2.1 Sabbath in the Old Testament and early Jewish law

The Christian Sabbath is based on the institution as laid down in the Old Testament and as observed in early Judaism, and it cannot be understood apart from its Jewish matrix. That matrix embraces not only the Old Testament, but Sabbath as understood and practised in postbiblical Judaism all the way through to modern times. The dialogue between Jewish and Christian understandings of Sabbath has remained intense, and this explains the constant cross-referencing to Judaism in the present article. Influential contemporary Christian thinkers on Sabbath such Jürgen Moltmann acknowledge a huge debt to Judaism, especially to Jewish thinkers such as Franz Rosenzweig and A. J. Heschel (see section 4.4.2). Heschel’s essay The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (1951) has done as much to revive interest in the subject in Christianity as it has in Judaism – maybe more. The influence has been in both directions: Rosenzweig and Heschel were themselves indebted to Christian thought.

The idea of Sabbath is found in all strands of Old Testament tradition, and it is clearly pre-exilic in origin. The verbal root shabat means to cease from a given activity, and the noun shabbat was used to designate every seventh day, which was marked by a cessation from everyday work. There is no obvious antecedent to the Israelite institution in the ancient Near East. In Babylonia the seventh day may have been seen as inauspicious, a taboo day, and hence one on which it was unwise to undertake any activity. If this is the origin of Sabbath, then the institution has been totally transformed, because in the Old Testament the seventh day is a day which God has singled out for blessing, and the cessation of labour is seen in a positive light as a time of rest and refreshment – one of ‘delight’ (‘oneg: Isa 58:13).

Of the numerous references to Sabbath in the Old Testament, the key text is Exod 20:8–10, where it forms one of the Ten Commandments:

Remember (zakhor) the sabbath day to keep it holy (le-qaddesho). For six days you shall labour (ta‘avod) and do all your work (mela’khah). But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God: you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the resident alien (ger) in your towns.

The later repetition of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5 has the same commandment in substantially the same words (5:12–14).

The prescriptions of the commandment are given in very broad terms, and require clarification before they can be fully implemented. The key term is ‘work’. This is defined as what one does on the six days of the week, presumably for the maintenance of life – growing and processing food, trading and business, building and manufacturing – but we need to be more explicit. Some other verses of scripture help to fill out the picture. In Exod 16:23–30 (even prior to the giving of the Decalogue on Sinai), the Israelites in the wilderness are enjoined to rest on the seventh day. This involved them not going out on that day to collect the Manna on which they were relying for food. Indeed, the Manna did not fall on the seventh day. Instead, a double portion fell on the sixth, and they were supposed to prepare on the sixth the food that they would eat on the seventh: ‘bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil [on the sixth day], and all that is left over put aside to be kept till [Sabbath] morning (v23)’. There was to be no cooking on Sabbath itself. Numbers 15:32–36 condemns gathering sticks, presumably to light a fire for the purposes of cooking, as a violation of Sabbath. What constitutes work is further clarified in Neh 13:15–16: treading grapes, loading donkeys with produce to sell, transporting and selling it (cf. Neh 10:31) – all these activities profane the Sabbath. There is a hint that bringing goods into Jerusalem from outside (in other words, crossing a clear boundary between separate domains) was in itself a problem (v15), which Nehemiah solved by closing the city gates before Sabbath came in. That there was indeed a problem here is suggested by Jer 17:21, where not only carrying is forbidden but carrying into the city from outside, or from a house into the street, is implicitly regarded as an additional and separate offence. All this helps to clarify what is meant by ‘work’ – but even if we maximize each of the prohibitions by treating them casuistically (i.e. as given only for the sake of example; a single, concrete case representing a class of similar actions) we are still left with many grey areas as to what is or is not forbidden. Later Jewish law tried to address this problem. An example of this can be found in the Sabbath Code of the Damascus Document from Qumran (CD X 14–XI 18). More important and exhaustive are the discussions in Rabbinic literature, particularly in the tractates Shabbat and Eruvin of the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the two Talmuds.

The Rabbis defined thirty-nine categories of activity which constituted work to be avoided on Sabbath (b.Shabb. 73a–75b). They themselves are unclear as to where this classification came from. They speculate that the categories correspond to the types of work involved in building the Tabernacle (b.Shabb. 49b). This may reflect the idea that the Tabernacle was a microcosm, and that the building of it reflected the sort of activities in which God engaged when making the world. Implied would be a parallelism between God’s resting on the Sabbath and humanity’s resting on the Sabbath. Parallels have long been noted between the account of the building of the Tabernacle and the account of the creation of the world (cf. Exod 39:43 with Gen 1:28, and Exod 40:33 with Gen 2:1–2). The erection of the Tabernacle could be seen as marking the true end of the work of creation, because, until the means by which human sin (which constantly threatens to destroy creation) could be atoned for had been constructed, the future of the world hung in the balance. The cult maintained the cosmos. A more prosaic explanation of the number thirty-nine was that it represents the number of times the word ‘work’ (mela’kah) is mentioned in the Torah (b.Shabb. 49b).

The thirty-ninth category of work is transferring ‘from one domain to another’ (me-reshut lirshut). As seen above, there were hints of this idea already in Neh 13:15 and Jer 17:21. It was greatly developed and expanded in Halakhah, but generally in the direction of mitigating the potential rigours of Sabbath law. Carrying was permitted within a clearly defined area – a domain. It was only forbidden to carry from one domain to another. So, one could carry within the four walls of a house but not from the house into the street, which was clearly a different domain – not only because it was physically demarcated from the house but also because it constituted a public area as opposed to the private area of the house. If rigorously applied, this idea could impose severe restrictions, so the rabbis developed the idea of blending (‘eiruv) one domain into another. It was deemed permissible, under certain circumstances, to designate a wider area embracing a number of houses and the communal areas that connected them as a single domain, and allow transfer within that wider area. A whole settlement, if it had a clearly defined boundary, such as a town wall, could also be so designated. In this way, life on Sabbath could be rendered much less onerous.

