Tabular Testimony by John Nevins Andrews

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1875

Tabular Testimony.

By John Nevins Andrews

In the July number of the Sabbath Memorial, we find the foregoing table of the days of the week, showing the names and unchanged order of the days of the week in twenty-one different languages.

But little comment on this table is necessary. No matter what the six working days of the week may be called in the twenty-one languages given, the seventh day is called Sabbath.

As a last resort our opponents claim that the order of the days of the week has been lost, and that we cannot tell when the seventh does come. Such a cloud of witnesses as the above, it would seem, should be sufficient to put a quietus upon such flimsy evasions of the truth.

Of the table, Bro. Jones says:—

"In the table we have presented at one view the common use at the present day of the term Sabbath in twenty-one languages. It will be seen that the Asiatic and African languages retain the Scriptural term of FIRST-DAY, while the European languages have substituted Lordly, Lord's, Resurrection, and Sun for the FIRST-DAY. All the European languages, and all others which we have examined, agree in the numerical order of the days. Here are TWENTY-ONE WITNESSES: who will bring forward one language of the human family which confronts the united testimony of these twenty-one languages with the declaration that the ORDER of the days of the week has been changed, or that at any period of the world's history weekly time has been lost, or disarranged?

"For the sake of truth and a conscience void of offence, it is to be hoped that no one will any longer try to ward off the claims of the Lord's holy Sabbath day, by saying that he cannot tell which day is the Sabbath!"

In the SIGNS we have been unable to equal in execution, the table presented in the Memorial, as it was impossible for us to obtain the type of the different languages. Hence we have placed the translation of the first seven in italics, and were obliged to omit the original letter.

J. E. W.