The Lighted Way

Part 4: Has the Calendar Changed?
You may say, "I'm beginning to see that the Bible says we should worship on the Seventh day. But there's still a big problem with that. How can we tell WHICH day is the Seventh day of the Creation week? It was a LONG time ago. The calendar is probably so mixed up by now that it could fall on Wednesday for all we know."

Good point. We will answer this issue in three ways: Biblically, Linguistically, and Historically. But using these three points of reference, we will see that the Saturday of our modern week IS STILL the Seventh-day Sabbath from Creation... But don't take our word for it... Let's begin our study.

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HISTORIC EVIDENCE:

1) The Case of the Orthodox Jews:

A first and obvious source of historic evidence comes from the faithful Jews, who who have observed the Sabbath without missing one from generation to generation. Orthodox Jews - from the day that God gave the ten commandments to Moses until this day - have observed Sabbath from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday. Generation after generation, week after week they have faithfully kept Saturday as the Sabbath.

2) The Historic Calendar Change:

There has only been one calendar change to affect the dates as we know them. It happened in October 1582. Pope Gregory XIII reformed the Julian calendar by REMOVING 10 days. This change was intended to synchronize the calendar with the seasons, the planets and the stars.

THIS CHANGE AFFECTED ONLY THE DATES OF THE MONTH, NOT THE ORDER OF THE DAYS OF THE WEEK!

What does this mean? To clarify, the calendar below shows October of the year 1582.
1582 Calendar
When the 10 days were removed, THURSDAY, October 4th, 1582 was immediediately followed by FRIDAY, October 15th, 1582. So the week still went in order: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday (Sabbath).

Astronomers, encyclopedias and chronologists all agree that the DAYS of the week have been the SAME from the earliest known time.

1) What was changed? The ORDER of DAYS or the DATES of the calendar?

LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE:

Language is another form of historic evidence, really. Rooted deeply in antiquity, we can study the beginnings of most any culture through its language development.

So what exactly do ancient languages teach us on the subject of the Seventh-day Sabbath? Interestingly enough, the most ancient of all languages literally call Saturday - Sabbath. There are 108 different languages that refer to Saturday as "the Sabbath". We will only look at a few examples:

LANGUAGE
WORD FOR SATURDAY
MEANING
GREEK

LATIN

SPANISH

PORTUGUESE

ITALIAN

FRENCH

GERMAN

PRUSSIAN

RUSSIAN

POLISH

HEBREW

AFGHAN

HINDUSTANI

PERSIAN

ARABIC

TURKISH

MALAY

ABYSSINIAN
Sabbaton

Sabbatum

Sábado

Sabbado

Sabbato

Samedi

Samstag

Sabatico

Subbota

Sobota

Shabbath

Shamba

Shamba

Shambin

Assabt

Yomessabt

Ari-Sabtu

Sanbat
Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath day

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath

The Sabbath

Day Sabbath

Day Sabbath

Sabbath

2) According to the ancient languages, which day is the Sabbath?

BIBLICAL EVIDENCE:


Christ honored the seventh day of the week as Sabbath. In fact, Jesus even honored it by resting in DEATH over the Sabbath and rising to life again on Sunday morning - after the Sabbath was over. When Mark wrote the story (after Jesus had died, risen and returned to heaven), HE STILL REFERS TO SATURDAY AS THE SABBATH. So, if Jesus had changed the day of worship by His Sunday resurrection, why didn't Mark change the way he referred to Saturday? In the text below, Mark has a special way of referring to Friday.

3) What does Mark, many years after Christ's ascension, call Friday? ( Mark 15:37 & 42)

It is interesting to see Friday referred to in this way. To this day, Orthodox Jews (and many others who observe Saturday as Sabbath) still use Friday to "prepare" for the Sabbath. All baking, house cleaning and general work are completed on Friday so that the Sabbath can truly be a day of rest.

4) In the following text, what does Mark call Saturday? ( Mark 16:1-2)

5) In the same text, what does Mark call Sunday? ( Mark 16:1-2)

Historians assure us that only one (above mentioned) calendar change has occurred. But what if there had been a mistake BEFORE recorded history in the days of the week? Surely, if there had been an unrecorded calendar change, Jesus would have taught us the truth when He came. The Sabbath is a pretty important issue to Him.

6) What title does Jesus give Himself regarding the Sabbath? Matthew 12:8

This study is a hard one to accept. After all, the MAJORITY of the Christian world accepts Sunday without question, as God's holy day. Perhaps you look around and think, how can all these people be wrong?

It is almost easier to believe that the Bible itself is wrong - rather than doubt the religious majority. No! You may quickly tell yourself, of course not! You just haven't seen every text on the subject. There is probably a text coming which tells us that God changed the day. But before we even get to all the rest of the texts on this issue, lets stop and consider the majority.

Our next study will address whether or not the majority is a good indicator of truth.

Do you have any further questions at this time?