Another activity which was deemed problematic on Sabbath was travel. Exod 16:29 clearly stipulates that ‘each of you should stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day’. This is seen as a consequence of the fact that Sabbath is designated as a ‘day of rest’, of ‘complete rest’ (shabbat shabbaton, Lev 16:31; 23:3; cf. Exod 16:23; 31:15). Clearly travel for purposes of work, even if the work itself was not done till after Sabbath ended, would be problematic, but that was not the only reason why one might want to travel on Sabbath. For instance, what if it was for the purpose of preserving life – a purpose widely acknowledged to override the laws of Sabbath (see below)? And if one is allowed under certain circumstances to travel on Sabbath, are there limits to the distance one can go? Various authorities defined a Sabbath limit (teḥum shabbat). The Damascus Document sets it at 1000 cubits beyond the city limits (CD X 21). The Rabbinic limit was more leniently placed at 2000 cubits beyond the city limits, and the Rabbis devised ways that, exceptionally, this could be extended (Mekhilta Exod 16:29; b.Eruv. 51a; Targum Ps-J to Exod 16:29). The existence of a Sabbath limit is incidentally acknowledged in Acts 1:12. It is implied in biblical law that the mode of travel on Sabbath could only be walking, since using an animal as a means of conveyance would deny it the Sabbath rest to which it is entitled (Exod 20:10; Deut 5:14; see below).

As just noted, it was accepted by some authorities that the laws of Sabbath could be violated in order to save life. This was certainly the position adopted in Rabbinic Halakhah, where the principle is known as piqquaḥ nefesh (usually translated ‘preservation of human life’). Piqquaḥ nefesh had wide application and was seen as overriding all but a few of the Torah’s commandments, the prohibition of idolatry being one of the exceptions (one should be prepared to embrace death rather than commit idolatry). Its application specifically to Sabbath is discussed at length in b.Yoma 84b–85b. There it is illustrated by a number of concrete examples. If a building collapses and someone is buried beneath the rubble, it is permissible to clear the rubble on Sabbath to save them. If a child falls into the sea, it is permissible to save them from drowning using a fishing net to pull them out, even if fish are caught in the process. If a child falls into a pit, it is permissible to dig down and create a step, so that they can climb out. The Rabbinic position is notably lenient. Even if there is uncertainty as to whether there is a danger to life or whether the person is still alive, one should assume that there is, and that they are still alive, and not hesitate to act. The Sabbath Code from Qumran seems to be stricter: ‘In the case of any living person (kol nefesh ’adam) who falls into a place of water, or a pool – no-one should take them out with a ladder, or a rope, or any implement’ (CD XI 16–17).

The observation of Sabbath is enjoined first and foremost on the head of the household, but he in turn is obliged to see that it is kept by his family, his servants, his livestock and any non-Jew (ger) resident in his town (Exod 20:10; Deut 5:14). The inclusion of the ger has occasioned discussion in Jewish tradition. Some suggest that the ger is a convert to Judaism, but then their individual obligation to observe Sabbath is the same as for any other Jew. There would be no need to single them out; if they have not converted, then is the householder obliged to compel them to observe Sabbath? Much would depend on whether Jews could enforce compliance, either because they controlled the town, or because they could, out of zeal for the Torah, threaten the ger with dire consequences, if he did not comply. If observation of Sabbath was a creation-ordinance (see below) then the non-Jew might be deemed bound by it as much as the Jew: it is a universal obligation. However, against this is the fact that it is not one of the seven commandments to the sons of Noah. The most likely explanation is that what is envisaged is work that the Jewish householder might request the ger to do on his behalf. The householder should not employ the ger on Sabbath. This seems to be the line taken by the Damascus Document: ‘He is not to send a foreigner (ben ha-nekhar) to do what he wishes on the Sabbath day’ (CD XI 2). This would seem to fly in the face of the custom of using a Shabbos goy: that is to say, employing a gentile to perform on Sabbath an act which would not be permissible to a Jew, on the grounds that the laws of Sabbath are not binding on non-Jews. It is not clear when this practice, which has been widespread in modern times, originated.

The extension of Sabbath rest to domestic animals is noteworthy. The underlying idea is that they should not be made to do any act which furthers the work of their masters, e.g. ploughing, or carrying a load, whether it be goods or a human. The animal becomes the agent of its master, and performs activities on his behalf. They too should be allowed to rest like his servants. In farming communities it was well understood that the care of domestic animals had to continue over Sabbath: they still had to be fed and watered, and this could involve their owners in actions that were, on the face of it, forbidden on Sabbath. The question is discussed in b.Shabb. 155a–156a. There it is conceded that animals have to be cared for on Sabbath, but the underlying principle should be that one should exert oneself as little as possible in doing so, in order to minimize the amount of effort expended on the day of rest. So the animals should be provided, if possible, with feed that they can eat as it is, without preparation (such as chopping). The Damascus Document already recognizes problems with animal husbandry on Sabbath. It rules that an animal can be taken outside the city on Sabbath to pasture, provided it remains within the 1000 cubit limit. If it doesn’t want to leave its stall it should not be forced to do so (CD XI 5–7). This chimes with the discussion in b.Shabb. 155b as to whether it is permissible to force-feed a domestic animal on Sabbath. It should not be forced but left to its own devices.

The cessation from work on Sabbath is not an end in itself: rather it is to allow the people to engage in positive acts of worship towards God. It is a day that is ‘holy [i.e. set apart] to the Lord’ (Exod 31:15). It is a day of ‘holy convocation’ (miqra’ qodesh), an ‘appointed festival’ (mo‘ed; Lev 23:2), that is to say, a day of communal worship. Sabbath heads the table of festivals in Leviticus 23. This injunction was fulfilled by attendance at the temple, while the temple still stood, or at synagogue if the Temple was too far away, or no longer existed. In the temple the Sabbath day was sanctified by special offerings, over and above the regular daily offerings (Num 28:9–10; Ezek 46:4–5 envisages the future Prince [Nasi’] consecrating the Sabbath with his own distinctive offering in the restored temple). According to 2 Chr 23:30–31 the special Sabbath offerings were one of the occasions when the sacrifice was accompanied by the singing of the Levitical choirs. The document known as The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Shirot ‘Olat ha-Shabbat, 4Q400–407, 11Q17) from Qumran claims to give the text of the songs they sang. These, like the Synagogue Qedushah and the Christian Sanctus, are all about the worship of the angels in the heavenly sanctuary. The time of the Sabbath sacrifice in the temple was clearly seen as a moment of great liturgical power – a moment when the worshipping community on earth became one (a yaḥad) with the worshipping community in heaven. Sabbath was also the day par excellence when Jews in the Diaspora came together in synagogue to pray to God and hear the Torah. Philo, writing in the first half of the first century CE, stresses the importance of the reading and exposition of Torah on these occasions:

