6.1 The word "Sabbath" was replaced by "week"/"Sunday"

The replacement of the word "Sabbath" in the form of σαββατων (sabbaton, plural) or σαββατου (sabbatou, singular) by week (εβδομαδα, ebdomada) or Sunday (Hλίου ημέρα, Heliou hemera) in some biblical passages is certainly the greatest translation error in the entire history of mankind. The meaning of "τη μια των σαββατων" (on the one of the Sabbaths) was completely twisted by this (more info). This had an impact on the thinking of billions of people and on the calendar with the holiday order of churches and states. Many people were deprived of the opportunity to know the name of the day of the week when Jesus really rose from the dead. Even the meeting of the first Christians was suddenly moved from "on one of the Sabbaths" (τη μια των σαββατων; Acts 20,7) to "on a Sunday" (τη μια ηλίου ημερα) or "on the first day of the week" (την πρωτη ημερα της εβδομαδας) or "after a Sabbath" (see chapter No Sunday). If you just look at the Greek words alone, you will immediately see that something cannot be right here, because one clearly defined idiom cannot mean several completely different versions at the same time. It can only mean one day, not two at the same time, where each one chooses a resurrection day of Jesus that he would like to have. 

It was extremely important for God to reveal the exact resurrection day of Jesus to all people in the world. Therefore this day was not only named once, but by 4 different scribes altogether 7 times in the Greek NT with his name "Sabbath". The Sabbath is a clearly defined term since the beginning of the world until today and means the period from Friday evening to Saturday evening after sunset (see definition). In order to avoid misunderstandings from the very beginning, even both the plural (σαββατων) and the singular (σαββατου; Mk 16:9) were used by God. Furthermore, John makes it clear that Jesus appeared to the disciples "on the evening of the same Sabbath" (as Martin Luther and many others have correctly translated; see John 20:19). And Mark even makes it clear that this was a very special Sabbath, namely the "first Sabbath" (Mk 16:9) of the seven Sabbaths that are counted every year until Pentecost, then and still today (see Omer). All Jews and all Christians of the first church understood this expression, since all knew the calendar of God and all knew how the 7 Sabbaths are counted. The seventh Sabbath was followed by the feast of Pentecost (the third annual High Sabbath). How could God have expressed it more clearly? 

Many Catholic translators have understood this very well. The old Catholic Bibles were translated correctly (proof1, proof2). They spoke of the Sabbath or Saturday morning when the women came to the tomb. The first printed Bible in the world (Mentelin 1466), written in a national language, proclaims from the beginning the resurrection of Jesus "on a Saturday" morning (not "on a Sunday" morning). This is not an assumption but a fact. It is also the testimony of millions of Bibles produced before and after it worldwide. But in modern Bibles the Sabbath was simply replaced in 9 places by the "week" or "Sunday" (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2; Mk 16:9; Lk 18:12; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1; Jn 20:19; Acts 20:7; 1Cor 16:2). A biblical word (Sabbath) has thus been replaced by two other words (week, Sunday) that do not occur once in the basic Greek text of the New Testament. This was not a translation, but a replacement. The Sabbath blessed by God was stolen from the Bible and replaced by a less valuable and unblessed working day. 

There is clear evidence that God really meant the "Sabbath" in connection with the resurrection of Jesus and not the day after:

