"We no longer know which day is Sunday" objection to the Lord's Day

[SRoper]

One objection to the observance of the Lord's Day as the prescribed day for worship I have seen raised is that at some point we have lost track of the days of the week. We have either inserted or omitted a day and we no longer know for sure which day is the first day of the week. Therefore, God cannot hold as accountable for keeping the Lord's Day holy, or if he did, and we studiously observed every Sunday, we might still be in sin because of our ignorance.

There are several responses I can think of, but I am most interested in the premise. Is there any reason to believe that we have lost track of the days of the week at some point in the past since the time of Christ? Christ authenticated the observance of the Sabbath and later the Lord's Day by his own actions, so we only need to go back as far as him. Was there ever a dispute in the history of the church over which day was the first day of the week? I would think that at times where there is great communication, there would not be a case of universal amnesia where everyone everywhere lost track of the accounting of time, and in times of isolation an insular group would dispute with another about which day is right. We would have a situation like the Roman/Celtic dispute on how to calculate Easter. Did that ever happen?

To put the question positively, do we have confirmation from astronomical records that our accounting of the days of the week is consistent?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

I'm with you.

Can we even be sure everyone everywhere all at once at some specific ancient date were all on the same day/date for the year? And then we collectively kept it so? Wouldn't this require some worldwide method of real-time calibration?

Different countries, religions, languages, there are variations in ancient calendar all over the planet. Plus, feast days are often like reset-buttons. Meaning, assuming (!) one followed a 7-day cycle ordinarily, yet the year is coordinated to the stars and sun (solar, not lunar), and one fills in a few days at the end of the year to get back to a start day, then begins the year always on "Day 1" of the 7-day week. You're fine within your culture, and uncoordinated with people beyond your borders. And it doesn't matter.

I think there's just too many variables and uncertainties for running a backwards simulation and coming up with an exact day of the week.

And it doesn't matter. We don't mark the first day because we're sure Jesus rose on an exact multiple of 7 days from today, about 1985 years ago. It's the first day of our week, and our Sabbath, commemorating the second Exodus.

 

[SRoper]

Of course it should be "no longer know" in the subject line. I don't think I can fix it.

Rev. Buchanan, you have expanded on my other reasons for thinking the argument is weak. However, I think I find the premise less likely to be true than you do. With the expansion of the church, there was a way for the calendar to be synchronized--the weekly pattern of worship. I have no doubt that locally the practice would be off for a time, but there I think it more likely than not that the incorrect timekeeping would be corrected by the wider practice.

Christians and Jews are synchronized still today? I guess Jews could have merely accepted the practice of the Christian country they are in, but still--two communities that diverged early on still agree on the calendar.

There is too much redundancy in the accounting for me to think it likely we missed or added a day.

 

[OPC'n]

Before I started trying to counter their idea of lost time, I would have to demand facts from them. They have put forth some random thought on lost time and it is incumbent upon them to bring facts to the table. If they were able to do this, I would then research their "facts" and also gather my own facts both from history and Scripture.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

There was the Julian reform in 46 BC and then the Gregorian changes 1582 and forward (England finally in 1752). With the calendar set at Christ's time and the 1582 reform trying to get back to better accuracy, I don't see that anything was lost.

 

[jwithnell]

As I recall, the European change to the Julian calendar shifted everything by a few days? Do we use a solar calendar, lunar calendar, account for that extra quarter day a year, start the year with Passover and planting, or use the older testament numbering of the months? Even within the Jewish/Christian realm we've had changes.

So?

The principle of one day in seven as a Sabbath remains the same. Starting our week in the confidence that we are redeemed and that death has been conquered is part of what makes us a holy people, even if we're off by a day, a few minutes, whatever.

Perhaps the better question would be to challenge the shift that places the start of the workweek as the first day of the week and placing Sunday in the weekend.

 

[SRoper]

I agree that the burden of proof lies with the one with the objection.

The switch to the Gregorian calendar resulted in lost calendar days (which days were lost depended on when a region switched to the new calendar), but the days of the week were not affected. So, for example, Thursday, 4 October 1582 would be followed by Friday, 15 October 1582 in countries that adopted the new calendar then.

 

[jwithnell]

Oops, Gregorian
The shift in the 1750s was by 11 days, wasn't it?

 

[bookslover]

There was the Julian reform in 46 BC and then the Gregorian changes 1582 and forward (England finally in 1752). With the calendar set at Christ's time and the 1582 reform trying to get back to better accuracy, I don't see that anything was lost.

Yes, in 1752, England finally got with the program and switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. To effect this, 11 days were lost as the calendar moved up that many days to catch up. For example, April 2 became, the next day, April 13. There were actually riots in London by people demanding their 11 days back!

 

[Ben Zartman]

I often wonder about the South Pacific nation near the International Date Line that recently jumped from Friday to Sunday, skipping a Saturday, so that they could be in sync with Australia. That Date Line could cause all sorts of issues with people who are fixated on counting days.