Now in these [laws of Moses] they [the Jews] are instructed also at other times, but most especially on the seventh day, for the seventh day is accounted sacred, and on it they abstain from all other work, and frequent the sacred places which are called synagogues. There they sit decorously as becomes the occasion, according to their ages in rows, the younger below the elder, listening attentively. Then one takes up the books and reads them aloud, and another of the men of greatest experience comes forward and explains what is not understood […] and thus the people are taught piety, and holiness, and justice. (Quod omnis probus, 81–83; see further Eskenazi et al. 1991; and McKay 1994)

2.2 Jesus and Sabbath-observance in the gospels

The complex laws of Sabbath probably reached full expression within Rabbinic Judaism only in the third to sixth centuries CE, but that they already existed in some form in the time of Jesus is highly likely, because they are echoed in controversies between him and his opponents, recorded in the gospels. Though the evangelists interpret the traditions they received in their own way, and so reflect later Christian thinking, there seems little doubt that Sabbath was a major issue between the historical Jesus and his opponents. It is only against the background of contemporary Jewish observance of Sabbath outlined above that these Sabbath controversies can be understood. Jesus did not reject the Sabbath or attempt to abrogate it. He observed it, but in such a way that he incurred criticism from Jewish legalists of his time. He took the position of a teacher in Israel and was often found giving instruction in synagogues (e.g. Mark 1:21; Luke 4:31). It was therefore unsurprising that he would take a view on such a debated subject as Sabbath. He seemed inclined towards the more permissive end of the legal spectrum, but this brought him into open conflict with more rigorist Jewish teachers of his day.

A notable example of this is the incident in the grainfield, recorded in all three synoptics (Mark 2:23–28; Matt 12:1–8; and Luke 6:1–5). Some Pharisees point out to Jesus that his disciples are plucking grain to eat on Sabbath in violation of the Sabbath laws. The Pharisees’ view here would certainly accord with later Rabbinic Halakhah: plucking would fall under the forbidden category of ‘reaping’, and, if Luke is right that the disciples rubbed the plucked grains in their hands (presumably to separate the kernel from the husk), they would have been guilty of a further offence of ‘grinding’ (b.Shabb. 73a). Yet Jesus refuses to rebuke them. He offers a number of legal arguments in defence of his position, one of which turns on the precedent created by David when he took the Bread of the Presence from the Tabernacle to feed his young men (1 Sam 21:1–6) – bread which is reserved for the consumption of the priests alone. The implication appears to be that just as David’s young men’s need for food overrode the sanctity of the holy bread, so Jesus’ disciples’ need for food overrode the sanctity of the Sabbath. The Sabbath should not be used as an excuse to deny people the gratification of their basic human needs. In Mark, Jesus’ argument culminates in a general principle: ‘The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath; so (ὥστε) the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath’. The other two synoptic gospels only have the second part of this statement. The saying in this shorter form became important in later Christian tradition, and was often quoted as proof of Jesus’ absolute authority to redefine the content of the Torah, including the Sabbath laws, for the new, messianic age.

The fuller version in Mark hints at another possibility: since the Sabbath was made for the benefit of humankind (a reasonable deduction from Gen 2:1–3), then humankind (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου here being equivalent to the Aramaic bar nasha’, in the sense of ‘a human being’) has discretion to do on Sabbath what ministers to its needs. The principle may seem alarmingly wide, and would doubtless have been hedged about with restrictions and qualifications, if it had been developed further, but that is the nature of such general principles (kelalim) in Jewish law.

By far the most contentious issue in the gospels is whether or not it is permissible to heal on Sabbath. Sabbath healings by Jesus are recorded in Mark 1:21–29 (parallels in Luke 4:31–43); Mark 3:1–6 (parallels in Matt 12:9–21; Luke 6:6–11); Luke 13:10–17; 14:1–6; John 5:1–17; 9:1–17. In some cases, the question of lawfulness is explicitly raised; in others it is not, but even then the question should be seen as implicit. The simple mention of the fact that the healing happened on Sabbath would have been enough to alert the knowledgeable reader to this. Jesus is represented as justifying healing on Sabbath on two grounds. The first involves an appeal to the universal principle that it is ‘better to do good than to do harm, to save life than to destroy it’. He asserts that that principle should operate on Sabbath as much as on any other day (Mark 3:4; Luke 6:9). This claim is backed up, secondly, by an analogy – an argument a fortiori (a qal va-ḥomer, in Rabbinic parlance): if it is permissible to save a domestic animal from harm on Sabbath (Jesus assumes that his opponents will accept it is), then it is a fortiori permissible to save a human being, whose life is worth more than an animal’s (Matt 12:10–12; Luke 14:5; cf. Luke 13:15 and John 7:22–23). Such arguments are understandable within the parameters of Jewish legal reasoning, but there is a problem with identifying the position which Jesus is supposedly opposing.

The implication in the gospels is that Jesus’ opponents were rigidly opposed to healing on Sabbath. They are identified as Pharisees (Matt 12:14; Mark 3:6; Luke 14:3; John 9:13). It is not at all clear, however, that the Pharisees would have opposed healing on Sabbath. As noted above, their legal heirs, the Rabbis, developed the principle of piqquaḥ nefesh, which was open to a wide and liberal interpretation. Where the grounds for Jesus’ opponents’ objections are stated, they do not seem to have to do with the healing itself, but with incidental aspects of it. When Jesus cured the man at the Pool of Bethesda and told him take up his mat and walk, he incited him to break the Sabbath law against carrying (John 5:10–11). This was surely unnecessary. The man could have waited till Sabbath had ended, and then carried off his mat. When Jesus made ointment out of mud and spittle to cure a man from blindness, he was ostensibly doing work forbidden on Sabbath (John 9:13). That might still have been permissible if the case had been an emergency, but this does not seem to have been the case: the man had been blind from birth (John 9:1). Waiting a few more hours would surely have made little difference. It is striking how few of the cases Jesus deals with are obvious emergencies: they tend to involve chronic conditions, which surely did not need to be healed there and then. This is precisely the point made by the leader of the synagogue in Luke 13:14, when he says to the crowd, ‘[t]here are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day!’. Surely he has a point: he did not want the Sabbath services to be disrupted – the synagogue to be turned into a clinic. But if, from a Christian perspective, these miracles of healing are signs of the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God, then, arguably, they shouldn’t wait: the good news should not be delayed. Indeed, given the symbolism of the Sabbath as a foretaste of the kingdom, it could be seen as particularly appropriate they should be done on that day. Jesus’ Sabbath healings embedded within Christian tradition a principle of the preservation of life (analogous to the doctrine of piqquaḥ nefesh in Judaism), which permitted even strict Christian Sabbatarians to do things on Sabbath which might otherwise have been deemed forbidden, but he cannot be seen as abolishing the Sabbath. He can be regarded, in Jewish terms, as a liberal halakhist.

