Is the Phrase "First Day of the Week" Properly Translated in the New Testament?

Author's website ^ | Unknown | Todd Derstine

[DouglasKC]

Is the phrase “first day of the week” properly translated in the New Testament?

The entire doctrinal basis of Western Christianity’s observance of weekly Easter, i. e. Sunday, is built around eight places in the New Testament (NT) where the phrase “first day of the week” occurs.  We are going to take a fresh look at the Greek words used by no less than five major writers of New Covenant scriptures, and question whether they have been translated properly.

The KJV translates Acts 20:7 as follows:

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples gathered together to break bread, Paul preached to them, ready to depart on the morrow and continued his speech until midnight.

We are going to analyze the phrase mia ton sabbaton, translated “first day of the week”, and see why various authorities on the scripture prefer the literal

meaning of these words.  An example of a literal translation of this verse may be found in the Concordant Literal New Testament (CLNT)[1]:

Now on one of the sabbaths (mia ton sabbaton) at our having gathered to break bread, Paul argued (dialegetai=had a dialogue, or discussed) with them, being about to be off on the morrow. Besides, he prolonged the word (ie. his teaching) unto midnight (Saturday night).

In Vol. 35 of Word Bible Commentary (p. 1188), admission is made that “the first day of the week” literally means “one of the Sabbaths” in the Greek.   The truth of the matter is that there is no Greek-speaking linguistic scholar or professor who would deny this fact.  I myself have consulted numerous professors of Greek at prestigious universities (such as Dickenson College in Carlisle, PA) who have confirmed the literal meaning of this phrase.  We will prove in this chapter that “first day of the week” is a misrepresentation of the Greek.

Therefore, the mass hypnosis that intellectually transforms this phrase into something other than its literal meaning happens on the presumption that it is an idiomatic expression-- “mia/one” being used for “first,” and “sabbaton” being using for “week,” and “day” being thrown in just so they can make sense out of their non-literal invention.  However, I have yet to find one commentary or lexicon citing an example of mia ton sabbaton

being used idiomatically outside the Bible in other Greek writings.  Therefore, if it is a figure of speech, prove it.  The burden of proof is on the translators.  This they cannot do lexicologically.  They must resort to arguments based on Church traditions that were not in place until Constantine. 

By going with non-literal suppositional words “first” and “week,” they are left with the nonsensical “first week.”  Since this makes no sense in the light of contexts that demand a particular day of the week, they throw in the word “day” as though they are sure it ought to be there, and hocus pocus, we now have an entirely different phrase referring to an entirely different day of the week.  Had those translating out of the Greek not engaged in this imaginative word-play, the myth of a Sunday morning resurrection would never have gained a foothold.  No less is at stake here than the basis in Western Christianity for replacing the seventh day Sabbath with Sunday as the day of worship, because, as scholars too numerous to mention have pointed out, Sunday is nothing other than the weekly celebration of the resurrection.

 

Mia Means One, Protos Means First 

First we consider the Greek word mia.  It means one, as any Greek person will tell you.  I have received the same answer from Greek professors at prestigious universities.  Protos is the Greek word for first. 

It is confusion to suggest that the former is used for the latter.  A study (using an Englishman’s Greek Concordance) of the many places where mia occurs, would show any diligent inquirer that mia always, in context, means one, a certain one, one singularity, the quantity one.  It does not have the meaning first.  In other words, if one were to substitute

“first” in every other place where the word occurs (some 72 times), you end up with nonsensical phrases. How is that mia is only trans-lated “first” where it occurs with sabbaton?   How could they translate “mia” as “first” when they knew that “protos” was the Greek word for

“first”?

Again the answer has to be that the translators brought their preconceived notions into the equation.  But to come up with the plausible construction “first day of the week”, they had to make three other gratuitous assumptions.

 

“Day” Is NOT in the Phrase Mia Ton Sabbaton

The translators, bringing their a priori ideas about the phrase to the translating table, assume that the word “day” needs to be supplied in order to help the reader understand the expression.  But this is true only if the three words in question actually refer to the first day of the week.  If it means one of the Sabbaths, then the word day obviously is not there because it did not need to be there in the first place.

The word “day” is used hundreds of times in the N.T. to refer to various and sundry days, the Sabbath day(s), the third day, the seventh day, the eighth day, the day of Unleavened Bread (Luke 22:7), and even “first day of Unleavened Bread (Mk. 14:12).”  In this latter verse, protee heemera is behind the English words “first day.” 

So if we take the Holy Spirit to be the power that moved the writers, we see that there is precedent for including heemera (day) with “first” to indicate the first day of something.   So the absence of heemera/day in the expression mia ton sabbaton is a strong indication that we are not dealing with a figure of speech, nor with a phrase that requires the word “day” at all in order to be understood.  Instead, it is simply “one of the Sabbaths.”  It makes little sense for the Greek word heemera to be left out of a reference to the first day of the week, but supplied in the expression “First Day of the Unleaveneds (Mk. 14:12).”  This is especially true since none of the days of the week have names in the Bible, except the 7^th day Sabbath.  

There are at least two more presumptions that the lying[2] majority of translators have made that we shall address to prove that the Concordant Literal rendering of this Greek expression is correct.

Sabbaton Is an Imported Word from Hebrew

All scholars, without exception, recognize that sabbaton is not native to the Greek language. 

Because the Greek culture despised the Sabbath, and did not even have a seven day week prior to the Romans taking over, they had no word Sabbath, or sabbaton.  In fact, I have yet to find the word used in the Septuagint (LXX) or writings of the ante-Nicene fathers to refer to first day of the week.  Nor can it be found in any extra-Biblical literature, such as Plato, Socrates, or a plethora of other ancient Greek writings referring to Sunday.  Hence, it was imported from Hebrew by Jewish writers of the New Testament. 

Imported Words are Necessarily Transliterated Words

But imported words always retain the sound of that word in the original language.   Proper names are an example of this.  My name is recognizable phonetically no matter what country I travel to.   And if I listen to the broadcast news in Moscow, I will recognize many names such as George Bush, Washington, D.C., dollar, America(n), etc. because of this principle of transliteration.

Now if a word is imported because it has no equivalent in that language, its meaning in the new language is invariably going to be consistent with the meaning in the original language.  This linguistic truth is axiomatic.  Therefore, it is incumbent upon the translator to ask what the meaning of the imported word was in the original language, and what the writer’s attitude toward that word was.  To this end, we are going to launch an investigation into sabbaton. 

Apparently, it has not occurred to the illustrious translators and erudite commentators to do this.   Had they done so, they never would have imagined that it meant week.

What Was Sabbaton’s Meaning in Hebrew?

The Hebrew word sabbaton is used of weekly Sabbaths (Lev. 23:3), for annual Sabbaths--Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and first and last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:24, 32, 39)—and of land Sabbaths

in Lev. 25:4-5).  It has the same pronunciation in Hebrew as the 3^rd declension of the word in Greek.  In other words, its plural usage in Greek sounds the same as its original in the Hebrew.  It essentially means to cease or pause in Hebrew.   The idea of ceasing in order to rest and be refreshed spiritually, mentally and emotionally is the essential purpose of all Sabbaths.  Hence it was this word,

sabbaton, used only 11 times in the O.T., that was brought over to refer to weekly and annual Sabbaths to mark the activities of our Savior, His apostles, and believers throughout the four gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and in First Corinthians chap. 16.

What Was the Attitude of the New Testament WritersToward the Sabbaths and Holy Days?

There is no repudiation of the commands to keep the Sabbath or holy days anywhere in the N.T.  Modern research into the historical Jesus admits that Christ Himself upheld every jot and tittle of the Law (Mt. 5:17-19), even claiming (somewhat erroneously) that Yeshua had few differences philosophically with the Pharisees.  Paul said in Hebrews 4:9 that “there remains…the keeping of a Sabbath

(sabbatismos) to the people of God.”   Paul told his Colossian converts:

“Let no one judge you in [your] eating and drinking, or in respect of a festival, or of a new moon, or Sabbaths, which are shadows of things to come (Co. 2:16).

If they had been done away, then he would have said they were shadows.   Since they were Gentiles before Paul converted them to “Pauline theology,”

then we don’t need to speculate about them having been Sabbath, New Moon, and Holy Day keepers prior to his evangelizing them.  Obviously they became that as a result of His converting them to Yeshua the Savior and His strict requirement of maintaining the paradosis/traditions which Paul delivered to them (I Cor. 11:2, II Thes. 2:15, et al.).

Besides, in I Corinthians chapters 5 and 11, we have explicit language indicating that the Corinthian Church was keeping Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.  The Church itself was born on Pentecost in Acts 2, and the rest of the book is a chronology based on Sabbaths and various Jewish holy days throughout.  IF THE HOLY SPIRIT WERE TRYING TO LEAD THE CHURCH AWAY FROM KEEPING THE SABBATHS AND HOLY DAYS, THEN WHY USE THEM AS THE CHRONOLOGICAL BACKBONE FOR THE MISSION WORK OF PAUL AND THE OTHER APOSTLES IN THE BOOK OF ACTS.

The same question might be asked of Yahweh’s delaying the birth of the Church and the pouring out of His Holy Spirit until Pentecost, a full fifty days after Christ’s Resurrection.  This would be highly unusual, to say the least. 

Rather, the attitude of the writers inspired by the Holy Spirit is that these special days are still in force, still being regarded highly by the apostles and the Church.  And there are scholars of various persuasions who recognize this fact, i.e. that the Sabbaths and holy days represent the definitive time markers of Luke’s writings and Paul’s missionary endeavors throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. Similar dissertations have been written about Matthew and the book John. 

Where did they get this attitude?  Obviously from Matt. 5:17-19 and Yeshua’s pro-Torah teaching.  None of this was changed as a result of Paul’s three years in Arabia (Mt. Sinai) with Yeshua.  Rom. 3:31:

“Do we nullify the law through faith?   May it never be coming to that (God forbid)!  Nay rather, we establish the Law [through faith, an ellipsis of syntax].”

“Yahweh sent Yeshua in the likeness of sinful flesh, so that He might condemn sin in the flesh, in order that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit.” (Rom. 8:4)

Considering that the Sabbath and Passover continued to be observed up until the 4^th Century in the Western Roman Empire, throughout the British Isles until the 7^th Century, and among various Churches in Asia Minor and the eastern Roman empire for centuries beyond that, and considering that this reality was based on people’s understanding (though in many places these people were in the minority) of the apostolic attitude toward the Fourth Commandment and the Law of Moses, it becomes rather impossible to suggest that the Jewish men who wrote the four gospels could take the strictest word for sabbatizing and use it to refer to Sunday, the worship day of most pagan religions.  Sunday was nothing to them but a work day. 

A Fourth Translational Assumption:  Sabbaton -- Is It Plural or Singular?

The question we are trying to answer is whether the phrase mia ton sabbaton can possibly mean first day of the week.  As we focus on the word “sabbaton”

and its meaning, we must also note that it is used in the plural in the passages under consideration.  When referring only to singular Sabbath days, it never has the letter “n” on the end of it.  As noted in The New Englishman’s Concordance and Lexicon, sabbaton is the plural form of a noun that is either in the singular (2^nd declension) or plural (3^rd declension). In all of the seven places where mia ton sabbaton occurs--Mt. 28:1 (mian sabbaton), Mk. 16:2 (mias sabbaton), Lk. 24:1, Jn. 20:1,19, Acts 20:7, I Cor. 16:2 (these five all have mia ton sabbaton)—the word sabbaton

is in the third declension of the noun, meaning it is plural.   This means that if the word meant week at all, then it would have to be in the plural, weeks.

But since the translators are insistent on bringing their preconceived notions to the phrase, i.e. that the phrase must mean first day of the week, they know that first day of the weeks would not make any sense.  So they simply ignore its proper declension, and pass over the fact that the word sabbaton is plural.

This makes for very nice historical fiction, but very poor scholarship.  It would not be so bad if we were dealing with an event on par with whether or not George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day or some other day, but instead we are dealing with whether Christ arose on a Sunday or a Saturday, thus either establishing sol invictus venerable (the day held to honor various  pagan Sun gods), or Saturday, the day hearkening back to Yahweh’s renewal of the face of the earth in Genesis chapter 1, and the creation of Mankind in His image and likeness.   In short, we are dealing with a subject of the utmost magnitude, one that either legitimizes the decisions made by Constantine and His bishops in the 4^th Century, or legitimizes Passover and the Sabbath of Yahweh God.  The diligent student of Church history will know what is at stake here; the modern television Christian who comes once a week Saturday or Sunday morning to suck on his bottle will have no clue.  That is why when this thesis finally makes the rounds of academia, and when this dissertation is circulated among the halls of theological seminaries far and wide, I predict there will be a hew and cry of disbelief and emotional objection.   And the antagonism will be palpable.

The Greek Word for Week—Known in the 1^st Century

How would the Jewish authors of the N.T. have gone about conveying the idea of a seven day week in Greek?  If you were a Jewish religious writer composing one of the books of the N. T., what Greek word would first Century readers and writers have been familiar with that would have conveyed the idea of a week?  The answer to that question is found in the Septuagint (circa 280 B.C.), a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that was widely available in the time of Yeshua.  The Septuagint uses the word hebdomadas

(os) to translate the Hebrew word for week, which is shavua.

• Hepta hebdomadas is used in last part of Lev. 23: 15 for the seven weeks you are to number to get to the 50^th day, called Pentecost.   Until the morrow after the last week (eschatees hebdomados) shall you number 50 days.

• Deut. 16:9--Hepta hebdomadas exarithmateis (seven weeks shall you number), and you shall keep the feast of weeks (heopteen hebdomadon).

• The seventy weeks prophecy of Dan. 9 also uses this word hebdomadas a number of times.

 

There can be little doubt that this Greek word for week would have been chosen by John, Matthew, Mark, Paul and Luke had they sought to convey the idea of the first day of the week.  How do we know this?  Because the Septuagint (LXX) was used in all the synagogues of Asia Minor, Achaia, and Macedonia, and Greece.  We are confident of this fact because of the large number of Hellenistic Jews, Greek proselytes, and God-fearers among the Gentiles who attended synagogue in these places, as is evident in the accounts throughout the book of Acts.  We know that the word sabbaton was used in the LXX in the same way as in the N.T. to refer to weekly and annual Sabbaths.  It is logical to assume that had they desired to mention “the first day of the week,” they would have used hebdomados. 

The fact that these same N.T. writers do not use hebdomados anywhere in the New Testament, indicates they had no intention to convey the idea of “week.”

