Hi sis,
 
Hope you don't mind me using that appelation, 'sis'.  I think of the doves as brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.
 
Are there still those who believe that Jesus' crucifixion occurred on a Friday?
 
Isn't there overwhelming evidence that the 'sabbath' spoken of in Luke 24:54, Mark 15:42 and John 19:31 isn't necessarily the same sabbath as is spoken of in Mark 16:1.
 
There are other sabbaths for Israel besides the Saturday Sabbaths, and we find those special days so designated in Leviticus 23:24, 23:32 and 23:39.  These four sabbaths occur in the seventh month.  Their timing is based around the ingathering of the vineyards.  They are connected to events which will specifically apply to Israel, for Israel is the LORD's 'vineyard' (see Isaiah 5:7).
 
The LORD's definition of what a sabbath is to be is presented in Leviticus 23:2-3 as the combination of a holy convocation and a day when no servile work is to be done.  This is the definition that can be applied to the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, the seventh day of Unleavened Bread and the morrow after the "seventh sabbath" counted from Firstfruits, which defines the timing of the feast of weeks.  These three days are also sabbaths BY DEFINITION.
 
Without this interpretation, and I concede that it is an interpretation, the words of Jesus himself in Matthew 12:40 do not allow the correct amount of time between the crucifixion and the resurrection.  Jesus is very clear in this passage.  Three nights and three days will never fit between Friday and Sunday, no matter how you interpret the word 'day' and the word 'night'.
 
If we allow Fiday as one of the three required days, even though the body wasn't placed into the tomb until evening; AND if we allow Sunday as one of the days, even though we are specifically told that the tomb was empty before sunrise; so that in Friday, Saturday and Sunday we can come up with three days; we can NEVER account for THREE NIGHTS, because we have only Friday night and Saturday night.
 
Now, that was a long sentence so let's hit it again.  We have Friday (daylight hours), Friday night (hours of darkness) Saturday (daylight hours) Saturday night (hours of darkness) and Sunday (daylight hours).  That's three days and TWO NIGHTS, and we really have to stretch the truth to include Sunday.  Jesus said:

"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."   (Matthew 12:40)

We also have to ask what John meant when he distinguished the sabbath that followed the day of Jesus' crucifixion, and set that particular Sabbath apart from other Sabbaths. 

"The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away."   (John 19:31)

"that sabbath day was an high day"  What did John mean?  He meant the same thing that the Jews mean today when they call the sabbaths of Leviticus 23, "high days".  That sabbath day referred to in John 19:31 was not a Saturday Sabbath, it was a "high day" Sabbath; a high Sabbath.

 

And, there end up being seven such high sabbaths for Israel to observe from Leviticus 23; the four we earlier identified by name, which fall in the seventh month, the two that open and close the feast of Unleavened Bread, and the one that is the feast of Weeks (Pentecost in the New Testament).

So, why didn't God outright identify these other three days with the word Sabbath as He did with those of the seventh month?  Well, I don't know for sure, but I'll hazzard a personal OPINION.  He identified them by saying that Israel was to do no servile work on those days, and that they were to have a holy convocation, but He didn't use the word Sabbath, so as not to confuse the timing of the feast of Weeks.  That timing of the feast of Weeks is determined from a Saturday Sabbath that falls out during the feast of Unleavened Bread.  We are sure that a Saturday Sabbath is the Sabbath spoken of in Leviticus 23:11 BECAUSE God didn't outright call the opening and closing days of the feast of Unleavened Bread, 'Sabbaths', even though those two days meet all of the requirements to be a Sabbath.

The day of the crucifixion of Jesus was followed by a 'high day' Sabbath, not by a Saturday Sabbath.

I hope and pray that I have not confused anyone.

Randy Larson