The view of determining the weekly Sabbath from every new moon is COMPLETELY UNSCRIPTURAL, with NO SCRIPTURAL evidence as I will PROVE from Scripture! A real problem with the Lunar Sabbath doctrine is a lack of a clear explanation anywhere in Scripture. It would be different if there were two Scriptures that seemed to contradict one another and we were trying to figure out why that seemed to be. But there is nothing in the fixed weekly Sabbath pattern that contradicts the Scriptures. Will anyone reading the Sabbath commandment in Lev 23, or Ex 20 alongside the creation account come up with a "Lunar Sabbath" doctrine. There is no commandment anywhere in the Scriptures which says: "On the day following the new moon of each month, six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahuwah your Elohim. You shall do this for four weeks. Then, depending on whether the new month has started, you shall not engage in commerce or paid work for 1 or 2 days. Then you shall reset your week into the 'Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest' pattern." Obviously, YHUH/YHWH Yahuah/Yahuwah never said any such thing, but this is the commandment that most Lunar Sabbath keepers follow. This is nothing more than a commandment of men because it is not found in the Scriptures anywhere. If Yahuwah was expecting man to work six days and keep the Sabbath on the seventh day on an uninterruptible recurring pattern, it would be easy to see that all He needed to do was command us to do our work for six days and rest on the seventh -- no further explanation needed. And that's exactly what He did: Shemoth (Exo) 20:9-10 Six days you labour, and shall do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of יהוה Yahuwah your Elohim. You do not do any work you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. (There are other Sabbaths, but this is the weekly Sabbath). Shemoth (Exo) 23:12a Six days you are to do your work, and on the seventh day you rest. Shemoth (Exo) 31:15a Six days work is done, and on the seventh is a Sabbath of rest, set-apart to יהוה Yahuwah. Shemoth (Exo) 31:17 Between Me and the children of Yisra ĕl it is a sign forever. For in six days Yahuwah יהוה made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. Shemoth (Exo) 34:21a Six days you work, but on the seventh day you rest. Shemoth (Exo) 35:2a Work is done for six days, but on the seventh day it shall be setapart to you, a Sabbath of rest to יהוה Yahuwah.
Debarim (Deu) 5:13-14a Six days you labour, and shall do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahuwah יהוה your Elohim. If we start without man s twisting, and just take the scriptures for what they say, not adding anything to it, we could only arrive at understanding that Yahuwah's Sabbath falls on an uninterruptible seven day (weekly) rotation. There really isn't room for any other possible interpretations. Six days you labor, and you rest on the seventh. To further illustrate that a recurring pattern was intended, let's go back to the beginning of creation and find the Sabbath that Yahuwah Himself established. As we know, Bereshith (Gen) 1 details six days that Yahuwah used to create the heavens and the earth. Each of those days consisted of an "evening and morning." Yahuwah said that each of the "evenings and mornings" were specific days of a week. When the seventh day came in Bereshith 2, Yahuwah said that He rested from his work, then blessed and sanctified that day: Bereshith (Gen) 2:1-3 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their array. And on the seventh day Elohim completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And Elohim blessed the seventh day and set it apart, because on it He rested from all His work which Elohim in creating had made. Later, when giving the Ten Commandments, Yahuwah said: Shemoth (Exo) 20:8-11 Remember the Sabbath day, to set it apart. Six days you labour, and shall do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of יהוה Yahuwah your Elohim. You do not do any work - you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days Yahuwah יהוה made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore יהוה Yahuwah blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart. Now, please pay close attention to what Yahuwah has said. He blessed and set apart one day. Twice He called it "the Sabbath day" and twice He called it "the seventh day." Meditate on this: The fact that YHUH/YHWH Yahuwah blessed and set-apart one specific day clearly demonstrates that a cyclic pattern is to follow. If that cyclic (recurring) pattern is ever interrupted by extra days, the one specific day (the 7th day) disappears. If He wanted to set-apart and bless the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th days of the month, He would need to say that He blessed and sanctified specific days of the month. In other words, the blessing and set-apartness would have been in the context multiple days of a lunar month, not one specific day of a 7 day week. Thus, the fact that there is one day called the Sabbath demonstrates that you can't interrupt the week.
