3 days and 3 nights

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, He did so on Palm Shabbat (Saturday), not on a Sunday -- which is erroneous. He spent 4 days at the Temple, teaching and being examined, even as the Lamb of Pesach, found without spot and without blemish.

In Exodus 12, it says that the Pesach / Passover lamb is to be killed on the 14th "between the evenings". The time there being designated as 3pm until the just before the first three stars appear in the evening sky with the setting of the sun.

By the fact of this 3 hours of darkness, from the sixth hour of the day until the ninth, to which was no eclipse of the sun, the prophecy of Exodus 12:6 is fulfilled according to any reasonable interpretation of ritual/religious observance of Torah.

This also goes back to Genesis 1:14, in which "G-D said, Let there be lights." The absence of the vav before and after the letter Rosh in m' orah, says Rashi, gives it the same spelling as "the curse of".

This tells us, that before the foundation of the world, G-D had in His perfect foreknowledge that man would not only be created, but fall away and need a savior.

As a result of this omniscience, G-D ordered the creation of this enclosed Universe (as Job refers to it), after the manner of teaching us about HASHEM (the L-RD) our Redeemer and Redemption. Therefore, in Yeshua, we see the literal fulfillment of the perfect Pesach / Passover offering, literally taking "the curse of" all mankind upon Himself, and literally slain between the evenings, as the central most point of our existence; being the gate / door to eternal life in HASHEM and the world to come.

Like passing through a doorway in the first Exodus, above us on the lintel is His blood, and to the right and left on the door posts is His blood...and it is only through this door, the Door of Redemption -- de facto, in and through Christ Himself -- do we receive forgiveness, sonship, and access to the Eternal (and not just temporal) Love of G-D the Father.

The Cross, the Cross, the Cross; to the unbelieving a symbol of death, but to the followers of the L-RD, Jesus Christ, it is the means of life, through He who is our "source" to eternal life as our well-spring, the Holy One of Israel (e.g., Jeremiah 2:13, 17:13; with John 7:37-38, 4:10-14)

In the New Testament times, after the Passover seder in 30 A.D., at about midnight, Jesus and the disciples "went out and sung a hymn" (Mark 14:26), this refers to the fact that about midnight, all 3,000,000 in and about Jerusalem would rise up to the sound of the shofar and would stand on rooftops or wherever they could face and see the Temple...and at the cue, the nation of Israel would sing the hymn / the Hallel Psalm.
http://www.templeinstitute.org/pesach/hallel.htm

Jesus died upon the Cross at the ninth daylight hour on March 23, A.D. 30; the tenth of the Kalends of April (Lactantius, Letter to Donatus, .2). This de facto fell on a Wednesday, the 14th of Nisan, in a properly reckoned calendar which I can reasonably defend and show on another posting.

At Sunset (Shkias HaChamah) Joseph of Arimathea and Nico-demus (a Greek translation for "Chief Rabbi of Eretz Israel"-- of all Israel outside Jerusalem) embalmed Jesus' body just south of the Olivet fault, near the Kidron & Hinom Juncture on Olivet, just north of En Rogel. They finished by the time of the appearance of the first three small stars at which time was called "Tzais HaKochavim".

The time between Shkias HaChamah and Tzais HaKochavim is called "between suns". It is at this time that we are in the twilight zone in which the days change, a time of erev or disorder (as we find implied in Genesis 1).

Jesus was buried from Tzais HaKochavim Wednesday night (now the 15th of Nisan) through Thursday night (now the 16th), through Friday night (now the 17th), through to Saturday night (now the 18th): three nights and three days.

In all likelihood, He rose again from the dead in the third watch of the night. Jesus was indeed in the earth for an entire three nights and three days.

When the first light began to break on the eastern sky, but while it was still dark, we see the passages of Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, and John 20:1 in this reverse sequence called "Alos HaShacar": which is defined as "first light which appears before the sun itself is visible".

The time in which the women left for the tomb was at this point, but on the leeward or western side of Olivet, the tomb and the valley of the Kidron would have remained in darkness even after that "Naitz HaChamah" (the rising of the sun as it slips upon and above the horizon). Therefore, there is no discrepency in the Gospel accounts: none.

At such a point as Alos HaShacar, Jesus had long since arisen, probably at about 3 am, such as when the Apostles on the Sea of Galilee once thought Him a ghost walking upon the water. 3am would follow the last passing of the Centurion visiting the various sentry posts,

Polybius, Book 6.36
When this time comes, the man to whom the first watch fell by lot makes his rounds accompanied by some friends as witnesses.

He visits the posts mentioned in his orders, not only those near the vallum and the gates, but the pickets also of the infantry maniples and cavalry squadrons.

If he finds the guards of the first watch awake he receives them, but if he finds that anyone is asleep or has left his post, he calls those with him to witness the fact, and proceeds on his rounds.

Those who go the rounds in the succeeding watches act in a similar manner.

As I said, the charge of sounding a bugle at the beginning of each watch, so that those going the rounds may visit the different stations at the right time, falls on the centurions of the first maniple of the triarii in each legion, who take it by turns for a day.

Each of the men who have gone the rounds brings back the tesserae at daybreak to the tribune. If they deliver them all they are suffered to depart without question;

but if one of them delivers fewer than the number of stations visited, they find out from examining the signs on the tesserae which station is missing,

and on ascertaining this the tribune calls the centurion of the maniple and he brings before him the men who were on picket duty, and they are confronted with the patrol.

If the fault is that of the picket, the patrol makes matters clear at once by calling the men who had accompanied him, for he is bound to do this; but if nothing of the kind has happened, the fault rests on him.

The women and the apostles come to the tomb before 6am, meaning that the last watch of 3am, the Third Watch, had been verified by at least 2 witnesses as to the security and alertness of the Tomb of Jesus.

Therefore, we are able to isolate a time of about 4:42-5am for the appearance of the women at the tomb, and the arrival of the apostles as likely between 5am-5:40am...the times being very general and approximate.

It is comforting to know, that the Bible and the facts of the Resurrection are reliable, and beyond reasonable question...so much so, that the greatest American Legal Scholar on the Rules of Evidence in the 19th Century, Simon Grenleaf, when upon examining the Resureection on a dare as a skeptic, became a believer in Jesus. Such is the power of even just the testimony of the Resurrection upon a fair minded individual open and honest to the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah. Amen. Jesus is L-RD.