Moses recorded wrote: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation."
Beginning with Adam God placed a limit on what type of activities man and animal alike could do on the seventh day. The fourth commandment required Israel to observe the seventh day as a holy day on which no work should be done by man or beast. Everyone including strangers within the city gates was to desist from all work and keep the day holy.
Luke tells us at the time of his writing "Acts" the distance from Mount Olivet to Jerusalem was a Sabbath day's journey away or about 2,000 yards.
Two lambs were sacrificed on the Sabbath while one lamb was sacrificed of each of the other six days. During the Maccabean war. Jewish soldiers allowed themselves to be massacred rather than profane the Sabbath by fighting in self-defense. After a thousand of so Jews were slaughtered they decided that in the future it would be permissible to defend themselves if attacked on that holy day but not to engage in offensive actions. Destroying siege-works was not permitted on the Sabbath so Pompey was able to raise his mound and mount his battering rams against Jerusalem without interference from the Jews.
By Jesus' time the religious code regarding the Sabbath listed "39 principal classes of prohibited actions: sowing, plowing, reaping, gathering into sheaves, threshing, winnowing, cleansing, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing it, beating it, dyeing it, spinning it, making a warp of it, making two cords, weaving two threads, separating two threads, making a knot, untying a knot, sewing two stitches, tearing to sew two stitches, catching a deer, killing, skinning, salting it, [preparing its hide, scraping off its hair, cutting it up, writing two letters, blotting out for the purpose of writing two letters, building, pulling down, extinguishing, lighting a fire beating with a hammer, and carrying from one property to another. Each of these chief enactments was further discussed and elaborated, so that actually there were several hundred things a conscientious, law-abiding Jew could not do on the Sabbath.
For example, the prohibition about tying a knot was much too general, and so it became necessary to state what kinds of knots were prohibited and what kind were not. Allowable knots were those that could be untied with one hand. A woman could tie up her undergarment and the strings of her cap, those of her girdle, the straps of her shoes and sandals, of skins of wine and oil, of a pot with meat. She could tie a pail over the well with a girdle, but not with a rope.
The prohibition regarding writing on the Sabbath was further defined as follows: 'He who writes two letters with his right or his left hand, whether of one kind [of letter] or of two kinds, as also if they are written with different ink or are of different languages, is guilty. He even who should from forgetfulness write two letters is guilty . . . Also he who writes on two walls which form an angle, or on the two tablets of his account-book, so that they can be read together, is guilty.
And on and on; man added to what God had said. The lay-Jew was required by their "preachers" and "elders" to follow those detailed instructions. God did not intervene.
The rabbis considered the sabbath as an end in itself where Jesus taught the Sabbath was made for man's benefit and that man's needs must take priority over the law of the sabbath. Luke tells us Jesus attended worship in the Synagogue on the sabbath.
Would the Church of Christ have sided with Jesus or with the Pharisees?
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