Why Sunday?

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Mohsin

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Regards to all.

I came across an article raising a question about Sabbath(the seventh day of the week) as a day of worship for the Christians and the Jews.


Jesus Christ(pbuh) mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew - Ch. No. 5, V. No. 17 to 20…

Think not that I have come to destroy, the laws and Prophet. I have come not destroy but to fulfill. So unless the heavens and the earth pass away, not one jot or title shall pass away from the law, until all be fulfilled. So whosoever shall break one of the least Commandments, and teach men do so, he will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven. And whosoever shall teach the Commandment… teach others to do so, will be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.

Its from King James Version… it’s a verbatim quotation. That unless your righteousness, exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and the Pharases, in no way you shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So Jesus Christ (pbuh) said that… If a Christian, has to be a good Christian, he should follow each and every law of the Torah - Whatever Moses said… they have to follow, verbatim. Even if one jot or a title, if they break… they will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Many questions rises, but please clerify to me, Why don’t Christians observe Saturday, as the Holy day?
 
I don't have much time but to the best of my knowledge the Gospel of John says Jesus rose on a Sunday. I'll have to Check and get back to you later in the day I have to leave home right now
 
Here it is
Now since it was the preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down

- John 19:31
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So as you can see Jesus died on the Day before the Jewish Sabbath which is Saturday so he died on Friday. 3 days later. Friday, Saturday, Sunday he ascended. Which is why Christians celebrate there Sabbath on a Sunday because it is a celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
 
I came across another artical which was saying that the Christians also concidered Saturday as the holy day. I was only until the Roman emperor made Christianity a national religion, i.e. for more then a couple of centuries Saturday was the holy day even for Christians.
 
Mohsin said:
I came across another artical which was saying that the Christians also concidered Saturday as the holy day. I was only until the Roman emperor made Christianity a national religion, i.e. for more then a couple of centuries Saturday was the holy day even for Christians.
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Your information is correct. The first Christians, like Jesus himself, were all Jews and observed the Jewish sabbath.

When non-Jews were accepted into the church (and there was a huge controversy about that) they were exempted from keeping the sabbath, but Jewish Christians continued to do so. They did not see their Christian faith as making them non-Jewish or exempting them from the law of Moses.

By the second half of the 1st century CE, both Jewish and Gentile Christians were making it a habit to meet early in the morning of Sunday for a time of worship together. This was called "the Lord's Day" in honour of the day on which Jesus rose from the dead. Jewish Christians observed the Lord's Day in addition to the Sabbath.

By the time Christianity became the official faith of the Roman empire, the Jews and Christians had long since parted. Jews who became Christian were no longer considered to be Jews by either the Jewish or Christian communities. So remnants of Jewish observances were abandoned by the church. Therefore when the emperor Constantine decreed the weekly observance of Christian worship, he opted for Sunday, the "Lord's Day" not Saturday, the Sabbath.

In later years, some Christians--especially Calvinist Protestants applied the sabbath rules of no work to the Lord's Day and tried to observe Sunday as a Christian Sabbath. Others, not very many, went further and returned to observing the Sabbath as their day of worship instead of Sunday.

But the basic reason for Sunday was Constantine's decree and the fact that Sunday was the day of resurrection.
 
But, does it not show that a commandment has been changed/broken? I mean God did placed Saturday as the Sabbath(day of worship) for the Jews and Jesus Christ(P.B.U.H) did say not to break any of the commandments.
 
I heard a lecture of a former Christian priest, he delivered it on the radio in the US. He said that because the Romans were earlier sun worshipers, the emperor changed the day to Sun-day. He said that the days of the week represent something like this:
Sun-day - The day to worship the sun.
Mon-day - The day to worship the moon.
Wednesday - The day to worship the wood(nature).
Saturday - The day to worship the Saturn(stars).
I missed the other days because I do not know what they stand for. Anyhow, the holy scriptures mention the days by their numbers and Sabbath means the seventh day.

I know that it is an odd discovery, but if you analyze, the commandment was already broken and the lecturer(former priest) had a strong point. Also, if the day of worship was to be changed, Jesus Christ(P.B.U.H) would have declaired it earlier.

Sorry if offended but please share your comments.
 
Kindest Regards, Mohsin!

Some of this was touched on in another thread:

http://www.comparative-religion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=780&page=2&pp=10

"Council of Laodicea 364 A.D."... "That was the council that established the first day of the week, Sunday, as the day of worship. The council of Nicea (I often confuse the two) was the one I meant, establishing the official canon, and "settling" the Arian controversy. 325 AD. It also established the observance of Easter to replace Passover."
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My thanks to JJM for the discussion this came from, in the thread "What do Christians believe?"

Mohsin said:
...because the Romans were earlier sun worshipers, the emperor changed the day to Sun-day.
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This is essentially correct.

