Samoa and the SABBATH

[Stan]

So what happens if you fly to Aussieland from New York, and it is Friday Evening from New York, the only day you get a ticket, and you cross the date line and it is Sunday?

Which day do you rest on?

Or coming back, you have 2 days that are Sabbath?

[Gibs]

I would think one would have to keep the seventh day for you and not just because you traveled into the date line where a new day always begins on earth. You would be by yourself of course but for you it is not Sunday.

Then if you stayed there you would keep the seventh day there.

What I wonder is how did they determine where a new day begins on earth. I would think it would have to be around where the Garden of Eden was.

Anyway us stay at homers that can't be running all over the planet will not have that problem.

Blessings to all who find it a problem to get it right.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[philo]

I just do not know the answer now after decisions have been made.

Anthropologists are conform with the Bible, letting the mankind migrate from Mesopotamia easward and westward. So I assume Samoa is the easternmost land, the day begins there - that means, also the Sabbath -

Now I learn, that Samoa out of reasons in business in the mid - nineteenth century changed from the Eastern world to the West, shifting mans construction, the dateline. so to say the westermost outpost of US Business , so being the last land having Sabbath,when SDA mission began proclaiming "our"Sabbath.

Now they changed back to the "Eastcoast" of the inhabited world, changing mans constructed dateline once again and naturally should shift to the "true Sabbath", confessing the error of the early SDA missionaries.

Now preach to the people for quite a century about changing the "true Sabbath" and being aware of this element of apostasy, omitt the arbitrary dateline - logical in its primary version, rather illogic in the version of the mid - nineteenth century ( -look at a map !) and the shift back now to the original dateline !

And the maiority of churchgoers say : WE uphold OUR true Sabbathday !!! -

NO change because of human "new orders !" I do not have a solution.

[R. G.]

Of course, we realise that the exception proves the rule. It is absolutely necessary that, when we cross the date line, we make the adjustment called for, and keep the Sabbath accordingly. Such "solutions" as making our own private day line (eg. an Eden day line) quite simply create more problems than they solve. Saturday is still the Sabbath everywhere and always.

You seem to have set up your hypothetical carefully, Stan. Obviously, you've thought it through some, and you see that one will always have 24 hours of Sabbath every week, regardless of crossing the date line, provided one does not travel on the Sabbath. I'll not suggest that there is never an ox in the ditch, and that one must NEVER travel on the Sabbath under any circumstances. Nevertheless, in the circumstances which you have described (and I am assuming you meant your hypothetical to include crossing the IDL right at sunset, so the Sabbath would be missed entirely, and technically there would have been no Sabbath travel involved), I should almost certainly stay home, rather than accept that flight. If, under EXTREME circumstances, I chose to accept that flight, I'd have to realise that I had simply missed the Sabbath for that week. Therefore, if I wished to take a 24-hour period of rest and spiritual renewal sometime that week, in an effort to make up the loss, I'd still have to know that it wasn't the Sabbath. One cannot keep a Sabbath that doesn't exist. Let's not get all hung up on petty legalism. The command is to keep THE seventh day, not A seventh day nor EVERY seventh day.

[R. G.]

P.S. Such a flight seems extremely unlikely, as a practical matter. Considering how slowly the sun seems to move across the sky, when one is flying westward, timing a flight to cross the date line right at sunset would be a great way to make sure the pilots have the setting sun shining right into their eyes for a very long time.

[Daryl]

So what happens if you fly to Aussieland from New York, and it is Friday Evening from New York, the only day you get a ticket, and you cross the date line and it is Sunday?

Which day do you rest on?

Or coming back, you have 2 days that are Sabbath?

Interesting scenario.

I posted something similar in a similar thread over at Maritime to see what kind of replies I receive there.

[Tallmark]

There was a book on this very subject in the late 80s, I believe. I think it was called Sabbath and the International Date Line. Maybe see if you can find it or something similar.

[R. G.]

I think you guys need to be careful, lest your hypothetical scenarios become a red herring to undermine the Sabbath truth, and you end up with the blood of lost souls on your hands.

