Imaginative perspective for justifying Sabbath rescheduling

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One of the most open to misinterpretation passages in the Bible concerns the plucking of ears of grain on the Sabbath. According to one interpretation, Jesus Christ thereby abolished the Sabbath. A Catholic magazine uses this to create a completely new perspective to justify traditional Sunday observance.

Selling your own fictions as facts

The Catholic US magazine “Catholic Answers” ​​shows a very impressive example of how the statements of the Bible can be brought in the desired direction by seamlessly adding your own interpretations. Actually, this template can also be seen as a blueprint for how to approach completely different issues on which the masses are to be moved in a desired direction with a predetermined opinion.

The “forbidden” plucking of ears of corn

The magazine’s headline is probably deliberately provocative: “Jesus Christ, lawbreaker.” (Source). As was to be expected, it is a question of “breaking the law of the Sabbath”. In the Gospel of Mark there is the “infamous” account of Jesus Christ walking with some of His disciples on a Sabbath (which today falls on every Saturday – Info). On this occasion, His companions began to pluck some ears of grain from the fields. They were hungry (Mark 2:23-28).

They were observed by some Pharisees (teachers of the law) who were present. They immediately protested because plucking sage’s ears on a Sabbath was strictly forbidden. However, Jesus Christ waved his hand. He explained to the Pharisees that in his plight (“he was suffering from want”), David and his companions went to the house of God, which was currently guarded by the high priest Aiatar, to eat the showbread that had been laid out there. Actually, these breads are only allowed to be eaten by the priests. “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:,” said Jesus Christ in response. The striking last sentence of Jesus Christ (verse 28) also fell in this context.:
“Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath“

This would already explain the entire content of the biblical statement regarding this action.

Motivated to embellish

Apparently Jesus’ final statement does not seem sufficient to some “biblical scholars”. They added another statement. This is what verse 28 in the German “Good News Bible” reads:
“So the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath; he has to determine what may be done on that day“. If this addition had been made as a comment in the footnote, then there could certainly be a debate about it. But here this fantasy statement is in the verse and is being put into the mouth of Jesus Christ. But He didn’t say this. Deliberate misleading.

According to the Catholic magazine, the statements also seem to be a bit “too meager”, because with knowledge of the background surrounding the “legal life” of the Pharisees, the few lines are quite easy to classify.

Some background information

The Sabbath was a given and was never questioned. Every Hebrew also knew that God himself instituted the Sabbath on the seventh day of creation. The magazine points this out completely correctly. Equally correct is the representation that the priests “actually” broke the Sabbath by exchanging the showbread on a Sabbath. The old ones were eaten and new showbread was displayed. David himself could never be a priest because he came from the tribe of Judah. The priesthood is a monopoly of the tribe of Levi. No one, including the Pharisees, had a problem with David doing this in his day. Now Jesus Christ claims for himself this “new extraordinary priesthood” as David once claimed for himself. However, the “dominion over the Sabbath” now claimed by Jesus Christ was of a completely different caliber.

A completely new perspective

At this point the magazine begins to develop its first own creations. With this sentence, Jesus Christ expressed that he could do whatever he wanted with the Sabbath, with or without the permission of the Pharisees. This puts the Catholic magazine on the same level as many Bible editions with the attached fantasy text in verse 28. But the magazine goes even further.

Jesus Christ made it clear that he only had to choose to keep the Sabbath’s restrictions, but not because keeping the Sabbath made someone a better person or because breaking the Sabbath was a sin. For Jesus Christ, behavior on the Sabbath was appropriate.

Jesus also wanted to express that the law of Moses does not apply to him now and has never applied. He could give a share of this to his servants, even if he would even abolish the Sabbath completely if he only wanted to. So that the Sabbath in its original form would no longer apply to anyone, not even to the Jews, if Jesus only wanted this. This is exactly what Jesus wanted to express with “Lord of the Sabbath,” according to the magazine.

Attempted justification for Sabbath abolition

As if a Catholic team had had a personal conversation with Jesus Christ after this incident in order to find out His motives. But since this did not happen, this interpretation remains what it actually is. The result of imaginative poetry to justify the arbitrary transfer of the biblical Sabbath to the Sunday observance that is still practiced today. Finally, this church also openly admits its own introduction of Sunday observance (Info).

The opposite can be proven

None of these statements created by the magazine about Jesus’ supposed motives are contained in the lines of Mark, and neither can they be proven from other passages in the Gospel. However, it can be proven that Jesus Christ denounced and also ignored the enormous number of laws that were brought into the world solely by the Pharisees. The Pharisees had long had a tradition of not teaching God’s laws, let alone observing them themselves, but rather formulating their own laws and enforcing them under threat of sanctions.

Jesus Christ denounces Pharisees

A striking passage is Mark 7:6-9:
“He [Jesus Christ] answered and said unto them [Pharisee], Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.“

Jesus Christ gave another corresponding lecture against the teachers of the law and scribes according to Luke 11:45-47:52:
““

This leads to an important conclusion anyway. The biblical Sabbath is still valid today (Info). However, according to the rules in Exodus 20:8-11 and not according to any other precept.

The so-called “Mishnah” from the Babylonian Talmud shows how extensive such a set of man-made laws around the Sabbath can look (Source). One of these countless rules is as follows:
“Another rule has been established: If one carries out on Shabbat anything that is suitable for storage and is usually kept in quantity, one is guilty of a sin offering. But if it is not suitable for storage, or If the quantity is not kept, only the person who keeps it is guilty.“

Catholic magazine in a vacuum

Jesus Christ definitely did not break the Sabbath by plucking the ears of grain. He simply ignored one of the rules of the Pharisees (more info).

Therefore the strange interpretation of the Catholic magazine is unnecessary, because it is based on air and is therefore completely pointless. The reference to the Roman Catholic catechism made in the article doesn’t help either. On the contrary. This only makes this terrible line of reasoning worse, because this work also contains the teachings of the serpent as official doctrine (Info).

Bible verses from King James Version