Steve,

You brought up some very powerful points.

You predicated two of them with an all caps bold "IF", which appears to be a very wise thing to do.

On the wordpress website, your words caused me to remember, and consider, what Jesus said:

Matthew 12:38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.

  39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:

  40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

They remembered this, when they asked Pilate to make the sepulcher secure:

Matthew 27:63 Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.

   64 Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first.

Some may consider that they were refering to what Jesus said in John 2:

John 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

  20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

  21 But he spake of the temple of his body.

But at the time of the crucifixion, they still thought that a reference to the temple, not his rising again:

Matthew 26:61 And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.

Matthew 27:40 And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

So, when they mentioned to Pilate:

Matthew 27:63 Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.

It seems that they may have been referring back to:

Matthew 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Which would indicate that they didn't consider that Jonah was only dying in the whale's belly.

But that they, at least, considered that Jonah had died, and after three days, came back, because that is how they applied that to what Jesus said, when they spoke to Pilate.

There were things that Jonah prayed that could have been what caused them to think that:

Jonah 2:2b  out of the belly of hell cried I

Jonah 2:6b  the earth with her bars was about me for ever:

Jonah 2:6c yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption,

Which could then have brought David's words back to their remembrance:

Psalms 16:10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.

So, It may be that the scribes and Pharisees considered that Jonah came back from death.

(But not the Sadducees, since they didn't believe in resurrection.)

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