It was throughout these synagogues that Paul preached from Sabbath to Sabbath.  The thousands of Greek-speaking believers that were converted to the Gospel would have been familiar with the language of the Septuagint. It must be argued that the motivation for putting the story of Yeshua’s life and ministry into Greek largely came from the needs of all these congregations.  Not only did they need to be able to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in Greek, but there would have naturally been widespread interest in a chronicle of the early Church, the Acts of the Apostles, and particularly their “father”

in the faith, i.e. the Apostle Paul.  And when Paul wrote the brethren in Corinthians, it needed to be in Greek.  It would have been very confusing indeed to refer to Sunday by nomenclature foreign to   the LXX, but which had hitherto only been used therein to refer to the Sabbath(s) of the Lord.   Thus the six books that contain some variation of mia ton sabbaton --Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and I Corinthians -- were intended for a Greek-speaking Church that had taken on Jewish customs and nomenclature, as we have seen.   The use of sabbaton to refer to the first day of the week would have been without precedent.

The first day of the week is never called “Sabbath” in the N.T.  On this point, there is no controversy among professors and students of the N.T. 

Why, then, do they imagine that the writers of the N.T. used the imported word sabbaton and applied it to the first day of the week??  This is a non-sequitur whose damage has run its course, but whose heyday will be soon be over, if I have anything to say about it.

The Definitive Sunday thru Saturday WEEK of Luke 18:12

 

Does this mean that the writers of the N.T. never wished to convey the idea of a week?   The one place where it is fairly certain that a Sunday through Saturday week was meant (Luke 18:12), the words “tou sabbatou”

are used.  It is important to note they are singular (2^nd declension).  Notice the Pharisee prays with himself, saying, “I fast twice a week (tou sabbatou).” (Wm. Barclay’s N.T.)

The Concordant Literal is equally accurate:  “I fast twice of a Sabbath.”  In this instance, Sabbath is being used metonymously to represent the seven day period for which it is the culmination.  There is a well-known precedent for this in the Old Testament--the unique method (as compared to the other holy days) given for counting to the Feast of Firstfruits (Pentecost) in Lev. 23.  When one counts toward Pentecost Sunday in Lev. 23:15-16, seven Shabbats were counted. 

“Seven Sabbaths shall be complete” is how it is phrased in Lev. 23:15.  The Hebrew word here can only be construed as the weekly Sabbath.  It was called the Feast of weeks (shavuot) in Exod. 34:22 and Deut. 16:10, but those weeks were perfect seven-day periods ending with Saturdays.  The morrow after the 7^th Sabbath was the 50^th day, which constituted the total number of days to be counted (Lev. 23:16).  Based on this, the Pharisee of Luke 18 is saying he fasts twice per weekly Sabbath period, Sabbatou being used by metonymy for the week it consummates.

But the fact that the Holy Spirit uses the singular words “tou sabbatou” in Luke 18 when intending to convey the concept of a week, leads us to question why Luke would not also use the singular in Luke 24:1 and Acts 20:7 [mia ton sabbaton (plural) occurring in both verses] to convey “the first day of the week,” if that is what he had meant.   The contrast between singular and plural usages of tou(on)

sabbatou(on) by gospel writer Luke, proved that when the Holy Spirit wanted to convey a single week, as in Luke 18:12, the singular was used, but when he wanted to convey “one of the Sabbaths”, he used the plural (ton sabbaton).  These facts may be confirmed by checking with the Englishman’s Greek Concordance.  We will see further confirmation when it is shown that Yeshua rose from the dead at the beginning of a weekly Sabbath. 

The Concordant Literal N.T. has translated the word sabbaton correctly as “sabbaths”

in the seven places where mia and sabbaton occur together.  The Concordant Publishing Concern has absolutely no doctrinal axe to grind, since their other literature in no way promotes the Sabbath.  They have stuck to their literal guns, as it were, and our investigation is going to show just how justified they were in translating these expressions literally. 

The Inconsistency of the Translators Highlighted by Their Treatment of Sabbaton

In none of the other 60 places where sabbaton (pl.) occurs in the N.T. do the translators translate it week, but only where it is part of the phrase mia ton sabbaton.  That in itself is quite telling on the translators.[3]   This inconsistency belies a remarkable willingness to buttress the Friday-Sunday mythology which undermines the sign of Christ’s Messiah-ship--that He would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt. 12:40).  The confusion comes from one blind scholar following the rest of the blind scholars unwilling to submit to the righteousness of the Sabbath command.  Their lack of understanding stems from their rejection of the foundation of wisdom, which is Yahweh’s Law.  Notice Hos. 4:6:

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you rejected the knowledge, I also reject you as My priest; Because you have spurned and forgotten the teaching/Law [Heb. is torah here] of your God, I, in turn, will spurn and forget your children. (translated from JPS and Green’s Int.) 

If the scholars and translators sincerely do not understand, then we cannot ignore the root cause.  Ps. 111:10 tells us:

 The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do His commandments. 

The Implications of the Correct Translation of Mia Ton Sabbaton  

In this study, it will be demonstrated that in each of the eight places where “first day of the week”

occurs, it makes more sense that each of the passages is referring to a weekly Sabbath. Later we shall demonstrate a different way to configure the three days and three nights (from Tuesday through Friday) in the actual year of the crucifixion of Christ (31 A.D.).  A new chronology will be proffered--one that accommodates our newfound understanding of mia ton sabbaton, but also jives with the facts of the Mosaic calendar in that year.  In so doing, we will have finally harmonized the passion accounts of scripture with the demands of Yahweh’s calendar, in a way that the sabbatarian Church of God’s Wednesday-Saturday scenario failed to do.

Acts 20:7: Paul’s Meeting in Troas on Mia Ton Sabbaton 

Now we are ready to go back to the start of this chapter, and Paul’s meeting with the brethren in Troas.  It was here that Paul had a vision to go into Macedonia to preach the gospel (Acts 16:8).  In 20:6 Paul arrived there early in the week (on Sunday, as we shall see), and abode there seven days.  V. 7, quoted at the head of this paper, says:

Now on one of the sabbaths (mia ton sabbaton) at our having gathered to break bread, Paul argued (dialegetai=had a dialogue) with them, being about to be off on the morrow. Besides, he prolonged the word (ie. his teaching) unto midnight (Saturday night). (CLNT) 

There is substantial lexicological and linguistic analysis up to this point to substantiate that this meeting was on a weekly Sabbath, and there is plenty of contextual evidence in the book of Acts to prove that these formal get-togethers throughout Paul’s missionary journeys were on Sabbaths.  

The Preponderance of Sabbath Meetings in Paul’s Ministry in the Book of Acts 

Acts 17:2 says: 

Paul, according to his manner (etho = customary habit), went into them (in the synagogue), and reasoned three Sabbath days with them out of the scriptures. 

Luke used the same identical words to describe Yeshua’s custom of entering into the synagogue on the Sabbaths in Luke 4:16.  So Paul was no different.  Many theologians and the more erudite radio preachers realize that Paul spent three years in Arabia with Christ, and got His teaching directly from Yeshua there.  There is not a scintilla of evidence that meetings were switched from Saturday to Sunday in the book of Acts.  On the contrary, Paul preached Christ in the synagogues immediately after his conversion (Acts 9:20)

At the conclusion of the first Apostolic Conference in Acts 15, James said that the new Gentile converts to the Way would be able to grow in righteousness by having Moses read to them in the synagogues every Sabbath day. 

At the start of their commission from the Holy Spirit, Paul and Barnabas came to Salamis (Acts 13:5), the first port they reached on the east end of Cyprus. They preached the word of Yahweh in the synagogues of the Jews. In Acts 13:14 Paul and his company entered into a synagogue with a sizable Gentile constituent in Antioch of Pesidia.  The Jews largely rejected the forgiveness of sin that was offered them through Paul’s powerful presentation of Yeshua, but the Gentiles received the Word gladly, and besought Paul that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath (Acts 13:42).  The following Sabbath, almost the whole [Greek] city came together, to the chagrin and envy of the Jews.  In Acts 14:1 Paul and Barnabas went into the synagogue in Iconium and spoke so powerfully, that Yahweh made Believers out of a great multitude of both Jews and Greeks.

Acts 16:13-15 described Sabbath worship with Lydia and those accustomed to praying by the river side near Philippi in Macedonia.  In Acts 17:10 Paul and Silas went into a synagogue in Berea, and many honorable Greek women and men believed.  In Acts 18:4 Paul reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath at Corinth, reasoning with the Jews and the Greeks.  The same story was repeated in Ephesus (Acts 18:19 and 26; 19:8).   According to Dr. John Lightfoot, in towns where there were many Jews and where they had a synagogue, the Jews established Divinity schools.  Such a school, that of Tyrannus, is mentioned in Acts 19:9.[4] 

He may have been a Rabbi who converted. The teaching and miracles at the hands of Paul that occurred here during two years caused virtually everyone in Asia Minor to hear the word. 

Virtually every significant evangelistic opportunity delineated by the Holy Spirit in these accounts took place either on a Sabbath, and/or in a synagogue, or at a rabbinic school. 

Why then, in Acts 20:7, is it logical to conclude that all of a sudden there was a Sunday meeting?  On the contrary, one would be completely justified in assuming the mia-ton-sabbaton meeting mentioned here was just another “one of the [many] Sabbaths” already described at every other city where he witnessed.  Here, however, Timothy, Gaius, Tychicus, Trophimus, Aristarchus, Secundus and Sopater were all waiting at Troas for Paul to arrive.   Paul was finished preaching in Greece and Macedonia, and it was time to celebrate the fruits of his labor via a fellowship meal with the disciples in Asia Minor who partly owed their eternal life to Paul’s efforts. 

Luke’s Use of Mia Ton Sabbaton in Luke 24:1 Proves Sabbath Resurrection

We now commence our investigation into the resurrection narrative contained in the four gospels.  We pick it up where we left off—with the writings of the same beloved physician who wrote the book of Acts—with Luke, who also wrote the Gospel account bearing his name.  Having proven that the evangelistic activity in Acts centered around the synagogue and Sabbath meetings, and having proven that mia ton sabbaton

in Acts 20:7 was just one such mikra kodesh (holy convocation) on “one of the Sabbaths” after Unleavened Bread, we now turn our attention to Luke’s use of mia ton sabbaton in Luke 24:1.  I quote from the CLNT: 

1)  Now in the early depths (wee hours of the morning) of one of the sabbaths (mia ton sabbaton), they, and certain others together with them, came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they made ready.  2) 

And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. 

They could not have prepared these spices before having bought them.  To discover when the women bought the spices, we must turn to the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel.  But before we do so, it is important to note one other important detail in Luke’s narrative, in the verse right before Luke 24:1.  He tells us the women “rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment” after preparing the spices and ointments.  Thus, they finished the laborious work of preparing the herbs and oils prior to the start of the Sabbath, which began at Friday sundown.

The Gospel of Mark Gives Important Details on When Spices Were Purchased (Mark 16:1) 

Since Matthew and Luke seem to use verbatim many of the same stories about Yeshua’s life that are found in Mark, most scholars consider Mark to be the earliest gospel.  And so we will continue our investigation of the resurrection narrative in Mark 16:1: 

At the elapsing of the Sabbath (we will demonstrate thoroughly that this Sabbath had to be the First Day of Unleavened Bread), Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, buy spices, that coming, they should be rubbing (anointing) His body. (CLNT) 

“Buy” is the correct tense of the verb in verse 1.  “Had bought” of the KJV is recognized by all commentators and Greek scholars to be incorrect.  Even the New KJV corrects “had bought” to “bought.”  

Flagrant Mistranslation of “Bought” by KJV Indicative of Pressure From Anglican Church Hierarchy and King James 

We know from the forward to the 1611 King James Bible that its translation committee performed their work under a certain amount of duress, charged as they were from the outset by King James and the Anglican authorities WITH UPHOLDING THE OFFICES AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.  Chief among those institutions was Easter Sunday (and its resultant switch from Saturday to Sunday as the day of worship), and “Good Friday”.

The fact that the King James translators deliberately put the action of buying the spices into the past perfect tense (as an action already completed prior to that Sabbath), shows blatant disregard for what they knew was the tense of the Greek word “bought.”  They knew there was a problem for the institution of Good Friday and Easter Sunday if the text showed them purchasing spices AFTER THE SABBATH.  They knew that if the Passover were on Friday, then there was virtually no time to have bought the spices, nor time to prepare them (Lk. 24:1)! 

Matt. 27:57 shows that Joseph of Arimathea got permission to take Yeshua’s body off the cross and place Him in the tomb as evening was approaching (i.e. at the end of Passover Day).  There would have been no shops open for purchasing anything in and around Jerusalem this late on the 14^th, as Alfred Edersheim and Jewish writings show. Friday sundown to Saturday sundown is out of the question, as all the Jewish businesses would have been shut down for the Sabbath.  Luke 23:54-56 proves that the spices were prepared by these women prior to resting on the weekly Sabbath.  Thus when we combine Mark 16:1 with the account in Luke 23, we prove that the spices were bought on the work day following the annual Sabbath, but prepared prior to the weekly Sabbath.   Hence, there had to be some work days in between the two Sabbaths mentioned. It was during these interim days of Unleavened Bread that the women prepared their sweet spices.

The same things could be said with their presumptuous translations of mias sabbaton (one Sabbath) in Mk. 16:2 and protee sabbatou (first Sabbath) in verse 9 into “first day of the week.”  In this they sycophantically prostrated themselves before the erroneous translation work of everyone before them, especially Jerome and the Latin Vulgate.  Even though they were not the first to engage in this lame linguistic carelessness, it nevertheless remains one of the most egregious cases of eisigesis in the history of translation.  

To say that they were afraid for their lives is not an overstatement.  Had the translation been allowed to cast doubt upon the switch from Saturday to Sunday as the day of worship), and upon the Easter tradition of “Good Friday,” there would have been serious repercussions from the educational/religious establishment, not  to mention King James Himself.

It would be another couple of centuries before the hegemony of the Anglican Church waned, allowing for enough intellectual freedom to explore a better resolution of the insurmountable problems presented by the Friday-Sunday quandary of orthodoxy.    Chief among these solutions was the work of E.W. Bullinger.[5]  In Appendices 144 and 156 of his Companion Bible, he lays out his explanation of the three days and three nights that Christ was in the tomb.  He believed they stretched from Wednesday sundown to Saturday sundown.  While this was a great improvement over the Good Friday/ Easter Sunday hypothesis of mainstream Christianity, there were other factors Bullinger did not consider when choosing Wednesday as the day of the crucifixion.  Several factors that must be considered are:  

1.Astronomy-Because of the nature of the Hebrew calendar, the science of astronomy limits the years in which you can have a Wednesday Passover.

