Sabbath

[Dream]

Originally Posted by Juantoo3

Hope this helps.

It is the biggest collection of flood stories I've seen, and I read the entire article. Thanks for the indigestion! You know, I've personally collected ocean fossils in inland Mississipi, USA and know people who've found shark teeth on the hills there. Shark teeth apparently can last a long time. I believe you still have a pair, Juantoo3.

[Wavy_Wonder1]

Originally Posted by bob x

It is far older than the Semitic group: pan-Eurasian. The phan wat "auspicious day" (for visiting a Buddhist shrine or other such purposes) in Thailand is still defined in this way, seven days to the half moon phan wat, then eight days to the full moon phan wat, seven days to the waning half phan wat, seven days to the new moon phan wat and maybe the eighth day is still phan wat or maybe it is the first day of the count to the next half moon, depending on whether a visible crescent appears at sunset.
The Hebrew text urges the people to "remember the sabbaths and new moons", suggestive of a similar system.

What are the texts supporting this? And how old are they and how can we know the ideas in them (if they are based on late writings) predate the time in question? (the prehistory of Semites?) And what's the relationship to the Sabbath here? Lunar observations don't indicate the idea of 'Sabbaths'.

This is not something I have studied, and I'm interested.

Thanks,
Eric

[bob x]

Originally Posted by Wavy_Wonder1

What are the texts supporting this? And how old are they and how can we know the ideas in them (if they are based on late writings) predate the time in question? (the prehistory of Semites?) And what's the relationship to the Sabbath here? Lunar observations don't indicate the idea of 'Sabbaths'.

This is not something I have studied, and I'm interested.

Thanks,
Eric

The inference that these practices predate the splitting of the Eurasian stock into Semitic, Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic etc. language group arises from the occurrence of similar practices in cultural groups split among all of these subgroups (but only the Eurasian groups: I do not know of such things in Africa or the Americas). Obviously, we have no written texts from a time earlier than proto-Semitic or proto-Indo-European. Lunar "observations" do not themselves indicate the idea of "sabbaths", true (in Africa and the Americas they also counted the days of the lunations); what is common in Eurasia is to associate the quarter-phase days specifically with religious observances, calling it a particularly appropriate time to go to a shrine or hold a public holiday, etc. The full moon is the most common date to set the public holidays, but the other quarter-phase days at intervals of usually seven days, sometimes eight, would also be noted and specially marked.

[bananabrain]

Originally Posted by Wavy Wonder1

This isn't an argument

<panto>*ooooh* yes it is!</panto>

and a rather poor caricature of my post.

well, hark at you. we're not a journal. that was how your argument came across to me, so i called it like i saw it. like dream says:

Originally Posted by Dream

Noticing a similarity is not proving derivation.

this is kind of what annoys me; the idea that nothing in judaism is at all original or in any way revolutionary. i believe the "asapatu" or whatever it was called in babylon was actually a day of ill-omen and nothing to do with a) the Creation or b) rest, joy and pleasure, to say nothing of stopping work. i'd give references, but i'm only a humble traditionalist on an interfaith dialogue site, not a top-notch academic writing a paper. no doubt you can quote chapter and verse to debunk my blind faith.

Originally Posted by Wavy Wonder1

Firstly, it's true that the word for 'Sabbath' is related to the word for 'seven'....but that's precisely why the phases of the Moon on which the lunar Sabbaths are based on fall every seven days: on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th days of the month (each seven days apart). Secondly, Babylonia did have a seven-day week.

ok, so what you have established is that the words for "seven" are related, not that the origin of the *jewish* festival is the same as the origin of the babylonian one. if both had a seven-day cycle (which isn't beyond belief) it doesn't consequently mean that all seven-day festivals are related. you will no doubt be aware that there are animal sacrifices and a priesthood in judaism as well. it is well understood that the revolutionary nature of judaism was to take such established tools of religion and subvert them so that they conveyed an entirely new message and worldview. on reflection, i don't see any reason why the Torah shouldn't have decided to do the same thing for the week, but it still doesn't mean that this persisted later on or, if so, it was anything less than idolatrous.

