Talk:Seven-day week

Continuous since Exodus
I have decided to start this discussion due to a number of 'undos' for uncited claims that the seven-day week has been continuous since Exodus, and the 10 commandments. This is not proved and there are justified doubts. Two are; Joshua and the long/48 hour day, and secondly the 49 day count.

The Jews are LIVING proof that the seven day week has been continuous since Exodus, and the 10 commandments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yes3232 (talk • contribs) 08:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The Sumerians, prior to Exodus, counted 49 days, attributed the day to Gula, God of Healing, and a sacrifice made ( Reference: Hastings, James; John A. Selbie (2003). Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Part 20. Kessinger Publishing. pp. 890. ISBN 766136981, 9780766136984. http://books.google.com/books?id=qVNqXDz4CE8C. ) This was not 7 weeks. The period of 49 days overlapped the end of a lunar month that contains a leap day or two. So it was normally on the 19th day of the new cycle of weeks.

And like the Sumerians, the count of the passover begins from the cycle of the moon.

Now we say 'seven-weeks' which would be easy to count. But this is a modern interpretation of 49 days in the original text.

So for these reasons we are left with reasonable doubt for this to be included in this Article. A citation of Exodus is not good enough. I hope someone can expand this to provide a citation for or against --Pnb73 (talk) 14:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Replacement for earlier 7-day week by later 7-day week: Sumerian
This section seems to be either a well-constructed hoax or original research as Wiggermann, the cited reference, doesn't discuss the days of the week at all. The text on pages 8 and 9 of Wiggermann is a primary Sumerian document and its translation into English. That document does mention seven statues, with their colors, and their identifications with personages from seven cities. The statutes have additional names using the word day: (1) "day of life" (2) "day of plenty" (3) "day off" (4) "good day" (5) "fair faced day" (6) "righteous day" and (7) "day that gives life to the slain". See http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xYX64ZkwkMIC&pg=PA9. However there is no indication that the word day is used in the sense of day of the week, as opposed to any of the other meanings that cuneiform symbol can represent. Wiggermann does not elaborate on this. --Bejnar (talk) 01:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Sumerian week
The article Englund, R. K. (1988) "Administrative Timekeeping in Ancient Mesopotamia" Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 31(2): pp. 121-185, does not mention any names for the days of the week, although the author does say, in footnote 7 on page 127, ''It is likely that the often noted periods of 7 and 15 days represent not necessarily moon phases, but successive divisions of the 30-day month by 2 required by household administration. This division of the month, moreover, would not be surprising in any synodical calendar in preclassical and classical antiquity, so that there is neither need to recognize magic Babylonian numbers (entirely implausible the suggestion of H. andJ Lewy, HUCA 17 [1942-1943] 19, that the week originated in a Babylonian system of seven wind directions) nor to assume, for instance, a need for dispersed market days, in order to reasonably explain our seven day week. Later on pages 161-162, the author says: J. Friberg has suggested in Scientific American 250/2 (February, 1984) 111, that the period recorded in OECT 7, Nr. 94 represented a week of 5 days; considering however that the only other parallel text Nr. 40 records in like fashion a period of 4 days, and that a reasonable reconstruction of the absolute measures of the SE system would, if at all, favor a week of 6 days (corresponding to the sign N39 = 6N30; see below), this proposal cannot be sustained.'' --Bejnar (talk) 01:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Week numbers
I'm not too happy with the presentation in the section on week numbers.

Below is some stuff I wrote, based on what's allready there. What do you think?

Week numbering systems
There are numerous different systems for numbering the weeks of a year. We will here discuss three of these systems.



The table in the image indicates the days counted as week 1 by the three week numbering systems (ISO 8601: Red frame; America: Blue background; Middle East: Green frame and text). Each table line represents the period around New Year when January 1st falls on a certain weekday. Non-leap years always begin and end on the same weekday, so a year that begins as shown in one table line ends as shown in the table line below (where the top line is taken to follow the bottom line). Leap years skip down one line extra.

If we only consider the weekdays Monday-Friday, the week numbers throughout the year only differ for years beginning on a Friday or a Saturday (as shown in the first two lines of the table), where the ISO week numbers will be one less than the American week numbers. In years beginning on a Friday, the Middle Eastern week numbers will agree with the American ones, where as in years beginning on a Saturday, they will agree with the ISO numbers.

One further difference is that the ISO system counts the days marked with a red cross in the table as part of a week of the previous or following year; the other two systems avoid this by letting most years begin and end in weeks with less than 7 days. In the ISO system, years that begin or end on a Thursday have a week 53; all other years only have up to week 52. In the other two systems, leap years that begin with a one-day week 1 end with a one-day week 54; all other years only have up to week 53.

