�Critical Perspectives
from the Word of God

One of the most obscure phrases in the New Testament is deuterproton sabbaton translated "second sabbath after the first" in Luke 6:1-2 in the King James Version.

Friedrich Westberg, in Die Biblishe Chronologie, equates deuterproton sabbaton with Nisan 21, the second main-Sabbath or second high-holiday in the days of Unleavened Bread. He wrote:

So wie nun ποωτον σάββατον dem ποώτη χυοιαχή, d�rfte δευτεοποώτη  dem xxxxx entsprechen, n�mlich dem zweiten Sabbat der Festwoche, dem 21. Nisan. So �bersetze ich denn ποωτον σάββατον mit Hauptabbat oder Hochfeiertag und δευτεοποώτη σάββατον mit zweiter Hauptsabbat oder zeeiter Hochfeiertag. (Westberg 1910:122.)

Hoeh, following Westberg, agrees. He holds that the "second sabbath after the first" is an obscure translation "which means the 'second Sabbath of first rank' � the second high day or annual Sabbath � the last day of Unleavened Bread..." (Hoeh 1959b:31). If Luke 6:1-2 refers to the seventh day of Unleavened Bread, or any Sabbath in this seven-day springtime festival, it provides a chronological benchmark in Jesus' ministry.^F1 Jack Finegan, in his Handbook of Biblical Chronology, sees this as a springtime event as well, but stops short of equating it with the high Sabbath of the last day of Unleavened Bread. He writes:

   The final Passover in the Synoptic record came, of course, in the springtime. But another Synoptic passage (Mark 2:23; Matt 12:1; Luke 6:1) appears plainly to refer to a springtime prior to that final one, for it tells how the disciples plucked ears of grain, and thus it implies the spring harvest time, perhaps Apr/May. (Finegan 1998:350.)

At Luke 6:1-2 the King James Version reads:

And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days? (Luke 6:1-2.)

While the King James Version refers to this particular Sabbath as "the second sabbath after the first" most modern translations do not retain phrase "the second sabbath after the first" but rather use the word sabbath even though many of the older manuscripts of the New Testament include it.^F2 The NASB note for Luke 6:1 says "Many mss. read the second-first Sabbath; i.e., the second Sabbath after the first." In context, the sense of this phrase is that the Sabbath in question was the second Sabbath of first rank, or second high Sabbath (a high day), that is the second annual Sabbath of the days of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 21).^F3

Anciently, Epiphanius, a bitterly anti-Jewish bishop of Salamis in Cyprus in his Panarion (a lengthy work begun between 374 or 375 and finished in less than three years), often referred to as the "Refutation of All Heresies," accepted the phrase. He believed it referred to the weekly Sabbath (the second sabbath after the first) occurring during the seven days of Unleavened Bread not sensing further intrinsic meaning in deuterproton sabbaton. He states:

...the apostles plucked ears of grain on the Sabbath, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. But it was a "second Sabbath after the first," as the Gospel indicates.

   The Law designated various Sabbaths. The Sabbath proper, which recurs week by week. And the one that is a Sabbath because of the occurrences of the true moons and the feasts that follow, such as the days of Tabernacles, and of Passover when they sacrifice the lamb and eat unleavened bread afterwards. Further, when they keep the single, annual fast which is called the "Greater Fast," and the other, which they call the "Lesser." For when these days occur, on the second day of the week or the third or the fourth, this too is designated a Sabbath for them.

   Hence, after the Day of Unleavened Bread had come and been designated a Sabbath day, on the Sabbath proper following the Day of Unleavened Bread which was treated as a Sabbath, it was found that the disciples went through the standing grain, plucked the ears, and rubbed and ate then. (Epiphanius Haer. 32.3-6; Williams 1987:148-149.)