Their understanding of 'weeks', however, was related to the Moon, just as I'm arguing for the Hebrews.

if that is the case, why would we have broken this link between the weekly cycle and the lunar cycle? i mean, we still have a lunar calendar and new moon ceremonies and used to go to elaborate lengths to work out when the new moon was visible in jerusalem in order to send runners to babylon? we have, generally speaking, preserved our arguments and reasoning in the oral tradition. and how about the moon blessing ceremony? i've taken a look at the text and can't find anything to do with weeks or anything that could be construed as referring to the full moon, but i wasn't able to find anything. the central point, however, remains the same - on what basis can you assert that these two festivals are somehow the same? i mean, there are harvest festivals in every single culture, but nothing like Shabbat as it is outlined in the Torah - and it is Torah that is my reference point, not the pseudepigrapha, which are not part of the jewish canon. you could quote a Qur'anic text about what we were supposed to have got up to if you like, it wouldn't make it authoritative. nor is josephus, or philo, for that matter (don't actually have a copy of philo, only josephus, is he on the web somewhere?).

Also, we see evidence of the Sabbath being detached from the Moon in the Dead Sea Scrolls, markedly in the book Jubilees which was found at Qumran, and which was written in polemic to the lunar system of Temple Judaism.[1] It's also interesting that this book specifically states that the Sabbaths were to be observed by the Sun[2] (presumably, as opposed to by the Moon).

there were a lot of sects around at that time - by the same token, would you expect me to take christian texts as being evidence of what jews did or didn't believe? surely the qumran sect are proverbial for having been an odd bunch of people and not exactly mainstream.

The Hebrew bible disagrees.

the *hebrew* does nothing of the sort. it's merely a number of translations that disagree and i must take issue with them based on how this verse is traditionally interpreted. my copy of jastrow doesn't show "full moon" as a translation of the word "KeSeH", rather "designated", giving the translation as "blow the shofar on the new moon on the designated day of our festival", which makes more sense than to try and make out that it refers to the full moon at the same time as the new moon, when the two are 15 days apart. i would also argue that the context of the word in the verse refers to one day - rashi says rosh hashanah, in fact, which is why it talks about the shofar being blown. he supports this further with the reference to joseph later on in the psalm, joseph having been released on rosh hashanah (BT rosh hashanah 11a). rosh hashanah, of course, is always on rosh hodesh tishri, which would of course be the new moon, the word for "month" being the same as the word for "new" - i'm not actually sure what the full moon is called in biblical hebrew, but from rashi i'm pretty sure it isn't "keseh", despite what the normally reliable JPS seem to think. of course, first day rosh hashanah is sometimes on shabbat, so that might be what causes the confusion - the translation then exacerbates it by putting in a comma to resolve the consequent confusion by splitting the sentence into two halves, whereas there's no comma in the hebrew.

Perhaps you should take the time to actually read some material on this before you attempt to tackle this issue again.

perhaps you should take some time to understand what Shabbat actually is before you take this kind of patronising, snooty tone.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[bob x]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

i believe the "asapatu" or whatever it was called in babylon was actually a day of ill-omen

What was ill-omened was to do certain kinds of work on that day.

Originally Posted by bananabrain

if both had a seven-day cycle (which isn't beyond belief) it doesn't consequently mean that all seven-day festivals are related.

That would be leaning heavily on coincidence. The significance of the number seven, in other cultures that have such a cycle, is that it is the nearest integer approximation to the quarter-phase of the moon; otherwise the only significance of the number seven is that it is an awkward prime number which would not be a good choice for subdividing anything.

Originally Posted by bananabrain

if that is the case, why would we have broken this link between the weekly cycle and the lunar cycle?

To ensure that everyone does it on the same day, either you need everyone concentrated in cities so that you can rely on the circulation of official announcements, or you need such a straightforward rule that everyone can keep track for themselves.

By my private lunisolar calendar, which I have been keeping for the last 14 years, it is now "three days past full" and the next phanwat (quarter-phase; waning-half in this case) runs from 11AM Monday to 11AM Tuesday (I break the days at 1500 GMT, to correspond roughly with "sundown in Jerusalem"); but of course, someone else's count could have it at "four" days past full depending on when the "visible" crescent starting the first "week" of this month is reckoned to have been. If you want to make sure everyone abstains from work on the same day, it will be troublesome if some people think the phanwat is Monday and others think it is Tuesday. The strict seven-day count fixes that ambiguity.

