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hearts joys

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Resurrection/Sabbath

 Ok, let's field a question.  Wasn't the day of rest changed because Yahshua (Jesus) was raised from the dead on Sunday?
Mat 12:38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from You."
Mat 12:39 But He answering, said to them, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Yonah.
Mat 12:40 "For as Yonah was three days and three nights in the stomach of the great fish, so shall the Son of Aḏam be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
 
Mat 28:1 Now after the Sabbath, toward dawn on the first day of the week,1 Miryam from Maḡdala and the other Miryam came to see the tomb. Footnote:1See Explanatory notes - First Day of the Week. Also Luke 24:1 and John 20:1.

Note on the First day of the week:  The underlying Greek text is "mia ton sabbaton"  which when translated literally means, "one of the Sabbath/s".  It is traditionally rendered as "first day of the week,"  The term "first day of the week",  is literally translated as "prote hermera tis hebdomata" in Greek, but nowhere appears as such in the NT.  There is a strong argument that 'mia ton sabbaton" should be rendered according to Semitic idiom as "day one of the week". 
 
You say scripture doesn't say He rose on the first day of the week
 
If you look at the word day in the text and also in Matt. 28:1 you will notice that it is in italics.  This means that the word day is not found in the original language, in this case the Greek text. 
 
Matthew is the only place where the actual time for the resurrection is recorded.  The other 3 Gospels record various aspects of people arriving at the grave.
1.  How long?   Mt. 12:38-40  tells us the sign of Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights.  A full 72 hours.
2.  When?  In looking at the Mt 28:1 text we can ascertain that Christ rose from the dead at-or less than one minute after sundown at the very beginning of the Hebrew Sunday, as the Hebrew weekly Saturday Sabbath had just officially ended.  
    For the Hebrews, the Saturday Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday evening, and ends at sundown on Saturday evening.  This is important in understanding when Christ rose from the dead. 
If we translate Matt. 28:1 it should read like this  "That as a routine, weekly, Saturday Sabbath was just about to end, a whole new week was approaching and just about to begin"
The Greek word dawn: i.e. "as it began to dawn toward the first of the week..." carries this meaning with it:  as time began to draw -on toward the very first moment of a new week...  
 /dawn = epiphosko keyed to strongs #G2020
So, "in the end of a Sabbath"  means INside the tail end of a Hebrew's Saturday, Sabbath, at the going down of the sun."
It was still the Hebrew Sabbath, in the last waning minutes.  The Hebrew would say it this way.
"TBV YAUWM" "the goings out of the Hebrew Sabbath, the final moments at the very ending of a Hebrew's Sabbath daytime period, as the sun was almost (but not yet) completely set.
It could also be said this way "as the Hebrew's Saturday Sabbath day was about to change from the last moment of the last day of an old week, onward to the first moment of the first day of an entirely new week, at sunset."
We must remove the word day from our thinking as it adds to the confusion.  It is not in the original.
For the Hebrews a new day begins when?  At Sunset.  Here in the west we think of a new day beginning at midnight.  But for the Hebrews it begins at sunset.  In the creation account it also began at sunset. 
When do you start your Sabbath rest,  We start ours at 6 pm on Friday and go until 6 pm on Saturday.
It is hard to get used to this idea of a day beginning at night.
 
3.  Time sequence of events:  Remember also the Hebrews used a lunar calendar to determine months and seasons.
        A.  Passover;  the 14th day of the first month in the Hebrew calendar.  (Exodus 12)
                In the evening at 6 PM. (the 14th day fell on a Wednesday or Thursday 60 % of the time                     and on a Friday only 13 %.
        B.  Immediately following, the Hebrews observed the 7 day feast of unleavened bread.
                The first day was a high Sabbath day.  Ex. 12 and Lev. 23:4-8 
                
    I.  Passover, CE 31 14 Nisan  was on a Wednesday.  6 PM that day would start the Hebrew Feast         of unleavened bread and was a High Sabbath.  No work was to be done that day.  Christ was             dead on the cross by 3 on the 14th.  Nicodemus and Joseph had to obtain the body, tomb and             burial cloth and have the body placed in the tomb before 6 PM.  Jn 19:31. (not to be confused                 with the 7th day sabbath.
  II.  Christ prophesied that He would be in the tomb for 3 days and 3 nights as Jonah had been in             great fish (Mt 12).  72 hours, anything less or more would make Him a liar.
 III.  So, on Friday the ladies would have gotten the spices they needed and prepared them to take to         the tomb after 6 PM on Saturday, when the Hebrew Sabbath day had closed and the new week         started.
 IV.  Christ rose from the dead as the Sabbath was drawing to a close and the new week was drawing         on to its very beginning between 5:59 and 6:01 Saturday evening.
  V.  The ladies were at the gates of the city waiting for the Sabbath restrictions to end at sundown.
 
So a topic for another time then is if Christ rose on a Hebrew's Sunday (Sat 6 PM) in CE 31 on a Gregorian calendar date of April 28 and since Easter was celebrated on March 31 in that year, we see that Christ was resurrected 28 days after Easter.  What in the world are we celebrating then if we celebrate Easter?
By the way Easter was celebrated for a couple thousand years before the birth and death of Christ.
 
Sources:
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      THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: Gerhard Kittle, Vol. 1
      A GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: Arndt & Gingrich
      TREASURES FROM THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT: Kenneth S. Wuest
      VINE'S EXPOSITORY DICTIONARY OF NEW TESTAMENT WORDS
      WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT: Marvin R. Vincent
      ROBERTSON'S WORD PICTURES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
      STRONG'S EXHAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE: Greek Lexicon
      THAYER'S NEW TESTAMENT GREEK LEXICON

      THE MACARTHUR NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY - MATTHEW: John F. MacArthur, Jr.
      MATTHEW HENRY'S COMPLETE COMMENTARY ON THE WHOLE BIBLE
      EXPOSITORY NOTES ON THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW: H.A. Ironside
      BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: Charles C. Ryrie
      THE BIBLE KNOWLEDGE COMMENTARY: Walvoord & Zuck, Vol. II
      THE GOSPELS - MATTHEW: J. Vernon McGee, Vol. 35; Chs. 14-28
      WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES: Reuben. A. Torrey
      THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW: Arno C. Gaebelein
      JOHN GILL'S EXPOSITION OF THE BIBLE

      THE INTERLINEAR BIBLE: GREEK - ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT: Jay P. Green
      THE INTERLINEAR GREEK - ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT: George Ricker Berry
      THE NEW TREASURY OF SCRIPTURE KNOWLEDGE: Jerome H. Smith, ed.
      EXPANDED NEW TESTAMENT: Kenneth S. Wuest
       

 

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