CRUCIFIXION WEEK
DEATH BURIAL RESURRECTION OF YESHUA
30 AD
Yeshua was born c. 6 BC, by Hebrew reckoning, that was his first year. That makes 30 AD his 36th year of life, in the Jewish year of 3790, biblical solar year of 5206. Contrary to popular beliefs, Yeshua was born in the spring. Shepherds were only out in the fields helping ewes give birth to lambs in the spring and summer, see Luke 2:8. But I’m not here to debate Yeshua’s birth. We’re here again to further investigate Yeshua’s year and day of crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.
I recently posted a study about how Noah knew when the new year began in his 601st year, while stuck in the Ark atop the mountains of Ararat. From that study, I concluded that the solar calendar year should begin on the day of the Vernal Equinox, not a day later. I submitted this information to the Covenant Calendar Club and they challenged me then to prove the solar calendar in the month of Abib, 30 AD, the year of Yeshua’s death. We choose 30 AD because no other year around that year matches the science or chronological biblical events as revealed in Scripture. For a much more detailed study on this, see www.therefinersfire.org website on this subject. Although they attack the problem from a lunar calendar perspective, they do a great job of putting the whole scenario in order.
One of my challenges was finding the day/date of the Vernal Equinox in 30 AD. It was not easy, since the US Naval Observatory website has been mostly down since the beginning of 2020, the Covid-19 plandemic has not helped them speed up the rebuild of the site. I just checked, the USNO website data services are still down: https://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/astronomical-applications/data-services/data-services
I then had to find other Equinox tables. I found one table put together by believers, it shows the Vernal Equinox happened on March 21, 30 AD, backwards projected Gregorian calendar, or anteGregorian calendar. I confirmed this date on therefinersfire.org website. Once the USNO website is back up, I’ll try to confirm the Vernal Equinox of 30 AD again.
I then had to find out what day of the week March 21, 30 AD was. That was pretty easy using a calendar converting website I’ve used for years called www.abdicate.net. To get to the calendar converter page click on the Converter button on the left side of the home page, the third item down under Calendars. By entering 21 in the day box, March in the month box, and 30 in the year box and clicking the Gregorian button, we get the calculated day of the week for the Vernal Equinox of 30 AD. It shows that the day was a Thursday, or the 5th day of the biblical week. It also reveals a very useful number, called the Serial Day Number of 1732097. The Serial Day Number, or SDNs, are used by astronomers and are very useful for moving through the chronological history of mankind day-by-day, to the limits of their website, anyway. I trust this day of the week designation as Thursday, since I’ve verified it several times before, tying a current Sabbath day this year to the weekly Sabbath day when Yeshua was in the tomb in 30 AD. For example, today is October 10, 2020, a weekly Sabbath day. It’s Serial Day Number is 2459133. The weekly Sabbath when Yeshua was dead in the tomb was Serial Day Number 1732113. Let’s subtract those two numbers = 727020. Divide that number by 7 = 103860 weeks EXACTLY since Yeshua was in the tomb! I use this simple formula regularly to confirm that I have the correct Serial Day Number for an historical event in the Bible. Using all this information, including time of day from the Bible itself, if you wish, you can make very informative charts of Yeshua’s crucifixion-burial-resurrection week. Yeshua was crucified on Serial Day Number 1732110, which was Wednesday, April 3, 30 AD. I’m not very creative or artistic, so I don’t do pretty picture charts like most folks. I’m an accountant, so I do spreadsheets. The Father has revealed much to me through my use of spreadsheets, so I stick with what I know.
I don’t think we can actually prove the biblical calendar of that momentous week in human history, but we can produce as much evidence as we can get our hands on to make reasonable interpretations of the Scriptures. I believe that is what therefinersfire.org folks did, and I appreciate their great work. I just noticed that I blogged about Crucifixion week back in March of 2020, using a biblical solar calendar. Now, after my Noah’s Flood study and blogpost, I believe I need to begin each year ON the day of the Vernal Equinox, NOT the day after. I did a crucifixion week spreadsheet years ago and have modified it many times over the years. It looks like I need to modify it one more time! So, let’s see how crucifixion week falls out using this new biblical solar calendar for 30 AD.
Crucifixion Week per Biblical Solar Calendar
Notice in the first column above, that on the Covenant Calendar Club calendar, Yeshua would have been crucified a day early, on Abib 13. It is very unusual, but in the year 30 AD, the biblical solar and the Jewish lunar calendars were pretty close in counting the days of the first month. We all know that the Jewish day began the night before at sunset, so when Yeshua ate his Passover meal with his disciples, it was only the 13th on the biblical dawn-to-dawn solar calendar, but was the 14th according to the Jewish sunset-to-sunset lunar calendar. That may be why no one questioned Yeshua or his disciples as to why they were eating their Passover meal on the evening of the 13th, because the Jews would say it was the 14th! There were at least two camps of Jews in Yeshua’s day, those who ate their Passover meal at the beginning of the 14th, and those who ate it at the end of the 14th, which would be the beginning of the 15th, what the Jews were referring to in John 18:28. “Then they led Yeshua from Caiaphas to the government headquarters. It was daybreak (Wed., Abib 14), and they did not enter the government headquarters, so that they would not be defiled but would eat the Passover meal.” That camp of Jews ate their Passover meal at the end of the 14th, which was then the 15th by their reckoning of a day beginning at sunset. Yeshua would be dead by the next evening of the 14th, that’s why he ate his Passover meal the evening before, on the 13th.
It is the evidence of the Last Supper, Yeshua’s last Passover meal, being eaten on the 13th, according to the biblical solar calendar, that convinces me that the FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST MONTH OF THE NEW YEAR BEGINS ON THE DAY OF THE VERNAL EQUINOX, not the day after. Yeshua did not violate any Jewish law by eating his last Passover meal on the 13th, since according to their lunar calendar reckoning of a day beginning at sunset, it was the 14th of Nisan when he ate his last Passover meal, the Last Supper. The Last Supper of Yeshua was a formal Passover seder on Tuesday evening before his arrest, trial, crucifixion on Wednesday, Abib 14, and burial just before dawn that would begin Thursday, Abib 15, the High Sabbath and 1st day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Thursday was day 1. Friday was day 2. Sabbath was day 3 in the tomb. Thursday night was night 1. Friday night was night 2. Sabbath night was night 3 of his entombment. Yeshua resurrected exactly 72 hours after his burial, exactly 3 days and 3 nights, thus fulfilling exactly to the nanosecond his one and only Messianic sign prophecy in Matthew 12:39-40, “But Yeshua answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign. But no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. 40For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of the big fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
I will try to get my two Crucifixion/Resurrection week spreadsheets uploaded to my downloads page on our website: https://www.fmcmi.org/downloads. There, you can download my Son Of Man Bible modules for e-Sword, The Word, or MySword. You can download my spreadsheets at the bottom of the page.