# Are the Christians who refuse to use the names of the days of the week? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2004, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665 "2004-08-06T19:36:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jkusters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/fbc32d/32.png) [@jkusters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jkusters)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2004, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/1 "2004-08-06T19:36:37Z")
This may be more of a general question, but since it deals with religion, I thought this would be the most appropriate forum. Please correct me if necessary. I’ve searched through the archives looking for an answer to something that has left me curious for quite some time. But it was to no avail. So, I thought I’d ponder out loud here. There are Christians who refuse to take part in certain holidays (e.g., Halloween) because they feel it would be taking part in a pagan holiday. Are there Christians who also refuse to use the standard English names for the days of the week (you know, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.) because they are named for pagan gods? It just seems a logical extension of the previous sentiment, but I’ve not heard it happening. Can anyone satisfy my curiosity? (Or point me to a thread where this was already discussed and was not found in my search?) Thanks, JOhn. ---
**Author:** ![jkusters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/fbc32d/32.png) [@jkusters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jkusters)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/2 "2004-08-06T19:38:48Z")
Of course, I typoed the subject line. It was _supposed_ to read “Are there…” _sigh_ Just one of those days. JOhn. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2004, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/3 "2004-08-06T19:49:57Z")
I’ve never heard of any. There are scholars who use B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) instead of B.C. (Before Christ), but I have never heard of any one who refused to use the common names of the days on principle. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2004, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/4 "2004-08-06T20:04:49Z")
Early Quakers didn’t, because of the pagan origins. Instead they used First Day, Second Day, etc. They’ve stopped that, and most all modern Quakers use the names of the days of the week, but they still call their “Sunday School” “First Day School” ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2004, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/5 "2004-08-07T05:02:34Z")
Yeah, I went to a Quaker high school, and while we didn’t rename the weekdays for the purposes of the school calendar we did have “Fifth Day Meeting” on Thursdays. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2004, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/6 "2004-08-07T05:45:22Z")
I’ve read that the “first day”, “second day” thing was also widely used in medieval Iceland after it adopted Christianity, but I have no idea if it’s still in use there today. Do we have any Icelandic dopers who’d know? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2004, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/7 "2004-08-07T06:12:25Z")
So, which is the day called “Latter” ? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2004, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/8 "2004-08-07T06:51:32Z")
Sunday, because that’s when everyone goes out to Starbucks and drinks—oh, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/9 "2004-08-08T01:22:15Z")
So, what do the Jews call the days of the week? After all, counting the days by sevens is a custom of Jewish origin.\* Are there Hebrew equivalents for Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.? \*Well, actually it isn’t . . . I read in _Asimov’s Guide to the Bible_ that it’s a custom of Babylonian origin – the Babylonians paid a lot of attention to astronomy/astrology, and they recognized seven planets, counting the Sun and Moon, and named a day for each of them. The Jews picked up the custom during the Babylonian Exile. Before that, the Jewish Sabbath came once a **month** – it was a full-moon festival. So says Asimov. I don’t know whether the whole scholarly community accepts that theory. And I’m pretty sure that the Greeks and the Romans, until they were converted to Christianity, had no equivalent to the week – they sometimes spoke of a “ten-day” but that was just any group of ten consecutive days – it was just a convenient number for counting, not a fixture of the calendar, and the days of a ten-day did not have names. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/10 "2004-08-08T01:59:46Z")