[TreeOfLife]

On the obvious Errors of the Lunar Sabbath Teachings...

The original calendar described in the Torah and used by Moses was based upon the phases of the Moon, not [and upon] a continuous weekly cycle. This Lunar Calendar was used for all the feast days described in Leviticus 23, including [except for] the weekly Sabbath.

...

The Biblical calendar starts every month on New Moon Day, and the Sabbaths are always in the same place: The 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of the month. This is why the feast days in Leviticus 23 have a Sabbath on the 15th of the month, and why the words "New Moon" and "Sabbath" often occur together in Scripture.

The errors of Genesis7's posted "Lunar Sabbath" teaching above may be easily perceived by using a little afterthought, and by studying and considering the Holy Scriptures just a little deeper:

• 1) The basis for the seven day week cycle established in Genesis 1:1-2:4 was certainly not the Moon. The basis for the weekly cycle was simply the very first day of the time being defined by and for the creation of the universe that was created per the record of Genesis Chapter One. The basis for the seven day week cycle was a purely mathematical basis. Given that the Moon was created on the 4th day of that same week, the Moon could not possibly constitute the basis for the reckoning of the seven day cycle defined by the Creator per Genesis 1:1-2:4, which same event is then once again clearly referenced by the Law Giver per the words found in Exodus 20:11. Obviously Deuteronomy 5:15 is one instance satisfaction of the very same Sabbath as the one referenced in Exodus 20:11. There is no disharmony between one passage and another within the Holy Scriptures as originally written. Any and all apparent discrepancy is simply based upon each our own lack of understanding and upon the false teaching that formed each of our false preconceived ideas.

  2) The obvious construction of Leviticus 23, consistent as it is with the remainder of the Torah and with the Holy Scriptures generally, is that that which is first and foremost is first within the record. Accordingly, we find that the Leviticus 23 command re the Sabbath of the mathematically based seven day cycle is provided first of all (verse 3), and prior to those annual Sabbaths and Feast Days that are being based upon the Lunar cycle and which are being provided beginning with Leviticus 23:5, that is, after the Seventh Day Sabbath is already identified.

  3) Having thoroughly studied the arguments and teachings brought forth by the proponents of the Lunar Sabbath teachings referenced, and taught also by the author of the above quoted post, I have been able to detect no reliable basis whatsoever for said Lunar Sabbath teachings. The most fundamental basis claimed for said Lunar Sabbath teachings is a Jewish Encyclopedia, but no further reference in support of the statement of said Jewish Encyclopedia is being provided.

  4) For anyone interested in pursuing the many details of my quest into the fundamentals of the Lunar Sabbath teachings I am making available a cashed version of the pertinent threads of an older version of the CARM Forum that is no longer available in the original.

  5) As may be perceived from a review of my extensive studies into both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the dates where provided in the Scriptures in terms of both a numbered day of the week and in terms of a numbered day of the month, constitute a most powerful and very exact system of double dating, which may be used for purposes of more exactly dating any Scriptural event in terms of any other calendar and time reckoning. Given that this system is consistent with reality and within itself, it follows also that the Lunar Sabbath teachings fall flat on its face, that is, because if the Lunar Sabbath teachings were true, then there would exist no such system of double dating that would be consistent within itself!

May the peace of the Creator, the One God and each our Savior, rest over each our family and home,

Tree of Life ©

[TreeOfLife]

Re Stan's posted question...

... It is absolutely necessary that, when we cross the date line, we make the adjustment called for, and keep the Sabbath accordingly. Such "solutions" as making our own private day line (eg. an Eden day line) quite simply create more problems than they solve. Saturday [beginning at sunset on Friday] is still the Sabbath everywhere and always.

You seem to have set up your hypothetical carefully, Stan... One cannot keep a Sabbath that doesn't exist... The command is to keep THE seventh day, not A seventh day...

I find R. G.'s answer to Stan's posted questions very well put.

Thank you R. G.!