From year 1901 to 2099, the Gregorian calendar repeats in cycles of 28 years; the last column in the table indicates one such cycle (year 2000 to 2027). The years 1900 and 2100 are not leap years and hence break this cycle.

Weeks assigned twice confusion
The table has a column called "Weeks assigned twice" (yes/no), but there's no explanation of what being assigned twice means. Would somebody please fix that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmatxx (talk • contribs) 06:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC) same — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.135.36.56 (talk) 12:37, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I have rewritten this as "Can also be last week of previous year" which although a bit long-winded, is I think much clearer.--@alex (talk) 10:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Alex, now that someone is giving this article some attention - do you have any thoughts about my table and text above?--Nø (talk) 13:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

conflation of origin in an individual editors cultural horizon and origin in human cultural development
Man first observes lunation. Then this may (or may not) be assigned a number of days which is entirely culturally determined. That it is associated with religion is simply a reflection of the historical fact of human development and the preponderance of religion before the rise of scientific and secular culture. The typical divisions range from none to halving, quartering (the subject of this article), to thirds (an asian norm). The insistence on the exactitude of lunation is specious and appears to reflect some Judeo-Christian simplicity. Proper research will show the facts to be diametrically opposite to this cultural bias which is why I tagged the section in question. For, example, other things being equal, one expects that those adopting quartering will be as likely to give the first as the last day special significance. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 20:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Man first observes the moon. And adopts that timing schedule. Rather obviously. It is not a perfect fit, but that doesn't stop it coming in handy in planning the days ahead. No religion required. How many days from new to half. Around 7. how manydays from then to full, Around 7. How many days from then to half. Around 7, and seven more till new moon again. It is a purely functional arrangement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.216.7.62 (talk) 08:32, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Contradiction in origins
It is a bizarre contradiction in the origins section that it is first noted that the Babylonians had an adjustment week to fit a seven day week to the lunar cycle then to proclaim the non-existence of records indicating that Babylonians "linked" their system to a quarter of a lunation. The quotation marks are mine as I despise the term "linked" as vague to the point of meaninglessness at best. Quite clearly, if you have the first behavior documented then the second follows as the first is simply a specific iteration of the more general second. BTW, if you disallow electric lights and clocks for a while it becomes plain that timing based upon astronomical events involves no naturalism or any other ism. 74.241.11.136 (talk) 13:17, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I also stumbled over this and I found the mathematical argument -- that 5-day or 10-day-weeks would be have been more plausible -- interesting at first, but naive from a practical point of view, since the lunar quarters have a clear visible representation (and are even today still marked in some paper calendars in the Western world). --Tromberg (talk) 05:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

7 visible objects in the sky...
I've just removed a delightful but unsourced addition from the article - revision 394144985 by 86.186.33.184 (talk). It would be great if someone could find a source and make the style a little more boring - erh, I mean, more encyclopaedic ("voluptuous Venus", "Ymirday night entertainment", ...)! Here's the full text:--Nø (talk) 16:05, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * ''A more obvious pattern, shrouded in the taboos of monotheistic religions, is that the seven-day week arises from the fact that there are seven objects in the solar system visible to the naked eye from Earth – the Sun, the Moon and the five classical naked eye planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. In early religions, these may have represented the most important Gods, with Monday and Friday usually being linked to the two main matriarchal Goddesses of Motherhood and Love, with the rest being left over for the patriarchal Gods. The pattern can be most clearly seen in the French language which gives us Lundi, from "dies Lunae", the day of the Moon; Mardi, from "dies Martis", the day of Mars; Mercredi, from "dies Mercurii", the day of Mercury; Jeudi, from "dies Jovis", the day of Jupiter; Vendredi, from "dies Veneris", the day of Venus; and Samedi, from "dies Saturni", the day of Saturn. According to this pattern, the final day of the week in French should be Soldi, from "dies Solis", though it is of course Dimanche, from "dies Dominica", which is the day of the Lord. Getting back to the English language, the words "Day" and "Deity" may also be related via this ancient primitive religious origin, through the Proto-Indo-European word "dyeu", meaning "to shine". In English, you can also see this planetary pattern, if you work through the day-naming scheme of Julius Caesar, in which Germanic Gods and Goddesses were substituted for Roman ones, with Tiu for belligerent Mars, Woden for quicksilver Mercury, Thor for thunderbolt Jupiter, and Freya for voluptuous Venus. Sunday and Monday are fairly obvious inserts for the Sun and the Moon, and because Caesar could identify no Germanic God who was the father of Woden, this leaves us with Saturday named directly after the Roman God Saturn (Greek Cronos), who was the father of Jupiter (Greek Zeus). Let us be thankful that Caesar neglected to uncover Ymir, the father of Woden, otherwise Saturday night entertainment would be Ymirday night entertainment, or more likely through the passage to time, Yumday night entertainment. We must also remember the ancient Greeks too, who used their own God and Goddess names for days of the week, which the Romans later copied and translated into their own equivalent deities. The ancient Greek days were hemera helio, "day of the sun"; hemera selenes, "day of the moon"; hemera Areos, "day of Ares"; hemera Hermu, "day of Hermes"; hemera Dios, "day of Zeus"; hemera Aphrodites, "day of Aphrodite"; and hemera Khronu, "day of Cronus". No doubt many other ancient early religions and cultures who adopted a seven-day week also used the same pattern to name their own days of the week, especially the Proto-Indo-Europeans.''--86.186.33.184 (talk)

