why there is only 7 days in a week?

[JC1]

why there is only 7 days in a week? and why the whole world, past and present, eastern and western hemisphere go by this? why not 8 days in a week? or 9 or 21?

[JPQuiceno]

I believe its called the Gregorian Calendar. (I'm not sure)

 

Thats just the way it is. Why do people call blue blue? Because, they do.

 

Simple as that.

[ashennell]

My hypothesis would be:

 

People used to use the moon to measure passage of time.

The orbit of the moon takes just over 27 days (sidereal month). So the best way to break the time up is to treat it as 28 days and split it into 4 groups of 7. I guess 3 groups of 9 are possible as well.

 

I ain't certain but I'm sure the moon has something to do with it.

[swansont]

why there is only 7 days in a week? and why the whole world, past and present, eastern and western hemisphere go by this? why not 8 days in a week? or 9 or 21?

 

The short answer is they didn't. The Egyptians had a 10 day week, as did the French about the time of the Revolution, and the Mayans used weeks of 13 and 20 days (one numbered, one named).

 

The Roman Empire had the nundinal week, which was 8 days and then a market day. They later adopted the Julian calendar (the Gregorian was a modification of this) which had seven days, probably because of the seven big, visible objects in the sky - five planets, the sun and the moon.

 

The Christians co-opted this, like they did so many other things pagan. It was in reasonably widespread use when commerce dictated standardization.

 

Does that answer your question?

[the tree]

Seven was also considered a magicall number in much mythology, altough come to think of it, that may be because of the big things in the sky as well.

[Martin]

A month is a "moon"-th.

 

A month has 4 phases of about 7 days each

 

New to Half

 

Half to Full

 

Full to (waning) Half

 

Half to New

 

I agree with what Swansont said, also.

 

and it was Ashennell that pointed out the moon thing

 

(the moon was really really important for time keeping for many ancient peoples, and there are only a few ways to divide the month up into equal pieces). Ashennell said it:

 

My hypothesis would be:

 

People used to use the moon to measure passage of time.

The orbit of the moon takes just over 27 days (sidereal month). So the best way to break the time up is to treat it as 28 days and split it into 4 groups of 7. I guess 3 groups of 9 are possible as well.

 

I ain't certain but I'm sure the moon has something to do with it.

 

however the cycle of moon phases, which people are most aware of, actually lasts 29.5 days----that is the time from new moon to the next new moon. So they could have thought of the month as 30. probably some did.

the problem then is how do you divide 30 up into 4 equal pieces corresponding to the 4 obvious phases?

 

7 day weeks is just one possible solution but it is a pretty likely one to come across.

[Douglas]

why there is only 7 days in a week? and why the whole world, past and present, eastern and western hemisphere go by this? why not 8 days in a week? or 9 or 21?

There's probably dozens of reasons, two of which would be that God created earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th, another being that the 4 phases of the moon, roughly constitute 7 days.

[gib65]

...probably because of the seven big, visible objects in the sky - five planets, the sun and the moon.

 

That's right. And as a matter of fact, if you take the French words for the week days and the English for the weekends, you can pretty much match the days with the planets:

 

Sunday -> Sun

Lundi (French for Monday) -> Lune (French for moon) *

Mardi (French for Tuesday) -> Mars

Mercredi (French for Wednesday) -> Mercury

Jeudi (French for Thursday) -> Jupiter

Vendredi (French for Friday) -> Venus

Saturday -> Saturn

 

* I guess Monday works too ('Moon' and 'Mon').

[X facter]

...probably because of the seven big, visible objects in the sky - five planets, the sun and the moon.

 

Yes, look to the names.

 

http://www.pantheon.org/miscellaneous/origin_days.html

 

Apparently they are all named, in one culture or another, after the known celestial bodies.

[Janus]

One of the best theories for the origin of the 7 day week that I know of is this:

 

The Ancient Chaldeans named the hours of the day for the seven planets. (a planet at that time being any permanent celestrial body that moved through the Zodiac.) They ordered them by what they assumed were their distances from Earth according to the speed at which they moved through the Zodiac, from furthest to nearest. This gave them an order of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. The sequence repeated three time each day with three days left over. (Thus if the day started with Saturn, it ended with Mars.) Each day would pick up where they left off. (If the last day ended with Mars, the next day started with Mercury.) Each day was named after the hour it started with, and they got a repeating pattern of 7 days in the order of: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus.

 

Over time, some of these names were exchanged for latin or saxon counterparts and thus we get:

 

Saturday(Saturn's day)

Sunday (Sun's day)

Monday(Moon's day)

Tuesday (Tui's(sp?) day)

Wednesday (Wodin's days)

Thursday (Thor's day)

Friday (Freia's Day)

 

Also somewhere along the line Sunday was shifted to the first day of the week (importance of the Sun?).

[Mokele]

In contrast to the english words...

 

Sunday - Sun day

Monday - Moon day

Tuesday - Tyr's (Norse god of valor) day

Wednesday - Wodin's (Odin, Ruler of Norse gods) day

Thursday - Thor's (Norse god of combat) day

Friday - Freya's (Norse godess of desire) day

Saturday - Saturn's (Roman god of creation) day

 

Mokele

[swansont]

There's probably dozens of reasons, two of which would be that God created earth in 6 days and rested on the 7th,

 

But there's a reasonable chance that the reason it took God 7 days (at least according to the myth) is that the 7-day week was already in place.

[arkain101]

Because there is only 365 days in a year or 52weeks or 12months.

 

The seasons change in a group of 4 and because of the time scale things work on. This is the way of the calender.

 

if you had 5 day weeks.. there would be 73 weeks in a year, and to work out the months to match the seasons.. youd run into that issue.

 

It seems to match the way our time scale works as humans in conjunction with the earth. Anything different would be a bit too long and/or a bit too short.

