What Seventy-Two Hours?

I recently read an article about a man who has been studying the Dead Sea Scrolls and has decided that Jesus was not following the standard Jewish calendar found in the Bible; rather, He was following the calendar of the Essenes (they are described in Josephus' writings but not found in the Bible). He concluded that Jesus actually died on Wednesday instead of Friday because Jesus had to be in the tomb seventy-two hours. This thought comes from Jesus' statement in Matthew 12:40 that the Son of man would be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. There are several things wrong with this understanding of the passage. First of all, Jews in the Bible counted inclusively rather that exclusively; that is, the first day is the day that an event starts, not the following day as we usually count. The expression "third day" refers to the day after tomorrow in the Bible, as can be clearly seen in Leviticus 19:6 and Luke 13:32. Day and night is simply a way of referring to a day, and any part of a day is counted as a day. If a full day is indicated, the expression becomes "all that day and all that night" (see Exodus 10:13; Numbers 11:32; 1 Samuel 19:24). Further, if Jesus had been crucified on Wednesday, the so-called seventy-two hours would have been up on Saturday afternoon during the Sabbath since he died on the cross shortly after the ninth hour (i.e., 3 p.m.). He would have been buried before sundown since the Sabbath would begin then (John 19:31). In fact, the Gospels are clear that Jesus died and was buried on Friday. The sixth day of the week was called Preparation, because no cooking was allowed on the seventh day, the Sabbath. All four Gospels make it clear that Jesus died on the day called Preparation (Matthew 27:62; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:54; John 19:14, 31, 42). All of church tradition is that Jesus died on Friday and rose again on Sunday, not Wednesday and Saturday. Sometimes people are so smart in figuring things out that they end up contradicting Scripture.