The SDA Saturday Sabbath interpretation has a flaw.

As stated in an earlier post, there is a problem with trying to interpret the seven day "week" in our context today.  The Gregorian Calendar(365 days, 12 months) was not around during the time of Christ.  However the Jewish people did follow their own religious calendar.  How it was calculated is extremely complicated but it did have an easy way of starting months - by looking at the moon.


I will warn you now that what follows is a simplistic overview of the situation. To explain fully would bog you down with Maths, Astonomy, and secular and religious politics.  So we will first look at January 2010 as an example.  During this Month, the Jewish month of Sebat begins.

 

 The first Sabbath fell on Sunday January 24 (day 8 of the Jewish month).

Now look at the next Jewish month - Adar, the last month of the Jewish year.  The new moon fell on the 15th Feb.Note that now the first Sabbath falls on TUESDAY 23rd! That is, the 8th of Adar.

That is how the months got calculated before we had calendars like now.  Now if you visit Israel, you will observe them following the Sabbath on Saturday, like SDAs.  This change was due to to Rabbi Hilliel II, head of the Jewish Sanhedrin around AD330 to 365, where he revised the Jewish calendar to make it more friendly with Roman calendars at the time and so Saturday became Sabbah Day.

Interestingly, Hilliel was well received for his efforts by Emperor Julian the Apostate who was the last Emperor of what is known as the Constantinian Dynasty started by the Emperor Constantine, the SDAs favourite person to hate!  It is this Saturday institution that therefore became the de facto Sabbath.

So what is the main point here?  It is not to prove that the Sabbath is not Saturday but to demonstrate how there is enough evidence to prove that it is now possible to categorically decare Saturday as Sabbath day and certainly does not provide enough proof for SDAs to categorically declare Sunday keepers as receiving the Mark of the Beast. At the end of the day it doesn't matter but your relationship with Christ does. 

These are only a shadow of things to come...but the reality is Christ!


[EDIT:  THIS POST USES A FEW PICTURES FROM A RELIGIOUS GROUP THAT CLAIMS IT KNOWS THE TRUE 'CREATORS CALENDAR'  While it touches on the correct academic concept of alunar  calendar, it also introduces some dubious assumptions regarding the New Moon. This group condemns Saturday Sabbath keepers and Sunday Keepers. As such, the pictures are used for illustrative purposes only to demonstrate how the lunar months overlap with our current one.  To be fair, the Jews have always maintained a 6 day + 1 day religious cycle. It is thanks to Constantine and Theodosius that we have a nice seven day week now, meaning that the Jewish Sabbath can nicely fall on Saturday.  The complexity of sifting through the various calendars and which were used by who is complex to say the least.  ]