BS: 7 day week...good idea?

Subject: 7 day week...good idea?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 06:30 AM

How universal is/was this way of ordering time? Anybody know of any non-seven day cultures?

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 06:39 AM

The Beatles: Eight Days A Week!

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:14 AM

During Edward Heath's premiership we had "Three Days a Week".

I suppose when you get right down to it, the solar year is the only absolute measure of terrestrial time and everything else is arbitrary.

Although God DID say that we were to have Sundays off ...

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:24 AM

Well God certainly told the Jews Christians and Muslims to have a seven day week, and they all clearly listened to this instruction (while ignoring a few of the others). But did he/she/they issue similar instructions to everyone else? What happened in Papua New Guinea? The Aleutian Islands? Australia? China? Anybody got a clue?

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:35 AM

I could be mistaken, but I think the Vikings may have operated a seven day week. I am basing rhis hypothesis on the fact that several of our weekdays are named after Norse deities.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:40 AM

Greg, you might want to check out This site

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:43 AM

Origin of the Seven-Day Week

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 07:47 AM

Thank you for your endorsement of my previous link, GUEST.

Another take on the seven day week

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 08:23 AM

I haven't checked th links yet, but Revolutionary France had ten day "weeks" (francades?)

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 08:26 AM

Brilliant. Thanks for the links Murray. Best fact I found on those sites: the Russian for Monday translates as "day after do-nothing"

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:13 AM

Soviet Russia has tried to introduce 10-days weeks in the 1920s, the GDR has had the same discussion in the 1950s. In old Egypt there has been a ten-days week.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:41 AM

The French revolutionary bosses tried to alter everything - new measurements, new names for months & days & a metric (10) day week. The people didn't like waiting such a long time for a day off. I wonder if that was the reason for the Russian failure.

Sandra

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:56 AM

I think this excerpt from one of the sites I visited bears repeating.

One day of rest in eight makes the week seem too long. One day in six or five makes the week seem too short. But a day of rest in seven has worked out just right for civilizations down through the centuries.

Where did the seven-day week come from?

It came from God. In the book of Genesis in the Bible we read that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. In the book of Exodus (chapter 20) we find that God made this pattern for humans to follow. He even put it into the Ten Commandments He gave to Moses.

The seven-day week has worked remarkably well in every century and in every country because God gave it to us. Those who don't accept this explanation are left with no convincing explanation for its origin. God created us, so He knows what is best for us. That's why we have a seven-day week.

So now you know.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 10:23 AM

Well that's a lot simpler than some of the stuff I was trying to grapple with. But it's surprising, if that is true, that the days don't go Godday, Godday, Godday, Godday, Godday, Godday, Goddayoff. Might be a bit confusing I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 12:04 PM

"Those who don't accept this explanation are left with no convincing explanation for its origin."

*grin*...that assumes that we NEED an ultimate explanation. I just assume that the religious culture, however it developed, gave it to us, and it is sort of useful. For many people, including myself, the days seem to blend together and be hard to distinguish until I have to call someone who works on a 5 day schedule. The big Sunday paper is the one thing that marks time for me.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 02:19 PM

Murray: just a small correction, in the Christian tradition, as with the Jews. Saturday is the seventh day, and a day of rest. We celebrate Sunday because Christ rose again on that day (The first day of the week!).
Jews, and Seventh Day Adventists have got it right

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: SharonA
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 02:47 PM

Nigel: That may be the tradition for some denominations of Christianity, but certainly not all. in the super-fundamentalist household in which I was raised, Sunday was the day of rest and worship, and was practiced as such – not with the thoroughness of the Jewish tradition, but there were still many things we were not allowed to do.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 03:28 PM

The seventh day translates as 'sabbath', I believe; the Sabbath is the seventh day (duh!). Therefore, I agree with Nigel that the 'day of rest' is meant to be the seventh...

In the Bible there is a pronouncement by (I think) Paul who mentions that people are arguing about which is the day of rest; he says that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath and therefore it is not important.

That is not at all the impression I get from what they said earlier was God's take on it: Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy'.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 03:48 PM

Which day of the week is the seventh day largely depends on which day of the week one chooses to designate as the first.