The truth is -- the concept of a week extending to 8 or 9 days is foreign to Scripture. In fact, it is a direct contradiction of Scripture. In Hebrew, the number seven and the word translated "week" are both rooted in the same Hebrew root verb which simply means "seven." The Strong's Lexicon defines "week" (#7620) as: seven, week Or shabuan {shaw-boo'-ah}; also (feminine) shbu.ah {sheb-oo-aw'}; properly, passive participle of shaba' as a denominative of sheba'; literal, sevened, i.e. A week (specifically, of years) -- seven, week. see HEBREW shaba' see HEBREW sheba' And the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament states: Shabua - period of seven, a week, the Feast of Weeks. This term occurs twenty times in the OT, always indicating a period of seven. Indeed, the word obviously comes to us from sheba and could literally be translated always as "sevenperiod." Notice that this reference says "Shabua" is derived from "Sheba." The word translated "Seven" all throughout the Scriptures is "sheba." #7651 sheba or shibah By sevenfold, teen Or (masculine) shibrah {shib-aw'}; from shaba'; a primitive cardinal number; seven (as the sacred full one); also (adverbially) seven times; by implication, a week; by extension, an indefinite number -- (+ by) seven(-fold),-s, (-teen, -teenth), - th, times). Compare shib'anah. see HEBREW shaba' see HEBREW shib'anah "Shabua" is just another form of the same word. "Sheba" is translated "seven" over 350 times in the Scriptures. Clearly the word "week" cannot be separated from the number seven. The entire reason a "week" is called a "shabua" is because it always contains seven days. This being the case, a week cannot be 8 or 9 days (in the progression from one new moon month to the next, there are dead days, thus lengthening the actual last week of the month from 7 to 8 or 9 days, before the next new moon starts). As we read in the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, the very word translated "week" literally means "seven-period." It would be a contradiction to say in Hebrew "an eight day week" because you would to say "an eight day seven-period." Just like a "dozen" always means twelve in our language, a "week" always means seven in Hebrew. In the luni-solar construct, the last week of the lunar cycle is always longer than seven days. This time discrepancy is accounted for with a "gap theory" which accounts these days between the conjunction (dark of the moon) and the new moon sighting as "dead days," or days which don't count.
Some of the luni-solar proponents have explained that this is a shadow picture of the jubilee. While this sounds very plausible at the outset, this teaching is not Scripturally sound for the following reasons: The Bible makes a point to call the Sabbath the "Seventh-day" time and again. Never once does it suggest that a Sabbath can have followed a 9-day week cycle. The clear Scriptural injunction for how to calculate Pentecost proves that the Seventhday Sabbath must always be a consistent count of seven-days. In Lev 23:15-16, we find the specific instructions for how Pentecost (also called the Feast of Weeks) is to be calculated. "And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall you number fifty days..." Thus, Pentecost is to be calculated as being BOTH 7 Sabbaths AND 50 days. Now, if the luni-solar belief is Scriptural, that the last Sabbath of the lunar cycle can be a part of a 9-day week, it should be possible to calculate only 7 Sabbaths for Pentecost and still have it come out to 50 days. Let's see whether it is possible to get 7 Sabbaths AND only 50 days with the luni-solar "gap theory," at the end of each month. Remember, Pentecost is in the third Biblical month, and is exactly seven Sabbaths and fifty days from First Fruits, falls during the Week of Unleavened Bread. Additionally, the Bible indicates that Pentecost is always the "morrow after the seventh Sabbath" (Lev 23:16) First lunar week = seven days - total days = 7 - SABBATH 1 Second lunar week = seven days - total days = 14- SABBATH 2 Third lunar week = seven days - total days = 21- SABBATH 3 Fourth lunar week = nine days - total days = 30- SABBATH 4 Fifth lunar week = seven days - total days = 37- SABBATH 5 Sixth lunar week = seven days - total days = 44- SABBATH 6 Seventh lunar week = seven days - total days = 51- SABBATH 7 Day after the seventh Sabbath - total days = 52 THAT'S 52 DAYS TO PENTECOST - NOT 50! The only way to get seven Sabbaths and only 50 days in the count to Pentecost is to never break the cycle of consistently counting the Sabbath as the Seventh-day. There can never be a break in the