Overwriting the NT Corpus (8) Changing the Sabbath Texts to Sunday Texts

[Rebbe]

FUNDAMENTALS: THE OVERWRITING OF THE NT CORPUS [8]

Changing the Sabbath Texts to Sunday Texts
 
Copyright © BRI 2014 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

CAUTION: BRI Yeshiva notes are not available to the general public. They are not for distribution. They are not for reproduction. The notes may also bear little or no resemblance to the actual audio or video recorded BRI Yeshiva lecture.

The Messianic believers knew how to observe the Shabbat. They were Jews. The early Gentile believers also observed the Shabbat. In fact, we now have evidence that the period of time we know as Saturday was a day of rest right throughout the entire Roman world. No business was to be conducted in the Empire on Saturn's day -- the seventh day.

Certainly, some "Sunday advocates" attempt to persuade us that there are zero exhortations by Paul and others in their epistles encouraging slaves to observe Shabbat and that therefore by this silence we can assume it was no longer in force for the early Christians. This is blatant dishonesty, or utter and total ignorance. The fact is that slaves were entitled to rest from "most normal" weekly activities on Saturn's day (even if Jewish) because the entirety of the Roman populace did the same.

Still, we would expect the Messianic Scriptures to be largely silent about the seventh day Sabbath. Instead, we find it mentioned more often than any other commandment which puts the lie to the old refrain from antinomian Sabbath haters that there is "no mention of the Sabbath commandment" in the New Testament Codex. There are some very fine ministers of God in pulpits all around the globe who do not know any better when it comes to God's expectations for humanity in relation to the observance of the Sabbath day in one form or another. But there are also some very sinister ministers who attempt in any way possible and open to them to keep their church's attention away from those same expectations for humankind especially when it comes to the fourth commandment. These liars in the pulpit are devious. It is true that the commandment itself is not REPEATED in the Messianic Scriptures. It did not need to be. For, the truth is -- and I once more reiterate it -- the entire Roman world rested on that day refraining from business activities.

I might also remind my students that at the End of Days the Antichrist system will enforce Sabbath observance in the coming counterfeit Millennium. It will be utilised for monitoring purposes more than anything else. Seventh Day Adventists are waiting for the enforcement by powerful government legislation in favour of global Sunday observance. They will have a very long wait.

However, in point of fact, "Sabbath" is mentioned within these pages a total of five dozen occasions. And, when we properly translate the Greek mia ton sabbaton as "on the Sabbath" instead of the fallacious "on the first day of the week" that number of texts rises accordingly.

Here again, when it comes to the seventh day Sabbath, we are confronted by an attempt (a highly successful one, I might add) to exchange the truth of God for a damnable lie (Rom 1.25). Those who would wish to justify their Sunday observance by trying to make the resurrection of Christ occur on a Sunday morning in order to reject the actual "test commandment" of the Decalogue in favour of an exchange of "holy days" need to be honest and repent for their wretched miserable rebellion toward the living God who rules the heavens and in the kingdoms of mere snot-nosed mortals.

When did Yeshua rise from the dead?

Let's look again at the Synoptic Gospel of Luke. The record shows that the Lord Yeshua was buried shortly prior to sunset on the same day of crucifixion (Lk 23.54). He was nailed to the cross, or a tree, at 9 am that morning (the Preparation Day just prior to a Sabbath day) and died about 3 pm that same afternoon. Now if Our Lord Yeshua was to be raised from the dead 3 days and 3 nights later His resurrection would occur, would it not, at precisely the completion of the third day after His burial (or at the very least in the close proximity of that period) -- or near sunset. In fact, when the women came to the tomb three days later they found He had already risen (Mk 16.6).

Please keep in mind too, that if the crucifixion had taken place on a Friday (as churches teach) then the women who attended Yeshua at the bloodied tree of Golgoleth could not have gathered and purchased the necessary spices, ointments and perfumes for his burial until the next non-Sabbath day, and it was already dawning toward the start of the Sabbath when he was killed by the spear thrust. They would have had to return to the tomb to work through Saturday night prior to a Sunday morning resurrection. But Miriam (who happened to be the sister of Martha and Lazarus) may well have had to travel back to Bethany for those specific ointments which Our Lord had previously commanded were to be placed aside for his burial -- an often-overlooked fact in this entire traumatic scenario (Jn 12.3,7). That would have been quite a trip... work was and is forbidden on Shabbat and travel was limited by the regulation concerning "a Sabbath day's journey."