If one nominates Monday as the first day of the week, then Sunday is the seventh.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 03:55 PM

I think the Apostle Paul's take on it was that as long as you observed a day of rest, it didn't really matter which day it was, as long as your heart was in the right place.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 05:27 PM

Nigel, which Christian sects observe Saturday as a day of rest? Sunday is all I am familiar with.

According to one of the websites, the steady rotation of seven day weeks has contnued for thousands of years, uninterrupted by calendar changes, extra leap year days etc. And we've been in sync for ages too, all the Sundays acrossa huge area match up. Nice thought.Wherever you are, Muslims have Friday, Jews have Saturday and Christians have Sunday.All goes a bit wacky at the InternationalDate Line, but basically Europe andbig chunks of Asia have been perfectly synchronised for a long time. With no organisation, either. It just started somewhere,spread out and stayed that way. Perhaps with the spread of agriculture and the Indo-European language? (That's a wild guess. The Jews weren't Indo-Europeans, nor were the Arabs).

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 06:20 PM

"...which Christian sects observe Saturday as a day of rest?"...

The Sixth Day Adventists? oh, never mind..*smile*

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: JennieG
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 08:52 PM

When I was about 17 a friend tried to convince me that we should have Friday off work to get us used to the idea of having a weekend, then we have the weekend, then we should have Monday off work to get over the weekend......then we have a short working week......I always thought she had a very good idea!
Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:03 PM

I've always like the idea of an ecumenical expanded weekend - Friday as a gesture of friendship towards the Muslims, Saturday for the Jews and Sunday for the Christians.

I don't suppose there's any religion that has Thursday or Monday as their special day, so the idea could be extended?

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Jul 02 - 09:09 PM

The habit of Lancashire weavers in not turning up for work on Monday, having got too pissed over the weekend, was referred to as "St Monday": ie they were making a mythical religious observance.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Deda
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 12:29 AM

(Geek alert) I don't think the ancient Romans and Greeks had seven-day weeks, even though our days of the week contain references to classical deities. I've read a lot of Latin, including a lot of Cicero's dated letters, and I've never seen anyone refer to the name of a weekday. At least in Rome, the month was divided not into weeks but into sections defined by the Calends, or Kalends (whence "calendar"), the Nones and the Ides of the months. The Ides (as in "of March") fell on the 15th or the 13th or 12th, depending on the month. The nones fell on the 9th or the 7th, and the Calends (only in Roman, not Greek tradition) was the first day of the month. These "hinges" in the month defined when debts had to be paid, and I think when they had market days, which were generally days off. Business men who were out of town would get back to the city on the Ides or the Calends in order to collect from their debtors. (One Latin expression for "when hell freezes over" was "On the Greek Kalends".) Dates were calculated as how close they were to the next hinge -- so Dec 30 would be the day before the Calends of January, and March 11 would be three days before the Ides of March. The year was calculated by who was consul that year, or by how many years after 753 BC it was (the legendary year that Romulus and Remus founded the city -- on April 21).

The Romans are notorious for having had a lot of holidays but that was mostly and increasingly true during the empire, not the earlier republic. By late empire they had declared dozens of festivals and feast days, worshipping various emperors, so that they actually ended up with about 1/3d of the year off. Anyway, I am pretty sure that the seven-day-week, which is obviously Judeo-Christian, right out of Genesis, only came to the Roman world with Christianity, not earlier -- except of course in ancient Judea, modern Israel, where it originated. But even there, the Roman governors wouldn't have observed it -- they would have tolerated it, but not observed it.

Well, I warned you, I issued a Geek alert. Sometimes I just can't help myself. Old Latin teachers never die...

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 12:59 AM

I don't work on Tuesdays, I'm ill on Tuesdays.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 03:51 AM

Murray, your idea of nominationg which is the first day of the week in order to find which is the seventh will give us 7 possibilities.
Going back to an earlier source:
"Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them." (Luke 24:1, King James Version)
Christ rose again on a Sunday, and this is the reason Christians celebrate Sunday. The desciples had not gone to the sepulchre on the previous day to tend the body, because they were still tied to Jewish religious observances which prevented any 'work' on the Sabbath (Saturday).
Our observance of Sunday, and willingness(?) to work on a Saturday follow on from Jesus healing the sick on the Sabbath, and having to justify himself to the Pharisees.

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:58 AM

Nigel implies the point I used to make to my parents: Jesus, as a Jew, observed the Sabbath. His followers did also. It was the law.