seven-day week count and still get only 50 days. First calendar week = seven days - total days = 7 - SABBATH 1 Second calendar week = seven days - total days = 14- SABBATH 2 Third calendar week = seven days - total days = 21- SABBATH 3 Fourth calendar week = seven days - total days = 28- SABBATH 4 Fifth calendar week = seven days - total days = 35- SABBATH 5 Sixth calendar week = seven days - total days = 42- SABBATH 6 Seventh calendar week = seven days - total days = 49- SABBATH 7 Day after the seventh Sabbath - total days = 50- THAT'S 50 DAYS TO PENTECOST Exactly as it says in Lev 23:15-16! The 15th of Abib (Aviv) is NEVER a Seventh-day Sabbath, according to the Scripture, as we will demonstrate below. The fifteenth day of the month Abib is also referred to as the first day of Unleavened Bread. (Abib is the first month of the Scriptural year, which begins sometime in April on a calendar.) Now, according to the luni-solar Sabbath theory, the 15th day of the lunar month is always a Seventh-day Sabbath. But, in the month Abib, the Bible makes it plain that the 15th is NOT a Sabbath. How so?
Consider the statute stipulations for food preparation on the Seventh-day Sabbath compared with that of the statutes for food preparation on the fifteenth of Abib. The statutes are very clear about prohibiting all food preparation on the weekly Sabbaths. It was even against the Torah (Hebrew for "instructions," also known as the "Law" of YHWH) to kindle a cooking fire on the Sabbath day. All food preparation for the weekly Sabbath was to be completed on the sixth day, also known as the "Preparation Day" for the Sabbath. This is stated in the following Scripture: Shemoth (Exo) 16:22-23 And it came to be, on the sixth day, that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Mosheh. And he said to them, This is what YHWH יהוה has said, Tomorrow is a rest, a Sabbath set-apart to YHWH.יהוה That which you bake, bake; and that which you cook, cook. And lay up for yourselves all that is left over, to keep it until morning. But, while it was plainly prohibited to cook upon the Seventh-day Sabbath, it was Scripturally acceptable to prepare food on the 15th of Abib, which is the first day of Unleavened Bread - also known as an "annual Sabbath." This is stated in Shemoth (Exo) 12:15-16 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. Indeed on the first day you cause leaven to cease from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that being shall be cut off from Yisra ĕl. And on the first day is a set-apart gathering, and on the seventh day you have a set-apart gathering. No work at all is done on them, only that which is eaten by every being, that alone is prepared by you'. The Seventh-day Sabbath is calculated differently than the annual Sabbaths. This distinction is given in Lev 23. Wayyiqra (Lev) 23:1-4 And YHWH יהוה spoke to Mosheh, saying, Speak to the children of Yisra ĕl, and say to them, The appointed times of YHWH,יהוה which you are to proclaim as set-apart gatherings, My appointed times, are these: Six days work is done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a set-apart gathering. You do no work, it is a Sabbath to YHWH יהוה in all your dwellings. These are the appointed times of YHWH,יהוה set-apart gatherings which you are to proclaim at their appointed times. After listing the Seventh-day Sabbath as the first of YHWH'S "Feasts," there is a break in the thought before the annual Sabbaths are listed. The Bible continues to say, These are the feasts of YHWH, even SET-APART gatherings, which you shall proclaim in their seasons (appointed times)." Then, when we turn to the Psalm, we find that the "moon" was "appointed for seasons," (Ps 104:19). Thus, the Seventh-day Sabbath is not among the "Feasts" of YHWH, which are determined by the moon. Just as was established at Creation, when the moon was made on the fourth day while Seventh-day Sabbath had come 3 days later, having started before the existence of any heavenly body, the Sabbath is a simple count of seven. It has continued unbroken from Creation. And it is still the weekly Sabbath today. One of the biggest reasons luni-solar proponents often give for believing weekly Sabbaths are determined by the moon phases is that the Gregorian calendar was created by Pope Gregory. The papal doctrines are the polluted "wine" of Babylon - no question. And there is no question that Pope Gregory DID indeed remove 10 dates from the calendar in 1582. But, does that mean that Pope Gregory somehow affected the Sabbath itself? NO! The order of the week days didn't change one iota by simply re-dating the days.
