Mr. Gamble’s “Fixed-Date Sabbaths.”

It may be of interest for the people to know how Mr. Gamble makes out that “the Jewish-dispensation Sabbaths” were annual, and at the same time weekly: that is, how the seventh day could come weekly and yet annually, “the same as does Christmas, or the Fourth of July, or any other yearly celebration,” and on “each day in the week successively as the years pass by.”STSG 19.1

He does it by means of a slide: that is, by the ready sliding of a slide that he has made especially for the purpose. That is to say, he manufactures a “perpetual calendar of ancient months, weeks, Sabbaths,” etc. He says that this calendar is the Bible calendar, which for many centuries has been lost; but, “After eighteen years of study, I have been able to build it out of the Bible teachings and the old Egyptian calendar.” But in another place he says that it “is built out of the Egyptian calendar.” P. 41. In still another place he says that “it is built out of the old Egyptian calendar.” P. 57. And in yet another place he speaks of “the remodeling of the Egyptian calendar into the Bible calendar.” P. 61. To any one who will examine the thing in the light of truth, it will be clearly evident that his calendar, with the whole scheme that is built up by means of it, is altogether Egyptian. Having built this calendar himself, he announces that in it “there is something unique,” that is, “the Sabbaths are located in a fixed place in it.” P. 58. And this is the origin of his fixed-date, weekly Sabbaths.STSG 19.2

This Egyptian mixture of a calendar he makes to begin with the first day of Abib, the first month of the Hebrew year, as the Lord said that Abib should be to them the beginning of months, and the first month of the year.STSG 20.1

He next decides that there are three dates in this month of Abib-10, 14, and 16-that must and shall never fall on the Sabbath. The support for this theory he wrings out of the Word of God as to the Sabbath day, that in it “thou shalt not do any work.” Upon this he says: “Therefore if work is commanded to be done on a certain date every year, that date could never be the Sabbath day.” Then because the Lord commanded that on the tenth day of the month Abib, the passover lamb should be selected, and that on the fourteenth day of Abib that lamb should be killed, and that on the sixteenth day of Abib the wave-sheaf of the first fruits should be offered, Mr. Gamble makes these three things to be so much work that these three days were thus “prohibited from ever being Sabbath days.” He says: “The selection of the lamb every year on Abib 10 made that date a labor day every year.” “Abib 14 was a day of house-cleaning and butchering, ... and never could have been the Sabbath.” “The first sheaf of ripe grain was brought every year on Abib 16,” and hence like the other two days could never be on the Sabbath. Having so fixed all this, he concludes: “Therefore, in building the Bible calendar there must always be six days’ work to follow the weekly Sabbath, and yet the calendar must be so constructed as to prevent Abib 10, 14, and 16 from ever being Sabbaths.”STSG 20.2

Now that whole device amounts to just nothing at all from the simple truth that on the Lord’s own weekly Sabbath there were twice as many offerings, and therefore twice as much work as on the other days of the week; and yet it was always the Sabbath of the Lord and holy. On every day, “day by day” continually, on the Sabbath as on all other days, there were always offered two lambs in sacrifice, with their accompanying offerings. “The one lamb shalt thou offer in the morning, and the other lamb shalt thou offer at even.” This was the “continual burnt-offering.” In addition to this continual offering, on the Sabbath day there were offered two lambs. “And on the Sabbath day two lambs of the first year, without spot, ... this is the burnt-offering of every Sabbath, beside the continual burnt-offering.” Numbers 28:3-10. Now when every Sabbath four lambs could be and were selected and killed and offered up, and the day still be the true holy Sabbath and no working day at all, by this there is seen the brazen fallacy of the suggestion that because only one lamb was selected on one day and was killed on another day, and a few handfuls of barley were gathered and offered on yet another day, this would make all three of these days so overwhelmingly working days that not one of them could ever be the Sabbath day! And yet this fallacy, this structure that crumbles at a touch of the truth-this is an essential of his laboriously built calendar and scheme of “fixed-date Sabbaths”! It is a fair illustration of how desperate is the case that he has to make out.STSG 21.1

Having arranged to his satisfaction, “after eighteen years of study,” this calendar, beginning with the first day of Abib, he adjusts to it a slide, with the names of the days of the week printed on it, beginning with Thursday, and running through nineteen days, ending with Monday. He has the scheme already fixed that the first day of the year must be always the Sabbath. Then, since he has it fixed that the first day of the year must always be Sabbath, whatever day of the week that first day of the year may come upon, of course his weekly Sabbath comes annually, just as New Year’s day does. And, whatever day of the week is New Year’s day, he making thus the Sabbath, that makes each day of the week in succession the Sabbath, as the years go by. Consequently, he sets his slide according as he has his New Year’s day to come, and then that fixes his Sabbath and the order of the days of his week throughout that year. We give some illustrations:—STSG 22.1

Page 61: “Place the calendar before you, and adjust the slide so that Abib 15 will fall on Saturday. Then it will be seen that Abib 1 and 8 are also on Saturdays.”STSG 22.2

Page 63: “Take the chart, and count the six work days, commencing with Monday, Sivan 6. The seventh day will be Sunday, Sivan 12.”STSG 22.3

