Why is Saturday the Jewish sabbath?

Answer 1

The question can be read two different ways:

Why is the Sabbath on Saturday as opposed to Monday or Thursday?

The Jews were observing Shabbat long before the English language came into existence. They counted out seven says and made the seventh day their Sabbath in accordance with the Biblical Creation story which claimed the seventh day would be the day of rest. When the English names of the days came into existence, the day that the Jews observed Shabbat coincided with the day Saturday.

Why is the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday while the Christian Sabbath is on Sunday?

The Sabbath was originally Saturday, but the Church fathers changed the day of prayer and rest to Sunday. The reason for this is hotly debated with some Church fathers saying that they did this to coincide with Jesus' Resurrection while others say that the Sabbath was always celebrated on Sunday in the Diaspora.

Answer 2

It's fairly common in a great number of cultures throughout human history to consider

the sunset to be the beginning of a new day. One way to understand this mindset

is in the light of agriculture ... perhaps the most central activity of human striving

throughout most of history ... wherein sleep is considered the preparation for the

next day of work, rather than the repair of the damage of the last day's work.

There's certainly nothing 'natural' about beginning a new day at midnight, and even the

most up-to-date modern individuals can recognize the vestiges of new-day-at-sundown

in some of the oldest practices still carried out in the non-Jewish world ... Christmas Eve,

New Year's Eve, Hallowed Evening as the start of All Hallows (All Saints) Day, etc.

The Jewish ritual calendar was already 1300 years old in the time of Jesus. According to

that method of time-keeping, the evening prayer ... recited at sunset ... is the first prayer

of each day, and Sabbath and holidays begin at sunset and end the following night.

Answer:The Jewish days begin at sundown because this is the way God created the world and the days themselves (Genesis ch.1); and is therefore the system which the rest of the Torah follows (Leviticus 23:32).

Answer 3

There are two slightly different answers to this question, both based on the Ten Commandments:

1. In Exodus 20:11, the Ten Commandments command observance of the Sabbath because God rested on the seventh day.
2. In Deuteronomy 5:15, the Ten Commandments command observance of the Sabbath because God brought the Israelites out of Egypt.
   

Answer 4

Tradition, dating back to Moses and from there to Adam, states that the Shabbat is the seventh day (Genesis ch.2), which we call Saturday (beginning Friday evening). This is an unbroken chain of tradition which was made part of Judaism by God in the Torah (Exodus ch.31 and many other passages).

Answer 5

The Hebrew calendar goes by the Moon instead of the Sun. When the sun goes down, a new day begins.