1. God defines the "Sabbath". God himself - not man - created and defined the Sabbath. The first day that the first people Adam and Eve had after the day of their creation was the Sabbath. It is the 7th day of the week. This means concretely: directly after their creation, the first people first had a holiday on which they could enjoy their lives. Since the creation and also at the time of Abraham, David, Solomon and Jesus, the Sabbath was the 7th day of the week. The Hebrews have always celebrated the Sabbath as the period from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Thus, each Sabbath consists of two parts, namely a complete night phase and a complete day phase of an entire calendar day (see definition Day). In addition, God appointed 7 annual Sabbaths (see Calendar and Feasts). These are also clearly defined by God in the Bible. In order to be able to biblically justify the sanctification of Sundays, Christian translators have invented a new definition in which both "the Sabbath" in the singular and "the Sabbaths" in the plural can be translated as "week" or "Sunday" or "after the Sabbath" at certain points at will and without fixed rules. Until then, σαββατων and σαββατου never had the meaning of "week" or "Sunday" in any biblical or extra-biblical text. Although some biblical dictionaries state that "Sabbath(s)" can also mean "week", this is not done out of linguistic necessity, but solely as a justification to reinterpret those passages of Jesus' resurrection day. The Sabbath is always the last day of the week. But a week is a period of 7 days and a week can also be counted from Wednesday to Wednesday, for example. The "week" is therefore a flexible term, but the weekly Sabbath is a rigidly defined and immovable one. A Sabbath is one day, but a seven-day week can contain up to three Sabbaths, if the annual High Sabbaths are added (see Passover week). All these Sabbaths are clearly defined and clearly distinguishable from the "week". Anyone who does not know the difference between the terms "Sabbath", "week" and "Sunday", and has no idea of God's biblical calendar, should not even begin to translate the Bible.

2. The word stems and meanings are different. "Sabbath", "week", "Sunday" and "Lord's day" are 4 completely different terms, each meaning something completely different and each having unrelated word roots. The Greek Sabbath (σαββατων) is not an original Greek word, but a foreign word taken from the Hebrew Shabbat (meaning = stopping, resting). But εβδομας (ebdomas, week) or εβδομαδα (ebdomada, week) are ancient Greek words in their own right, which literally mean "sevenness" because they mean a series of 7 days (the week). It is derived from επτα (epta, hepta), the number 7 and ebdomos (εβδομος) (ebdomos), which means seventh. In the Hebrew language there was also a separate word for "week", which also literally means "sevenness" (shabua) or "a period of seven" (see week). Some theologians say that in Hebrew the words "Shabbat" (Sabbath) and "shabhua" (sevenness) sound similar, which is why a translation as "week" is acceptable. But they overlook the fact that both terms have different word roots, namely of stopping or rest (שבת, Shabbat) on the one hand and the number seven (שבע, sheba) on the other, from which the "week" was derived as literally "sevenness" (שבוע). The Hebrew language has long had its own word for "week" and never meant the Sabbath (see week). Furthermore, the New Testament was written in Greek, where these words sound completely different and there are many words in all languages that sound similar but mean something completely different, such as "house" and "mouse" etc.

Thus, when the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans (Latin) spoke of the "first day of the week", they always did so only in the sense of "first in the sevenness" (ebdomada, week), but in no case "first in cease/rest" (Sabbath), which makes no sense at all. Since Shabbat translated means "stopping" or "resting", it would mean that it was a day of not working, which is funny. The translation of "sabbaton" into "Sunday", "week" or "Lord's day" is adventurous, cannot be justified with anything and is always wrong, because there have been words for this in Hebrew, Greek and Latin for a long time, and in fact long BEFORE today's English, German or Spanish language even existed. If God had meant the Sunday or the week, He would have said it, nobody can express Himself better than He can, but He mentioned the Sabbath 70 times in the NT and 7 times the Sabbath in the resurrection chapter of the NT, but 0 times the "week" and 0 times the "Sunday", because no one has yet found these ancient Greek guards in the original NT. All words have completely different word stems.

3. In no language of the world does "Sabbath" mean "week". There is not and never has been a single language in which "Sabbath" means "week". For many peoples of the world the Sabbath was an unloved or even hated Jewish holiday, from which they clearly wanted to distance themselves. For them it was a day of the Jews from sunset to sunset at the end of the Jewish week. The peoples of the world had their own holidays and wanted nothing to do with this Sabbath day. Therefore, they did not adopt this Hebrew foreign term into their own language to express their own "week". They have always had their own equivalents for the "week" and were not forced to use a Hebrew word for their 7-day week and abolish their own word. Furthermore, a biblical week means something completely different from the pagan week, because in God's calendar all days begin after sunset, but the pagans start their week at midnight. So there is a biblical week and an unbiblical (pagan) week.

