That False Argument Again
A READER of the REVIEW has sent us a copy of The Free Methodist (Chicago) of June 20, 1905, calling our attention to an article with the title “First-Day Sabbath,” and asking, “Will you please give an explanation of this through the REVIEW AND HERALD?” This article is simply a reiteration of the claim that a correct translation of Matt. 28: 1 and similar passages where we find the expression “the first day of the week” would indicate that the Sabbath was changed at that time, and that the inspired writings prove this when we appeal to the original text. With some show of an understanding of the Greek language the writer of the article quotes the original of Matt. 28: 1, and after saying that “this is the most difficult passage on the resurrection to translate into English,” he gives what he declares to be “the nearest word-for-word translation,” with the remark that “there are two sabbatons in this passage in the Greek text, . . . written just alike . . . pronounced alike, and are the same Greek characters.” The conclusion which he draws from this exhibition of profound scholarship runs thus:— “The first one is the Hebrew seventh-day Sabbath, the other is the day Christ arose from the sepulcher, on the first day of the Hebrew week. And in the Greek it is written first sabbath to distinguish it from the seventh-day Sabbath of the Israelite, or Hebrew Sabbath, and because it was the first day of the Hebrew week, and the first sabbath of the Christian era, it was the first sabbath of the gospel dispensation, A. D. 1.
After giving similar translations of other texts in which the expression “the first day of the week” is now found, this learned writer makes the following assertions:— In all these passages of the New Testament in the Greek, as quoted, it is first sabbath. Nowhere is the “first day of the week” found. In every passage, without exception, it is written (Mion Sabbaton), “First day of the4sabbaths.” This is positive proof that many the apostles had been taught, either by Christ himself or by the Holy Ghost, that the day of Christ’s resurrection was the Christian sabbath, and it was such when the Gospels were written in the Greek tongue, and should have been so translated into English to be in harmony with the Greek text. When the translators made our New Testament, they forced the expression “the first day of the week” into the translation, thereby making an error in the translation from the Greek text. This is proved by the Greek New Testament, for all Greek New Testaments are alike.
We are asked to “give an explanation” of this article. The only “explanation” which we can possibly give without charging the writer with downright dishonesty is to say that he has acquired only a smattering of Greek, and that he is utterly unprepared to criticize and to amend the authorized and revised translations of the New Testament. The frankness and simplicity with which he betrays his ignorance of the proper construction of the Greek text would be amusing if the matter were not so serious a one, and if so many persons were not misled by just such displays of pretended familiarity with the original text. It is quite true that “all Greek New Testaments are alike,” but this does not preserve us from the pretentious ignorance of those who pervert the meaning of the original by their so-called literal translations of the text. The simple fact is that there is no basis whatever for the assertions which this writer makes concerning the proper translation of these passages, and any one who really understands Greek would not make any such claims. Of course there are “two sabbatons” in Matt. 28: 1 which “are written just alike with the same letters and pronounced alike,” but this is far from proving that they should both be translated “sabbath,” and that the first day of the week is therefore the sabbath. The Greek construction is entirely different in these two cases, and it is this construction which determines the meaning of the word sabbaton. In the one construction the word sabbaton should be translated “sabbath,” and in the other construction it should be translated “week.” Any one who attempts to establish a disputed doctrine upon his correction of an alleged error in translation made by the best scholars of Europe and America ought certainly to have a better knowledge of Greek than is required in order to recognize that two words are spelled alike in the same passage, before he enters upon his critical work. In the issues of the REVIEW for April 27 and July 6 we dealt quite fully with this matter, quoting at length the testimony of scholars who are themselves observers of the first day of the week, showing the impossibility of translating Matt. 28: 1 in any other way than it is given in our standard English translations. It hardly seems to be necessary to print these testimonies again at this time, and we therefore refer our correspondent to them for an authoritative statement upon this subject. In spite of the fact that this perversion of the text of Matt. 28: 1 has been exposed over and over again, we suppose that the defenders of the false sabbath will continue to assert that it proves a change of the sabbath at the resurrection, and those who desire to have it so will give credence to their assertions. If those who are laboring for a return to the observance of the true Sabbath could produce no better evidence than is brought forward in the article under consideration, they would richly deserve to meet with confusion and failure. But a “Thus saith the Lord” is a better foundation than the assertions of men who do not understand what they are talking about.