When the early 'Christians' met on the "Lord's Day", it was in addition to observing the Sabbath. At least, that's the way I see it.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 11:57 AM

I rather like the idea of a ten day week just so long as I still only have to go to work on five of them!

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: GUEST,Foe
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 02:29 PM

Native Americans followed a lunar cycle of 28 days. Years were not numbered but referred to a "winters" and records were kept with a pictograph showing a major event of a particular year (i.e "The year everyone died of smallpox, The year when Yellow Hair was killed, etc.)People went out and hunted food or gathered food and then did other stuff until they need to go out for food again so the concept of the "week" and a day of rest seems to have developed in the Old World after the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals bringing about the rise of "specialists" like boot maker, carpenter, etc., creating a need for a "rest" day, possibly a "market" day when everyine gathered for the exchange of goods. It's all more complicated than this, or course.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 03:35 PM

Guest,Foe: a lunar month of 28 days (approx.) makes a lot of sense. One of the few ways of splitting this down is into 4 sevendays.

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:03 PM

Kinda late to do anything about it now, isn't it?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: beadie
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:42 PM

I expect it won't be long before Timex, Seiko, Movado, Rolex and the rest decide that the rest of us should convert to metric time.

While the length of the solar year will, of course, be unchanged, each annum will be divided into 10 months of 36 days each with a five day "holiday" period at the end of the year. Weeks will have ten days (36 weeks/year :: four day weekend every week). A day will have 20 hours (ten AM and ten PM). An hour will have 100 minutes and a minute 100 seconds.

The watchmakers will clean up selling us all new timepieces if we don't kill each other debating the relative value of changing to the new system. Considering all the recent difficulty in the tech sector of the stock market, maybe this will be the salvation of the NASDAQ.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:51 PM

Why not 4 90 day quarters - with a day off between three of them - leap years add day off at the end of the year.

Each quarter could then be three 30 day months of 3 10 day weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: MMario
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:51 PM

Why not 4 90 day quarters - with a day off between three of them - leap years add day off at the end of the year.

Each quarter could then be three 30 day months of 3 10 day weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 05:13 PM

The most basic division indicated in nature is the lunar cycle of 28 days...one moon...one month. If you divide that month into 4 handy divisions of time, you've got 4 weeks of 7 days each. (But why four you may ask?)

But there's another spiritual connection here...deriving from the religions of the East, which are probably more ancient than those of the West. That is the 7 chakras or energy centers in the human body. Those are also analogous to the 7 major colors in the visual spectrum, the 7 notes in our major scale, and various other groups of seven. One finds these patterns over and over again in human culture.

There are also interesting patterns built on the numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on. One finds them in religious traditions, rituals, flags, geometrical forms and symbols (like the 5-pointed or the 6-pointed star). Any study of esoteric spirituality includes the study of geometry and numbers, and the meaning ascribed to them.

No one has yet suggested a 17 day week, and I think the reason why is obvious...it doesn't "sound good". Neither does music that is off-key. A human being recognizes this right away (unless he's tone deaf). A machine doesn't, unless you first program it to take notice.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 06:42 PM

A lot of people on this thread are making deductions froma 28 day lunar cycle.Actually thelunar cycle is 29.53 days...30 to the nearest day.So 5 6-day, or 3 10-day, weeks in a month, for example, would be more accurate than 4 7-day weeks. However, 7 days is the closest whole-number approximation to a lunar quarter,which is a very obvious easy to observe unit of time (actually 7.38 days).

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:28 PM

Two points

1) I read years ago that many different weeks were used, and the 7 day week was of middle-eastern origin. Other weeks varied from 4 to 10 days.

2) Isaac Asimov proposed a system of 4 quarters, each of 91 days, plus a 'year day', each year. The week was still 7 days, but each quarter started on the same day of the week, and the 'year day' didn't count as any day of the week.

Sounds very boring to me.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: mousethief
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:43 PM

Ahem. Nobody has the authority at this point in human history to change something as basic as the week.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:58 PM

Good point there, Greg. Likewise, Alex. There was some crazy dictator running Myanmar (and I think he still is running it) who changed their currency into totally impractical denominations that are useless for quickly calculating anything in your head (so I heard). For all I know he may have changed the number of days in the week too...maybe to 17. You can do this sort of thing when you rule over people like a god. Pol Pot did some bizarre things too when he had the chance to.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 10:06 PM

Can I still take Saturdays and Sundays off while you all work this out?