If we look closely at the Greek of the Gospel of Mark, the writer does not actually mention Sunday morning at all (Mk 16.1,2 Gk). Neither does Matthew Levi (Mt 28.1 Gk). The Greek text simply has mia ton sabbaton = "on the Sabbath" or "one of the Sabbaths."

Marshall in his Greek text acknowledges that this is so. The women came to the tomb late on the Sabbath and Yeshua had already risen from the dead. To have "already risen," Yeshua must have been resurrected long prior to sunset that day. If Yeshua had in fact been crucified on a Wednesday that year during the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the Passover period) he would not have risen until very late on Saturday afternoon (perhaps "between the two evenings" which according to Jewish writings was around 3 pm) as the Sabbath began to draw to a close.

["Between the two evenings" is a Jewish term based on Ex 12.6 which announces a first evening at around midday or when the moon was first seen to rise in the sky and the second evening was sunset: see Philo Judaeus, The Ten Festivals XI.] Early non-canonical mss speak of Christ taking Passover with his disciples on a Tuesday evening (R.H. Connolly, Didascalia Apostolorum: The Syriac Version Translated and Accompanied by the Verona Latin Fragments, with an Introduction and Notes, 1929) which may well have been in line with the Essene calendar. Of course, the Didascalia still has the Lord crucified on a Friday but the tradition of the Tuesday night Passover celebration, in Didascalia XX1, reflects the very early tradition of the truth of the matter. Victorinus (d. 304 CE), bishop of Pettau, also concurs with a Tuesday evening Last Supper. So, pointedly, does Mark's Gospel (E. Trocme, The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark, 1975, 234, n.2). Saulnier admits, "The Tuesday evening tradition would appear to be more antique than the Thursday evening tradition" (Stephane Saulnier, Calendrical Variations in Second Temple Judaism: New Perspectives on the 'Date of the Last Supper' Debate, 2012, 55, of Vol. 159 of Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism). [The widely celebrated Dr. Saulnier is Assistant Professor of Sacred Scripture at Newman Theological College, Edmonton.]

Professor R.A. Torrey taught this understanding of a Tuesday evening Passover and a Wednesday crucifixion till the day he died. A respected scholar, highly regarded in Protestant circles, Torrey was not at all hoodwinked concerning the Good Friday-Easter Sunday tradition. He rejected it outright. Other Messianic believers, notably the virtuous Seventh Day Baptists in the mid-nineteenth century, and possibly earlier, also held to the tradition of a Sabbath resurrection of the Lord (Abram Herbert Lewis, Spiritual Sabbathism, The American Sabbath Tract Society, Plainfield N.J., 1910, 120,213,214).

Ignoring the plain statements of their Roman Catholic spiritual forebears on the Catholic introduction of Sunday into the religious life of the early church, some Protestant scholars have scurried through the pages of the sacred NT Scriptures vainly attempting to locate evidence of primitive Sunday-keeping in the first Christian Community. All attempts to date which have tried to justify their Romanist-inherited practice of observing Sunday as "the Lord's day" from the internal information contained within the Bible have failed miserably. One needs only to scan the pathetic arguments gathered in buttressed form in Nigel Lee's The Covenantal Sabbath (1966) published by the Lord's Day Observance Society of London to appreciate the position we have taken. Certainly, we will agree wholeheartedly with Roman Catholic scholars when they say that any further attempts to prove such a fallacious nonsense are also unequivocally doomed to utter failure! New Testament texts to substantiate Sunday worship? There aren't any!