2. The facts of the true, Biblical Hebrew calendar- The true Hebrew calendar, and consideration of the lunar cycles (upon which the holy days are based), make a Wednesday Passover in 31 A.D. fall on April 25, which is almost a week too late.  We explore in a later chapter the various reasons why April 25 is wrong, and why a Wednesday Passover in 30 A.D. utterly fails to incorporate the facts of the Hebrew Calendar. 

3.The truth about mia ton sabbaton (and protee sabbatou)-The resurrection was discovered on a Sabbath/Saturday morning.  Since a Wednesday crucifixion forces the resurrection to be on late Saturday,  we would be forced to ignore all the facts brought forward in this chapter, which require the women at the tomb no later than a Saturday morning.

Many of the Sabbatarian Church of God 7^th Day, Armstrong, and Sacred Name groups relied heavily on Bullinger’s appendices when putting forward their explanation of the fulfillment of Matt. 12:40.  And as Bullinger states, it was a lack of awareness of the High Day Sabbath at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (and the fact that this High Day was a different day than the weekly Sabbath that year) that led to much of the confusion about the chronology of the Passion Week.   Until the waning years of the 20^th Century, it seems almost no one tried to reconcile Bullinger’s chronology for the Passion week with the realities of the Hebrew calendar.  In other words, God’s calendar greatly restricts the years that will accommodate all the facts.  These competing realities led to this present work.  

What Was Involved in the Preparation of Spices and Ointments? 

Many in America today use high quality essential oils for deodorizing their houses and for therapeutic rubbing onto the skin.  These oils are very expensive, often running anywhere from $40.00 to $150.00 per ounce.  The ointment that was poured on Yeshua at Simon the leper’s house, just days prior to His arrest, was very costly.  It was worth more than one year’s wages.  The extravagance lies not just in the cost of the spices and ground herbs, but in the time and process used in the preparation.  Preparing essential oils involves extracting the essence of the bark, leaf, or root.  This requires laborious grinding of the raw material, and then soaking same in strong alcohol solution.  Alternatively, it requires boiling steam up through the spices to extract the oil, condensing the steam, and separating the water from the oil. 

Since the quantity of spices necessary for anointing burial wrappings of a human body is considerable, it would have required a large amount of time to prepare them in this way.  Had Luke told us that the women brought spices already prepared by someone else, we could possibly account for a Saturday night purchase (still quite unlikely).  But when Mark 16:1 tells us that they bought them on the 16^th of Aviv, and then Luke tells us they personally prepared the spices, we are looking at time parameters that probably required two work days in between the High Day 15^th and Friday sundown, when the women ceased and rested according to the Commandment (Lk. 23:56).  This is but one of several objections to the Wednesday sundown--Saturday sundown scenario, which allows only one work day (Friday) between the burial and resurrection [Thursday being the High Day]. 

Women Came to the Tomb Early on the Sabbaton in Mark 16 

Continuing with our investigation of the resurrection narrative, we go to Mark 16:2, where mias sabbaton occurs: 

 And very early in the morning on one of the Sabbaths [mias sabbaton], they are coming

to the tomb.   At the rising of the sun they said to themselves, “Who will be rolling away the stone for us out of the door of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away…And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe, and they were overawed.  Now he is saying to them, “Be not overawed!  Ye seek Yeshua, the Nazarene, the Crucified.  He is risen!  He is not here!  Perceive the place where they laid Him!  

But go, say to His disciples and to Peter, that He is preceding you into Galilee.  There you shall see Him, according as He said to you.”  And, coming out, they fled from the tomb, for trembling and amazement had filled them.  And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.  (v.9) Now, having risen [Greek is in the aorist tense, that is, it is here describing an action completed at a time in the indefinite past, i.e. prior to Mary arriving at the tomb], early first Sabbath (Protee sabbatou) He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.(CLNT)

Translating protee sabbatou into “the First day of the week” is gratuitous, for three of the four reasons already discussed.  I have left out “on the” because there is no prepositional phrase.  “Early first Sabbath” is telling us when He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, who probably separated from the other women as they fled from the tomb.

Question: Why call it “first Sabbath”?  First Sabbath after what?

 Answer:  Protee sabbatou simply refers to the first weekly Sabbath after Passover.[6]  See footnote.

Should the Last Twelve Verses of Mark (Mk. 16:9-20) Be There?

The last twelve verses of Mark provide important details about events after the resurrection, but most modern critics are in agreement that the last twelve verses of Mark 16 are not an integral part of his Gospel.  Modern translators question the authenticity of these twelve verses because they are omitted by two of the three oldest uncial manuscripts in our possession today—Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Vaticanus.  There are, however, 18 other uncials (a MS. using all CAPS) and some 600 cursive MSS., none of which leaves out these twelve verses. 

Jerome, who had access to Greek MSS. older than any now extant, includes these twelve verses in the Latin Vulgate version, which was largely his effort in the early 5^th Century.  But Jerome’s Vulgate was only a revision of the VETUS ITALA, which dates to the 2^nd Century, which also contains these twelve verses. There are nearly a hundred ecclesiastical writers older than the oldest of our Greek codices: 

and two hundred additional writers between 300 A.D. and 600 A.D. who all refer to these twelve verses.  The Gothic Version (A.D. 350), the Coptic and Sahidic Versions down in Egypt (4^th C.), The Armenian Version (5^th C.), the Ethiopic (Cent. 4-7), the Georgian (6^th C.) all bear witness to the genuineness of these verses.[7] 

In addition, we would be remiss if we did not mention the thorough-going mathematical analysis of the letters (consonants, and vowels), nouns, proper nouns, etc. done by E.W. Bullinger’s contemporary, Ivan Panin, which proved a kaleidoscope of numerical patterns in the text of Mark 16:9-20 similar to all the other scriptures.  These numerical patterns are unique to God-breathed scripture, and cannot be found in the literature of mere mortals unmoved by the Holy Spirit.  Ivan Panin was uniquely qualified to make such an assessment, having taught the classics, English and Russian literature at Harvard in the late 19^th Century.  He was also an accomplished mathematician.

What Theological Problems Did Mark 16:9-20 Give To Theologians? 

So why did some of the monks and professional copyists make the decision to leave out vss. 9-20?  That is a very good question.  I offer three reasons which will bring us back to our original thesis:

1. 4^th

   Century orthodoxy was hell-bent on shoving its brand of religion down the throat of every sect that named the name of Christ.   Part of that orthodoxy was the Trinity, and baptizing using the Trinitarian formula of Matt. 28:19, which can be shown to be a doctored verse of scripture.[8]   Mark has Yeshua saying “these signs shall fully follow in those who believe: In My name they shall be casting out demons”, etc.  After Nicea, to emphasize the new-found equality of the tripartite Godhead, all sacraments were pronounced in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19), which Eusebius recognized to be a specious interpolation of copyists.

2. Unfortunately, the signs which Yeshua promised would accompany His True Believers were not forthcoming for the state-church or any of the other Torah-hating, Jew-hating, woman-hating sects, orthodox or not. 

   Yahweh afforded the orthodox nothing to confirm their glorified heresy.  No doubt, due to the lack of signs and healings in the marcionized, anti-Law, anti-Jewish, anti-Sabbath, anti-Passover quarters of the Church world where Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus originated, there was concern that Christ’s words in vss. 16-18 made them look bad.[9]

3. But why truncate the gospel beginning with verse 9?  I believe it was done for theological reasons.  The establishment of Easter was at stake.  It is here in Mk. 16:9 that we have perhaps the most incontrovertible evidence Christ did not rise from the dead on a Sunday morning.  Here, and here alone (as we explained above), the two words protee Sabbatou [first Sabbath (after Passover)] are used to tell us when He first appeared to Mary Magdalene.  But by then, He had already risen at some point in the indefinite (aorist) past.  Protee Sabbatou simply cannot be what the translators so desperately want it to be (“first day of the week”). 

If the true understanding of the text of Mark casts a shadow over the possibility of a Sunday resurrection, how then, thought Constantine and his bishops, would they be able to draw all the Mithra-worshipping, Sun-venerating, sun-worshippers of the empire into the new fold?   How unify the disintegrating Empire?   Nicea and its aftermath made for good politics, lousy theology, as many scholars have come to realize.

If this is true that He rose on a Sabbath, then there goes your Easter Sunday resurrection. There goes everything the so-called “Fathers of the Church” lived and died for. There goes Constantine’s Council of Nicaea, there goes the primacy of the Roman see, and the coerced unity of the Roman Catholic Church.  And if Christ rose on a Sabbath, then the same reasons that were used to supplant the 7^th Day Sabbath, i.e. the weekly celebration of the resurrection on Sunday, must now be used to glorify the weekly Sabbath, of which Christ said He was Lord.

And consider what was at stake if Mark 16:9 could be allowed to stand casting its aspersions on the “first day of the week.”  I quote Encyclopedia Britannica’s summation of the importance of the Council of Nicaea to the Catholic Church:

 

The Council of Nicaea marks an epoch in history of the conception of the Christian Religion, in that it was the first attempt to fix the critieria for Christian orthodoxy (by means of definitely formulated pronouncements on the content of Christian belief)—the acceptance of these criteria being made a sine qua non of membership of the Church.  Moreover, it admitted the principle that the State might employ the secular arm to bring the Christian subjects of the Roman Empire under the newly codified faith.  [In other words, if you want to be a Christian, this is what you must believe.] The Nicene Council represents an important stage in the development of the state-Church.  

Yeshua and the Apostle Paul forbade anyone lording it over the believers’ faith. Only Bible illiterates (like Constantine) were/are ignorant of this truth.  So we will not belabor the point.  But when we ponder the benefits that Constantine bestowed upon the orthodox bishops and their Churches at Nicaea and via the state welfare system, plundering the gold and wealth of the pagan temples for the benefit of the state-church, etc., we scarcely wonder that the more erudite among them would have looked with a jaundiced eye at the threat posed to them by protee sabbatou in Mk. 16:9.  So it is with suspicion that we ponder the coincidence of the 4^th Century origin of Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and their convenient omission of Mark 16:9ff. 

Frankly, it is not a stretch to suggest that Constantine was like Satan offering the Church the whole world and the dominion thereof, as long as they did his bidding, and the Church said, “That sounds like a good deal.”  

Before Constantine was dead in 337, the bishops already had way too much to lose. But as Burkhardt says in The Era of Constantine the Great, the Church lost its soul in the process.  

Mark 16:9-20 represented a threat to the authenticity of the state-church in so many ways.  Seen through the eyes of the literary criticism, it does not make sense that Mark would end his book with verse 8.   The women are told here to go and tell Yeshua’s disciples what they have seen (the empty tomb), that Yeshua is risen.  But instead they tell no one because they are afraid.  In contrast, in chapter one the book begins with a leper who is expressly forbidden from saying anything to anybody about his healing; Christ tells him to report directly to the priest at the Temple, and bring for his cleansing what Moses commanded (Lev. 14:3-13).  Instead, he blazes abroad the word, violates Christ’s charge, which in turn causes havoc in all the towns round about, preventing Yeshua from entering into any city.  How ironic is it to have a leper, who Yeshua was very angry with [casting him out of His midst (Mark 1:41-44)], do exactly what the women failed to do due to fear, and have the book end in this way.  If Mark ends the book with verse 8, then he makes the women out to be the opposite of what they are in the three other gospels.  Some of these women who followed Christ had given of their possessions to sustain Christ’s ministry early on (Luke 8:3).  Those familiar with the resurrection accounts know the women were the heroes of the story.  They were:

1. The first to note where He was laid.

2. The first followers to see, speak to, and embrace the risen Christ.

3. The first to notice the stone rolled away and observe an empty tomb.

4. The first to believe in the resurrection.  It took hours and, in some cases, days before the male disciples believed, even after they heard first-hand testimony.  Yeshua berated them for their unbelief and hardness of heart (Mark 16:14).

5. Possessed with the courage and faith that they will be able to sneak past the authorities in the wee hours of the morning with their prepared spices, and be able to get inside the tomb, despite knowing ahead of time that a very great stone had been rolled into place (see Mark 15:46-47). 

So how can you end the gospel (which means good news) with these same women disobeying an explicit command of an angel to go tell the disciples.  It make no literary or common sense whatsoever, especially when verses 9-20 are the most powerful, upbeat, positive, encouraging twelve verses anywhere in the four gospels.  They are the heroes of the resurrection story.  But the celibate monk/copyists of the monastery at Sinai, with their warped view of women and the sanctity of marriage, took their orders from like-minded Church authorities, and made their damnable deletions and alterations of the text to deprive them of their rightful place in this story.  They deleted perhaps the most important verses in the entire book.  In verse 10 Mary does go and report to the mourning, lamenting disciples. “And they, hearing that He is living, and was gazed upon by her, disbelieve.” 

Authenticity of Mark 16:9-20 Confirmed By Best Scholarship 

On page 539 of Word Bible Commentary for Mark we have this significant analysis. 

The last phrase of v. 8 is ephobounto gar—“for they were afraid.”

Mark begins rather than ends, new sections or paragraphs (pericopes) on a note of fear (5:33, 36; 6:20, 50; 9:6; 10:32; 11:32).  Only 10% of the time (6 out of 66 times) does Mark conclude a story, paragraph, or section with gar, ‘for,’”  [Thus, the facts] “favor the view that the last part of v. 8 begins a new pericope rather than ends the one that precedes.  Books ending with gar, the preposition “for,” are a rarity indeed.”  

Burgon (Last Twelve Verses) 19^th C. argues these verses are authentic.  One could take volumes of time and space refuting all the disbelieving Higher Critics who are paid to vindicate codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus[10], but why waste the time.  I have said enough.  Protee Sabbatou (first Sabbath) stands.  And “first day of the week” vanishes as a figment of brainy men’s imaginations. 

Were the Women Who Came to the Tomb on Sabbath Morning Violating the Tradition of the Elders (the Oral Law)? 

The Encyclopedia Judaica says

“The Law says relatively little about burial, and where it treats the subject, the concern is to avoid defilement by the dead (Num. 19:16; Deut. 21:21-23). There is a law in the Mishah (23:5), however, which states “People may do [on the Sabbath] all that is required for a corpse:  They may anoint and rinse it…”

 

Page 315 of Edersheim’s The Temple: Its Ministry and Services says the following:

 

The Jerusalem Talmud (Ber. 5, b) expressly declares it lawful on Sabbath and feast-days to bring a coffin, graveclothes, and even mourning flutes—in short, to attend to the offices for the dead—just as on ordinary days." 

