Pendant Quiz

[rubato]

Lief Ericsson was born in Iceland a son of Eric the Red of Norway so by birth he may be thought of as Norwegian. Their religion was Norse Paganism which is a religion born in Europe (unlike Christianity which is an Asian religion imported to Europe). They spoke a European language and practiced a culture which began in Europe.

So Lief was more European than St George (Greek born in Turkey) was English.

Although why we should care about whether identity comes from an arbitrary geographical division of the world I cannot say.

While we're on random cultural questions how did the Jewish calendar, having weeks composed of seven days, become the universal standard? The Jewish population has never been large compared to all the rest of the world? No one else counted time that way; to the best of my knowledge. And many civilizations already had very sophisticated calendars and ways of calculating dates into the future and the past.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

I blame the church

[Big RR]

While we're on random cultural questions how did the Jewish calendar, having weeks composed of seven days, become the universal standard? The Jewish population has never been large compared to all the rest of the world?

My recollection is that the Roman calendar (on which ours is based) had weeks of seven days based on the known major astrological bodies of that time--five planets plus the sun and the moon (and the romance names of the days reflect this; later the Sun's (still Sunday in English) day became God's day and saturn's day (still Saturday in English) the sabbath when Christianity took root (niot sure when Jupiter's day became Thor's day). This led to 4 week months (roughly lunar cycles), with longer and shorter months used to approximate the solar year. Weeks were convenient because they could space market days into usable time periods.

[oldr_n_wsr]

And Jupiter is aligned with Mars

[Econoline]

Then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars...

[rubato]

It looks like the seven-day week began with the Babylonians and was adopted by Judaism (as much of Zoroastrianism was). But it seems possible that transmission was in the opposite direction during the Babylonian captivity. But if that were the case we would have to explain why there is no evidence from before that since the first temple was ca 400 years old already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week

History

While the seven-day cycle may have deep historical origins in the Ancient Near East, the "planetary theory" of horoscopy is a development of Babylonian astrology roughly around 500 BC, with the oldest extant horoscope dated to just before 400 BC.[8]

The seven-day week being approximately a quarter of a lunation has been proposed (e.g. by Friedrich Delitzsch) as the implicit, astronomical origin of the seven-day week,[9] and indeed the Babylonian calendar used intercalary days to synchronize the last week of a month with the new moon.[10]

The seven-day week seems to have been adopted (independently) by the Persian Empire, in Judaism and in Hellenistic astrology, and (via Greek transmission) in Gupta India and Tang China.[11] The Babylonian system was received by the Greeks in the 4th century BC (notably via Eudoxus of Cnidus). But the designation of the seven days of the week to the seven planets does not seem to have any Babylonian precedent[12] and is rather an original innovation of Hellenistic astrology, probably first conceived in the 2nd century BC.[8] It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire by the 1st century AD, and ultimately replaced the older Roman system of the nundinal cycle during the 4th century.
Ancient Near East

The earliest evidence of an astrological significance of a seven-day period is connected to Gudea, priest-king of Lagash in Sumer during the Gutian dynasty, who built a seven-room temple, which he dedicated with a seven-day festival. In the flood story of the Assyro-Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh the storm lasts for seven days, the dove is sent out after seven days, and the Noah-like character of Utnapishtim leaves the ark seven days after it reaches firm ground.[13]

It seems likely that the Hebrew seven-day week is based on the Babylonian tradition, although going through certain adaptations. George Aaron Barton speculated that the seven-day creation account of Genesis is connected to the Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish, which is recorded on seven tablets. [14]

Counting from the new moon, the Babylonians celebrated the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th as "holy-days", also called "evil days" (meaning "unsuitable" for prohibited activities). On these days, officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to "make a wish", and at least the 28th was known as a "rest-day".[15] On each of them, offerings were made to a different god and goddess.

In a frequently-quoted suggestion going back to the early 20th century[by whom?][16] the Hebrew Sabbath is compared to the Sumerian sa-bat "mid-rest", a term for the full moon. The Sumerian term has been reconstructed as rendered Sapattum or Sabattum in Babylonian, possibly present in the lost fifth tablet of the Enûma Eliš, tentatively reconstructed [according to whom?] "[Sa]bbath shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly".[15]
Achaemenid period

The Zoroastrian calendar follows the Babylonian in relating the seventh and other days of the month to Ahura Mazda.[17] The forerunner of all modern Zoroastrian calendars is the system used to reckon dates in the Persian Empire, adopted from the Babylonian calendar by the 4th century BC.

