405
When does Matthew say they came?
“In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week” ([xxviii, 1]).
If they came “in the end of the Sabbath,” and Jesus had already risen, then his resurrection took place, not on the first day of the week, as claimed, but on the seventh day. Matthew was a Jew; yet the author of this Gospel was seemingly ignorant of the Jewish method of computing time, according to which the Sabbath began and ended at sunset. He evidently supposed that the night preceding their visit to the tomb belonged to the seventh day, whereas it belonged to the first day.