Evidence from...
Scientists, Historians and Astronomers
Historians
have amassed an immense record of human events going back thousands of years.
Those records tell us of people keeping the seventh day holy far back in
recorded history.
Astronomers have kept an accurate record of time. And theirs is one of the most
accurate that you will find anywhere.
They tell us that if all records of time should suddenly be lost, the
astronomers could rediscover time from the mathematics of the stars in their
motions. God put the stars in the heavens "for signs, and for seasons, and for
days and years."
Genesis 1:14.
Statements by eminent scientists, historians and astronomers:
"One of the most striking collateral confirmations of the Mosaic history of the
creation is the general adoption of the division of time into weeks, which
extends from the Christian states of Europe to the remote shores of Hindustan,
and has equally prevailed among the Hebrews, Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans,
and northern Barbarians, --nations some of whom had little or no communication
with others, and were not even known by name to the Hebrews." --Horne's Introduction, Volum1, page 69
In the official League of Nations "Report on the Reform of the Calendar,"
published at Geneva, August 17, 1926, are the following representative
statements by noted astronomers:
"The week has been followed for thousands of years and therefore has been
hallowed by immemorial use." --Anders
Donner, "The Report," p. 51. [Donner had been a professor of Astronomy at the
University of Helsingfors.]
"I have always hesitated to suggest breaking the continuity of the week, which
without a doubt is the most ancient scientific institution bequeathed to us by
antiquity." --Edouard Baillaud,
"The Report, p. 52. [Baillaud was Director of the Pris Observatory.]
"The week is a period of seven days.. It has been employed from time immemorial
in almost all Eastern countries." --The
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, Volume 4, p. 988, article, "Calendar."
"As to Question (1)--I can only state that in connection with the proposed
simplification of the calendar, we have had occasion to investigate the results
of the works of specialists in chronology and we have never found one of them
that has ever had the slightest doubt the continuity of the weekly cycle since
long before the Christian era.
"As to Question (2) --There has been no change in our calendar in past centuries
that has affected in any way the cycle of the week." --James
Robertson, personal letter, dated March 12, 1932. [Dr. Robertson was Director of
the American Ephemeris, Navy Department, U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington,
D.C.]
"As far as I know, in the various changes of the Calendar there has been no
change in the seven day rota of the week, which has come down from very early
times." --F.W. Dyson, Personal
letter, dated March 4, 1932. [Dr. Dyson was Astronomer Royal, Royal Observatory,
Greenwich, London.]
"Some of these (the Jews and also many Christians) accept the week as of divine
institution, with which it is unlawful to tamper; others, without these
scruples, still feel that it is useful to maintain a time-unit that, unlike all
others, has proceeded in an absolutely invariable manner since what may be
called the dawn of history." --Our
Astronomical Column," Nature, London, number 127, June 6, 1931, p. 869
"The week of seven days has been in use ever since the days of the Mosaic
dispensation, and we have no reason for supposing that any irregularities have
existed in the succession of weeks and their days from that time to the
present." --Dr. W.W. Campbell,
Statement. [Dr. Campbell was Director of Lick Observatory, Mt. Hamilton,
California.]
"For more than 3,000 years science has gone backward, and with profound
research, reveals the fact that in that vast period the length of the day has
not changed by the hundredth part of a single second of time." --General
O.M. Mitchell, Astronomy of the Bible, p. 235
"By calculating the eclipses, it can be proven that no time has been lost and
that the creation days were seven, divided into twenty-four hours each." --Dr.
Hinckley, The Watchman, July, 1926. [Dr. Hinckley was a well-known astronmer of
half a century ago.]
"In spite of all of our dickerings with the calendar, it is patent that the
human race never lost the septenary [seven-day] sequence of week days and that
the Sabbath of these latter times comes down to us from Adam, through the ages,
without a single lapse." --Dr.
Totten, Statement. [Dr. Totten of New Haven, Connecticut, was Professor of
Astronomy at Yale University when this statement was made.]
"The continuity of the week has crossed the centuries and all known calendars,
still intact." --Professor D.
Eginitis, Statement. [Dr. eginitis was Director of the Observatory of Athens,
Greecew.]
"It is a strange fact that even today there is a great deal of confusion
concerning the question of so-called 'lost time.' Alterations that have been
made to the calendar in the past have left the impression that time has actually
been lost. In point of fact, of course, these adjustments were made to bring the
calendar into closer agreement with the natural [solar] year. Now,
unfortunately, this supposed 'lost time' is still being used to throw doubt upon
the unbroken cycle of the Seventh-day Sabbath that God inaugurated at the
Creation. I am glad I can add the witness of my scientific training to the
irrevocable nature of the weekly cycle.
"Having been time computer at Greenwich [England Observatory] for many years, I
can testify that all our days are in God's absolute control--relentlessly
measured by the daily rotation of the earth on its axis. This daily period of
rotation does not vary one-thousandth part of a second in thousands of years.
Also, the year is a very definite number of days. Consequently, it can be said
that not a day has been lost since Creation, and all the calendar changes
notwithstanding, there has been no break in the weekly cycle." --Frank
Jeffries, Statement. [Dr. Jeffries was Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society,
and Research Director of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England.]
We conclude this study with an interesting historical analysis published by the
Presbyterian Church:
"The division of time into weeks is a singular measure of time by periods of
seven days that may be traced not only through the sacred history before the era
of Moses, but in all ancient civilizations of every era, many of which could not
possibly have derived their notion from Moses.. Among the learned of Egypt, the
Brahmans of India, by Arabs, by Assyrians, as may be gathered from their
astronomers and priests, this division was recognized. Hesiod (900 B.C.)
declares the seventh day is holy. And so also Homer and Callimachus. Even in the
Saxon mythology, the division by weeks is prominent. Nay, even among the tribes
of primitive worshipers in Africa, we are told that a peculiar feature of their
religion is a weekly sacred day, the violation of which by labor will incur the
wrath of their god. Traces of a similar division of time have been noticed among
the Indians of the American continent.
"Now, on what other theory are these facts explicable than upon the supposition of a divinely ordained Sabbath at the origin of the race?"
--"The Christian Sabbath." tract number 271, released by the Presbyterian Board of Publication.