The sabbath day

[AndyP]

Why do we hold Sunday as the Sabbath day? Isn't the 7th day, the day of rest, really on Saturday? When did this change?

Thanks in advance :)

[Warpy]

1. Well, they had to distance themselves from the Jews

somehow. I'm not sure, otherwise.

[Bellamia]

2. "I'm not sure..

if they had to distance themselves from the Jews,", is a good guess, if it is a guess. Given that the "true" answer must be somewhere, I expect we will read it here shortly.
But what about the 7th Day Adventists, isn't their Sabbath Saturday?

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

3. It's today for me (I'm Jewish).

Novak, btw, converted to Catholicism (used to be Jewish); my dad told me this. Little trivia since I saw the picture there and religion was brought up.

[Igel]

6. A few smaller Christian denominations have a saturday sabbath;

7th day adventists are the biggest.

[Festivito]

4. Christ rose on Sunday and fulfilled Jewish law.

Therefore the remembrance changed to the weekly anniversary. Just aI guess.

[Igel]

5. Where it changed depended on where you live.

In Rome, probably 2nd century; in the eastern Mediterranean, early 4th century. In between, in between, with, no doubt, isolated holdouts here and there.

Most early Xians were Jews. They kept Saturday, and Passover.

A hundred years later, there were large non-Jewish Xian populations. And they didn't much like the Jews or the Jewish law--Jews were so red-state, in many respects (from boonies, not sophisticated enough, had odd laws and practices...). They wanted their own day (pretty hard to diss sabbath services if you keep the sabbath), and went with the 1st day of the week. Justification: Christ is believed to have been resurrected sometime long before dawn on Sunday. The change is almost entirely rooted in papal authority.

It took a while to spread eastward.

Samuel Bacchiocchi, a seventh day adventist, and therefore with a dog in this fight, wrote a couple of books on the matter, trying to marshall all the early evidence for the change, and showing that nobody rejected papal authority is consistent in keeping Sunday as the day of worship. Nobody disputes the change occurred, or why.

Also check out the so-called Quartodeciman controvery for the separation of Xian and Jewish passover dates into Xian easter and Jewish passover. Same kind of reasoning with the same appeals to the same authority.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. Pagans!

The pagan sabbath was Sunday, in honor of the Sun god. As early Christians were trying to get and keep members, they started co-oping pagan holidays, rituals, etc. It made it easier for converts. Slowly pagans started becoming Christians. However, there a few Christians (already mentioned in this thread) that still see Saturday as the Sabbath.

[moobu2]

8. That's exactly right, It's Sun God's day

Christianity is a made up religion and all the worship practices are from countless different Pagan cults. They just borrowed the old testament to give it some cultural history then added the rest as they went along.

Of coarse Jesus was a Jew, so they even borrowed him.

[Name removed]

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[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. You must have been reading pamphlets by some of the

right-wing anti-Semitic groups, because they're the only people in the entire world who believe that Jesus wasn't a Jew.

Bigots will say anything to explain away their bigotry.

Jesus was born to a Jewish mother, he was circumcized at eight days of age, he made a pilgrimage to the Temple of Jerusalem at age 12, he taught in the synagogues, and he never said he was a different nationality than the other people in Judea. In fact, the Samaritan woman at the well was surprised that he spoke to her, because Jews did not speak to Samaritans.

And you obviously don't know Latin, because 1) It's not "Jesu Nazarenous Rex Iudeorum," but "Jesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, and 2) "-orum" is a masculine suffix, means "of the (plural)," and "Judea" is a feminine noun. Judea means "land of Judah," which, as you will recall, was one of the two kingdoms that resulted from the split between the descendants of Jacob.

By way of further enlightenment for you, the King James Bible was translated at the beginning of the 17th century. Oh, and was the word "Jew" really unknown before the 18th century? This quote from the Wycliffe translation of the Bible (Matthew 2:1-2) of 1390 suggests otherwise:
------
1 Therfor whanne Jhesus was borun in Bethleem of Juda, in the daies of king Eroude, lo! astromyenes camen fro the eest to Jerusalem,

2 and seiden, Where is he, that is borun king of Jewis? for we han seyn his sterre in the eest, and we comen to worschipe him.
-------
So you can go tell all the white supremacists of your acquaintance are not only wrong, but so ignorant that they don't even know they're lying.

