[B-Greek] Translation of SABBATON

George F. Somsel gfsomsel at juno.com
Wed Jun 30 16:15:41 EDT 2004


On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:13:32 -0700 (PDT) Neil Davis
<neildavis2002 at yahoo.com> writes:
> Dear B-Greek,
> 
> I was wondering about the translation of the Greek
> word SABBATON as "week" in the New Testament.  Do you
> know of any other literature, besides the NT that uses
> SABBATON to indicate a week?  As far as I know, the
> Septuagint never uses SABBATON in such a manner.
> 
> For instance, in Daniel 10:2 the Hebrew word for
> "week" is translated in the Septuagint as "EBDOMADAS
> HMERWN".  Is the NT the only place SABBATON is used
> this way?  And if so, how do we know that we aren't
> incorrectly translating SABBATON as "week" in certain
> biblical passages?  Thanks for your help.
> 
> Neil Davis 
> 
____________

There is the passage in the Didache 8.1

hAI DE NHSTEIAI hUMWN MH ESTWSAN META TWN hUPOKRITWN .  NHSTEUOUSI GAR
DEUTERA SABBATWN . . .

but this is not prior to the NT.  The term is almost undoubtedly borrowed
from the Hebrew so it might be difficult or impossible to find it
attested elsewhere.  I suppose it might be found in some Jewish writing
such as Philo or Josephus, but again, this is roughly contemporary to the
NT.

george
gfsomsel



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