Was Jesus Found Alive on a Sabbath Day? (John 20:1)

John 20:1 says,

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. (ESV)

According to most Bible translations, Jesus’ tomb was found empty on the first day of the week. In an interlinear Bible translation, the phrase for “the first day of the week” might read,

μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων (mia tōn sabbatōn)

one of-the sabbaths

As can be observed from the interlinear translation, it is technically true that

1. the Greek word for “week” here is the word for “Sabbath” in the plural—“Sabbaths”;
2. the Greek word for “first” actually means “one”;
3. a word for “day” is not found in the Greek text of the verse.

Now, if a person does not know Greek, then he might think that “the first day of the week” is a wrong translation, and that the phrase mia tōn sabbatōn really means “one of the sabbaths”. Based on this, some people have claimed that Jesus was found alive on a Sabbath day—on a Saturday rather than on a Sunday!

However, using a Greek-English interlinear translation in this manner is not reasonable, because it assumes that the Greek language works in the same way as the English language. In reality, there are other important factors that should be considered.

The Phrase Cannot Mean “One of the Sabbaths”

In Greek, every noun has a grammatical gender—either masculine, feminine, or neuter. When a number is used to describe a noun, the gender of the number must match the gender of the noun.

So, if we wanted to say “one woman” in Greek, we would say,

μία γυνή (mia gynē)

Here, the feminine form for the Greek word for “one” is used—mia (μία). This is because the word for “woman”, gynē (γυνή), is feminine in gender.

However, if we wanted to say “one Sabbath” in Greek, we would say,

ἓν σάββατον (hen sabbaton)

This time, the neuter form of the word for “one” is used—hen (ἕν). This is because the word for “Sabbath”, sabbaton (σάββατον), is neuter in gender.

Likewise, if we wanted to say “one of the Sabbaths” in Greek, we would say,

ἓν τῶν σαββάτων (hen tōn sabbatōn)

Again, the Greek word for “one” must still be neuter in gender—hen (ἕν). This is because the word for “Sabbath”, sabbaton (σάββατον), is neuter in gender.

However, in John 20:1, the Greek word for “one”, mia (μιᾷ), is feminine in gender. Hence, it cannot refer to a Sabbath, since it does not match the gender of the Greek noun for “Sabbath”, sabbaton. Therefore, the Greek phrase mia tōn sabbatōn in John 20:1 cannot mean “one of the sabbaths”.

“One” for the First Day

In Hebrew, the word for “one” can refer to the first day of a week or month even though a word for “day” is not used. For example, Leviticus 23:24 says:

“Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. (ESV)

Indeed, the Hebrew text of phrase does not actually contain a word for “day”. Moreover, the Hebrew word for “first” is actually not the normal word for “first”, riʾšōwn (רִאשׁוֹן), but rather the normal word for “one”, eḥāḏ (אֶחָד). Yet, this phrase reasonably means “on the first day of the month”, and not “on one of the month”.

Likewise, in John 20:1, the Greek word mia means “one”, but it refers to the “first day” of the week. A Greek word for “day” is reasonably implied even though it is not actually used. The feminine form for “one”, mia is used is used because the Greek word for “day” is feminine in gender—hēmera (ἡμέρα).

“Sabbath” as the Week in Jewish Hebrew

The Hebrew word for “Sabbath”, šabbāṯ (שַׁבָּת), normally refers specifically to the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath day. However, during the time of Jesus and the first Christians, šabbāṯ was also used to refer to the whole week. We find an example of this in the Talmud:

The Sages kept watch over the welfare of the daughters of Israel, that a man would trouble himself to arrange the wedding feast for three days: Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. But on Wednesday, he marries her. (Ketubot 3b)

In the Hebrew text of this passage, the expression for “Sunday” is

אֶחָד בְּשַׁבָּת (eḥāḏ bǝšabbāṯ)

This phrase could be literally rendered as,

one in the Sabbath

Indeed, in this phrase, the normal Hebrew words for “day” and “week” are not used. Yet, the whole phrase eḥāḏ bǝšabbāṯ is an idiom for the first day of the week. The word šabbāṯ, “Sabbath”, refers to the week, and the word eḥāḏ, “one”, refers to the day.

Likewise, the Hebrew expressions for “Monday” and “Tuesday” in this passage are šēniy bǝšabbāṯ (שֵׁנִי בְּשַׁבָּת) and šǝliyšiy bǝšabbāṯ (שְׁלִישִׁי בְּשַׁבָּת) respectively. They refer to the second and third day of the week—even though the normal Hebrew words for “day” and “week” are not used.

“Sabbath” as the Week in Jewish Greek

The Greek word for “Sabbath”, sabbaton, was also used by Jews to refer to a week. We find an example of this in Luke 18:12, where the Pharisee in the parable said,

I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. (ESV)

An English interlinear translation of the phrase “twice a week” might read,

twice of-the sabbath

Indeed, the Greek word for “week” here is sabbaton, meaning “Sabbath”. Yet, the Pharisee clearly did not mean that he fasted two times on the same Sabbath day! Rather, he meant that he fasted on two days during the week. In this context, the word sabbaton refers to the whole week, and not the Sabbath day.

Conclusion

When basic concepts of Hebrew and Greek are considered, it is clear that in John 20:1, the Greek phrase mia tōn sabbatōn is the equivalent of the Hebrew phrase eḥāḏ bǝšabbāṯ—an idiom for the first day of the week (cf. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1).

However, these important considerations are not provided in most interlinear Bible translations. This results in unfortunate misunderstandings when people assume that the biblical languages work in the same way as the language that they speak.