 

The Sabbath-Law of R. Meir, by Robt Goldenberg gives us valuable information on Jewish burial customs in the 2^nd Century, a time when the political situation in Palestine tended toward stricter Sabbath regulations by the Jewish religious authorities than in the previous Century. Meir was a leading member of the Palestinian rabbinate following the fall of Bar Kokhba rebellion in 135 AD. 

He was a student of the two masters Aqiva and Ishmael. His Mishnah is said to have formed the basis for the later work of Judah the Patriarch, who redacted the canonical Mishnah still extant today.  Meir was one of the leading rabbinic authorities of the 2^nd Century.  On page 39 of Goldenberg's book we find this mishaic reference--T. Shab. 12:8-14a concerns the preparation and use of medicines on the Sabbath: 

 

17J.A.1.  People may anoint the sick with unguents on the Sabbath.   B.1. R. Meir used to permit mixing wine and oil, and anointing the sick on the Sabbath.

 

Pg. 170 of the above book:  "The principle of Sabbath-rest does not apply to the Temple."  In this regard, the women understood from Christ's earlier statements (Matt. 12:5-6) that One Greater than the Temple was among them, and also how Christ lauded the two women who anointed Him with precious oil on separate occasions just prior to His death.  One of those occasions was at Lazarus' house (John 12:1), where a number of these women were present.  Anointing Yeshua's body was a priority in these women's hearts and minds.  It was not going to take a back seat to rabbinic Sabbath strictures, which in any case, did not have the force of Law.   The Temple, when rightly understood by Paul (I Cor. 3:16 and the entire book of Hebrews), is nothing more than a type or foreshadowing of the Messiah Yeshua.

 

P. 189--Public offerings override Sabbath and defilement.  In Emanuel Feldman's book Defilement and Mourning: Law as Theology (p. 6), we find the following elucidation and commentary on this principle:

 

If the defilement law were merely hygienic precautions, it is difficult to explain how it was that precisely at crowded festivals—at which congregational offerings were brought—those very corpse-defilement laws were set aside in order not to postpone an offering.  When the time of that offering arrives, and it happens that the majority of the congregation bringing the offering is defiled by a corpse, the offering is not postponed; it is brought while the congregation is in a state of defilement.  In fact, it is exclusively corpse defilement which is overridden, and not defilement of emissions, creeping things, carrion, etc.  “Corpse uncleanness alone was allowed to be set aside,” according to Maimonides.

A Guide to Jewish Religious Practices, by Klein,  P. 101 states this: “The burial of the dead is the main exception to this rule [against Sabbath work].  For those who are occupied with burial, all work connected with a burial is permitted…”

 

Some might object to the women walking from their domicile in Bethany to the garden tomb on the Mount of Olives.  The phrase Sabbath-days' journey is only used one time in the scriptures (Acts 1:12), only to denote a distance (approx. one half mile).   There is no explicit restriction on how far one may walk in the Torah, though reason would limit one's physical activity.  In reality, however, both Bethany and the place of Yeshua's tomb were both on the Mt. of Olives, and likely within a mile of each other.  But for inquiring minds, we cite the following from page 566 of Encyclopedia Judaica's article "Sabbath".

The rabbis placed no restrictions on freedom of movement within one’s town, but they prohibited any walking outside the town beyond a distance of 2,000 cubits (a little more than a half mile). This boundary is known as the tehum Shabbat (Sabbath limit). It is, however, permitted to place, before the Sabbath, sufficient food for two meals at the limits of the 2,000 cubits; then, by a legal fiction known as eruv, this place becomes one’s “abode” for the duration of the Sabbath, so that 2,000 cubits may be walked from there.

 

It is this author's opinion that the disciple's of Yeshua felt no obligation to please either the Pharisees or the rabbis when it came to tradition of the elders.  Yeshua re-oriented everyone's focus back to keeping the spirit and letter of the written law.  Where the Law was silent, we should be silent.  That is how strict constructionists take God's Word.  However, in order to avoid offence and risk social and perhaps legal consequences at the hands of the ruling religious authorities, the women chose to embark on their labor of love very early in the morning, while it was yet dark (according to John's gospel (Jn. 20:1). 

 

Matthew’s Contribution to the Resurrection Narrative

 

At the outset of our dissection of Matt. 27:66 (the last verse of chap. 27) and the beginning of chapter 28, we must note that chapter breaks and verse numberings have absolutely no authority.   They were introduced many hundreds of years after the originals were penned.  There are not even any spaces between the words in the uncial texts.  In Matt. 27:65, Pilate ordered the Jews to secure the tomb with these words:

 

You have a detail.  Go, make it secure, as you are aware [aware of what Christ had said, that He would arise after three days (vs. 63)].

  (27:66)  Now they (the Pharisees and chief priests), being gone, secure the sepulcher, sealing the stone, with the detail.

(28:1a) Now it is the evening of the Sabbath (end of the 15th). CLNT

 

This rendering by the Concordant Publishing Concern constitutes a major clarification. Matt. 28:1a belongs in the previous chapter because it was put there by Matthew and by the Holy Spirit to tell us when they finished

securing the tomb, which is an important detail to the narrative.  It was a full twenty four hours after Yahshua was in the tomb before this was done, ie. the evening of the Unleavened Bread Sabbath (the 15th).

 

There are two time modifiers in the first half of Matt. 28:1.  But they describe different parts of a day.  Opsi de sabbaton at the beginning of 28:1 and the next phrase--tee epiphosoutee eis sabbaton--are mutually exclusive terminologies.  The first means “evening of the Sabbath”, whereas the latter means “at the lighting up into one of the Sabbaths,” as the Concordant Literal has it.   

The KJV rendering of the latter—“as it began to dawn” is essentially correct, though we prefer the Concordant as being more descriptive and indicative of early dawn.  This comports with the Greek used by Luke in 24:1 (very early), where we have a complementary description of how and when the women came to the tomb.  Matt. 28:1 (CLNT) says:

 

At the lighting up into one of the sabbaths [mia ton sabbaton (pl.)] came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to behold the sepulcher.

The phrase “at the lighting up into” is tee epiphosountee eis, is a time modifier telling us what part of “one of the Sabbaths” the women came to the tomb.  Consistent with Mark, Luke and John, we are told that it was well prior to sunrise, at dawn’s early light.   That is why the CLNT translates the Greek here as “at the lighting up into

one of the Sabbaths.” The only other time this word is used in the N.T. is Luke 23:54.  Its use here requires some explanation, because it is used quite differently than in Matt. 28:1.  Notice in Luke 23: 

 

(v. 52) [Joseph of Arimathea] begged the body of Yeshua…wrapped it in linen, and laid Him in a rock-hewn tomb…(v. 54) and that day was the preparation (the 14^th) and the Sabbath drew on (epiphoskein).

According to Word Bible Commentary, epiphoskein in Lk. 23:54 literally means “to dawn.”  Luke’s particular use of epiphoskein “has not been paralleled.”  The usage could represent a Greek-speaking Jewish adoption, for use in relation to a Jewish reckoning of the day, of language originating from and better adapted to expressing the dawning of a new day reckoned to being at first light.  However, William Barclay translates this verse “and the Sabbath lamps were just beginning to be lit.” 

Epiphausko is used three times in the Septuagint:

 

Job 25:5—He gives an order to the moon, and it shines not… (kai ohuk epiphauskei…).

Job 31:26—do we not see the

shining sun (heelion ton epiphauskonta)  or the moon waning.

Job 41:9—At his (leviathan’s) sneezing, a light lights up (epiphausketai) his eyes.

 

These three uses of epiphosko

in the LXX are similar to the literal use of the term in Matt. 28:1, where the lighting up of the early dawn sky is meant.  Therefore, the only thing that is lit up at the end of a preparation day such as you have in Luke 23:54 would be the Sabbath lamps that are lit at that time by the Jews in Jerusalem.   In fact, every evening at dusk (between the two evenings) the high priest Aaron went into the tabernacle to light up the lamps (Exod. 30:8).   William Barclay, no doubt, has deciphered the correct meaning of epiphoskein in Luke 23, and we are indebted to his insight.

 

John 20:1

 

Now, on one of the Sabbaths (mia ton sabbaton), Mary Magdalene is coming to the tomb in the morning, there being still darkness, and is observing the stone taken away from the door of the tomb.  (CLNT)

 

She goes and tells John and Peter that the Lord’s body has been removed, and goes back to the tomb with them, lingering there after they left it.  She is the first to see Yeshua and report to the disciples that He is risen.  In vs. 19 it is now evening (opseos) of that same day, and the Holy Spirit emphasizes that it is still mia ton sabbaton.  The CLNT renders it this way:

 

It being, then, the evening of that day, one of the Sabbaths (mia ton sabbaton), and the doors having been locked where the disciples were gathered together, because of fear of the Jews, Yeshua came and stood in the midst.

 

It is important to note that the Saturday evening appearance of Yeshua in John 20:19 is dictated by the same language (mia ton sabbaton) as in Acts 20:7 at the head of this chapter. There we took considerable space proving that all the many other sabbaton meetings in Acts had been on weekly Sabbaths, so when Paul prolonged his discussion of scripture until midnight, it was well into the evening of that mia ton sabbaton (i.e. Saturday night).  The same time parameters apply in John chapter 20.  In this area, the Church of God Sabbath-keeping groups have been most inconsistent, allowing the John account to be a Sunday evening, while insisting that Acts 20 is a Saturday evening. 

Combining details from the Luke 24 narrative, we are able to see when Yeshua ascended to Heaven to fulfill the wavesheaf offering after His resurrection.  In Luke 24:16, he appeared in an unrecognizable form (see Mark 16:12 where it says He appeared in various forms) to two disciples who were heading back to Emmaus (7 miles West of Jerusalem) late on a Saturday afternoon.   When they arrived at their domicile in Emmaus, they urged Yeshua to dine with them, for the day was far spent, and evening was coming on.  Only after they broke bread did they recognize Him.  But He vanished at this point without explanation.  They hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples in the upper room, which brings us to the account in John 20:19.  In the two hours it took them to return to Jerusalem, Yeshua went to the 3^rd Heaven to appear before the Father, and to be accepted on our behalf as the first of the firstfruits.   

As a spirit being, it would have taken almost no time for Yeshua-God to go from earth to Paradise in Heaven.  So I speculate that He spent three to four hours reuniting with the heavenly Father, and then returned immediately to the disciples in the upper room perhaps around 10 PM.   For those who question whether the first omer of barley was cut on a Saturday evening, you will have to consult Edersheim's book The Temple: Its Ministry & Services.

 

I Cor. 16:1-2

 

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have made arrangements in the Churches of Galatia, so do ye.  Upon every (Greek=kata) one of the Sabbaths (CLNT), let every one of you lay by him in store as God has prospered him, that there be no collections when I come.

 

Paul abruptly introduces the subject of the collection for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem (see Rom. 15:26).   He devoted a significant amount of time and energy to this charitable project—close to two years—in order to promote unity and love between the Gentile and Jewish quarters of the budding Church.   First we want to establish how the preposition kata is used in I Cor. 16:2, so that we understand that Paul intends each believer, by himself, to set aside and store up every one of the Sabbaths, according as he is prospered. 

This construction sometimes signifies “in every . . .”

 

1. Acts 2:46—Continue steadfast with one mind day by day (kath’ heemeran), breaking bread in every house (klontes te kat’ oikon).

2.  Acts 5:42-- house by house (kat’ oikon) they ceased not teaching and preaching the gospel

3. Acts 14:23—in every church (kat’ ekklesian) picking leaders by the stretching forth hands (hand-picked, also used of taking a vote), they committed them to the Lord.

4. Acts 15:21—For in every city (kata polin) from ancient generations Moses has those proclaiming him.

5. Acts 20:23—city by city (same as 15:21) the Holy Spirit testifies that bonds await me [Paul],

6. Titus 1:5—appointed elders in every city (kata polin)

7. Acts 22:19— in every synagogue (kata tas synagogas) I was imprisoning and beating the saints.

8. Luke 8: 1—“throughout every city” (kata polin) and village.

9. Luke 8:4—A great crowd coming together and those in each city

   (kata polin) to Him, He spoke through a parable.

10. Rom. 12:5—each one, individually, members of one another (kath’ heis alleelon).

 

The preposition Kata, down, is sometimes found governing a noun, in the  sense of “every.”   Examples of this include:

 

1. Luke 2:41—“every year” (kat’ hetos) His parents went to Jerusalem at the Feast of the Passover.

2. Luke 16:19--there was a certain rich man making merry day by day (kath’ heemeran) in luxury.

3. Heb. 9:25—the high priest enters the holy of holies year by year (kat’ heniauton=every year)” [on the Day of Atonement].

4. Heb. 10:3—there is a remembrance of sins year by year (same as above).

5. I Cor. 16:1-2—As I charged the churches of Galatia, so also you do—every one of the Sabbaths (kata mian sabbaton)--each of you lay aside by himself in store that in which he should be prospered.

 

Hence, we see that kata mian sabbaton in I Cor. 16:2 is a very common mode of expression signifying “every” single Sabbath.  This fact may be verified on page 384 of The International Critical Commentary.  Paul wanted the brethren to set aside in store that which he intended to contribute to his brethren the Jews in Palestine, so that there need be no collections when he arrived at Corinth.  Listen to the comment on this verse by The New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. X, p. 996):

[it is] a regular setting aside so that when Paul arrives they will already have the [presumably substantial] collection ready. A couple of features are noteworthy: The reference in the Greek is to a regular practice of each person setting apart contributions every Sabbath.  From such nomenclature of days, WE SEE HOW COMPLETELY RE-SOCIALIZED THESE GENTILES WERE TO THE WHOLE SENSE THAT THEY BELONGED TO THE FAMILY OF GOD, WHOSE ROOTS ARE TRACEABLE DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL.  

 

In other words, we have scholars admitting here that the nomenclature being used here (every one of the Sabbaths) is evidence that Paul had completely changed the social customs of these Corinthian Christians.  Paul--via the power of the Holy Spirit, miracles, healings, and teaching directly from Yeshua--made spiritual Jews out of Gentiles.   They adopted the Sabbath, Passover (I Cor. 5:7-8; 11:24-26), Days of Unleavened Bread, and the New Moons (Col. 2:16), and contributed very generously (throughout the Greek-speaking churches in Asia Minor, Macedonia, Philippi, and Achaia) to the welfare of their new-found brothers the Jews suffering in Palestine.

 

Concluding Remarks Concerning Mia Ton Sabbaton

 

If, as scholars say, the first day of the week is never called the Sabbath  anywhere in scripture, then why do they imagine that the writers of the New Testament used the Hebrew word sabbaton to refer to the first day of the week??  Anyone zealously keeping God’s Holy Sabbath Day should wonder out loud at how ludicrous this sounds at the outset. 