On the timing of this first visible crescent, Jewish practice for a long time has been to take it for granted that some people are going to be off by a day, so holidays tied to it should be allowed to run for two days, thus at some point everyone will be celebrating at once; it would not be practical to run the Sabbath for two days, with such wide restrictions on what kinds of "work" to avoid.

The Latins, by the way, broke with the custom of having lunar weeks of variable length, usually seven but sometimes eight, in the opposite way: the "nundinal" cycle was always eight days from one nundina to the next. In the earliest versions of the Roman calendar, there were still quarter-phase days, the nones at waxing half, the ides at full moon exactly eight days after the nones, a less-important waning-half day eight days after full, but then after eight days (running past the new moon) on the kalends "announcement" day, it would be decided how short (from five to seven days) the interval to the nones should be. These names persisted into the Roman calendar of Caesar's day, but had lost touch with the lunar cycle long before. Both the nundina (by a strict eight-day count, no exceptions) and the nominal quarter-phase days would be nefas "don't do it!" for certain kinds of activity, though neither involved the widespread avoidance of "work" that the Sabbath calls for.

Originally Posted by bananabrain

there were a lot of sects around at that time

And the point is, that some of these Jewish sects, even at this astonishingly late date, still differed as to how to regulate the Sabbath, whether "by the moon" (on the quarter-phase, with intervals of usually-seven-sometimes-eight) or "by the sun" (seven days, period, no exception).

Originally Posted by bananabrain

surely the qumran sect are proverbial for having been an odd bunch of people and not exactly mainstream.

On this issue, they sided with you, and the mainstream: they insisted strongly on the strict-seven-day week and denounced the quarter-phase people.

Originally Posted by bananabrain

rosh hashanah, of course, is always on rosh hodesh tishri, which would of course be the new moon, the word for "month" being the same as the word for "new"

No, no, no: in rosh hodesh it is the rosh "head-of-" which means "new", the hodesh "moon" which means "month"; same as in rosh ha-shanah "new year", lit. "head-of the-year".

Originally Posted by bananabrain

- i'm not actually sure what the full moon is called in biblical hebrew

It was the shmoneh "fat" moon, from the root sh-m-n "fat; overflowing" seen in shemen "oil". Not by coincidence, shmoneh also became the numeral for "eight" (an eighth day was intercalated into the week at full moon).

[Wavy_Wonder1]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

<panto>*ooooh* yes it is!</panto>

well, hark at you. we're not a journal. that was how your argument came across to me, so i called it like i saw it. like dream says:

this is kind of what annoys me; the idea that nothing in judaism is at all original or in any way revolutionary. i believe the "asapatu" or whatever it was called in babylon was actually a day of ill-omen and nothing to do with a) the Creation or b) rest, joy and pleasure, to say nothing of stopping work. i'd give references, but i'm only a humble traditionalist on an interfaith dialogue site, not a top-notch academic writing a paper. no doubt you can quote chapter and verse to debunk my blind faith.

ok, so what you have established is that the words for "seven" are related, not that the origin of the *jewish* festival is the same as the origin of the babylonian one. if both had a seven-day cycle (which isn't beyond belief) it doesn't consequently mean that all seven-day festivals are related. you will no doubt be aware that there are animal sacrifices and a priesthood in judaism as well. it is well understood that the revolutionary nature of judaism was to take such established tools of religion and subvert them so that they conveyed an entirely new message and worldview. on reflection, i don't see any reason why the Torah shouldn't have decided to do the same thing for the week, but it still doesn't mean that this persisted later on or, if so, it was anything less than idolatrous.

