NOT SUSTAINED by M. M. KENNY

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 27, 1879

NOT SUSTAINED.

By M. M. KENNY

AN INTERESTING CORRESPONDENCE.

“Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark.” Isa. 29:15. We have had a forcible illustration of this text here this winter. While I was attending the T. and M. Institute at Sigourney, Iowa, the Presbyterian Minister came, and preached on the Sunday Sabbath. He said he understood the Greek, and that in Matt. 28:1 the word translated “week” should have been rendered “Sabbath.” One of the leading men in the neighborhood asked him if he was sure he was right. He said he was. He then told the minister he would give him $25 if he would prove it to him. It was finally agreed that they would leave it to Professors Carpenter, Laughlin, and Jones, of Oskaloosa, and they gave the subject a careful examination, and gave a written statement, which I send for publication, as several of the brethren are anxious to have a copy of it. M. M. KENNY.

Bluff Creek, Iowa.

“MR. J. H. ENGLAND: Dear Sir, In the matter of translation mutually referred to us by yourself and Rev. Russell, we beg leave to say that we have taken the matter into some careful and impartial consideration, and find that it is true that in each of the eight occurrences of the words “first day of the week” in the New Testament (viz., Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:2; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2), the Greek Sabbaton is found in the original. But it is not true that the word should always be translated by the English word Sabbath. On the contrary, we find no authority for so translating the word except when it refers to the seventh day. It should never be so translated when applied to the first day of the week. The word when found in the plural of the third Greek declension and in the neuter gender, is very commonly and correctly rendered week. Hence the literal of Matt. 28:1 would be ‘and late in (the) week, when it was on the point of dawning into (the) first of (the) week,’ etc.

“Of the six different standard translations in our possession, none of them has translated any one of the eight cases named above by the word ‘Sabbath,’ when in our common version we have ‘the first day of the week.’ Greenfield in his lexicon defines the term (singular and plural) ‘Sabbath: a period of seven days, a week.’ To this agree standard lexicographers. All the above-named cases are in the plural except Mark 16:9 (Sabbaton), and Greenfield’s Greek Testament makes this plural (Sabbata) in the margin. In Luke 18:12, we read: ‘I fast twice a week’ (Sabbatou). Of course it would be nonsense to say, ‘I fast twice on the Sabbath.’ We know of no reason for rendering the term in the several passages referred to by the word Sabbath, nor do we know of any standard authorities who do thus render it.

“Yours truly, “G. T. Carpenter, Pres. Oskaloosa College. “G. H. Laughlin, Prof. of Greek.”

“MR. J. H. ENGLAND: Dear Sir, I have examined with some care the passages to which you recently called my attention, and will say that, in my judgment, they are very well translated in our English version.

“Very truly, “S. A. Jones, Prof. Greek, Latin, & French.”