If I recall correctly, Portuguese differs from most other Latin/European languages in that the days do not refer to pagan gods. Instead the days are named numerically. Portugal & Brazil are pretty Christian Places. Secondly, on the refuse-to-take-part-in-holidays question. I believe some fundamentalist Christian do not refer to Christmas. Rejecting the Catholic notion of “mass” they instead speak of that time as ‘Yule’. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/11 "2004-08-08T03:22:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Secondly, on the refuse-to-take-part-in-holidays question. I believe some fundamentalist Christian do not refer to Christmas. **Rejecting the Catholic notion of “mass” they instead speak of that time as ‘Yule’.** (bolding mine) Uh…hopefully they’ll never read [this](http://www.word-detective.com/back-l.html) page, then. I mean, _I_ refer to that time of year as Yule, but for totally different reasons :). That being said, on my mom’s side of the family, there’s a few relatives who became Jehovah’s Witnesses, and, from what I understand, even most JWs think their ilk to be pretty far out. My mom says they don’t use days of the week…but there’s some pretty bad blood there, so I don’t know if she has the whole story. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/12 "2004-08-08T03:32:36Z")
(in reference to the above two posts) Actually, upon doing some Googling, it seems as though most of the extreme fundamentalist Christian objection to Christmas is that it is _too much_ like Yule. Here’s an example from Balaam’s Ass ([link](http://www.balaams-ass.com/journal/resource/xmass.htm)). It’s possible that, if they’re calling it Yule, they’re doing so in order to draw attention to the pagan influences on the holiday rather than in attempt to circumvent them via a new name. Which, darn. 'Cause that would’ve been funny. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2004, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/13 "2004-08-08T03:45:59Z")
**BG:** _Well, actually it isn’t . . . I read in Asimov’s Guide to the Bible that it’s a custom of Babylonian origin – the Babylonians paid a lot of attention to astronomy/astrology, and they recognized seven planets, counting the Sun and Moon, and named a day for each of them. The Jews picked up the custom during the Babylonian Exile. Before that, the Jewish Sabbath came once a month – it was a full-moon festival. So says Asimov. I don’t know whether the whole scholarly community accepts that theory._ No. Certainly not the scholarly community in the history of the exact sciences, as far as I know. The Babylonians did name the seven “visible planets” and devote a lot of astronomical/divinatory study to them, but they didn’t name any seven-day cycle for them. I’m not aware that the Babylonians ever had a seven-day calendric cycle; their smallest calendric unit (after the civil day, that is) was the 29- or 30-day lunar month. The seven-day week cycle seems to have originated with the ancient Jews—at least, their scriptures appear to be the oldest reference to it, and I don’t know of any evidence that suggests it was inspired by the seven planets of Babylonian astronomy. (Since the Babylonians closely linked the planets with the identities of gods in their pantheon, I would think that monotheistic Jews would be especially reluctant to include such a concept in their calendar.) As far as I know, Jews have always called the weekdays just by their ordinal numbers in Hebrew (like the Quakers with their First Day, Second Day, etc.). The construction of the week cycle with seven planet-named days as we know it today is pretty obscure, but it may have been a product of Greek astrologers, probably in Egypt, a century or so before the turn of the millennium. They definitely picked up the concept of the seven planets associated with gods from the Babylonians, and they may have been influenced by the Jewish calendar in associating the planets with a seven-day cycle. The week as we know it seems to have come into general administrative use as part of a civil calendar by the time of the late Roman Empire. Asimov or his sources seem to have been seduced by the temptation to posit a common source for the seven-day week of the ancient Jewish religion and the seven planets of ancient Mesopotamian astronomy/astral divination. But the idea that the Jews adopted the seven-day cycle during the Babylonian Exile, which took place no earlier than the sixth century BCE, has got to be bushwa. The earliest Hebrew scriptures attesting the seven-day religious cycle are definitely older than that. (Dis)claimer: I am not an expert on ancient Mesopotamian or Greek calendrics, but I’ve studied some Akkadian and Greek, read some of the primary sources pertaining to their astronomy, and read a lot of the secondary sources about it. I also have some colleagues who **are** world-renowned experts on the subject, and this is basically the story I’ve heard from them. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/14 "2004-08-09T19:08:49Z")
[TakeOurWord.com](http://TakeOurWord.com) is an etymology webzine that has done a couple long issues about this. Start with issue 104… [http://www.takeourword.com/Issue104.html](http://www.takeourword.com/Issue104.html) …and then continue to 105. I believe that subsequent issues dealt with the days of the week individually. You can get to the back issues here: [http://www.takeourword.com/backIssues101-125.html](http://www.takeourword.com/backIssues101-125.html) Checking out that last link, it appears that they did Sunday on issue 106, then did Monday through Wednesday on 114, 115 and 116, then skipped Thursday and Friday and did Saturday in issue 125. I guess it goes without saying, but if anyone disagrees with this site, I’d like to hear about it. ---