The first day (which the pagans have named "Sunday") is still followed by the second day (Monday), and the third day (Tuesday), which was followed by the fourth day (Wednesday), followed by the fifth day (Thursday), followed by the sixth day (Friday), which was still followed by the same Seventh-day. The Seventh-day was the Sabbath before Pope Gregory removed ten dates, and it was still the Sabbath after he removed them. It is not following a papal calendar to honor the seven-day count which started at Creation, simply because a calendar change took place in 1582... which didn't even affect the Seventh-day Sabbath count. So, it isn't pagan to keep the Seventh-day of the week. It really has nothing to do with Gregory! The Sabbath was before his changes, throughout and continued after in an unbroken cycle of seven. But, lunar phase worship IS rooted in an ancient pagan practice. Worship on the lunar phases was anciently associated with worship of the moon god Allah was the proper name of the moon-deity of the Arabs before Muhammad brought his brand of religion to them. They worshipped hundreds of idols in a big black cube, the Ka'aba, in Mecca. Today, they believe "Allah" resides inside this same black box, calling the Kaaba the "house of Allah". This term, Allah, was adopted because of its "name recognition" among the common population. Because the previously Pagan Arabs worshipped the moon deity they called Allah, you will often notice that the primary Islamic symbol is the crescent moon, placed above their places of worship in a similar way Christians use the cross. Yahusha Messiah did not keep the Sabbath by the lunar phases... The general claim of lunar Sabbath adherents is that the lunar Sabbath understanding was discarded during the Babylonian captivity, and was then replaced by the Sabbath of the day of Saturn (i.e., Saturday) at that time. Thus, lunar Sabbatarians would have us to believe that the remnant who returned to the Land of Israel was keeping a false Sabbath. This would then continue to be the case in the first century, when Messiah came in the flesh. We find, however, that Yahusha kept the same Sabbath day set-apart as did His fellow Jews about Him, (Matt 12:1-12/Mark 2:23-28; Mark 1:21; 3:1-4; 6:2; etc.), and we know that He came as one "under the Law," and that He never sinned (i.e., transgressed the Law). Therefore, the Sabbath kept by the Jews in the first century C.E. is the same Sabbath from creation codified at Sinai. If luni-solar Sabbath is true, than the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of the Biblical month will always be Sabbaths. But this is not so. Yahusha made clay to heal a man's eyes on the weekly Sabbath. And on that occasion, the Seventh-day Sabbath fell on the 23rd day of the month (a complete impossibility to the lunar Sabbatarian beliefs): Yohanan (John) records that Yahusha stood up on the last day of the Feast, the Great Day, and cried out to the crowd. This "last day, that great day" is the eighth day of the Feast of the 7th month and occurs on the 22nd day of Tishri (Lev 23:34-37). The next day (Jhn 8:2), Yahusha came again to the Temple early in the morning. After His discourse with the scribes and Pharisees, He healed a man who was blind from birth. Yohanan (John) recorded that "it was the Sabbath day when Yahusha made the clay, and open his eyes." (Jhn 9:14). This evidence shows that the 23rd day of Tishri was a Sabbath that year.
