Amber’s Question: Why do you think Christians have ignored the “third day motif” for so long?
Kermit’s Answer: I don’t think Christians have ignored the third day motif in scripture as much as they have failed to recognize its prominence and thus have not sought to understand its significance. Rabbis have understood its prominence, and some have searched out its significance, but largely without success in my opinion. They generally have concluded that it signifies a crisis from which God delivered. I think this is correct except the subtle meaning with regard to the third day intended is more nuanced than that.
So, this Christian failure to recognize the prominence of the third day in scripture is connected somewhat to “the parting of the ways” between church and synagogue and subsequent Christian anti-Semitism. It has only been in the 20th century that a bare few Christian scholars wrote on this subject. As far as I know, there has never been a book written only on this third day motif–viewing it as typology and seeking in-depth to understand its meaning–until my book The Third Day Bible Code.
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