4. The word "week" has been known for centuries in all languages. There are some theologians who claim that at the time of Jesus there was allegedly no corresponding word for "week" in Greek, so the apostles necessarily had to use the term "sabbath/s" when referring to a "week". But this is not true. This is a fairy tale and a false doctrine, which can easily be proven by extra-biblical sources (e.g. the writings of Flavius Josephus) and especially from the Bible itself, namely from the Septuagint (LXX), the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek (already from the 3rd century BEFORE Christ). It is important to eliminate this misunderstanding once and for all. Like all languages of the world, the Hebrew language had a corresponding word for "week", namely "shabhua", which literally means "sevenness" (a period of seven) and has nothing to do with the Sabbath. It was translated in the Septuagint (LXX) with the corresponding Greek word "ebdomada" (εβδομαδα) (see Bible verses), which also means "sevenness" (a period of seven) in Greek. The Septuagint (LXX), the oldest Bible translation in the world, clearly had its own Greek word for "week". The word "week" was therefore known to all people in both the ancient Hebrew and the ancient Greek Bible (LXX) for centuries, long before Jesus and the apostles were born and long before our modern languages even existed. However, since the Jewish division of time was based on the Sabbaths, the word "week" was rarely used. In the entire Old Testament, "shabhua" therefore appears only in 17 Bible passages (see week). Now it becomes understandable why it was not mentioned once in the much shorter Greek New Testament, although the apostles knew it. It was no longer necessary to explain calendar or prophetic week counts. The Greek language was in some points even superior to today's languages. For example, we only know one word for "love", but the Greeks used three terms to describe love, namely philia, eros, and agape, which allowed them to distinguish precisely between love for friends, erotic love and selfless true love for a partner. Nobody can say that the apostles were too stupid and could not express themselves clearly, or that they were forced to speak of "Sabbath/s" when in reality they meant "week" because there was supposedly no corresponding Greek word for the week. This statement is clearly wrong ("fake news"). If they had meant "week" or "Sunday", they would have said it, or simply "after the Sabbath" would have been enough. Since the beginning of creation, the words "Sabbath" and "week" have been clearly defined by God. We do not need new invented definitions by theologians who want to erase God's word. Nor should we forget that the Bible is not a normal book, but the inspired Word of God ("the Holy Scriptures" is what even the Catholic Church calls it). God was and is very well able to put the right words into the Bible, to differentiate clearly and to express Himself clearly. If He mentions the "Sabbath" and not the "week" or "Sunday", then we have to accept it. Even the famous Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (*37; †after 100), who lived at the same time and in the same geographical area as the writers of the NT, uses εβδομάδα, εβδομάδας, εβδομάδος and "των εβδομάδων" several times in his writings. So it is a false doctrine to claim that the poor evangelists allegedly had to talk about "Sabbaths" when they meant a "week". This is a demonic false doctrine. In order to remove the biblical Sabbath from the Bible in a pious way in some places, new definitions were simply created. It is only strange that the evangelists could not even write "after the Sabbath", but always only reported what happened "on one of the Sabbaths" (at Passover there are 3 Sabbaths and until Pentecost even 7 Sabbaths) and "early the first Sabbath" (see Mark 16:9), the first of the 7 Sabbaths until Pentecost. At the time of the first Christian church everyone understood this saying, because everyone knew the calendar of God.

