Zola's View Analyzed
Daniel Gregg
Zola Levitt's view can be found in the original at here on Zola's website. My view can be found in the Sabbath Resurrection article, which you should read before finishing this article. Also you should at least look through the online book: The Scroll of Biblical Chronology and Prophecy. Here we will examine Zola's important arguments.
First Zola tries to convince us that that no one can impose the Sabbath on Christians. He cites Romans 14:1-5. However, this text does not mention the 'sabbath' but only certain days on which Christians would eat or fast. It has been pointed out by many scholars that Paul was merely discussing the question of marking certain days with religious fasting. Next, Zola cites Galatians 2:4-6. This passage also has nothing to do with the Sabbath. The Apostles did exempt the Gentiles from circumcision. Gal. 2:4-6 is only about circumcision, and not about the Sabbath. Further, when James agreed with the decree, it was under the condition that the Gentiles were taught the Torah on the Sabbath. See Acts 15:21. We should not assume that just because Gentiles has an exilic exemption from circumcision that other matters of the Torah were not required. The literal translation of Acts 15:5 suggests that Gentiles were taught the law, "... That it was needful to circumcise them besides to keep the law of Moses" (Concordant Version). The Torah was already being taught. It was just that the Apostles were not insisting on circumcision, and the Pharisees wanted the Torah AND circumcision to be enforced, and not just Torah.
Zola cites John 1:17, "the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ". The word "but" does not occur in the Greek MSS. Zola has just been fooled by an errant translation. A good dynamic translations would be, "Because the Torah was given through Moses, grace and truth came by Yeshua the Messiah". Zola also quotes John 4:23 that we should worship "in spirit and in truth". But if the resurrection was not on Sunday, then the worship is not in truth, and if Zola relied on errant translations and errant interpretations, then neither was the worship based on those errors in "truth". Zola quotes Colossians 2:16 like many other Christians, but in a wrong translation. Zola somehow thinks that the New Covenant in Jer. 31:31-34 removes the Torah. But really, it is talking about the "renewed covenant" and the Torah is mentioned right in vs. 33 as part of it. Finally Zola suggests that Hebrews 4:3 spiritualizes the Sabbath. He suggests that he keeps Sabbath by believing the gospel. That may be "spirit" but it is not "truth". Also, he is probably unaware that Hebrews isn't canonical.
Zola encourages us to read Harold Hoehner's Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ. That's good. I have a copy already. But Jack Finegan's book contains all the data: Handbook of Biblical Chronology. Hoehner leaves out A.D. 34. Finegan includes it. Then Zola tells us that Yeshua was crucified on Friday because the next day was a Sabbath. He argues that the Sabbath was ALWAYS on Saturday. In his words there are "no exceptions". He then cites John 19:31, but does not quote it. However, the term "Sabbath" was also applied to the principle festival days, which could fall on any day of the week. The Pharisees of Yeshua's time, for instance, taught that the annual Passover feast was called, "The Sabbath" in Leviticus 23:11. And the unquoted text? John 19:31 calls that Sabbath a "high day". That means is WAS a feast day, and further, the day before it is called the "preparation of the Passover" (John 19:14). So it wasn't an ordinary Friday preparation. It was the Passover preparation. Is it then true that there are "no exceptions". The Rabbis, Pharisees, Josephus, and even Philo of Alexandria all believed there was an exception, because they all interpreted Lev. 23:11, where it says, "The Sabbath" to be the annual Passover Sabbath. So we must steer away from this tendency to try to win arguments by false absolutism. Absolutisms like "no exceptions" are good for keeping questioning people under your thumb, but they are not useful when they cover up the truth.
Now, Zola was Jewish, and he proceeds to tell us about Jewish time. He departs from the Bible and goes straight to Jewish tradition. The concept of the "onah" (a period of time) that he mentions is described in the Talmud. However, even this traditional source does not give us permission to turn the "three nights" in Matthew 12:40 into two nights. It is not helpful that Zola diverts us from the issue by demonstrating that the days, i.e. part of the daytime Friday, Saturday daytime, and a small part of Sunday daytime are three days by inclusive counting. That I concede. I also concede that inclusive counting is valid. However, the real issue is that if you try to apply it to the nights, even there inclusive counting fails. Inclusive counting never counts the same part of a day or night twice. It can only count the partial day or night once. For this reason, "three nights" cannot be mutated into "two nights".
Now while we conceded to Zola that a part of a day, a whole, and a part are three days by inclusive counting, we must point out that the resurrection was before daylight. Please see John 20:1. Also the arguments that I give on Hosea 6:3 in the Sabbath Resurrection article prove this. Therefore, Zola's view is impossible. There is no third day to count. Not even part of a third day. For it must be clear that when one counts days and nights that the days and nights are counted separately. There must be three nights AND three days. However, the traditional view only has two of each. Matthew 12:40 requires "day" to mean daytime or dawn to dusk. "Night" means "darkness" or dusk to dawn. These definitions are given in Genesis 1:5. Therefore, Zola should not try to solve his problem by invoking a 24 hour day from sunset to sunset. The usage of Matthew 12:40 is not based on a 24 definition of "day", but merely the Genesis 1:5 daylight definition.
