The 7th day Sabbath is really 48 hours long...

[JimTN]

Here's an original thought for you all:

The Sabbath is 24 hours long, right?

The answer is both "yes" and "no"...

Actually the 24-hour Sabbath is really 48 hours long!

Why? Because the Earth rotates, and people live all over the Earth -- and the Sabbath is determined as to when the sun sets as the Earth revolves as it affects people all around the globe!

During Creation Week our planet experienced the linear time of Day One being the 24 hours and it was followed by Day Two (24 hours), then Day Three (24 hours), etc. -- but after God put people on the planet things got more "complicated" as far as counting the days of the week and the weekly Sabbath.

Back when Adam and Eve lived in just one place on the planet in the Garden, then the Sabbath would've been just 24 hours -- they experienced the setting of the sun and "evening," and then about 12 hours later the sun came up and it was "day" -- then the cycle repeated itself, so when the next 7th day Sabbath arrived, they kept each of those Sabbaths for just the appropriate 24-hour period.

Now mankind lives all over the globe, sundown slowly travels around the globe and nightfall continually happens for people all around the world for a full revolution of the planet -- if you live in Israel or Europe the 7th day begins at a certain time, but for people in North and South America the 7th day begins many hours later -- and since the Sabbath must have a duration of 24 literal hours for every person around the world who is observing it no matter where they live on the globe, then the "Sabbath" is actually happening for a total of 48 hours every week!

The Sabbath lasts for 24 hours for the people who live in Europe or China or India or Israel or Russia -- and the Sabbath lasts for 24 hours for the people who live in America or the Philipines or on Pitcairn Island or Australia -- and for this event to happen world-wide in all the Time Zones on all sides of our planet, it would take a total of 48 hours for the Sabbath to cover the entire rotation of the planet!

So from God's viewpoint, the "Sabbath" lasts for 48 hours on this planet -- not just 24 hours -- the Sabbath-keeping people all over the planet are keeping a "holy day" that actually has a total duration of 48 hours long!

Hmmmmm.... isn't "48 hours" actually TWO days?...

It's interesting to think about this...

Obviously God has arranged the Sabbath to be determined by individual groups of people depending on just where and on what continent they live on our rotating planet!

Will the 7th day Sabbath ever go back to beginning just 24 hours?

Yes, that will happen in the New Earth -- Isaiah told us that the redeemed will gather in the New Jerusalem every Sabbath to worship the Lord -- when everybody is gathered in one place on the planet the Sabbath will finally again be experienced as an "evening and morning" of just 24 hours.

After all, it would be somewhat odd to have a 48-hour Sabbath in the New Earth throughout Eternity, God would be keeping a full two days of the week observing the Sabbath instead of just the 7th day...

This 48-hour Sabbath thing has been on my mind for many years -- has any other Adventist ever brought up this subject before?

[Gail]

LOL... Now there's someone who's mind is working!

[Kevin H]

That's God, personal and impersonal. He is our God who has his 24 hour Sabbath with us, and the God of the whole world with the 48 hour Sabbath.

[fccool]

I guess here's an interesting question that's escaping this discussion.

If there's a clear realization that Sabbath lasts 48hrs, and the International Date Line - the line that counts when the day begins was arbitrarily placed in 1884, where are we supposed to count down days to expect these to fall in line with God's Sabbath?

Some of you may not know this, but in 2011 the Dateline was shifted, and thus shifted Samoan Dates from Thursday 29th of December 2011 to Saturday 31st of December 2011. This actually split the Samoan's in terms of when they are supposed to observe the Sabbath, and ironically, many of the churches decided to observe the Sabbath on Sunday (based on the new dateline shift), in order to preserve the traditional observance.

I always found this intriguing subject, especially when such issues didn't come up until human ability to travel around the world in hours of time emerged.

In revelation it mentions from Sabbath to Sabbath as a way of saying that Sabbath is celebrated in the New Jerusalem during the 1000 years. The question would be, which Sabbath?

Another obvious issue that should come up is with the Mark of the Beast, and Sunday worship. If the day is of the paramount importance, and in case of Samoa it becomes quite confusing - how does God judge the Sabbath observance? If one would say, - it's the tradition and principle that's of importance, then why make the big issue about Saturday? If the exact day is of importance - where did that day began? Was it in Jerusalem? Was it at the border of IDL? Is it possible to know?

