First day of the week...

[Mufasa Abda Kalil TsidekiYahu]

First Day of the week: The underlying Greek text is “mia ton sabbaton”, which when literally translated means “one of the sabbath/s”, but is traditionally rendered as “first day of the week.” The term “first day of the week” is literally translated as “proté hemera tis hebdomata” in Greek,
but nowhere appears as such in the N.T. There is a strong argument that “mia ton sabbaton” should be rendered according to Semitic idiom as “day one of the week”, and we have decided to retain the traditional rendering as “first day of the week”, in Scripture passages such as Mt. 28:1, Lk. 24:1, Yn. 20:1 etc., unless further light to the contrary is forthcoming. Do anyone have anything on this...?

Shabbat Shalom
"Zaquaine/Elder" Mufasa Abda Kalil TsidekiYahu

[A.W. Bowman]

Both renderings are correct and acceptable. The first is according to the Hebrew method of counting days while the second is according to the Greek, and generally the Western method of counting days. I generally follow the Greek system in most of my discussions.

I have not looked in to it, but I found that the Jewish method of translating Torah Hebrew into English generally follows the Western style of counting the months, such as the first month, second month, etc.

I try to stay away from translating too many Greek scriptures because I have found the task tedious. Taking each Greek term, locating its root usage (if it exists) in the Torah portion only of the Septuagint and then going through the task of selecting the correct Binyamim from the seven possible, etc. I guess I am just getting more lazy the older I get - until the day I get so lazy that I forget to wake up some morning.

[Yehochanan Ben-Yisrael]

It technically does not matter what the Greek text says since the New Testament is Aramaic. Many translation errors are made in the Greek text when it was translated from Aramaic. There are so many different Greek texts because they all translate the Aramaic differently in certain places. Like in the Tanakh, "Torah" is translated as "law", "instruction", and "teaching". Similarly, in the Greek text, the translators translate word differently. This explains the variances in the texts.

In Matthew 28:1, it says "had b'shaba", which literally the "First of the Week". In Aramaic, the word for week is shaba and in Hebrew, it is shabua. This is similar to the word, Shabtha, meaning Sabbath in Aramaic.

There is no need for anyone to try to translate the Greek text. We have the Hebrew translation of the Aramaic Peshitta. Hebrew looses very little when it translates Aramaic and vice-versa. Greek is too far away from Aramaic. In cases, the words do not even exist in Greek so interpretation is need. This is not the case when we go from Aramaic to Hebrew.

[Rabbi james byers]

The word sabbaton in passages such as Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, and Acts 20:7 actually denoted “the Sabbath day,” rather than “a period of seven days,” one would expect some of the foremost Bible translations to translate it thusly. Every major English translation of the Bible, however, translates mia ton sabbaton as “the first day of the week.” Why? Because scholars are aware of the Jewish method of counting the days of the week by using the Sabbath as a reference point.

According to R.C.H. Lenski, since “the Jews had no names for the weekdays,” they “designated them with reference to their Sabbath” (1943, p. 1148). mia ton sabbaton means “the first (day) with reference to the Sabbath,” i.e., the first (day) following the Sabbath (Lenski, p. 1148), or, as we would say in 21st century English, “the first day of the week.”

Shalom

[Rabbi james byers]

Shalom Lahry,
This ( Gen 2:1-3) sets the standard of timing and an explantion for each day of Creation. There is no wiggle room for those who oppose the 4th command.
Deu 5:14 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.

[Rabbi james byers]

This is truth, well said Bishop Lahry