μια των σαββατων - Debunking the gender/case argument

First update 11/24/09.

Debunking the Gender Argument

and proving that Μια των Σαββατων

means "first of the Sabbaths"

Daniel Gregg

This article goes into details of the disputed resurrection passages, "first day of the week" (Sunday Traditionalists) vs. the resurrection of the real Messiah Yeshua on the "first of the Sabbaths" (Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1; John 20:1, Greek Texts), which is the seventh day of the week (Saturday Sabbath), and not Sunday.

The traditionalists often claim that "first of the sabbaths" cannot mean the "first [sabbath day] of the [seven] Sabbaths" on grammatical grounds alone. They insist that their interpretation is inherent in the grammar and syntax of the Greek text, and plead that it is not solely based on the Church's traditional notion of what it is supposed to mean. This article will provide conclusive evidence to disprove this assertion once and for all. It will show that μια των σαββατων may mean "first of the Sabbaths" on the basis of Greek grammar and Hebrew idiom alone, so long as Church tradition does not interfere in the actual linguistics of the case. Also this paper will show that "first of the sabbaths" actually enjoys superior support of the Greek grammar and syntax than "first day of the week".

First I will summarize a variety of traditionalist arguments. By traditionalist here I mean propagandists³ who defend the Church's position that the resurrection of Jesus was on the "first day of the week", i.e. Sunday. When confronted with the fact that the literal sense of μια των σαββατων is "one of the sabbaths", either by showing them interlinear translations such as J.P. Green's Interlinear Bible or the A.E. Knoch's Concordant Version, or some older English versions, like Young's Literal Translation, they immediately go into grammatical arguments attempting to show that it cannot be understood as the first sabbath in a series of sabbaths.

Whereas, it has been often pointed out by people they regard as "novices" that the word "day" is missing from the text, or that the usual meaning of σαββατων is "sabbaths", their first angle of attack becomes the seeming gender conflict in the phrase. The Greek word μια is feminine, nominative. There are two other choices for "one" that the NT could have used: ενος (gen. neut., gen. mas.) and εν (nom, neut.), and μιας (gen. fem). These are the three inflections of "one" in Greek: feminine, masculine, and neuter. Now whereas σαββατων is in the neuter “gender”, they argue that "one of the sabbaths" would have to be εν των σαββατων so that the the numeral is neuter to agree with the word it modifies: σαββατων. Or if the whole is put into the genitive: ενος των σαββατων.

Having shown that this is commonly expected, they then proceed to the next stage of the argument. They point out that μια is feminine and that it cannot directly modify σαββατων. They propose that the missing feminine word implied by the grammar is ημερα, i.e. "day". (That this is an absolute hard and fast rule was disproven in the previous article: Additional Considerations.html.) However, for the sake of this article we will grant that agreement is the norm and allow that this argument is valid. So the proposed phrase becomes *μια [ημερα] των σαββατων*. (The asterisk means it is a theoretical conjecture). This is the usual proposal. Others, however, are just as likely: *[ημερα] μια των σαββατων*, or *μια των σαββατων [ημερων]*. There is actually some nuanced interpretation being interjected by the precise choice of place to put the proposed word. However, I will point out that they almost universally insert it after μια. Hence *μια ημερα των σαββατων*, and that they construe it in the singular, even though the plural ημερων is equally likely.

At this point, they usually assume they have beaten the "novices" on the subject of grammar since the "novices" don't explain how to solve the gender conflict, and the novices do not usually recognize the correct effect of ημερα on the text. They then proceed to instruct that the phrase means either 1. "one day from the sabbath" or "first day of the week". I have covered all the justifications elsewhere for the mistaken notion that σαββατων means "week" or that the plural should be construed as singular. What is becoming more popular among them is option 1: "one day from the sabbath". The reason for this popularity is that it allows them to counter the objection that the normal sense of σαββατον is indeed "sabbath". So they adopt it. They then solve the text by inserting the word "from". There is no separate word for "from". It is simply an interpretation of the genitive case marked by the —ων in the definite article των and by the ending —ων on σαββατων. This interpretation of the genitive goes by the name "genitive of separation" or the "ablative" case. Actually, it is extremely rare in the Koine Greek, and has been displaced by the use of εκ and απο as explicit words meaning "from". It was only more common in the Classical Greek. But this they do not explain when making their apologetic. Nor do they point out in the attempt to retain the meaning "sabbath" for σαββατων that they have introduced another unparsimonious assumption into the text.

