It probably has something to do with thenumber sevenas a prime number. It also has mystical and religious significance.
There are plenty of places where you can find a non-seven day week- according to Wikipedia, the range for a "week’ has varied from four days to ten.
In Cameroon, for example, many villages were organized around the “weekly” market days, which would happen in fixed intervals. The market in Dschang, if I recall correctly, has occurred every eight days since times immemorial and continues this pattern to this day. In modern times, in remote areas the village market day will be the average person’s primary way of organizing time, although they may need to use the “other” calendar when they are interacting with the government for whatever reason or for religious observances. In more connected areas, the market calendar and official calendar work side-by-side, each fulfilling a different function. I’ve even seen cities that have two market days, working on different schedules (like a third-day market and an eighth-day market) presumably merging two different ethnic group’s traditions. I know for sure the same situation happens in remote parts of Guatemala. I’m sure that it’s something you can find in any remote area with a sustenance agricultural economy.
And in that, I think, you probably find the reasons why we have weeks to begin with. As soon as people started to gather regularly to trade, they probably found it pretty useful to do so at a fixed time and place on a regular basis. Likewise, as soon as groups of people worshipping together got big enough that each person did not have regular contact with everyone else, it probably started to make sense to have a fixed meeting time.
That and the fact that seven is also the number of wandering objects in the sky that could be seen with the naked eye: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Obviously, the Romans actually assigned days of the week to each object but 7 was likely already considered “heavenly” for that reason.
The vast, vast majority of religious people are nowhere near that literal. I imagine very, very few people have any delusion that last Sunday was the result of an unbroken chain of weeks since the actual creation of the earth.
It’s about the symbolic value. The human day of rest mirrors the divine day of rest, and provides a handy way of thinking about the ideas embodied in that. It’s not an actual literal connection.
Mostly. It’s said that the prophet Elijah ascended bodily into Heaven rather than dying.
It was the result of a Jewish conspiracy that took over nearly half the world.
I have a friend who is a Seventh Day Adventist who I wish I could turn loose on you. They’re highly anti-Catholic and think the Church’s shifting the sabbath from Saturday to Sunday is the Mark of the Beast.
And apparently the Seventh Day Adventists in Samoa are now worshiping on “Sunday” since, religiously, they didn’t recognize the dropped day according to the previously cited article. I wonder if any Muslim Samoans are now praying on “Saturday” along with the Jews – who of course may have shifted to “Sunday”.
That’s a very good point that isn’t being stressed enough in this thread. Sun, Moon, Mars, and Saturn have a very clear celestial connection to the western week days. The idea that the other three had some connection sounds reasonable to me. Wednesday may have to do with Mercury (Wotan was the “Gaulish Mercury” according to Romans, after all) and Frey has fertility connections (associated with Venus). Thor and Zeus obviously share thunder (though I don’t think the Romans really connected the two).
This is more about the origins of the western names for the week days, though, rather than the week itself.
Actually, all seven have a corresponding celestial connection:
Saturn → Saturday
Sun → Sunday
Moon → Monday
Mars → Tuesday
Mercury → Wednesday
Jupiter → Thursday
Venus → Friday
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekday_names#Weekdays_named_after_planets
You appear to confuse “religious person” with “literalists”. Non-literalist Christians either don’t give a shit what the actual origin of the seven-day week was, or figure it must have been found a convenient pattern at some point and its origin may be linked to lunar cycles.
The switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar involved “jumping” almost two weeks. If any people are actually worried about someone shifting their calendar by one day, I imagine the previous factoid would cause brain hemorrages.
It’s kind of interesting though, that at least according to Wikipedia previous calendar shifts (adoption of the Gregorian calendar in various parts of the world) messed with the date (month and day-of-month), but not (mostly) what day of the week it was.
Thus, in Spain, Portugal, Poland-Lithuania, and parts of Italy, Thursday, October 4, 1582, was followed by Friday, October 15, 1582. In France, Sunday, December 9, 1582, was followed by Monday, December 20, 1582. In Denmark-Norway and parts of Germany, Sunday, February 18, 1700, was followed by Monday, March 1, 1700. (Sweden made a complete dog’s breakfast of the thing–you’ll just have to read the Wikipedia article.) Britain (and therefore the future U.S.A.) went from Wednesday, September 2, 1752, to Thursday, September 14, 1752. Finally, Russia went from Wednesday, January 31, 1918, to Thursday, February 14, 1918 (hence the whole “the October Revolution happened in November” thing), and Greece went from Wednesday, February 15, 1923, to Thursday, March 1, 1923.
So there seems to have been a general pattern of not messing with the (sacred, ordained by God, etc., etc., etc.) week, whatever was done to the months and days of the month. An exception was Alaska in 1867, when Friday, October 6 was followed by Friday, October 18. (The International Dateline was involved, with Alaska moving from one side of it to the other with the transfer of sovereignty from Russia to the U.S.) I assume that any Seventh-Day Adventists living in Alaska in 1867 had some kind of conniption.
I thought I had stipulated that, but reading back I must have omitted it for length. In any case, I never meant to imply otherwise.
My only point was in reference to the OP’s (later) question of: “How do they reconcile where the week came from and that they’re sure our Sunday is really Sunday.” (Paraphrased.)
Any religious person of an Abrahamic tradition who cared (undoubtedly the vast minority already), and sought a religious explanation (a reasonable thing to do in relation to the significance of a Sabbath) would find one in the Hebrew Bible. Since it’s not a burning question for most people, the explanation given would probably be enough to satisfy their passing curiosity.
I suppose it was an act of pure masochism to speak on the subject without checking Wikipedia first, but Jimmy Wales’ unblinking glare of silent judgement has begun to serious creep me out…
Made me laugh.
I skipped ahead so excuse me if I repeat. Greco-Roman days of the week were based on the days that belonged to certain gods and their planets. Other cultures did similar things. The current days of the week show the mix of religions and their beliefs. Plus a healthy dose of astrology, depending upon which calender was being used and which people were using it. Thursday equals Thorsday.
It’ll take more than my few lectures devoted to the subject to refine it more than that. Oh; it hasn’t always been a seven day week. The Romans had an eight day week.
I suggest folk read the Cecil article linked to earlier.
The Romans had an 8 day week (which with their inclusive counting would have seemed to be 9 days if you aren’t paying attention).
7 day weeks go way back to ancient times in China and Japan. So the moon phase thing must have been a key for a lot of people.
Note that a lot of Christians consider the Sabbath to be Saturday and Sunday is the Lord’s Day. For centuries the Roman Catholics made it a big deal to not observe the Sabbath. You are supposed to rest on the Lord’s Day. Calling Sunday the Sabbath is a later misnomer.