Comment on The Sabbath’s relevance to the debate about origins by David Breedlove.
Bill Eichner writes: “…So, those at LSU who are teaching and believers of Darwinian Evolution are not, in the truest sense of the word Adventists, no matter what they say. When they attempt to deceive anyone by putting up a front they are Adventists, good or otherwise, and just making use of academic freedom, are not true to either belief system.Something to think about…,”
Bill
Dear Bill; An Adventist by definition is one who believes in the advent. Whatever else they think, they are still Adventist, just as an evolutionist by definition believes in evolution. Whatever else he or she believes, therefore an Adventist can also be an evolutionists, but not an atheist.
A Seventh-day Adventist believes in the advent and the seventh-day, whether that seventh day is believed to be the seventh day of the Gregorian calendar or the Jewish seventh-day of the lunar cycle that does not recognize a fixed planetary week.
These are definitive nouns, not copyrightable titles. You can’t copyright the term “Christian” or “evolutionist” or “Adventist”, you either are or are not. You also can’t copyright the term “Seventh-day Adventist”; it is what you are or are not; although our “world church organization” has presumed to do exactly that. A Seventh-day Adventist is a definition of belief, whether you belong to a church that claims that title or not, there are many a good members of the SDA church who are neither Adventist by belief nor Sabbatarians by practice.
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David Breedlove Also Commented
The Sabbath’s relevance to the debate about origins
@Ron Stone M.D.:
The first-day Saturday:
Egyptian astronomers, who of course believed that there were only seven planets that revolved around the earth, first developed the planetary seven-day week. From the most remote to the nearest in this order were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the moon. (Using the names we call them now). These planets revolved around the earth every 24 hours. The first planet to come up in the sky was Saturn; the day of the week was named after the planet that presided over its first hour. After each successive seventh hour, i.e., the eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-second hour, respectively, was presided over by the planet Saturn. Jupiter then governed the twenty-third hour, the twenty-fourth hour by Mars. The first hour of the next day was presided over by the Sun, the next “planet†in that order. The second day of the planetary week was thus named Sunday. In the same order of reckoning the moon presided over the third day (moon day), Mars over the fourth day, Mercury over the fifth, Jupiter over the sixth, and Venus over the seventh, then Saturn again took over the first hour of the beginning of the next week.
The Romans adopted the same seven-day weekly cycle with the same nomenclature, but they didn’t know why these days were named after the order of the planets. In the Roman mind these were gods, and the days were named after the gods, therefore the greatest god should rule the first day.
As a result of the change of having the first day of the week begin on the day of the Sun, Sol Invictus (being declared as the first and foremost god of the whole world); Saturday (dies Saturni } then became the seventh day of the Roman week rather than the first day as it had always been up to that time.
The sixth day of our current week (Friday) was named dies Veneris, day of Venus because Venus was the planet that ruled that day. The Teutonic tribes of the north knew nothing of the reason for naming the day, just like nobody knows this stuff now. They supposed the Romans named the days to honor their gods, just like people assume nowadays. The wife of their god Odin (Woden) was Frigg or Frigga. She was the goddess of marriage, and knew the fate of all men. Later some of the Teutonic tribes had a goddess of a similar name Freya who was the equivalent of the Roman goddess of love, Venus. Old English literature calls her Freo, of which the possessive is Frige. The name of the day of Venus (seventh day of the week) was changed to Frigedaeg (Freo’s day) in Old English, in honor of their goddess of love, just as, the Romans did with dies Veneris.
The Sabbath’s relevance to the debate about origins
LSU, by definition is an institution of higher learning. Where else is it more important than to have all theories present and accounted for. This is a place where “higher criticism” is quite acceptable, where all heterodox opinions should be freely expressed without the prejudice for fundamental belief with all its ignorance and bigotry aimed against free thought, even if that “free thought” does go against SDA pre-programing.
Saturday has nothing to do with creation week, and creation week is a later addition to the book of Genesis. Bible historians can tell you exactly when any particular passage got in the bible, and Genesis one through the first three verses of Genesis two is a much later addition than the story of creation as told in the second chapter of Genesis. Saturday is not the seventh day except on the roman calendar, and Jews did not observe Saturday for their seventh day until the tenth century AD, long after Christians began observing Saturday for the seventh day, simply because the Roman emperor in 321 AD declared Sunday to be the first day of the week. –DB