When translators deprive Yahweh of His opportunity to speak literally, they arbitrarily alter His Word. 

This is why skeptics have the attitude “Well, you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to say.”  But this is only true if you allegorize, and take words out of context, or assume figures of speech where there are none.  Men have transformed mia ton Sabbaton from “one of the Sabbaths” into “first day of the week” by refusing to take it as it literally stands and by forcing it to conform to Church traditions.  They assumed the authors meant “first”, but did not use protos.  The translators supply the word “day” when it is not there, and this, despite the fact that Protos

heemeras was used by these same authors to refer to the First Day of Unleavened Bread.  Thirdly, that they meant “week” but used the Hebrew and Septuagint word for Sabbath instead.  They had the familiar word hebdomados, the LXX word for "week", available to them, had they wanted to refer to week.  The translators and interpreters assume the inspired writers chose not to use the accepted Greek word for “week,” and chose to use

sabbaton in an unprecedented way to totally confuse their Greek readers.  No, I think not.  Say what you mean, and mean what you say.  The Lord has tried to do just that.  But the Truth will not be found by them who refuse to keep His Commandments, by those who are not savvy enough to discern the lying pen of the scribe (Jer. 8:8), and who prefer television and sports and pastimes to diligent inquiry into the original language of scripture.  Let them go back to nursing at the breast of their spiritual Momma Babylon, for the “people that doth not understand shall fall (come to ruin-NIV).”(Hosea 4:14)

Greek was the lingua franca of the First Century Roman Empire. The gospel writers were trying to communicate the life and ministry of Christ Yeshua to Greek-speaking believers at synagogues and home churches in Asia Minor, Achaia, Macedonia, and elsewhere.  When it comes to fundamental religious terminology such as sabbaton, it is more than likely that they would have used this word in the same way it was used in both the Hebrew Old Testament and in the Septuagint.   The great bulk of the early believers came out of the Jewish synagogue, where they had heard the scriptures read in Greek.  Sabbaton

is the word used throughout the LXX for the weekly and annual Sabbaths.  It is never used of “week.”   Taking advantage of this familiarity, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul all used sabbaton just as it had been used in the LXX.  In singling out the particular Sabbaton upon which Christ was resurrected and discovered by the women disciples, the earliest of these writers, Mark, used protee sabbatou to signify that it was the first Sabbath after Passover.

The practical theology in the minds of most mainstream Christians tells them that all of the Ten Commandments are still relevant and binding.   Nobody questions the need to literally abstain from adultery, or not bear false witness against one’s neighbor, and not steal his property.  But when they get to the 4^th Commandment, the pastors transfer the sanctity of the 7^th Day to Sunday.  They have only one idea that allows them to do this, the illusion that Christ rose on the first day of the week.  The fact that the Sabbath and holy days are mentioned no less than eighty times in the New Testament should have been enough  to cause any serious believer to remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. 

For the past century and a half, the truth about the Sabbath has been disseminated far and wide by the Adventists and other Sabbatarian, Church of God, or Sacred-Name groups.  Until now, however, the Sabbatarian movement has failed to identify the Achilles heel of  mainstream orthodoxy, which is the amazing truth that “first day of the week” does not occur anywhere in the New Testament Greek text.

 

This piece in the puzzle must now be considered part of "the restoration of all things" which Christ promised: 

 

And He answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things. (Mark 9:12 KJV)

 

The process began with Martin Luther in 1519, who exposed the corruption of the Roman Catholic system, and showed Christians, among other things, the primacy of scripture over tradition.  The remnant that Yahweh is perfecting must find the basis for all their practices and beliefs in scripture:  the Law of Moses, the prophets and Psalms, the sayings of Yeshua,  and the letters of Paul.  Yahweh's agenda has been moved forward by Adventists (Sabbath and unclean meat laws) and Church of God 7th Day and Armstrong Church of God groups (Passover and God's Holy Days), the Assemblies of Yahweh (restoration of God's proper name in order to fulfill and not violate the 3rd Commandment, where the literal Hebrew says "don't bring the name of Yahweh Elohim to oblivion/nothingness").   The charismatic movement, pro-family Christian organizations like Focus on the Family, Messianic Jewish movement, and Davidic praise and dance movement have all had vital roles to play in restoring all things in Yahweh's vast agenda of turning the hearts of the fathers to the children (and vice versa) prior to sending His Son Yeshua back to this earth.  I now submit that undoing the havoc caused by Constantine and his bishops at the Council of Nicea (Easter Sunday, etc.) is also high on Yahweh's to-do list.

Paul and Yeshua are the two most important figures in Western Civilization, and yet neither of them ever mentioned the first day of the week, if I Cor. 16:2 is understood correctly.   One would think that the cornerstone doctrine of orthodox Christianity (Easter Sunday and its weekly celebration) would have required some formal discussion of the changeover from Saturday to Sunday somewhere in Paul's writings or the Gospels.  The silence of the New Testament on this topic is deafening.

The last leg supporting Sunday sacredness is being removed by a correct understanding of mia ton sabbaton. The truth about mia ton sabbaton is necessary to wean the Church from its moorings in pagan traditions. 

But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men (Mt. 15:9).

Acts 3:19 is very relevant to our concluding remarks on this subject:

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; 20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: 21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. 

 

Acts 17:30:

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but is now commanding men everywhere to repent, forasmuch as He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world [and the Church] in righteousness by that Man Whom He has ordained.  He has given assurance of this to all, by raising Him from the dead. 

 

[1] Throughout this article, “CLNT” is used when citing the Concordant Literal New Testament, published by the Concordant Publishing Concern, Canyon Country, CA.  It is one of the most helpful, literal, and scholarly translations of the New Testament available.

[2] See Jer. 8:8 where it talks about “the lying pen of the scribe”, i.e. translator or transcriber of scripture.

[3] The exception among the translators is Green’s Interlinear, which flirts with the proper rendering of sabbaton (Sabbath) and mia (one).  Green is a perfect case in point of the ambiguity with which scholars have dealt with this expression.

[4] See marginal notes in the Companion Bible.

[5] Bullinger was an unorthodox Anglican scholar who taught at Oxford University up until his death in 1913.  He was a man of considerable knowledge, whose Companion Bible is among the best study Bibles available today.

[6] Significant in the Torah as being the Sabbath the morrow of which one counts from in order to get to Pentecost (Lev. 23:15). It could probably be argued that since mia

means ”a particular one” or “a certain one,” that every one of the occurrences of mia sabbaton and mia ton sabbaton are referring to this particular Sabbath of prime (protee) importance in starting the count to the important pilgrimage Feast of Pentecost.  Hence, Mark calls it protee sabbatou.

[7] See Appendix 168 of Bullinger’s Companion Bible for further corroboration on this point.

[8] Eusebius quotes this verse 18 times prior to the Council of Nicea, omitting our current reading “baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy spirit.”  It says “baptizing them into My name.”  After Nicea, on pain of exile Eusebius capitulates, acknowledging a reading that he knew had been changed by copyists.  He complained about changes being made in various texts.

[9]Things got so desperate that the bishop of Alexandria, the great Athanasius, was accused by his opponents in the Egyptian clergy [at the Council of Tyre (335 A.D.)] of hewing off the hand of Arsenius, a bishop from an opposing sect, for the purpose of using it for magic.

[10] I do not mean to imply that these codices are useless in the textual criticism of the N.T.  Their variant readings elsewhere must be weighed due to their antiquity when considering what the original said.  What we are taking issue with here is not the professional, precise nature of the copying that took place in Sinai and Alexandria, but the doctrinal bent, the heresies they were trying to combat, and pressures from Church authorities that influenced what they included or excluded.

[Daniel Gregg]

 

 

  Both years IIRC permit Friday crucifixion and a doubled sabbath (Passover concurrent with weekly sabbath).

John (19:31) calls the annual Passover Sabbath on Thursday that year “the great Sabbath” (μεηαλη…εκεινου του σαββατου) which is in Hebrew is: ha-shabbat ha-gadol. The official church explanation for this designation is that it was used when a Jewish feast day chanced to fall on the weekly Sabbath.  This begs the question, though, as to the reason why the annual Passover Sabbath, which was the greatest and most important feast day of the Biblical calendar would only be called "great" if itֹonly chanced to fall on the weekly Sabbath!  In the fourth century, the Church innovated to always call the Sabbath between Good Friday and Easter "the great Sabbath", contradicting the explanation of John 19:31.  Well after John, the Synagogue innovated to call the Sabbath before Passover "the great Sabbath".  Some explain the 10^th of Nisan made that Sabbath "great" in the Exodus year—a very lame excuse, and lamer still since Seder Olam contradicts it.

Interesting point I'll have to review further. Nehemiah identifies the month as Nisan (2:1) corresponding to March 5, 444 BC. I would suspect that he would discern the difference.

   If you check out your Parker and Duberstein, you'll see that it doesn't work.  3/5/444 also puts the full moon before the spring equinox -- that that doesn't even agree with the Catholic tradition which they got from the Jewish tradition of intercalation.

While you may argue the prophetic use is invalid, if you use the AD 32 as the end of the sabbatical year - you still end up with AD 33. Now according to number / calendar crunchers more anial than I, this method from Mar 1, 444BC yields a termination on Nisan 10, AD 33, the date of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

 Problem is that the sabbatical was AD 32/33 and not 31/32.   Rabbi Yose Halaphta (Seder Olam, ca. 140 AD) puts the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 69 and the seventh year is 67/68.   You'll see that the Torah was read by Ezra at the end of the 445/444 sabbath year per Deut. 31:10, and that the debt release was made by Nehemiah at that time.   Your 31/32 Sabbath year is an error based on Maimonides correction of the destruction date to AD 70 long after the Jews forgot when the seventh year was.   Also Donald Blosser pointed out that the Caligula incident in Jospehus totally invalidates the Zuckermann cycle.

Issue then becomes synchronizing the passover and weekly sabbaths to match the gospel accounts which is impossible for an AD 34 Friday cruxifiction.

   A Friday Crucifixion is not parsimonious with the evidence  (re: Matthew 12:40, Mark 8:31, 9:31) nor Lev. 23:15 nor any of the first of the sabbath passages.

Or the term can refer as Lightfoot and other scholars of Jewish history and literature of the period point out that the phrase is a hebraism and possibly a reference to the first week of seven interveining between Passover and Pentecost - not necessarly refering to the weekly sabbath.

The earliest use of

אחד בשבת

is Seder Olam (ca. AD 140), a work written by a Rabbi who set out to confuse and disprove that Daniel 9 applied to Messiah Yeshua.  And that phrase is just pious usage for "one in respect to the Sabbath".  The earliest use in the Greek is in the Didache, all outside the provenance of the first century, and all written by apostates.

You can plead variant interpretations all you want.  But they won't help you construct a consistent chronology.  Your explanation of John 19:31 makes no sense, nor Daniel 9, nor is your proposed sabbath year 31/32 valid, nor is your "first day of the week" what the literal text says.  It all relies on tradition and pays no attention to usage or linguistics nor proper chronology.

     

 

 

 

Interesting point I'll have to review further. Nehemiah identifies the month as Nisan (2:1) corresponding to March 5, 444 BC. I would suspect that he would discern the difference.

While you may argue the prophetic use is invalid, if you use the AD 32 as the end of the sabbatical year - you still end up with AD 33. Now according to number / calendar crunchers more anial than I, this method from Mar 1, 444BC yields a termination on Nisan 10, AD 33, the date of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

 Problem is that the sabbatical was AD 32/33 and not 31/32.   Rabbi Yose Halaphta (Seder Olam, ca. 140 AD) puts the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 69 and the seventh year is 67/68.   You'll see that the Torah was read by Ezra at the end of the 445/444 sabbath year per Deut. 31:10, and that the debt release was made by Nehemiah at that time.   Your 31/32 Sabbath year is an error based on Maimonides correction of the destruction date to AD 70 long after the Jews forgot when the seventh year was.   Also Donald Blosser pointed out that the Caligula incident in Jospehus totally invalidates the Zuckermann cycle.

Issue then becomes synchronizing the passover and weekly sabbaths to match the gospel accounts which is impossible for an AD 34 Friday cruxifiction.

   A Friday Crucifixion is not parsimonious with the evidence  (re: Matthew 12:40, Mark 8:31, 9:31) nor Lev. 23:15 nor any of the first of the sabbath passages.

Or the term can refer as Lightfoot and other scholars of Jewish history and literature of the period point out that the phrase is a hebraism and possibly a reference to the first week of seven interveining between Passover and Pentecost - not necessarly refering to the weekly sabbath.

The earliest use of

אחד בשבת

is Seder Olam (ca. AD 140), a work written by a Rabbi who set out to confuse and disprove that Daniel 9 applied to Messiah Yeshua.  And that phrase is just pious usage for "one in respect to the Sabbath".  The earliest use in the Greek is in the Didache, all outside the provenance of the first century, and all written by apostates.

You can plead variant interpretations all you want.  But they won't help you construct a consistent chronology.  Your explanation of John 19:31 makes no sense, nor Daniel 9, nor is your proposed sabbath year 31/32 valid, nor is your "first day of the week" what the literal text says.  It all relies on tradition and pays no attention to usage or linguistics nor proper chronology.

     

Issue then becomes synchronizing the passover and weekly sabbaths to match the gospel accounts which is impossible for an AD 34 Friday cruxifiction.

Or the term can refer as Lightfoot and other scholars of Jewish history and literature of the period point out that the phrase is a hebraism and possibly a reference to the first week of seven interveining between Passover and Pentecost - not necessarly refering to the weekly sabbath.

The earliest use of

אחד בשבת

is Seder Olam (ca. AD 140), a work written by a Rabbi who set out to confuse and disprove that Daniel 9 applied to Messiah Yeshua.  And that phrase is just pious usage for "one in respect to the Sabbath".  The earliest use in the Greek is in the Didache, all outside the provenance of the first century, and all written by apostates.

You can plead variant interpretations all you want.  But they won't help you construct a consistent chronology.  Your explanation of John 19:31 makes no sense, nor Daniel 9, nor is your proposed sabbath year 31/32 valid, nor is your "first day of the week" what the literal text says.  It all relies on tradition and pays no attention to usage or linguistics nor proper chronology.

     

[Godzilla]

The gospel accounts are consistent on when Jesus was crucified - it was the day before passover. Passover of 34 AD fell on a Tuesday, which means he would have to been crucified on Monday. This would have his resurrection on Wednesday.

