“On the third day…”
The Bible says that Jesus was three days in the tomb. He died approximately at 3:00 PM on Friday and rose sometime in the morning on Sunday. 3:00 PM Friday -> Saturday -> Sunday AM is less than 2 days. Is this a situation where we need to look at the times? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are three different days. But the total time is less than two days.
Allow me to pass along the explanation I included in When Christ Walked Among Us.
“Crucified on Friday, raised to life on Sunday. Three days or two? The answer depends on one’s culture and that culture’s methods for tracking time. In the Jewish way of reckoning time, it was three days. That is because of the way in which Jews determined the beginning and ending point of a day and their understanding that any part of a day equaled an entire day. Because the Genesis creation account describes the days consisting of evening and morning, the Jews understood that a day began with the evening. As sunset on Friday marked the beginning of Saturday and the Jews were rushing to remove the bodies from the crosses before twilight, that would mean Jesus’ body was in the grave for a very short time on Friday. One day. His body was in Joseph’s tomb all of Saturday. Two days. Sunset on Saturday denoted the commencement of Sunday. Jesus’ body was in the tomb at that point. Three days. Part of one day, an entire second day and a part of the third day equaled three days according to Jewish thinking. ‘On the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures’” (p. 208).