SOME PROPOSED TRANSLATIONS
INVOLVING WORDS MEANING
SABBATH AND WEEK 

Stephen M. Reynolds, Ph. D.

It is one of the principles that brought this Foundation into existence that translators have been altogether too selective and partial with regard to God's command in II Timothy 2:15. This is that a true minister of the Word should, along with Timothy, be "a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."¹ Whatever else this command may mean it certainly includes the idea that when a translator comes to a word with more than one meaning he should divide the meanings one from the other and choose the one which fits the context and is most glorifying to God. If two meanings seem to be possible in the context and neither is demeaning to God or otherwise objectionable, it should be a rule to accept the usual meaning of the word and not the unusual one. 

While obeying the command of II Timothy 2:15 in some places (e.g. Job 1:5,11 and 2:5, 9), translators have disobeyed God's command in other places where they make God contradict Himself, a disgraceful thing to do, which must surely bring down God's wrath on those who do it. 

Thus the ancient Biblical languages did not normally use different words to separate alcoholic beverages from nonalcoholic ones, but a modern translator working in a language where these meanings are clearly distinguished by different words should separate the meanings. In the vivid language of the Apostle Paul he should cut them apart. The tou of ovrqotouou/nta gives the idea of cutting apart as in an appendectomy when a surgeon cuts a diseased appendix from a sick person to save his life. For a translator to fail to separate meanings of words when this is necessary to bring out truths is worse than for a surgeon to fail to remove a diseased appendix when such failure destroys a human life. By not doing so, previous translators have given people the impression that God confuses them by telling them not even to look at a certain substance (Prov. 23:31) and of this very same substance telling them that it is His gift to make glad the heart of man (Psalm 104:15). How many people thinking they were honoring God by drinking this substance have gone down in sin and shame? Innocent people have been killed by drunken drivers who if they had understood what God really says about this intoxicating beverage would have been guiltless of murder on the highways. Even ministers of the Gospel have become alcoholics and instead of being good shepherds of souls are blind leaders of the blind. 

Different meanings of words which in the original could mean either changed spiritually by a work of the Holy Spirit, or made ceremonially clean by human action, or made legitimate in marriage should be distinguished by translators sensitive to the need to obey II Timothy 2:15. See especially I Corinthians 7:14. 

On the other hand it is (conversely) a serious sin against God's truth to wrongly divide the meaning of words, that is, to give a second meaning to a word in the Bible when this is unnecessary. Where the primary meaning of the word if accepted by translators produces a grammatically sound expression and furthermore throws light on the origin of the Sunday observance of the Sabbath, Christians should accept it. Translators who wrongly divide the meaning of words and change the sense of passages should be resisted and their work rejected. 

The purpose of this paper is to present corrected translations of a small number of passages wherein the Holy Word of God is rendered more purely and purged of man‑made corruptions. In some of these corrections the corruption is not in failure to divide the Word of Truth, but in wrongly dividing a meaning from the more natural one to one less natural and which is misleading on a matter of importance. Bible passages where this type of error occurs are Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1, John 20:1 and John 20:19. They will be taken up in this same order. 

Before moving on, it is only fair to prepare readers by saying that the proposed translations may be innovative, and our Foundation may be accused of trying to overthrow centuries of tradition, but we believe that we present them not arrogantly but with proper Christian humility. We believe that God guided us every step of the way. The translations are not traditional, but we call on anyone who would criticize them to remember that Christ was highly critical of traditionalists and traditionalism (Mark 7:1-13). 

Matthew 28: 1 is in the original:
VOye. de. sabba,twn( th/| evpifwskou,sh| eivj mi,an sabba,twn( h=lqe Maria. h` Magdalhnh.( kai. h` a;llh Mari,a( qewrh/sai to.n ta,fonÅ 

The proposed translation is: "After sabbaths as it began to dawn toward the first (day) of sabbaths came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the tomb." VOye followed by the genitive may mean after as allowed by Liddell and Scott. This makes sense and is accepted by modern translators. Sabba,twn is used twice, each time without the article. It is the genitive plural of sa,bbatwn, the primary meaning of which is sabbaths. It is derived from the Hebrew tB'V; which comes from the verb tB;F' meaning to rest, and designates the day of rest.  

A typical traditional translation of this verse is that of the New Revised Standard Version (NRS) which is, "After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb." The NIV is essentially the same. The King James Version (KJV) translates VOye. de. sabba,twn as "in the end of the Sabbath." This requires us to understand that Matthew thought of the Old Testament Sabbath as ending at sunrise on Sunday morning. There is no good reason to suppose he thought that, and the idea that he considered that it ended at sunset on Saturday, which was the rule in his day, should be accepted. VOye therefore means after in this passage. 

Serious problems cannot be avoided in the traditional translations of the two occurrences of the word sabba,twn. This type of translation gives them two distinct meanings. The first occurrence is rendered sabbath and the second week. This is strange and it is believed to be without example in Holy Writ that in the same short sentence one word be given two entirely different meanings. In addition to this strange fact, the word sabba,twn is plural in form and is rendered in the traditional text both times in the singular, once as sabbath and once as week. Also both times the word sabba,twn is used the definite article is placed before it in the traditional translations which is not true in the inspired original. All this makes the traditional translation very suspect. 

It is reasonable to expect that defense of the traditional translation and opposition to the proposed new one may take two forms. Opponents may say that they can produce philological arguments to support taking sabba,twn to mean sabbath and week and they may say that the proposed new translation does not make sense. Neither of these arguments, if proposed, is sound. As for any philological argument they may present, while we do not deny that there are some things they may say, it may be stated confidently that the primary meaning of sabba,twn is sabbaths and this should be preferred. Only if arguments which cannot be resisted in favor of other meanings are presented should true students of the Bible abandon the primary meaning, and there are no such arguments possible. Parallel passages in the Gospels, Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1 and John 20:19 are to be understood as similar to Matthew 28:1 in that sabba,twn means sabbaths. 

