Did Jesus rise again on the third day or after "three days and nights"?

Jesus said that He would "be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth " (Matthew 12:40). Yet, in Matthew 16:21 and Luke 9:22, He also said that He would “be raised the third day”.  Also, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus said to the resurrected Jesus, “today is the third day since these things happened.” (Luke 24:21).  Paul also wrote, "He rose again the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:4). So, did Jesus rise after three days and three nights, or did He rise on the third day itself? Did Jesus contradict Himself?

​There is no contradiction when we realize that the phrase “three days and three nights” is best understood as a Jewish idiom – i.e. a phrase that does not mean literally what it says, much like our English idiom “kill two birds with one stone”. For the Jews, to speak of doing something after three days was an idiom that actually meant on the third day itself.  This may sound strange to our Western ears, but the Bible makes this clear.
 
For example, King Rehoboam told the Israelites to “depart for three days, then come back to me” (1 Kings 12:5).  However, they did not come back to him after 72 hours. We are told that they came back to Rehoboam on “the third day” (1 Kings 12:12).  Clearly, the Jews understood the phrase idiomatically.
 
Again, in Esther 4:16, we read that the Jews were not to eat or drink “for three days, night or day” and that after this, she would go to see the king.  However, she didn’t go and see the king after 72 hours.  Esther 5:1 says she went “on the third day” itself.  We see again that the Jews understood this phrase rather differently than our Western minds would.  They understood that “after three days, night and day”, actually meant “on the third day”.  It was a Hebraic idiom.
 
Matthew’s Gospel itself makes it very clear that “three days and three nights” does not refer to a literal 72 hours.  The Pharisees said to Pilate:
 
“Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’  Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away…””
(Matthew 27:63-64)
 
Notice that they understood “after three days” to require securing the tomb only “until the third day”.  If they understood “after three days” to mean 72 hours, they would have said “until the fourth day”.  Clearly, they understood the phrase to be an idiom.
 
The fact that it was a Jewish idiom is perhaps why Jesus’ reference to “three days and three nights” is only found in Matthew’s Gospel. As that Gospel was written to Jews, his audience would have understood it. The other three Gospels were not written primarily to Jews. The absence of Jesus’ reference to “three days and three nights” in Mark, Luke and John may be because the Gentile recipients may have misunderstood it.

So, Jesus did not literally rise after three days and three nights. That was a non-literal idiomatic expression. He arose on the third day.