He said that the days of the week represent something like this:
Sun-day - The day to worship the sun.
Mon-day - The day to worship the moon.
Wednesday - The day to worship the wood(nature).
Saturday - The day to worship the Saturn(stars).
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My understanding is that the English names of the days of the week stem from the Norse; Tuesday for the god "Tiu" or "Tew" (I've seen a couple of spellings), Wednesday for the god "Woden", Thursday for the god "Thor", and Friday for the god "Frigga." I've forgotten where Saturday comes from, the preacher may well be correct.

the holy scriptures mention the days by their numbers and Sabbath means the seventh day.
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I have often pondered the same question. I understand Christ to have been in the tomb 3 days and 3 nights, so the traditional timeline of Friday to Sunday always seemed stretched to me. Jesus gave up the ghost prior to a Sabbath, but not the weekly Sabbath. The beginning of Passover I understand to be considered the High Sabbath, although I will happily defer to someone knowledgable of the Jewish tradition to further this.

Sorry if offended but please share your comments.
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No offense on my part, I like to think we are all here to learn from each other.
 
If Jesus was entombed on Friday, for 3 days and 3 nights, then wouldn't he be risen on Monday morning?

I hope that isn't too silly a question.

As to the actual names of days - the Roman calendar actually had no day names - so it's very possible this was something lifted from the Germanic tribes who took control of Europe after smashing Rome.
 
so the traditional timeline of Friday to Sunday always seemed stretched to me.
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well, technically the "day" runs dusk-to-dusk in judaism, not 12-to-12. the "eve" marks the start of all festivals in judaism, rather like "christmas eve".

Jesus gave up the ghost prior to a Sabbath, but not the weekly Sabbath. The beginning of Passover I understand to be considered the High Sabbath, although I will happily defer to someone knowledgable of the Jewish tradition to further this.
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well, you should probably be able to work it out; the "last supper" was the Passover "seder" or ritual meal, which would have been the "eve" before the first day of the festival, which starts on the 15th day of the month of Nisan in the jewish calendar. this is supposed to have happened in 33 CE (AD), right? so we should be able to work out which day of the week the 15th of Nisan was in 33 - although this seems to be beyond me at the moment. however, it seems to me from looking at the days that Passover falls on that it could only have been a tuesday, thursday, sunday or saturday, which means that the "last supper" could have taken place on monday, wednesday, friday or saturday nights. i can't be arsed to actually do the maths, but this article may help:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/godsreligion/a/aa040200.htm

incidentally, in judaism the days just have numbers - sunday is "the first day" all the way through to the "seventh day", also known as "Shabbat", the root of the word "seven" in hebrew also sharing a root with the verb "to rest". the amusing thing is that in all the romance languages (french, spanish, portuguese, italian and romanian) the word for saturday still contains the hebrew word (samedi, sabado, sábado sabato, sâmbãta) whereas the "seventh day" is officially sunday - which, as pointed out above, is now the "lord's day" - (dimanche, domingo, domingo, domenica, duminicá) containing the root-word for "lord" from latin.

hope this helps

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Some Christians do keep Saturday as the Sabbath - Seventh-day Adventist's are one group.

The Sabbath goes back to Creation, before the fall, showing it was meant for all mankind and also to be kept eternally.

There is no text in the NT to show that the Sabbath was changed. The silence supports the Sabbath, had there been a change we would expect some statement. The text used to support Sunday do not stand up under scrutiny.

Some say we are no longer under the law, but while the sacrificial laws are obsolete, the moral laws e.g. 10 commandments are still valid. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus affirmed the moral law - the context was about revenge, ery, anger - moral principles and laws.

Rom 3:20 - we are not saved by the law, rather made conscious of sin

Rom 3:31 - this faith does not nullify the law

God Bless



Marc
 
There's considerable evidence that Sunday was the Roman day of observation for the worship of Sol Invictus - "the Conquering Sun" or "Mithras" - another god-man religion especially popular with the Roman legions at the time of Constantine. Romans were used to Sunday being their weekly day of religious observation, so when "christianity" became the official state religion they changed the "sabbath" to Sunday. They also changed the celebration of Christ's birth from January 6 to December 25 - the traditional date of the celebration of the birth of the Conquering Sun.

Armenian christians still celebrate Christmas on January 6, which was (and I think still is) the day of the Feast of Epiphany in the West (though it's not much celebrated anymore). January 6 in the West became the date the "Magi" supposedly arrived at the scene.

The days in between December 25 and January 6? Yep, you guessed it. The fabled "Twelve Days of Christmas."

Merry Zarathustramas everybody!
 
There are two studies of the Sunday question that I know of:

Bacchiocchi, From Sabbath to Sunday

Carson, et.al, From Sabbath to Lord's Day

They look at the same evidence, and come to diametrically opposite conclusions. Bacchiocchi concludes that the establishment of Sunday as the day of worship was late (late 1st or early 2nd century), was established at the authority of the Roman Church, and was heavily influenced by Roman sun-worship. Carson et. al., in a book-length response to Bacchiocchi, conclude that it was established early, probably by the apostles if not Jesus himself, and wasn't influenced by sun-worship.

