Wednesay Crucifixition

[Doom]

Does anyone have any idea where this idea originated?

[zeno]

Never heard of it.

[Doom]

It is common in certain fundamentalist circles, they claim that Friday doesn't make sense because Jesus was not in the tomb for exactly 72 hours.

I feel certain that this originated with 7th Day Adventists, Jesus was crucified on Wednesday evening and rose again exactly 72 hours later on Saturday night, not Sunday morning.

But the part that made me think it is Adventist is the claim that the idea of a Friday crucifixion was introduced by Constantine, always the "go to" explanation offered by Adventists for anything they don't like.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I've never heard of it either.

[Doom]

Seriously? I have encountered this literally dozens of times in my life, it is a common enough idea that it consumes an entire chapter in Gleason Archer's 1982 text "The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties" which is a seminal text among evangelicals. And it consumes an even bigger portion of Harold Hoener's "Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ"

Even though Archer does reach some bizarre conclusions in that book, after about a 20-page discussion he comes down in favor of the traditional Friday date.

In this conversation I am in, I started by saying that Christians have always believed Christ was crucified on Friday, and I quoted the Didache saying that Christians should fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, Wednesday fasting seems to have fallen out of favor early on, but Friday fasts remain to this day, and I pointed out that such an ancient custom must have a reason behind it, why was Friday sacred?

The response I got was "I don't care what the early Christians believed, I only care what the Bible says"

I asked if he thinks no one ever understood the Bible before 1844, the earliest known reference to this belief, and he claimed the early Christians believed Christ was crucified on Wednesday and it was changed by Constantine.

I asked why Constantine would change something so comparatively insignificant, and I was told that Constantine was a pagan and (for reasons not explained and probably inexplicable) that Friday is a pagan days and Wednesday is a Jewish day.

At this point another person chimed in and said Jesus couldn't have been crucified on Friday because Friday is named after the Norse god Friga and no one called it Friday until the Middle Ages. I don't really see the logic here, is he suggesting that before the Middle Ages, "Friday" didn't exist and before then, weeks only had 6 days? I genuinely have no idea.

[aussie_aussie_oi_oi]

Catholic Answers have a good reply to the hokey fundamentalists on this matter:

Scripture repeatedly tells us that Jesus was crucified on “the day of preparation,” which was the first-century Jewish way of referring to Friday, the day of preparation for the Sabbath. This is why the women were not able to anoint his body before he was buried—because Jesus was hurriedly buried late in the afternoon, just as the Sabbath was beginning. The women thus had to rest until the Sabbath was over (Luke 23:56).

We are also told that the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to order the legs of the crucifixion victims broken so they would die faster (from asphyxiation due to an inability to push themselves up on their crosses and take a breath), “in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath” (John 19:31).

Some advocates of a Wednesday crucifixion concede that Jesus was crucified on the day before a Sabbath, but deny that this was the regular, weekly Sabbath. In later times, the phrase “day of preparation” came to be used to refer to the day before Passover and, this argument goes, Passover counted as a Sabbath in the sense that it was a day of rest, even though it usually did not fall on the weekly Sabbath. Thus Jesus was crucified on the day before Passover and had to be buried hurriedly on that account.

But this explanation will not do. In the first century, “the day of preparation” referred to Friday, not the day before Passover. Further, we know from Scripture that the Sabbath following Jesus’ crucifixion was the regular, weekly Sabbath, the seventh day of the week: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher” (Matt. 28:1).

We can thus reconstruct the chronology of the crucifixion, death, and Resurrection of Christ as follows:

Friday, the Day of Preparation: Jesus is crucified with two thieves. From noon to three in the afternoon, a darkness covers the land (Matt. 27:45). Then, “[s]ince it was the Day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath . . . the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away” (John 19:31). Then Joseph of Arimathea obtains Jesus’ body and buries it: “It was Preparation Day [that is, the day before the Sabbath]. So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body” (Mark 15:42-43, NIV).

Saturday, the Sabbath: “On the Sabbath they [the women] rested according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56b). Also on this day, “that is, after the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate” and asked for a guard to be placed on the tomb (Matt. 27:62).

Sunday, the first day of the week: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher” and found that Jesus had risen from the dead (Matt. 28:1).

Those anti-Catholics who allege that the Church commemorates Christ’s death on the wrong day are themselves in the wrong. The appropriate time for Christians to gather to commemorate Christ’s death is indeed Good Friday, not a hypothetical Crucifixion Wednesday.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print ... -wednesday

[anawim]

It's been decades since I read his book, "With Jesus in Jerusalem", but Fr. Bargil Pixner, OSB, presents the idea that Jesus celebrated Passover according to the Essene solar calendar. I don't remember much more than that.

ETA: I've also read that the Essenes did not celebrate the Passover with a lamb. They only used bread and wine.
The Upper Room was in the Essene quarter.

[peregrinator]

Seriously? I have encountered this literally dozens of times in my life, it is a common enough idea that it consumes an entire chapter in Gleason Archer's 1982 text "The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties" which is a seminal text among evangelicals. And it consumes an even bigger portion of Harold Hoener's "Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ"

Most Catholics don't keep up on weird Protestant ideas.

