Three Days And Three Nights Or The Third Day?
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, October 6, 2026 (Donate)
Some people suggest there is a contradiction in the counting for duration of Christ’s body in the grave. But this allegation fades when you understand it properly.[1] But it concerns Christ's crucifixion and resurrection and specifically, how long He was in the grave.
So why is this an issue? It has to do with the Jonah passage.
Then some of the scribes and
Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He
answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a
sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. “For
as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so
will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
“The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and
condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a
greater than Jonah is here. (Matthew 12:38-41, NKJV).
Some interpret “three days and three nights” as requiring
three complete 24-hour periods, or 72 hours. This has led some
Christians to argue for a Thursday crucifixion (a few even say Wednesday) rather than the
traditional Friday crucifixion.
However, Scripture repeatedly says Christ would rise/rose
"the third day" (Luke 18:33; Luke 24:46; Acts 10:40; 1 Corinthians
15:4). A strict 72-hour interpretation creates a perceived difficulty: after
three complete days and nights have elapsed, the resurrection would seemingly
occur on the fourth day rather than the third day. See the
alleged difficulty now?
How To Count The Days
One of the key issues is how days were counted in biblical
culture. Ancient Jewish reckoning could count part of a day as belonging to
that day.
For instance, in the Bible’s book of Esther, it provides an
important Old Testament example. Esther requested that the Jews "neither
eat nor drink for three days, night or day" before she approached the king
(Esther 4:16). Yet Esther 5:1 says that she went before the king "on the
third day," rather than waiting until three complete 24-hour periods had
expired.
Another example occurs in Matthew 27:63-64. The chief
priests and Pharisees remembered Jesus saying, "After three days I will
rise." Yet they asked Pilate to secure the tomb "until the
third day." Apparently, they understood "after three days"
and "the third day" as compatible and equivocal expressions.
We still do this today to a certain degree. If I said I left
on Monday and arrived on Saturday, I would have no problem saying that it took
me six days to arrive. Does this mean I took six full days of nights and
days to arrive and actually made it to my destination on the seventh day? No.
Yet, the way I wrote this (“it took me six days”) is inclusive of days and
nights (e.g., a 24-hour day).
Consequently, expressions such as "three days and three
nights," "after three days," and "the third day" aren’t
in contradict with one another. So any alleged difficulty is solved when you
understand the meaning behind the phrases as used culturally at the time.
Even so, this now brings us to the issue of what day Jesus
was crucified.
Count Backwards: Sunday (3rd), Saturday (2nd),
Friday (1st)
On the Friday-crucifixion understanding, Friday counts as
the 1st day, even though Jesus died around the ninth hour (~3 pm by
our modern reckoning) and was buried later that day. Saturday was the 2nd
day. Sunday was the 3rd day, and Christ rose early that morning.
· Friday - Day 1: Crucifixion and burial
· Saturday - Day 2: Christ remained in the tomb
· Sunday - Day 3: Resurrection
This also fits the statements that Jesus died on the Preparation
Day before the Sabbath (Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54) which is Friday.
Furthermore, the women discovered the empty tomb on the 1st day of
the week (Matthew 28:1; Luke 24:1). So the traditional Friday-Sunday aligns
consistently with Scripture.
Furthermore, it goes back to the earliest church records too.
Early Christian writers such as Ignatius and Irenaeus also understood Christ as
rising on the third day while accepting the language of "three days and
three nights." Their writings aren’t Scripture, but they show that early
Christians didn’t necessarily understand Matthew 12:40 as demanding precisely
72 hours.
What About Wednesday Or Thursday Crucifixion That Some
Suggest?
For those pushing the full three days and three nights, one
must arrive at a Thursday crucifixion (others push it as far back as Wednesday,
but I’ve met precious few who would argue
for that).
The Wednesday or Thursday models are attempts to reconcile
Jonah’s comparison in another way. Those pushing for a Thursday crucifixion
usually try to interpret John 19:31, as having an extra Sabbath, so that
you also have a second Preparation Day for that week.
They call the approaching alternate Sabbath a "high
day," as referring to an additional festival Sabbath rather than simply
the ordinary weekly Sabbath that fell on the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread
festival (making it a high Sabbath or high day already).
Even so, these views attempt to provide additional nights
between Christ's burial and resurrection in an attempt to have 3 full days
and nights (per the comparison to Jonah) between Christ’s death and
resurrection.
Such an interpretations is held by respected Christians
committed to biblical authority, and the issue shouldn’t be a reason to go
start anew church! Nevertheless, there are difficulties with these
alternatives. Scripture never states that an additional Sabbath occurred
between the crucifixion and the regular weekly Sabbath.