**Author:** ![Rucksinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/898d66/32.png) [@Rucksinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rucksinator)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/15 "2004-08-09T19:10:03Z")
(Of course, their area of expertise is etymology, not necessarily archealogy or history.) ---
**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/16 "2004-08-09T21:32:09Z")
The Hebrew names for the days translate as ‘First Day’ (Sunday) through ‘Sixth Day’ (Friday), plus Shabbat/Shabbos (depending on your accent), ie Sabbath or Saturday. However, I don’t know any American Orthodox Jews who use anything other than Sunday through Friday in conversation, although amongst ourselves, we almost always call it Shabbos/Shabbat rather than Saturday. These are all people who don’t do Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc. because of their religious origins, although they’re definitely not Christians ;j ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-christians-who-refuse-to-use-the-names-of-the-days-of-the-week/258665/17 "2004-08-10T01:08:45Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > **BG:** _Well, actually it isn’t . . . I read in Asimov’s Guide to the Bible that it’s a custom of Babylonian origin – the Babylonians paid a lot of attention to astronomy/astrology, and they recognized seven planets, counting the Sun and Moon, and named a day for each of them. The Jews picked up the custom during the Babylonian Exile. Before that, the Jewish Sabbath came once a month – it was a full-moon festival. So says Asimov. I don’t know whether the whole scholarly community accepts that theory._ > > No. Certainly not the scholarly community in the history of the exact sciences, as far as I know. The Babylonians did name the seven “visible planets” and devote a lot of astronomical/divinatory study to them, but they didn’t name any seven-day cycle for them. I’m not aware that the Babylonians ever had a seven-day calendric cycle; their smallest calendric unit (after the civil day, that is) was the 29- or 30-day lunar month. > > The seven-day week cycle seems to have originated with the ancient Jews—at least, their scriptures appear to be the oldest reference to it, and I don’t know of any evidence that suggests it was inspired by the seven planets of Babylonian astronomy. . . . > > \ > > Asimov or his sources seem to have been seduced by the temptation to posit a common source for the seven-day week of the ancient Jewish religion and the seven planets of ancient Mesopotamian astronomy/astral divination. But the idea that the Jews adopted the seven-day cycle during the Babylonian Exile, which took place no earlier than the sixth century BCE, has got to be bushwa. The earliest Hebrew scriptures attesting the seven-day religious cycle are definitely older than that. Well, here’s what Dr. A has to say. From _Asimov’s Guide to the Bible: Volume One – The Old Testament_ (Doubleday, 1968), p. 19, chapter on Genesis: > [@](#): > > The role played by the Sabbath in Judaism was quite small at first, and quite enormous in the end. The dividing line comes at one of the great watersheds in Jewish history – the Babylonian Exile. . . . > > In pre-Exilic times the Sabbath is barely mentioned and seems to have been of little consequence among the Israelites. In post-Exilic times, its observance was of the greatest importance and Jews died rather than violate that observance. > > It is tempting to suppose that the Sabbath was Babylonian in origin, and that it gained new significance to the Jews in exile . . . Nor can one fairly use the first chapters of Genesis as evidence for the great antiquity of the Sabbath in its holiest form, since it is widely accepted these days that the creation tale received its present shape after the Babylonian Exile and was, in fact, a version of the Babylonian creation myth, purified of polytheism and grossness, and put into the loftiest and most abstract terms of which the Jewish priesthood was capable. From _Volume Two – The New Testament,_ pp. 184-186, chapter on the Gospel of Matthew: > [@](#): > > The name “Sabbath” is derived from a Hebrew word meaning “to break off” or “to desist.” . . . > > Observance of the Sabbath was made one of the Ten Commandments received by Moses at Mount Sinai . . . > > \ > > But the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, reached its final written form only during the Babylonian Exile, and it was not till then, perhaps, that the Sabbath received its present significance. There are, after all, but few and inconsiderable mentions of the Sabbath in the historical books dealing with the period before the Exile. It is not mentioned in the Psalms, in the Proverbs, or in the Book of Job. It is not mentioned in Deuternomy, except for its listing in the Ten Commandments. > > There is speculation that the Sabbath originated among the Babylonians as a full moon festival. The Babylonians called the fifteenth day of the month “sappatu,” and in a lunar month that begins with the new moon the fifteenth day is the full moon. > > The possibility that the Sabbath was a full moon festival complementary to the well-known new moon festival might be argued from various Biblical verses dated from before the Exile, verses in which the new moon and Sabbath are mentioned together in complementary fashion. > > Thus, when