2.3 Sabbath observance in the rest of the New Testament

3.1 Sabbath and the image of God

Exodus 20:8–11 justifies the keeping of Sabbath on the grounds that it is an imitatio Dei: ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it’. This brief statement is spelled out in detail in the first account of creation (Gen 1:1–2:3), with the work of each day itemized, culminating in the creation of humanity on day six. This is followed by the first Sabbath, which humanity and God observe together. All subsequent Sabbaths are counted from that Sabbath. The centrality of the Sabbath to the created order could not be more plainly put. The primary purpose of the first account of creation is, arguably, to provide an aetiology of ‘Sabbath’. Its aetiology of the material world is secondary to that. The reason why humanity observes the Sabbath is because humanity has been created in God’s ‘image and likeness’ (Gen 1:26–27). This is said only of humanity, and it asserts humanity’s uniqueness within creation. There has been much speculation on the meaning of ‘image and likeness’ but in the immediate biblical context the primary idea is that humanity is God’s vice-regent on earth. It rules creation under God. Like God it works (‘oved), and like God it abstains form work. Every Sabbath that it observes becomes a re-affirmation and a re-setting of its unique relationship to the created world and to God.

No other creature of God is enjoined to observe a seventh day of rest, and, as observation of nature shows, none in fact does. To them one day is like another. However, as we have seen, humanity is enjoined to make a Sabbath for those domesticated animals which are intimately bound up with its work. When humanity stops work, they should stop work as well and be allowed to rest. Just as God out of compassion has made a Sabbath for humanity, so humanity out of compassion should make a Sabbath for its animals.

The earth too is to have its Sabbath, not the earth in general, but the earth as worked by humankind. There is an implicit recognition here that human cultivation takes something out of the land, and the land should be given time to replenish its strength: if worked without respite it too will become exhausted. The weekly Sabbath rest, for obvious reasons, will not achieve this, and so a longer cycle is needed: every seventh year is to be observed as a Sabbatical year:

When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a Sabbath for the Lord. Six years you will sow your field, and six years you will prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land. You may eat what the land yields during the Sabbath – you, your male and female slaves, your hired and your bound laborers who live with you. (Lev 25:2–6)

So important is this commandment that if Israel fails to obey it, she will be expelled from the land, so that it may have the rest which she has denied it (Lev 26: 32–35, 43).

3.2 Sabbath and the structure of salvation-history

Sabbath is intimately bound up with the structure of time. In the first account of creation time is seen from a human standpoint – it is structured, i.e. differentiated time. Time as a dimension of the physical world may have come into existence with the first act of creation, as Augustine and others have argued, but the undifferentiated time of the primordial tohu va-bohu (‘formless and void’ in Gen 1:2) has no meaning for humankind. Humankind lives and flourishes according to temporal rhythms set by the rising and setting of the sun (day and night), the phases of the moon (months), and the position of the sun in the sky at noon (the seasons). Sabbath, by imposing on human activity a steady pattern of work and rest, generates a pulse for lived time which is essential for human flourishing. The rhythm is imposed by more than the alternation of work and rest: it is imposed by the alternation of the holy and the secular. The Sabbath is a holy day, i.e. one dedicated to the worship of God. This alternation between the holy and the secular in both space and time is fundamental to biblical religion. The pressure to blur the boundaries between the two has always been strong, and it is not just a question of the secular encroaching on, or even overwhelming, the sacred, but of the sacred encroaching on, or even overwhelming, the secular. The later happens in acts of hyper-piety which fail to recognize that the secular is also a God-given dimension of creation. Without it the holy has no meaning – and vice-versa. So those who call for a ‘diffused Sabbath’ in which less stress is put on a specific day and specific times, the characteristics of Sabbath being spread throughout the week, are arguably sowing theological confusion (see section 4.3.6.1).

There is an aspect of this Sabbath pulse which should not be missed – it has no external marker in nature. It is, of course, defined (in the original biblical reckoning) as the stretch of time between one sunset and the next, but so is every other day. There is no way that one can tell from nature that Sabbath has come in or gone out. God imposed it externally, so to speak, and it relies on human attentiveness for its realization. This is the force of the injunction, ‘Remember (zakhor) the sabbath day, and keep it holy’ (Exod 16:23, emphasis added). Day and night, summer and winter, new moons and full moons will happen whether we remember them or not, but Sabbath will not.

One corollary of this distinctive feature of Sabbath is that it becomes an event in human history only through human activity (or, rather, the absence of it). God keeps an eternal Sabbath in heaven, but it is humanity that actualizes Sabbath on earth. This opens up the possibility of linking it to other events in history, specifically in salvation history, for which it can be pressed into service as a symbol. The parallel Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5does not mention creation but sees Sabbath rather as a suitable time to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt:

Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day’. (Deut 5:15)

Here the ‘remember’ of Exod 16:23is not an act of human attentiveness, but the recalling of a past historical event for which Sabbath can serve as a symbol and reminder. The connection is made through slavery. When the master of the house allows his slaves to enjoy the Sabbath day without work, he should recall that he was himself once a slave in Egypt, and God freed him. This is in keeping with the spirit of the traditional Jewish Passover Seder, according to which the celebrants should put themselves back in the position of their ancestors, and imagine that they were there in person, and experienced the redemption first hand. The obligation to abstain from work on Sabbath lies on each individual, whatever their social status, but of course a householder can prevent his slaves from fulfilling the commandment by giving them work to do. If he allows his slaves to rest, he engages once again in an imitatio Dei: just as God delivered the Israelites from slavery, so in a small but meaningful way he is delivering his servants from slavery. The freedom of Sabbath can thus serve as a memorial of the freedom brought about by the redemption from Egypt. Although the going out from Egypt is celebrated by its own dedicated major festival, Passover, held on the anniversary of the first event, people are still encouraged to remember it every Sabbath.

