Any mind reads the passages foreshadowing the length of Jesus’ stay in the tomb and thinks, “Umm, that doesn’t match.”

Any modern mind is correct. It doesn’t “match”. The math doesn’t add up.

Additionally, there is a concept I see floating around as I peruse “reasonable” or “rational” Christianity defense websites which compares the calendar of Bible cultures with our calendar. This comparison is literally an exercise in futility. Don’t be duped, Believers. (Pro Tip: If a Christian pulls out a dry erase marker, white board, easel, or pad of paper and pen to explain their point, stop listening. Diagrams and visual aides are not necessary to understand Christian truths. Back to the timeline claim.)

Jesus compares the event to Jonah’s “three days and three nights”. And then every record of the resurrection (“Early! Early Sunday morning—He got up!!) has words which describe that he was only in the tomb for what may be best called two periods of night/dark. Not even the original Jonah account in the OT records the start and stop time of Jonah’s stay in the whale.

This is not a theological problem and I’ll prove it to you. The proof is contained in this tip when discussing with skeptics.

Next time the issue comes up, try this.

“Let me ask you this. Let’s skip to the end and pretend you’re satisfied with the answer to the ‘3 days’ problem. With me? Just imagine I said words and you found them sufficient. After this, how do you propose to handle the ‘heart of the earth’ problem?”

I’m serious. We have all these Christians and non-christians walking around debating how to count, and there is a mutual claim that the individual/being in question will be in the “heart of the earth” for the time period in question.

A practically uniform tenet of the faith is the explicit claim that a borrowed, above-ground tomb was used. Jesus definitely did not have any earth thrown atop his body.

Moreover, even if he would’ve been buried “six feet under”, and even with the analogical heart being located slightly to one side of the top half of the body, the “heart” of planet Earth is proportionally far deeper into the dirt more than a mere six feet.

In the end, the “solution” to both is the same.

And the LORD God Almighty owes you nothing more, by way of explanation, than you’ve had all along. Use your brain, Christians. Getting these moments with skeptics right is serious.

(Also, never forget that no skeptic has a problem with a Christian who honestly says, “Good question. I haven’t thought about that before. I don’t know.” Skeptics have a problem with BS and stupidity.)