davidbu@loowit.wr.tek.com (David E. Buxton) (06/05/91)
In article <Jun.4.00.00.40.1991.11658@athos.rutgers.edu>, jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) writes: > And if it was so special, why is there no record of it's observance > from the 7th day of creation to Mount Sinai? (Approx. 3 thousand > years by the 6K year old earth, 2K before the flood type, 1K to Moses > type reconing). The mention of any ritual in Genisis is sparse to > say the least, a few burnt offerings, a few idols, a prostitute, > that's about it. There are large spans of history between Sinai and the cross when there is no comment about Sabbath keeping. Do we conclude that during these spans of history the Sabbath was not kept? Some time before Sinai: 4 - "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my insturctions. 26 - "Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?" (Ex. 16:4, 26-28) From this we can see that God had His commandments before Sinai and that the Sabbath was one of them. This predates the Mosaic laws. I have a chart of about 200 languages showing how each language scripts its days of the week. These are languages of very ancient origin, coining their days of the week in ancient times. Many of these use the pagan days of the week. But quite a number of them clearly identify the 7th day as a Shabbat, a day of rest. This leads me to believe that the Sabbath dates back before the tower of Babel and the confussion of languages - each going away with its own scripting of the days of the week with its Sabbat, or the pagan system for days of the week. Note, there is documentation on pagan cultures of ancient origen where their prime god was the sun god and they had a weekly 7 day cycle where sunday was their day for the sun god. Sunday as a day for sun worship pre-dates Christianity by quite a bit. I admit I have no way of pinning dates on this back into antiquity. Considering the chart of ancient languages and how they scripted their days of the week I conclude that God's weekly cycle dates back to and before the tower of Babel and that the pagan weekly cycle with its sun worship also dates back to that erra. So, based on this chart and the scripture about the Sabbath being one of God's commandments before Sinai, I conclude that Abraham kept the Sabbath: "I will make your descendants as numberous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, commandments, my decrees and my laws." (Gen 26:4,5) It makes perfectly good sense to me that the Sabbath dates all the way back to creation: "And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." -- Gen 2:2,3 (NKJ) For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Exo 20:11 (NKJ) Dave (David E. Buxton)
jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) (06/07/91)
In article <Jun.5.00.20.13.1991.19915@athos.rutgers.edu> davidbu@loowit.wr.tek.com (David E. Buxton) writes:
+
+There are large spans of history between Sinai and the cross when there
+is no comment about Sabbath keeping. Do we conclude that during these
+spans of history the Sabbath was not kept?
I don't think you can conclude that it was either.
+ 4 - "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'I will rain down bread from heaven
+ insturctions. 26 - "Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh
+ day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to
The time distance from this point to the giving of the Ten
Commandments is at most several years, at the least days or hours.
Furthermore it is given to the very people who the Diety was about
to give a much stricter law than mentioned previously. The usual
explanations are that after the Egyptian Captivity there was a
'need' for such laws because the people had 'forgoten' the 'true'
laws.
A more practical explanation is that very few of the
'multitude' could actually trace lineage to Abraham and these laws
were created to define who was 'Hebrew' and who was not. (This is
with a 'non-Deistic' source in mind and clearly unacceptable to
many those who believe in the 'literal' truth of the Bible)
+
+I have a chart of about 200 languages showing how each language scripts
+its days of the week. These are languages of very ancient origin,
+coining their days of the week in ancient times. Many of these use the
No doubt mostly Indo-Europe/Semitic/Sumerian Languages.
The significance of 7 could be explaned via a different routine. The
ancients were interrested in 'magic' of number. There seems to be a
'obsession' with phases of Sun/Moon/Planets. The significant facts
for 7 are 28 Moon cycle, 4 7-day Quarters of the Moon cycle, 52 7
day groups for a solar year. 52 has the property that 5+2=7. These
are merely 'interresting' observations, since I was not present when
the body of Astronomica/Astrological knowledge was invented. But I
have seen enough write-ups which indicate that much of the
Meso-potamian religious activity was dealing with number and the
physical manifestations of number.
--
John Clark
jclark@ucsd.edugad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) (06/10/91)
jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) writes: [...skipping the real point of his comments...] > > The significant facts for 7 are > 28 Moon cycle, 4 7-day Quarters of the Moon cycle, 52 7-day > groups for a solar year. 52 has the property that 5+2=7. Note that "52" only has that property with Arabic numbering. Not sure what numbering systems other people used, but 52 doesn't have that property with roman numerals, for instance... :-) - - - - - - - - Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@rpi.edu or gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) (06/11/91)
In article <Jun.9.14.32.05.1991.24955@athos.rutgers.edu> gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes: + +Note that "52" only has that property with Arabic numbering. Not sure what +numbering systems other people used, but 52 doesn't have that property with +roman numerals, for instance... :-) I looked in to this a little bit on Saturday, and found that the Babelonian method of numbering would in fact lead quite easily to the side sum. There was 'ones' gliph, and a 'Tens' Gliph, as well as others. The number was represented as 5 tens gliphs, and 2 ones gliphs, for a total of 7 gliphs. The reference I used also said that certain sequences were not used due to what the author called 'unlucky' significance. An example is, 19 was represented as 20 minus 1, rather than 1 ten and 9 ones. The reason given was that the 19 day of the month was 'unlucky' since it was the 49 day from the first day previous of the previous month(note the side sum of 49 would be 13, don't know if that's significant). A different rational, my own conjecture, would be that 1 ten and 9 ones is more consumptive of the writing surface than the notation for 20 - 1. Fractions or multiples of 60 were 'implicit' in this notation and one has to know the context to determine if one is reading 1/60 or 1*60, the 'number' being written as 1 2 3 could mean 1*3600+2*60+3 or 2*60 + 3 + 1/60. Gaps were used to indicate 'missing' powers, and occasionally a '0' was used to indicate a 'missing' power (although there is no indication of using what we use in terms of 'positional' notation with Zero). > > - - - - - - - - >Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@rpi.edu or gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu -- John Clark jclark@ucsd.edu