[B-Greek] Translation of SABBATON

Harold R. Holmyard III hholmyard at ont.com
Wed Jun 30 16:35:50 EDT 2004


Dear Neil,

I'm not sure that it strictly means week. Perhaps 
you're thinking of a verse like:

Mark 16:9 ¶ When Jesus rose early on the first 
day of the week, he appeared first to Mary 
Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.

There the phrase is TNi MIAi TWN SABBATWN, which 
seems to be a technical phrase meaning the first 
day after the Sabbath, which was the first day of 
the week.

HH: The verse in Didache 8:1 that George quoted 
was the same idea except that DEUTERA SABBATWN 
("the second day from the Sabbath") means Monday. 
There is the verse in Luke 18:12:

Luke 18:12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

HH: Here the phrase is DIS TOU SABBATOU, "twice 
of the Sabbath," which means twice a week, twice 
before the next Sabbbath. So Sabbath technically 
may not mean week. It is used in such a way that 
"week" sometimes seems an appropriate term to use 
in the translation to indicate the idea in the 
author's mind. The lexicon gives "week" as a 
meaning of the term sometimes, so I could be 
wrong.

				Yours,
				Harold Holmyard


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