Events of
different days
Preparations for
two sabbaths
Joe Viel answered
By Gerhard Ebersöhn
Third Delivery
Joe Viel:
“One piece of evidence that 2 Sabbaths happened
back to back is found in Luke 23:53 etseq , which tells us:
Then he
[Joseph of Arimathea] took it [the body of Y'shua] down, wrapped it in linen
cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been
laid. It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. The women who
had come with Y'shua from
So they
rested because the Sabbath had come. Now had a day existed BETWEEN the
High Sabbath and the Weekly Sabbath, the women could have gone to the grave
that day, rather than waiting until the first day of the week. The only reason
they would have waited until Sunday morning would have been the fact that there
were 2 Sabbaths back-to-back.”
GE:
Re: “So they
rested because the Sabbath had come.”
Yes, it
is so, “they rested because the
Sabbath had come”. Luke says in 23:56a after the women had gone home, they prepared spices. “And
that day, was The Preparation (of the Sabbath) and the Sabbath (itself, the Seventh Day “Sabbath according
to the Commandment”) drew on”. No doubt therefore, the women had to have
made their preparations on ‘Friday’, the Sixth Day of the week, in between when “the Sabbath had come” – sunset 6 p.m. – and “the
Sabbath began to draw near” – 3 p.m.. That leaves three hours for the women to have “returned home and
prepared spices and ointments”. Not
on Thursday.
“They
rested the Sabbath Day according to the Commandment” – a clear reference to
the Decalogue and ‘moral law’ – ‘heh entoleh’ –, and not to a ‘sabbath’ of the
‘ceremonial law’ or ‘nomos’. So the
women the Friday before the weekly Sabbath made preparations, but on the
immediately following day of the Sabbath according to the Fourth Commandment, “began
to rest”— from sunset on, naturally.
And yes,
“2 Sabbaths happened back to back”; that is also clear from the
above. So the Marys had to have made
preparations on the first of the two ‘sabbaths’ for the last of the two
‘sabbaths’.
The
women had to have ‘prepared’ on the first ‘sabbath’ of these “back to back” sabbaths, on “that great day sabbath .... because it
was .... the Preparation” when first the Jews, Jn19:31, and “after these
things”, Joseph, verse 38, went to see Pilate. Luke speaks of the first ‘sabbath’, saying, “That
day was The Preparation” (23:54a); he calls the second of these ‘back to back sabbaths’, “the Sabbath according to
the Law” (54b).
John like Mark describes “The
Preparation Day” as just after it had started and therefore as yet
prospective, “Therefore .... because it was The Preparation .... because was
great the day of that sabbath”. (‘oun .... epei paraskeyeh ehn .... ehn gar
megaleh heh hehmera ekeinou tou sabbatou’) The women made their preparations on this,
“that”, at once, “great
day sabbath” of the passover and “The Preparation” of the Sabbath.
“And then they rested”, or, “And then
in fact”, ‘kai to men’, “And
then in fact they had begun to rest the (prospective) Sabbath Day
according to the (Fourth) Commandment”.
“Because
the Law commanded”; not ‘because the Sabbath
....” because it
was a ‘sabbath’ the women in fact made
preparations on! The context in which Joe Viel therefore
noted that, “So they
rested because the Sabbath had come” has changed the true meaning into something completely wrong, namely,
that it had not been a ‘sabbath’ the women prepared spices on. A masterly
subtle manoeuvre the failure it exposed itself for having been.
Besides
for
1) common
mistakes, like,
“the Sabbath had come” being the opposite of “the Sabbath was .... to begin”, and, like,
“The Sabbath was about to begin”, while the beginning of the
Sabbath – sunset – was not “about” nearly, but was still one whole halve
of the afternoon future .....
2) Grammatically.
“And that day, Preparation was”—
factual statement, Constative Aorist. That day neither at this point in time
and event began, or had ended yet; “that day, Preparation was”, fact. Or interpret ‘ehn’ as an Imperfect; then “that
day, Preparation was still”
ongoing. It hadn’t finished yet;
3) Eventually. That day hadn’t finished yet, also because of
the obvious actions the women after the real point in time of day, went home,
and then prepared still, both “spices and ointments”, and, ordinary preparations
for the coming Sabbath, before day’s end.
4) Contextually.
