You will notice that this view puts the resurrection
on the third day of the week. Of all the problems with errant views,
this one takes the prize for incoherence. First their views:
Luke 24:21, "the third day it leads since these things" they interpret
as being the third day of the week (monday sunset to tuesday sunset).
The phrase "first day of the week," they interpret as "first of the weeks"
with no reference to a specific day. (They mean the first week of
the seven weeks to Shavuot). The days they count (saturday =1, sun
=2, mon =3), and nights (fri-sat = 1, sat-sun = 2, sun-mon = 3).
After three days they count as on the "second day" of the week. All
the "on the third day" passages they do not count as a sequence, but as
meaning the "third day" of the week. Now for the critique. (1) "First of the
weeks" is an impossible translation of the resurrection passages, because
the grammar requires the word "day." (2) If this is not clear enough, then
John 20:19, "Being then late on that day, the first of the sabbaths" makes
it clear that a day is being spoken of. Would they have us translate
it "late on that day, the first of the weeks"? That's what I mean
by incoherence. (3) In this view is failure to count part of a day
or night as a whole day or night in accord with long Jewish custom, and
biblical teaching. So they do not count the day part of Friday so
as to avoid ending up with four days. (4) The resurrection is nebulously
placed at sundown on Monday so as to avoid including a fourth night, yet
imply that it still happened on the third day of the week. If it
was after sunset, then it was after "four days" not three, and if it was
before sunset, then it was not "on the third day" by their interpretation.
So they have to manage to to slop the definition of the beginning and ending
of a day here. (5) Mt. 28:1 causes them problems, "After the weeks"? "Late
in the weeks"? So they propose "After the Sabbaths," but where are
their two sabbaths? (They combine them on the weekly Sabbath). These various problems are completely
fatal to this view. Generally, they refer us to the Hebrew "original,
which they seem to think they have a right to determine, even though we
don't have one (it isn't Shem Tov). The Hebrew, they claim does not
require "first day of the Sabbaths." It suffices to say that
the best evidence we have of what the Hebrew was is a proper backtranslation
of the Greek (mia twn sabbatwn) as
"echad Yom HaShabbatot" and to recognize that this literally translates
"first day of the Sabbaths," which is the first sabbath day after Passover
according to Lev. 23:15-16. Finally, no matter how you compute
it, the third day of the week was not the day of firstfruits (a problem
for the 72 hour Wed theory as well). So there is not even a remote
typological connection with the wave sheaf. Finally, we have the problem
that by the time they propose the resurrection was really the fourth day,
and the body would have begun to decay, but the scripture says, that Yayshua
would not see decay.