It also may come as a complete surprise to some but every reference to "the first day of the week" in the Messianic Scriptures of the Yeshua Party are distorted corruptions of mia ton sabbaton -- a phrase we have mentioned above. It is this expression which appears on eight occasions in each of the three most ancient manuscripts of the NT corpus. We have also satisfactorily revealed that even Christian scholars, ensnared by treasured church tradition, and the threat of being ostracised by their professional colleagues, have -- like the Constantinian bishops before them -- purposely wrested, twisted and garbled the very words breathed by the holy Spirit into an earthly tongue and onto parchment. They have, with utter disregard, altered "one" to read first, inserted "day" where it does not even appear, then changed "Sabbaths" (plural) to week (singular).

Dr Alfred Marshall, in his literal English translation of the Nestle Greek Text -- and whom we have already mentioned -- was honest enough, in at least one of the eight NT references, to give the proper intended meaning of the original language. But even then he actually qualified what he had plainly translated! In his rendering of Matthew 28.1, we read:

"But late of [the] Sabbaths, at the drawing on toward one of [the] Sabbaths, came Mary the Magdalene and the other Mary to view..."

Then, directly beneath his translation of mia ton sabbaton as "one of the Sabbaths" he adds his clarifying notation: "= the first day of the week"!

Matthew Levi recorded that there were a number of "Sabbaths" that particular week of Christ's crucifixion -- a weekly Sabbath along with annual Sabbaths ("high days" as John also records and which are listed for anybody to read in Leviticus 23). This is the case because the Passover and days of Unleavened Bread began and ended with an annual holy day... a Sabbath which could fall on any day of the week depending on the calendar system in place.

There are eight passages in the NT Codex which speak of the "first day of the week."

(1) Mt 28.1 KJV (AV) "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 sepulchre."

Gentile scholars have generally failed to appreciate that the "dawn" in Jewish thoughtform has never been "at sunrise" but is ever and always "sunset." When the sun goes down a new day dawns for the Jews (see Gen 1.5 for clarification: "The evening and the morning were the first day," etc).

The "end of the Sabbath" is Saturday evening "as it began to dawn" into the very next day (which in Jewish thoughtform is Saturday night, not Sunday morning). But the phrase "the first day of the week" according to the great German Reformer Martin Luther's version of the Bible was translated (until the year 1892) as "one of the Sabbaths" because he well knew that there were annual Sabbaths in the festival calendar of the Jewish people. It was only in that year the traditional script "on the first day of the week" was introduced into his Bible. Note that "day" in the KJV (AV) is supplied in italics. It does not appear in the Greek mss. The word for Sabbath is uniformly translated as "week."

Some Christian scholars recognise the difficulties here. Consider the following texts and appreciate that the translators, without succumbing to church traditions, tried to render what they understood the original writer to be recording:

"And on the eve of the sabbaths, at the dawn, toward the first of the sabbaths, came Mary the Magdalene, and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre" (Young's Literal Translation).

"After Shabbat, as the next day was dawning, Miryam of Magdala and the other Miryam went to see the grave" (Complete Jewish Bible).

"After the sabbaths, at the dawning into the first of the sabbaths, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the grave" (J.P. Green Interlinear).

"Now well along on the sabbath, as it began to dawn on the first of the sabbaths, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre" (Jubilee Bible 2000).

Now contrast the above with some other, popular but not so accurate, translations:

"Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb" (New Living Translation).

"The Day of Rest was over. The sun was coming up on the first day of the week. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the grave" (New Life Version).

"After the day of worship, as the sun rose Sunday morning, Mary from Magdala and the other Mary went to look at the tomb" (God's Word Translation).

"After the Sabbath, as Sunday morning was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb" (Good News Translation).

"After the day of worship, as the sun rose Sunday morning, Mary from Magdala and the other Mary went to look at the tomb" (Names of God Bible).

One scholar asks what I would have thought was the obvious question and that is why did Matthew and others not use the regular term for "week" in Greek which is hebdomas if the first day of the week was intended as Sunday instead of their use of sabbaton which clearly intends our Saturday -- the Jewish seventh day Sabbath? (Gerhard Kemmerer, The Missing Link in the Sabbath Question of the New Testament, 1996).

(2) Mk 16.2 KJV (AV) "And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun..."

