Aberrations of Protestant Work Ethic

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According to God's law, how many days a year should you rest?

52* days, like each Sunday, or if you are a Jew Sabbath?

52 days, plus 18 to 21 more as per Sabbaths and Mosaic feasts (each taking 8 days, one or two of which will be on a Sabbath and therefore doesn't add)?

Or more?

Even in the Old Testament itself, two more feasts of eight days each were added onto the Mosaic ones : Purim and Hanukkah. Why? Because God had granted some very notable benefits to the Jewish people, there was an addition of feasts. This addition means that there was an addition of rest as well.

Note also, while it seems to have been never applied, the law actually postulated a Sabbatical year and a year of Jubilee. The probable reason is, Israelites were always dealing with enemies, and were probably afraid to apply it, least the enemies take advantage and rob them of all. This means, we see "sabbath year" only in the law, and also in II Esdras (aka Nehemiah), but here weakened to only imply non-claim of debts. It is not certain how long the disposition lasted effectively, but it is certain Hillel (since there are in fact 2 Hillel, it's Hillel I**) invented a way to get around the non-claim of debts in Sabbath years.

This is of cours important for the new law. Feasts are centred on the life of Christ and the Blessed Virgin, but also other benefits of God. In fact, it can vary from diocese to diocese how many days are festive. Like, most dioceses in the world, you would not need to get a day off for St. Botulf, but if you are in a parish within Iken in Suffolk, Boston in Lincolnshire, perhaps even the archdiocese of Boston Massachusetts, you would take a day off on 17th or 25th of June.

In the Middle Ages, the average number of days off in a country like France equalled the 20th Century, except that in the 20th C. you would typically have a longer Summer vacation, while in the Middle Ages, those days would be spread around the year. In the 17th C., in France, bishops were starting to abolish feast days, and met with opposition from farmers. The reason for the one is, towns and cities were growing bigger, and the farming population had to support besides themselves more non-farmers. The reason for the other is, this was of course a great deal more work and a great deal less fun for the farming population. When tractors and so on came, after World War I, this did not mean farmers got back free time, it means farms grew bigger and lots of ex-farmers had to look for jobs in factories or become bums. Those who remained became lonelier and these days suicide is a concern with French farmers (it obviously also has to do with growing secularism, since Christianity restrains a man from killing himself).

But in Protestant countries, the Reformers had already done that about a century earlier - less among Anglicans and Lutherans, more among Calvinists and Anabaptists, but either way much more than the French bishops did in the 17th C. Who liked the Reformation? Well, nobles and other landowners who could run their peasants harder, as well as getting the lands taken away from monasteries, as these were abolished. Businessmen both artisans and traders in the cities, who could run their apprentices and journeymen harder. The lower classes were given reasons to like it too, as irksome fasts and restraints on drunkenness were taken away. Work ethic to a journeyman age 14 in Saxony or Sweden would have changed from "work hard, rest well" to "work hard, drink hard, work hard again". There is a reason why Protestant countries were those having the issues with drunkenness that "second awakening" and all that were trying to deal with.

Why am I doing this on Creation versus Evolution, and not on my main blog or my Philology blog? Or on Great Bishop of Geneva? Well, besides my contributions to Creation science, this is also the blog where I face some rare but not non-extant aberrations on the part of CMI. Here is Marc Ambler:

The work ethic / Forged in Genesis
by Marc Ambler | Published: 2 February 2021 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/work-ethic

He is treating the merely physical capacity for ambling*** - going slow - as the sin of idleness. Now, this is bad theology, as all trades are not such as require quick and large actions by the arms and legs, like his present occupation of speaking and writing.

Now, I do not think ambling is a thing to repent of - I think it is a thing to take into account when you chose your trade. I have chosen mine, as writing. It works better if you do amble. So does poetry, so does musical composition, and so do a lot of other things. If CMI thinks I will "repent of my sins including laziness" when it comes to ambling ... no, I am not that sluggish about learning theology!

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Candlemass
2.II.2021

Update next day : by too little ambling, too much hurry, I did not garble the theological content of the essay, but did so with the mathematical content of a footnote. The 0.2425 days per year or 97 leapdays in 400 years, are, per year, 5 hours indeed, but not 15 minutes, but 49 minutes and 12 seconds. Why did I go wrong? I saw that one twentyfifth of "it all" was replaced by a quarter of itself, but forgot that "it all" was not the 24 hours of a day-and-night, but the six hours of a fourth such. Now, this means, instead of approximating to 1 hour, as I did, I need to find 1/25 of 6 hours and then take that away and then add back a quarter as much. This is 14.4 minutes away and then 3.6 minutes back. 360 - 14.4 = 345.6. 345.6 + 3.6 = 349.2 minutes, that is five hours, 49 minutes and 1/5 of a minute which is 12 seconds. Or I count leapseconds in 400 years, 97*24*60*60, 8 380 800 seconds, dividing which by 400 comes like dividing 83 808 seconds by 4, which is 20 952 seconds each year, and in 20 900 I take away 300*60, or 18 000, in 2 900 I take away 40*60 or 2 400, in the remaining 552 I take away 9*60 which is 540 and that leaves 12 seconds. The 349 minutes are obviously 5 hours and 49 minutes.

As a bonus, "ambler" would comme from "ambuleur" and ultimately from "ambulator" = stroller. When a medical practitioner does the round in a hospital, being a stroller is very much not being a sluggard. Going quietly from patient to patient, taking time to talk with each, calms, cheers, and allows a better view of their medical status than rushing on./HGL

Update later : Marc Ambler made a follow up, here:

CMI : Why should a Christian ‘labour and toil’?
20 February 2021 (GMT+10) (Feedback)
https://creation.com/christian-labour-toil

It is mainly very sound, only, this takes away the connection to the Reformation. The Reformers and people in their wake were not so sound./HGL

PS to second update : it also takes away any reason for Marc Ambler to be ashamed of ambling. Because being slow does allow for certain types of productivity which are otherwise fairly inaccessible./HGL

* Yes, I know, a Hebrew year is never ever 52 weeks plus one or two days. It's either a few weeks shorter, like twelve lunar months, or a few weeks longer, like thirteen lunar months, with a repeat of Adar. However, as the limit from Adar to Nisan goes by the maturity of sheaves of wheat, which is linked to the solar cycle on average, so on average Jewish years will be same as Gregorian ones, namely 365.2425 days per year. 52 weeks, 1 day, 5 hours and 15 minutes 49 minutes, 12 seconds. ** Hillel II actually lived after Christ, and it is to his credit or discredit that the Hebrew year is not strictly by on the spot astronomical and vegetational observation, but claculated in advance. In the time of Christ, it could theoretically happen that the month of Nisan started on different days due to different observers, as recently it happened to Muslims with Ramadan. And obviously with any other months each of these calendars. As to Nisan, I suspect this is a reason why Christ had His seder on Maundy Thursday, and Jews (enemies of Christ, when narrator uses the word in the Gospel of St. John) had theirs on Good Friday. *** Defined by Mark Ambler : "I am inclined to ‘move slowly’, a diplomatic way of saying I am naturally lazy. As a teenager and young adult, I was a grifter who put in the minimum amount of effort to get by."