As for a possible argument of opponents that the proposed new translation does not make good sense this may be countered by appealing to the situation of the early Christians and the loving and caring feeling the Lord had to them The Lord must have explained to His disciples what He wanted them to do with regard to the day of His resurrection. As He was God incarnate and the master of the future, He must have told his disciples that the day of His resurrection was to be the first day of a long series of new sabbaths and that the sabbath he lay in the tomb would be the last of the old order of seventh day sabbaths, and that as the day dawned it was the dawning of a new kind of day, "the first (day) of sabbaths," that is of the first day sabbaths extending from the day of resurrection to the Second Coming. 

We know that Jesus did and no doubt said many things that are not recorded in the Bible (John 21:25). It is impossible to believe that He failed to teach the disciples what they were to do about the sabbath. The resurrection accounts, if examined properly, tell us that He told them that the day of His resurrection would mark the end of old sabbaths and the beginning of new ones. We can infer other things. Judging from what is said in the Gospels concerning the sabbath we must understand that the sabbath was to be changed not only as to the day of its celebration but as to the manner of observing it. It is reasonable to believe that He taught them not to emphasize the doctrine of the first day sabbaths as they went out to evangelize Jews and Gentiles. 

The great majority of Christians have obeyed this rule of the first-day sabbaths, but a minority have in modern times insisted that the Bible does not abrogate the seventh day sabbaths. They have become schismatics in the mistaken belief that the New Testament, while referring to the first day as in some way special, never calls it the sabbath and that therefore the command from Sinai about the seventh day is forever binding. The problem is solved if we understand and translate the word sabba,twn in the resurrection accounts in the usual sense of sabbaths. So understood, all four evangelists called the first day of all weeks following the resurrection sabbaths. Much of the fault in causing a misunderstanding of what the evangelists were saying lies with translators. Although it is scriptural to teach that every word of God is pure (Prov. 30:5) this does not extend to the words of translators who in the course of centuries have made blunders. Even the slightest error of a translator of the Bible should not be considered a small thing, but in some instances the failure of translators to be precise in their work has led them to mislead people on serious matters of faith and practice. Thus some of them have misled people on the matter of alcoholic beverages, permitting their use when God demands total abstinence. In the matter of the resurrection accounts translators have misled people by obscuring the teaching that all four Gospels teach that the day of resurrection was the first (day) of sabbaths. 

The majority of Christians have observed the first day sabbaths very properly, but their arguments from the Bible against those who say we must all observe the seventh day as the sabbath have not proved to be convincing. Rightly understood and correctly translated the resurrection accounts give the needed proof for the celebration of first day sabbaths and the rejection of seventh day sabbaths. 

Of course philology is not an exact science. The use of words is subject to changes made by regional dialects and even by peculiarities brought about by particular groups of people. The use of sabba,twn for week is cited in the excellent Liddell and Scott Greek‑English Dictionary as though it were a peculiarity of the New Testament. While we agree with the universal opinion that this dictionary is a work of excellent scholarship, we believe the learned authors were led astray by early translators of the New Testament and that solid evidence supports the view that even in it sabba,twn is not used as a proper Greek word for week. 

In the resurrection accounts in the other Gospels (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1 and 19) sabba,twn is likewise to be translated sabbaths. The definite article is used before sabba,twn in the Mark and Luke passages and in John 20:1. Mark 16:9 is different and will be discussed in another article. 

As for the argument that the proposed translation does not make sense, this can be countered by appealing to the probable unrecorded sayings of Jesus and the situation of the disciples. The Lord must have explained to His disciples what He wanted them to do on these new sabbaths. As He was God incarnate He was also Master of the future, and as He had formerly explained to the disciples that the seventh day sabbaths should be celebrated in an entirely different way from that in which the rabbis of his day were requiring of the people, we can infer that the new first day sabbaths were by his instruction to be celebrated in a new way. For example, healing human ailments would be permitted on this sacred day, as would minor acts which the traditionalist Pharisees had called labor (Mark 2:23-28). The Apostle Paul who was instructed by personal contact with the other apostles and by direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit could even write with approval that some Christians esteem every day alike (Rom. 14:5-6). It is certain from the consensus of Scripture that Paul was not saying that it was permitted to a Christian to consider that all sabbaths, whether on the seventh day or the first, were totally abolished. I Corinthians 16:2, which he wrote and in which he gives a command apparently referring to a sabbath, shows that he did not mean that it was permitted to treat every day exactly like every other day. Paul also participated in a worship service at Troas on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7-12). Paul was engaged in a great struggle against the teaching of Jews and Judaizing Christians. His statement in Romans 14:5-6 should be interpreted in the light of this fact. He meant that it was right to observe the first day sabbath like other days in not being bound to refrain from healing the sick or from doing small acts like separating a few grains of wheat from their husks by hand. 

Inerrancy does not mean that inspired writers had to express themselves the way we prefer. "After the sabbaths" and "on the first ____ of the sabbaths" may seem cryptic to readers not in the situation of the early disciples, but they, full of the idea that the resurrection marked the end of the old "shadow" sabbaths and the first of new and more joyful sabbaths, could express themselves in this way and expect to be understood. 

1. The word for rightly dividing is ovrqotomou/nta. It is certain that there are two elements in this word meaning rightly and dividing. The New International Version (NIV) changes this to say that Timothy should be one who "correctly handles the word of truth." This is not a true translation. It appears the NIV translators did not wish to take up the difficult task of separating the meanings of homographs. What they did here is not right.