At 06:17 -0700 6/28/1999, Alain wrote:
>A 13:35 99-06-27 -0700, G. Adam Stanislav a écrit :
>
>[John]
>>> The 7-day week is of Jewish origin,
>
>[Adam]
>>Sorry, I seriously doubt that. That it is part of the Jewish tradition is no
>>doubt. That it is of Jewish *origin* is highly debatable. Most likely the
>>Jewish tradition simply adopted a pre-existing system.
>
>[Alain] Just by curiosity, any example outside of the Jewish, Christian or
>Muslim religions (which are indeed the same religion, if one thinks about
>it with an open mind) ?
>
>[Adam]
>>The use of the number 7 as a special number of "mystical" significance seems
>>to exist in various cultures completely unrelated to Jewish tradition.
>
>[Alain] Of course, no doubt about this, though. But for the number of days
>in the week, I see no example outside of the tradition which begins with
>Abraham. I may be wrong, but I would like to be instructed then.
>
>Alain LaBonté
>Québec
There was a Babylonian 7-day week based on the gods of the 7 planets, in
order of apparent distance from Earth in their cosmology: Moon, Venus,
Mercury, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. The hours of a week were associated
cyclically with the planets (the original meaning of 24x7), and each day
had a different deity associated with its first hour. The name of that
deity became the name for the day. Greeks, Romans, and others made the
obvious mappings from Babylonian deities to their own. The astronomical
order of the planets is scrambled in the Babylonian week because 24 mod 7
is 3.
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