When did Jesus die and come back to life?

GodLovesCats

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I know celebrating Easter on the wrong date has no consequences. It just makes no sense to me that the people who know the Gregorian calendar equivalent of Nisan 14 did not assign Easter as the nest Sunday every year. Bible scholars know Jesus died on Nisan 14.
 
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FireDragon76

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I know celebrating Easter on the wrong date has no consequences. It just makes no sense to me that the people who know the Gregorian calendar equivalent of Nisan 14 did not assign Easter as the nest Sunday every year. Bible scholars know Jesus died on Nisan 14.

The Hebrew calendar itself isn't the most accurate, that's why we don't use it. The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar and much more accurate. It will be accurate thousands of years from now, but that isn't the case with other calendars, necessarily.

Actually, at one time Protestants celebrated Easter on the Julian calendar, the same as the Orthodox, but the Gregorian calendar became more popular in time, it took centuries to happen because Catholics came up with it. But it eventually was proven to be superior, so governments simply adopted it.
 
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GodLovesCats

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I Googled "Easter date" to learn why the holiday is so late this year, a full month after the Paschal Moon's appearance. It turns out Christians simplify things by making the start of a spring a fixed date (March 21) instead of going by when the season actually changes (March 20 this year), which was the date of the Paschal Moon.

Now why on Earth would people want to go by the Paschal Moon to choose a date?
 
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GodLovesCats

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According to a Hebrew-Gregorian calendar conversion Nisan 14, 3793 = April 1, 33. So if Easter was on a fixed date, it would be April 1. If Easter was always the Sunday after Nisan 14, it would be either the first or second Sunday of April.
 
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FireDragon76

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According to a Hebrew-Gregorian calendar conversion Nisan 14, 3793 = April 1, 33. So if Easter was on a fixed date, it would be April 1. If Easter was always the Sunday after Nisan 14, it would be either the first or second Sunday of April.

The conversion will vary from year to year because the Gregorian and Hebrew calendars are different, though. One is lunar, the other solar.
 
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ViaCrucis

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I also want to know why it is so confusing even Roman, Greek, and Eastern Orthodox Catholics can't time Resurrectoin Day right. They celebrate two weeks after Protestant congregations because there is something abouto 14 days in the Gospels.

The difference is about calendars.

Catholics and Protestants use the Gregorian Calendar, a reform of the Julian Calendar that was introduced by Pope Gregory in the 16th century. While it was adopted pretty quickly by Catholics, it took longer for Protestant countries to fully adopt it. As to give an idea of just how recently in some cases, George Washington was born while the British were still using the Julian Calendar, as the British only adopted the Gregorian Calendar in the mid 18th century.

The Orthodox, however, still by and large still use the Julian Calendar.

The reason for the calendarial reform was because the Julian Calendar, while pretty good, ultimately meant that the calendar year and the solar year began to drift tiny little bit over the centuries. By the 16the century the drift had increased by about 10 days, and so two things happened to correct this. The actual calendar reform itself which accounted for the tiny portions of the day which weren't covered by the Julian Calendar. A Julian Year is on average 365.25 days long, 365 day normal years and 366 day leap years; whereas the Gregorian Year is on average 365.2425 days long, with 365 day normal years and 366 day leap years. Both systems have leap years every four years, the Gregorian reform is that this leap year does not occur on century years except ones divisible by four. This modification largely helps keep the calendar year in line with the solar year. The second correction was to literally remove days from the current year at the time of adoption, and so in 1582 October 4th was followed by October 15th.

The difference between the Julian Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar has continued to grow a little bit over the centuries, and today there's ~13 days of difference. As such it is common for days celebrated using the Julian Calendar to occur about two weeks after they are celebrated on the Gregorian Calendar. Easter is special because it is a moveable Feast, and so the timing between Easter/Pascha in the West and East can vary from year to year, sometimes it ends up happening on the same day, even though the dates are different on both calendars.

There's no actual disagreement between Western Christians and Eastern Christians about how to calculate the Paschal Feast, and so differences in timing really can just boil down to calendar quirks. The way we calculate the Feast has remained basically the same since the Council of Nicea which produced a standardized method of calculation.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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ViaCrucis

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According to a Hebrew-Gregorian calendar conversion Nisan 14, 3793 = April 1, 33. So if Easter was on a fixed date, it would be April 1. If Easter was always the Sunday after Nisan 14, it would be either the first or second Sunday of April.

This assumes the Lord's passion was in the year 33. The trouble with that:

1) We don't know exactly when Jesus was born, only that it was before the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC.

2) We don't know exactly how old Jesus was when He began His ministry, Luke's Gospel only tells us that He was "about thirty".

3) We don't know exactly how much time transpired between the beginning of His ministry and His passion, we usually say it was three years out of convenience because John's Gospel records three Passovers during His ministry--so it was at least three years, but may not exactly three years.