However, Stan's questions may not be quite as hypothetical, nor as remote from any of us, as we might at first believe!:

Per my earlier findings - which may soon be updated and replaced by a more complex itinerary - the itinerary for the location of Joshua, near Jerusalem, during the pole shift of the long day of Joshua, followed a line of travel in a westerly direction across nine time zones, from an initial location at 47N 99E to a final location at 14S 37W...

[My upcoming more complex itinerary may initially follow a north westerly route very near the North Pole while from that point on it may follow a south easterly route past the IDL to the above said final location...]

Our old assumptions re the Scripture calendar being based upon an original Eden location must therefore necessarily be considered obsolete, most likely in favor of that which is being defined as the throne of God. I believe that throne of God may well be best represented by the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant... Please remember, and consider carefully, the impossibility of identifying anyone location upon the crust of the Earth across the very extensive events of Noah's flood - at which time all the fossil strata, constituting all of the continents upon Earth, were being deposited...

Please look for my latest updates re these pole shift issues at this link...

[LynnDel]

If you want to understand more about the so-called lunar Sabbath spoken of by genesis7, you can order DVDs by Michael Pedrin at this link. I have heard his presentations, and his answers to this Sabbath challenge are Bible based, logical, and easy to understand. Some are being led astray by this issue. Don't let it be you.

Michael Pedrin "Lunar Sabbath Big Lie" presentations on DVD

LD

[phkrause]

Let me see if I can find a link from a Jewish website about the Lunar Sabbath.

[phkrause]

Its not a link but its what I found.

Jewish Calendar System

I'm confused every year when the High Holidays come out at the beginning of September, or the middle of the month, and sometimes in October. How does the Hebrew calendar correspond to the English calendar?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The Jewish calendar is based on both the solar and lunar cycles. Every Jewish month begins with the New Moon. To ensure that the holidays occur in their proper seasons (e.g. Passover in the springtime), an extra "leap month" is added 7 times every 19 years. Thus, the Jewish calendar is "luni-solar."

This is in contrast to the solar civil (Gregorian) calendar, where the months have completely lost their relation to the moon. It is also different from the Muslim calendar, an absolutely lunar system, in which the months (and holidays) wander through all four seasons.

Interestingly, Jewish months are calculated at 29.53059 days, following the cycle of the moon. This practice is based on the Talmud (Rosh Hashana 25a), according to tradition dating back to Moses, and/or based on scientists like Ptolemy.

Incredibly, it took the modern world many centuries to confirm this figure. Only after calculations using solar satellites, hairline telescopes, laser beams and super-computers, did NASA scientists determine that the length of the "synodic month," i.e. the time between one new moon and the next, is 29.530588 days.

Amazing!

(sources: "The New Encyclopedia Britannica," 1990 Micropeadia, Volume 2, p. 740; "Blessing of the Sun" by Rabbi J. David Bleich, ArtScroll-Mesorah Pub., pp. 47-48; "Torah Shleima" by Rabbi S. Kashir 8:7; "Korot Cheshbon Ha'ibur" by Rabbi Z. Yaffe; "Perush" of Rabbi Ovadia Ben Ovadia - Laws of New Month 6:3)

[LynnDel]

That's very interesting, pkrause, especially about the 29.xxx being so close, at that distance from the decimal. It addresses the times of the New Moon Sabbaths, but not the issue of a "floating" weekly Sabbath brought up by genesis7, where the Sabbaths are counted off each month from that month's new moon Sabbath. With that system, Sabbaths could be on Mondays one month, Thursdays another, any day of the week instead of the perpetual 7th day Sabbath as started by our Creator during creation week. The Bible calendar follows the sun first, and then the moon - otherwise we would have seen the Bible feasts moving to other times of the year instead of staying in their alloted times.

LD

[Alchemy]

You know, I don't get the confusion.

Regardless of which time/date zone you are in, there are the seven legitimate days of the week. You simply keep the Sabbath on the seventh day of that time zone.

If you leave on a Friday and land on a Sunday, I am sorry, but you missed the Sabbath. Unless of course, you kept it on the plane. I think it's best not to travel like that on the Sabbath.