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Josephus The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered by scholars to be authored by the Essenes, a sect in first century Judaism. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are a number of extrabiblical scrolls which appear to shed light on what this sect believed and practiced. Understanding what they believed can be helpful in determining whether or not the Lunar Sabbath was being observed by mainstream Judaism of that time. It is generally undisputed (even by Lunar Sabbatarians) that the authors of these scrolls did not keep a Lunar Sabbath. Rather, the Calendrical scroll shows that they observed a recurring seven day weekly cycle, independent of the moon phases. I know of no one who disputes this. The Calendrical Scroll and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice confirms this. Of course, Lunar Sabbatarians generally will teach that this Jewish sect was wrong about the Sabbath. But in the book of Josephus, he speaks much about the Essenes. Josephus was a first century Jewish historian who wrote much about life in Judea during the first century. He goes into great detail as to how practices of the Essenes were different than others. He mentions everything from how the Essenes don't carry anything with them when they travel, to how they regard oil to be defilement. In Wars of the Jews 2:119-161, Josephus speaks of them in no less than 2000 words, describing over 100 characteristics of their way of life. So did Josephus mention that they kept the Sabbath on a day that was different than the rest of Judaism? Wars of the Jews 2:147 Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not move any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. In this, Josephus even goes so far as to say that the Essenes are "stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day." Does it sound like there was any disagreement as to when the Sabbath was? Wouldn't it seem strange that Josephus would mention that the Essenes were stricter in their resting from labors on the Sabbath but not bother to mention that the Essenes held the Sabbath on a totally different day than the other Jews of that period? The fact is, if the Essenes were keeping a different day than the rest of Judaism, Josephus wouldn't have been able to say that they were even resting on the seventh day to begin with. He would have to say they were typically resting on some other day. There is no record in the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Essenes disagreeing with other groups as to when the Sabbath was. In fact, there is no historical record of any Jewish sects disagreeing with each other on when the Sabbath was. In another interesting note, Josephus speaks of one of the large towers that were built in Jerusalem:
Wars of the Jews 4:582 and the last was erected above the top of the Pastophoria, where one of the priests stood of course, and gave a signal beforehand with a trumpet, at the beginning of every seventh day, in the evening twilight, as also at the evening when that day was finished, as giving notice to the people when they were to stop work, and when they were to go to work again. So his report is that a trumpet was blown at the beginning of every seventh day, to mark when the people should stop working, and begin working. Josephus also records that Agatharchides, a 2nd century BCE Greek Historian, wrote something quite interesting about Ptolemy's defeat of Jerusalem: Against Apion 1:208 "When Agatharchides had premised this story, and had jested upon Stratonice for her superstition, he gives a like example of what was reported concerning us, and writes thus:-- 209 ``There are a people called Jews, and dwell in a city the strongest of all other cities, which the inhabitants call Jerusalem, and are accustomed to rest on every seventh day; on which times they make no use of their arms, nor meddle with husbandry, nor take care of any affairs of life, but spread out their hands in their holy places, and pray till the evening. 210 Now it came to pass, that when Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, came into this city with his army, that these men, in observing this mad custom of theirs, instead of guarding the city, suffered their country to submit itself to a bitter lord; and their law was openly proven to have commanded a foolish practice" Ptolemy was the General of Alexander the Great, who took over Jerusalem in 332 BCE. We see that the Jews would not defend themselves or take up arms on the Sabbath, which was "every seventh day." If we were to describe the Sabbath keeping practices of Lunar Sabbatarians, we certainly wouldn't describe their Sabbath keeping as something they did "every seventh day." Rather, we would mention that they only keep a Sabbath on certain days of the month. Therefore, it's quite evident that Josephus was describing the practice laid out for us "in the beginning" when Elohim created the first week and that is to rest every seventh day, without moon interruptions. Historically, Lunar Sabbath keepers believe that the Lunar Sabbath was observed by 1st century Judaism, but was lost some time after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. But even if one rejects all the evidence to the contrary, it would seem quite impossible for every Sabbath keeper scattered all throughout the world to simultaneously drop a supposed "Lunar Sabbath," all without a trace of evidence of such a dramatic change. The clear historical record is that the Jews of the first century kept the Sabbath just as we do, on a recurring seven day week. Scripturally, you can look from Gen to Rev, but you will not find a single commandment to keep the "Lunar Sabbath." Just as Yahuwah has ensured that His inspired Word was not lost in antiquity, He also protected His set-apart Sabbath. Adam kept it, Noah kept it, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob kept it. Joshua kept it, the righteous judges and kings kept it. The prophets of Yahuwah kept it, the returning exiles who were very meticulous about the Sabbath kept it, and we know that Yahusha and His disciples kept it, proving that Yahuwah preserved His Sabbath up until the 1st century CE. The same is true today. Compiled using various resources