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Jonah Foreshadows Christ
Jonah was called from among the Jews and sent to save the gentiles with a message of repentance, is this not what our Lord Jesus Christ did? Jesus referred to Jonah being in the belly of the great fish for, "three days and three nights", and that that he would likewise be, "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Other verses say he rose on the third day (compare Matt 12:40 with Mark 10:34). It is easy for us to understand how one might count either inclusively or exclusively and both these statements be true, the question is whether the tradition of a Friday Crucifixion can reasonably be fitted "three days and three nights". I contend it can not.
There is no reason that we must assume there was only one Sabbath during the Holy Passion Week. It seems that it was the assumption that the Sabbath was a Friday night / Saturday morning, that led the church of the middle ages to adopt "Good Friday." In light of Alexander Hislop's work (The Two Babylons) we can see how many Christian traditions, whose birth was in the middle ages, were anchored to a pagan calendar. Easter and Ishtar, Christmas and Saturnalia, and the birth of John the Baptist with the summer solstice. Even the 40 days of lent seem to be derived from the ritual of weeping for Tamuz.
Jonah in many was is a type of Christ but perhaps in no more controversial a way, than in the way he spent "three days and three nights" in the belly of the the great fish that God had prepared for him.
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