- 2 days ago
Should we be keeping the Sabbath according to the phases of the moon? Or according to a continuous, unbroken cycle of 7-day weeks.
This video is part 3 in a series on the weekly Sabbath.
Part 1: What is the Sabbath?
Part 2: Why does the Sabbath matter?
Part 3: Who is the Sabbath for?
Part 4: When is the Sabbath?
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
This video is part 3 in a series on the weekly Sabbath.
Part 1: What is the Sabbath?
Part 2: Why does the Sabbath matter?
Part 3: Who is the Sabbath for?
Part 4: When is the Sabbath?
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Send me a friend request on The Torah Network: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
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LearningTranscript
00:00this is Jay Carper and I'm continuing a conversation on a Sabbath to Yahweh this
00:08is the third video in part 4 when is the Sabbath in the previous two videos I
00:15addressed the answers that the Sabbath is Jesus or any day of the week as well
00:21as the possible answer that the Sabbath has moved from the seventh day of the
00:25week to the first day what we call Sunday in this video I'm going to talk
00:30about an idea that you might not have heard of before this video is going to
00:34be a little bit more technical because I'm going to have to explain to you what
00:38this idea really is and what it means before I can tell you whether or not it
00:43answers the question when is the Sabbath anyone can say anything on the internet
00:49it really is the Wild West of information if there is some idea out there about
00:55some way that we could do anything somebody is on the internet arguing for
01:00it no matter how outlandish it might seem let me read to you from Leviticus 23 verse
01:073 six days shall work be done but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest a
01:15a holy convocation you shall do no work it is a Sabbath to Yahweh in all your dwelling places we work six days and we rest on the seventh day this seems pretty straightforward so what is really the question about when is the Sabbath day
01:32many ancient peoples arranged their calendar into weeks by dividing the lunar
01:37month into quarters according to to the phases of the moon you've heard of the
01:43phrase the Ides of March the Ides is the center of the month it's when the moon is
01:48full or at least it was when Rome still kept a lunar calendar Rome Babylon Persia all of
01:57these peoples at one time calculated their years according to the phases of the
02:02moon at the new moon a new month started the full moon is the middle of the
02:07month and then as the moon wanes the month ends the lunar Sabbath idea proposes
02:14that this is the way that God intended us to form our weeks not just our months
02:19so that a week is determined by the phases of the moon the first week of the
02:23month begins at the new moon the second week begins when the moon is half full the
02:29third week begins when the moon is full and the fourth week begins as the moon is
02:33waning when it's again half full the most popular method of counting the days
02:38according to the lunar Sabbath makes the day of the new moon a Sabbath day and then
02:44the eighth day 15th 22nd and 29th days of the month are the weekly Sabbaths two
02:51common reasons for calculating weeks this way is that first many ancient cultures
02:57really did do this and second some of God's appointed times days of rest fall on
03:04the 15th and the 22nd of the month for example the first day of the feast of
03:10unleavened bread and the first day of Sukkot will always fall on the 15th day of
03:14the months of Nisan and Tishrei respectively and the eighth day of Sukkot which is
03:20also a day of rest always falls on the 22nd day of Tishrei however there are a
03:25couple of problems with this idea first God doesn't necessarily do things the
03:32way that other nations do it just because the Babylonians or the Persians
03:36or the Egyptians did something doesn't mean that the Hebrews did it or that God
03:40wanted anybody to do it that way the second problem is that the only days
03:46called Sabbath in the Hebrew Bible are the weekly Sabbath and Yom Kippur God's
03:52annual feast days included days of rest but these aren't called Sabbath except
03:58for Yom Kippur the last day of unleavened bread the holiday of Shavuot also called
04:04Pentecost and Yom Kippur just don't fit the lunar Sabbath pattern these days of
04:10rest will never fall on the first eighth fifteenth or 22nd or 29th days of the
04:16month there are three words or phrases used to describe rest days in God's
04:22various appointed times for some of them God says there will be no servile work on
04:28those days others are called Shabbat Shabbaton and still others are called
04:34Shabbaton the King James Version translates this word Shabbaton as Sabbath unless it's
04:42used together with the Hebrew word Shabbat as in Shabbat Shabbaton then it
04:48translates it as rest however this is not the best way to translate the word
04:54Shabbaton the words Shabbat and Shabbaton are related but they're not the same
05:00word the English Standard Version always translates Shabbaton as rest and never as
05:07Sabbath so when the scriptures say that a day is a Shabbaton the English Standard
05:14Version says this is a day of solemn rest if the Hebrew calls the day a Shabbat