[Douglas]

But there's a reasonable chance that the reason it took God 7 days (at least according to the myth) is that the 7-day week was already in place.

Ah.....so the egg came before the chicken??...

[swansont]

Ah.....so the egg came before the chicken??...

 

Many Biblical stories appear to be based on older myths, and Christianaty co-opted many pagan ideas in order to sell itself, so why should the 7-day creation story be any different?

[JC1]

The short answer is they didn't. The Egyptians had a 10 day week' date=' as did the French about the time of the Revolution, and the Mayans used weeks of 13 and 20 days (one numbered, one named).

 

The Roman Empire had the nundinal week, which was 8 days and then a market day. They later adopted the Julian calendar (the Gregorian was a modification of this) which had seven days, probably because of the seven big, visible objects in the sky - five planets, the sun and the moon.

 

The Christians co-opted this, like they did so many other things pagan. It was in reasonably widespread use when commerce dictated standardization.

 

Does that answer your question?

 

Yes, it does. But still you cannot deny the universal 7-day week and it's phenomenon by a sublink from the same link you gave me below:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_the_week#Astronomical

 

Moreover, as far as i've known, The Jews/Hebrews have had a 7-day calendar for the longest time. The Jews predate, Rome, America, and the French. The Egyptians didn't recognize so they ended up allowing their nation to be crushed.

 

Honestly, yes, my thread implies an omnipotent being creating the world in

7-days.

[JC1]

But there's a reasonable chance that the reason it took God 7 days (at least according to the myth) is that the 7-day week was already in place.

 

It is only resonable chance to think that the 7-day week existed before God ordained it if you dont believe in God.

 

Do you realize what you're implying? "That man's knowledge surpasses that of God's. That's highly unreasonable in my opinion". Anybody who believes in some sort of Higher Being have an understanding of that principle. Unless they themselves think that they are God and thus they are superior in knowledge and wisdom. Therefore, coming to the conclusion that those who do believe in God are fools and of the feeble mind, that they would fall for such nonsense and that the idea of God was possibly the derivative of man's thought to begin with.

 

I am well aware that this sounds like the "appeal to authority" view you may argue. But We all believe on authority whether we realize it or not. We weren't there when they signed the Declaration of Independence or the Battle of Saratoga and how America gained it's independence, however, there are evidences today that leads us to that conclusion such as the 4th of July and our freedom and rights. We believe on authority of the history books for the facts but we personally didnt experience the physical battle or the physical presence of being there when they signed the DOI to believe that it's true. Or let's say you've never been to Pyramid before, how do you know it exists if you, personally havent been there? You believe on authority of those who've been there and you know it exists because you take their word for it. My point is, we all believe on authority in some point or another but there has to be sound and valid evidence for us to believe it is true.

 

Therefore, i believe in the authority of the Holy Bible because of the evidences it claims for itself, not because i was duped into believing it.

 

I apologize for a little preaching.

[swansont]

It is only resonable chance to think that the 7-day week existed before God ordained it if you dont believe in God.

 

Do you realize what you're implying? "That man's knowledge surpasses that of God's. That's highly unreasonable in my opinion". Anybody who believes in some sort of Higher Being have an understanding of that principle. Unless they themselves think that they are God and thus they are superior in knowledge and wisdom. Therefore' date=' coming to the conclusion that those who do believe in God are fools and of the feeble mind, that they would fall for such nonsense and that the idea of God was possibly the derivative of man's thought to begin with.

 

I am well aware that this sounds like the "appeal to authority" view you may argue. But We all believe on authority whether we realize it or not. We weren't there when they signed the Declaration of Independence or the Battle of Saratoga and how America gained it's independence, however, there are evidences today that leads us to that conclusion such as the 4th of July and our freedom and rights. We believe on authority of the history books for the facts but we personally didnt experience the physical battle or the physical presence of being there when they signed the DOI to believe that it's true. Or let's say you've never been to Pyramid before, how do you know it exists if you, personally havent been there? You believe on authority of those who've been there and you know it exists because you take their word for it. My point is, we all believe on authority in some point or another but there has to be sound and valid evidence for us to believe it is true.

 

Therefore, i believe in the authority of the Holy Bible because of the evidences it claims for itself, not because i was duped into believing it.

 

I apologize for a little preaching.[/quote']

 

It's not argument from authority so much as it is circular reasoning.

 

Argument form authority isn't citing someone else's legitimate work - it's asserting they are correct when no evidence is presented (e.g. "Relativity is correct because Einstein said so" is argument from authority. That's not why relativity is considered correct)

 

The lack of rigor in the logic used here has removed "reason" from the discussion, so the declaration of some position being "unreasonable" is itself unreasonable. Religious belief isn't a matter of valid logical deduction.

[JC1]

The lack of rigor in the logic used here has removed "reason" from the discussion' date=' so the declaration of some position being "unreasonable" is itself unreasonable. Religious belief isn't a matter of valid logical deduction.[/quote']

Would you mind elaborate it?

[swansont]

Would you mind elaborate it?

 

You have used circular logic. You can't use the 7-day week as evidence of God's existence, since you assumed God's existence to explain the 7-day week. Similarly, one can't use statements of infallibility from the Bible to conclude that the Bible is infallible.

 

Since that reasoning is invalid, you can't then use it as a basis for dismissing an argument as unreasonable.

[Phi for All]

Honestly' date=' yes, my thread implies an omnipotent being creating the world in

7-days.[/quote']Weeeeeell then, a move is in order, since this just became Pseudoscience instead of Astronomy.

[Hellbender]

why there is only 7 days in a week? and why the whole world, past and present, eastern and western hemisphere go by this? why not 8 days in a week? or 9 or 21?

so we can have weekends off