SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20966, 4 March 1930, Page 13

SABBATH OBSERVANCE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Scholars who have trained analytical minds and do research work into the books that comprise the Old and New Testiments, point out that in the Pentateuch, or so called five books of Moses, two entirely different reasons are given why the Israelites should observe the seventh day. The first reason can be found in Exodus xx, 11: “For six days the Lord made heaven and earth, etc., and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it. The fifth chapter of Deuteronomy gives an entirely different reason for observing the Sabbath. Nothing whatever is said about a creation, but the chapter has all to do with the exodus from Egypt. After prohibiting any labour on the seventh day, the fifteenth_ verse reads: “ And remember [or bear in mind] that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt and that the Lord, thy God, brought thee out thence through a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, therefore-the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” When we take hold of the books of the New Testament we at once enter the atmosphere of the "day of the sun,” or the first day of the week, and sun-worship, as practised by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, is thickly scattered through the Gospels and Jewish time is no longer recognised. All the great events happen according to sun-worship and Sabbath or seventh day observance is continuously belittled. The first, third and fourth Gospels show ummstakeable evidence of Egyptian a J}d Greek influence. The twelfth chapter o f j Matthew j s a deliberate/' attempt to betlittle the Jewish Sabbath.' To the Jew, Sabbath observance was a rigid law, but . e the first Gospel barefacedly ■justifiies the breaking of the Sabbath day. Ihe gospel of Luke, the most Greek of the lour Gospels, time and time again opposes Jewish Sabbath observance, and in the thirteenth chapter from the tenth verse to the seventeenth. Sabbath breaking, sacrilege, to the Jew, is held to be of no account. The fourth Gospel is a complex,, gospel bearing unmistakeable evidence or Egyptian, Roman,- and Greek influence, and Sabbath belittling is there in profusion. One very pointed justification ° f , t [ le x, non ' rlg . ld observance of the Jewish babbath can be found in chapter 9, from the thirteenth verse, and there is a verv apparent desire on the part of the writer or writers to allow work to be done on the seventh day. The Jewish idea of the .fn?, ? f the Sabbath is shown In verse i ‘ .f man is not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath day.” To even the cursory reader of the chapter, that its whole intent is to break down the observance of the Jewish Sabbath dav will be one hundred times plain. In many places in the fourth Gospel the influence of the stm-wors-liipping nations that bordered the Mediterranean is overwhelming, and a apparent and conclusive testimony to such influence can b e found in the twentieth chapter of the Gospel attributed to John l-rom the first verse to the eighteenth we are given an account of the happenings at the tomb on the Sunday—the .day of resurrection—and from the nineteenth verse another storv is thnt . of , the “ Doubting Thomas, ami the writer deals exclusively m Greek time. After giving the events of the day at the tomb, the writer in the nineteenth verse says: “The same day at evening.” That is not fin'in' 91 ’ way of reckoning time. To the Jew, even to this day, the evening begins another day, and had a dew been writing the twentieth chapter ot the fourth Gospel he would have written: The next day at evening,” for the evening had, to the Jew, brought in another day. The Bible books should be studied according to the age in which they wrero produced—that is, from 2000 to 3000 years ago—and in studying them the student needs to have a fair knowledge of the religions and beliefs of the nations lying ui the valley of the Euphrates and bordering the Mediterranean Sea. When -.i an *l ew Testaments are studied with that knowledge uppermost they become very, very interesting books. But when they are studied with superstition uppermost anything can be proved or disproved from them, and Sunday observance and Sabbath observance can be justified or condemned, according to the texts the superstitious quote.—l am, etc.. Critical Student.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —Without intending to do so, Mr Stringer creates the impression that in the demand for a stagnant Christian Sunday he has a particularly weak case sinca, , as of old, his song of lamentation is ; ground out to the tune of three or four I well-worn and far from tuneful notes. In ; ,ite intolerance and fanaticism his letter ! is open to very strong reply, since every i sentence calls aloud for exposure or cor-: rection, but I content myself with saying j that while Mr Stringer intend? to give j the impression that his concern is for the greatness of our country and people, it is easy to see that this consideration takes a very secondary place compared with his concern for his religion. That 13 where" l your correspondent and I differ. He puts a Deity and theoloaical things before the welfare of the human race. 1 reverse the position, and claim that man has only enhanced through such a raversal. —I am. etc., E. W. F. February 28.