Yet the Sabbath respite for the slave is only temporary. Slaves were actually released at the Jubilee, celebrated every fifty years (Lev 25:8–55). This formed part of a larger Sabbath cycle, of which the weekly Sabbath was the lynchpin. It came at the culmination of seven cycles of sabbatical years (‘seven Sabbaths of years’, Lev 25:8). Like the Sabbatical year it is a Sabbath for the land, but with the added elements of a remission of debts and the freeing of slaves. The latter two were linked, in that the slavery that is envisaged is debt-slavery in which people contract to work-off debts they cannot repay in money or in kind. But even this release might only be temporary: people could fall into debt once again and be re-enslaved. Thus the Jubilee came to be seen as a foreshadowing of a final deliverance when these problems would be put right once and for all. This idea underpins the Book of Jubilees and the Melchizedek document from Qumran (11Q13). The trumpet-blast that will bring in the eschaton (Matt 24:31; 1Cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16) is to be traced back to the trumpet-blast on the Day of Atonement which inaugurated the Jubilee (Lev 25:9): the eschaton is the final Jubilee. This is the background to Jesus’ proclamation of release for the prisoners in Luke 4:16–30. There he quotes from Isa 61:1–2, which uses the Jubilee (cf. Lev 25:10) as a symbol for the coming redemption, and proclaims: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’. Though Sabbatical years may have been observed (at least intermittently) in biblical times, the Jubilee, which had more radical social implications, may not (though see Jer 34:8–10), and this may have encouraged projecting its fulfilment into an eschatological future.

Like the Jubilee, and indeed the Passover, the Sabbath came to be seen as a foretaste of the final redemption (see Bergsma 2007; Gunjević 2018). The consummation of all things was cast as a cosmic Sabbath at the end of time in which God would finally bring the work of creation to a triumphant completion. It looks back not only to the beginning of time, but to its end. It is a fulcrum on which the Urzeit and the Endzeit balance. That end was already latent in the beginning. When God rested on the seventh day and (implicitly) invited humanity to join him in that rest, it was for him already an eternal rest, an eternal Sabbath – not the beginning of a cycle of rest and work. Humanity’s work, however, was only beginning, but every seventh day humanity would cease from that work and partake for a time in God’s rest. At the end of time humanity would fully and finally enter into God’s eternal rest: all toil and trouble would be past. Sabbath, if rightly understood, should be shot through with gleams of eschatological deliverance and joy.

These ideas are explored in Heb 4:1–11. The exposition typically turns on the interpretation of a Psalm. In Ps 96:11, God addresses his people with the words: ‘As I swore to them in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest (Septuagint [LXX]: τὴν κατάπαυσίν μου; Hebrew: menuḥati)’. In the immediate context of the Psalm, these words are spoken to the wilderness generation who rebelled against God, which at once suggests that the ‘rest’ referred to is the land of Canaan. Hebrews argues, however, that this cannot be the ultimate reference, because the Psalm was written long after the entry into the Promised Land had been accomplished under Jesus/Joshua (following the view, current in his time, that the Psalm was composed by David; Heb 4:7), and the warning to the wilderness generation is nevertheless repeated: David’s generation runs the risk of repeating their mistake and suffering the same fate of exclusion from God’s rest. Therefore another rest, another ‘Sabbath-keeping’ (σαββατισμός), must be in view; but what can it be? What is ‘God’s rest’? It is the rest into which God entered on the seventh day of creation, into which the people of God will enter eschatologically, after they have finally finished their work. Hebrews picks up neatly the imitatio Dei element of Sabbath ‘for he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his’ (Heb 4:10). For Hebrews, the entry into that rest lies beyond the present world. It is pictured as the ‘heavenly country’ in Heb 11:16 (a term which implicitly invests the exodus from Egypt, the wilderness wanderings, and the entry into Canaan with typological significance as a foreshadowing of the ultimate redemption brought about by Christ). It is pictured as ‘the heavenly Jerusalem’ in Heb 12:22–24, to which Jesus has already ascended as a forerunner of the many children whom he will lead to glory (Heb 2:10). Peter Abelard, in his famous hymn O quanta qualia sunt illa sabbata, rightly envisages the ‘festal gathering’ of the heavenly Jerusalem in Heb 12:22 as an endless Sabbath.

3.3 Sabbath and the theology of work

Sabbath gives substance to the doctrine of humanity as the imago Dei, but there is another way in which it is integral to biblical anthropology. It helps to define humanity’s place and purpose in creation: humanity was put on earth to work. This is expressed somewhat obliquely in the first account of creation. It is implied in the invitation to join in God’s seventh-day rest in 2:1–3. That would have little meaning if humanity was not working the other six days of the week. The nature of that work is related to the commandment to be ‘fruitful and subdue the earth’, and take from it the food that is necessary to sustain human life. That food is explicitly restricted to ‘every green plant’ (Gen 1:28–31). In the biblical story it is only after the flood that meat-eating was permitted (Gen 9:3), though what meats could be consumed and how they were to be slaughtered was hedged about with restrictions in biblical law. The second account of creation clarifies the situation somewhat. There it makes an implicit distinction between the Garden and the lands that lie outside it. God plants the Garden and puts humanity into it ‘to work it and keep it’ (le-‘ovdah ule-sshomrah Gen 2:15).

Two distinct actions are implied here: preservation and development. Both are suggestive as to the nature of the work that humanity is supposed to do. Preservation implies that the Garden will not look after itself: human activity is needed to maintain the order which God bequeathed to humanity to preserve. Development (‘to work it’) suggests the drawing out of the potential that God has put into creation. The same verb (‘bd) is used of God’s work in making the world, and its use here posits an analogy between God’s and humanity’s relationships to nature (once again humanity in God’s image). The sense may be that God so made the world that scope has been left for humanity to continue his work – to preserve order against encroaching wilderness, and to develop the potential he has invested in it. Humanity, in a sense, becomes a co-creator with God. The balance between these two activities is sensitive, and has become critical in contemporary times as exploitation threatens to overwhelm conservation – a point that is being increasingly addressed by Christian and Jewish environmentalism (see section 4.4.2).

