According to mainstream Christianity, Christ was crucified in 33 AD, on a Friday, and Resurrected on Sunday morning. They also use Daniel 9:27:
“And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease…”
Their claim is that the one week Prophecy is actually one week of years, and therefore Christ taught for three and one half years before being crucified.
Careful study leaves some glaring problems with these figures!
The Pharisees and Sadducees were trying to get Christ to prove who He was and His response was:
Matthew 16:4
“A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.”
Christ informed them that the ‘ONLY’ sign that would be given to prove who He was was the sign of Jonah. In other words, by no other way will His legitimacy be confirmed!
The sign of Jonah is that he spent 3 days and three nights in the “whales belly. Therefore if Christ did not spend three days and three nights in the grave, then He was not who He said He was!
Three days and three nights constitute 72 hours. Friday crucifixion and a Sunday morning Resurrection constitutes approximately 36 hours, which is only half the time of the sign of Jonah. According to Christian timing Christ is not the Messiah!
Also when we look at how they are interpreting Daniel 9:27, we also see some major problems.
They are ignoring: “And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week:”
When you use the week of years that the Christians use, and Christ was crucified midst week and yet confirmed the covenant in one week, then His resurrection would have had to occur three and one half years after the crucifixion to confirm the covenant in one week.
Now let us see if we can cure these glaring problems, and make everything scripturally, historically, and mathematically line up to eliminate the problems.
First we will re-evaluate the interpretation of Daniel 9:27. Let us consider that when the Prophet wrote that He would confirm the Covenant for one week, he meant exactly what he said. When he came to that portion of the Prophecy he simply zeroed in on the final week of Christ’s life in this world as a human.
That would mean He was crucified midst week (Wednesday) and when He was resurrected at the end of that week three days later, that was the confirmation of the covenant!
When we check the NASA record, in 31 AD. the Passover was on a Wednesday.
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If Christ was crucified on Wednesday right before sunset and 72 hours (Three days and three nights) later He was resurrected on saturday right before sunset at the close of Sabbath, then he would have fulfilled the sign of Jonah perfectly. According to scripture, Mary came and found the tomb already empty early sunday morning before daylight. That is a perfect fit for Him being resurrected Saturday right before sunset.
In Matthew 12:40, when Jesus explicitly states that He will be in the heart of the earth “three days and three nights,” the underlying conceptual and linguistic construct in Greek relies on the root words nux (night, G3571) and hemera (day, G2250).
While Matthew writes out the phrase textually as (“three days and three nights”), the exact Greek compound word used elsewhere in ancient Greek and theological contexts for a complete day and night cycle is nychthemeron.
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Specific Meaning of the Root Components:
Nyx: Strictly means the nighttime portion; the hours of darkness from sunset to sunrise.
Hemera: Strictly means the daytime portion; the hours of light from sunrise to sunset.
Nychthemeron: Defines a full calendar day consisting of twenty-four consecutive hours, binding one complete night and one complete day into a single unit.
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When Christ deliberately anchored His sign to three nights and three days, He used an idiom that leaves zero room for fractional rounding. If a writer wanted to convey loose “inclusive reckoning” where a partial day counts as a whole, they would simply use the word for “days” (hēmerai). But by specifically pairing it with an equal number of nights (nyktas), the text demands complete 24-hour rotations (72 hours); precisely what the Wednesday to Saturday timeline provides, and precisely what a Friday-to-Sunday timeline fails.
Another problem with the Christian consensus view is that by their method of dating, then Christ taught for 3 ½ years, and according to The Apostle John’s history, Christ only taught for 2 ½ years, and there is nothing in the synoptic gospels that would contradict that.
From this new dating method, there is nothing that indicates the length of time that He taught other than the Apostle john’s history of the event, so 2 ½ years is not contested.
Whereas the Christian dating of 33 AD. presents numerous problems, when we change our dating to 31 AD. every problem disappears with the exception of one. That one problem is in getting indoctrinated people into changing, even when the evidence leads to that change.
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Dr. William Hales (1747–1831)
A highly prominent historical chronologist and mathematician who published a massive multi-volume work titled A New Analysis of Chronology and Geography, History and Prophecy (published between 1809 and 1830). In his extensive astronomical and historical tables, he calculated the crucifixion to the spring of AD 31.
Dr. William Hales was a traditional ecclesiastical chronologist, mathematician, and professor of Oriental languages at Trinity College, Dublin. His work, A New Analysis of Chronology, relied strictly on historical texts, ancient calendars, classical literature, and astronomical calculations of lunar cycles and eclipses to map biblical history.
Dr. Herman L. Hoeh (1928–2004)
A prominent educator, researcher, and minister associated with the Radio Church of God and the Worldwide Church of God. As one of the earliest graduates and a faculty member of Ambassador College, he authored extensive historical and chronological studies—including the Compendium of World History—and wrote numerous foundational articles and booklets examining ancient timelines, biblical history, and calendar systems. In the mid-20th century, Hoeh published the specific chronological work mapping out the historical rules of the Hebrew calendar combined with NASA calculations, which calculated the Wednesday, April 25, 31 AD Passover crucifixion date.