The Evidence
The most
intriguing argument, to me, in the six
listed above was item number two. The word
“Sabbath” appears more 100 passages of
scripture. It seems, at first thought, that
if not one of those can be shown to fall on
the 2nd, 3rd, 4th,
5th, 6th, 7th,
9th, 10th, 11th,
12th, 13th, 14th,
etc., day of the month, that that would be
fairly significant evidence in favor of the
lunar Sabbath theory.
Here are the
facts:
There are many
passages that refer to the Sabbath in a
precept in such a way as to provide no
precise and certain information regarding
the correlation of days with months. See Ex
20:8-11; De 5:12-15; Ex 31:14-16; Ex 35:2-3;
Le 24:8; Nu 28:9-10; [Neh 9:14]; [1 Chr
9:32]; Ps 92:1; Amos 8:5; Jer 17:21-27; Is
56:2, 6; Is 58:13; Matthew 24:20; John
7:22-23; Colossians 2:16
There are 20
Stories in scripture that refer to the
Sabbath, but without dating it in terms of a
day of the month. See Nu 15:32; 2Ki 11:5-9,
2Chr 23:4-8; 2Ki 16:18; Neh 10:31; Neh
13:15-22; Matthew 12:1-12, Mark 2:23-3:4,
Luke 6:1-9; Mark 1:21; Mark 6:2; Luke 4:16;
Luke 4:31; Luke 13:10-16; Luke 14:1-5; Acts
1:12; Acts 13:14-44; Acts 15:21; Acts 16:13;
Acts 17:2; Acts 18:4; John 5:9-18;
John 9:14-16.
There are only two
stories in all of scripture that mention
Sabbath in a context that can be dated in
relation to a day of the lunar month. These
are the giving of the Manna and the Death
and Resurrection of Jesus. (Ex 16:23-29 and
Mt 28:1; Mr. 15 42; 16:1; Lu 23:54-56; Jo
19:31.)
So how many
Sabbath stories in scripture are datable?
Two. This fact neutralizes the first two
arguments. (In the appendix I address other
passages that are asserted to be dateable
correlations between the lunar calendar and
days of the week.)
The third point,
regarding the Lunar Calendar being used to
establish October 22, is accurate as far as
that goes. In other words, it is obviously
true in scripture the feast days were
calculated based on the Jewish lunar
calendar.
But the
extrapolation that says “if dates of the
year must be calculated on an annual
calendar, therefore days of the week must
also be so calculated” is unwarranted. No
prophet says anything of the kind. History
does not back it up. Muslims today use a
lunar calendar but keep a weekly day as
honored. The argument is purely speculative.
The fourth point,
strictly speaking, is not a Biblical one.
But the history is faulty. The fact is that
from the time of the book of Acts that there
were Jews in “every city” that read the
Torah on Sabbath.
Acts 15:21 For
Moses of old time hath in every city them
that preach him, being read in the
synagogues every sabbath day.
There is no way
that one million Jews scattered all over the
world could, simultaneously, be convinced to
change their method of Sabbath keeping
without abundant historical evidence being
left behind to prove it.
But more than
this, the gospel was carried to every part
of the known world during the first century.
Colossians 1:23
If ye continue in the faith grounded and
settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel, which ye have heard, and
which was preached to every creature which
is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a
minister;
Lunar weeks
predict that when the apostles traveled to
India, Ethiopia, and the British Isles, that
these places began keeping lunar Sabbaths.
None of these were under the influence of
Rome by the 3rd century. This is
why they kept the Seventh-day Sabbath so
many centuries after Rome had stopped.
And there is no
way that Christians around the world,
faithful Sabbath keepers, could be convinced
to change their day of worship without it
showing up in history. The change of the
Sabbath to Sunday shows up abundantly in
history and proves, by this very appearance,
that the other change never occurred.
The fifth point is
circumstantial. We do not want to ever turn
an observation into a command. But even the
observations are faulty as can be seen in
the appendix where these stories are
examined. If we were to admit circumstantial
evidence we would have to observe that the
first day of the month was not treated as
holy in the following passages:
Genesis 8:13 Noah removed the covering of
the ark, a great feat.
Numbers 1:1 The men of Israel were counted
on the first day of the week.
Ezra
7:9 Ezra was traveling on two new
moons.
The sixth point is
based on a verse in Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 46:1 Thus
saith the Lord GOD; The gate of the inner
court that looketh toward the east shall be
shut the six working days; but on the
sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day
of the new moon it shall be opened.
The reasoning goes
like this: If the gate is shut on the six
working days and open on the new moon, then
the new moon can not be one of the six
working days. And since it is not one of the
six working days, it must not be part of the
week.
The fault lies in
the fact that the verse is a perfectly
natural way to write even if the new moons
did occur on random days of the week. The
inference that lunar Sabbath proponents make
is unwarranted. It would be similar in
character to reading “God loves a cheerful
giver” and concluding that God doesn’t love
other grudging givers.
The Bible is brief
and well written. We can not impose on it a
demand that enough details be given to
prevent us from making false inferences.
Rather, we should
demand a "Thus Saith the Lord” for our
articles of belief".
Some
Lunar Sabbath proponents list John 9
as an example of a 15th
of the month Sabbath. This is based
on the Feast of Tabernacles of John
7. The argument goes that the
morning after the feast Jesus went
into the temple and found this blind
man. John 8:1 is, very likely, the
22nd of the 7th
month. Granted. But to say that John
9:14 is the same day is a great
stretch. While Jesus went into the
temple in 8:2, he was wandering in
9:1, fifty-nine verses later. There
is no way to say where day divisions
are in the narrative. By chapter
11:55 you are already nearing
Passover. The day-break verses just
don’t often show up in the gospels.
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