B. Ablatival Genitive

b. Key to Identification

For the word of supply the words out of, away from, or from....

In classical Greek, the idea of separation was found frequently enough with the simple genitive. In Koine Greek, however, the idea of separation was increasingly made more explicit by the presence of the preposition απο or sometimes εκ. Hence, a genitive of separation will be rare in the NT, while the preposition απο (or εκ) + genitive will be somewhat commonly used fro separation. (Daniel B. Wallace, An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, pg. 108).

For example, the genitive of separation, a common idiom in the Attic dialect, is rare in Koine. It has been replaced, by and large, by απο + genitive. Likewise, εκ + genitive has replaced for the most part the genitive of source. (The Basics of New Testament Syntax, Wallace, pg. 163).

It has been demonstrated in the previous article that "μια των —ων" in the LXX and NT universally means "one of the —s". There is no genitive of separation here (ablative), and there are plenty of nouns that will fit in the blank demonstrating by example the normalcy of the translation, "one of the sabbaths".

Now, we have summarized the opposition argument, and probably better than they will since they will not readily disclose the reasons for "from" except merely to state it on their authoritative reputations. It now remains to explain by example that μια των σαββατων means one particular sabbath day in some series, and the the gender implication *μια ημερα των σαββατων* actually conclusively supports this conclusion. Further, it will additionally be shown by grammatical example that the addition of "day" in no way suggests a shift in the meaning of the word σαββατων.

I now turn to a phrase whose meaning is not in dispute in any aspect relevant to the logic of the argument: πρωτη των αζυμων⁴. This is found in Matthew 26:17, and it means "first of the unleavens", which in the first century Jewish reckoning was the 14th of Nisan since they designated 8 days as ημεραι των αζυμων (Acts 12:3; cf. Josephus Antiquities). The ANLEX or AGNT² grammatical codes for case, gender, and number are the same for μια των σαββατων and πρωτη των αζυμων in all respects. There are some differences, but these are functional and not truly grammatical. The word μια is a cardinal number, i.e. "one" and the word πρωτη is an ordinal number "first". This difference is not significant since the traditionalist always argues that μια is a Semiticism and means "first". (In fact we find πρωτη σαββατου in Mark 16:9. This is the longer disputed ending of Mark, but it does show their contention. We will see that from the Hebrew standpoint, this is correct, but where they are wrong is that from the Greek standpoint the other texts can make sense with μια "one", and indeed "one" in Greek can approximate the indefinite article "a", such that the chronology still makes sense without having to resort to any Hebrew.)

To illustrate the grammatical sameness of the "first of unleavens" passage, I show the grammatical codes from the Greek and English Interlinear New Testament, William D. Mounce (Mat. 26:17; Luke 24:1) The image has been edited¹, but the codes have not been edited:

d.dsf=definite article/dative/singular/feminine

cj=conjunction/interjection

a.dsf=adjective/dative/singular feminine

d.gpn=definite article/genitive/plural/neuter

n.gpn=noun/genitive/plural/neuter

In the case of "unleavens" (αζυμων=מצות) we have a series of days called unleavens. There were seven days of unleavened bread that were actually enumerated, i.e. 15th-21st. The 14th may be only called the "beginning day" or "head day". For the sake of our discussion here, we will take πρωτη as strictly meaning "first". Now there are the "first day of the unleavens", and the "second day of the unleavens" and so on to the "seventh day of the unleavens". This is parallel to the seven sabbaths counted after passover (cf. Lev. 23:15).

So as far as traditionalists are concerned, πρωτη των αζυμων is the perfect parallel example to μια των σαββατων. The words αζυμων and σαββατων are both genitive, neuter, and plural. The article των is the same. The words πρωτη and μια are both dative, feminine, singular, pronominal adjectives. The only difference is cardinality versus ordinality. That is the only grammatical or syntax difference, and it is plotted already that on this point by traditionalists that no issue can be made out of the difference.