if that is the case, why would we have broken this link between the weekly cycle and the lunar cycle? i mean, we still have a lunar calendar and new moon ceremonies and used to go to elaborate lengths to work out when the new moon was visible in jerusalem in order to send runners to babylon? we have, generally speaking, preserved our arguments and reasoning in the oral tradition. and how about the moon blessing ceremony? i've taken a look at the text and can't find anything to do with weeks or anything that could be construed as referring to the full moon, but i wasn't able to find anything. the central point, however, remains the same - on what basis can you assert that these two festivals are somehow the same? i mean, there are harvest festivals in every single culture, but nothing like Shabbat as it is outlined in the Torah - and it is Torah that is my reference point, not the pseudepigrapha, which are not part of the jewish canon. you could quote a Qur'anic text about what we were supposed to have got up to if you like, it wouldn't make it authoritative. nor is josephus, or philo, for that matter (don't actually have a copy of philo, only josephus, is he on the web somewhere?).

there were a lot of sects around at that time - by the same token, would you expect me to take christian texts as being evidence of what jews did or didn't believe? surely the qumran sect are proverbial for having been an odd bunch of people and not exactly mainstream.

the *hebrew* does nothing of the sort. it's merely a number of translations that disagree and i must take issue with them based on how this verse is traditionally interpreted. my copy of jastrow doesn't show "full moon" as a translation of the word "KeSeH", rather "designated", giving the translation as "blow the shofar on the new moon on the designated day of our festival", which makes more sense than to try and make out that it refers to the full moon at the same time as the new moon, when the two are 15 days apart. i would also argue that the context of the word in the verse refers to one day - rashi says rosh hashanah, in fact, which is why it talks about the shofar being blown. he supports this further with the reference to joseph later on in the psalm, joseph having been released on rosh hashanah (BT rosh hashanah 11a). rosh hashanah, of course, is always on rosh hodesh tishri, which would of course be the new moon, the word for "month" being the same as the word for "new" - i'm not actually sure what the full moon is called in biblical hebrew, but from rashi i'm pretty sure it isn't "keseh", despite what the normally reliable JPS seem to think. of course, first day rosh hashanah is sometimes on shabbat, so that might be what causes the confusion - the translation then exacerbates it by putting in a comma to resolve the consequent confusion by splitting the sentence into two halves, whereas there's no comma in the hebrew.

perhaps you should take some time to understand what Shabbat actually is before you take this kind of patronising, snooty tone.

b'shalom

bananabrain

Clearly this response does little to address my initial post.

Thanks,
Eric

[bananabrain]

clearly you're not here for dialogue, but to tell us what idiots we are. enjoy your stay.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[I, Brian]

Come on, BB - lighten up.

[I, Brian]

Actually, moved this to the Ancient History board, as the discussion now seems most focused on the ancient roots of the Sabbath, rather than asking for Jewish perspective.

[Dogbrain]

I'm going to mess things up and flatly say that there is a large Christian group that has NOT moved the Sabbath. That would be the "Eastern" Orthodox Church. Instead, in addition to "Sabbaton" (to transliterate the Greek), we have "Kyriake" (Lord's Day). However, both 7th and 1st days are to be honored.

[nativeastral]

Babylonia home of the astrologers!. sabbath = saturday = saturn = capricorn = grim reaper/time = 7th planet = 7 year cycles. sun day, made a holy day by Constantine, as Christians had distinquished themselves from the jews, particularly after the revolt around 130AD, but more pertinently because the sun/son was worshipped via Mithras, a mystery cult especially favoured by the roman army and imbued with astrological significance [where hot cross buns come from = cross of the cardinal points of the seasons therefore agricultural significance and Mithras was also a shepherd]. Christianity syncretised many of the mystery cults rituals/paraphrenelia as l imagine there was competition then as now to which one was the better one for salvation. Didn't they use the winter solstice as Christ's birthday for the same reason? Capricorn again, the father of the astrological chart as cancer is the mother at the summer solstice [ruling the moon].

[PandaMentionalBeing]

Originally Posted by nativeastral

Babylonia home of the astrologers!. sabbath = saturday = saturn = capricorn = grim reaper/time = 7th planet = 7 year cycles. sun day, made a holy day by Constantine, as Christians had distinquished themselves from the jews, particularly after the revolt around 130AD, but more pertinently because the sun/son was worshipped via Mithras, a mystery cult especially favoured by the roman army and imbued with astrological significance [where hot cross buns come from = cross of the cardinal points of the seasons therefore agricultural significance and Mithras was also a shepherd]. Christianity syncretised many of the mystery cults rituals/paraphrenelia as l imagine there was competition then as now to which one was the better one for salvation. Didn't they use the winter solstice as Christ's birthday for the same reason? Capricorn again, the father of the astrological chart as cancer is the mother at the summer solstice [ruling the moon].