Zola's error is clearly shown in calling "Saturday sunset to Sunday morning" the "third day". That time period describes a night, not a day! It is not a 'day' because Matthew 12:40 does not confuse days with nights. Zola is aware of the need for daylight. He says that Yeshua "arose on Sunday morning after sunup". Only the very brief time of daylight can be considered a "day". However, as I pointed out, Hosea 6:3, John 20:1, and other passages tell us that the resurrection was before dawn made anything light. The women just went at dawn. Yeshua precedes and conquers the light. The sun did not win the race.
Zola tells us that "according to the modern way of counting, this spans only two days" meaning Friday to Sunday. What does Zola know about ancient chronology and ancient counting that I don't? Nothing! I use inclusive counting in The Scroll of Biblical Chronology and Prophecy. It is a regular feature, and with it the entire scope of biblical chronology is constructed, and confirms the Wednesday Crucifixion and Sabbath resurrection.
In an effort to make his argument absolute, Zola resorts to the ALWAYS argument again. He says that "the Jewish day always starts at sunset". I really wish he would not confuse a biblical day with a Jewish day. Since the destruction of the Second Temple, the sunset to sunset day has prevailed among Jews with hardly anything else being motioned, except the occasional Rabbi who points out that there were other types of day in the biblical period. Now the very first biblical definition of "day" is the "light". This clearly means dawn to dusk, and it does not mean "night", because Genesis 1:5 gives the definition for "night" right beside it: darkness. So Zola's ALWAYS argument just got flattened between the anvil of reality and the hammer of biblical truth.
And even if one suggests an extended definition of day for Genesis 1 to 24 hours, it is not at all clear that it would begin at sunset. The "setting and morning" formula is not mentioned for the Sabbath day. If one tries to say that the first day began with "setting" he or she must be struck with the fact that there was nothing to set before the first night because there was no light at all. As some 11th century Rabbis pointed out, it is all but certain that "setting and morning" refers to the setting at the end of the first day and then the morning ending the night that comes after that day. The summation of "one day" means either only the daylight preceding the night, or it means the 24 hour period from morning to morning. So the natural 24 hour day was from dawn up to the beginning of the next dawn. The dusk to dusk definition (or sunset to sunset) is reserved for Sabbaths and feast days, because they are sacred time, set apart from natural time.
Further, the morning to morning day was used in the Temple by the Levitical Priests for the purposes of determining the "same day". According to Lev. 7:15, a "peace offering" had to be eaten "the same day", and this "same day" was defined by the limit of "until the morning". Yeshua was our sacrifice. In fact, Paul calls him our "peace" offering. So we may at least expect the timing of Yeshua's sacrifice to follow this pattern of a day for a peace offering. And it does. The following figure shows how this works:
In his closing arguments, Zola appeals to the Christian tradition of "Good Friday". However, this majority tradition among the Gentiles is precisely because the Gentiles did not understand the Jewish Bible. Feast day Sabbaths are not high on the radar of the Gentile Christian. If the Gentile knows anything, or knew anything about Jews in those days, all they knew was about the weekly Sabbath. Further, the majority of Christians apostatized from the faith once delivered to the Saints. They did not want to remember the Sabbath. In fact, after the second Jewish revolt they banned it along with circumcision. Nevertheless, some believers in Yeshua remembered that he died on Wednesday and rose on the Sabbath. There are some amazingly significant traces of history from ancient times that some believed this, which you can find by reading the free online book: The Scroll of Biblical Chronology and Prophecy. At one time a bishop complained that most Christians in his area believed that Christ rose on the Sabbath.
Zola does neglect to tell us that the "first day of the week" passages are really mistranslations of the Sabbath. Matthew 28:1, Mark, 16:1, 2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1, 19 all tell us that the resurrection was on the "first of the sabbaths". Understanding this also requires knowledge of Leviticus 23:15, where in God commands Israel to count "seven sabbaths" after the Passover feast day.
Zola's solution to the synoptic problem of whether Yeshua held the Seder on at the start of the 14th day, or the start of the 15th day is incorrect. In the online book, I discuss the solution given by The Anchor Bible on Mathew by C.S. Mann and W.F. Albright. This commentary was complied with the input of Jewish Scholars. It was a rare ecumenical effort between Christians and Jews. I then adopt the solution, which involves realizing that certain words were not present in the Greek text, and that when spoken in Hebrew the meaning is different.
email: daniel@torahtimes.org