Were Our Translators at Fault?—Would We Have a New Sabbath if the Text Were Correctly Rendered?
No transference of the Sabbath is authorized by Christ, according to the English version of the New Testament; but some persons have suggested that the Greek teaches such a transference in Matt. 28:1 and parallel passages.
It is said that the Greek reads, “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first of the Sabbaths.” It is urged that such a reading brings in a new series of Sabbaths, and brings the end of the former series. In order that the reader may have the benefit of the teaching of the Greek on these passages, we will give a brief space to the study from that viewpoint.
BOTH “REST” AND “WEEK”
In our study of the Sabbath question, we have found that the lexicons give the primary definition of “Sabbath” as “rest,” and the secondary meaning as “week.” With this definition before us, let us study the original of Matt. 28:1: “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher.” On this text, Mr. Bliss, of Boston, a first-day observer, made the following remarks:
“Lest any should gather that the word ‘Sabbath’ is represented by the phrase ‘first day of the week,’ we would add that ‘Sabbath’ is simply translated ‘week’ in those texts, other words indicating the day of the week. The word ‘Sabbath’ is originally a Hebrew word, and signifies rest; but occurring at regular intervals, by a metonymy it became significant of the period separated by those rests. So that we have the seventh day of the rest, and the first day of the rest, week, or Sabbath.”
SOMETIMES THE WHOLE WEEK
It is evident, therefore, that the word sabbaton sometimes means the whole week. How can we determine when it has that meaning? Robinson is good authority, and he says that it has this meaning “after the numerals denoting the days of the week.”
The following correspondence is to the point:
“Is it allowable to translate the Greek of Matt. 28:1, ‘At the end of the Sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the Sabbaths’? It seems to me as if we might, and it would be quite an argument 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.”
Kafir Home Life, Graham's Town: South Africa
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. White, the editor of the Bible Record, in whose columns the question appeared:
“New York, September 8, 1904.
“My Dear Dr. White: Your correspondent asks, ‘Is it allowable to translate the Greek of Matt. 28:1, “At the end of the Sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward 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 cannot 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.’”330
“And in Greek eis is commonly used (as here) instead of protos.
“The Septuagint and New Testament alike use ta sabbata in sense of singular—‘the Sabbath day,’ and also in the meaning ‘week.’ Mian sabbaton in Matt. 28:1 cannot mean anything else than the ‘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. Yours very truly,
“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 toward 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.
These letters are both written by Greek scholars who observe the first day of the week as the Sabbath and defend the practice. 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.