05:20Shabbaton the English Standard Version calls it a Sabbath of rest what's on your
05:26screen right now is a list of times for which God commanded rest these highlighted
05:32days are annual days of rest they only come around once each year note that
05:39these aren't all of God's appointed times I have not included Passover day nor the
05:44day of early first fruits because those aren't commanded rest days I have only
05:49included appointed times for which God commanded rest with the lunar Sabbath four
05:56out of seven of the high holy days would fall on a weekly Sabbath the first day of
06:02unleavened bread Yom Teruah or the day of blowing trumpets also known as Rosh Hashanah
06:08the first day of Sukkot also known as the Feast of Tabernacles and the eighth day of
06:14Sukkot however three of the annual Moedim will never correspond to the lunar Sabbath
06:20day the seventh day of unleavened bread on the 21st of Nisan the day of Shavuot
06:27also known as Pentecost this day always falls one day after the weekly Sabbath
06:33and so by definition can never be on the Sabbath and finally Yom Kippur which is
06:40always on the tenth day of the month of Tishrei and so by the lunar Sabbath
06:45calculations will never fall on a weekly Sabbath notice that none of the annual
06:52days of rest that would fall on a day of the lunar Sabbath are called Shabbat in the Bible
06:57they're either called Shabbaton or they're called a day on which you will do no servile
07:03work none of them are called Shabbat but I think the real proof positive or maybe I
07:10should say the proof negative lies with the day of Shavuot this is Leviticus 23 15 and 16 and I've
07:19arranged it this way in bullet points so that you can see a literary structure that is very common in
07:24the Bible it's called a parallelism in a parallelism the same statement is made twice first one way and
07:33then another way in order to emphasize or clarify the point that's being made you shall count seven
07:40Sabbaths from the day after the Sabbath from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering
07:45you shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath then you shall present a grain
07:51offering of new grain to Yod-Heh-Vav-Heh this day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering is the
07:58day after the Sabbath during Passover week sometimes it's called the early first fruits the grain offering
08:07presented in the second half is the day of Shavuot sometimes called the latter first fruits the first half of this
08:15parallelism says that Shavuot or Pentecost is seven full weeks from the day after the weekly Sabbath
08:22during Passover week the second half of the parallelism says that Shavuot is the 50th day
08:28after the weekly Sabbath of Passover the Hebrew in the first part says seven Sabbaths the Greek Septuagint
08:37says seven full weeks strangely the English Standard Version follows the Greek in verse 15 and the Hebrew
08:45in verse 16 that's why I put Sabbaths in brackets in verse 15 I'm going with the Hebrew in both cases
08:52because I think consistency makes it make more sense these verses are saying the same thing in two
09:00different ways to make sure there's no misunderstanding 50 days equals one day plus seven weeks they're the
09:07exact same thing just described using different terms since a lunar cycle is always more than 28 days
09:15technically a lunar month is 29.5 days approximately these numbers will never work with the lunar Sabbath
09:23rather a continuous weekly cycle of seven day weeks is the only count that works with the biblical commands
09:32about Shavuot let me show you in more detail so you know exactly what I mean every year the day that
09:41the Passover lamb is slaughtered is on the 14th of Nisan and the 15th day of Nisan is a day of rest on the lunar
09:50Sabbath the 15th of every month is a weekly Sabbath day according to the commands for Shavuot the count
09:58of 50 begins the day after the 15th of Nisan which we call the early first fruits and you can see that
10:05on the top left of this calendar in this image I'm counting Rosh Chodesh which is Hebrew for at the
10:12beginning of the month as a weekly Sabbath and if that's the proper way to count the Sabbaths then after
10:19Nisan 15 there are eight Sabbath days before you get to the 50th day since the command says to count one day
10:29plus seven Sabbaths clearly that won't work in this image the orange square represents the seventh Sabbath and
10:39then the 50th day or Shavuot comes seven days after that not the very next day as the Bible says
10:50but what if Rosh Chodesh is counted as a special day of rest and not as a weekly Sabbath well let's take
10:56a look at that count as you can see Passover is on Nisan 14 and then Nisan 15th is the first day of
11:05unleavened bread a commanded day of rest on the lunar Sabbath calendar that makes it also a weekly Sabbath
11:13the count to Shavuot begins the very next day on the early first fruits but then Nisan 22nd is the
11:20first Sabbath after Nisan 15th if Rosh Chodesh the new moon is not counted as a weekly Sabbath you only
11:28have six weekly Sabbaths before you get to the 50th day but the command for Shavuot says that the 50th
11:36day will be one day after the seventh Sabbath so once again the lunar Sabbath doesn't match the command