[Godzilla]

John (19:31) calls the annual Passover Sabbath on Thursday that year

Though I just cited it, passover in AD 34 was on a tuesday, with AD 30 on a Thursday. You appear to be citing some other material in your post. Please cite your sources, thanks.

This begs the question, though, as to the reason why the annual Passover Sabbath, which was the greatest and most important feast day of the Biblical calendar would only be called "great" if itֹonly chanced to fall on the weekly Sabbath!

It doesn't beg the question if one considers the audience of John - primarily gentiles who would be familiar with the general term and use of sabbath but less familiar with the reference to Passover as a high day. Thus from John, we see him explaining the custom and the need for those crucified to be taken down with haste. Therefore you have the understanding backward, the weekly sabbath was also a "high" sabbath because they occurred that year on the same day.

If you check out your Parker and Duberstein, you'll see that it doesn't work. 3/5/444 also puts the full moon before the spring equinox -- that that doesn't even agree with the Catholic tradition which they got from the Jewish tradition of intercalation.

I have found that the intercalcalatory month was present before Nisan in 444 BC. However, as noted earlier, this places Passover in AD 32 on a Monday or AD 34 on a Tuesday. The chronology of the gospels does not support a crucifixion on either days - the weekly sabbath would have been evident in the narrative - and it is glaringly absent.

Since you mention Hoehner, he differs in that he states Nehemiah was using a Tishri-to-Tishri (IIRC used by the kings of judah) year dating method rather than the Persian Nisan-to-Nisan method. Along with other challenges such as when Artaxerxes' twentieth year and when the beginning of his rule argue for 444BC. Neither of us can declare an iron-clad case on this point alone.

A Friday Crucifixion is not parsimonious with the evidence (re: Matthew 12:40, Mark 8:31, 9:31) nor Lev. 23:15 nor any of the first of the sabbath passages.

On this point your interpretation is stretched to the point that it is a leap that Evil Knievel would not have taken. Fact - - the crucifixion occurred the day of preparation before Passover. AD 32 Passover would have been Monday. This would require crucifixion to have occurred on Sunday. This would also place a weekly sabbath before Passover - and there is no evidence of this sabbath from the gospel accounts. Your scripture citations only reference the metaphor of Jonah.

Seder Olam (ca. AD 140), a work written by a Rabbi who set out to confuse and disprove that Daniel 9 applied to Messiah Yeshua. And that phrase is just pious usage for "one in respect to the Sabbath". . . . The earliest use in the Greek is in the Didache, all outside the provenance of the first century, and all written by apostates.

Sorry wasn't talking about One Saturday (אחד בשבת ) I don't think you understand the point I was getting at - the phrase "mia sabbathw" (one of the sabbaths - plural) is shown in jewish writings (as well as in the NT) of the era to be a hebraism used at the time to identify the day of their week as well as to identify the week between passover and pentecost. The Didache is dated by many to be approximately 70 AD, though most would place it late first century, its current redaction is mid second century.

Your explanation of John 19:31 makes no sense, nor Daniel 9, nor is your proposed sabbath year 31/32 valid, nor is your "first day of the week" what the literal text says. It all relies on tradition and pays no attention to usage or linguistics nor proper chronology.

Well, neither do your 'explanations' hold water either. The gospel narrative for the last week of Jesus' life do not have a weekly sabbath occurring the day before his crucifixion. Your narrative does not even come close to explaining these

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Well, I found one of the books I was looking for.

HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY by JACK FINEGAN. Published by Princeton University Press, 1964.

The author is of the position that the Crucifiction was on a Friday and resurection on a Sunday. Otherwise he does not seem to have any special ax to grind.

I will enclose two tables from his work and let you all sort it out.

From page 297...Tertullian states that Christ was crucified ...."under Tiberius Caesar, in the consulate of Rubellius Geminus and Fufius Geminus, in the month of March, at the times of the passover, on the eight day before the kalends of April, on the first day of unleavened bread, on which they slew the lamb at even." (an answer to the jews)

Augustine gives the same date. "Now Christ died when the Gemini were consuls, on the eighth day before the kalends of April. (The City of God)

The problem is, it does not correspond to either Nisan 14 or 15 in the Jewish calender.

[Daniel Gregg]

 

Though I just cited it, passover in AD 34 was on a tuesday, with AD 30 on a Thursday. You appear to be citing some other material in your post. Please cite your sources, thanks.

 

I should be asking you to cite your sources, because both of your assertions here are false statements.  I hope it was not intentional.   If you consult Finegan's Handbook of Biblical Chronology, Revised Edition, 1998, page 363, Table 179, you will see a chart of Fotheringham's calculations for Nisan 14  in the years 27-34 AD:

 

AD  Nisan 14

30    April 7 Fri      [Not here]

31    Mar 27 Tue

32    Apr 14 Mon

33    Apr 3 Fri        [And not here]

34    Mar 24 Wed   [Here is when the crucifixion was]

 

    Now I figure you are looking for the magic bullet to exclude AD 34.  I feel your angst at the lack of an easy out.  But your "citations" aren't going to work.   I did cite my sources already because that is just what Parker and Duberstein represent.   I fully realize that successful apologists for the Friday-Sunday tradition have to bluff their way to victory with wool but now days you've got Daniel 12:4 foiling such attempts.  I hope that's not your methodology.  Otherwise, this discussion won't be the challenge I hope for.

 

It doesn't beg the question if one considers the audience of John - primarily gentiles who would be familiar with the general term and use of sabbath but less familiar with the reference to Passover as a high day. Thus from John, we see him explaining the custom and the need for those crucified to be taken down with haste. Therefore you have the understanding backward, the weekly sabbath was also a "high" sabbath because they occurred that year on the same day.

    You can't make logic go away so simply.  The 15th of Nisan annual Sabbath was made greater by all accounts than the weekly Sabbath due to Israel's Exodus on that day.  The weekly Sabbath was never called great by itself (except by religious revisionists), so it is ludicrous to apply great to the annual Sabbath only when it lands on the weekly Sabbath.   Since the Gentiles in Asia Minor were still observing Passover by the Jewish Calendar, and not by the Roman Easter innovation, they would know the importance of this annual Sabbath.   But I suppose one has to actually observe it to understand why it is great.

    Since the only chronology that explains the facts adequately puts the annual Sabbath on Thursday, Nisan 15, it deductively follows that your argument from silence and against common sense for the meaning of "great" is error.  It also deductively follows from the Wednesday-Sabbath chronology that explains all the facts, that Nisan 15 was called "great" regardless of the day of the week it fell upon.

 

• I have found that the intercalcalatory month was present before Nisan in 444 BC. However, as noted earlier, this places Passover in AD 32 on a Monday or AD 34 on a Tuesday. The chronology of the gospels does not support a crucifixion on either days - the weekly sabbath would have been evident in the narrative - and it is glaringly absent.

 

    You are not making any sense now.  Only two theories of a 360 day year and Daniel 9 are proposed,  445-32 (Sir Robert Anderson), and 444-33 (Harold Hoehner, et al).   I can confirm for you that Nisan 14 in AD 32 was on Monday, but the only value of this is that it destroys Anderson's theory.   The data you give for AD 34 is a false statement—the truth be that it squarely and fairly puts Nisan 14 on Wednesday.   Now the Addaru II you correctly discovered before the correct Nisan in 444 destroys the 444-33 AD Daniel 9 explanation.

 

• Since you mention Hoehner, he differs in that he states Nehemiah was using a Tishri-to-Tishri (IIRC used by the kings of judah) year dating method rather than the Persian Nisan-to-Nisan method. Along with other challenges such as when Artaxerxes' twentieth year and when the beginning of his rule argue for 444BC. Neither of us can declare an iron-clad case on this point alone.

 

      Yes, the a Tishri year is being used, but irrelevant to the invalidity Hoehner's 360 day/year theory.   As for the date of Neh. 2:1 being in 444 BC there is no doubt.  VAT 5047 in the 11th year (454) of Artaxerxes I takes care of that.   And I should remedy an oversight from your last post.  You suggested that the sabbatical year be 31/32 AD, and that 33 AD be the terminal year.  However that would imply that 446/445 BC would be the sabbath year.   Since the walls were rebuilt in 444, that reduces the count to 68 instead of the required 69 (7 + 62 = 69).   So plainly AD 33 does not work with ANY proposed Sabbatical year.   But like I said the correct Sabbatical year is 32/33.   BC 445/444 was the first and AD 32/33 the 69th.

 

• On this point your interpretation is stretched to the point that it is a leap that Evil Knievel would not have taken. Fact - - the crucifixion occurred the day of preparation before Passover. AD 32 Passover would have been Monday. This would require crucifixion to have occurred on Sunday. This would also place a weekly sabbath before Passover - and there is no evidence of this sabbath from the gospel accounts. Your scripture citations only reference the metaphor of Jonah.

       From where I stand the whole traditional chronology is an absurd apostasy from the biblical truth, which declares plainly that the resurrection was on the Sabbath after Passover, i.e.  μια των σαββατων, the "first of the sabbaths" (cf. Lev. 23:15).   So far you've lost every point we've contended over.   It doesn't take a leap to see that your side seriously violates Okcham's Razor.

     The rest of your statement above makes no sense.  AD 32 is not relevant.  I feel like you just want to cheapen the debate with nonsense so that no one will read it.  I would hope that was not the case, yet your reasoning is incompetent, so I don't know what to think.   In AD 34 the preparation of the Passover was on Nisan 14, a Wednesday.  That is all that is required.

       It cited Mark 8:31 and 9:31, so your last sentence above is misrepresentation of what I said.   Mark 8:31 says "after three days" he would rise, a fact that fits Wednesday to Sabbath, but cannot fit Friday to Sunday.  I already posted a chart showing as much.

 

• Sorry wasn't talking about One Saturday (אחד בשבת ) I don't think you understand the point I was getting at - the phrase "mia sabbathw" (one of the sabbaths - plural) is shown in jewish writings (as well as in the NT) of the era to be a hebraism used at the time to identify the day of their week as well as to identify the week between passover and pentecost. The Didache is dated by many to be approximately 70 AD, though most would place it late first century, its current redaction is mid second century.

 

      You probably don't know much Hebrew.  Otherwise you would not have made the gaff you did in the above paragraph.    Remember when Obama said "cinco de cuatro"?  It's about the same. אחד בשבת is used to mean Sunday in Mishnaic Hebrew.   However, the word "Sabbath" does not mean "week".  The proper translation is "one in connection with Sabbath".  It was a pious usage for Jews of the Mishnaic period to refer to the Sabbath when they designated days of the week.   Such usage, however is unattested before ca. AD 140.  AD 70 is an impossibly early date for the Didache.

      What you need to realize is that all your arguments are a form of circular reasoning.   You use a document from an apostate Church to prove your point.  You use the mistranslation "first day of the week" executed by apostate Christianity to prove your point.  All circular reasoning that disagrees with the whole chronology of Passion week and the literal meaning of the words, and totally disagrees with Daniel 9.

[Daniel Gregg]

Thank you Ruy for posting Finegan.
Table 140 is based only on astronomical calculations. (1) As calculated by Fotheringham is the correct Jewish method of intercalation. Column (2) is the Babylonian and Persian Method.

Table 142 is Finegan’s interpretation.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I live in a heavy SDA populated area who wear their Sabbath like a chip on their shoulder. I decided to see what they believed on the subject, so I picked up a book WHAT SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS BELIEVE...published by the general Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists.

On page 253 they state that “On FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the SIXTH DAY OF THE WEEK, Christ finished his redemptive mission on earth. His last words were ‘It is finished!”

(caps added by me)

[Diego1618]

On page 253 they state that “On FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the SIXTH DAY OF THE WEEK, Christ finished his redemptive mission on earth. His last words were ‘It is finished!”

Well.....I can't cannot speak for Daniel....but I've never seen too much about the SDA that I can agree with.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

It is too easy to read something and run with it.

Here is an example...

Pharasees ate only one meal on saturday, but three or more each day during the week.

Proof.
A pharasee goes to the temple and brags about how he fasts twice on the Sabbath day!

Luk 18:12 I fast twice in the week (Sabbath), I give tithes of all that I possess.

The Greek reads Sabbath therefore he only ate one meal that day then proving that Pharasees were well fed the other days.

Which reminds me, I missed two meals Satuday morning and noon but had a cookout yesterday afternoon! Didn’t even think about it till I started to cook. Does that make me special?

[Daniel Gregg]

Here's an article I've had posted on my site for quite some time. It gives some alternatives. I really don't have a firm position on the whole think except that sabbath does not mean "week" since it using the word was clearly a pious usage, and the pious user wanted the use of "sabbath" noticed, not "week".

Does "Sabbaton" in

Luke 18:12 really mean "week"?

 

For the 2nd Edition of the Scroll of Biblical Chronology and Prophecy

       

               Our English translations of Luke 18:12 say, "I fast twice a week".   However, the word for "Sabbath" occurs in the Greek text where the translators have written "week":

 

 

         This text represents the Hebrew .    The genitive definite article before Sabbath is represented by the lamed and the vowel under the lamed.     The original Hebrew uttered by the Pharisee (and Yeshua) is clear enough in that language,  "I fast twice with respect to the Sabbath", which is the same as similar pious usage in other Jewish sources.    See my annotated Chart of the Week for these usages.   The point of reckoning time with reference to the Sabbath was to give a pious notice of the Sabbath.    If Sabbath meant only "week" then there is no reason that such usage would have supplanted the normal usage, "I fast twice a seven" which in Hebrew would be Shavua, a derivative of the number seven meaning "week".  Actually, it still has the sense of "seven".   The before mentioned chart of the week will show that "I fast twice a Shavua" would be the normal mode of expression.

          What remains then is to explain how the Greek text of Luke got the way it did.  Starting from the Hebrew above that is not hard to see.   standing without comprehension of the context of practices of the Pharisees can easily be either, "I fast twice to the sabbath" or "I fast twice the sabbath" i.e. on it.   While we know now that the Pharisees fasted on Mondays and Thursdays, this was not a fact known so widely to Gentile scribes.   Luke's first MSS could easily have read "to the sabbath" in the first century i.e. , and then have been altered by some scribe in the second century to thinking that the text meant "I fast twice on the Sabbath".   The scribal practices of Christian scribes were no where near as exacting as Jewish scribes.  In fact, it was regarded as allowable to improve the text in this period.   We have early MSS from the second century when compared with fourth century MSS that show these tendencies.   However, for this section of Luke we have no early MSS.   So the change has gone undetected.   Indeed, the text of the book of Acts is about 10% longer in the Byzantine MSS than in the older MSS.   This is because scribes tended to conflate various readings, which means they put both into the text.   Differences in case endings and spellings were not uncommon either, and here I am only proposing a case ending corruption, and a very easy one to make at that.  "Too" sounds very similar to "toe".