5. The plural "Sabbaths" never means "week". Again and again theologians spread the false doctrine that the plural "σαββατων" (Sabbaths) mentioned in the New Testament can also be translated as "week" because the Sabbath is not in the singular but in the plural and therefore supposedly means "week". This can only be said by people who are not familiar with ancient Greek grammar and are only looking for excuses for their Sunday sanctification. In Mk 16:9 and 1Cor 16:2 the Sabbath is even written in the singular and despite this it has been translated as "week" in some modern Bibles. As is proved under Replacement-2, the plural σαββατων (according to special language rules in the Greek language) has been used since the earliest beginnings to describe only a single Sabbath day in the singular. Therefore, the literal translation of Ex 20:8-10 (the Hebrew Sabbath is in the singular) from the Septuagint is "Remember the day of the Sabbaths [σαββατων, plural]... the seventh day is the Sabbaths [σαββατα, plural] to the Lord your God." Whoever translates the plural σαββατων into "week" or "Sunday" in the New Testament must also do so in the Old Testament of the Septuagint (LXX). At the latest then he must become aware of his mistake. Otherwise the Jews would have always sanctified Sunday. There are three Sabbaths in the Passover week and even seven until Pentecost; what is difficult to understand about someone saying what happened "on one of the Sabbaths" (Mk 16:2: Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1) or "early on the first Sabbath" (Mk 16:9)? Every child understands this and this can be said in any language, why should it be different only in Greek? Because you want to have the resurrection Sunday with all your might?

6. The words "week", "Sunday" and "Lord's day" are not present in the NT (i.e. they are unbiblical). It is an undeniable fact that the universally known Greek words "εβδομαδα" and "εβδομαδες" (=week), although they appear in the Greek OT of the Septuagint (LXX) and in numerous historical books (e.g. by Flavius Josephus) (see week), are not found in any Greek manuscript of the NT. This is not an assumption, but a fact that nobody can ignore. Anyone who includes the "week" (εβδομαδα) or the "Sunday" (Hλιου ημερα) in the New Testament adds something to the Bible that was never in it, and anyone who takes away the "Sabbath" (singular) or the "Sabbaths" (plural) removes something that has been in the Greek Bible for 2,000 years and is still there. Only in the Hebrew and Greek (LXX) OT is the "week" a biblical word (examples), but it does not appear in the entire NT. If God and the apostles had meant the "first day of the week", they would have had many ways of expressing it (see No Sunday). Instead, they clearly spoke only of "a Sabbath". Only the words that are written in the Bible are biblical, the words that are not written in it are unbiblical. 

We don't need to complicate it, the Bible clearly states the day of resurrection 7 times with its name "SABBATH" (Mt 28:1a,1b; Mk 16:2,9; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1,19) and never "SUNDAY". God could not have said it more clearly, and if someone dares to replace this Sabbath day, which has been clearly defined since the creation of the earth, with a "week" or a "Lord's day" or "Sunday" or "after the Sabbath", he commits a great sin. If somebody wants to give a weekday name from our present calendar for this purpose, only "Saturday" is an option. But even that would not be correct, because Saturday follows a different pagan calendar and does not begin at sunset but at midnight. If the apostles had meant Sunday, they would have named this day by name, they were not stupid. The Bible is clear and definite on this point. 

7. Modern Greek. Even in today's Greek, Saturday is called Σάββατο (Sabbato) and has no connection whatsoever with the week, which was called εβδομάδα (ebdomada) both long before the birth of Jesus and still today. No Greek has ever replaced the one Jewish Sabbath day with the 7-day week.

The Greek language was a world language at the time the NT was created. It was the language of scholars, philosophers, scientists, kings, physicians, soldiers, slaves and above all of the economic people from all known countries of the world at that time. The Greeks have always been able to differentiate very precisely between the "sevenness" (a period of seven; the "week" consisting of 7 days) and the "Sabbath" (the holiday of the Jews). They never confused the two words. Only today's theologians invent new definitions so that they can convert the 7th day of the week into a period of 7 days and claim that "on one of the Sabbaths" could supposedly mean "on one of the Sundays" until Pentecost or "on the first day of the week." There have always been specific Greek clearly defined words for such different idioms.

