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The First Day Sabbath

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Apr 12, 1906

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 15.

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The First Day Sabbath

By Editor

We are again reminded that “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” This time it is a correspondent of a local paper in Ohio who displays his lack of knowledge of the Greek language in a manner which would simply be ludicrous and unworthy of any attention if it were not for the fact that many who do not read Greek, and know that they are not Greek scholars (differing only in this latter respect from this correspondent), will be too ready to accept the absurd assertions of this tyro in Greek as if they were the utterances of sound scholarship.
We are unable, for lack of time and space, to quote all of this writer’s article, which occupies over three columns, and to answer each one of his incorrect statements, but this is not necessary, as they are all based upon the same pitiful ignorance of the structure of the Greek language, and are all answered by answering a typical instance. The purpose of the whole article is to establish the claim that there is Scriptural authority for the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and the whole attempt is one of the most flagrant examples of wresting the Scriptures which we have ever noted. We can hardly regard it, however, as a case of deliberate perversion of the facts, and are compelled to account for it on the ground of simple ignorance, as any Greek scholar would know that such a remarkable linguistic performance would only excite sympathetic contempt on the part of those who have even a moderate knowledge of the language.
This writer introduces his astounding arguments by impugning the scholarship of all translators of our English Bible from the earliest to the latest. He says:—
If the Scriptures had been properly translated, there need never have been any confusion concerning the proper Christian sabbath, and it seems perfectly inexcusable that the translators should have put the word “week” as a translation for the Greek word “Sabbath” in so many places.
We might suggest in passing that the only possible ground for such a “perfectly inexcusable” course is that according to the unanimous authority of Greek scholars and lexicographers the Greek word means “week” when used as it is “in so many places.” But this explanation is offered as a mere suggestion.
We now come to the serious arguments of the article, and quote the following as a sample:—
In all the places in the New Testament where our common version reads, “the first day of the week,” the Greek has it, “the first day Sabbath,” and there is no more reason why the word “week” should be used as a translation of the word “Sabbath” than why the word “January” should be used for it. In Matt. 28: 1, where the translation reads, “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,” the Greek reads, “In the end of the Sabbath,as it was getting dusk, toward the first day Sabbath, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher,” the Greek word being “mian Sabbath.” [We pause to note the scholarship of the writer who can thus combine Greek and English, and call it all Greek. We suppose “there’s a reason for it.”]
From this we see most positively that the Holy Spirit himself settled the first day sabbath as over against the last day Sabbath of the Jewish age. People often ask, Is there no real Scriptural proof for changing the Sabbath from the last day of the week to the first day of the week? I answer, We have abundant and positive proof, for the Holy Spirit in this passage refers to the last day Sabbath of the Jews, and then the first day sabbath, the day of Christ’s resurrection, and he calls the first day Sabbath just as positively as the last day Sabbath.
If we should simply make the assertion, which is abundantly justified by the facts, that this writer has been misled and is likely to mislead others through his lamentable ignorance of the language which he attempts to handle so critically, it would very likely be claimed that we were trying to make out a case for the continued obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath by rejecting the light which this advocate of the first-day sabbath has shed upon the text, and we therefore prefer to quote the candid statements of one who is both a Greek scholar and an observer of the first day of the week. He can not be rightly charged either with ignorance or with prejudice in favor of the seventh-day Sabbath. His discussion of the proper translation of this disputed text was called out by the publication of the following question:—
Is it allowable to translate the Greek of Matt. 28: 1, “At the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn towards the first of the sabbaths”? It seems to me as if we might, and it would be quite an argument in favor of a change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, because the resurrection morning stood between the two sabbaths.
In reply to this question, Dr. Walter Quincy Scott, one of the instructors in the Bible Teachers’ Training-school of New York City, addressed the following letter to Dr. W. W. White, the editor of the Bible Record, in whose columns the question appeared:—
NEW YORK, Sept. 8, 1904. MY DEAR DR. WHITE: Your correspondent asks, “Is it allowable to translate the Greek of Matt. 28: 1 [the Greek text is here inserted], ‘At the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn towards the first of the sabbaths’?” Such a rendering is impossible. 1. Mian is feminine, and sabbaton is neuter. Mian agrees with hameran understood. Your inquirer remarks on this point (as made by writer in Sunday School Times), “Neither do they [mian and sabbaton] agree in number.” Of course not; a substantive followed by a partitive genitive can not agree with it numerically. 2. It seems idle to add anything to the foregoing grammatical prohibition of the rendering proposed. But I may add that mian sabbaton is a Hebraism corresponding to the rabbinical designation of the days of the week. They called each day of the festal week a “sabbath,” and indicated each day by its proper ordinal prefixed to “sabbath.”
