Up until the time of Moses nobody had a Sabbath. In around 1490BC The Torah, given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, allowed slaves, who had previously labored seven days a week, one day a week free of work.
In Judaism, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the Hebrew calendar week, which in English is known as Saturday.
In the early days of the church Christians started gathering together on Sunday, the first day of the week, as they believed that both Christ's resurrection and ascension to heaven happened on that day.
Sunday became a legal holiday in 321 AD, at the decree of Rome’s first Christian emperor, Constantine I. Constantine ordered that Sunday was made a day of rest throughout the Roman Empire for everyone apart from farmers. Public offices were closed and markets banned.
Queen Elizabeth I vetoed a Parliament bill banning on the Sabbath shooting matches, play-going and other activities as she participated in them herself.
The English Puritans took Sabbath observance very seriously. When King James I threw down the gauntlet by publishing the Book of Sports—a list of authorized sports and games people could engage in after church—the controversy that followed was so volatile that a 17th-century historian cited it as one of the leading causes of the English Civil War.
In the early 18th century the colony of South Carolina required "all persons whatsoever" to attend church each Sunday and refrain from skilled labor and travel. Violators of the "Sunday Law" could be fined 10 shillings or locked in the stocks for two hours.
During the French Revolution, the First Republic introduced in September 1792 a reformed 10-day week calendar rid of religious connections. Thirteen years later Napoleon was forced to reintroduce the Gregorian calendar as he realized the loss of a 7-day week and in particular the Sabbath was having a detrimental affect on the health of the nation.
In the UK, The Great Western Railway Bill of the 1840s made the company liable for a £20 fine for every locomotive or carriage discovered using the tracks on the Lord's Day.
When James K. Polk's presidential term ended on Sunday March 4, 1849, his successor, Zachary Taylor, an Episcopalian, refused to take the presidential oath of office on the Sabbath. This led to a curious situation in which the United States was "without" a president for a day.
Laws forbidding the sale of sweets and delicacies on Sunday prompted William Garwood to invent the ice cream sundae in Evanston, Illinois in 1874. A mixture of ice cream and fruit coated with jam or syrup it could be served on the Sabbath with no fear of the law being broken.
Queen Victoria was out one Sunday with her servant John Brown in the Scottish Highlands when she noticed someone fishing from a boat on the loch. "Fancy people doing that on the Sabbath" she remarked "But ma'am, the Lord Jesus was on a boat on the Sabbath" her servant replied. The Queen turned and said, "Two wrongs don't make a right."
Charles Dodgson, aka author Lewis Carroll, refused to have his own photo taken on the Sabbath.
The first five-day working week in the United States was instituted by a New England cotton mill in 1908 to afford Jewish workers the ability to adhere to the Sabbath.
The Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire tells the true story of the Scottish Olympic athlete and later missionary Eric Liddell who refused to run on the Sabbath in the 1924 Olympics in the heats for the 100 meters, his favored event. Instead the devout Scot, who ran for God, entered the 400 meters which he proceeded to win on July 11, 1924.
The Sunday Trading Act was introduced in 1994 in England and Wales, coming into force on August 26 of that year. It allowed shops to open on Sundays, but restricted opening times of larger stores to a maximum of six hours, between 10am and 6pm only.
By 1996 more than 31% of all employees in England had to work on a Sunday.
In 2004 Pope John Paul remarked that sport should not be played on Sundays. "When Sunday loses it's fundamental meaning and becomes subordinate to a concept of "weekend" dominated by such things as sport," he said. "People stay locked within a horizon so narrow that they no longer see the heavens."
Sabbath elevators are ones which stop at every floor so that Jews using them do not have to operate machinery on the Sabbath.
Sources Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Christianity Today
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| Philippe de Champaigne - Moses with the Ten Commandments |
In Judaism, the Sabbath is the seventh day of the Hebrew calendar week, which in English is known as Saturday.
In the early days of the church Christians started gathering together on Sunday, the first day of the week, as they believed that both Christ's resurrection and ascension to heaven happened on that day.
Sunday became a legal holiday in 321 AD, at the decree of Rome’s first Christian emperor, Constantine I. Constantine ordered that Sunday was made a day of rest throughout the Roman Empire for everyone apart from farmers. Public offices were closed and markets banned.
Queen Elizabeth I vetoed a Parliament bill banning on the Sabbath shooting matches, play-going and other activities as she participated in them herself.
The English Puritans took Sabbath observance very seriously. When King James I threw down the gauntlet by publishing the Book of Sports—a list of authorized sports and games people could engage in after church—the controversy that followed was so volatile that a 17th-century historian cited it as one of the leading causes of the English Civil War.
In the early 18th century the colony of South Carolina required "all persons whatsoever" to attend church each Sunday and refrain from skilled labor and travel. Violators of the "Sunday Law" could be fined 10 shillings or locked in the stocks for two hours.
 |
| Sunday Laws in Ontario, 1911 |
During the French Revolution, the First Republic introduced in September 1792 a reformed 10-day week calendar rid of religious connections. Thirteen years later Napoleon was forced to reintroduce the Gregorian calendar as he realized the loss of a 7-day week and in particular the Sabbath was having a detrimental affect on the health of the nation.
When James K. Polk's presidential term ended on Sunday March 4, 1849, his successor, Zachary Taylor, an Episcopalian, refused to take the presidential oath of office on the Sabbath. This led to a curious situation in which the United States was "without" a president for a day.
Laws forbidding the sale of sweets and delicacies on Sunday prompted William Garwood to invent the ice cream sundae in Evanston, Illinois in 1874. A mixture of ice cream and fruit coated with jam or syrup it could be served on the Sabbath with no fear of the law being broken.
Queen Victoria was out one Sunday with her servant John Brown in the Scottish Highlands when she noticed someone fishing from a boat on the loch. "Fancy people doing that on the Sabbath" she remarked "But ma'am, the Lord Jesus was on a boat on the Sabbath" her servant replied. The Queen turned and said, "Two wrongs don't make a right."
Charles Dodgson, aka author Lewis Carroll, refused to have his own photo taken on the Sabbath.
The first five-day working week in the United States was instituted by a New England cotton mill in 1908 to afford Jewish workers the ability to adhere to the Sabbath.
The Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire tells the true story of the Scottish Olympic athlete and later missionary Eric Liddell who refused to run on the Sabbath in the 1924 Olympics in the heats for the 100 meters, his favored event. Instead the devout Scot, who ran for God, entered the 400 meters which he proceeded to win on July 11, 1924.
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| Eric Liddell at an athletics meeting on Sat 19 July 1924 |
The Sunday Trading Act was introduced in 1994 in England and Wales, coming into force on August 26 of that year. It allowed shops to open on Sundays, but restricted opening times of larger stores to a maximum of six hours, between 10am and 6pm only.
By 1996 more than 31% of all employees in England had to work on a Sunday.
In 2004 Pope John Paul remarked that sport should not be played on Sundays. "When Sunday loses it's fundamental meaning and becomes subordinate to a concept of "weekend" dominated by such things as sport," he said. "People stay locked within a horizon so narrow that they no longer see the heavens."
Sabbath elevators are ones which stop at every floor so that Jews using them do not have to operate machinery on the Sabbath.
Sources Food For Thought by Ed Pearce, Christianity Today
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