Rounding and Convention

Matthew says Jesus was in the tomb three days and three nights. The crucifixion is Friday and the rising is Sunday. The list does the arithmetic and calls foul.

Ancient counting often includes the ends. A part of a day counts as a day. That is rounding and convention, not a failed stopwatch.

What the habit is

Modern readers want exact head-counts and exclusive intervals. Biblical writers often:

• Count inclusively (“after three days,” “on the third day”).
• Round to thousands or to a schematic number.
• Report a price in one unit here and another unit there.
• Give a king’s reign from a different New Year than the parallel book uses.

“About five thousand men,” “seventy,” “forty years”: these are real numbers doing conventional work.

Why it is not a contradiction

Two true reports can use two conventions. Friday–Sunday is “the third day” in ordinary Jewish speech of the period. A census of fighting men can omit or include a class the parallel census treats differently. A purchase can be stated as the floor-price in one book and as the whole site in another.

When the digits are so far apart that convention cannot stretch, look at Copyist Numerals instead.

How to test an item

1. Are both numbers round, schematic, or “about”?
2. Does inclusive reckoning make the interval ordinary?
3. Are the units different (shekels vs. a larger weight; cubits vs. a later measure)?
4. Is one writer counting a subset (warriors, firstborn, a tribe) and the other the whole?

Where this type shows up

The specific pairs live in one catalog: Supposed Contradictions. Search that catalog for three days and three nights, the threshing floor, or the Midian plague counts. Each item stamps this type when it is the right tool.

The kinds side by side: Contradictions.