And in Greek eis is commonly used (as here) instead of protos. LXX and N. T. alike use ta sabbata in sense of singular—“the sabbath day,” and also in the meaning “week.” Mian sabbaton in Matt. 28: 1 can not mean anything else than “first day of the week.” The Revised Version correctly translates the verse. Your correspondent will find ample scholarly notes in Lange’s Matthew, by Schaff. WALTER QUINCY SCOTT. This letter from a genuine Greek scholar appeared in the issue of the Bible Record for January, 1905. It is the deliberate utterance of one whose ability and fairness prevent him from perverting the meaning of the passage as it is in the Greek language. In the May issue of the same publication there appeared another letter upon this subject, from which we make the following quotation:—
Editor of the Bible Record. DEAR SIR: The query in the issue of January, 1905, as to “Sabbath or Sabbaths” seems to call for a further warning. The querist asks if Matt. 28: 1, Opse de sabbaton, te epiphoskouse eis mian sabbaton, may not be rendered, At the end of the [Jewish seventh-day] sabbaths, as it began to dawn towards the first of the [Christian first-day] sabbaths. The superb negative answer given should be heralded far and wide. People of excellent intention and deep piety, but with little knowledge, are making such an interpretation in fortifying themselves against “Saturday keepers.” I own two books, and have read two others, in which each writer claims to have made the great discovery of said translation, and has based his book thereon. These good men had only a rusted smattering of classical Greek, and in their zeal without knowledge they stumbled upon this rendering, with a carelessness that few students of a month would make. “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” And more than that, acquaintance with classical Greek is not enough for the reading of the New Testament Greek. One must have large acquaintance with the grammar and the lexicon of the Greek Old Testament, and behind that, as the key to many of its peculiarities and mysteries, of the Hebrew Old Testament also. The writer of this second letter is stated to be a professor in a theological seminary, but his name is not given. It very fittingly accompanies the previous letter from Dr. Scott. Several things should be noted concerning these two letters. They are both written by Greek scholars who observe the first day of the week as the Sabbath and defend the practise. They both appear in a publication whose editor and publishers do the same. Both writers affirm that any such translation as is proposed by the writer of the article under consideration is impossible.
Dr. Scott gives the reason for his statement, based upon the grammatical construction of the Greek text of the passage, and further explains the peculiar construction as following the Hebrew idiom. The other writer calls attention to the “rusted smattering of classical Greek” and the “zeal without knowledge” of those who exhibit, in their efforts to sustain their improper translation, “a carelessness that few students of a month would make.” Taken together, these two letters are, to fair-minded persons, a complete answer to the foolish display of ignorance by the writer of the article in question. They make his claim for the testimony of the Holy Spirit in favor of the first-day sabbath a baseless assertion on the border line of blasphemy. We can safely submit the case after citing these witnesses.
The larger part of the remainder of this article consists of an examination of the other texts in the New Testament in which the expression “the first day of the week” occurs, and a further exhibition of what the writer does not know about the Greek language. We have neither time, space, nor inclination to follow him through his erratic wanderings in the mazes of linguistic blundering. We can only call attention to his closing argument. After establishing to his own satisfaction and by his unique translation of several passages the fact that “the first day of the week is the Christian sabbath,” this versatile defender of the faith calmly demolishes the whole foundation for Sabbath observance on any particular day, in these words:—
Those who contend for the keeping of the last day of the week for Sabbath should remember that in the very nature of things it would be impossible for the inhabitants of the whole world to be keeping the same day for Sabbath at the same time.
In order to prove this assertion the writer introduces the time-worn and threadbare illustration about the traveler who goes around the world from the west and gets out of joint with the calendar. The curious thing about this matter is that many men who observe the seventh-day Sabbath, including the editor of the REVIEW, have been around the world in this way, and have had no disagreement with the calendar, and still observe the true Sabbath. But after all this building up and tearing down, the writer of the article concludes with the claim of divine authority for a particular day, the first day of the week. These are his words:—
We must remember that the same in-finite God who instituted the Jewish Sabbath at the last day of the week, with the same infinite authority put the Christian sabbath at the first day of the week, and by the Holy Spirit speaks of it over and over again as the first Sabbath, in contradistinction from the last day Sabbath.
It thus appears that it is utterly impossible to observe a particular day of the week when that day is the last day of the week, but that it is both possible and obligatory to observe a particular day of the week when that day is the first day of the week. Such is the logic of one who understands the Greek, and who can correct all previous translations of the Bible. We are thankful that the seventh-day Sabbath rests upon no such foundation of sand and stubble. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”