Sabbaths/Sabbath (SABBASIN)

Jim West jwest at highland.net
Sun Aug 25 14:21:17 EDT 2002


At 02:18 PM 8/25/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello,
>     I was wondering why the Greek word SABBASIN is often translated into
>English in the singular form (Sabbath) rather than Sabbaths?  Some
>examples are Mark 1:21; 2:23, etc.  This may have an easy answer, or maybe
>I am missing something obvious like I normally do. <shrug>  Thanks for any
help,

i think the reason is basically fairly simple (though grammarians have
argued about it for ages).  The Hebrew word *sabbath* ends in taw, which
makes it appear to be a feminine plural noun.  greek writers simply
misunderstood this and tended to be fairly literalistic in their renderings
so that they translated it as a plural.

other possibilities exist, but when one applys occams razor... well this is
the answer that to me seems most reasonable.

best

jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jim West, ThD
Adjunct Professor of Biblical Studies
Quartz Hill School of Theology

Biblical Studies Resources
http://web.infoave.net/~jwest

*de omnibus dubitandum est*




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