The biggest problem with this view is that Christ would have
risen on the fourth day in that scenario. Moving the crucifixion earlier
makes it more difficult to deal with the chronology because of the numerous
passages that say that Christ rose or would rise on "the third day" (Matthew
16:21; 17:22-23; 20:18-19; 27:63-64; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; Luke 9:22;
13:32; 18:31-33; 24:6-7, 21, 46; John 2:19-22; Acts 10:40; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
Consider also that Jesus, said He would raise in three days when compared to the
temple’s destruction (John 2:19-22). So instead of dealing with the
interpretive understanding of the Jonah passage, now you have to deal with a
new understanding of a whole bunch of passages!
It’s better to use clear and repeated passages to help
interpret a passage that may initially appear difficult (interpret Scripture
with Scripture). Matthew 12:40 (Jonah passage) should therefore be understood
alongside the many "third day" passages rather than used to overturn or
reinterpret all of them.
So why is the Jonah passage the one that seems to
stick out. There is an obvious reason that we haven’t discussed yet—but now it’s
time!
Be Careful Of Metaphorical Language
Jesus' comparison to Jonah in Matthew 12:40 is metaphorical
and functions as a simile: "For as Jonah was...so will the
Son of Man be."
The point of the comparison is the correspondence between
Jonah's experience and Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, not
necessarily a requirement that every chronological detail be mathematically
identical. Jonah was as good as dead being swallowed by a specially prepared
fish. Yet he came out of watery beast and lived and preached in Nineveh.
And the scribes and Pharisees believed in the account of Jonah!
They knew such a task was all too easy for God to accomplish. Yet, here they
were arguing over and over with Jesus, who is God.
But take special note…the phraseology comparing Christ’s situation
to Jonah’s situation is metaphorical, not literal. Thus, when we read “three
days and three nights, we need to understand that this is an allegorical
comparison, where the many passages about Christ raising on the third day are
founded in historical narrative. So, the third day is the key to understanding
Christ’s resurrection for specific timing. Again, use the clear passages for a
proper understanding and let the similes be similes.
The expression "three days and three nights"
should therefore be interpreted in harmony with the much more frequent and
explicit biblical expression "the third day." So they are complimentary.
Besides, Esther, similar third-day language occurs
throughout historical narratives (Genesis 22:4; Genesis 42:18; Exodus 19:11,
16; Joshua 9:16-17; 1 Samuel 30:1; 2 Kings 20:5). Thus, Jesus' Jonah comparison
shouldn’t be isolated from the ordinary biblical manner of counting days or
from Christ's repeated declarations that He would rise "the third
day" (Matthew 16:21; Luke 18:33; 24:46).
Conclusion
The third day being equivalent to the three days
and three nights phraseology was a normal expression in biblical accounts when
there was a three-day sequence, even when three complete 24-hour periods had
not elapsed. With this in mind, the Friday crucifixion and Sunday resurrection
makes the most sense biblically and can be easily defended without
contradiction.
"Three days and three nights" is best understood
according to biblical Jewish reckoning rather than a modern stopwatch
calculation of exactly 72 hours. Most importantly, the debate over the precise
number of hours shouldn’t overshadow the doctrine on which Scripture is
unmistakably clear: Christ truly died, was buried, and "rose again the
third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, NKJV).
□
Bodie Hodge, Ken Ham's son in law, has been an apologist
defending 6-day creation and opposing evolution since 1998. He spent 21 years
working at Answers in Genesis as a speaker, writer, and
researcher as well as a founding news anchor for Answers News. He
was also head of the Oversight Council.
Bodie launched Biblical Authority Ministries in
2015 as a personal website and it was organized officially in 2025 as a
501(c)(3). He has spoken on multiple continents and hosts of US states in
churches, colleges, and universities. He is married with four children.
Mr. Hodge earned a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees
from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (SIUC). Then he taught
at SIUC for a couple of years as a Visiting Instructor teaching all levels of
undergraduate engineering and running a materials lab and a CAD lab. He did
research on advanced ceramic materials to develop a new method of production of
titanium diboride with a grant from Lockheed Martin. He worked as a Test
Engineer for Caterpillar, Inc., prior to entering full-time ministry.
His love of science was coupled with a love of history,
philosophy, and theology. For about one year of his life, Bodie was editing and
updating a theological, historical, and scientific dictionary/encyclopedia. Mr.
Hodge has over 25 years of experience in writing, speaking and researching in
these fields.
*Image by generative program as requested by Bodie Hodge
[1] I’ve
commented on this before with my colleague and brother in Christ, Paul Taylor: Was
Jesus In The Grave For Three Days And Three Nights? Paul Taylor and Bodie
Hodge, Biblical Authority Ministries, April 19, 2025, https://www.biblicalauthorityministries.org/2025/04/was-jesus-in-grave-for-three-days-and.html;
Paul Taylor and Bodie Hodge, A Matter of Days, Biblical Authority Ministries,
March 20, 2026, https://www.biblicalauthorityministries.org/2026/03/a-matter-of-days.html;