          For the sake of argument, I will mention Acts 15:24 where the late western text adds, "saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment:".   These anti-Torah words are not in the earliest MSS, and have been correctly removed from translations like the New American Standard Bible.    However, would anyone in the 1700's know this?   Of course not, since the older MSS were only discovered later.  But since we have no old MSS of Luke, we have no way of knowing for sure.   Could such a change have been motivated by the interpretation of 'week' for 'sabbaton' in the resurrection passages?    How does a mistake in a few MSS get into all of the current MSS?    Well, we say that when the Romans purged most of the MSS that the one with the mistake is the one that survived, and then this one became the exemplar for the MSS that followed.   God knew that corruptions were bound to occur.  It's human nature, so that's why He gave us four gospels and not just one.

        One odd text is not sufficient reason to introduce a new definition to "sabbaton" for the first century period.    A lexical meaning should be established by many witnesses and not just one text.   In fact, three witnesses ought to be required where an immediate contradiction would occur if said meaning did not apply.   However, "I fast twice the sabbath" implies no immediate contradiction.   O.k., it only contradicts the assumption that Yeshua was talking about the Pharisees that fasted on Monday's and Thursdays.   But even if he was, the text does only becomes an anomaly and not definitive proof that "Sabbath" meant week.   If "Sabbath" meant week, plain and simple, then there is no apparent reason for the change from using the common word for week, i.e. seven or Shavua, and there is every reason to think that counting "to" the Sabbath was a pious usage, which exactly fits the character of some Pharisees.   Perhaps there was some unknown class of Essene type Pharisee that skipped two meals on the Sabbath.   There are just too many unknowns to go depending on one witness for the meaning "week" when the meaning "sabbath" gives sense also.

        If it even be admitted that "sabbaton" means "week" in this one passage (and I do not agree that it does), it would be insufficient data to take the phrase "one [day] of the Sabbaths" in the resurrection passages and apply it there.   This is because the construction of the phrase in Greek is based on the normal usage for the Sabbath day, "day of the Sabbaths", except that the word "one" has been tacked on the front, and the word "day" dropped because it is implied by the gender of "one".   This is sufficient from the Greek point of view to prevent from meaning anything but a regular sabbath with the word "one" or "first" tacked on the front, which is explained by Lev. 23:15.   And in fact, the whole phrase is a pure Hebraism for which was used to designate the first Sabbath after Passover as distinct from the first Sabbath in Lev. 23:11, which was called to keep it distinct from the first Sabbath after Passover.

        The rest of the matter is secured by the overall chronology and the many details that only make sense with the resurrection on the Sabbath.

 

Appendix I:  The Syriac Luke 18:12.   In the extraction below from www.peshitta.org the Syriac word below "in a week" is "unto the Sabbath":  "I fast two times on toward the Sabbath".  This shows the pious usage of Sabbath in counting the days of the week.

 

    

[Daniel Gregg]

Don’t take what the General Conference says too seriously as an indication of what all SDA’s believe — espeically foregin SDA’s. The SDA church is as useless for chronology and eschatology as the Roman Catholics, however many of them don’t agree with the party line. The Church is a mixture of good and bad just like any other church. It is a real bummer that Ellen White endorsed a Friday Crucifixion, but then she contradicted herself on the “six days before the Passover” passage. I’ve bounced “first of the Sabbaths off of Desmond Ford and the late Samuuele Bacchiocchi face to face.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

“The first day of the week”

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3157

[Diego1618]

Here's the first mistake they make:

Admittedly, a form of the Greek word for sabbath (sabbaton or sabbatou) does appear in each of the eight passages translated “first day of the week.” For example, in Acts 20:7 this phrase is translated from the Greek mia ton sabbaton.

Your own post shows this discrepancy!

en de th mia twn sabbatwn sunhgmenwn twn maqhtwn tou klasai arton o pauloV dielegeto autoiV mellwn exienai th epaurion pareteinen te ton logon mecri mesonuktiou

The word is SABBATWN.....not SABBATON or SABBATOU. As you can see here, the word is different and the singular is SABBATW.

The word SABBATWN also appears in [Matthew 28:1][Mark 16:2][Luke 24:1]and John 20:1].....all the resurrection verses and the phrase means "One (First) of the Sabbaths". SABBATON means Sabbath and SABBATOU is the adjective describing the day as in "Sabbath day".

You folks can call this "First Day of the Week" until you're blue in the face. That still will not change the true meaning.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***You folks can call this “First Day of the Week” until you’re blue in the face. That still will not change the true meaning. ***

I’ll stick with The Learned Men.

http://www.baptistpillar.com/bd0059.htm

[Diego1618]

No reasonable person imagines that the translators were infallible or that their work was perfect, but no one acquainted with the facts can deny that they were men of outstanding scholarship, well qualified for their important work, or that with God’s blessing they completed their great task with scrupulous care and fidelity.

The above is from your link.

Now.....errors in the works of the learned men: Genesis 1:2 should read "And the earth became without form . . . ." The word translated "was" is hayah, and denotes a condition different than a former condition, as in Genesis 19:26. Genesis 10:9 should read " . . . Nimrod the mighty hunter in place of [in opposition to] the LORD." The word "before" is incorrect and gives the connotation that Nimrod was a good guy, which is false. Leviticus 16:8, 10, 26 in the KJV is "scapegoat" which today has the connotation of someone who is unjustly blamed for other's sins. The Hebrew is Azazel, which means "one removed or separated." The Azazel goal represents Satan, who is no scapegoat. He is guilty of his part in our sins. Deuteronomy 24:1, "then let him" should be "and he." As the Savior explained in Matthew 19, Moses did not command divorcement. This statute is regulating the permission of divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. 2 Kings 2:23, should be "young men", not "little children." Isaiah 65:17 should be "I am creating [am about to create] new heavens and new earth . . . ." Ezekiel 20:25 should read "Wherefore I permitted them, or gave them over to, [false] statutes that are not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." God's laws are good, perfect and right. This verse shows that since Israel rejected God's laws, He allowed them to hurt themselves by following false man made customs and laws. Daniel 8:14 is correct in the margin, which substitutes "evening morning" for "days." Too bad William Miller didn't realize this. Malachi 4:6 should read " . . . lest I come and smite the earth with utter destruction." "Curse" doesn't give the proper sense here. Same word used in Zechariah 14:11.

And from the New Testament: Matthew 5:48 should be "Become ye therefore perfect" rather than "be ye therefore perfect." "Perfect" here means "spiritually mature." Sanctification is a process of overcoming with the aid of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 24:22 needs an additional word to clarify the meaning. It should say "there should no flesh be saved alive." Matthew 27:49 omits text which was in the original. Moffatt correctly adds it, while the RSV puts it in a footnote: "And another took a spear and pierced His side, and out came water and blood." The Savior's death came when a soldier pierced His side, Revelation 1:7. Matthew 28:1, "In the end of the sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week . . ." should be translated literally, "Now late on Sabbath, as it was getting dusk toward the first day of the week . . . ." The Sabbath does not end at dawn but at dusk. Luke 2:14 should say, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men of God's good pleasure or choosing." That is, there will be peace on earth among men who have God's good will in their hearts. Luke 14:26 has the unfortunate translation of the Greek word miseo, Strong's #3404, as "hate", when it should be rendered "love less by comparison." We are not to hate our parents and family! John 1:31, 33 should say "baptize" or "baptizing IN water" not with water. Pouring or sprinkling with water is not the scriptural method of baptism, but only thorough immersion in water. John 1:17 is another instance of a poor preposition. "By" should be "through": "For the law was given by [through] Moses . . . ." Moses did not proclaim his law, but God's Law. John 13:2 should be "And during supper" (RSV) rather than "And supper being ended" (KJV). Acts 12:4 has the inaccurate word "Easter" which should be rendered "Passover." The Greek word is pascha which is translated correctly as Passover in Matthew 26:2, etc. 1 Corinthians 1:18 should be: "For the preaching of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God", rather than "perish" and "are saved." Likewise, 2 Thessalonians 2:10 should be "are perishing" rather than "perish." 1 Corinthians 15:29 should be: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the hope of the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the hope of the dead?" 2 Corinthians 6:2 should be "a day of salvation", instead of "the day of salvation." This is a quote from Isaiah 49:8, which is correct. The day of salvation is not the same for each individual. The firstfruits have their day of salvation during this life. The rest in the second resurrection. 1 Timothy 4:8 should say, "For bodily exercise profiteth for a little time: but godliness in profitable unto all things . . . ." 1 Timothy 6:10 should be, "For the love of money is a [not the] root of all evil . . . ." Hebrews 4:8 should be "Joshua" rather than "Jesus", although these two words are Hebrew and Greek equivalents. Hebrews 4:9 should read, "There remaineth therefore a keeping of a sabbath to the people of God." Hebrews 9:28 is out of proper order in the King James. It should be: "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them without sin that look for him shall he appear the second time unto salvation." 1 John 5:7-8 contains additional text which was added to the original. "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The italicized text was added to the original manuscripts. Most modern translations agree that this was an uninspired addition to the Latin Vulgate to support the unscriptural trinity doctrine. Revelation 14:4 should be "a firstfruits", because the 144,000 are not all the firstfruits. Revelation 20:4-5 in the KJV is a little confusing until you realize that the sentence "This is the first resurrection." in verse five refers back to "they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years" in verse four. Revelation 20:10, "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are [correction: should be 'were cast' because the beast and false prophet were mortal human beings who were burned up in the lake of fire 1,000 years previous to this time, Revelation 19:20], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." The point is that Satan will be cast into the same lake of fire into which the beast and false prophet were cast a thousand years previously. Revelation 22:2 should be "health" rather than "healing."

They also mistranslated the Greek words MIA TWN SABBATWN. It means "One of the Sabbaths". They translated it "First Day of the Week". They did this because most of them had been brought up in an Apostate Church.....and they didn't know any better as it had been crammed into their little heads as children.....much the same as the folks who nowadays believe this nonsense!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***The above is from your link.

Now.....errors in the works of the learned men:***

This sounds like a rehash of the reasons given by the Wescott and Hort group to promote the RSV.

Point out the “errors” of the old and play up the new. It is also good for sales.

From the Translators to the Reader...1611 KJV.

1 Now to the latter we answer, that we do not deny, nay, we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the Word of God, nay, is the Word of God.

• 2 As the King’s Speech which he uttered in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King’s Speech, though it be not interpreted by every translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere.

• 3 For it is confessed, that things are to take their denomination of the greater part; and a natural man could say, Verùm ubi multa nitent in carmine, non ego paucis offendor maculis, etc. [Horace.] A man may be counted a virtuous man though he have made many slips in his life, (else there were none virtuous, for in many things we offend all [James 3:2]) also a comely man and lovely, though he have some warts upon his hand, yea, not only freckles upon his face, but also scars.

• 4 No cause therefore why the Word translated should be denied to be the Word, or forbidden to be current, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it.

• 5 For whatever was perfect under the sun, where Apostles or apostolic men, that is, men endued with an extraordinary measure of God’s Spirit, and privileged with the privilege of infallibility, had not their hand?....

...

• 11 The translation of the Seventy dissenteth from the original in many places, neither doth it come near it for perspicuity, gravity, majesty; yet which of the Apostles did condemn it?

• 12 Condemn it? Nay, they used it, (as it is apparent, and as Saint Hierome and the most learned men to confess) which they would not have done, nor by their example of using it, so grace and commend it to the Church, if it had been unworthy the appellation and name of the Word of God.

• 2 Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavour, that our mark.

[Daniel Gregg]

My reply to that article:

 

 

First of the Sabbaths vs. First Day of the Week

Daniel Gregg vs. Eric Lyons, Master Ministry

       All the resurrection accounts show that Yeshua was raised from the dead on the first Sabbath after Passover (μια των σαββατων; Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; cf. vs. 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19; cf. Acts 20:7; cf. 1Cor. 16:2).   In 1 Cor. 16:2 Paul tells the faithful to save up a contribution "down from the first of Sabbaths" (κατα μιαν σαββατων) to send to Jerusalem for Pentecost (1 Cor. 16:8).  The anniversary of the resurrection always falls right after Passover.   It is marked on the "first of the sabbaths" in Acts 20:7 (Εν δε τη μια των σαββατων), when the disciples met to "break bread", which is a near eastern expression for a common meal.  The next day, a common Sunday morning, Paul departed on his journey.  The expression showing the time of the resurrection appears eight times in the Apostolic Writings.  It designates a special Sabbath (cf. Lev. 23:15) along with the regular Sabbaths.  Even John received his vision on the Sabbath (cf. Rev. 1:10).

       Before the Gentiles fell into the Baalistic apostasy that became the proto-Catholic Church and the various Gnostic movements, faithful Messianic Israelites met and worshiped on the Sabbath day, and observed the Jewish feast days (cf. Col. 2:16; 1Cor 5:8; 1Cor 16:8).  The apostates developed a web of deceit to lay as a foundation for their new religion taken from old Babylonia, and then proceeded to persecute the original faith into near extinction with the zeal of Jezebel.  In this article we will look at the lies, half truths, and admitted truths that can be confirmed in an article published by Eric Lyons for Apologetics Press.  Quotations will be from that article which are sourced at the link under Mr. Lyons name.  He writes:

Admittedly, a form of the Greek word for sabbath (sabbaton or sabbatou) does appear in each of the eight passages translated “first day of the week.” For example, in Acts 20:7 this phrase is translated from the Greek mia ton sabbaton. However, sabbaton (or sabbatou) is never translated as “the Sabbath day” in these passages. Why? Because the word is used in these contexts (as Greek scholars overwhelmingly agree) to denote a “week” (Perschbacher, 1990, p. 364), “a period of seven days” (Danker, et al., 2000, p. 910; cf. Thayer, 1962, p. 566). Jesus once used the term “Sabbath” in this sense while teaching about the sinfulness of self-righteousness (Luke 18:9).

     Lyons can barely tell the truth before starting in on the religious propaganda and lies.   We have to eliminate those Greek scholars from the field that learned to translate μια των σαββατων from others who told them that σαββατον meant "week" based on Church tradition.  That's nearly all of them.  Then we have to bring in those scholars of secular Greek and the few honest believing Greek scholars left that have set aside Church tradition to objectively study the matter from its linguistic basis that have correctly concluded that the phrase simply means "one day of the sabbaths".   Notice that Lyons whole argument here is based on appeal to majority and appeal to tradition.  That's not linguistic science in the least.  It's the one argument repeated by the opposition a thousand ways.  It's the one argument guaranteed to lead one into the apostasy of the majority is the slightest credence is placed on it.