Jerome, a contemporary and friend of Epiphanius, professed ignorance of its meaning. When Jerome asked his former teacher, Gregory of Nazianus, to explain the meaning of Luke's "second-first Sabbath" Gregory threatened to embarrass Jerome before the whole church by explaining it there. The implication for Jerome was that this meant Gregory did not know either (Buchanan and Wolf 1978:261). Jerome in Letter 52 wrote:

My teacher, Gregory of Nazianzus, when I once asked him to explain Luke's sabbaton deu?eroprwtton, that is "the second-first Sabbath," playfully evaded my request saying: "I will tell you about it in church, and there, when all the people applaud me, you will be forced against your will to know what you do not know at all. For, if you alone remain silent, every one will put you down for a foot." (Jerome PL 22.534, letter 52.)

As ardent Nicenes, Epiphanius, Jerome, and Gregory of Nazianus observed the liturgical holidays and festivals of gentile Nicene Christianity not Jewish holydays and feasts. One would not expect them to be familiar with the nuances of Jewish calendar customs. Epiphanius, however, took great pains to understand what he regarded as Jewish Christianity, albeit to him the teachings of such people were dangerous heresies, so he could refute it. Epiphanius apparently learned from Judeo-Christians, who continued to observe the biblical feasts and annual Sabbaths well into the fourth century that deuterproton sabbaton as was a Sabbath occurring during the days of Unleavened Bread although he understood it as the weekly Sabbath not the second annual Sabbath of the last day of Unleavened Bread. See Seizure of Mt Sion for further information about the Judeo-Christians of fourth-century Jerusalem.

Theodore Beza in his "Commentary on Luke 6" in the 1599 Geneva Study Bible recognized the second-first Sabbath in Luke as the last day of Unleavened Bread. He wrote::

Epiphanius notes well in his treatise, where he refutes Ebion, that the time when the disciples plucked the ears of the corn was in the feast of unleavened bread. Now, in those feasts which were kept over a period of many days, as the feast of tabernacles and passover, their first day and the last were very solemn; see Le 23:1-44. Luke then fitly calls the last day the second sabbath, though Theophylact understands it to be any of the sabbaths that followed the first. (Beza 1599.)

Theophylact of Bulgaria, archbishop of Achrida (modern Ohrid), wrote in his commentaries on the gospels:

In any case, 250 years from when Luke penned his gospel, the fourth-century manuscripts of Luke's Gospel read by Epiphanius, Jerome, and Gregory of Nazianus contained the words deuterproton sabbaton. However, Buchanan and Wolf would exclude deuterproton sabbaton as a scribal appraisal, "not integral to the text," that made its way into the text which "translators can be fully justified in omitting...from their translations" (Buchanan and Wolf 1978:262).^F4

It would, however, appear more likely that the absence of deuterproton in later texts was due to a scribal omission. The simplest explanation, one consistent with Occam's Razor, is that deuterproton was seen as contamination by orthodox scribes who concluded the word had no real meaning and simply "fixed" the text by omitting it. In any case, two hundred and fifty years is a rather short period for the kind of evolution necessary to bring deuterproton into the text as proposed by Buchanan and Wolf.

Young's Literal Translation translates Luke 6:1-2 as:

And it came to pass, on the second-first sabbath, as he is going through the corn fields, that his disciples were plucking the ears, and were eating, rubbing with the hands, and certain of the Pharisees said to them, "Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbaths?"

The phase "second-first sabbath" is a translation of the Greek word deuteroprotos, an idiom, which a translator can render into English as the second Sabbath of first rank, the second chief Sabbath, or the second foremost Sabbath. The unlawful conduct referred to in Luke 6:1 is in reference to "the sabbath days" (KJ) or "the sabbaths" (Young's). Often, but not always, when we encounter [το] σάββασιν in the Greek text we are dealing with holydays or more precisely annual Sabbaths. Luke 6:2 refers to σάββασιν as do the parallel passages at Matthew 12:1, 5 and Mark 2:23-24.^F5

What part of the disciples conduct was cited as unlawful on sabbaths? The Pharisees saw the disciples conduct, plucking of ears or the gathering of food, as forbidden laborious work on an annual Sabbath (holyday).^F6 To encounter the prohibition one has to refer to the Torah. The charge of unlawful conduct was made on the basis of Leviticus 23:8. The passage reads:

These are the appointed times of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is the LORD'S Passover. Then on the fifteenth day of the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work. But for seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work. (Leviticus 23:4-8.)