There is a tension between the two accounts of creation in Gen 1–3 as to the extent of Adam’s domain. In the first account his dominion is universal (Gen 1:28–30) whereas in the second account he is given control over a Garden, which contrasts with the wild world that lies beyond, and it is into this wild world that he is expelled. This sets up a confrontation between him and nature. He is encroaching on a domain that was not originally his. The Garden presumably disappears: robbed of Adam’s maintenance it reverts to wilderness. Adam seeks to cultivate the world beyond the Garden in the way that he cultivated the Garden: he creates little gardens – sown areas as opposed to the unsown – but nature resists him:

Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. […] By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. (Gen 3:17–19)

Thus ‘work’ (‘avodah) – that noble activity which God assigned Adam in the garden – degenerates into ‘toil’ (‘itzavon), the unceasing struggle to wrest food from the soil. Tiredness is natural, it is an outcome of honest work, and it is repaired by rest and sleep, which are part of God’s order. Toil, however, creates pain and exhaustion, and is a reminder of the fall.

In broad terms, the work from which humanity is required to desist on Sabbath relates to the maintenance and development of nature, and in particular to the varied activities that are required to sustain human life. This clearly needs to be filled out and further defined, so that it can be implemented in the real world, and that task has been addressed at some length in Christian as well as Jewish tradition.

The period of rest is not to be confused with a time of sheer inactivity and idleness. At the very least it is expected that the free time should be used for the worship of God. This is logical, since central to the concept of Sabbath is the idea that humanity joins with God in his rest. However, there are other activities in which humanity engages which have nothing to do with working and preserving God’s world – for example, play, that whole area of human culture caught by Johan Huizinga in his classic study Homo Ludens (Huizinga 1949). Historically speaking, the status of what we would call leisure and recreational activities vis-à-vis the commandment to work is perhaps the most contentious practical issue in the observance of Sabbath. If those activities are what we choose to do, and are not part of our everyday work, if they give us respite from everyday work, and intensify that respite, they could be seen, as chiming in with the spirit of Sabbath. In western post-Christian societies these activities now dominate peoples’ weekly rest. The Puritans were notoriously negative about them, but paradoxically it was more often because of the poor attitude they displayed towards work – they were seen as a sign of laziness – rather than because they violated the Sabbath. Time out was time not working. Leisure was seen as an aspect of labour, and could only be countenanced if it made people work better and be more productive. It was on this basis that employers were in the end persuaded to give breaks to their workforce. This attitude forms an important part of the so-called Protestant work ethic, which has played a central role in the development of western capitalism (see section 4.4.1).

Seeing leisure and recreational activities as fulfilling the requirements of Sabbath rest can be problematic, if for example they detract from worship. The commercialization of leisure also creates problems. Leisure has become an industry in which people now earn their living. An obvious case would be professional footballers. For them to play a game on Sunday would, arguably, be for them to engage in work. However, many amateurs also play football on Sunday purely for recreation. Many contemporary recreations require facilities which have to be staffed by people for whom this is their livelihood. For one person to use those facilities on a Sunday might be recreation, but they can only do so if other people work. Work-life balance has become a major issue in Western post-Christian societies, and arguably it is Puritanism that helped generate this problem.

This cannot be analysed further here (see section 4.2 and 4.4.1), but enough has been said to indicate how, starting from the doctrine of Sabbath, there are in Bible and tradition resources to develop a Christian theology of work and leisure. The leisure side of this theology is as important as the work side. Observation shows that play is as integral to human nature as work, and this suggests that it is part of the created order. Moreover, technology is taking over more and more work from humanity. One current estimate is that developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) could eventually eliminate a quarter of the jobs now done by humans. This will presumably leave humanity more leisure time. This raises the question of how that time is to be profitably filled, in ways that fulfil the creation mandate given to humanity to develop and preserve God’s world.

A paradox lies at the heart of the notion of God resting. Historical critics are inclined to write this idea off simply as a primitive anthropomorphism: God’s labours tired him out, and so he needed a rest. Such an idea is theologically unacceptable, a point already expressed by a near contemporary of the Priestly author of the first account of creation: ‘Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is an everlasting God, the Creator (bore’) of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable’ (Isa 40:28). What then does God’s resting mean? Karl Barth’s analysis in his Church Dogmatics is suggestive. God’s resting indicates his satisfaction with the world that he has made. It is the natural response to him seeing it as ‘very good’. One should not hesitate to see here an aesthetic dimension: God derives pleasure from the beauty of his world, just as humanity does, and his invitation to humanity to join him in his Sabbath rest is an invitation to enjoy with him his artistry. Yet resting also expresses God’s decision that this and no other world is the world with which he will enter into a relationship. This world is only one of a number of possible worlds God might have created, but he actualized only this one, and he intends to hold true to it. This is nowhere more clearly seen than in his decision, when things apparently went wrong, not to destroy this world but rather to redeem it. God is not going to abandon this world. This resting could not be further from the deistic notion that God, having set the world going, has left it to run under its own inherent laws. God’s creative activity in the strict sense of the term has ceased. The creative potential that he has placed in that world he has left to humanity, his ‘image’ on earth, to develop. But he remains deeply involved with the history of the world, and committed to its future. His standing invitation to humanity each seventh day to join him in his satisfaction with that world offers recurring reassurance. Barth stresses Sabbath as a gift of love to humanity: God instituted it with humanity in mind. He did not need to rest from toil, but humanity does, and so God, out of love, instituted a day of rest even before humanity had lifted a finger to work (Barth 1957, III/1, 214ff; further Lilley 2018).