a woman wished to go to the wonder-working prophet Elisha after her son had died of sunstroke, her husband said to her: > > 2 Kings 4:23. . . . _Wherefore wilt thou go to him to day? it is neither new moon, nor sabbath._ > > The prophet Hosea quotes God as threatening Israel: > > Hosea 2:11. _I will cause all her mirths to cease, her feast days, her new moons, her sabbaths . . ._ > > And Amos, characterizing the greediness of the merchants, eager to make unfair profits with false weights, pictures them sarcastically, with the parallelism characteristic of Hebrew poetry: > > Amos 8:5. . . . _When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat . . ._ > > It may be that the Sabbath became more than just another lunar festival during the Exile, when the priests and scribes sought for ways to mark of Jewish thinking and keep Judaism alive. They would want to prevent the assimilation that had caused the men of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to disappear in the course of their Assyrian exile. > > Ezekiel (“the father of Judaism”) may have made the significant contribution of making observance of the Sabbath part of the fundamental contract between God and Israel, for Ezekiel quotes God as saying: > > Ezekiel 20:12. _Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them . . ._ And from pp. 535-536, chapter on Revelation: > [@](#): > > The importance of seven in the Bible appears first in the seven days of the original week (the six days of creation plus the seventh day of rest). That is not the ultimate source, however, for it seems very likely that the first chapter of Genesis was an adaptation of Babylonian creation tales and that the seven-day week was of Babylonian (perhaps ultimately of Sumerian) origin. > > The week arose from the accidental astronomical fast that there are seven visible bodies in the sky that move independently against the background of the stars. These are the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The Babylonians found much of importance in the number and motion of these bodies and founded the study of astrology, a pseudo-science that still exist in undiminished importance and influence even in our own supposedly enlightened society. > > \ > > The seven-day week is all the more useful in that it blended closely into the lunar month, being about a quarter of that period of time. . . . > > The Jews borrowed the week from the Babylonians during the period of exile, and it was then that the Sabbath gained its post-Exilic significance . . . It was then, also, that the number seven became of mystic importance. As was usual with Asimov’s many popular books of history, science, and other subjects, these books contain no cites or footnotes, except citations to Biblical verses. But here’s a bit from the Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week)): > [@](#): > > The origin of a seven-day period is generally associated with the ancient Jews and the biblical account of the creation, according to which God laboured for six days and rested on the seventh. However, the ancient Babylonians were known to have observed a fixed seven-day week before the Jews. The Babylonian use of the seven-day week eventually influenced other cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. The fixed 7-day period was probably a simplification of 1/4 of a lunar month. Meanwhile both the Babylonians and the Jews retained the lunar calendar while using the 7-day week. There are 7 heavenly bodies or “luminaries” normally visible to the naked eye (the Sun, Moon, and 5 visible planets), and this explained the 7-day week, both scientifically and astrologically. > > Various groups of citizens of the Roman Empire adopted the week, especially those who had spent time in the eastern parts of the empire, such as Egypt, where the 7-day week was in use. Contemporaneously, Christians picked up the practice from the Jews and spread the week’s use along with their religion. > > As the early Christians evolved from being Jewish to being a distinct group, various groups evolved from celebrating both the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) and the first day or the Lord’s Day (Sunday), to only celebrating Sunday. > > In the early 4th century (CE), the Roman Emperor Constantine regulated the use of the week due to a problem of the myriad uses of various days for religious observance, and established Sunday as the day for religious observance and rest for all groups, not just those Christians and others who were already observing Sunday. The Jews retained their (at least) 800-year-old tradition of Saturday observance. Later, after the establishment of Islam, Friday became that religion’s day of observance. Oh, and here’s something interesting! According to Colleen McCullough – a historical novelist rather than a historian, but one well-known for her painstaking research – the pre-Christian Romans used a week of **eight** days. From the glossary at the back of _Fortune’s Favorites_ (William Morrow and Company, 1993): > [@](#): > > _ **nundinum** _ The interval between one market day and the next; the eight-day Roman week. Save for the Kalends, Nones and Ides, the days of the Roman calendar were not named; on the calendars themselves they are allocated a letter between A and H, with A (presumably) being the market day.