Clivedurdle

What religious, mystical or numerological meaning is there about the resurrection occuring on the third day? Does it relate to the creation story?

Why three?

Toto

There are all kinds of mystical and numerological implications of three, but the first one that comes to mind is that Jonah spend three days in the belly of the fish/whale.

John Kesler

Clivedurdle:
What religious, mystical or numerological meaning is there about the resurrection occuring on the third day? Does it relate to the creation story?
Why three?

See this article from Richard Carrier.

Clivedurdle

Is the Jonah story accepted as the direct source for this? Is the resurrection a direct rip off from Jonah?

But why was Jonah three days in the belly of the whale? ( and as a prophecy is not an acceptable response!)

Amaleq13

I think the "third day" belief traces back through Paul (or his predecessors) to Psalm 16:8-11 interpreted with the apparently common belief that three days dead is really, truly dead because decomposition becomes evident. Add in Jonah to confirm the specific number.

Clivedurdle

As it is part of the fundamental beliefs to be recited, it must have religious significance. What?

Tybalt

I have a very simple answer for you:

Three is a magic number,
Yes it is, it's a magic number.
Somewhere in the ancient, mystic trinity
You get three as a magic number.

The past and the present and the future.
Faith and Hope and Charity,
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three as a magic number.

It takes three legs to make a tri-pod
Or to make a table stand.
It takes three wheels to make a ve-hicle
Called a tricycle.

Every triangle has three corners,
Every triangle has three sides,
No more, no less.
You don't have to guess.
When it's three you can see
It's a magic number.

A man and a woman had a little baby,
Yes, they did.
They had three in the family,
And that's a magic number.

3-6-9, 12-15-18, 21-24-27, 30.
3-6-9, 12-15-18, 21-24-27, 30.
Multiply backwards from three times ten:

Three time ten is (30), three times nine is (27),
Three times eight is (24), three times seven is (21),
Three times six is (18), three times five is (15),
Three times four is twelve,
And three times three is nine, and three times two is six,
And three times one is three of course.

Now take the pattern once more:
Three! . . .3-6-9
Twelve! . . .12-15-18
Twenty-one!. . .21-24-27. . .30

Now multiply from 10 backwards:
Three time ten is (30 - Keep going), three times nine is (27),
Three times eight is (24), three times seven is (21),
Three times six is (18), three times five is (15),
Three times four is twelve,
And three times three is nine, and three times two is six,
And three times one...
What is it?!
Three!
Yeah, That's a magic number.

A man and a woman had a little baby.
Yes, they did.
They had three in the family.
That's a magic number.

neilgodfrey

By divine coincidence I happen to be reading some of the latest scholarhip on this question right now: I have scanned bits from Tryggve N. D. Mettinger's "The Riddle of the Resurrection: 'Dying and Rising Gods in the Ancient Near East" (pp214-215) -- (i've deleted all but 2 of the footnotes and post in trust that this small bit in this context is not in breach of any copyright) -- where around the end of his monograph he has the following:


5. Excursus. Triduum: A Notion of Return after Three Days?

The idea of a three-days span of time between death and return, a triduum, seems to be at hand in Hosea 6:2 in a context where the imagery ultimately draws upon Canaanite ideas of resurrection: "Ater two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up." Apart from Hosea 6:2 one should remember also Jonah 2: 1 (Engl. 1: 17) where Jonah is in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. 148 I understand the belly of the fish as a metaphor for the Netherworld. The following points should be noted:

(1) Formulations about three days, or the third day, may well be a way of indicating a short period of time. Gradwohl has assembled a number of Hebrew occurrences of this nature, and Barre has called attention to the use of the Akkadian expression in the context of medical prognosis to refer to a quick recovery from illness. 149

(2) We should note, with Notscher, that the expression in Inanna' s Descent does not refer to the span of time between death and resurrection but rather to the time that passes before Ninshubur incites Enki to take action. On the other hand, an Emar text seems to refer to death on the first day and resurrection on the fourth day. But this is a text that deals with a different deity, Ninkur, and there is no seasonal connection.

(3) We nowhere hear about a third-day resurrection of Baal. Note, however, that the crucial passage in the Baal myth was damaged, so that we should perhaps not rush to conclusions from silence.

(4) It is possible but not proved that a triduum is referred to in the iconography of the Sidon vase depicting Melqart's (or Eshmun's) death and resurrection (see above Chap. III.3).

(5) Hosea speaks of "the third day", while Jonah refers to "three days and three nights", thereby hinting at a departure from the belly of the fish on the fourth day? The difference in counting, however, may be due to whether the day of death, or only the following one, is counted as the first day.

Baudissin juxtaposed the formulation in Hosea 6:2 with similar ideas related to Adonis, Osiris etc. He found it a valid possibility that there was in Phoenicia an idea of a three-day span between death and resurrection. Baudissin refers to the Adonis rituals in De Dea Syria § 6 as a possible case of a three-day cycle. I am prepared to subscribe to this qualified opinion. He also refers to Osiris in Plutarch, who dies on the 17th of Athyr and is found again on the 19th of the same month. Note, however that Osiris is hardly a dying and rising deity in the sense in which we use the term in the present investigation. Nevertheless, the probable presence of such a notion of a triduum in Byblos is not void of interest.

The question before us, of whether there was in the ancient Near East a firm notion of a triduum, must finally be left open. We would be wise to admit the possibility that this was the case, but this is still far from being an established fact.


148 In line with the passages in Hosea and Jonah are the passages in the New Testament about the resurrection of Jesus on the third day, a notion that had formulaic fIrmness (1 Cor 15:4; Matt 16:21; 17:23; 20:19 with par.; Luke 24:21, 46, cf. Luke 13:32 and John 11:17,39).
149 Gradwohl (1997) and Barre (1978). However, Barre is unconvincing when he understands Hos 6:2 as a reference to "the healing of the sick rather than the resurrection of the dead" (p. 140). seeJ. Day (2000: 118-122).

Clivedurdle

Of course!


Three days

I am not a catholic, so did not realise that this theme of three days is a very common religious practice. It does not sound particularly unique to xianity or Judaism - where else are Triduums found?

Wads4

The explanation I heard was that it is derived from the fact that at the winter solstice, 21st December, the Sun "dies".--ie reaches its furthurst point south (if you are in the nothern hemisphere),--by the third day it is observable that it is "resurrected",-because it is starting to move north again.