Granted that some of that was a little imaginative, isn't it generally assumed that the week does reflect the 7 celestial bodies? I can't believe that wasn't already in the article. Didn't it used to be? — kwami (talk) 21:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

"or a week that divided the lunation more accurately using a factor of these number systems, such as a five-day or ten-day week"
(look http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_%28mathematics%29#Division_of_integers ) if 29,5 day phase is divided with remainder, if it is divided by 5, it will give 4.5 days remainder, if with 10 - 9.5 days remainder, so, dividing by 7 gives most little remainder - 1.5 days. so, where from have got this phrase who has written it? that "it is not immediately apparent why the seven-day week was selected by ancient cultures" ? or this is original research? Qdinar (talk) 16:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

sennight?
sennight redirects here, but no explanation... is this a term for "seven days"? --androl (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:23, 2 March 2011 (UTC).

I second that question. It seems pretty ridiculous to have a word redirect to an article that does not contain any mention of that word. --66.41.56.31 (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It seems to be a genuine word, parallel to fortnight, dating back to 15th century - Merriam-Webster; Wikitionary.
 * But if the redirect is to remain, this word should be mentioned (and preferably bolded) in the lead.--Nø (talk) 13:13, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Three years later, the situation is still the same. Unless sources are provided, I think the redir should be deleted.--Nø (talk) 11:07, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Lunar phase
Seven-day week came from the Lunar phase. New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon and Last Quarter: There are nearly 7 days between them! / reliable source: Time and the calendars (by W.M. O'Neil) Böri (talk) 13:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The name "month" came from the moon... Of course, they knew the lunar phase. (a month = 4 weeks) as easy as like that Böri (talk) 12:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Found on Tuesday
Hello. I found this in the article on Tuesday and thought it would be more appropriate here. I'm not sure how to shoe horn it in to this article, or even if it should be done, so I've copied it here in case someone wants to give it a go.

The weekday heptagram, i.e. the association of the days of the seven-day week with the seven classical planets, probably dates to the Hellenistic period. Between the 1st and 3rd centuries, the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight day Roman nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. The astrological order of the days was explained by Vettius Valens and Dio Cassius. According to these authors, it was a principle of astrology that the heavenly bodies presided, in succession, over the hours of the day.

--Wikimedes (talk) 08:58, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that it might be worth discussing the possibility that the 7-day week may have a solar origin, not a lunar one. If the year is divided into 4 equal solar seasons, then each season can be divided into 13 7-day intervals, for a total of 364 days in a solar year (4x13x7). If you add in either one or two leap days (adding a day to one or two selected weeks in a year), you'd have a pretty accurate solar calendar. I have no idea if the ancients figured that out, but if they did, it would be a strong motivation for the 7-day cycle. -- Greg Shenaut — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.150.235.5 (talk) 02:28, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

First Day of Week World Map - Wednesday as first day of week in Hungary?
Saeed.gnu's First_Day_of_Week_World_Map on this page indicates that Hungary has Wednesday as the first day of the week. I am unable to find any evidence that this is in fact correct, and indeed, there is evidence in the names for Monday and Tuesday that the start of the week in Hungary is Monday (on that wikipedia page, the Hungarian names are in fact listed as being in the pattern of Monday starts.