That day hadn’t finished yet because of also the Verb, “drew near”,
‘epefohsken’, in the clause in Lk23:54,
“And that day was The Preparation and the Sabbath drew near”, in Tense – Imperfect
– and to literal meaning, “mid-after-noon-was”, ‘epi’ + ‘fohs’ +
‘(k)en’. The word necessarily means
afternoon was still on; it had not yet been sunset; three hours before sunset
is “mid-afternoon”.
5) Comparatively. That day hadn’t finished yet, finally. John 19:42 says what time of day it
actually had been,
“by
the time of the Jews’ preparations (was near)”,
(‘dia
tehn paraskeyehn tohn Ioudaiohn (hoti engys ehn)’).
.....
All these things besides, one is still to conclude that indeed
preparations had been made on the day so correctly implied, and had been made
on “that day of great day sabbath”,
“Preparation which is the
Fore-Sabbath”,
“Friday Aviv 15”—
not, on “Thursday Aviv 14”.
Joe Viel:
“Now had a day existed BETWEEN the High
Sabbath and the Weekly Sabbath, the women could have gone to the grave that
day, rather than waiting until the first day of the week. The only reason they
would have waited until Sunday morning would have been the fact that there were
2 Sabbaths back-to-back.”
GE:
Re: “The only
reason they would have waited until Sunday morning would have been the fact
that there were 2 Sabbaths back-to-back.” “The only reason”? Not at all the reason!
Suppose
the women “waited until Sunday morning”. Suppose they waited from
Thursday. If they waited from Thursday, they must have waited from the time of
day found in the Gospels after the burial,
“mid-afternoon”, 3 p.m.. That was “the
ninth hour” – the hour Jesus died!
Buried when scarcely He had died?
However,
Thursday until sunset the women waited; Friday and Saturday the women waited,
Saturday night the women waited: four
days!
Did
Jesus resurrect on the fourth day?
Mt27:62-66 tells of the guard’s
appointment, “lest his disciples come by night and steal him away.”
Surely the Jews made sure the disciples of Jesus would know about the guard.
That was one reason the women had to wait to go to the tomb until after
midnight Saturday night, Lk24:1, ‘orthrou batheohs’.
The
question here is, Since when would
the two women have had to wait?
Matthew
says the guard was stationed “the morning after the preparations” of the
Jews the very afternoon of the day before! Matthew in 27:62, “next morning
after their preparations”, was the Sabbath’s morning therefore.
This was
the Sabbath also because it was the day
before Jesus appeared to Mary, Mark 16:9, “early on the First Day of the
week”. If they learned of the guard
almost immediately after their stationing, the Marys had to have waited the
Sabbath Day and until midnight the night of the First Day after it – altogether
perhaps twelve hours? That is, if we
supposed the women did wait.
What
therefore has been ascertained decidedly from Mt27:62-66, is that the guard was
appointed “the morning after” the Jews’ preparations, on the Sabbath
thus implied, and therefore, “In Sabbath’s-time” still, as mentioned in 28:1-4;
the very same day.
The
women made their preparations on the
Friday afternoon. They made their preparations on Abib 15, “the
great day sabbath” and, “The Preparation which is the
Fore-Sabbath”, ‘Friday’. No two ways
about it; no two ‘seeming’ ‘sabbaths’, about it; they were
real ‘sabbaths, and the women prepared on no other day than only one of them;
which had to have been the first in sequence, the passover’s ‘great day
sabbath’, exactly as John explains it.
Joe Viel:
“..... the Mishnah (See Moed Qatan for examples) tells us that during the days of
unleavened bread, the only commerce that was allowed was commerce directly
involved with the festivals. So shops would not have been allowed to sell any
perfumes on such a "Thursday between Sabbaths" anyway.”
GE:
Imagine
“commerce that was allowed was commerce directly
involved with the festivals”, yet, “shops would not
have been allowed to sell any perfumes on such a "Thursday between
Sabbaths" anyway.”?
That “.....the Mishnah (See Moed Qatan for examples) tells us that during the days of
unleavened bread, the only commerce that was allowed was commerce directly involved with the festivals”, only confirms that
preparations were in fact made on
the Feast-sabbath of Abib 15 that coincided with the Preparation Friday in the passover that Jesus was
sacrificed and interred.
