What Happened Between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection?
The Gospels say relatively little about this interval beyond the burial itself, and Matthew's account of a guard posted at the tomb. Luke notes the women who followed Jesus observed the burial and then rested on the Sabbath in accordance with Jewish law, intending to return afterward to complete customary burial processes. These would have including anointing the body with spices, consistent with normal Jewish burial customs of the period.
This period, sometimes referred to in later Christian tradition as encompassing a "descent to the dead" (reflected in some early creeds), draws on later theological development rather than explicit detail in the earliest Gospel sources, and shouldn't be treated as historically descriptive in the same way as the burial and the later resurrection appearance accounts are.
From a purely historical-critical standpoint, this is the least documented segment of the whole passion and resurrection narrative. This is essentially a gap the Gospels leave largely unaddressed beyond noting the Sabbath rest and the guard. Whatever theological significance later tradition assigned to this interval, it isn't something the primary sources describe in detail, which is itself a notable feature of how the wider narrative is constructed. It may simply be because none of Jesus followers, nor his enemies, ever expected to hear from Jesus again.
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