I have asked on Saeed.gnu's talk page for evidence that Wednesday is considered the first day of the week in Hungary, or failing that, to revise the map to include Hungary in the list of countries which have Monday as the first day of the week. However, if this doesn't happen, perhaps it is better to simply remove that map? --@alex (talk) 09:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I used this as the source: http://www.pjh2.de/datetime/weeknumber/wnd.php?l=en

Although it's marked as "presumably wrong" for Hungary. I appreciate if you can make sure which day is the start of week in Hungary. --User:Saeed.gnu (talk) 05:14, 8 November 2013 (UTC) --

Hi, Stating that Wednesday is the first day of the week in Hungary is wrong. It's Monday. It's not just because I'm hungarian and never heard of this before, but even the hungarian word for Monday, "hétfő" means literally "weekhead". Furthermore, ISO 8601 is accepted as a Hungarian Standard (MSZ). More information: http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_h%C3%A9t_napjai. Please fix the map!

Erroneous statement
"There are no historical Jewish or Babylonian records that confirm that these cultures explicitly defined the seven-day week as a quarter of a lunation."

Ezekiel 46:1 "Thus sayeth Yahua: "The gateway of the inner court that faces toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the Sabbath it shall be opened, and on the day of the New Moon it shall be opened." With a "thus saith the Yahuah", it is obviously ordained three kinds of days which are named and have specific function - The Sabbath, The working days and the new moon day (Chodesh). Notice that the "east gate" of the temple, being open or closed for worship, actually defines that these days can never overlap. A day is either a work day or a worship day and never both. There is no guess work here. New Moon days will never fall on work days, just as Sabbaths can never fall on work days. Likewise, New Moon days can never be seventh-day Sabbaths, because the New Moon day must always be the first day of the month, as it only can be the day following the visible first moon sighting. I believe the book of Ezekiel to be regarded as a historical Jewish record, thus the statement in the article (by 13. 11. 2013) is wrong. It can be argued agains what is here stated that there might be not three kinds of days, but four, as there some months must be reckoned a day after the fourth Sabbath, which some hold as the day of Lillith. When here refering to the opening statement of the text with "thus saith the Yahua", I'm not intending to impose authority on a religious basis, but refering to the fact that the name of Yahua, according to tradition, shall not be expressed outside of ritual, prayer or lithurgic practice. Thus the text must be regarded as having had ritual function, in which the naming of the three (or four) kind of days has had an ordaining (performative) power.--Xact (talk) 17:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Despite your assertion, Ezekiel 46:1 says nothing about there being four weeks/sabbaths in one month. Just because both sabbaths and new moon days are described as days of worship, that does not imply that they are part of the same cycle. Also, the theory just doesn't work because a lunar month is 29.53 days. There's no way to make that fit with a continuous seven-day week. Also, I realize that this is original research, but Leviticus 23:15-16 makes it clear that weeks were independent on the lunation: "You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord." Clearly, if the day after the the seventh Sabbath is the 50th day (= 7x7+1), there can be no extra days at the start/end of the month. - Lindert (talk) 21:41, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Week Holidays World Map - Why is Germany grayed out?
Isn't Sunday considered a holiday in Germany? Or what on what basis is a day a holiday if not on the religious free day of the week? --Phoenix616 (talk) 22:04, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Monday as the first day in India?
In the section titled 'Week numbering', I see that India is marked in yellow on the map, meaning the first day of the week is Monday. If you look at Indian calendars, Sunday is the first day of the week. (Unless, by first day we mean first working day of the week) And that's how we are taught in school as well. I'm not much of an editor on wiki, so am not quite sure how to produce 'reliable sources' for this. Can someone can make this correction?

Thank you, Vijay (vij4yd - i am not logged in) 15.219.201.80 (talk) 13:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

First Day of Week World Map -- China?
I believe for China we should count Monday, not Sunday, as FDoW. See http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2012/04/13/the-perils-of-this-week-and-next-week. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.146.74.58 (talk) 06:48, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Sunday first day of week and also part of weekend?
I see that Sunday is considered the first day if the week in all of the Americas and some parts of Asia. I've seen this confusing practice in some calendars, but I didn't know it was so widespread and still in use. What I can't understand is how these countries (at least many of them, The US and Canada included) nevertheless call Saturday and Sunday "the weekend". How can Sunday both be the last day of the weekend (and so of course also the last day of the week) and the first day of the week? Of course it can't. So does it mean that people in the U.S. (for instance) considers Saturday and Sunday "the weekend" but that the word has lost its meaning, so that the "weekend" is just the last day plus the first day of the week? Or do they actually not consider Sunday the first day of the week in practice, although it's supposedly the official standard? And how did this contradiction get established in the first place? No Wikipedia article seems to mention it. 187.133.63.240 (talk) 16:23, 19 February 2015 (UTC) (Nick)