even knows if Jesus was in the tomb at all on Sunday that started 6pm Saturday. You cannot even count Sunday. All you have in 33AD is 2 days, an hour or two tops on Friday, and Saturday. Jesus had already finished the time by 6pm Saturday evening. The problem is that the angel did not unseal the tomb until the morning light. No Romans checked on Saturday to make sure a body was still there, that we are told about.
The Cross was not on a Thursday morning, nor Friday. The Lamb was never prepared nor killed on the Passover. The Lamb was killed on the 14th in a preparation for the Passover, the Sabbath 15th. The first Passover they left Egypt in a hurry. But every Passover (the 15th) after that was a memorial day, and a Sabbath day. Jesus would not have been killed on the Passover, a Thursday in 30AD. Nor on Saturday in 33AD. In 33AD the 14th was a Friday, so the 13th a Thursday would not work at all. No lamb was ever killed a day early, but always on the day of preparation, the 14th.
That first 14th, they were eating the cooked Lamb, while the death angel was passing over and killing all the firstborn Egyptians. That would have been during the evening of the 15th. They cooked during the day, and started eating in the evening of the 15th to be ready for the trip at morning light, when they fled Egypt. What they did not eat, they burned the rest.
One cannot just take a few verses in the Gospels, but one must understand the whole process of the Passover when they left Egypt, from the OT. Being redeemed is likened unto leaving Egypt and the world behind, because of the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.