There are things we can do to help get better estimates. We know that Jesus was born before the death of Herod the Great, so it had to be before 4 BC. We know that Jesus' Passion was during Pontius Pilate's tenure as prefect of Judea, which lasted from about 26 AD to about 36 AD.

Using the Gospels we know that Christ was crucified on Preparation Day (i.e. the day before the Sabbath), which also occurred the day after Passover since the night He was betrayed He celebrated the Passover Seder with His followers.

So find when Nissan 1st coincided with a Thursday/Friday between the years ~26 and ~36 AD. And you'll have, possibly, a decent guess.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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ViaCrucis

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ml5363

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The Gospels are clear. Jesus was crucified on the day of preparation and rose on the third day, which was the first day of the week. The expression "three days and three nights" is obvious synecdoche. Friday evening is "one day and one night", Saturday is "one day and one night" and Sunday morning is "one day and one night". Together they are "three days and three nights".
Every other attempt I have seen which tries to reconcile "three days and three nights" contradicts Christ rising on the third day, which was confirmed by the disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. If it has Christ rising on anything other than the third day then it is false.
How is early Sunday morning...day and night?
 
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prodromos

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What does that mean?
When you purchase 20 head of cattle, you are not just purchasing the heads. The part, "head', refers to the whole, "bull or cow".
When Greece won the European Cup, it was actually the Greek football team and not the whole country which won. The whole, "Greece", refers to the part, "the Greek football team".

These are examples of synecdoche which finds frequent use throughout the Scriptures.

The wholeness of "three days and three nights" strongly suggests that it is synecdoche. The fact that Jesus rose "on the third day" confirms it.
 
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HeartenedHeart

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As for Calendars. there are at least two major Jewish calendars in use, the Hillel II (rabbinic fixed calendar) and the Karaite (Caraite) Torah Jews calendar, when calculating, and the two are difference by about 30 days, which will affect the end result. The correct one to use is the Torah calendrical calculation, which will bring to the year AD 31, 6th day of the week (prep day basically, though not technically, 'aka friday') Abib/Nisan 14th, which was 3 1/2 years from AD 27 (Jesus baptism, which was about 30 years from Jesus birth roughly 4 B.C.), which was six months from AD 26 and John the Baptist preachment. Wiki it for simple detail. Which ties into Luke 3:1's, etc historical chronology as known by historians.

There is also a longer way to show through prophecy and historical record, but I will only give it if necessary, and the date is absolutely and chronologically, even astronomically fixed. It is one of the most settled dates in history regarding this second route.
 
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HeartenedHeart

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Also, what is Abib/Nison !4? All of these events happened during Nisan.
Abib (green ears of grain) was the original name, while Nisan came after or during the Babylonian captivity.

Exo_12:2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.

Exo_13:4 This day came ye out in the month Abib.

Abib means the young ear of the grain, a green ear, etc. Thus Jews to this day also have a site in Israel called Tel-Aviv or Tel-Abib, which means the Hill (Tel) of Abib (young green ear of corn, wheat, etc).

The designation Nisan was not given until the Babylonian captivity and afterward:

Neh_2:1 And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.

Est_3:7 In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of king Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, to the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar.

So the first month of the Hebrew Calendar has the two designations.
 
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GodLovesCats

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As for Calendars. there are at least two major Jewish calendars in use, the Hillel II (rabbinic fixed calendar) and the Karaite (Caraite) Torah Jews calendar, when calculating, and the two are difference by about 30 days, which will affect the end result. The correct one to use is the Torah calendrical calculation, which will bring to the year AD 31, 6th day of the week (prep day basically, though not technically, 'aka friday') Abib/Nisan 14th, which was 3 1/2 years from AD 27 (Jesus baptism, which was about 30 years from Jesus birth roughly 4 B.C.), which was six months from AD 26 and John the Baptist preachment. Wiki it for simple detail. Which ties into Luke 3:1's, etc. historical chronology as known by historians.

King Herod died in 4 BC. That pushes back the birth of Jesus to 5 BC because he was not a spring baby.

Jesus began preaching after John did. One estimate is that happened in AD 29.
 
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miamited

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Most people seem to believe Jesus was crucified on a Friday because sundown was the start of that week's Sabbath. The problem with this assumption is Jesus was dead not only three days, but also three nights. There are two nights between Friday at sunset and Sunday at sunrise so that is mathematically impossible unless he rose on a Tuesday.

Morning CforC,

Just so it's clear, it really doesn't matter when (what specific day) Jesus died. The gospel is that he did die to pay the price for our sin. That he was buried and was raised to life as a testimony to those who would believe that God can do what God has promised to do.

However, I've long believed that it likely wasn't the sixth day of the week but more likely the fifth day. Neither day would have been called Thursday or Friday at the time that Jesus suffered and died. What I know is that after Jesus died, according to his own testimony, he was in the tomb for three days and three nights.

God bless,
In Christ, ted
 
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