Revisiting Christ’s Crucifixion & Resurrection: Pinpointing History’s Most Important Dates

Abstract

This paper aims to establish via Biblical, historical and astronomical data that Christ was crucified on Wednesday, March 28, AD 31 and resurrected early morning before sunrise Saturday, March 31, AD 31. At the outset, the justification for reexamining the weekdays of His crucifixion and resurrection will be presented and will be followed by a discussion of the relative importance to our objective of one of the seven annual Sabbaths of the Jews, the Passover Sabbath, vis-à-vis the weekly Sabbath, Saturday, to ascertain whether the crucifixion weekday, referred to in the synoptic Gospels as preparation day and in the Johannine account as preparation day of Passover, was indeed Friday. To pinpoint the weekday of His crucifixion, this layman will cite FOUR (4) Biblical events; for the year of His crucifixion, biblical and historical data will be resorted to; to specify the exact date of crucifixion, biblical, historical and astronomical data will be used.  To pinpoint His early Saturday morning resurrection before sunrise, the FOUR (4) different specifications of our Lord that describe the same period of time from when He was killed until He resurrected will be taken into account.  Finally, Bible versions that reflect the Saturday Sabbath resurrection will be cited inline.