[Kevin H]

fccool: as to where the day began, we do find in history the principles. From Bible times people kept the Sabbath from Sunset to Sunset from where they were. When taken east from Jerusalem to Assyria and Babylon, they kept it a little earlier than those in Jerusalem. There is even evidence that there were converts as far away as China and they kept it as it was sunset to sunset there. Those heading west, such as the Jews who went to Egypt and later Europe would all keep it when sunset to sunset came where they were. These were in the days where there were still Bible writers living and none of them corrected the trend.

Even though they did not have to deal with the dateline, we are finding the dateline in a pretty good location in having a place between Asia where they kept the Sabbath earlier than those in Jerusalem and Europe where they kept the Sabbath a bit later than those in Jerusalem.

As for Samoa, God is not some kind of arbitrary exactor. As long as they are enjoying the Sabbath according to the dictates of their conscious. As for last day events; we should read closer as to what Mrs. White says and what she DOES NOT say. We have divided into two camps. Those who do not believe that the issue about Sunday Laws are of any consequence, and the traditions we have built focused on Sunday Laws and seeing the issue of the day to keep as the mark of the beast. To Mrs. White the mark of the beast is to accept false views regarding conversion [justification] and sanctification. The issue of Sunday will bring it to the forefront in THE CHRISTIAN WORLD, and that the real issues have to deal with being like either Cain or Able where Able trusted God enough to obey, while Cain wanted to worship in his own way, and that it is liberty of conscience being threatened. These are the issues we will face whether we live in a location where they will be tied to Sunday laws or not, or even if Sunday laws become an issue but not fulfilled in the way we expect. I fear that we have built traditions around Sunday laws that will cause us to miss the boat.

[cricket]

So what happens if every seven days a person travels over the international date line and misses every single Sabbath hour?

[Gail]

Then they miss a big blessing and a good rest :)

[Gail]

This is a very interesting discussion! :)

[Textus Receptus]

The same could be said with regards to folks that live in Alaska. I don't think God wants His Sabbath to be a pedantic discussion.

As with everything else, it is a heart issue. I believe if we are in a position where we can not determine the length of a Sabbath due to sunrise and sundown, if we keep 24hrs in our hearts starting on Friday sundown, or at a point where the sun has lowered to the ponit where it will again begin to rise then we have kept the Sabbath.

[phkrause]

Exactly Gail.

[phkrause]

Excellent post TR

[Planey]

The logic of the Sabbath lasting 48 hours around the world could be extended to every day of the week.

That is Sunday would last for 48 hours around the world, as would Monday, as would Tuesday, Wednesday and so on.

So how many hours in the week? 168 (7 x 24) or 336 (7 x 48)?

Clearly this is a nonsense, like arguing how many angels could fit on the end of a pin.

Everyone has 24 hours per day (locally) and it is up to their conscience to observe the Sabbath as best they can.

People travelling, those inside Arctic or Antarctic regions and any other problematic areas need to do the best they can. God will accept their best efforts.

PS

Assuming the Earth was rotating during Creation week, the first Sabbath would have also lasted for 48 hours round the whole Earth. There might not have been humans at all the longitudes to observe it, but it would still have been Sabbath.

And this would be true for every subsequent Sabbath until now.

[pierrepaul]

This issue bothered me greatly when I was a lad. After all, as Adventists we say that the sabbath is a memorial of creation, yet the facts of creation (spherical globe, no sunset/sunrise above and below the Arctic and Antarctic circles for parts of the year) contradict the notion of the universal sabbath - not to mention the creation story which has days and nights prior to the creation of the sun. And today, with speed-of-light electro-magnetic communications, I in North America can place a 10:00 am business call on a Friday morning in Winter to Helsinki, Finland, where at 4:00 pm it is already sabbath. Should I refrain from so doing, even if my Helsinki correspondent is not a sabbath-keeper? We also have astronauts today who stay in orbit where there is neither day nor night, neither sunrise nor sunset.

I have since resolved these issues to my personal satisfaction and they are no longer an impediment to my faith, even though my personal views are at odds with most SdAs.

It is also of note that none of these issues are new. When I first began to think about the sabbath questions some 30 years ago, I thought I was breaking new ground. Jews have pondered the international date line question for centuries, and with the wonder of the internet, some of their writings can be founds without too much struggle.

[Planey]

In relation to "spherical globe, no sunset/sunrise above and below the Arctic and Antarctic circles for parts of the year":

Some people have hypothesised that the earth's axis was tilted during the obviously catastrophic events that occurred during the Flood. In which case there would have been a world-wide Sabbath.

