January 6, 2025

In the previous post, What Is A Biblical Day, part 1, I wrote about how the instructions regarding the Feast of Unleavened bread define a Biblical day as being from evening-to-evening. In this post I’m going to take a look at how the Gospels describe the early morning as still being dark, or at night.

The gospel of John, chapter 20, tells us that “on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.” Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree: it was very early on the first day of the week when Mary Magdalene arrived at Yeshua’s empty tomb.

Matthew 28: Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

Luke 24: But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.

Mark 16: When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.

We can determine a few things from these texts. For one, it was after the Sabbath on the first day of the week. Also, it was dark when Mary came to the tomb, and she was there until early dawn after the sun had risen. When John’s gospel says it was dark, that means the absence of light. The Greek says σκοτίας, which means darkness due to want of light. It was dark, before sunrise, and the first day of the week.

There is a similar occurrence in Mark chapter 1, where the morning is described as being dark. Mark 1:35 says, “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.” The KJV says “a great while before day,” rather than while it was still dark, and the Greek word is ἔννυχον which means “nightly,” or “nocturnal.” So, it was early in the morning while still nocturnal.

These texts show us plainly that it is still dark very early in the morning. They do not suggest that the light was dawning towards the day, but they specifically say that it was dark very early in the morning. If you have ever gotten up very early in the morning to go on a trip, or go to work for that matter, and see the stars out before the daylight comes – this is what the Bible describes as very early in the morning while it’s still dark. When we take this into consideration, along with the fact that the Feast of Unleavened Bread defines a day as being from evening-to-evening, then there is no problem reconciling an evening-to-evening solar-cycle as what the Bible defines as one Biblical day.