Samoa is now in their original time zone, I think. If so, then they should know exactly when the seventh day is. Actually, whatever time zone they are now in, they should know exactly what day is the seventh day.

[phkrause]

You know, I don't get the confusion.

Regardless of which time/date zone you are in, there are the seven legitimate days of the week. You simply keep the Sabbath on the seventh day of that time zone.

If you leave on a Friday and land on a Sunday, I am sorry, but you missed the Sabbath. Unless of course, you kept it on the plane. I think it's best not to travel like that on the Sabbath.

Samoa is now in their original time zone, I think. If so, then they should know exactly when the seventh day is. Actually, whatever time zone they are now in, they should know exactly what day is the seventh day.

exactly

[phkrause]

Samoa is now in their original time zone, I think. If so, then they should know exactly when the seventh day is. Actually, whatever time zone they are now in, they should know exactly what day is the seventh day.

And I would believe they do, but it seems some would like to tell them how they believe.

[R. G.]

Of course, Alchemy, you are absolutely right. Samoa's government did not cause the confusion and the dilemma; the SDA Church did. If you knew the history, then I think you would get it. Our first missionaries to Tonga, in the latter half of the 1890s, made the huge mistake of not following the local reckoning. They deliberately chose to take what everyone there knew was Sunday, and to call it the 7th-day Sabbath on the basis of some theory of their own. As church administrators have found it more expedient to "justify" and spread the error than to correct it, it's all been downhill from there. That is the secret to the crisis now unfolding on the ground in Samoa.

By the way, there has never been any change in Tonga's local reckoning.

[HopefulOne]

I think if we are keeping the sabbath we will

not be traveling. I remember reading somewhere

about "a sabbath days journey". Something that

is allowable but highly localized.

I am so glad i do not live near the international

date line. This could be a cause of concern.

[phkrause]

I remember reading somewhere

about "a sabbath days journey".

I believe that's a Jewish Law? Not an SDA one!

[Woody]

Yes pk. Good observation. And I can assure you that our prophet did a good bit of travel on the Sabbath. Well beyond a Sabbath days journey.

[Stan]

why do you belittle EGW os much?

[Woody]

No belittling at all. She rightly indicated that her travel was needed.

[Kevin H]

I would think one would have to keep the seventh day for you and not just because you traveled into the date line where a new day always begins on earth. You would be by yourself of course but for you it is not Sunday.

Then if you stayed there you would keep the seventh day there.

What I wonder is how did they determine where a new day begins on earth. I would think it would have to be around where the Garden of Eden was.

Anyway us stay at homers that can't be running all over the planet will not have that problem.

Blessings to all who find it a problem to get it right.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

The weakness of the Garden of Eden theory is that we have both a general idea as to where it was, and we have the practice of the Jews from Bible times when they had prophets living among them.

While they did not have a date line, they did point in the general principle of where our date line is. In both missionary work and the Asyrian and Babylon exiles, they kept Sabbath when the sun set in the area where they were.

For most of the holy days there were smoke signals sent from Judiah from those left behind. But for the Sabbath it was simply when the sun set where they were.

Those in Babylon (which would have been north and maybe a little east of Eden) started Sabbath when the sun set there, a bit earlier than when it set in Jerusalem. Those in Assyria were even farther east and started a little earlier. I've been told in classroom lectures,although have not seen the evidence, that there were some worshipers as far away as China, and that these accepted Sabbath when the sun set there.

On the other hand traveling west to Egypt and in New Testament times,Greece, Rome and Spain, they would keep Sabbath when the sun set where they were.

So we have the general principle and a date line more or less that fits the practice in Bible days. As for that exact spot God respects our attempts to do our best to apply the principle.

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted By: HopefulOne

I remember reading somewhere

about "a sabbath days journey".

I believe that's a Jewish Law? Not an SDA one!

Exactly: It has been pointed out that as you follow Paul's intinuaries that he shares with us that to reach leave on certan days and arive on certan days that it would have had to include Sabbath travel.