Some writers argue that the disciples had been plucking the ears before the offering of the wave-sheaf (the Omer). The details of offering the wave-sheaf by the priests are found at Leviticus 23:11, 15. The Torah required the priests to discharge their scriptural directive by offering the wave-sheaf on the Sunday occurring during the Days of Unleavened Bread. As a result, it was not unlawful for the disciples to pluck ears as the wave sheaf offering preceded the second-foremost Sabbath. Heath explains:

This verse appears to be referring to the second annual sabbath day. The 'first-foremost' sabbath being the annual sabbath of the 1st day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the 'second-foremost' being the annual sabbath of the 7th day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

The purpose of identifying the exact Sabbath day was to show that the disciples did not pluck the grain prior to the wave sheaf day (a timing which was expressly forbidden, Lev 23:14). (Heath 2006.)

The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15), called Passover in Herodian times, was the first of seven Annual Sabbaths or high days. These seven holydays were Sabbaths of first rank, or chief Sabbaths, and weekly Sabbaths were of secondary importance. Annual Sabbaths trumped weekly Sabbaths, as their symbolic meaning significantly outweighed the meaning of the weekly Sabbath, and Moses authorized conduct that was otherwise forbidden on weekly Sabbaths.

Leviticus 23:8 refers to the second of these annual Sabbaths, or second-first Sabbaths, as the "seventh day" of unleavened bread. Now, nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament do you find a name for this second annual Sabbath. Some of the other annual Sabbaths have names, e.g., Feast of Weeks (Pentecost or Feast of First Fruits), Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, the Last Great Day. In Jesus' day the annual Sabbath of Nisan 15 became known as the Passover and during the Herodian period the seven-day festival itself was called the feast of Passover. Technically, in the Torah, the phrases Feast of Unleavened Bread and Feast of Tabernacles refer to two seven day religious festivals. In both, the first day was an annual Sabbath. Only during the Feast of Unleavened Bread is the seventh day also an Annual Sabbath. Following the Feast of Tabernacles, sometimes identified as the eighth day of the feast, occurred a separate festival called the Last Great Day. See Festivals and Seasons.

Luke in Luke 6:1, using the parlance of his time, referred to this nameless annual Sabbath as the second-first Sabbath, translated into English as the second Sabbath of first rank or second-foremost Sabbath. Jews or Judeo-Christians, as both groups observed the weekly and annual Sabbaths in the Apostolic Age, reading Luke's gospel would have known to which Sabbath day Luke referred. Today we might refer to it as the second annual holyday but even such language would be lost on the vast majority of Christians as these holydays were not only abandoned long ago by orthodox Christianity but relegated to trivia by scholars. This should come as no great surprise, for It has been well over a century since:

...his young assistant suggested to Dr. John A. Broadus that he prepare a harmony of the Gospels that should depart from the old plan of following the feasts as the turning points in the life of Jesus. He acted on the hint and led the way that all modern harmonies have followed. (Robertson 1922:vii.)

Martin, who believes that all Jews of the Herodian period, which by necessity would have included the Judeo-Christians in Eretz Israel and in the Dispersion, knew precisely the calendar event to which second-first Sabbath referred, writes that:

In Luke 6:1 in some manuscripts we read what appears to be a strange statement (at least it is strange to some scholars). It says that the Sabbath day on which Jesus excused his disciples for picking grain was the "second-first" Sabbath. Many manuscripts and in the writings of several early fathers of Christendom, they state this event was performed on the "second-first Sabbath." This must be a true reading of the original text and its supposed oddity is what helps to explain its meaning. What in the world was the "second-first Sabbath"? the answer is easy to determine. The truth is, the phrase was a regular calendar indication that all Jews in the time of the temple understood. (Martin 1996a:72.)