11:44in scripture the only way to make the lunar Sabbath work with the Shavuot count is to interpret seven
11:50Sabbaths as seven sets of seven days but that in itself refutes the whole idea of the lunar Sabbath
11:58there is no count of seven days except within the lunar cycles neither the Greek nor the Hebrew says
12:06seven sets of seven days it's either Sabbaths or weeks neither one of which will ever add up to 50
12:14days in any lunar Sabbath method of counting the counting of 50 days from the Passover Sabbath to
12:21Shavuot only works in a continuous cycle of seven day weeks with no interruptions and no connection to
12:28the phases of the moon so then we're back to the Sabbath on the seventh day i think a much more important
12:36question is how did yeshua do it let me read to you from mark chapter 2 verses 23 to 24 one sabbath he
12:47was going through the grain fields and the pharisees were saying to him look why are they doing what is
12:52not lawful on the sabbath jesus had many confrontations about the sabbath with the pharisees and the sadducees
13:00but every confrontation he had was about how to keep the sabbath not when jesus always kept the sabbath on
13:08the same day that the pharisees did so is there some way that we can find out for sure what day the
13:16pharisees and the sadducees kept the sabbath actually yes there is this is a quote from a roman historian
13:25about the roman attack in jerusalem in 36 bc cassius dio was a contemporary of jesus he lived in both bc
13:34and a.d so he would know how the romans kept their calendar he was also a historian specifically
13:41talking about rome's wars with the jews so he probably had a pretty good idea of how the jews
13:48live too cassius dio wrote the first of the jews to be captured were those who were fighting for the
13:55precinct of their god that is jerusalem and then they rest on the day even then called the day of
14:01saturn here's another quote from a roman historian frontinus is writing about the sack of jerusalem in
14:1070 a.d by general titus the deified augustus vespasian attacked the jews on the day of saturn
14:17a day on which it is sinful for them to do any business so here are two roman historians saying
14:23that the jews kept their sabbath on the same day that the romans called the day of saturn
14:30the roman week was originally an eight-day week they also had a competing 10-day week but it was
14:35not tied to the lunar cycles by this time and rome actually began widespread adoption of the seven-day
14:42week at about 45 bc rome learned the seven-day week from the babylonians and persians other peoples
14:49that they had wars with and conquered there were many converts in the roman empire to babylonian
14:56religions and they brought their seven-day week with them and the romans found that this game worked
15:02so well they wanted to do it themselves so rome converted to a seven-day week long before the birth
15:09of jesus roman historians both bc and ad identified the jewish sabbath with the roman saturn's day and
15:19then jewish historians for example philo and josephus confirmed this correlation so we know for a fact
15:27that in the first century the jews and the romans had the same week and the jewish sabbath was on
15:33saturn's day and was totally unconnected to the lunar cycle so if jesus kept the sabbath on the same day
15:41that the pharisees and the sadducees and all of the jews of the roman empire did jesus did not keep a
15:48lunar sabbath if jesus is the messiah then he was sinless he never violated one of god's commandments
15:55and that includes the weekly sabbath above all god said you will keep my sabbath in fact by the fourth
16:07century jews christians pagans all across europe north africa in the middle east all used the same
16:14seven-day week there have been numerous calendar changes throughout the centuries but all of those
16:21changes only applied to the dates for example the names of the months and the number of the years
16:28those calendar changes after 45 bc never changed the days of the week since so many people from so
16:37many different countries even mortal enemies were all keeping the same week if rome changed the order of
16:45their days of the week it would cause mass chaos all over the world nobody else would agree to change
16:52their calendar just to match rome persians and arabs and vikings didn't change their years to match rome's
17:00years not until they were conquered much much later and even then many of those people never changed their
17:08years to match rome's so why would they change something like the days of the week that would cause so
17:14much more chaos in the daily lives of everyday people such a change would make enormous waves in
17:21historical documents and it's just not there the order of the days of the week have not changed since
17:2945 bc they have not changed since jesus walked the earth and used that calendar so we know that the days
17:38of the week that we keep today are the exact same days that jesus did and we know that he did it right
17:47so the seventh day today is still the seventh day of creation
17:54this is jay carper from americantorah.com and commonsensebiblestudy.com
17:59join me in one more video as i wrap up this discussion of a sabbath to yahweh
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