A possibility...

[phkrause]

That's an interesting thought!

[pierrepaul]

I have heard the titled axis theory. But for the titled axis, we'd have no seasons and every day would be 24 hours. Sunset/sunrise would still vary based on longitude, but all on the same longitude would witness sunrise and sunset at more or less the same time (when one observes sunrise and sunset, the sun is actually already well below the horizon. The atmosphere bends light allowing us to see the sun for slightly more than 24 hours. The bending of light is most pronounced when the lights travels through the greatest amount of atmosphere (i.e. when the sun is at the horizon). Near the poles where the sun would always be at the horizon, the sun would always be visible, but would never rise more than a degree or two above the horizon. Many ante-diluvian creationist theories also posit that there was a single ocean (see Gen 1:9) and that therefore the continents were a single land mass. In such a case the Sabbath would begin at the eastern edge of that landmass and finish at the west coast. Thus the modern-day IDL is arguably in the correct place with respect to the continents - it remains an open question concerning individual islands in the Pacific.

Physicists of course will point out the massive violations of known laws of physics that would be required to tilt the axis (or to stop the rotation of the earth for 2 hours to allow Joshua to complete his battle), but if God cannot suspect the laws of physics, He isn't God as we understand Him to be.

[Stan]

HI Pierre, been watching this with interest..

This has been brought up few times before... often an interesting discussion follows.

One female made some nice points, it was her opinion, about now we have the technology to celebrate the Sabbath at the same time going by Jerusalem, she was scoffed at, and left never to return, which I thought was unfortunate..

I did not agree with her, but thought it was an interesting read. I usually do not feel threatened by people wondering and thinking.

[Gail]

Well said, Stan

[Kevin H]

Pierrepaul: Please forgive me for getting off of topic, and for talking about this when it is not even the issue that you brought up, but you made a comment in passing about Joshua's battle:

1. First of all, God can do more than one miracle at once, and if several were needed for God to do something he can do all of them.

2. We need to ask if God needed to do all of them. We have our traditional interpretation as to what happened during that battle. However did you know that the Hebrew could be read in two ways? One is the traditional that the sun stayed in the sky and the daylight lasted longer. The Second possible reading is that the word translated "Still" could, like our English word, either mean "Don't move" or else it can mean "Be quiet" So that day the sun either did not move, or else it was quiet and did not shine. The word for the moon to stand fast was the same word for a military order for a military unit to hold their ground and not retreat. Thus the moon, representing the darkness of night was being told not to surrender to the daylight. This could indicate that Joshua prayed for the sun to be quiet that day.

Since the text can be read to be understood as one of these two ways, as we turn to history and geography to see if they can help we learn that Joshua asked for the sun to be "still" not in the setting west, but in the rising EAST and the moon was told to hold fast in the west. Studying the battle field, the attack would have been in the early morning, while dark Joshua and the Hebrews could hide in the dark and shoot their weapons at the enemy who had torches to prepare for the early morning attack. The Hebrews just had to shoot where they saw the torch. As the sun started to rise the Hebrews were loosing their advantage.

Getting back to the text, it tells us that how God answered Joshua's prayer was by sending a hail storm, with very large hailstones. For the hailstones to be that large, the clouds needed to be so thick that it would have been as dark as night all day.

Now the Gibionites and those who were going to attack were all worshipers of Baal, the storm god. Baal should have punished the Gibionites for changing from worshiping him to worshiping Yahweh, and Baal should have come to defense of the kings who were staying faithful to him and defending his honor. However we find Baal coming in an amazing force but coming as a servant of Yahweh telling the Gibionites that they were correct to stop worshiping him and to worship his boss, the God higher than Baal, the Most High God, Yahweh.

Thus, I understand the evidence to indicate that the way to read the text was that Joshua asked for the sun to "be quiet" and the moon, as the general of the night to not surrender the darkness to the sunlight, and that a beautiful morning, a beautiful sunrise met a sudden storm. Just as Jesus calmed the storm, so Joshua stormed the calm. And that we don't need to speculate how Joshua's sun could have shined all that time. Joshua needed it dark, he had a regular daily cycle but there were incredible thick clouds blocking out the sun and where God used the hail stones to defeat the enemy army, and so that the Gibionites could get a message that they made the right choice to have joined with Israel, and to tell the other Canaanites that they should follow suit.