There is another paradox that should not be missed. The biblical account of creation makes work a fundamental human activity. Adam was created to work, and the implication is that that work is an essential element of his flourishing. Without it the Sabbath rest is meaningless, but the eternal rest into which redeemed humanity finally enters is apparently characterized precisely by the total absence of work: it is a never-ending Sabbath. That it should involve an absence of ‘toil’, that aspect of work which came in with the fall, is understandable, but that it should be totally devoid of ‘work’ is problematic: how can humanity flourish without work? What will it do for eternity? How will it avoid what the British philosopher Bernard Williams calls ‘the tedium of immortality’ (Williams 1973; Burley 2009)? How will it satisfy those creative faculties which God implanted in it, for which work provides a legitimate outlet? How can we avoid the absence of work in the world to come reflecting back negatively on work in this world as a monotonous chore?

It is precisely these problems which have made it difficult for theologians to give a convincing description of the eternal state, and, not surprisingly, it is standard to deny that it can be adequately comprehended from our standpoint here and now. It is most commonly imagined in terms of worship. Hebrews describes it under the analogy of a city (the heavenly Jerusalem) – a complex organization made up of many elements – celebrating a festival (Heb 12:22–24). Revelation 4:1–11 uses similar imagery. Much depends on whether the final state is envisaged as disembodied or embodied, and, if the latter, what kind of body is involved. Answers to these questions within the tradition can hardly be said to be clear and consistent. Western theology expresses the final state of humanity in terms of the beatific vision (visio beatifica), eastern theology in terms of divinization (theosis). Both foresee human destiny as being to be so taken up into the life of God as to participate in his blessedness. This will presumably more than satisfy all those needs which God implanted in humanity at creation. This will be the realization, the consummation of God’s invitation to humanity on the first Sabbath of the world to participate in his rest.

4.1 Are Christians obliged to observe Sabbath?

Sabbath is a Jewish institution, which was kept by Jesus and his first disciples, but Christians in subsequent generations have debated whether they are obligated to keep it, and if so how. Over the centuries different answers have been given to these questions. The problem has been complicated by the fact, noted earlier (section 2.3.2), that from the earliest times the church set apart another day in the week as special – the first day (Sunday), also known as ‘the Lord’s day’. This was deemed special because it was the day on which Jesus rose from the dead. It was regarded, therefore, as a suitable day for Christians to gather and remember his death and resurrection, and in particular to celebrate the Eucharist. Easter Sunday, from which all subsequent Sundays are counted (just as all Sabbaths are counted from the seventh day of creation) was invested with eschatological significance. It was the eighth day of the old creation, the first day of the new (Ep. Barn. 15), and just as the first day of the old Creation was marked by the emergence of light out of darkness (Gen 1:1–3), so light symbolism played a central role in the liturgy for Easter Day. The seventh day of the Jewish Sabbath commemorates the culmination of the old creation. The Lord’s Day commemorates the inauguration of the new. The question then arises of how it relates to the old Jewish Sabbath mandated by the Law of Moses.

The commonest view on the relationship of the Lord’s Day to the Jewish Sabbath is that it has replaced the Jewish Sabbath. The Sabbath was an injunction of the Old Law, which in Christ had been abrogated as a requirement for salvation, every bit as much as the Levitical prescriptions had been abrogated. Those who adopted this view appealed to Paul’s view of the law. Paul’s view of Sabbath was, to say the least, lukewarm. While he certainly did not see it as mandatory, or its observance as garnering any saving merit, he held that there was no great harm in observing it, provided one observed it ‘in honour of the Lord’, and did not condemn other Christians for not observing it (see section 2.3.1).

Martin Luther and John Calvin were both adamant that for Christians the commandment to observe the Sabbath had been abrogated. Luther, in his Large Catechism of 1529, puts it this way:

In the Old Testament, God separated the seventh day, and appointed it for rest, and commanded that it should be regarded as holy above all others. As regards this external observance, this commandment was given to the Jews alone, that they should abstain from toilsome work, and rest, so that both man and beast might recuperate, and not be weakened by unremitting labour. […] This commandment, […] according to its gross sense, does not concern us Christians; for it is altogether an external matter, like other ordinances of the Old Testament, which were attached to particular customs, persons, times, and places, and now have been made free through Christ. (Luther 1529)

Calvin in his Institutes inveighs against

the trifling of the false prophets, who in later times instilled Jewish ideas into the people, alleging that nothing was abrogated but what was ceremonial in the commandment […] while the moral part remains, viz. the observance of one day in seven. But this is nothing else than to insult the Jews, by changing the day, and yet mentally attributing to it the same sanctity; thus retaining the same typical distinction of days as had place among the Jews. And of a truth, we see what profit they have made by such a doctrine. Those who cling to their constitutions go thrice as far as the Jews in the gross and carnal superstition of sabbatism; so that the rebukes which we read in Isaiah (Isa. 1:13; 8:13) apply as much to those of the present day, as to those to whom the prophet addressed them. (Calvin 1962: 343–344 [vol. 1])

Nevertheless, both Luther and Calvin, and others who follow this line, recognized for pragmatic reasons the value of having a day set aside especially for worship, and, following the practice of the early church, Sunday was as good a day as any for this purpose. Their followers could end up defining quite strictly what could or could not be done on that day, but the guiding principle for them was not what was prescribed for Sabbath in the Old Testament but what was deemed necessary to engage in worship, and this obviously involved freedom from every-day work. There was a tendency to see the whole day as devoted to worship: time not taken up with attendance in church should be devoted to private devotions, either individually or in the household. Time devoted to leisure per se was frowned upon.

Catholic teaching also stresses the centrality of public worship to the definition of Sunday: attendance at Mass is an obligation, and that requires time-off from work, but the pursuit of other activities on the day is legitimate: ‘The institution of Sunday helps all to be allowed sufficient rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social and religious lives’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2194). The Catechism sees Sunday as the ‘fulfilment of the sabbath’: it

fulfils the spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man’s eternal rest in God. […] The celebration of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart to render to God an outward, visible, public and regular worship ‘as a sign of his universal beneficence to all’. Sunday worship fulfils the moral command of the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of the Creator and Redeemer of his people. (Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2175–2176; see further Pope John Paul II, Dies Domini, 1998)

Some, however, argued for a closer link between Sabbath and Sunday. Sunday, it was claimed, is the Christian Sabbath, and this opened the way to invoking the Old Testament Sabbath laws in defining what should and should not be done on the day. Some argued that the Sabbath of the Mosaic Law and the Sunday of Christian practice were both instantiations of a universal law of seventh-day abstention from work to worship God, which God imposed on humanity at creation. This was regarded as a natural inference from Gen 2:1–3, and some tried to strengthen the appeal to Scripture by claiming that the universal human practice of setting aside regular specific times for worship can be seen as a reflex of the original commandment. This universal law remains binding on Christians, but as a moral obligation enshrined in natural law, not as part of the Law of Moses. That it should be observed on the seventh day of the week was specific to the Mosaic Law, and so binding for Jews but not for Christians. In principle the original law could be fulfilled by setting aside any day, provided a seven-day interval is maintained; it is matter of indifference which day is chosen (cf. Aquinas’s inflection of this view in section 4.3.6.2).