Page 68: “Adjust the slide so that Saturday will fall on Abib 1.”STSG 22.4

Page 69: “Move the slide up one place, so that Abib 1 will fall on the Sabbath,—Sunday.”STSG 22.5

Page 77: “Adjust the slide in the calendar so as to make the 15th of Abib fall on Saturday.”STSG 23.1

Page 84: “Now adjust the slide in the chart so that Sunday will be at the top. Now the Sabbaths are on Sunday, Abib 1, 8,”STSG 23.2

Page 85: “You shove the slide up one place higher each succeeding year, in order to get the correct day of our week upon which the Jewish Sabbath fell.”STSG 23.3

Page 100: “Adjust the slide, putting Abib 1 on Saturday, then Abib 15 will also be on Saturday.”STSG 23.4

Page 100, again: “That date fell on Friday one year before; hence, pull the slide down one day.”STSG 23.5

Page 101: “Abib 15 fell on Thursday; hence, pull the slide down another place.”STSG 23.6

Page 101, again: “Abib fell on Wednesday, so draw the slide down another place.”STSG 23.7

And again: “And still draw it down again to Tuesday.”STSG 23.8

Yet again: “Keep the calendar before you.... Push the slide up one place, so that Abib I will be on Wednesday.”STSG 23.9

Page 102: “That year began and ended on Wednesday, so push the slide up one day.”STSG 23.10

Page 105: “The third year would begin on Friday, so once more push the slide up, so that Abib I will be on Friday.”STSG 23.11

Page 106: “Returning now to the chart, you will observe that the Pentecost Sabbath was on Saturday.... Now readjust the slide, by pushing it up till Saturday shall mark the New Year Sabbath of Abib 1.”STSG 23.12

Page 110: “Notice the chart, and you will see,” etc., etc.STSG 23.13

Page III: “Look once more at the chart, and remember,” etc., etc.STSG 24.1

But suppose this does not work exactly all the way through the year?—Oh, that is easily remedied! Simply double up; that is, make two days in succession to be the Sabbath; as on page 62:—STSG 24.2

“Sivan 5 is a continuation of the Sabbath of Sivan 4; or, in other words, Sivan 4 and 5 constitute a Sabbath forty-eight hours long, every year, not two Sabbaths.”STSG 24.3

By this doubling up to make that “Sabbath forty-eight hours long, every year,” he accomplishes another purpose also; thus:—STSG 24.4

“On account of the long Sabbath at the Feast of Pentecost, forty-eight hours long, the day of the Sabbath changed there every succeeding year throughout all the centuries until the crucifixion.” P. 85. (Italics his.)STSG 24.5

But suppose that, even with this piece of hocuspocus, the thing will not come out even?—Oh, that is easy, too! Where the hitch comes, simply “drop out two of the five odd days here, in order to let the first day of the seventh month be the seventh day of the week.” P. 64.STSG 24.6

But suppose that, even with this double hocuspocus, the thing does not work evenly through the year, then what?—Oh, this is all easy, too! just as easy as in the other cases. He simply slips back again in another place the two days that he had dropped out from this place:—STSG 24.7

“We follow along the Sunday Sabbath dates to the end of the year. The last Sabbath of the year falls on Sunday, Adar 26, leaving four labor days in Adar after the last Sabbath [and before the next Sabbath and before the end of the year]. You will notice that we have shortened the year by two days, because of the change allowing the first day of the seventh month to fall on the Sabbath.... The Lord also required that six days of labor must precede the Sabbath. Here we have four.... Hence, Moses had to have two more days to work between Adar 30 and Abib 1. Therefore there was but one thing that could be done, that is, to put the two days which he had to drop out of the middle of the year in at the close. Having done that, the year is now 365 days long, and there are six days of labor between the Sabbath of Adar 26 and the Sabbath of Abib 1. Since Abib 1 is a Sabbath, Abib 8, 15, 22, and 29 are Sabbath dates in the second year, and in every other year, as they were in the first, because every Sabbath had to be ‘in his season from year to year.’” Pp. 64-66.STSG 24.8

And that is exactly the way he does it. That is to say that the whole of God’s revelation, the whole of God’s grand and beautiful economy of salvation, from the deliverance of Israel from Egypt to the cross of Christ, is subjected to a paper slide moved up and down at the capricious will of a man who would spend eighteen years in inventing such a thing, rather than to observe as the Sabbath the day which God commanded, and which for forty years He Himself designated in such a way that it is impossible for any inquiring mind to escape.STSG 25.1

And that capricious contrivance of a paper slide pushed up and pulled down, with days doubled up, dropped out, and picked up, to accommodate-that is the thing that Bishop Fowler introduces to the world as “a mathematical demonstration;” and of which he says, “It is this or nothing”! It is perfectly plain that it is not “this.”STSG 25.2

We have no disposition to question Mr. Gamble’s statement that this thing was built by him “out of the old Egyptian calendar.” It partakes altogether of the character of Egypt. But for all time God has written of the people who will be His, “Out of Egypt have I called My son.”STSG 26.1