stephan huller

That is a good point. One that has to be considered. There is still something curious about the passage. How did Sunday become so important to Christianity when Jesus WASN'T discovered in the tomb by the ladies on that day? If it's just an angel, you'd expect something more to be the basis of the faith. I can't shake my assumption that Christ reveals himself on the 8th day in what follows but that the discovery of the empty tomb occurred on the third day or according to Mark - after three days (i.e. four days from his death). Why does Mark phrase things this way? I think to emphasize it as a 'diatessaron' before the eventual completion or resolution in the octave or ogdoad. But that's just my sense of the narrative if it was arranged 'mystically' or according to Pythagorean principles.

Notsri

Presumably Mark is using after three days idiomatically, meaning on the third day, as it is in fact sometimes used in Jewish parlance. That is certainly how he's been interpreted in subsequent gospels, at any rate, such as Matthew, which has changed virtually every appearance of after, etc. to on the, etc. (Although note that Matthew's author is not entirely adverse to the idiom, retaining it at least once in his gospel: "Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, 'After three days I will rise again.'" [27:63].)

stephan huller

Hi Notsri

I have seen this argument before about Jews having a language that defies the basic mathematical principles which govern the universe but remain unconvinced that if I had a conversation with R Akiva on a Friday telling him to meet me at the Chinese restaurant after three days he would show up there on Sunday or if I told R Gamaliel riding his ass from 1st street that he had to make a right turn after three streets that he would make a right on 3rd st

This is just a contrivance developed to save the implausibility of the existing gospel narratives

Math is math, language is language, numbers are numbers

I can just imagine the same situation was applied to the ancient tax collectors in the Bible

If there are examples of the fudging of numbers in scriptur that hardly speaks of anything other than the typical mendacious manipulation of the Torah by the rabbinic party (look at the example of the Omer -where the fuck did the rabbis see "Passover" where the text says "Sabbath"??)

"after three days" means four days

Notsri

The extent to which the idiom may have been intelligibly used in ordinary speech is, I think, an important question, but it is somewhat of another matter from the question of the idiom's existence altogether. That it was an actual (if only literary) idiom is undoubtedly confirmed by the surviving literature.

Texts such as Esther Rabba 9.2 are instructive in this connection:

The dead...will come to life only after three days, as it says, "On the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence." [The] miracle also [of Mordecai and Esther] was performed after three days of their fasting, as it is written, "Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, etc."

2 Esdras 13:56; 14:1:

And after three more days I [God] will tell you [Ezra] other things, and explain weighty and wondrous matters to you...On the third day, while I [Ezra] was sitting under an oak, behold, a voice came out of a bush opposite me and said, "Ezra", etc.

Similarly, Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities 11:3-4:

[Moses said to the people]: "Be prepared on the third day, because after three days God will establish his covenant with you"...And on the third day there were claps of thunder and the brightness of lightning, etc.

stephan huller

This has absolutely nothing to do with Jewish custons of counting or some innate inability to distinguish between 3 and 4 (!). The original material makes clear that there are two different things being counted in Esther. The first is the command to the Jews by Esther:

“Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” [Es 4.16]

The text follows with Esther's travel plans - one has nothing to do with the other:

"On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter." [Es 5.1,2]

This is a silly argument. Esther obvious wants there to be prayers while she is visiting the king. It is the equivalent of saying 'pray for my success.' I remember going to soccer games in South America watching people pray in the stands during a penalty kick. The most appopriate time for a prayer would be while something is actually happening.

The rest is typical Christian apologetics - a misrepresentation of the original sense of Esther. Mordecai only receives redemption the next day (or night). They weren't praying for the meeting but the redemption. God, why do Christian's read material so badly? The order in Esther is:

1) three days fasting (at the end Esther goes to the royal court) Esther 5
2) king can't sleep realizes Mordecai is good Esther 6
3) redemption comes on the fourth day; Haman crucified on Nisan 16 (like Jesus) Esther 7

spamandham

Ok Stephen, now if you can show why "the third day" somehow points to the early 1st century, you'll really have my attention.

stephan huller

I don't understand the statement. I am not fighting for your hand like a young suitor.

My interest has always been to find some thread that can make sense of the gospel as it was originally intended to be understood. Believers want us to believe that the gospel narrative was a perfect reproduction of a bunch of historical 'facts' about a guy named Jesus who was the messiah. I have always had my doubts about that. A lot of the stuff doesn't add up.

With regards to the 'third day' business, if you look at Mark and what we know of the gospel which Marcionite 'cut' there seems to be a sudden ending on the third day which is generally supposed to be a Sunday. I don't think this really was the eighth day revelation on which the Church was founded. Nothing really happens. So they discover a fucking empty tomb. Who cares? They saw an angel. So what. That happened before. They angel told them that Jesus was raised from the dead. Great. But again so what? It's not enough to justify making Sunday the Lord's day. It's not enough to justify the as the start of Christianity.

The Manichaean gospel for instance has this revelation to Mary and then Mary goes over to the rest of the disciples and tells them what happened to her. Then we must presume Christ appears, they share the Eucharist etc. This sounds like the Sunday revelation which represents the start of Christianity.