This almost covers the whole thread.

Saturday was started because of the Saturnian Cults, and the Son worshippers founded the Sunday sabbath.

[nativeastral]

Originally Posted by PandaMentionalBeing

This almost covers the whole thread.

Saturday was started because of the Saturnian Cults, and the Son worshippers founded the Sunday sabbath.

well yes generalising immensely you could say the move from lunar to solar was the move from goddess to god, matriarchal to patriarchal, concrete to abstract, soul to spirit, earth to cosmic was in human thought/evolution the rise of individuation out of tribalism. christianity was a manifestation of this through divinisation of the common man [as opposed to the usual kingly/elite] linked with godly incarnation [via greek/egyptian thought]. the sharing of concepts within the ambit of the mediterranean over millenia must have been immense. saturn was the outermost planet noted at that time hence its connotations of limit/death [is the devil/capricorn/pan in the tarot], until the 'transpersonal' planets were 'discovered'.

[rebis]

Sabbath is a derivative of the Hebrew word shabbat, meaning seventh. Saturday is physically the 7th day, thus the Sabbath day. Sunday was never considered "the Sabbath," but became the accepted day of worship when the Roman Catholic Church decreed it as such in the 6th Century.

As alluded to in some of the previous posts, the Christian Crusaders were returning from one of their various effort to rid the world of non-believers by spreading the word of Christian Love and Tolerance and killing anyone who did not concur, when they encountered a vastly superior army of sun worshipers. They knew they could not defeat them in battle, it would take weeks to go around them, so the Pope's emissary stuck a deal with them. In exchange for safe passage, the emissary agreed that they would change the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday in honor of their sun god. They agreed.

The Pope threw a fit when he learned of this, and was sure the people would never stand for it. The emissary assured him that we are the Holy Roman Catholic Church...who would DARE to defy us? So let it be done.

This all sounds like one of those "nice stories" that I would not normally give much credence, except for the fact that I read it for myself in a 1945 edition of the Catholic Home Companion, which is an official Church publication. If you doubt its authenticity, ask a Catholic Priest to explain it to you. They turn a lovely shade of gray when you corner them with the truth!

This all matter not! All days and every day is for the worship of G-d.

[Israel Ysrayl]

The Sabbath is one of the most talk about controversial topics, however the 7th day according to scripture is the Sabbath, as many are compelled to instruct many theory’s, claims or doctrines on how the Sabbath should be observed.

In Judaism according to Judaic law, Saturday is the 7th day Sabbath. Which on a large scale, the 7th day Adventist and many Messianic, Hebrew plus Israelite groups would agree.

It is knowned historical fact, that the origin of Saturday was named after a Roman god called “Dies Saturni”

It is also a scriptural fact that the Biblical Israelites observed a Hebrew Lunar calendar, which they have used to calculated the Sabbaths and holy feast days. New Moon in the Hebrew lunar calendar is the beginning of the month, as it was observed by many ancient civilization, including ancient Israel.

The calendar that we use in today’s modern society is the Roman Christian calendar which is no where mentioned in scripture, nor was it ever used by the Biblical Israelites. Upon comparing the Hebrew Lunar biblical calendar vs the Roman Christian calendar (Gregorian), It is evident that the weekly cycle upon both calendars are not identical.

The Julian/Gregorian which is a calendar that is inspired by Satan, does not constitute the New moon as the beginning of the month, as being that this was done on purpose. (Daniel 7:25)

The Sabbath law was given a few months after the Exodus period and during that particular time, the Roman Empire and the Roman Christian calendars did not exist, neither did the word Saturday or Dies Saturni. So upon knowing this fact, you would ask yourself. What calendar should the 7th day Sabbath should be calculated upon ? Should I calculate the 7th day Sabbath upon the Biblical Hebrew lunar calendar or the Roman Christian calendar that was inspired by Satan.