There is a growing group of people in Messianic communities that believe in a doctrine called the “Lunar Sabbath”. Roughly stated, it suggests that whenever the New Moon occurs, the weekly cycle is reset to the 1st day of the week so that the Feasts of the Lord always occur on the same day of the week and the Shabbatot, or Sabbaths, are always on the same days of the month. There are some rather well known and well studied individuals that fall into this category. The best argument I have seen from this group so far is that of the counting of the “Omer” to the Feast of Weeks or “Chag Shavuot”. Let me explain to you how this group sees it, and then I will show you why this argument is totally incorrect. After, I will show other references that should conclusively end the debate of this lunar Sabbath argument.
Please reference Leviticus 23 and try to understand what is said, especially verses 15 and 16 before continuing. They claim that in order to work out when Shavuot is, you need to observe 7 complete Sabbaths, and then the day after the 7th Sabbath, then you start counting 50 days. In other words, they count over 100 days from First Fruits. This places Shavuot in the end of summer and too late for the early summer harvest.
Leviticus 23:15-16 “Then you are to count from the morrow after the Shabbat, from the day that you brought the omer of the wave offering, seven complete Shabbatot. Until the morrow after the seventh Shabbat you are to count fifty days, and then present a new grain offering to Adonai.
The meaning of the word “SHAVUOT” helps to clarify this. This word is the plural form for “shavua”, which means “week”. Shavuot also comes from the root word “sheva” which means “seven” and “oath”. Put this together and you see that Shavuot comes from the word “seven” and “week” meaning a count of seven weeks which is an oath given to us from YHWH Himself. Then Torah teaches that Chag Shavuot is on the day after the seventh Sabbath which MUST be the total of a 50 day count.
Josephus, a Jewish general that turned historian, lived in the 1st Century Roman Empire and had a great deal to say about the Sabbath. Although some of what Josephus has written historically is called into question, his understanding of Jewish customs certainly was not. He mentions at least three times, in Wars of the Jews, The Jewish War, and Against Apion, that the Jews observe every seventh day, also stating that the Essenes are even more observant than the rest of Judaism. It is well known that the Essenes, in their documentation, didn’t observe a lunar Sabbath. Josephus couldn’t have compared the two groups if one observed every seventh day and the other specific days of the month. Josephus’ indication is that the cycle of “sevens” for Shabbat was unbroken, making the doctrine of Lunar Sabbath untenable.
Another argument against Lunar Sabbath is the well documented argument between the Pharisees and Sadducees that occurred during the time of Yeshua as to when the Feast of First Fruits occurred. Scripture states it is the day after the Sabbath. The Pharisees argued that this meant the day after the High Sabbath of Passover while the Sadducees argued that this meant the day after the weekly Sabbath. This could not have been an argument if they were observing Lunar Sabbaths as Passover would have fallen on the weekly Sabbath always with no argument. This is pretty conclusive as both groups would have had no argument.
Some will argue that it worked out the Pharisee way during the death, burial, and resurrection of Messiah. Did it? Matthew 28:1 may give a different perspective,
“Now after Shabbat, as it began to dawn on the first day of the week, Miriam of Magdala and the other Miriam came to look at the tomb.”
The word used for Shabbat in Greek is transliterated as “sabbaton”, which is plural. The implication is that there were two sabbaths in a row, making the crucifixion on the fifth day of the week (Thursday for us westerners), not sixth day (Friday - But that is another discussion). The point is that the word sabbaths indicates that the Frist Day of Unleavened Bread may have mostly been on what westerners would call Friday that year instead of coinciding with the weekly Sabbath.
What about Yeshua and how he observed it? Do we have an indication of how Yeshua observed Shabbat? Yes! Luke 4:16
16 And He came to Natzeret, where He had been raised. As was His custom, He went into the synagogue on Shabbat, and He got up to read.
There are many instances of Yeshua and the Apostles observing Shabbat in synagogue. This is problematic for Lunar Sabbath adherents. For either Yeshua or the Apostles to observe Shabbat in a synagogue in the First Century would be to observe through the Pharisaic understanding, which was supported by both primary First Century schools of Jewish thought, Hillel and Shammai, which was an unbroken chain of sevens since the end of the Jewish captivity; a chain of sevens that history shows remains unbroken to this day.
Some will say that the chain of Sabbaths was broken moving to the Gregorian calendar in the 16th Century. But though the days of the month changed that February, the days of the week remained unbroken, as is recorded.
Although this paper doesn’t review the arguments for observance of the Lunar Sabbath, the logic for it cannot, in my opinion, stand up to the facts already presented. The true problem with this belief lies in the disregard for history and scripture itself. Certain passages are ignored in order to promote the desired viewpoint. This is a typical tactic today and used for many such theories that select specific unused definitions of words over accepted definitions in order to promote an unusual viewpoint. In general, be highly skeptical of such theories and study all the more to show it to be either approved or discarded. In the end, history and scripture both concur that Lunar Sabbath practice is a false teaching.
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