The Week, and the Date Line
By C. P. Bollman
THE writer was recently asked to answer an objection to the Sabbath, the ground of the objection being that the week originated in the changes of the moon rather than in the facts of creation; and that the “day line,” or more properly date line, was arbitrarily established by men and not by the Creator. My reply was that I did not think it necessary to make an answer regarding the origin of the week further than to quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica (twentieth century edition, 1903), art. “Calendar,” subdivision “Week:”— “The week is a period of seven days, having no reference whatever to the celestial motions,—a circumstance to which it owes its unalterable uniformity. Although it did not enter into the calendar of the Greeks, and was not introduced at Rome till after the reign of Theodosius, it has been employed from time immemorial in almost all Eastern countries; and as it forms neither an aliquot part of the year nor of the lunar month, those who reject the Mosaic recital will be at a loss, as Delambre remarks, to assign to it an origin having much semblance of probability.” Really I do not see that either this or the question of the date line presents any difficulty as pertaining to the Sabbath question. Whatever the “day” or the “week” may mean as applied to the period of time occupied in the creation, there can be no question as to their meaning as applied to the Sabbath. The Sabbath was and is the seventh day of the week known to the Hebrews, and that seventh day of that week was pointed out in a most unmistakable manner: (1) By the double quantity of the manna on the sixth day; (2) by the withholding of the manna on the seventh day; (3) by the fact that the manna gathered on the sixth day would and did keep over for use upon the next day, something it would not do upon other days. Mistake here was impossible. No scholar will deny that we have the identical week known to the Hebrews. There is not nor ever has been any difficulty in identifying either the Bible week or the seventh day of that week. It is not for us, therefore, to imagine difficulties that can never come to us, or situations in which we can never be placed. As for the date line, it may be said or even admitted that the drawing of the exact longitudinal line is an arbitrary arrangement made by man; but what of that? Is it not true just the same that in the providence of God man was shut up to the selection of the Pacific Ocean for the location of that line? It certainly is. The cradle of the race was in Asia. The world was peopled from that continent, and so far as civilization is concerned its course has ever been westward. Hence of necessity the date line was located in the Pacific Ocean. Nobody is troubled by it. Nobody has any difficulty locating the days of the week because of it, except when seeking an excuse for not obeying the fourth commandment. It is easy enough for one to get tangled up and lost in the mazes and fogs of “science falsely so-called,” but the humble believer’s experience is well described in the words of the psalmist: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Ps. 119: 105.