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: beadie
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 10:11 PM

But Mario, If we convert to your 3 month / quarter system, we end up with 12 months, thus defeating the supposed benefits of the metric (base 10) system.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: GUEST,Gary T--here, cookie cookie
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 11:27 PM

To clarify some of the info Deda provided: the ides were the 15th of March, May, July, and October, the 13th of the other months. The nones were nine days before the ides, thus the 6th or 4th respectively.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 07:08 AM

a japanese friend told me that during ww2, when there was a military government in power, the 7 day week [sun, mon,tu, w,th,fr,sat] was changed to monday, monday, tuesday, wedenesday, thursday, friday, friday.

excluding w/ends & days off meant that everyone was available to do war work.

Subject: RE: BS: 7 day week...good idea?
From: allanwill
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 11:13 AM

Here's a little teaser from the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky.

Allan

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sabbath The idea of naming the days of the week in honor of the seven planets was, according to Eusebius, introduced by the Persians at the time of the war of Xerxes against Greece.(1) Dio Cassius, the Roman author of the fourth century, wrote that the division of the week into seven days in honor of the seven planets originated with the Egyptians, and then spread to other peoples.(2)

Even today the names of the days of the week in European languages can be traced to the names of the planets. Thus the Roman dies Solis (Sun), or Sunday, is Sonntag in German; dies Lunae (Moon), or Monday, is lundi in French and Montag in German; dies Martis (Mars), or Tuesday, is mardi in French and martes in Spanish; dies Jovis (Jupiter), or Thursday, is jeudi in French and Donnerstag in German;(3) Friday is dies Veneris (Venus), or vendredi in French, while Saturday is dies Saturnis, the day of Saturn.(4)

The naming of the seven days of the week in honor of the seven planets is not only an act of reverence apportioned to these gods, but also a memorial to the seven ages that were governed by each of the seven planets in succession. This idea can be traced in the establishment of the Jewish week with its Sabbath. Although the social significance of the Sabbath as the universal day of rest for man, his servant, and the domestic animal working for him is so apparent from many passages in the Scriptures and especially from the beneficent application of a weekly day of rest by all civilized nations that took this precept from the Hebrew Bible, the cosmological meaning of the Sabbath must not remain overlooked.

In six ages the world and mankind went through the pangs of genesis or creation with its metamorphoses. It is not by mistake that the ages which were brought to their end in the catastrophes of the Deluge, of the Confusion of Languages or of the Overturning of the Plain, are described in the book of Genesis: the time of Genesis or creation was not over until the Sabbath of the Universe arrived. With the end of the world age simultaneous with the end of the Middle Kingdom and the Exodus, the Sabbath of the Universe should have begun.

The destruction of the world in the days of the Exodus closed, in the conception of the Hebrews, the age of creation. It was to signify the end of the time when the Earth and men were to be shaped and reshaped. The traditional and very old Hebrew prayer at the beginning of the Sabbath opens with these words: "The sixth day. And the heavens and the earth were established. And the Lord finished in the seventh day the entire work that He did and rested from all the work that He did."

The meaning of this passage is that in six world ages the heavens and the earth were finally established, and that now, in the seventh age, no further changes in the cosmic order should be expected. The Lord is actually implored to refrain from further reshaping the Earth.

The idea that God's day is a millennium is often met in Talmudic literature; the apostle Peter also says: "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years." (5) Thus the seven days of the week represent seven world ages; and the day of the Sabbath represents the seventh world age, which is our age. According to the rabbis of the Tractate Shabbat of the Babylonian Talmud, "Sabbath" is to be interpreted as sabbatu - cessation of the divine wrath.(6) This fits exactly our idea of the Sabbath as the age of rest when the heavens and the earth are established and are not to be disturbed again.