[Doom]

And most of us were Protestants for years or have conversations either in person or online. So a belief which is this common should be known, how can you evangelize someone if you have no idea what they believe?

[Doom]

Catholic Answers have a good reply to the hokey fundamentalists on this matter:

Scripture repeatedly tells us that Jesus was crucified on “the day of preparation,” which was the first-century Jewish way of referring to Friday, the day of preparation for the Sabbath. This is why the women were not able to anoint his body before he was buried—because Jesus was hurriedly buried late in the afternoon, just as the Sabbath was beginning. The women thus had to rest until the Sabbath was over (Luke 23:56).

We are also told that the Jewish leaders asked Pilate to order the legs of the crucifixion victims broken so they would die faster (from asphyxiation due to an inability to push themselves up on their crosses and take a breath), “in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath” (John 19:31).

Some advocates of a Wednesday crucifixion concede that Jesus was crucified on the day before a Sabbath, but deny that this was the regular, weekly Sabbath. In later times, the phrase “day of preparation” came to be used to refer to the day before Passover and, this argument goes, Passover counted as a Sabbath in the sense that it was a day of rest, even though it usually did not fall on the weekly Sabbath. Thus Jesus was crucified on the day before Passover and had to be buried hurriedly on that account.

But this explanation will not do. In the first century, “the day of preparation” referred to Friday, not the day before Passover. Further, we know from Scripture that the Sabbath following Jesus’ crucifixion was the regular, weekly Sabbath, the seventh day of the week: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher” (Matt. 28:1).

We can thus reconstruct the chronology of the crucifixion, death, and Resurrection of Christ as follows:

Friday, the Day of Preparation: Jesus is crucified with two thieves. From noon to three in the afternoon, a darkness covers the land (Matt. 27:45). Then, “[s]ince it was the Day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the Sabbath . . . the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away” (John 19:31). Then Joseph of Arimathea obtains Jesus’ body and buries it: “It was Preparation Day [that is, the day before the Sabbath]. So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body” (Mark 15:42-43, NIV).

Saturday, the Sabbath: “On the Sabbath they [the women] rested according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56b). Also on this day, “that is, after the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate” and asked for a guard to be placed on the tomb (Matt. 27:62).

Sunday, the first day of the week: “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher” and found that Jesus had risen from the dead (Matt. 28:1).

Those anti-Catholics who allege that the Church commemorates Christ’s death on the wrong day are themselves in the wrong. The appropriate time for Christians to gather to commemorate Christ’s death is indeed Good Friday, not a hypothetical Crucifixion Wednesday.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print ... -wednesday

I am not asking for a refutation I am trying to find the original source.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I don’t think it’s common in mainstream Protestantism.

[Doom]

Define “mainstream”, it is common enough that most standard evangelical texts on Bible chronologies or addressing “difficult issues” in Bible interpretation devote space to refuting it.

[peregrinator]

And most of us were Protestants for years or have conversations either in person or online. So a belief which is this common should be known, how can you evangelize someone if you have no idea what they believe?

I don't think there's a need to learn about every bizarre thing that non-Catholics believe - wouldn't it be sufficient to know what the Church teaches and how to defend it?

[Doom]

And most of us were Protestants for years or have conversations either in person or online. So a belief which is this common should be known, how can you evangelize someone if you have no idea what they believe?

I don't think there's a need to learn about every bizarre thing that non-Catholics believe - wouldn't it be sufficient to know what the Church teaches and how to defend it?

And when they go on the attack just laugh it off? Again, this is common enough that it is addressed in many of the standard evangelical sources. I think it has got to be at least as common as KJV Onlyism, I can refute it easily, I am interested in knowing where it came from.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Define “mainstream”, it is common enough that most standard evangelical texts on Bible chronologies or addressing “difficult issues” in Bible interpretation devote space to refuting it.

Methodist, Episcopal, ELCA, Presbyterian, American Baptist, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ.

[Doom]

That eliminates evangelicals from the mainstream

[peregrinator]

Well, yes, mainstream Protestants are neither evangelicals nor fundamentalists

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Exactly. I think most of us here didn't come from evangelical backgrounds and thus never heard of it.

[Doom]

Well, evangelical and "nondenominational" are now the majority of Protestants in the United States, although they often reject the label "Protestant".

I've never encountered it in the wild, among people I have actually met, but I have read about in several books (none of which appear to talk about its origin) and I encounter it at least 3-5 times every year online.


I'm currently arguing with someone about it on YouTube and he seems impervious to logic. He claims that "the day of preparation" for that year was not Friday but Wednesday, because sometimes the Jews could have as many as 3 sabbaths in one week (I have no idea what he is talking about and I doubt he does either) and in the year that Christ was crucified the full moon for Passover was on Wednesday not Friday.

I've looked that claim up and found that it appears to be based on a faulty understanding of astronomical charts that the US Naval Observatory published in 1919.

The article mentions the year 1844 and says and mentions that Adventists were making the argument for a Wednesday crucifixion based on a purely lunar calendar that did not exist in first century Judea.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I believe that the theory exists and is widespread, since I Googled it. But in my salad days, evangelicalism was not the force that it is now as the "mainline" churches implode due to irrelevance.