BIBLE MATH
The 10 days of Passion Week
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Hello, my name is Tommy B. Saggau, and I was raised in a Bible believing church going family who love the Word of God and want to promote the Gospel. I wrote this book to help prepare young Christians who are getting ready to go off to college. The Barna Group, www.barna.com, a Christian research organization, stated that around 70% of high school students will lose their faith in Jesus after they enter college. Public colleges and even some liberal Christian colleges attack the Bible’s claim on truth and 'inerrancy'. My own experience going to college in the mid 1980’s, was having my Christian faith challenged by my Biology and Philosophy professors. The one criticism that I didn’t have an answer for, was the traditional Easter/Passion week chronology. Good Friday evening through Easter Sunday morning does not and never has added up to the 3 days and 3 nights prophecy that Jesus told his disciples. I discovered that if they could convince you that the Bible had mathematical errors, then your belief in a perfect inerrant Bible could be challenged more easily. If Christian scholars claim the Bible is the perfect word of God, how can this math of Good Friday through Easter Sunday be wrong. If this chronology is wrong, then how can you trust the rest of the Bible? Though I had no answer for this question at the time, the critics were right, and I had to determine whether I was going to continue to believe the traditional theory that I grew up with or find out if the Gospel writers tell us something different. Later in life, when I really started to address this problem, the Lord led me to a question involving two verses. Luke 23:56 (KJV) which states, “And they (the women who followed him) returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” and Mark 16:1 (KJV) which states, “And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.” Looking at an example reveals a glaringly obvious problem. How could the women prepare spices a full 24 hours before they had even bought them? FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY ^ (Sabbath) ^ Luke 23:56 Mark 16:1 The women prepared the spices, / After the Sabbath was past, and then rested on the Sabbath. the women buy the spices As you continue reading this book, I want you to keep in mind two questions. 1. How can you prepare spices 24 hours before you even buy them, and 2. Why would God have the Israelites rehearse the screenplay for the Passion Week over 1400 years only to make major changes to dates and events on opening night? In 1 Corinthians 14:33 it states, ”For God is not the author of confusion.” And in Hosea 4:6 it states, “My people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge.” Let’s read past the confusion and discover the Biblical knowledge that is necessary for us, so our faith is not destroyed when our beliefs are challenged. We will find that the actual passion week is more exciting than the traditional holiday we grew up with.
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About the Book
Tommy B. Saggau found himself woefully unprepared to answer Bible critics when he was in college in the 1980s.
The hardest questions to answer were always those questioning the chronology of Christian traditions. In this book, he painstakingly goes through the ten days of the Passion Week to address the problem that Good Friday through Easter morning has never equaled three days and three nights – no matter how many apologetics we use.
The author seeks to answer questions such as:
As it pertains to the math in the Bible, why have Christian scholars and leaders of the church been willingly ignorant for two thousand years?
Why do modern churches typically stand on the traditional Passion Week chronology as a fact?
How can we be so sure that the God of the Bible is the true God?
Other topics include how Jesus inherited David’s throne through Mary, which corrects two important criticisms of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus; why Jewish scribes removed three kings of Judah; and how Mary is a direct descendant of David in Jesus’s lineage.
Armed with this book, the next time a Christian goes to college or out in the world and faces questions about the Bible, they will have answers.
About the Author
Tommy B. Saggau has been interested in biblical truth since he was a young man. Inspired by authors like J. Warner Wallace, who wrote Cold-Case Christianity, he has applied the investigation skills he learned as a deputy to biblical chronological doctrines that don’t add up. 1 Peter 3:15 states, “Always be prepared to give an answer.”