Now we proceed to follow the implication of πρωτη and μια. For "first of unleavens" the result is πρωτη ημερα των αζυμων. This phrase is actually attested in Mark 14:12. It means "first day of the unleavens" and refers to exactly the same day as the Matthew 26:17 passage. The result with our resurrection passage is *μια ημερα των σαββατων*. Again the grammar is exactly equivalent, and on the pattern of "first day of the unleavens" it simply means "one day of the sabbaths".

Now for the final part of this refutation (that the grammar precludes "first of the sabbaths") we turn to the the phrase in Luke 22:7: ημερα των αζυμων. This phrase is the parallel passage of Matthew 26:17 and Mark 14:12. It means the exact same day as the other two texts. Only in the Luke passage the word "first" has dropped off. This demonstrates that the word first has no grammatical power to change which day it is from one day to another, other than to inform us of which particular one it is within the series. We can compare this with the proposed traditionalist conjecture *μια ημερα των σαββατων* by simply observing what happens when the word μια is likewise dropped: ημερα των σαββατων. And this last form ημερα των σαββατων is attested in numerous passages from the LXX, NT, and Josephus, and it always means "day of the sabbaths", i.e. exclusively the seventh day Sabbath.

So, to reverse the pattern, it is shown that ημερα των αζυμων (Luke 22:7) refers to the same day as πρωτη ημερα των αζυμων (Mark 14:12), which in turn refers to the same day as πρωτη των αζυμων (Mat. 26:17). The grammar and syntax are in all respects the same as the following chain: ημερα των σαββατων (e.g. Luke 4:16), and then *μια ημερα των σαββατων* and then μια των σαββατων. There can be no doubt that on grammatical considerations alone, the resurrection phrase "one of the sabbaths" means the same as "day of the sabbaths" found elsewhere.

Now I will show that the matter is also equivalent in Hebrew. The Hebrew chain for unleavened bread is:

יום המצות = day of the unleavens (widely attested)

*ראשית יום המצות* = beginning day of the unleavens (not attested)

or יום ראשון המצות.

ראשית המצות = beginning of the unleavens (attested)

or ראש המצות (also attested).

The first example is used by Franz Delitsch in Luke 22:7. For the resurrection day:

יום השבתות = day of the sabbaths (attested in Jewish literature)

אחת יום השבתות* = one/first day of the sabbaths (theoretical)

אחת השבתות = one/first of the sabbaths (widely attested)

The last phrase will get you 3,080 hits on Google if you type it into the search engine in Hebrew, with a large number of examples in native Hebrew literature, with most of the rest pointing back to this topic.

It has therefore been demonstrated that considering Greek grammar and syntax only, without contamination from traditional Church interpretations, that μια των σαββατων may indeed mean "one of the Sabbaths" or "first of the Sabbaths". Further, it has been shown that this is the natural or normal meaning of the Greek without invoking any abnormalities like an ablative "from" dependent on classical Greek or without the abnormality of redacting "week" back into the first century. The phrase is well explained by Leviticus 23:15 where instructions are given to count "seven Sabbaths" after the passover holy day. From this results a wholly concordant and consistent chronology of the Passion and Daniel 9, for which further explanation is found at www.torahtimes.org.

__________________________

1. "Week" was replaced with "Sabbaths" (cf. J.P. Green), and "Unleavened Bread' with the more literal "Unleavens". Also Mounce had the phrase broken onto two lines. It has been combined onto one.

2. Analytical Greek New Testament. Note. AGNT has αζυμων marked as an adjective. It is a subjective contextual judgment as to whether the word is a noun or adjective. Mounce correctly marks it as a noun. The word corresponds to the the Hebrew מצות, matzot, which is used as a noun.

3. Most of them are correctly called "propagandists" because when they argue about this issue their aim is to obfuscate, misinterpret, malign, and put down rather than to correctly teach or explain, or if wrong, honestly consider the issue in a spirit of scientific investigation. Propagandists are always looking for some small mistake to make too much of, or some under qualified statement to reinterpret and then criticize even though I did not mean it, or they are pontificating their superior credentials and traditional pedigree.

4. There are ambiguities in the phrase, "beginning of Matzot" or "first day of Matzot" or "In connection with the beginning/first day of Mazot" which I discuss in my commentaries elsewhere regarding the confusion over a 14/15th Seder. But these considerations do not vitiate the use of the example here.