Since there are 3 Sabbaths each year on the Passover Feast and, in addition, 7 Sabbaths are counted until Pentecost, in the time of the NT every child understood the words "on one of the Sabbaths" (Mk 16:2, Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1) or "early on the first Sabbath" (Mk 16:9) in the counting of the 7 Sabbaths until Pentecost:

8. There are many correct translations that know the difference between "week" and "Sabbath". The Vulgate in particular knows the difference between the two words and teaches only the Sabbath resurrection of Jesus. The first official Catholic translation of the Greek New Testament manuscripts was the Latin Vulgate. It was written in 382 A.D. by the Catholic Church Fathers (Jerome). It was widespread and highly recognised throughout the world. The Vulgate does not contain any language adventures. The well-known corresponding Latin terms for "week", namely "hebdomada", "hebdomadis" or "hebdomas" were used in the OT but not in the NT. Also the well-known Latin terms "dies solis" (day of the sun = Sunday) or "dies dominica" (day of the Lord) or Domingo (Lord's day) do not appear there at all. This is not surprising, since the translators were experts and knew the linguistic context better than most translators today. All 9 biblical passages were correctly translated with "sabbati" (Mt 28:1a; Mt 28:1b; Mk 16:9; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1, Acts 20:7; 1Cor 16:2) or "sabbatorum" (Mk 16:2; Mk 16:9; Jn 20:19). Readers of Latin or Greek have therefore never been able to find the words "week" or "Sunday" in their New Testament Bible for about 2,000 years. For them, the resurrection of Jesus and the church assembly were each "on a Sabbath" (una sabbati). This is a fact, and millions of Christians have heard that the Gutenberg Bible was the first printed book in the world, published in 1452. But hardly any Christian is really aware that this is nothing other than the printed version of the Catholic Bible (Vulgate), written in Latin, which tells of the coming of women to the tomb "on a Sabbath" morning. A copy of the Gutenberg Bible was auctioned in 1987 for about 5 million Euros. This book is so precious, which only knows the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus "on a Sabbath day". 

The very many old Catholic Bible translations, Martin Luther and many reformers knew the Sabbath resurrection of Jesus. This is not a new teaching. The ancient German manuscripts and all 18 printed German pre-Lutheran Bibles mentioned the resurrection of Jesus "on a Saturday" morning or "on a Sabbath". Martin Luther (see Luther-Bible) also translated ALL passages relating to the Day of Resurrection and the meeting of the Christians correctly with "Sabbath" and never with "first day of the week" or "on a Sunday." Luther did indeed hold his service on Sunday because it was customary to gather on that day and because Saturday was a normal state working day. For him the day was not important, but what counted for him was that people could hear from God, but his translation described the coming of women to the tomb "on a Sabbath" and not "on a Sunday". In the revised Luther Bible text of 1912 and 1984, however, the word "week" suddenly appears 9 times (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2; Mk 16:9; Lk 18:12; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1; Jn 20:19; Acts 20:7; 1Cor 16:2). The Sabbath, which was a matter of course for Luther, was simply erased and hidden by modern theology. Luther would certainly not have agreed to such a revision of his Bible, especially since his actual wording was not even referred to in a footnote. Many readers were thus cheated out of the knowledge of the true biblical content. Even the three Catholic counter-bibles to Luther still all contained the Sabbath resurrection of Jesus as is proven in the chapter German Bible Prints 2. Even today, new English and German Bible translations still contain the Sabbath Resurrection of Jesus.

How could it happen, then, that the words σαββατων and σαββατου were translated nine times (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2,9; Lk 18:12; 24:1; Jn 20:1,19; Acts 20:7; 1Cor 16:2), contrary to all rules, not with "Sabbath(s)" but with "week" or "Sunday"? The reason is clear: if one were to leave it at its original and true meaning, neither the theory of Jesus' resurrection on Sunday, nor the church meeting on Sunday, nor the Sunday celebration could be biblically justified. That would be a catastrophe for many. For then the Sabbath would become even more important. That is exactly what neither the state nor the church institutions wanted to accept. Even the Free Evangelical Churches and even the Seventh-day Adventists follow this idea. Ellen White had experienced in her visions that Jesus was supposedly crucified on a Friday and resurrected on a Sunday. If she had read the original Greek text and the very many old Bibles, she would know that it was in reality "on a Sabbath" or even "on a Saturday" morning. So it is clear which spirits gave her these teachings, which were to replace the Word of God and introduce the pagan Sunday as Jesus' supposed resurrection day (see church opinions).

