[B-Greek] Sabbaton

Mark Lightman lightmanmark at yahoo.com
Wed Jun 11 23:12:47 EDT 2008


I'm not part of the conspiracy, but you've got Luke 18:12 "I fast DIS TOU 
SABBATOU, "twice a week."  It would not make sense to fast once, let
alone twice, on Saturday.  Then, while grammatatically Mk 16:2 THi
MIAi TWN SABBATWN could mean "on the first (sc. hour) of Saturday," it
would not be early or the sun would have just risen as the rest of the verse
says, because the first hour of Saturday would of course be Friday at
dusk.  If this guy really does not like Sundays, I have no problem with him
translating 1 Cor 16:2, which some see as a proof text for Sunday worship,
as "set aside on the first hour of the Sabbath." But why bother, since this
is not really an indication of a Sunday Sabbath anyway? 
 
This guy is right, I think, that almost everywhere else in the NT and I
think also mostly in the LXX SABBATON means Saturday, not week.  My
experience has been that God usually uses "the Greek" to start, not
end, doctrinal discussions, as part of our Christian liberty for which
Jesus died.  Liberty even to believe in conspiracies. 
 
Mark L.  

--- On Wed, 6/11/08, Jonathan Bailey <baileyjn at hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Jonathan Bailey <baileyjn at hotmail.com>
Subject: [B-Greek] Sabbaton
To: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org, "brian_d_fink at hotmail.com" <brian_d_fink at hotmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 8:44 AM

Dear List,
 
Well, I finally ended up getting Bibleworks and BAGD in the mail and was
trucking along without need of help but I have gotten into a conversation with
this guy who believes that some sort of conspiracy has caused us to violate
God's desire and change the day we worship from Saturday to Sunday. Our
conversations make heavy use of the Greek and I have come to an impasse that I
cannot get out of with the tools I have here.
 
He basically thinks that sa,bbaton should always be translated as sabbath and
never week. So for him, mia/j sabba,twn should always be translated one of the
sabbaths instead of first day of the week. This is just an example. I am aware
that there are several variations of case and number surrounding this term. I
believe he also believes that prw,th| sabba,tou should be translated 'first
hour of the sabbath' or something. He basically rests his arguments on the
fact that the implied hHMERA can also be an implied WRA, and that there is no
justification for the inconsistencies in MIA and PRWTH and that there is no use
of SABBATON as week in the LXX or in the secular literature. He claims that the
word 'week' does not occur in the NT and if it did, it would be
hEBDOMAS like it is everywhere else. He would not accept testimony of other
ancient translations based on their lateness, though I do not know enough Latin
or Syriac or any other ancient verson to use it to convince him of anything.
 
So my question for you guys is: why do we translate SABBATON as week in the NT?
And also, can any of you put together a tight argument for why we translate
SABBATON as week in the NT based on the language?
 
Thanks.
 
Have a good evening.
 
Regards,
 
Jon
 
 
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