My guess is that this occurred on theeighth day which immediately followed the 'third day' discovery of the empty tomb. I think this was done deliberately to imitate what the Pythagoreans called τον δια τεσσάρων συμφωνία.

The 'third day' counting from the Saturday slaughter is 'after three days' and 'the third day' (notice that Mark 16:2 and John 19.1 identify the day of the discovery of the empty tomb according to the Hebrew manner of identifying days - i.e. 'the first day' of the week). I am not sure what the original circumstances of Mary relaying the informations to the disciples (but you get different stories in different traditons cf. Gospel of Mary).

My guess is that eight days after the burial so the motzae shabbat or the goings out of the Sabbath which is symbolically connected with the crossing of the sea and baptism (1 Cor 10.2)

But my main point is that I am not so sure anymore that the gospel(s) were meant to be historical documents per se. As the apostle says:

When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified ... We do, however, speak a wisdom among the we speak among the perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even a secret wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory(1 Cor 2.1 - 9)

In other words, if you look at the publically circulating Gospel of Mark with the short ending on the third day (the perfect fourth) you are fooled into thinking everything is a historical narrative. But if you have the 'secret wisdom' - or as the Marcionites called it 'the secret Law' (Ephrem Against Marcion 3) - the secret gospel of Mark which ends on the eighth day you know that everything in the narrative was set out as a kind of mystery.

The bottom line is that if you read the two texts together you have what the Pythagoreans called τον δια τεσσάρων συμφωνία

Notsri

It has to do with language, Stephen, specifically, the question of whether someone could use the phrase after three days and mean on the third day. All three of the texts I cited affirm that possibility.

Esther Rabba represents "Christian apologetics"? Are you unfamiliar with the text?

Chili

It really does not matter if it was on or after the third day as long as it was not before the third day and if the Chief priests were right about their caution that "the final imposter would be worse than the first" that will show up in the Gospel, and it does! To wit: Mark and Mathew's Jesus goes back to Galilee to suffer some more instead Jerusalem on High . . . which was predictable from "My God, my God, why has't thou forsaken me" in both Matthew and Mark. If you compare this with Luke's Jesus who spoke the words that were echoed by James Joyce: "Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead" to rise again on May 1 when all new life begins (last page of his Portrait), it follows that he was stolen by his disciples who represent his faculty of reason in that they are his 'eidolons' in Greek' known to us as his insights [since when they were still shepherds] to get what he wanted and go where he wanted to be. IOW the fucker didn't have a clue what was going on in his mind and as a 'born again imposter' who so becomes "a spiritual empowered born again imposter" happy to get back to Galilee to become the wolf in sheeps clothing that nurses the lamb of God to maturity -- albeit unknowingly since a pupil cannot be greater than its master.

I like John's comment best who clearly says: "It is finished" knowing what he was doing there and what his purpose was before the pharisees who were needed to the very bitter end to lick up his placenta and so pull the old hide of off him in order that a clean arrival in Jerusalem on High was a sure thing.

Notice also how Mark send his disciples to Jerusalem to "untie the the cold and bring it back," when he was near Bethpage and Bethany where he was like a stranger near Jerusalem; he effectively urged them to return to his faculty of reason that is represented by the colt. This shows that Galilee is where we learn to walk on water and totally is a 'non rational transition' between earth and heaven (know as the cocoon stage in metamorphosis) and so here now 'the mentally handicaped Jesus' was peeking instead of being steadfast and determined to succeed. The fact really is that he did not know any better and was proud to get back to Galilee where he so started the Marcionites because they too rejoice in what I call spiritual fornication simply by "awakening [divine] love before its own time" (Songs 2:7) and so leading innocent sheep astray [for life].

Point in fact is that the colt was tied 'there' so he could arrive at Jerusalem on just the old by way of intuition and ride both the old and the new into the New Jerusalem after having purified reason into Pure reason = omniscient and infallible as such which is a necessary condition of the Freeman.

Paraclete of Jesus now with Jesus being the cocoon stage in life to be abandonned like a dirty rag on the way up? . . . and do you see the deception here? which then is why they are fluttering in midheaven like a broiler chicken with its head chopped off (and never midst of heaven) in Rev 14:6 till 12 but not 13.

That Mark's Jesus effectively did not really know who he was is foreshadowd by the introduction of John the Baptist who just came about foraging in the desert as a stranger to all and subsequently Jesus, too, went into the desert where there was nothing he was familiar with = not reborn from his lineage by God (cf Cana event in John or Luke's introduction of John.

stephan huller

Another point from Notsri's reference

Isn't it strange that Esther has a crucifixion after three days and the gospels have a resurrection three days after a crucifixion

The Jews always thought the crucifixion of Haman (Nisan 16) was related to the crucifixion of Jesus which seems to have occurred on Nisan 14 (Nisan 15 if you believe the synoptics)

I have always wondered if a Nisan 16 crucifixion of Jesus was possible. Now I see Clement (Chronicon Paschale) seems to infer a Nisan 16 resurrection (Festival of First Fruits)

Its strange that the resurrection of Jesus "after three days" (according to Mark) happens on the same day as the crucifixion of Haman

Esther itself seems to have been written in Alexandria