It is not comprehensible why some study Bibles translate the plural "sabbaton" as "first day of the week" but not as "first Sabbath day"? They have thousands of word explanations, but of all places that deal with the resurrection of Jesus, there is no reference to the 5 important words (one, first, day, week, Sabbath). This proves that different translations were used than the Greek text says, so that the true message is hidden. In Mk 16:9 the Greek text speaks of the Sabbath day in the singular and again some modern Bibles translate "first day of the week" for no reason and again there is no explanation in the language key of the study Bibles. Why is there no language key in these few verses? Simply because the basic Greek text says something completely different, something the world does not want to hear. This is very disappointing that the true statements of God were hidden and replaced.

One final note: Some theologians claim that the Greek "μια των σαββατων" (one of the Sabbaths), "πρωτη σαββατου" (first Sabbath), the Latin "una sabbati" (on a Sabbath) and "prima sabbati" (first Sabbath) supposedly refer to the "first day TO the Sabbath", i.e. Sunday. This would then be followed by the "second day TO THE Sabbath" (Monday), then the "third day TO THE Sabbath" (Tuesday), and so on. Friday would then be "the sixth day TO THE Sabbath" or "the last day TO THE Sabbath". This embarrassing and funny theory can't be true at all, because otherwise the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews could never have said "on a Sabbath", "on one of the Sabbaths" or "on the first Sabbath" (the 7 weekly Sabbaths until Pentecost), because it would automatically always have to mean "not on the Sabbath", but one day later, i.e. "on a Sunday". That is completely crazy. The Greek text never uses the word "TO THE Sabbath", but "on the one of the Sabbaths". Nowadays nobody says "on the first day TO THE Sunday" (i.e. Monday) we meet". Instead, all people call every day of the week by name and the day in the Resurrection chapter was called "SABBAT" 7 times and 0 times as Sunday. At the time of the OT the first day of the week was called "First Day", it was not nameless (see weekday names). Each day of the week is a day in its own right and the first day of the week existed when the Sabbath did not even exist for days. So one would have to talk about the Sabbath rather than the "seventh day after Sunday" and not vice versa. The phrase "first day TO THE Sabbath" is illogical and meaningless and does not exist in any language of the world. This false assertion was only invented by theologians because they could not think of anything else to erase the unloved Sabbath from the chapter on resurrection. As already mentioned in point 2, if at all, the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans (Latin) spoke of the "first/one day of the week" in the sense of "first/one in the sevenness", because that was the literal translation for "week" (see definition). Today we also say "first day of the week" and never "first day TO THE Sabbath". And one more thing: this phrase alone would give the Sabbath an even greater significance, because according to it all Greek weekdays would refer to the Jewish Sabbath. Certainly not a single Greek or Roman wanted that. As was proved in the chapter "No Sunday", the ancient Greek language had had over 20 ways of expressing Sunday when it was meant. The Sabbath existed long before Sunday even existed, which people had invented to distance themselves from God.

Both the ancient Greek and the ancient Latin languages have always been able to say "on one of the Sabbaths", "on a Sabbath", "on the first Sabbath", "on the first day of the week" and "on a Sunday". Both languages existed long before English, Spanish, French and German existed. And the very many correct old Bible translations from the basic Greek text and the Vulgate give us further assurance that "a Saturday" and "a Sabbath" were actually meant. And if you still want to argue, just translate these just mentioned phrases from English into Greek and you will find that you have to use the same words that are in the NT. How can another day come out of the translation when it is retranslated again?

But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end.

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increas 

 (Daniel 12:4)

 "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil"

(1Thess 5:21-22)

"Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them"

(Epheser 5:11)