Frank C. Senn in his book Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical points to data suggesting evidence of an early continuous use of a seven-day week; referring to the Jews during the Babylonian Captivity in the 6th century BC,[18] after the destruction of the Temple of Solomon. While the seven-day week in Judaism is tied to Creation account in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible (where God creates the heavens and the earth in six days and rests on the seventh; Genesis 1:1–2:3, in the Book of Exodus, the fourth of the Ten Commandments is to rest on the seventh day, Shabbat, which can be seen as implying a socially instituted seven-day week), it is not clear whether the Genesis narrative predates the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews in the 6th century BC. At least since the Second Temple period under Persian rule, Judaism relied on the seven-day cycle of recurring Sabbaths[19]

Tablets[citation needed] from the Achaemenid period indicate that the lunation of 29 or 30 days basically contained three seven-day weeks, and a final week of eight or nine days inclusive, breaking the continuous seven-day cycle.[15] The Babylonians additionally celebrated the 19th as a special "evil day", the "day of anger", because it was roughly the 49th day of the (preceding) month, completing a "week of weeks", also with sacrifices and prohibitions.[15]

Difficulties with Friedrich Delitzsch's origin theory connecting Hebrew Shabbat with the Babylonian lunar cycle[20] include reconciling the differences between an unbroken week and a lunar week, and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as Shabbat in any language.[21]
Hellenistic and Roman era

In Jewish sources by the time of the Septuagint, the term "Sabbath" (Greek Sabbaton) by synecdoche also came to refer to an entire seven-day week,[22] the interval between two weekly Sabbaths. Jesus's parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:12) describes the Pharisee as fasting "twice in the week" (Greek δὶς τοῦ σαββάτου dis tou sabbatou).

The ancient Romans traditionally used the eight-day nundinal cycle, but after the Julian calendar had come into effect in 45 BC, the seven-day week came into use. For a while, the week and the nundinal cycle coexisted, but by the time the week was officially adopted by Constantine in AD 321, the nundinal cycle had fallen out of use. The association of the days of the week with the Sun, the Moon and the five planets visible to the naked eye dates to the Roman era (2nd century). [23]

The continuous seven-day cycle of the days of the week can be traced back to the reign of Augustus; the first identifiable date cited complete with day of the week is 6 February 60, identified as a "Sunday" (as viii idus Februarius dies solis "eighth day before the ides of February, day of the Sun") in a Pompeiian graffito. According to the currently-used Julian calendar, 6 February 60 was, however, a Wednesday. This is explained by the existence of two conventions of naming days of the weeks based on the planetary hours system: 6 February was a "Sunday" based on the sunset naming convention, and a "Wednesday" based on the sunrise naming convention.[24]

yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

6 February was a "Sunday" based on the sunset naming convention, and a "Wednesday" based on the sunrise naming convention.

Now that just makes no sense at all to me. What, were the nights three days long way back then?

[Big RR]

and a "Wednesday" based on the sunrise naming convention

Wednesday? The romans named their days after norse or anglo saxon gods?

[MajGenl.Meade]

I think that's why he used inverted commas - to indicate that is our day-name but not theirs. It was evidently the fourth day of the week, Mercury; the Romans followed the Greek names for heavenly bodies - Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and Beyonce.

[Big RR]

Perhaps Meade. But then, shouldn't you have used the inverted commas for Beyoncé?

[oldr_n_wsr]

Uranus.

[Big RR]

Your Trump's white dwarf.

[Bicycle Bill]

The Pedents’ Re-volt
Its not eazy being a pedent
correcting others’ mis-takes all daylong
My freinds and me are totally sic
of observing gramma witch has gone wrong.

“Whom are these language offenders”?,
“could it be that I maybe one, to”
Their ignorant; stupid, and careless:
off gramma they have’nt a clue.

They’re speling is sutch an embarrasment
its’ amature, wired, and, abserd,
comprized of neither thought or intelligance,
to a dictionary they should of refered.

Writing down there awkwardly formed sentences,
the participle clauses are left dangling.
just made one less mistake each would have the affect
to dramatically reduce this language mangling.
  (....props to Miss Cellania's blog, "What... You Think This is Funny?")

-"BB"-