Regarding a Wednesday Crucifixion

September 27, 2004

Hi Bob,

None of the issues you raise are difficult to answer. I do not write for a study group. All of my research was done to answer two questions: (1) What does scripture say about the time the women went to the tomb and found it empty? and (2) What did Jesus mean when He told the scribes and Pharisees to look for the sign of Jonah as evidence that He was sent from heaven?

I am familiar with Garner Ted's essay on the "72 hours" Jesus was in the tomb. My study is much more detailed than his as I've gone into the Greek text to see what it says as well as done extensive research in the Old Testament which established all the principles that apply to the events in the gospels. I do not know what is meant by your comment that "the Spirit of Prophecy does not agree with this position". I have found substantial agreement between what EGW has written about when Jesus arrived in Bethany on Friday six days before Passover (John 12:1 & 12-14, Desire of Ages, 557) and had the dinner at Simon's home that evening. EGW does not agree with the SDA Bible Commentary on this as they say Simon's Feast was on Saturday night. See SDA Bible Commentary, Viol. 5, p. 233. I can show you a ton of places where the SDA Bible Commentary is in conflict with scripture. When EGW [Ellen G. White] says that Jesus made the triumphal entry on the first day of the week (Desire of Ages, 569), she is merely repeating the traditional teaching that was commonly accepted as true.

EGW was not infallible. She did not claim to have had any visions from God on these events. She did not have the Greek-English Lexicons and other research tools available in her day that we have today and she merely wrote what she understood.

The problem for her is that she can't have the dinner at Simon's home on Friday night (5 days before Passover) and have the triumphal entry on Sunday when John says explicitly that the triumphal entry was "the next day." The next day would be Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, not the first day of the week.

Either she contradicts her own writing or she contradicts scripture. Either way, there is error in her writing. While she never uses the word "Friday" in connection with the day of crucifixion, she does take the traditional teaching that Jesus was resurrected on Sunday morning. Again, she read scripture in English, and every English translation I've seen (some 900 different translations) has failed to translate the Greek according to what it says. Jesus was resurrected at the close of Sabbath -- at twilight.

I'm working on an article now entitled "Finding the Empty Tomb" that will explain every significant Greek word in the resurrection story for each of the gospels and show that the overwhelming evidence is that Jesus was resurrected in the evening and not at sunrise. Give me 3 or 4 weeks.

Finally, if the Spirit of Prophecy is at odds with scripture, what are one's choices?

EGW has made numerous errors in her writing. This shows that she was human. I consider her to be a prophet in the sense that she spoke on God's behalf, but not in the sense that the SDA church holds out that she never said anything that is in error. That position is provably false and actually places her above scripture. I can point to at least one point where Matthew wrote something that is historically in error. If Matthew can make a mistake, so can Ellen. Its no big deal for me. It does not make her a wicked person. I believe she did the very best she knew how with the information and tools she had available.

There is no such concept of "inclusive reckoning" in scripture, neither is one implied. I address the issue of how the Hebrew people were instructed to count consecutive days in paragraph #9 on page 3. "Inclusive reckoning" might be a helpful concept when comparing the length of rulership for kings from different countries and reconciling the apparent differences related to that, but it does not apply to counting a series of days. Unfortunately, mainline theologians have jumped on the inclusive reckoning bandwagon without checking to see if there is any other principle of counting that might apply. There is. Once you understand how Jewish thought patterns differ from Western thought patterns, the Cornelius story goes away.

Enjoy!
Jerry