Really, here is an exemplary case where centuries of tradition dictate to scholars. In truth, the verse ought to read, according to the Greek text: "And very early on the Sabbath, they came unto the sepulchre at the setting of the sun."

The Greek phrase anateilantos tou heliou all translators have translated it as: "AT THE RISING OF THE SUN." The Greek word anateilantos is the genitive singular masculine particle form of the Greek word anatello. This word is a combination of the preposition ana, which means after, and the ancient Greek root tello, and its later form telos -- a derivative of the Hebrew word qtz, which means: end, cutting off of a period of time. The period of time which is coming to its END is shown in the last two Greek words of this phrase, tou (the) heliou (sun). The phrase anateilantos tou heliou, properly translated, says: "At (or, after) the setting (end) of the sun."

(3) Mk 16.9 KJV (AV) "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons..."

Mark 16.9-20 is uninspired nonsense added by an uninspired monk or priest. (See Overwriting NT Codex Part 4.)

(4) Lk 24.1 KJV (AV) "Now upon the first day of the week, VERY EARLY IN THE MORNING, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them."

According to Alfred Marshall's translation of Nestle's Greek Text: "But on the one of the week while still very early upon the tomb they came carrying which they prepared spices." And according to A Critical Lexicon and Concordance To The English and Greek New Testament, by Ethelbert W. Bullinger it ought to read: "deep twilight, or earliest dawn."

Yes, in Jewish thoughtform THAT'S THE END OF THE DAY AS THE SUN IS SETTING.

(5,6) Jn 20.1,19 KJV (AV) "The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre... Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you."

(7) Acts 20.7 KJV (AV) "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech unto midnight."

This meeting occurred on the Sabbath, not Sunday. Marshall again translates as "And on the one of the sabbaths" but qualifying one as first day and sabbaths as week.

[8] 1 Cor 16.2 KJV (AV) "Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come."

In EVERY one of these verses the word "day" is supplied and the word for Sabbath is translated as "week." In EVERY one of these texts "the first day of the week" is nothing more than a distorted corruption of mia ton sabbaton. It is this expression which appears on eight occasions in each of the three most ancient manuscripts. We have also satisfactorily revealed that even some Christian scholars, ensnared by beloved and treasured church traditions have altered the very words breathed by the holy Spirit into an earthly language intended by God to be understood by men and women of faith. Again, for the benefit of repetition, and as simply as I can possibly state, they have altered one to read first, inserted day where it does not even appear, then changed sabbaths (plural) to read week (singular).

To most Christian scholars, the text does not make sense translated any other way than "the first day of the week." This is because they fail to appreciate Jewish thoughtforms. And how can these sincere men and women think otherwise? After all, the Western church threw the Jewish baby out with the Jewish bath water in the fourth century! Today even the Jewish Yeshua has become "Gentile Jesus, weak and mild." He is no longer "Lord of the Sabbath" (Mt 12.8; Mk 2.28). Zeus presently sits proudly on the Messianic Throne and administers Nimrod's Babylonian religion.

Comments scholar Brown, "It is IMPOSSIBLE to document what we now call orthodoxy in the first two centuries of Christianity" (Brown, H.O.J., Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Church, 1988, 5, Emphasis mine).

I totally agree! There can be little doubt that when we think in terms of "church" and of the rise of "Christianity" (better, Churchianity) what we see today is in no way that which was considered orthodox in the days of the apostles. Today's "orthodoxy" leaves a great deal to be desired. Tradition is largely to blame for this deplorable state of affairs.

WHY do ministers and others resort to defending their treasured centuries of tradition?  They fear men more than they fear the LORD God. They do not want to be ostracised from their peers nor do they wish to be jettisoned from their particular circle of a Mutual Admiration Society.

Will YOU accept the PLAIN WORD of Almighty God or the opinions of men?

The fact is, as I have taken pains to point out, the NT Codex was overwritten by monks, priests, and others over many centuries to give us fables instead of God's TRUTH.

"The first day of the week" is just one more lie that is now exposed by the truth of the original texts. Paul exhorted us all to "expose the unfruitful works of darkness" (Eph 5.11).

I trust that we are all faithful in so doing.