By Chris Bapuohyele
?
Between Saturday, May 12 and Friday, July 13, 2012, Elohim (God) made it possible for my most serious, revealing, insightful, challenging, and shocking features article yet, entitled, Why the Friday-Crucifixion-Sunday-Resurrection-Story of Easter is not Biblical, to be published in six parts in The Ghanaian Times newspaper.
In this article, I took my time to present as clearly as possible, in as fluid a manner as I could, and staying only within the light of the entire bible revelation for the needed facts, to reveal to salvation seekers of this generation, the obvious misinformation and deception, inherent in an error-riddled Friday-crucifixion-Sunday-resurrection-account, purported to relate to Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua), King of the Jews, that has been peddled by clergymen for close to two thousand years.
As part of my expos? on the fact that Yeshua was neither crucified on Friday, nor did he resurrect on Sunday after his burial, I presented an almanac on the month of the Savior?s arrest, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection ?the Jewish Passover month of Nisan (or Abib), in the year 30 AD? painstakingly prepared by me, and backed by revelations of the bible that run counter to claims by clergymen about the crucifixion and resurrection days of the Savior.
In fact, in all my presentations in this article, I was so meticulous and thorough that, I expected that all my readers would come to the same conclusions God had led me to: That, salvation seekers have been deceived by clergymen in the past, and today, in matters concerning the days of the week in which the Savior was actually buried and resurrected.
But of course, I could have prophesied then, that there would be many others, scoffers in fact, who, in shyness of Elohim?s Truth and in blatant disregard of all the facts which were copiously laid bare in my article, would have difficulty accepting my teaching against the obvious falsehood of a Friday-crucifixion and Sunday-resurrection teaching put out by clergymen, since the second century.
From e-mails I received later on from readers of the article, my expectations were met. There were some readers who wrote to say they were blessed by my treatise on such an important issue of the Christian faith, and commended me for my toils taken to properly inform humanity.
But, alas, there were also some malicious ones, living in the gull of bitterness, and suffering from a pull-him-down syndrome, who reacted differently and spitefully, on behalf of their paymaster.
Since I am not able in this article to recap all the salient issues raised in the previous publications, for the benefit of readers of this article who might not have read the previous one, may I advice such ones to read all its six parts via the Internet link : www.modernghana.com/author/Chris Bapuohyele.
?
Without intending to go backward in time, but taking delight in moving forward in the right direction, I like to add here, more clarity to some of the issues that were raised against a Friday-crucifixion and Sunday-resurrection of the Savior, in my former treatise.
To begin with, let us try to answer a few simple questions. In which day of the week do clergymen of the past, and those of today, teach that the Savior was crucified? The answer which is taught by all clergymen, sadly, to the acceptance of many simple-minded salvation seekers is that it was Friday!
Again, let us answer the question: At what hour of the day in this supposed Friday was the Savior said to have been laid to rest in the tomb? The answer is: The sunset hour. Yes indeed, the scriptures bear clear testimony of the Savior?s burial time to be at sunset.
The next question is: On which day of the week do clergymen claim the Savior resurrected from the grave? Of course, for close to two millennia, clergymen have wrongly believed and forcibly taught it to be the Sunday following closely on the heels of a supposed Friday-crucifixion and burial.
Now, since we must accept the proof of Elohim to the world that Yeshua of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah, to be that he had to be out of the tomb after being laid to rest there promptly after three days and three nights were fulfilled, then the claims to a Sunday-resurrection day, in an early morning hour, cannot be logical if indeed Friday was crucifixion and burial day. Two reasons bear me out in this conclusion.
First, from a Friday sunset to the early morning of the following Sunday, it is obviously impossible for any being, human or angelic, to obtain a correct count of three full days and three full nights. A full count of the time between a Friday sunset and the early morning of the following Sunday is only one and a half days or thirty-six hours, and not three days.
The fact is that, if we move from the sunset of Friday to the next sunset, this would end us in Saturday, as the completion of one full day by the Savior in the tomb.
That being so, it must be that the next sunset hour would be that of Sunday, by which time the Savior would have been in the grave for only two days, or forty-eight hours!
But alas, up to Sunday morning is only half-time of the full twenty-four-hour day, and so we would be talking of thirty-six hours from the time of a Friday sunset-burial, to the claim of a Sunday early morning-resurrection!
At this point, we see disaster strike the calculations and doctrine of the learned clergy fraternity about their much-acclaimed Friday-crucifixion/burial and Sunday-resurrection.
Despite this obvious disaster seen, even at this point of this treatise, let us look at a second fact to make the clergy?s error in this, obvious to all of today?s salvation seekers.
This second fact is that, because the Savior?s body was laid to rest at a sunset hour, he must, as a matter of cause, resurrect at a sunset hour and not at any other hour. This is simple and purely logical.
So, though the tomb of the Savior was found empty in an early morning, it will be careless, illogical, unacceptable, and simply ridiculous to conclude that the Savior resurrected in this same early morning hour, simply because it was in this early morning hour that human eyes first caught sight of the empty tomb.
Let us not loose sight of the fact that, before this early morning discovery of the empty tomb, we had twenty-four hours of a sunset-sunset Saturday, plus twelve hours of a sunset-midnight-sunrise of Sunday, in which one could neither work, nor walk about, nor ride a donkey to go check-out on the sleeping Savior, because of the anti-work law of the Sabbath and the fact that no one worked after dusk.
In fact, since we are told clearly in the Word of Elohim that the discovery of the Savior?s empty tomb was in the early morning of the first day of the week, it must be important to all who seek to know the actual time of the Savior?s resurrection to critically examine the events of the previous day, the last day of the week, the seventh day Sabbath. Assuredly, one neither worked nor went about roaming within the sunset-sunset time frame of this Sabbath day.
As this Sabbath day ended at sunset, the first day of the week also started in earnest at this same sunset, progressing for six hours into pitch-black darkness at midnight, and then progressing for another six hours toward the light of sunrise.
Therefore, for all these twelve hours of night-darkness of this first day of the week (Sunday), nobody could work or go check if the Savior was still in the tomb, in those days where people lived without electricity for lighting and solar lamps.
Mary Magdalene probably left home at the hour that corresponds to today?s twilight hour of 4:00 am, in her marathon race to the Savior?s tomb, arriving there at about our 5:00 am (early morning) only to find out that the Savior had long before left it. But for how long or since when the Savior had been gone, she, the first witness to the empty tomb, neither knew nor could tell then.
Just like anyone today, she and indeed all followers of the Savior of her day, needed wisdom to find out the exact time of Yeshua?s resurrection through the understanding of God?s full revelation on the issue.
Thanks be to Elohim that the apostles, after reflecting on this baffling issue of an empty tomb, were later brought by Him to understanding everything the Savior had told them about his sure-to-come resurrection on the third day after his burial (cf. John 2:18-19, 21-22).
Elohim led these apostles backwards, back in time from where they were, to when they laid the body of the Savior in the tomb, and then to the day they found the empty tomb, to believe everything the Savior had told them when he was yet alive, about the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:39-40 and Luke 11:29-30) and of rebuilding his human-body, after three days of its destruction by wicked men (John 2:18-22). (—the concluding part to this article is in Part Two: Soon to be published).
—————————————————————————————————-
Chris Bapuohyele is a Bible-expositor and author of the book: BEWARE OF THIS FALSE DOCTRINE of reciting the Sinners? Prayer for salvation. His email address is: chrisbapuohyele@yahoo.com.
———————————————————————————————————————