How can scholars look at the same evidence and come to opposite conclusions? Bacchiocchi is a Jehovah's Witness, and Carson, et al. are Protestant scholars. Clearly we have a case of people believing what they want to believe, rather than what the evidence shows.

The evidence.

The NT nowhere declares Sunday as the day of worship. Acts mentions a meeting that Paul held, but doesn't indicate if this was a habit or an extraordinary event. Revelation (probably the last NT book written) mentions the "Lord's day", but doesn't say if this is Sunday or a day of worship.

A 1st-century report by a Roman authority on the Christians states that they worship "on a certain day of the week". Unfortunately, he doesn't mention which day.

By the time of Justin (2nd century), Sunday worship is well-established.

The analysis:

The problem is, that during the time period in question (late 1st - early 2nd century) there were Christians scattered everywhere and no one authority who could impose such a change. Bacchiocchi wants to push the change to the end of the period, and puts the Roman Church as the authority that imposed it. But there is no evidence that such a change was made, that anyone objected to it (as they certainly would if it was imposed from outside), or that the Roman Church had sufficient authority to impose such a change at that time. (The churches in Alexandria an Antioch were still as influential, if not more influential, than Rome up until the 4th century.) Carson, +c. want to push the change earlier on apostolic authority. But then we would expect that the NT books would remark on the change, and explain or justify it theologically.

My suggestion: if there's no church or person(s) that had the authority and influence to bring about such a change, perhaps there was a book that could do it. Specifically, the letter of Barnabas. This was a very influential book that narrowly missed becoming part of the NT. It places a heavy emphasis on the "eighth day" (i.e., Sunday). The eighth day is beyond the seventh as Christianity is beyond Judaism (in Christian theology, of course). Could this book have been the authority with enough influence to bring about the switch to Sunday?
 
RETRACTION:

I've been researching this since my earlier post. The better evidence for the "Sunday" day of observation is that it was entrenched as a christian practice well before Constantine - who simply codified the existing practice as law. It was not, as is often claimed, a new "Sabbath" but the celebration of the day of ressurection or the "Lord's Day." I found the following, from Justin Martyr's "First Apology" especially compelling evidence:

But Sunday is the day on which we hold our common assembly, because it is the first day of the week and Jesus our savior on the same day rose from the dead.


 
I read the other day that it was Clement that introduced the Sunday worship due to his involvement in a Sun cult. (can't remember its name sol something) Have lost the link on it but Clement was before Constantine.

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A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century A.D.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god’s popularity—his “birthday” being December 25.


Source: Frederick H. Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, p. 4. Copyright 1954 by the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
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Sacredstar
 
Sacredstar said:
I read the other day that it was Clement that introduced the Sunday worship due to his involvement in a Sun cult. (can't remember its name sol something) Have lost the link on it but Clement was before Constantine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A star cult, sun-worship, became (in the third century A.D.) the dominant official creed, paving the road for the ultimate triumph of Judaeo-Christian monotheism. So strong was the belief in the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus) that for example Constantine I (d. 337), himself at first a devotee of the sun cult, found it, indeed perfectly compatible with his pro-Christian sympathies to authorize his own portrayal as Helios. And in 354 the ascendant Christian church in the reign of his pious but unsavory son, Constantius II, found it prudent to change the celebration of the birth of Jesus from the traditional date (January 6) to December 25, in order to combat the pagan Sun god’s popularity—his “birthday” being December 25.


Source: Frederick H. Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, p. 4. Copyright 1954 by the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.
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Sacredstar
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Justin Martyr predates Clement by about half a century.
 
Ok but the pagan cult from whence it comes outdates all of them !

Sacredstar
 
Sacredstar said:
Ok but the pagan cult from whence it comes outdates all of them !

Sacredstar
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Well certainly the pagan mysteries are much older than both Justin and Clement. The question is whether the observation of Sunday as a religious day was adapted from paganism. It's possible. Maybe even likely. But the evidence is scarce. And one wouldn't want to make the mistake of confusing correlation with causation.

The early writings of Justin suggest that by 150, Sunday was already observed as the day of the resurrection. Could it have been started as part of a pagan observation in some sort of proto-christian paganism? Yes. Was it? Not sure.
 
It would be really hard to make a case for Sunday worship deriving from pagan cults. AFAIK, there are NO pagan cults that had a weekly worship. Some cults apparently met for meals, but not on a weekly basis. (Does anyone know about Mithraism?)

In Judaism, of course, there was the Sabbath, which was a day of rest. Eventually, it became a day of worship, too. But there is little evidence that this had happened by Jesus's time.
 
The civic Roman calendar certainly wasn't built in terms of "7 days of the week", so I don't believe it could have been lifted that way. In fact, wasn't the Roman Calendar of Empire in weeks of 10 days? Or am I confusing with the Egyptian calendar with that?
 
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