--- Phyllis Jestice <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Well, at least
Matthew said it, even if Jesus didn't. But if one
> accepts
> the tradition of a crucifixion on Friday and a resurrection early on
> Sunday, then Matt 12:40 is WRONG---that just doesn't add up to three
> days
> and three nights. Any explanations come to mind?
Yes, of course the saying is to be attributed to Matthew rather than to
Jesus directly; but before the advent of critical scholarship it would
have been regarded as the ipsissima verba of Jesus, and that would be
quite enough to ensure that hymns and other liturgical texts referred
to "three days" in the tomb.
McNeile's commentary on Matthew is rather old (1915) but I have it to
hand. He comments,
"The verse cannot be genuine: (1) it differs from Lk., (2) the title
'the Son of Man' as applied by Jesus to Himself occurs too early . . .
and (3) as a prediction it is inaccurate, for the Lord was 'in the
heart of the earth' not three but two nights. 'Meta treis hemeras'
occurs in Mk. (vii. 31, ix. 31, x. 34; so Mt. once, xxvii. 63), but
that does not include a third night; the parallels in Mt., Lk. have
'Te trite hemera' [on the third day]. In regarding Jonah as a type,
Mt. did not weigh details. Justin (Tryph. 107) tacitly corrects him
. . . and the Naz. Gosp. seems to have omitted 'treis . . . nyktas'"
One could reply to all McNeile's objections:
(1) Maybe Luke's parallel is not genuine.
(2) The title 'Son of Man', whether, when, and why Jesus applied it to
himself, is a mare's nest. One would have to be very bold, and very
dogmatic, to say that Jesus could not have used the term at this point.
(3) It may be that Jesus gave an inaccurate or approximate prediction
of his own passion. Had he got it exactly right, critical scholars
would have been the first to say that this must be an interpolation in
the light of events.
Oriens.
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