Whether
Joseph realised it or not, what he was doing was directly – yea, Divinely – “involved with the festivals”.
Joe Viel:
“Several aspects of Jewish Law would have
forbidden them from visiting the grave on the Sabbath.”
GE:
If we
supposed the women waited,
Why, would we assume they waited, seeing, “Jewish
Law did permit obtaining goods on Sabbath
and paying for them later in certain emergency circumstances .....”?
If we
supposed the women waited since Thursday
afternoon,
What difference would when they eventually
went, have made to their assumed ‘problem’ of “moving the
stone”?
If we
supposed the women waited since Thursday
afternoon,
to “move the
limbs of a corpse on the Sabbath” would never have been
considered in any case.
What
difference would it have made “to prepare the spices” if we supposed the women waited
since Thursday afternoon? — they
would not have given ‘preparation’ of spices and ointments a thought any longer
when “they came with their spices”
on Sunday morning. And who on Thursday afternoon would have known the body
would indeed be buried?
That the
women “bought spices from Nicodemus
the day Y'shua was crucified” is not written or implied even. In stead it is stated the women went home and everybody else went home. Nobody, obviously, thought about a burial at that stage in
the event of things when Jesus had scarcely died and the earthquake occurred
the darkness with sudden brightness of light vanished and the graves were
opened so that flying rocks bulleted through the air. Nobody would have thought to bury Jesus; nobody would have thought to buy spices and ointments to prepare
him for burial. No chance under circumstances. It’s ridiculous.
Why, if
Nicodemus had spices and ointments ‘in stock’; why not the women also? It’s all
unnecessary speculation.
And who, said, the women bought spices and
ointments on Crucifixion day – or, for that matter – on the great day sabbath
after? The Gospels don’t say anyone ‘bought’, then? Again, who would even have thought Jesus
would be buried, what, of buying spices and ointments for burial?
That the
women on Crucifixion day “went home
before” whatever
kind of “sabbath”, does not say they also “prepared whatever spices they had available”, whether they waited since
Thursday afternoon or not, or had to buy those things or not.
If we
supposed the women waited since Thursday, Crucifixion day, it would still
not explain why they “Bought more
spices immediately after the Sabbath completed (Mark 16:1) and prepared them
that night”,
or,
why they
“went to the tomb the next morning.”
If we
supposed the women waited since Friday
afternoon,
the same
questions remain, proving their irrelevancy.
If we
supposed the women waited since Friday
afternoon, what difference would it have
made to their ‘problem’ of “moving the stone”? To “move the limbs of a corpse on
the Sabbath” would still not have been considered. To have “bought
spices from Nicodemus” even after “the day
Y'shua was crucified” would still be most improbable.
Only
difference is Luke mentions the fact
the women did prepare
spices
and ointments after Joseph had finished to close the grave. Luke says they went home and prepared – not that
they remained behind after the crucifixion and before the burial, and not as
assumed, on the day of the crucifixion before.
Neither
that the Marys after the crucifixion went home to prepare spices even while the
body still hung on the cross. If one supposed the women – directly after Jesus
had died – prepared spices and ointments, then when did they ever go home to do
it? Then Luke must be in error, and the
women must have prepared spices right there at the chaotic scene of crucifixion.
And
Joseph, in order to go buy the linen, must have taken the body down and left it
with the rabble that – supposedly – remained behind. When did he go to ask Pilate permission to do
it? Before or after the Jews came with
their request?
A myriad
such impossibilities should be expected, ‘waited’ the women since crucifixion.
If the
women waited from after the burial on
Friday afternoon, and they afterwards “went
home before Sabbath and prepared. whatever spices they had available” it could have been expected,
and was just what the women did and what Luke had written that they did.
And that
the women then began to rest the Sabbath afterwards, obviously was the only plausible
thing left for the women to do.
Then, if
the women waited since Friday afternoon and we take into consideration only the two Marys attended the burial
and that Salome more than a day later,
“immediately after the Sabbath
completed” joined
them, it explains why they “bought more
spices immediately after the Sabbath .... and prepared them that night”.
“When
the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of James, and Salome, bought
sweet spices, that they, when they go,
might anoint Him.”
That
also explains why the women “went to the
tomb the next morning” and not on the Sabbath Day already.
