Who decided that Sunday would be the Christian sabbath? Also when was this decided and why Sunday? Was it just to avoid picking the same day of rest as Judaism? I’ve tried googling this without much luck. Thanks.
I don’t know all the details but Seventh Day Adventists believe devoutly that Saturday is the proper sabbath. In my travels I have cause to frequently drive past a billboard sponsored by a 7DA church which proclaims, I shit you not:
“Sunday Sabbath = Mark of the Beast.”
Yes, that’s right, going to church on sunday is the same as worshipping Satan.
I am Jewish, by the way, so I don’t have a dog in this fight. Its just something I have observed a small sect of Christianity to be all riled up about.
From this site:
Seems like the same sort of reason Christians celebrate Christmas in December and Easter in the spring…the pagans were doing it, so why not follow suit? I haven’t done any research on the topic, but it seems like this could also be the source of the Seventh Day Adventists’ belief, noted by Hello Again, that going to church on Sunday, and thus ignoring the “proper” day of worship, is so bad. If it stemmed from pagan tradition, then some Christians might view it as satanic.*
-Mosquito
*FWIW, I don’t agree with pagan beliefs=satanic beliefs
Oh no. Great. I’m no longer a Seventh Day Adventist, and they’re hemmoraging members, so they really don’t need to be putting up signs like that. Hell, they don’t need to be putting up signs like that even if they were flush with members. Boneheads. Sorry you have to put up with that intolerance, Hello Again.
AFAIK, the basis for Seventh Day Adventists worshipping Saturday as the true Sabbath is the 10 Commandments - “Remember the 7th day and keep it holy.” Indeed, there’s their name. And everyone knows that the week begins with Sunday, it’s right there on the calendar. :rolleyes:
My guess is that MissMossie is right - Adventists know that the day was changed from the Jewish practice by the early Church. Interesting that the early Catholics changed it to Sunday to “not Judaize and be idle,” since, if you ask me, Adventists (in true Protestant form) changed it back to Saturday so they would be different from Catholics, which some still view as evil idolators (again, in true Protestant form).
The Master speaks: Why do Christians worship on Sunday when the Bible says the Sabbath is on Saturday?
Knitpick: Easter is celebrated in the Spring because that’s when Passover is. In the Gospel, it says that they took Jesus’ body down as sundown and the Passover holiday approached. Changes in the Christian calendar have led to the two holidays drifting apart slightly.
Yes. It would be a shame to lose the religion that was responsible for the creation of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
OK - Why is passover celebrated in the spring then?
See http://www.holidays.net/easter/story.htm and Easter - The Facts, History and Traditions - Wilstar.com
Not north Atlanta by any chance?
Passover (or Pesach) always begins on the 15th of Nissan (on the evening of the 14th)–a month in the Jewish calendar, not a car. The Jewish calendar is a hybrid lunar/solar calendar,* so the date varies from the Gregorian calendar each year.
- The Gregorian calendar used by the Christian lands is a solar calendar, with a fixed number of days occurring at the same time, each year. The vagaries of terran rotation and solar revolution impose some slight fluctuations in tying specific dates to specific events (e.g., the solstices and equinoxes wander around from the 20th to the 22d of June, December, March, and September), and we need to make the leap year adjustment to keep the calendar from shifting too far, but the apparent progression of the sun is linked to the overall calendar.
The Muslim calendar is lunar, so that the months shift, each year, following the movements of the moon (which is not synchronized with the sun). Thus, Ramadan appears earlier each year (when viewed from the perspective of someone using the Gregorian calendar).
The Jewish calendar is based on lunar calculations to determine months, but the effort to keep it tied to the solar (not Gregorian) year results in the use of a leap month when the “short” (29 or 30 day) lunar months result in a need for 13 months in a year. The last month of the Jewish religious calendar** is Adar, occurring around February or March. Nissan, when passover occurs, is the first month of the religious calendar. If Nissan were in “danger” of occurring in February, a leap month, named Adar II is inserted.
**The Jewish civil calendar begins in (Gregorian) September or October with Rosh Hashanah that begins the month of Tishri.
And I am certain that I have either misrepresented or confused some of the details of the Jewish calendars, but I am not an expert and the Orthodox posters will not be by to correct me until tomorrow.
You missed my point. A previous respondent said Easter is when it is (i.e. Spring) because it relates to Passover, which is also in the spring. My poorly communicated point is that that just pushes the question down a level - instead of asking “Why is Easter celebrated in the Spring?”, I can ask “Why is Passover celebrated in the Spring?”. i.e. is there evidence that the original incident leading to the Passover festival truly occured then or did it just morph from a spring festival like Easter seems to have?
Ahh. Sorry.
Well, until the issue of the “reality” of the Exodus (or whatever event inspired it as a story) gets resolved, we’ll probably have to rely on Exodus 12:
Given that the early days of the Hebrew society are pretty well shrouded, this may not ever be an event that can be decided with accuracy.
On second thought, unless I have (again) misunderstood your point regarding
I would disagree with this characterization. Easter did not simply spring from a Spring festival. Easter developed as a specific feast within the Christian church to celebrate a specific event. (In that way, it mimics at least the tradition of the founding of Passover.) The fact that numerous peoples had Spring feasts (celebrating new plantings or whatever) that may have had rituals borrowed by the Christians is separate from the actual establishment of Easter. Claims that Valentine’s Day, All Saints Day, or the celebration of Christmas were “borrowed” from earlier pagan practices have some support (sometimes contested) in history, but the celebration of Easter did not develop from or convert any earlier practice.
According to the Bible, Jesus rose from the dead “on the first day of the week,” i.e., Dies Solis on the Roman calendar and Sunday on the modern one.
The early Christian church gathered to commemorate this on a weekly basis on “the Lord’s Day” i.e., Sunday. The Jewish members among them continued to observe the Sabbath, i.e., sunset Friday to sunset Saturday.
The general consensus of Christian belief, Seventh Day Adventists and Seventh Day Baptists to one side, is that the command to “Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy” is fulfilled by the setting aside of Sunday as the Lord’s Day, and that the Jewish Sabbath-day restrictions on behavior are not among those that apply to Christians.
It’s worth noting that Saturday and Sunday in Spanish preserve that distinction: Saturday is Sabado, the Sabbath; Sunday is Domingo, the Lord’s Day.