Talk:Sabbath

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[edit] Pseudo-disambiguation

This article was written in WP:SUMMARY style to serve as a pseudo-disambiguation page, i.e., a brief description of various loosely related but very distinct practices and beliefs. As such, it should remain very detached and noncontroversial, and any very specific content should be placed in one of the articles summarized, rather than this article. (The edit I just tightened came close to such a concern, but did not overtly merit a move to a subarticle.) In theory, each summary should be limited to one paragraph. I would appreciate help from other editors in keeping this page free of undue weight. Thanks in advance! JJB 07:41, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to let you know, this was discussed on an earlier version of the page, now moved to Sabbath in Christianity when this was made a disambiguation page. See here. I support this change, as I argued earlier. But we must not ignore the earlier discussion. Colin MacLaurin (talk) 08:02, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

What is the definition of Sabbath? I was under the impression that it mean something like "day of rest".

Oxford dictionary defines it as "(often the Sabbath) a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday."

American heritage dictionary defines it as "1. The seventh day of the week, Saturday, observed as the day of rest and worship by the Jews and some Christian sects. 2. The first day of the week, Sunday, observed as the day of rest and worship by most Christians."

Under both these definitions, Sabbath#Islam doesn't fit because Islam has no specific day of rest. Both of these dictionaries are from the twenty first century.

However, some dictionaries call Friday as the "Muslim Sabbath".[1]

Thoughts?Bless sins (talk) 15:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You're better off looking at meanings of the original Hebrew word שבת (Shabbat or Shabbos depending on dialect) which the English form Sabbath is derived from. There's a pretty good discussion of the etymology of the Hebrew term on the Shabbat page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat#Etymology. DanielC/T+ 15:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The challenge of this page is that there is no "the definition of Sabbath" in English usage. There may well be a "the definition" or even a "the Biblical definition" but that is not WP's scope; we're only to list all notable POVs about what "the definition" is (see WP:V). Commentary advocating any particular definition would be better at the various broken-out articles (see WP:SUMMARY). JJB 20:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)