B. Modern Research on Sabbath Origins

At the end of the 19th century appear the first modern attempts to find the origin of the sabbath outside of the OT. This modern quest for extrabiblical religio-historical sabbath origins was conditioned by the extensive redating of materials in Pentateuchal criticism and the discovery of texts from ancient Babylon.

1. Babylonian Origins. Various hypotheses and theories of Babylonian sabbath origins were put forth some years ago. It was suggested first that the Hebrew noun šabbāt and the Akk term šab/pattu (m), which were at first thought to be identical, meant approximately the same thing, i.e., “day of rest” (so Lotz 1938). The Akk term was brought into connection with ûmê lemnûti, “evil (taboo) days” of the Assyrian calendar, which appeared in approximately seven-day sequences. This hypothesis had to be abandoned when it became apparent that šab/pattu (m) was the 15th day of the month, the full moon day, and was never applied to taboo days. In the course of time it also became evident that the ûmê lemnûti are the 1st, 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st (added later) and 28th days of the month without fitting into a true weekly cycle. The 19th day was the most important day, but never fits into a seven-day schema.

The Akk term šab/pattu (m) cannot be etymologically related to the Heb term šabbāt and the latter cannot be directly derived from the Akk term. The Heb term has its middle consonant (radical) doubled, whereas the Akk term has its last consonant (radical) doubled. Comparative Semitic linguistics cannot adequately account for connections between the two terms because of the differing doubling of letters.

Beginning in 1905, J. Meinhold argued that the OT sabbath was originally a monthly full-moon day and as such was borrowed by Israel from ancient Babylon. His hypothesis has found sporadic support. It is recently defended by G. Robinson (1988) who argues that the sequence of “new moon—sabbath” in preexilic sabbath texts (Amos 8:4–7; Hos 2:11–15—Eng 2:9–13; Isa 1:10–14; 2 Kgs 4:22–23) shows that the sabbath after the monthly “new moon” is a monthly “full moon” day just as the sequence in Babylonian texts has arḫum-šapattu, “new moon-full moon.” In postexilic times the monthly (full moon) sabbath is said to have been transformed into the weekly sabbath. However, this alleged parallel has serious problems: (1) The sequence in all currently known Babylonian (and Sumerian) texts is arḫum-sebutu-šapattu, “1st (new moon), 7th, and 15th (full moon) days,” which is totally unaccounted for in the OT. (2) The 8th-century text of Hos 2:13—Eng 2:11 (cf. Amos 8:5; Isa 1:13) manifests the sequence of “feasts-new moons-sabbaths,” three festal celebrations in the order of increasing frequency of “yearly (feasts), monthly (new moons), and weekly (sabbaths)” celebrations. The sequence also appears in reversed form of decreasing frequency of “weekly (sabbaths), monthly (new moons), and yearly (feasts)” celebrations (Ezek 46:1, 3, 9; 1 Chr 23:31; 2 Chr 2:3—Eng 2:4; 31:3; cf. Ezra 3:5). Both sequences are unknown outside of Israel. (3) New moon and sabbath continue to stand next to each other in later and particularly postexilic texts (Ezek 45:17; 46:1; Neh 10:33; cf. 1 Chr 23:31; 2 Chr 2:3—Eng 2:4) where šabbāt refers clearly to the seventh day of the week. (4) The respective contextual settings are so distinct that they cannot be related to each other (Hasel 1988:37–64; Kutsch 1986:71–77). Furthermore, there is no compelling evidence in the OT for an alleged transfer from a preexilic monthly sabbath to an exilic/postexilic weekly sabbath.

Other Babylonian hypotheses hold that an early Semitic pentecontad calendar was used, based on the ḫamuštu (m) unit of Babylon, meaning “fifty days” (“pentecontad”) as first suggested. The sabbath is said to have been the 50th day of such a period (Morgenstern 1947:1–136; IDB 4:135–41) or an alleged last day of a reconstructed Babylonian seven-day week (H. and J. Lewy 1942:1–152) or one-fifth of a month of a sexagesimal calendar system (Tur-Sinai 1951:1, 14–24). These menological hypotheses have not received much support in scholarly circles, because (1) there is no clear evidence for a pentacontad calendar, and (2) ḫamuštu (m) is typically a five-day period and does not stand for fifty or six days respectively.

2. Kenite Origin. The Kenite hypothesis holds that the Israelites adopted the seventh-day Sabbath through Moses in the Sinai region from metal-working nomads known as the Kenites. The sabbath was supposedly Saturn-day of the nomadic Kenites (Eerdmans 1925:79–83; Rowley 1951:81–118). There is no documentary evidence in support of this hypothesis, and the biblical texts cited in its favor (Exod 35:3; Num 15:32; Amos 5:26) are highly disputed in their precise meaning. Accordingly this hypothesis has had only few followers and is hardly supported today.

3. Arabic Origin. D. Nielsen (1904:52–88) suggested that the sabbath originates through the linguistic link with the Akk šabattu which is supposedly derived from the Ar verb tabat, “sit,” a word used for the four monthly phases where the moon “sat.” Ancient Arabs worshipped the moon on the four days of the “sitting” of the moon each month, and thus provided the background for the seven-day intervals which in Israel were turned into weekly cycles. This lunar hypothesis has the same difficulties as the ones mentioned previously. The Akk term šap/battu (m) is never used for a seven-day cycle or for the four monthly stages of the moon and thus cannot provide a link. The lunar month has 29 days, but weekly sabbath cycles never harmonize or coincide with the phases of the moon. It is not surprising that this hypothesis has not attracted any supporters.

4. Ugaritic Origin. Texts from ancient Ugarit (Ras Shamra) have divisions of “seven years” in the Danel cycle and “seven days” in the Krt legend. These days have to do with a festival week and it is maintained that “it is only a short step to the assumption that the origin of the seven-day week was the festival week, which was carried over … from the cultic festival and from the cultic week to the reckoning of time as a whole” (Kraus 1966:87). There is no direct or indirect evidence in support of this connection. Some scholars build on the supposition that there was a universal “seven” structure on the basis of which the origin of the sabbath is to be explained (Negretti 1972, and earlier, Hehn 1907:59–61, 115–20).

5. Sociological Origins. Several scholars have suggested a variety of sociological contexts out of which the seventh-day sabbath is said to have evolved. H. Webster (1916:188–92, 101–23) sees the sabbath rooted in “special days” or “rest days” of primitive agriculturalists. Some suggest that the sabbath had its beginning in the “market days” (Jenni 1956:7–16). However, there is no evidence for a seven-day cycle of market days from the ancient Near East or anywhere else. The development from a market day to a regularly recurring cycle of weekly sabbath celebration remains likewise unaccounted for.

In spite of the extensive efforts of more than a century of study into extra-Israelite sabbath origins, it is still shrouded in mystery. No hypothesis whether astrological, menological, sociological, etymological, or cultic commands the respect of a scholarly consensus. Each hypothesis or combination of hypotheses has insurmountable problems. The quest for the origin of the sabbath outside of the OT cannot be pronounced to have been successful. It is, therefore, not surprising that this quest has been pushed into the background of studies on the sabbath in recent years.