As far
as all and everybody’s ‘laws’ are concerned, everything is much easier
understood and much better explained from the ‘since-Friday-waiting’
standpoint.
And if
we supposed the women waited since Sabbath
afternoon? That would be a very
interesting answer, one very much self-explanatory. Matthew gives us that information in 28:1-4
(provided one read a real translation).
Joe Viel:
“So the order of events for the women may have been...
·
Possibly
bought spices from Nicodemus the day Y'shua was crucified and buried.
·
Went home
before Sabbath and prepared whatever spices they had available.
·
Rested both
Sabbath days.
·
Bought more
spices immediately after the Sabbath completed (Mark 16:1) and prepared them
that night
·
Went to the
tomb the next morning.”
GE:
No, let us abide
with the order and sequence the Gospels give; and do not forget or ignore a
single aspect or fact.
To begin with, the
very first thing stated for fact as factual as any other in the records found
in the Gospels but never seen in ‘same-day-buried-as-crucified’ arguments, is
this ....
Immediately after
Jesus died, “everybody” / “all the people”, ‘in mad confusion’
– “running” and “shouting” and “breast-beating” – left and deserted the site of the
crucifixion, Mk15:36,39 Lk23:48b. Nobody would return for the rest of that
whole day; and nobody did return until “Suddenly Joseph ....”, “when
having been evening already The Preparation which is the Fore-Sabbath ....”.
Lk23:50, Mk15:42.
Indeed, even the
guard that overlooked the crucifixion, fled the scene. Pilate had to order them
back to go do what he promised the Jews, and shortly after them, what he promised
Joseph, to “deliver the body” of Jesus to him. “Then came the soldiers ....” Jn19:32.
People always fuse
the two events of Jesus’ death and burial into one. It is of their biggest
mistakes! The Gospels separate the
Crucifixion and the Burial in every possible aspect and from every possible perspective,
and make big difference between them,
“according to the Scriptures”, the
passover Scriptures!
So ‘the
order of events for the women’, greatly disappointed, confused and scared, must have been that they deserted their crucified and deceased
Lord and the scene of his tragic death and phenomenal events.
The
three Synoptists state many women had been present at the crucifixion –
implying for fact also all had left their crucified and deceased Lord after He
died. “As many as came together for that sight”, as many women and other
people left afterwards.
John
also, implies the return home of the
women, with everybody else. He pictures
the Jews as having spoken to Pilate after they have eaten their passover meal— everybody having been at home since Jesus had
died.
The
confusion caused by the earthquake, sudden light and graves that opened when
Jesus died, caused fear and chaos that forced everybody to leave first, and
then to pay attention to catastrophic effects at home.
“Everybody left”, because
everybody had to leave, and because
the Gospels simply say so. There was no chance or thought to have
anybody buried on that eventful day; much less to purchase spices and ointments
or linen or to prepare it before things have settled down again, hours later.
Once the
first point of ‘the order of events for the women’ has been
established
correctly, the rest will more probably follow in the correct order as well.
So the women do not
feature in the story of either the Crucifixion or the Burial again, until we
read of the two Marys only, that
they “followed after” in the procession to the grave, and there, “sat
over against the grave and looked on”, “and beheld how his body was laid”.
Notice the stark contrast of the Crucifixion scene where
the women were “standing”, and “from far” in the outer circle of
the mad “crowd”, watched, “beholding the things which were done”. One doesn’t read of any women again on that
day.
So the two Marys “followed after” in the procession to the
grave the next day, and even though it was the day after ‘Y'shua was crucified’, they still haven’t thought to buy spices
even from Nicodemus, but went home before Sabbath and prepared
whatever spices they had available of their own.
That
they “rested both Sabbath days”, one will read no word of.
But most
naturally one will read, “And
they indeed the Sabbath according to the Commandment began to rest” as soon
as it had begun when the sun had set.
Most naturally one will read,
the women “Bought more spices
immediately after the Sabbath completed (Mark 16:1) and prepared them that
night ....”, “so
that when they went” – “to the tomb
the next morning”
– “they might anoint him”.
Of
course in stead of that “they might anoint him”, they “just after
midnight” “the next
morning” on the
First Day of the week, Sunday in fact, Abib 17, found the tomb .... EMPTY ....
the body .... GONE!
23 June 2009