[Ellen Forradalom]

11. Well done, Lydia

"Judea means "land of Judah," which, as you will recall, was one of the two kingdoms that resulted from the split between the descendants of Jacob."

From Wikipedia

"The most common view (as to the origin of the English language word Jew) is that the Middle English word Jew is from the Old French giu, earlier juieu, from the Latin iudeus from the Greek. The Latin simply means Judaean, from the land of Judaea."

Judah was populated by the tribes Judah and Benjamin, and the kingdom of Israel to the north was populated by the ten other tribes; when that kingdom fell first, its tribes were taken into exile and their fate remains unknown to this day (although the object of much entertaining speculation.)

As you enumerated above, Lydia, the Gospels go to great pains to prove Jesus' Jewishness in order to establish his bona fides as the Messiah.

[meow2u3]

17. Jesus was also resurrected on a Sunday

They don't call it Easter Sunday for nothing!

Because of this, the Church moved the "sabbath" day from Saturday to Sunday to celebrate the day of the week Jesus was raised from the dead. If Christians still held Saturday as the sabbath, we'd be observing the day of the week when Christ was still dead and buried.

[Ellen Forradalom]

12. It was the day that Christ rose from the dead

so it marks the Resurrection.

[T_i_B]

13. The Christian part has been covered well here

But it should be added that al the monotheist faiths have a day of rest. In Judaism it's Saturday, in Christianity Sunday and in Islam Friday. It's all for the better as we all need time off work to be with friends and family and yes, to be with God.

It would be interesting to hear the Muslim take on their day of rest as well here. Any Muslim DUer's here?

[Tux]

14. Mmmmm

So if I work just right, I could say god wants me to have a 3 day weekend? LOL

What is the point of Sabbath anyways? If it is to prevent work, what if I cook food or fix my PC? Is that work?

[T_i_B]

16. rest

[methinks2]

15. Emperor Constantine

He decided that sunday suited him and his schedule. He is also the guy who decided which disciple letters were to be included in the bible and which were to be rejected.(the Nicene Creed)He handled disension about which teaching to include by threatening banishment for any who did not agree with his personal opinion. There are many christians around the world who read and follow the letters and teachings of disciples that are not included in the King James version.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

18. Muslims

use Friday, and Sufis traditional day (or rather night) of dhiker, our main spiricual practice, is Thursday.....

[onager]

19. Yep

I lived in Saudi Arabia for 2 years, and just spent the month of January in Egypt.

In Muslim countries your first work day is Saturday, Wednesday is the equivalent of our Friday. Thursday is market day and Friday is mosque day.

This is strictly enforced in Saudi Arabia, and all businesses close during each daily Prayer Call. Foreigners rushed to get into restaurants during the evening Prayer Call. Otherwise you had to wander around for a half-hour or so with nothing to do, and there was always the chance that the Religious Police would get bored and harass you.

Egypt is different because it has a fairly large Christian population, though it is predominantly Muslim. The government recognizes Sunday as an official day off and businesses and govt. offices are closed. On Friday the Muslims will close up to go to mosque, but re-open their stores or go shopping afterwards. The whole country doesn't stop for Prayer Calls.

I lucked out, and arrived just in time for the Coptic Christmas celebration in early January. That's an official govt. holiday. Then later in the month, the whole country shut down for 4 or 5 days because of the Muslim Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice).

Why "4 or 5" days? Because the official religious body that sets Muslim holidays is in Saudi Arabia, and this year they had some confusion over the starting day. (Muslims use a lunar calendar.)

This caused mass confusion all over the Middle East, which was covered in the local media. People were scrambling to change their airline reservations and travel plans, and some even got their planned pilgrimages to Mecca hosed up because of the confusion.

Standard Disclaimer: as an atheist, I don't have a god in this fight.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

20. thanks for the info

from a strictly historic viewpoint, Coptic Christianity is worth a look...some of their texts and philosophies are different from Western Christianity-at least that is what I've been told-supposedly some of the mystical writings like the Gospel of Thomas that were taken out of the official Bible after the Council of Niacia.