Sunday is NOT the Sabbath!

[Ryuji]

something i found when browsing around

http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/notsun.htm

This article is intended for those who may think that Sunday is the seventh day, or sabbath day, that the Bible designates to be set aside for the worship of God. It is quite surprising how many people actually think this. They generally assume that since Saturday and Sunday are the "weekend", that Monday must be the first day of the week because it is their first work day of the week. This would then lead you to believe that Sunday is indeed the seventh day.

any opinions on it ?

[DH]

The Sabbath of the Bible is a Jewish holy day, noted as the 7th day of creation in the poem of Genesis 1.  While the earliest Christians were Jews and continued to worship on the Jewish Sabbath, the Christian worship day later became Sunday (called the Lord's Day - Revelation 1:10), the day of the resurrection.  In the Jewish/Christian reckoning, Sunday is the first day of the week.  DH

[Ryuji]

my thoughts on sabbath:

psychologically. i would say that you MUST take off 1 day of rest, whether it has religions connections or not.

Religiously. if you do, you must also live out the other 6 days in the same manner - bit backward if you do the holy thing on a specific day and then next day or that after noon hit your wife a blue eye...

the same day thing is making it easier for religion to have a meeting obviously.

[DH]

I think a day off for a "sabbath" is healthy for anyone.  I try to make it a day to be refreshed spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically.  For me, that means spending a large chunk of time playing with the grandkids or hanging out in the great outdoors.  Whenever I miss my "time out" for the week I feel out of sync all week , like my car when it needs a tune up.

You're right, that if a person sets aside a day as a holy day, he or she needs to live out that peace with God the rest of the week as well.  When I was a kid, I used to be amazed at the people I knew who "worshipped God on Sunday and lived like the devil on Monday."  It turned me off on "organized religion" for a long time.  DH

[SpiritWings]

Old 'Mosaic' Sabbath is Saturday, aka the last day.  Christ rose on the first day, Sunday -- 'Christian' Sabbath.   

"The first shall be last, and the last shall be first"

It's just one application to this passage.

[DH]

I thought Jewish people considered Saturday the day of rest...

They still do.  The Jewish sabbath is still sun down Friday until sun down Saturday.   Check out any synagogue and you'll find that they worship on Friday evening as the sabbath begins, and they rest during the hours following on Saturday.

[Gandalf]

The most important reason why Christians made Sunday the sabbath was because 'Sunday' or 'the day of the sun' was already very popular in the Roman empire for the worship of the sun and Mithras.

Instead of competing with pagans on this, the Christians incorporated Sunday into Christianity by making sunday the day for worshipping the sOn rather than the sUn. Sunday was chosen for the sabbath as it made for a more smooth transition to the new religion for most inhabitants of the empire.

The Sabbath observance was eventually enshrined in imperial law.
In the same way, The Roman festival of Saturnalia was incorporated into Christianity as Christmas.

This was a fantastic strategy adopted by the Christian fathers and supported by Constantine and later Christian emperors: Instead of competing with the most popular pagan festivals and observances, which they knew they didn't have a hope in hell of banning, they instead decide to incorporate them into Christianity itself.

This allowed for a relatively smooth transition from a pagan empire to a Christian empire. The rest as they say, is history.

[DH]

The most important reason why Christians made Sunday the sabbath was because 'Sunday' or 'the day of the sun' was already very popular in the Roman empire for the worship of the sun and Mithras.
Instead of competing with pagans on this, the Christians incorporated Sunday into Christianity by making sunday the day for worshipping the sOn rather than the sUn. Sunday was chosen for the sabbath as it made for a more smooth transition to the new religion for most inhabitants of the empire.
The Sabbath observance was eventually enshrined in imperial law.
In the same way, The Roman festival of Saturnalia was incorporated into Christianity as Christmas.
This was a fantastic strategy adopted by the Christian fathers and supported by Constantine and later Christian emperors: Instead of competing with the most popular pagan festivals and observances, which they knew they didn't have a hope in hell of banning, they instead decide to incorporate them into Christianity itself.
This allowed for a relatively smooth transition from a pagan empire to a Christian empire. The rest as they say, is history.

Yes, very true. 

One of the things that has kept Christianity alive is its ability to absorb and assimilate the various religious influences it meets.  It probably started with Paul (and unknown others) taking Jewish thought forms into the larger Hellenistic culture of the Roman Empire.  Those of us with Western Celtic roots know how Christianity absorbed the ancient Druidic culture -- and other local Irish, Scot, Welsh and Brit traditions.  How many of the Celtic "saints" are transformed Druid "saints"?  My poor old grandmother would turn over in her grave -- but I dare say Brigit is one!

When I moved from the UK to the US, I married a gal who is Cherokee Indian and began to see firsthand how various Native American spiritual traditions have been "reborn" into a Christian framework.  Some would be considered "orthodox" and others wouldn't.  But they are all very passionate about what they believe.

Getting back to topic.......Politics aside, I think one of the other crucial factors in the Christian shift in the day of worship is the simple fact that Sunday is the day of the resurrection.  Many of the early church "fathers" saw every Sunday worship as a reenactment of the resurrection -- a little Easter of sorts.  John says he received his vision of the Revelation on "the Lord's day" (Rev. 1:10)-- a reference most scholars agree is a reference to Sunday (as opposed to the Jewish sabbath).  There is a lot of discussion about when John wrote, anywhere from 60 - 95 CE, but it means that many Christians were already seeing Sunday as their holy day in the first century.

Peace, DH

[Gandalf]

taking Jewish thought forms into the larger Hellenistic culture of the Roman Empire

Hi DH,

I agree. It also wasnt just one way traffic. 'Jewish thoughtforms' were themselves heavily influenced by Hellenistic philosophy. Indeed you can argue that the whole concept of 'jewish philosophy' is hellenistic, jewish hellenistic , but very much part of the hellenistic world.

The Hellenistic neo-platonic influence on christianity is huge. The concept of the trinity and the chain of being from godhead, to arch angels, to angels, to saints to humans - all this is direct influence of neo-platonic philosophy.

The Christian fathers did not dispute this. They just put the best that pagan philosophy had to offer to flesh out their own doctrines. Indeed, many of the early church fathers were converted former neo-platonists, so its no accident that there is a lot of neo-platonic concepts within the core theology of christianity.

the religion of christianity is very much a hellenistic religion, with jewish influence of course, but in the end, very hellenistic.