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Magdalene and the other Miriam to see the sepulchre." This very clearly supports a resurrection in
the morning of the first day of the week.

Strangely, the Aramaic Peshitta of Matthew 28:1 supports the false idea that Christ rose
late on the Sabbath. This, apparently, was due to the awkward Greek rendering of "opse" in the
passage as it became translated into the Aramaic "ramsa" -- the Aramaic equivalent to the Hebrew
"erev." Another area of confusion with regard to the Greek root "opse" in Matthew is found in
Matthew 27:57, which says that Joseph of Arimathea came to request Christ's body at "evening"
(opsios). However, in the Shem Tob, it is rendered "toward evening time" (la-et erev) in the He-
brew. Suffice it to say here that the Greek root "opse" was used by the earliest New Testament
translators -- translating from the Hebrew -- to imply "late, afternoon, and evening." The real
problem with the usage of "erev" as "late" is that in the Hebrew Tanakh "evening" (erev) always
occurs at the beginning or early part of the day and never at the end or late part of the day. And
even today it remains incorrectly understood as "late" in Hebrew because of the pagan and bor-
rowed Greco-Roman element.

The word "evening" still carries an ancient pagan idea of being toward sunset in the after-
noon or after sunset, either way (even as it is in the West today). But this was not so in the ancient
Biblical Hebrew. Because it is unique among ancient Hebrew, as opposed to Greek or English un-
derstanding, to begin a day at evening or sunset -- therefore "evening" in Biblical Hebrew is al-
ways at the beginning of one day and "after" the preceding day. "Opse" in its usage in Matthew
28:1 implys "after" rather than "late" because Greek is a pagan language deriving its original base
text from Hebrew. This is a classical example of where opposing cultural teminology can cause
inaccurate translations. Not only that, but if that language becomes influential enough -- and Greek
certainly did -- it can even change the way a people actually look at a term. In this particular case,
it has directly affected most late second temple and modern Jews.

The bottom line is that the Aramaic rendering of Matthew 28:1 is without any real support
based on the fact that the Shem Tob Hebrew version of Matthew renders the passage clearly and
concisely as referring to the morning of the first day of the week. As well as this, the Shem Tob
also makes clear the parallel verses in Mark, Luke and John, leaving no doubt that the resurrection
indeed occurred on the morning of the first day of the week!

Turning to Luke 24:1, we read: "Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morn-
ing, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had
prepared."

This verse is rendered, in the Greek: "But the first of the week (sabbaton) at (orthrou
batheos) just before day-break they came to the tomb bringing aromatics which they had prepared,
and some others with them."

According to Strong's #3722, the word "orthrou" means "dawn (as sunrise; rising of light,
by extens. morning -- early in the morning." Liddell-Scott (p. 568) renders it "day-break, dawn,
cockcrow.

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