note68

Bruce,

Here is my reply to your off the cuff remarks (as you characterized them). I have no problem with your right to withdraw because you have other priorities. As a matter of fact I have been re-examining some of the evidence, where you have exposed possible flaws. I must say you have been helpful. You put me on to the the fact that "sabbaton" (greek) can mean "Shabbton" (Hebrew), which I used to good effect. You also put me on to the fact that I should regard "one of the sabbaths" as most literal, and let the context determine if it is the first one --- at least you did so in a negative sense. And you are also helping to form a theory of translation for "meta." Scanning the Englishman's Concordance, I find "with" (for accusative) works well in the texts I examined, e.g.

(1) Mark 1:14, "With yet the be[ing] imprisoned Yokhanan, came Yayshua to Galil."
(2) Luke 17:8, "And with this, you will eat and you will drink."
(3) Acts 5:37, "With this, rose up Yehudah ..."
(4) Rev. 11:11, "And with the three days and half ..."

The sense is "with [this history behind us]". And it does seem to reslove the "after three days" problem rather neatly.

Quoting Bruce:

But you seem to proceed as if the burden of proof is on me. I think you are quite mistaken here. One of your central contentions is that the traditional view is the result of a VERY early and thorough deception--a conspiracy--by the church. Conspiracy theories, by their very nature, must bear a very heavy burden of proof.

        There is a conspiracy. We can speculate all we want about the plottings of humans. Whether humans plot or not is unimportant. But Scripture tells us that the conspiracy is run by the Adversary, who is not human. The humans are just pawns in his plans to be the father of lies. If we had not been left with evidence to the contrary (by the grace of God), Satan would have dupped us all. The burden of proof is on him who would depart from the literal sense. For it is God who makes things plain; it is the Adversary who obfuscates.
         The literal interpretation of Scripture applies to Scripture because it is divine revelation --- and to any other honest historical document --- once we have accepted them as true based on our knowledge of yet earlier divine revelation and honest history. Divine relvelation is unique in that the prophetic element also confirms it, and it is also consistent with the created order.
          The nature of a lie, is that it is not consistent and harmonizable with all verifiable truth (meaning observational truth). The nature of divine revelation, including the 'New Testament' is that it agrees with all observational truth. Lies, may therefore be exposed. Truth cannot be exposed. I think you can find the contradictions in the traditional Friday-Sunday senario more comparable to the theory that the Roman Piso family authored the New Testament than the Wednesday-Sabbath theory --- which explains the evidence much better.
            Furthermore, I do not dismiss the history of the Church, nor its use of the Greek language --- which no doubt is in agreement with your views. I just do not accept them as an authority -- because I find that they lie about too many things. They are hopelessly corrupt.   I mean the Vatican and Greek Orthodox and their long sordid history of idolatry. You consider yourself a Protestant. That's an improvement, but all the sources that make the Protestants a stripped down version of the Church happen to come from lying pens and through lying pens. You cannot, therefore, trust ecclesiastical Greek, the Church Fathers or Vatican Latin to tell the truth. It must all be set on the shelf while we go examine the earlier record, trying our best, to set aside theologies and assumptions that come from the Church, e.g.

        Easter vs. Passover
        Eucharist vs. Seder
        Christmas vs. Trumpets and Tabernacles
        Sprinkling vs. Immersion
        Pope vs. God
        Queen of Heaven and saints (gods) vs. God.
        Roman Priests vs. Levitical Priests
        Use of generic "Lord," (Ba'al) vs. Yahweh.
        Sunday vs. Sabbath

I think you will notice that the things on the left are traditions traceable to idolators, and that the things on the right are legistated biblical institutions.
Now you think that I have confused "idiom" and "idiomatic" translation. I know the difference. But before you can translate, you must understand, and to understand, you must try the literal sense first. Having understood that it is literally "one of the sabbaths," and understanding the context (Passover-Pentecost) and the background (Lev. 23:15-16) and the constraints (Mt. 12:40; Mt. 28:1 --- "Latter of the Sabbaths"), we can then proceed to idiomatic translation if you wish:

(1) Now on the first Sabbath after Passover ...
(2) Now on the first of the Sabbath days ...
(3) Now on the first Sabbath day ...
(4) And on the first of the sabbaths .... (using the word "first" instead of "one" is idiomatic).

        Now "first day of the week" may not be a far fetched figure of speech, but it is as good as one in this case, because by translating so, you have passed over the literal sense of the texts, which makes sense, and which contradicts "first day of the week." You have also passed over the plural. You have passed over the mention of the sabbath, and the fact that "day of the sabbaths" always means "the Sabbath day" to use an idiomatic form.
       You seem to think I cannot translate all the passages the same? I have done so:
                On the latter of the sabbaths, and the dawning into one of the sabbaths .... (Mt. 28:1)
                On one of the sabbaths (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1; Acts 20:7).
                Each one of the sabbaths ...(I Cor. 16:2).
        On the other hand, you have not --- Mt. 28:1 you switch from sabbath to week. You ignore the plural in all cases. And you seem to have forgotten that I consider the word "first" contextually dependent, not the literal sense of "mia."
       I compared "first day of the week" to the cults interpretations because they ignore the plain meaning of the texts just like you do.

"Other cults, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, base many of their arguments PRECISELY on the "literal" translation of the text."

Show me a false doctrine that they derive from a literal translation. I'd like to see it.

        Why make a point of not fasting on the Sabbath? (Luke 18:12)? "I fast twice out of Sabbath"? Because there was a whole branch of Judaism that did fast on Sabbath (ever hear of the Essenes?). On the other hand, perhaps there were some pharisees (the word may be descriptive and not technical here) that did fast twice on the Sabbath, by eating only once or not at all. If you think this is not possible, you underestimate the variety in first century Judaism. In any case, as I said before, it could be "I fast twice from Sabbath," and you would have an example of counting from the Sabbath --- rare as it may be, with no implied word "day" to indicate otherwise.

        B' = on, in
        m < min = out of, from

        Hence, b'ms* means "in out of sabbath" (i.e. during one of the other six days).

By the way "m" = "midst of" is not a good trans. of "min".

Bruce, as ever, I have made an honest effort to be true to the evidence at hand.

Daniel