His explanation, an unconfirmed hypothesis, is that Luke at Luke 6:1 refers to the regular order of the twenty-four courses of the priests in their second cycle beginning with Tishri 1 (the Feast of Trumpets). He places this second-first Sabbath as the first weekly Sabbath following Tishri 1 (the Feast of Trumpets). The only evidence he presents, other than holding that 27-28 CE was a Sabbatical year, is Acts 13:42 wherein he argues the Greek refers to "the between Sabbath" (Martin 1996a:73). Martin explains:

...when weekly Sabbaths occurred inside the festival weeks of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, those intervening Sabbaths (which were not counted in the two cycles each year) were called the "between Sabbaths," and Luke even refers to one of these which occurred during the week of Pentecost. Note Acts 13:42 where the phrase "the next Sabbath" as found in the King James Version, really states from the Greek, "the between Sabbath." (Martin 1996a:73.)

The Sabbath, των σαββάτωv, of Acts 13:14 was a preceptual feast day. Martin, who suggests that this Sabbath was the day of Pentecost, would have his readers believe that it then follows that Acts 13:42 is confirming evidence of Luke's knowledge of the regular order of the twenty-four courses of the priests since Luke used the words "the between Sabbath." Marshal, however, in The NASB-NIV Parallel New Testament in Greek and English translates the Greek at Acts 13:42 as "the intervening sabbath (week)" (Marshal 1986:385). Contextually, this can, and probably should be, understood as the request of non-Christian Gentiles, upon hearing Paul on the feast day in Acts 13:14, for Paul to instruct them during "the intervening week" between the feast day at which they heard him preach and the following weekly Sabbath. They did not want to wait to learn more.

Juan Mateos, writing in Filologia Neotestamentaria, offers an insightful analysis of the context of τ̀ο σάββατov associated as much with the weekly Sabbath as it is with an annual Sabbath feast day. He writes:

Lastly, others link the term to a feast day, placing the establishment of the date in first order. Its nucleus would be: D + [H + H'], where D has a greater extension (sabbath or feast day) than in the nucleus of τ̀ο σάββατα. Definition: ``day [D] of rest [H] preceptual [H']'' or ``preceptual day.'' This meaning is given when the context confers a temporary meaning to the term, by the indication of an activity taking place (with a preposition, Jn. 7:23: _v σαββάτ_, concerning circumcision; Lk. 6:7: __v τ̀ο σαββάτ_, concerning a healing; without a preposition, Matt. 24:20: σαββάτω, concerning an instance of fleeing; Lk. 13:15: τον σαββάτω, concerning untying an ox), regarding a passage of time (Mk. 16:1: διαγεvωρέvωυ σαββάτωυ) or regarding a moment in the day (Lk. 23:54: σάββατov επέφωσκεv). This meaning subsumes τ̀ο σάββατα, ``the sabbath,'' and έωρτή, ``feast day''; on the other hand, τ̀ο σάββατα can never subsume τ̀ο σάββατov. (Mateos 1990:22-23.)

Mateos then discuses this in regard to Luke 6:1-5 where he holds that that the pericope encompassed a preceptual day. He holds that:

As in Matthew and Mark, the forms are concentrated in the pericopes concerning the stalks of grain on the sabbath (6:1-5) and concerning the man with the withered arm (6:6-11), in which the singular form dominates (6:1, 5, 6, 7, 9), with the idea of the precept prevailing. In 6:1, 5, 6, 7, 9, the temporary sense of the preposition _v specifies that it concerns a ``preceptual day'' (� 8Bc), which in fact is identified with a sabbath (6:2). In 6:5, as previously analyzed, (� 7), it is dealing with the precept itself: ``Lord is of the precept the Man (the Son of Man).'' Only in the question from the Pharisees (6:2) is the specific sabbath day mentioned, which affects the precept weekly and which reflects the historical situation. (Mateos 1990:27.)

The events in the pericope of Luke 6:1-5 occurred on a feast day. This philological analysis demonstrates that the second-first Sabbath of Luke 6:1-2 was a preceptual day, an annual Sabbath, not the "the first weekly Sabbath following Tishri 1" as argued by Martin. There is no preceptual significance to the weekly Sabbath following Tishri 1.

