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Just in case you believe this is a coincidence, there are many other places in the four gos-
pels that refer to a DOUBLE SABBATH day. At the beginning of His ministry, right after the forty
days in the wilderness, Christ went to His home town of Nazareth where He entered the local
synagogue on the Sabbath day and began to read. Notice! "So He came to Nazareth, where He had
been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and
stood up to read" (Luke 4:16, New King James Version). If you check the Greek for this verse you
will find the word "Sabbath" is in the PLURAL once again -- indicating a DOUBLE SABBATH,
i.e. a weekly Sabbath AND a festival high day. Here's the literal translation from the Greek: "And
he came into Nazareth, where he was having been reared, and he went in according to the custom
to him IN THE DAY OF SABBATHS into the synagogue, and he stood up to read" (The Kingdom
Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures).

Some people have tried to say that this was Pentecost (Feast of "Weeks") but the time
frame is all wrong. Not only that, but in other parts of the New Testament the word "Pentecost" is
used for this day -- see Acts 2:1, 20:16 and I Corinthians 16:8. Since this incident is right after the
40 days in the desert (wilderness) -- this is where the idea of the 40 days of Lent comes from --
this particular weekly Sabbath is the first high day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that is, Nisan
15. The very passage Christ read from Isaiah 49 indicates it was the Passover season.

Within a matter of days Christ went down to Capernaum where, once again as His custom
was, He entered the local synagogue and began to teach: "And they went their way into Caper-
naum. No sooner was it the Sabbath than he entered into the synagogue and began to teach" (ibid.).
Again, the original Greek shows the word "Sabbath" to be in the PLURAL, iindicating another
double Sabbath. Note the literal translation from the Greek: "And they are entering into Caper-
naum. And at once to the SABBATHS having entered into the synagogue he was teaching" (ibid.)
This evidently took place on the last high day of the Passover season -- Nisan 22 -- another double
Sabbath, showing again that the Jews of Christ's day were keeping the weekly Sabbaths according
to the lunar calendar or reckoning.

The next mention of a Sabbath in the book of Luke comes at Luke 6:1. Here the word "Sab-
bath" is in the SINGULAR, indicating a regular weekly Sabbath.

When Did the Resurrection Take Place?

Many of those who expouse the Wednesday crucufixion-Saturday resurrection scenario
point to Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1 and John 20:1 to support their contention that Christ
rose from the dead late Saturday afternoon. Building upon these verses, they have thought that the
Wednesday-Saturday construct was an important way of showing that Sunday and Easter were bo-
gus. Sometimes in our zeal to demolish the opposition, however, we invent constructs to further
prove the validity of our theories when no such further proof is needed. Such is the case here.

Let's now take a look at these supposed proof texts and see what they REALLY say. In
Matthew 28:1 we read: "Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary
Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb" (NKJV).

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