Jovial (25 Apr 2012)
"Yes, Yeshua rose AFTER the Sabbath.  Why the Greek Gospels sometimes mean "week" when it says "Sabbath"......."

I think the Gospels are clear that Yeshua rose on Sunday morning.  However there are two errors some promote on this topic.  One is that the Sabbath was moved to Sunday because that was the day Yeshua rose.  Where's the logic in that?  No where are we told that the Sabbath falls on whatever day He rose from the dead.  There's no logical connection.  In fact, He stayed in the grave on the Sabbath because it would have taken WORK to remove the stone, so He rose on the first day fo the week, not the Sabbath.  also, He was the firstfruits of the dead, and the Firstfruits offering is offered on the day AFTER the Sabbath, not on a Sabbath, according to Lev 23.

 

While some people who claim a Sabbath resurrection do so only to rebut the whoel argument about the Sabbath being moved, they are falling for bad logic by even trying to connect those two issues together.  If the day He rose has any relevancy as to what day of the week the Sabbath falls, that day is not it.

But some people are simply confused when they read the Gospels because the Gospels use the word "sabbath" to mean "week".  There was no standard week in Greek speaking societies.  In most of Eastern Greece, the month was divided into three 10-day weeks.  In Greek speaking Alexandria, they had a 7 day week.  Rome had both a 7 day and 8 day week.  But there was no word for "week" as we have it today in English.  There was an Alexandrian word for a 7 day period (ebdomé (ebdomh)), but a Greek reader in Greece would not have understood that word as anything other than the a count of seven of something, potentially unsure what was being counted.

 

In Hebrew, Shavua means week, but so does Shabbatah.  "Shabbat" is the seventh day of the Shabbatah or Shavua or week.  But in the Greek Gospels, the difference between SHABBAT and SHABBATAH got lost in translation and both the word "sabbath" and "week" look the same all through the Greek New Testament.  If that sounds confusing, there's times they say "Sabbath" or "SHABBAT" in Hebrew to mean "week" instead of the last day of the week as well.  It was done in the Mishnah in Ketubot 5:5, Eduyyot 4:10, and Niddah 4:5 where they said SHABBAT (Sabbath) when they clearly meant SHABBATAH (week).  There's even a song we sing on Passover that explains this that (in Echad Mi Yodaya ) that says "SHAVUA YAMAY SHABBATAH" which means "Seven are the days of the week."

"Sabbath" only makes sense if interpretted to mean "week", and makes no sense if interpretted to mean "7th day" of the week.

  • "I fast twice every Sabbath (week)" (Greek Luke 18:12)
  • "I fast twice each week" (Aramaic Luke 18:12)

Fasting "twice each Sabbath" makes no sense. How do you fast twice a day? Do you eat non-stop except for two breaks????? There was a Jewish tradition of fasting twice a week, on Mondays and Thursday, that is well documented in the Talmud as well as other places, including some early Christian writings.

The use of the phrase "Sabbaton" or "Sabbaths" to mean "week" in the Greek NT is clearly seen in a couple places. This phrase also appears in Acts 20:7 et seq and 1 Cor 16:2, where there is no context establishing that it was the season of Shavuot / Pentecost.  In these verses, the "first of the weeks" of Shavuot would make no sense because the context gives no discussion of the 7 weeks of Shavuot.  Let's take a look at these two:   Acts 20:7 et seq  

On the first [day] of the week (sabbaton) we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. ...Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left.  

Now if "first of the sabbaton" is "first of the sabbaths" here, you have a problem. It's the evening of the "first of Shabbaton".  Paul talks until daylight, which would still be "first of the shabbaton" and then gets on a ship. 

So what day did the women visit Yeshua's tomb? We're told it was....

  • "after the Sabbath (sabbatou)" (Greek Mark 16:1)
  • "At the beginning (prwi) of the first (mia) of the week/Sabbath (sabbatwn)" (Greek Mark 16:2)

This is because the word "Sabbath" is sometimes used to mean "week" in Hebrew too.  In Mark 16:1, "Sabbath" means Sabbath day.  In 16:2, it means "week" and is basically SHABBATAH, not SHABBAT, but you just can't tell the difference when Greek grammar forces a word to end according to whether it is nominative, genetive, accusative, etc, instead of according to the Hebrew criteria from which it came.