Many exegetes have wondered as to why the prayer of benediction to the Sabbath starts with the words: "The sixth day," expecting to find there the words "The seventh day." The words "the sixth day" are not necessarily wrong here: the meaning may be that with the expiration of the sixth age the heaven and the earth become unchangeable. But it may be that the prayer originated in pre-Exodus days when only six ages were counted. The prayer next refers to the Sabbath as "the day of rest, the memorial to the act of genesis, because this day is the beginning of the reckoning of days, memory of the Exodus from Egypt." The assembling of three different causes for the establishment of the Sabbath would appear confusing were it not for the fact that the three occurrences were simultaneous: the last act of creation, the new flow of time, the Exodus from Egypt.

Although after the beginning of the seventh age new world catastrophes disrupted the established order—in the eighth and seventh centuries before the present era—the idea of the Sabbath of the Universe was already so deeply rooted that the new world catastrophes were not counted, so as not to discredit the establishment of the Sabbath. But the return of the sun's shadow ten degrees in the days of Hezekiah and Isaiah was registered as "the seventh world wonder," (7) and thus actually the eighth world age started. The difference in the magnitude of the catastrophes caused also some nations of antiquity to count six, seven (as most nations), or eight, or nine, or even ten ages;(8) one and the same people, like the Mayas, had traditions of five and seven ages in diverse books of theirs. Also, catastrophes recurring at short intervals, as those which took place in the eighth and beginning of the seventh century before the present era, could be regarded as the closing of one age, or a few short additional ages could be conceived. Catastrophes, variable as they were in their magnitude and consequences, could have had a subjective appraisal. Even the encounter of the earth with a lesser comet, which appeared very bright, in the days when Octavian Augustus observed the mortuary activities in honor of Julius Caesar, and which dispersed its gases in the atmosphere of the Earth, was regarded by one contemporary author as the end of a world age and the beginning of a new one, although no perceptible changes in the motion of the earth and no greater calamity than a year-long gloom were observed.(9)

The Sabbath being a day of rest in the social order, its cosmic meaning in the great fear of the end of the world can be suspected also in view of the rigor with which it was observed; at the beginning of the Christian era, members of some sects among the Jews would not even move, and would remain in the place and position in which the beginning of the Sabbath found them.(10) Social institutions are generally not observed with such an awe and with such rigor. It was actually not the Deity, having worked during six ages and reposed in the seventh who gives example to man; it is man, by abstaining from work on the seventh day, the symbol of the seventh world age, who invites the Supreme Being to keep the established order of the heaven and earth, and not to submit them to new revolutions.

The same idea is found in the prayer of the Chinese Emperor Shun, who lived shortly after the Emperor Yahu. This prayer, declaimed by him, reads: "The sun and moon are constant; the stars and other heavenly bodies have their motions; the four seasons observe their rule." (11) A number of centuries thereafter, in the days of the Emperor Kwei, the order of the celestial sphere was again disrupted: "the planets went out of their courses." (12)

Also Hebrew psalmists and prophets tried to suggest to nature to abstain from revolt; but at the same time they expressed their fear of changes in the future comparable to those in the past. After more than two thousand five hundred years, one of the two original ideas of the Sabbath, its cosmic meaning, was lost to mankind, leaving the social idea conscious and triumphant the world over.

References

Praeparatio Evangelica IV.

Dio Cassius 37. 186; cf. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae III. 10; Petronius, Satyricon, 30: "lunae cursum stellarumque septem imagines."

[Donnar, or Thor was the name for Jupiter among the Nordic peoples.]

Cf. H. Gunkel, Schoepfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (1895). [The same system was in use in Babylonia and is still current in India and Tibet. See Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa, Tibet, A Political History (Yale University Press, 1967), p. 16: "The seven days of the week are named, as in the Western system, for the sun, moon, and the five visible planets. . . ." The people of Burma "also use a week of seven days, named after the planets." F. Buchanan, "On the Religion and Literature of the Burmas," Asiatick Researches VI (1799), p. 169.].

The Second Epistle of Peter 3:8.

Tractate Shabbat 13B. S. Reinach, Cults, Myths, Religion (1912), pp. 168ff.

Ginzberg, Legends, VI. 367.

See Worlds in Collision, Chapter 2, section "The World Ages," and "The Sun Ages."

[This comet of -44 was also observed in China. See De Cambre, Histoire de l'astronomie chinoise (Paris, 1817), p. 358.]

Josephus, The Jewish War

J. Legge, The Chinese Classics (Hong Kong, 1865), Vol. III, p. 1.

Ibid., p. 125.