@Ronald Nolette @Marymog @Jay Ross @Pearl
Mark and John don't mention Thursday, Friday or any other day of the week by name as you suggest. These are Roman names for days of the week. Also, Jewish culture, contrary to the Romans, begins the day when the sun goes down -- from evening to evening. But while Mark and Luke do not refer to the days of the week according to their Roman names, they refer to the last day of the week as a Sabbath day. As you may know, God instituted a weekly Sabbath, but you might not know that he also instituted other Sabbath days corresponding to the Jewish festivals.
The original passion week took place during the Jewish festival of "Unleavened Bread." This festival is seven days long and contains a day of holy convocation (Sabbath, or High Holy Day) once on the first day of the festival and again on the last day of the festival. Passover day precedes the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and for this reason, the Feast of Unleavened bread came to be known as Passover week or simply "Passover." The day of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened bread combine to form an eight day "festival." Mark mentions them together in the following passage.
Mark 14:1
Now the Passover and Unleavened Bread were two days away; and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to seize Him by stealth and kill
Him;
Passover and Unleavened Bread were celebrated one after the other in succession. For this reason, during the time of Jesus, Passover was known as "the first day of Unleavened Bread.
Mark 14:12
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover
lamb was being sacrificed, His disciples *said to Him, “Where do You want us to go and prepare for You to eat the Passover?”
Follow me so far? :)
The Jewish festival of Unleavened Bread combined with the Jewish Passover is eight days running. And the Festival of Unleavened Bread contains two Sabbath days, one at the beginning and one at the end. During that week, the Jews also observed the weekly Sabbath. Thus, except in rare cases, the Festival of Unleavened bread contains THREE sabbath days, two for the Festival itself and one for the weekly Sabbath. Leviticus 23:4-8
Our challenge, as 21th century Bible students is to ascertain which particular Sabbath day is in view in any particular passage of scripture. During the time of Jesus, the weekly sabbath always fell on a Saturday. But since the Festival of Unleavened Bread begins on a different day of the week each year, then the Sabbaths associated with Unleavened Bread fall on different days of the week each year.
Since the Passover comes a day before the first High Holy Day of Unleavened Bread, it is also known as Preparation Day. John 19:14, John 19:31, Mark 15:42, Exodus 12:15. Passover falls on the 14th day of the month, no matter what day of week it might be. Jesus ate the Passover with his disciples on the evening of Nissan 14. He was arrested that night. The following day was also Nissan 14, because remember, the Jewish day begins in the evening and continues through until the evening of the next day. Jesus was crucified on Nissan 14, Passover day, which is also the day of Preparation for the High Holy Day, which began at sundown. The Jews did not want the body of Jesus to remain on the cross after sundown, Nissan 15.
Jesus was in the tomb before sundown, but the late hour didn't allow time for the women to prepare the body of Jesus for burial. The next day was Nissan 15, a high holy day, which also didn't allow the women to prepare the body of Jesus. Nissan 16, which came a day before the weekly sabbath, afforded time for the women to buy the spices and get them ready for the tomb. Nissan 17 was a weekly sabbath and by this time, Jesus had been in the tomb for three days. The next day, Nissan 18, the women arrive at the tomb, prepared to properly bury Jesus when they discovered that the tomb was empty.
In other words, while Jesus was in the tomb, two different Sabbath days occurred, The High Holy Day of Nissan 15 and the weekly Sabbath of Nissan 17. Thus, Jesus spent three days in the tomb just as he said. Nissan 15, 16 and 17. The empty tomb was discovered on Nissan 18, Sunday Morning by our reckoning.