That Christians are obliged to observe specifically the first day is deduced from the practice of the early church, which, it is claimed, must have been adopted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had indicated the supreme importance of this particular day by on it rising from the dead. This position was advocated by a number of English Puritans. Notable versions of it are found in the Westminster Confession (Chapter 21: Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day), and in the writings of John Owen (1855: 263–460) and Richard Baxter (1830b:). Owen succinctly summarizes his view thus:

I doubt not but that the Mosaical Sabbath, and the manner of its observation, are under the Gospel utterly taken away. But as for the weekly Sabbath, as required by the law of our creation, and reinforced in the decalogue, the summary representation of that great original law, the observation of it is a moral duty, which by divine authority is translated unto another day. (Owen 1855: 402)

Baxter’s proof that Sunday observance is a ius divinum is summarized in his Catechizing of Families, chapter 37 Q25 as follows:

Christ commissioned his apostles to teach the churches all his doctrines and commands, and orders, and so to settle and guide them. […] Christ promised his Spirit to them, to enable them to perform their commission, and lead them into all truth. […] Christ gave them the infallible Spirit accordingly to perform their commissioned work. […] Christ himself laid the foundation, by rising that day (as God did of the Sabbath by ceasing from his work). He appeared to his disciples congregate on that day; he sent down the Holy Ghost (his Agent and the Perfecter of his work) on that day: the apostles settled that day as the stated time for constant church assemblies and communion; and all the churches in the world have constantly called it the Lord’s day, and kept it as thus appointed, and used by the apostles, from their days till now with one consent. (Baxter 1830c: 191)

The arguments for a first-day Sabbath as mandatory for Christians are rather tortuous, and can rather easily be turned round to support the view that Christians are actually still obligated to keep the original seventh-day Sabbath. This was precisely the line taken by James Ockford in his Doctrine of the Fourth Commandment (1650). Ockford concentrated on the fact that the Sabbath law is one of the Ten Commandments, which he argued were a summary of the moral law and still remain in force. In the context of the debate this argument was strong, because the basic premiss – that the Decalogue embodied natural law that had not been abrogated – would have been accepted by his opponents. It was embraced by Baxter, Owen, Luther, and many others. What they chose to ignore was the specificity of the fourth commandment. The Sabbath there is clearly the Sabbath of Gen 1:2–3, which is the seventh day of the week. But the Achilles’ heel of the first-day Sabbatarians was their claim that the switch from the seventh to the first day was a ius divinum: there was simply no direct evidence that this was mandated by either Christ or by any of the apostles. Ockford saw the shift as influenced by more external factors such as Constantine’s edict of 7 March 321 (see section 4.3.2).

Ockford was one of the founders of the Seventh Day Baptist Church which, along with the Seventh Day Adventist Church (founded in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1863) in its various branches, have carried the standard for seventh-day Christian Sabbatarianism down to the present day in the Western church, though there are also smaller Sabbatarian Christian sects. Messianic Judaism, which has grown in importance within Christianity, also observes the Jewish Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening, replicating many of the standard Jewish rituals for the day (see Moltmann 1981). In the eastern church an example of seventh-day Sabbatarianism is the Orthodox Tewahedo Church, in both its Ethiopic and Eritrean branches. This is typical of the judaizing tendencies within Christianity in the Horn of Africa. (The Beta Israel, commonly known as Falashas and sometimes referred to as the Black Jews of Ethiopia, who also observe the Jewish Sabbath, probably originated in a judaizing Christian movement.)

4.2 Christian views of Sabbath work

Whether one designates the first or the seventh day as the weekly Christian day of worship, there is universal agreement that worship requires abstention from everyday work, and therefore what constitutes work still requires definition. Some Christian definitions of work are almost as precise and legalistic as those of the Rabbis, and from time to time there is cross-referencing to Rabbinic views. This legalism comes out not only in theological discussions of Sunday (see the 1644 Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God: Of the Sanctification of the Lord’s Day; Owen 1855: 437–460; Baxter 1830a), but even more so in the laws adopted by Christian communities that have decided to enforce a Christian view of Sunday. These laws are attested in England and Scotland in the seventeenth century, when the Puritans were politically in the ascendant. A concerted effort was made to ban or restrict manufacturing, service, business, and trade on Sunday, and to discourage travel. The idea that the abstention from work was not an end in itself but meant to allow people to attend divine service, was emphasized, and attempts were made to enforce church attendance, either through bye-laws or social pressure. The emphasis on church attendance led to bans on sports and pastimes as incompatible with Sabbath observance, on the grounds that, although they could be seen as chiming in with the notion of Sunday as a day of rest and recreation, they would inevitably detract from it as a day of worship (Solberg 1977; Parker 1988).

This debate over the status of sporting and leisure activities – a debate which arose well before the commercialization of sport and leisure (up until the twentieth century sportsmen were amateurs not professionals) – did much to sharpen the idea of sport and leisure as definable activities over against work. Many of the restrictions introduced by law to what was permitted on Sundays (the so-called ‘Blue Laws’ or Sunday Laws) survived in Britain right down to the twentieth century, and there are still Christian organizations (such as the Lord’s Day Observance Society, now Day One Christian Ministries) which campaign for their reinstatement in some shape or form. Christian advocates of abstention from work on the Christian Sabbath, like their Jewish counterparts, face the problem of whether the laws of Sabbath can in certain circumstances be overridden. Broadly speaking, they have come to the same conclusion, sometimes with specific reference to Jewish arguments, viz. that they can be set aside if there is need to preserve life or to provide necessary care for domestic animals.

4.3 A history of Sabbath observance in the Christian world

4.4 Sabbath and contemporary issues