      Even so Lyons sources have holes in them.  The first thing that Christians need to learn is that dictionaries and Lexicons are propaganda pieces.  The famed Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) was edited by Gerhard Kittel (1888-1948), "a German liberal Christian theologian who revealed himself to be a virulent anti-Semite who wrote Nazi-influenced nonsense about Christianity" (conservapedia.com/Gerhard_Kittel).  Kittel wrote the preface to TDNT in July 1933.  In August 1933, Herbert Lowewe, a Cambridge professor wrote:

 

       "It gives me great pain to find that so great an authority and leader of thought should give expression to such views. I have read your previous books with pleasure and profit, and I have learned much from them. ... your present pronouncement is quite incompatible with your previous teaching, and it is as unjust to Christianity as it is to Judaism. ... It is a grievous disillusionment to find that one's idol has feet of clay" (ibid, conservapedia)

 

      One must always keep in mind that human sources may be tainted with primary error or circular reasoning fallacies.  When men come before the throne of God to answer for their sins, the "I was just following orders" defense is not going to work any more than it worked at Nuremburg.  No God will hold them responsible to have done due diligence and have examined primary evidence with taking care to preserve their objectivity in prayerful entreaty to God to show them the truth.

       Perschbacher above is merely a fallacy of the circular reasoning type, his views learned by rumor from the original liar.  However, if we look at a source like Danker (now BDAG, 3rd edition, 2000) we will see that famed Jesuit Scholar Robert North disagrees that Sabbath meant "week", and this linguistic expert attributes it to a mistake by the Church Fathers (BDAG, pg. 910, σαββατον, "The Derivation of 'Sabbath', Biblica 36, '55, 182-201; cf. The New Catholic Encyclopedia, "Sabbath", © 2003, pg. 458; R. North).  Anyone who goes over the same linguistic evidence as North, S.J., will find the smoking gun behind the lie.

         An examination of Thayer's Lexicon will reveal uncertainty in the linguistic basis for the meaning "week":

 

 

        How does a speculation like Prof. Sophocles get into Thayer's Lexicon where the word "Sabbath" is given the meaning of "Sabbath"?  The reason is that the entire linguistic basis for sabbath meaning "week" is derived from exactly nine NT texts where everyone has been "told" it means week.   These are exactly nine texts that fail to prove the case from any linguistic view point, and professors like Sophocles knew it.   Nowhere else in all of Greek literature of NT provenance can anyone produce an example of Sabbath meaning week that is not traceable back to these texts.  And on an objective basis, to assert so in these nine texts is simply the most unparsimonious view one can take since the resultant chronology is contradictory.  If any other justification existed, it would be at the bottom of the column in Thayer.  In Luke 18:12, the Greek just means "I fast twice the Sabbath", which is sooner explained as an Hebraism than having the unattested meaning of "week": אני צם פעמים בשבת or לשבת,

 

which means "I fast twice in respect to Sabbath". In light of the chronology of Passion week and the Pious usage in the Mishnah and the Talmud, this is evidently the case.

        Lyons says "Obviously Jesus was not saying that the Pharisee boasted of fasting twice on the Sabbath day, but twice (dis) a week (tou sabbatou)."  What is obvious?  Only that Lyons is redacting his opinion that Sabbath means week back into the first century.  It is not obvious what this hapax (occurring only once) text means.  There could be some obscure Jewish sect of Pharisee that we don't know much about that made a pious point of skipping two meals on Sabbath, probably Friday evening and breakfast, eating only one meal toward the end of Sabbath after the end of their ascetic exercises for the day.  Lyons argument is therefore purely an argument from silence and the main Jewish tradition.

         Every linguist senses, if they do not know it already, that a secondary meaning to a word must be proven by regular and common examples in the language, and that the additional use flows naturally out of the base semantic range of the root word.  With only one supposed enigmatic example, we do not have sufficient basis to be going into the resurrection passages to put a hapax conjecture into texts where the meaning "Sabbath" already makes plain sense.  If one looks at is objectively, one must conclude that the evidence for circular reasoning tomfoolery is overwhelming.

According to R.C.H. Lenski, since “[t]he Jews had no names for the weekdays,” they “designated them with reference to their Sabbath” (1943, p. 1148). Thus, mia ton sabbaton means “the first (day) with reference to the Sabbath,” i.e., the first (day) following the Sabbath (Lenski, p. 1148), or, as we would say in 21st century English, “the first day of the week.” (Lyons).

       The first sentence is a bald faced lie.  The Jews did have a standard way to refer to the week days, and it did not use the word Sabbath.  Only the ignorant can believe it.  The ancient Jews sooner said, "first day," "second day", etc. than ever referring to the Sabbath except when it was Friday, which is "erev Shabbat" (eve of Sabbath) or "Sabbath" itself, and never then does the word mean "week".   William Mead Jones "A Chart of the Week" (annotated) shows the Hebrew Bible counting the days just as above.   [1] The alleged usage only occurs in the Mishnah and Talmud, and even there, it is mixed with the following usage, which is more common.  [2] And sooner than use such forms, the Jewish community said, "one in the seven", "two in the seven", using the Hebrew or Aramaic word for "seven".  This is how the Targums count and even the ancient Syriac after we take Robert North's, S.J. findings into account.

       Now if μια των σαββατων means "first day with reference to the Sabbath" then why don't the translators translate it as such?  Because with such a meaning, μια των σαββατων is not what we expect.  We expect the dative case: μια εν τη σαββατω or accusative μιαν εις το σαββατον.  Another reason they don't do it is that it calls too much attention to the Sabbath.  A pious usage showing recognition of the Sabbath is not something they want to draw attention to on the resurrection day!  No, the phrase μια των σαββατων simply means "one [day] of the sabbaths" in Koine Greek.

After spending years examining Jewish writings in the Babylonian Talmud, Hebraist John Lightfoot wrote A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, in which he expounded upon the Hebrew method of counting the days of the week. He noted: “The Jews reckon the days of the week thus; One day (or the first day) of the sabbath: two (or the second day) of the sabbath;” etc. (1859, 2:375, emp. in orig.). Lightfoot then quoted from two different Talmud tractates. Maccoth alludes to those who testify on “the first of the sabbath” about an individual who stole an ox. Judgment was then passed the following day—“on the second day of the sabbath” (Lightfoot, 2:375, emp. in orig.; Maccoth, Chapter 1). Bava Kama describes ten enactments ordained by a man named Ezra, including the public reading of the law “on the second and fifth days of the sabbath,” and the washing of clothes “on the fifth day of the sabbath” (Lightfoot, 2:375; Bava Kama, Chapter 7). In Michael Rodkinson’s 1918 translation of Maccoth and Bava Kama, he accurately translated “the second day of the sabbath” as Monday, “the fifth day of the sabbath” as Thursday, and “the first of the sabbath” as Sunday. (Lyons)

       First we should find out who Bishop John Lightfoot was (1602-1675).  He was a clergyman in the Church of England with Presbyterian sympathies (i.e. the Calvinist heresy), son of the vicar of Uttoxeter; he was not Jewish and his native language was not Hebrew or any Semitic language.  He learned his Hebraica from Sir Rowland Cotton.   He rejected the thousand year kingdom reign of Yeshua on earth, and sought for "the repression of current 'blasphemies'" (wiki).  He was allegedly the first Christian to call attention to the Talmud, so it may be assumed that he had no peer review on what he found there.  He also did not know his Hebrew very well or chose to suppress it, because what we find in the Talmud is not "One day (or the first day) of the sabbath".  What Lightfoot tried to translate with the word "of" in English does not correspond to the Hebrew ב found in the Talmud.  Further, one merely needs to remove Lightfoot's parenthesis such that we see "One day of the Sabbath" corresponds to the Greek idiom for the Sabbath, "day of the Sabbath(s)" with the word "first" before it.   Lightfoot is also concealing that the Greek is plural, i.e. "Sabbaths".  To see how deceptive this is consider the variant meanings of "first of the month" and "first of the months".   We see that the mere inclusion of the plural "s" at the end of the word changes from enumerating days of the month to the enumeration of whole months.

       This "Hebrew method" reflected only Talmudic and Mishnaic writings and never the popular spoken usage of Jews either in Aramaic or Hebrew.  Further, all of these examples are derived from the post Christian period, and indeed after the first century.  Finally, the pious usage "one in connection with Sabbath" (אחד בשבת) or (חד בשבתא) is clearly confused with the popular usage "one in the seven" (חד בשבא, in which א and ע are transmuted and the ת omitted). 

 

 

A major problem with citing the Talmud and Mishnah is that it was composed during the time of Jewish and Christian polemics.   It would be self serving of both proto-Catholic heretics and the anti-Messianic Jews to help each other.  The Rabbis would provide the alleged idiom for "first day of the week" to purify Judaism of the Sabbath resurrection and the Church would teach their people that the resurrection was on Sunday to purify Christianity of Judaism.  The Church could then dispense with its Jewish problem, and the Jews with their Gentile problem.  They did not have to consciously implement this.  Help from the otherworld would be sufficient.   However, they did not sow the lie up perfectly neatly.  The Rabbinic usage refused to be introduced into spoken speech, and it still shows traces of the original idiom, "one in the seven," "two in the seven" etc.  The final smoking gun so to speak is the missing ת in the Aramaic idiom for days one to five.  If the word really meant week, then why would they refuse to say שבתא for days one to five?  

 

 

Doubtless, by being forced into the scholarly literature, the usage has crept into some modern usages.  The only way to solve the issue is to seek out the usage of Nazrene Jews contemporary with the Apostolic Writings using objective linguistic tools and judging the matter semantically and chronologically based on the pure probabilities of the matter without the burden of self serving errant post-second Temple traditions.   And even if it were finally shown that some first century Jews counted days of the week after a pious fashion, it would not prove that μια των σαββατων did not mean "one day of the Sabbaths" or "first Sabbth".  It would only prove the possibility, a possibility which is soundly refuted by the fact that the only sound chronology can be built with the resurrection on the first sabbath after Passover, and the fact that only this agrees with the biblical instruction to count seven sabbaths after Passover according to Lev. 23:15.

 

Finally, consider the difficulty that would arise with Jesus’ resurrection story if sabbaton was translated Sabbath. “Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. Very early in the morning, on the first Sabbath (sabbaton), they came to the tomb when the sun had risen” (emp. added). Such a rending of sabbaton in Mark 16:2 would be nonsensical. The Sabbath was over, and the mia ton sabbaton (“first day of the week”) had begun. The passage is understood properly only when one recognizes the Jewish method of reckoning weekdays. (Lyons).

       This is exactly where the probability function of the alternatives to "one day of the Sabbaths" collapses.   This is an argument that has no due diligence behind it.  What is due diligence?   It is the duty of the scholar to make reasonable efforts to determine if his or her arguments cannot be easily circumvented by further facts before presenting them as proof of their position.  When due diligence is not performed, we may suspect a would be scholar to either be trying to deceive us or simply being an ignoramus.   Anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with the Wednesday crucifixion and Sabbath resurrection knows that Thursday that year was the annual Sabbath  (cf. Lev. 23:11, 15).  This is what Mark 16:1 is referring to.  Matthew 28:1 confirms this because it alludes to the annual Sabbath reading: οψε δε σαββατων = Later of [the] Sabbaths.   So also John 19:31, which calls the annual Sabbath "great" on account if its being the greatest annual sabbath feast day of the biblical calendar.

 

Just as second century apologists Justin Martyr (ca. A.D. 150) spoke of Jesus as rising from the dead “on the first day after the Sabbath” (Dialogue..., 41), and equated this day with “Sunday” (“First Apology,” 67), so should 21st century Christians. That Jesus rose from the dead “on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:9), and that Christians gathered to worship on this day (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; cf. Justin Martyr, “First Apology,” 67), is an established fact. Sunday is the first day after the Jewish Sabbath—the “first day of the week.” (Lyons).

        Justin was steeped in Greek philosophy and anti-Semitism.  Modern scholars who used his arguments and who painted the Jews the way he did would be better off joining the Nazi party.  No one can read his writings and compare them with the Torah and Prophets without discerning his massively cultic Scripture twisting and his virulent hatred for things Jewish.  Justin is just another heretic created in the crucible of Hadrian's decrees against Judaism in Rome.

__________________________________________________________________________

  email: daniel@torahtimes.org

 

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[Diego1618]

This sounds like a rehash of the reasons given by the Wescott and Hort group to promote the RSV.

It still doesn't change the unalterable fact the Greek does not say "First day of the week".

Revelation 22:13] I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. /protos (pro'-tos)

Revelation 21:25] And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. /hemera (hay-mer'-ah)

Since the word "week" appears no where in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, I'll quote from the Septuagint for my authority.

[Daniel 9:27] And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. /kai dunamwsei diaqhkhn pollois ebdomas mia kai en tw hmisei ths ebdomados arqhsetai mou qusia kai spondh kai epi to ieron bdelugma twn erhmwsewn kai ews sunteleias kairou sunteleia doqhsetai epi thn erhmwsin

The Greek words you are defining as "First day of the week" are "MIA TWN SABBATWN". Can you see that they are not the same....or do you still wish to go with the learned?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

**The Greek words you are defining as “First day of the week” are “MIA TWN SABBATWN”. Can you see that they are not the same....or do you still wish to go with the learned? ***

I’ll also stick with Thayer, Strongs, and Vines and my seven different translations which all say the same thing...”first day of the week”.

Home > Lexicons > Greek > Sabbaton
The KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon

Strong’s Number: 4521 Browse Lexicon
Original Word Word Origin
savbbaton of Hebrew origin (07676)
Transliterated Word TDNT Entry
Sabbaton 7:1,989
Phonetic Spelling Parts of Speech
sab’-bat-on Noun Neuter

Definition
the seventh day of each week which was a sacred festival on which the Israelites were required to abstain from all work
the institution of the sabbath, the law for keeping holy every seventh day of the week
a single sabbath, sabbath day
seven days, a week

King James Word Usage - Total: 68
sabbath day 37, sabbath 22, week 9

KJV Verse Count
Matthew 9
Mark 11
Luke 19
John 11
Acts 10
1 Corinthians 1
Colossians 1

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Total 62

http://www.biblestudytools.net/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=4521&version=kjv

[Diego1618]

I’ll also stick with Thayer, Strongs, and Vines and my seven different translations which all say the same thing...”first day of the week”.

[Matthew 24:5]

C'est la Vie...............you can have the last word. I'm retiring from this thread.....again.