Martin states, without further evidence, that Pentecost was a festival week like Passover and Tabernacles. In fact, Martin knew good and well, that Pentecost has always been a one day festival not a week long festival. Pentecost was a pilgrim festival defined by the Torah (see Leviticus 23:15-21 cf. Deuteronomy 12:9-12 and Acts 2:1) as a festival day not a festival week. The days of Unleavened Bread (the seven day Passover festival, and Tabernacles were weeklong events (Leviticus 23:6-8, 34-36). Not so Pentecost. This means that the phrase "the intervening Sabbath" has to have some other meaning than Martin's "between Sabbath" characterization.

Martin's hypothesis not only fails for lack of evidence but it is important to understand that he had to somehow shore up his argument that the Feast of John 5:1 was not a Passover but rather the Feast of Trumpets or Tabernacles.^F7 He had to do this because it would otherwise undermine his chronology of the ministry of Jesus and the elaborate chronological scheme he argues in The Star that Astonished the World (Martin 1996). If Martin admitted that John 5:1 was a Passover then there were four consecutive Passovers over the course of Jesus' ministry. That would wholly destroy Martin's chronology.

While Martin states "that all Jews in the time of the temple understood" his offered calendar interpretation one has to ask to whom did the Gentile Luke write? Martin seems not to acknowledge that all scholars "�agree that the Gospel was intended for the public, especially the Greek public�" (Thiessen 1943:156). The Greek public, less familiar with Jewish customs, certainly did not understand the nuances of the irrelevant calendar rotations of Jewish priestly courses. Luke, of Gentile descent, wrote the gospel for the Greek mind, including educated Hellenistic Jews in the Dispersion, not the observant Jews of Eretz Israel.

______________

^F1The parallel texts are Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, and Luke 6:1-5.

^F2Jewett writing in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia dismisses the word by hypothesizing that "most scholars think that deuteroproto is a non-word created by scribal mistake" (Jewett 1988:252). In a footnote to his 1898 Pentecost article in A Dictionary of the Bible, Purves writes that the phrase "found in Luke 6¹ (supported by many MSS), has been explained as meaning the first Sab. after the second day of unleavened bread, i.e. the first Sab. of the harvest period" Purves 1988:741).

^F3John writes at John 19:31 that Jesus died just before the first annual Sabbath (holyday) during the days of Unleavened Bread. He refers to that annual Sabbath as a "high day."

^F4From a textual or linguistic point of view they dismissed Epiphanius as he only stated a definition of deuteroproto. He did not use deuteroproto in a text. From a historical view his statement is quite probative. He was a specialist in the teachings of Judeo-Christians and obviously would have known how Judeo-Christian teachers explained Luke 6:1.

^F5Hoeh, who holds that the Crucifixion occurred in 31 CE, argues that "in 29 A.D. that [the] last day [of Unleavened Bread] fell on a Saturday according to the Sacred Calendar as Matthew 12:14 and Mark 3:6 plainly state (Hoeh 1959b:31). The last day of Unleavened Bread did occur on Saturday in 29 CE (see CE 26-34 Equivalents).

^F6In his Jewish New Testament Commentary Stern would have us believe that this incident simply was one related to the weekly Sabbath and the prohibitions of Pharistic traditions on reaping and threshing (Stern 1992:44-45). These traditions are now memorialized in the Mishna at Shabbath 7.2.

^F7Finegan in the Handbook of Biblical Chronology writes that the feast at John 5:1 "was probably Tabernacles" preceded by an unmentioned Passover, the second of three, indicating a "...total ministry of three years plus a number of months..." (Finegan 1990:351-352). and Hoehner in his Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ () accept the "unknown" feast as the Feast of Tabernacles.

^F8Martin is not alone in holding that the feast of John 5:1 is not connected with the Passover festival. Coulter bifurcates the pericope of Luke 6:1-5 from John 5:1. He argues that Luke 6:1-2 refers to the seventh day of unleavened bread (Coulter 1975:5) and that as to the feast of John 5:1 "the Feast of Trumpets appears to be the most probable for this account" (Coulter 1975:74).

Page last edited: 04/27/06 04:58 PM

Thank you for visiting BIBARCH�
Please Visit Our Site Often