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The question is misleading. By 'true' Sabbath, are we talking about the 'original' Sabbath, or the actual Sabbath that is now celebrated?

To explain where the days of the week originated, we shall delve into a religious discussion based on the Bible, which has been foundational for the formation of western society.

The 'original' Sabbath is Saturday. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. He blessed the seventh day and made it a day of rest for all the millions of weeks to come in the world. And throughout history, mankind has worked best by working six days and resting a seventh, even when they forgot where the tradition had come from.

The reason that we hold the Sabbath on the first day of the week, rather than the seventh day, is because Jesus broke the rules.

Jesus was crucified and died on a Friday. The Jewish Sabbath starts at sundown, so as the sun was setting, his friends were rushing to find somewhere to bury him. They wouldn't be able to bury him on the Sabbath, because Jewish law is draconic about not working on the Sabbath. So a rich man, Joseph of Arimathea, offered his own tomb. Jesus's disciples rushed to put Jesus there, then beat it home before it was illegal to 'work'.

Saturday, nobody could do anything because it was against the law to 'work' by applying the traditional embalming spices and oils.

As early as possible Sunday morning, Jesus's friends went out to finish the burial rites, only to find that the tomb was empty. One of them actually bumped into Jesus and thought he was the gardener! Jesus had risen from the dead.

Christians commemorated this by worshipping on Sunday. Many observed the traditional Saturday Sabbath for many years, however. There was a lot of debate among the churches on this issue. Some changed the practice of Sabbath to Sunday because of trying to distance themselves from the Jews, who persecuted the Christian church. The Roman government also persecuted the Jews, so it was safer for Christians to appear as a separate religion altogether. Other Roman religions at the time held religious practices on Sunday, and it may have been an attempt to adopt that day and Christianize it, as Christians have done with many other pagan holidays, like Christmas and Easter.

The Church Council of Laodicea in 364 AD officially ordained that Sabbath was to be held on Sunday instead of Saturday. This was not strictly observed, however, and many Christians still held Sabbath on Saturday for centuries. In other words, there has been as much debate about the actual Sabbath date throughout history as there is today.

So, one could argue that the 'true' Sabbath is the 'original' Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week, or Saturday.

One could also argue that the 'true' Sabbath is Sunday, the day that Jesus completed his work and prophecies by rising from the dead. It is rather amusing to note that American culture has adopted both days as non-work days, having a five-day work week and two days of rest. There's no point in arguing about which is the real one ... we'll just take both of them off work!

Learn more about this author, Kessie Carroll.
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