Talk:Week

Lithuanian nine-day (or night) week

For this discussion, see Talk:Lithuanian_calendar § Nine_Day_or_Nine_Night_Week.3F.

--Pnb73 (talk) 09:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Old Norse Five-day Week

I find on the web Vaster Guðmundsson believed that the Norse used a five day week prior to the borrowing of the seven day week, and used this in his reconstruction of the Norse calendar.
The only mention of a book is just Guðmundsson. 1924, p.88.
This five-day week may have some relation to the Celtic half-week, although this was a five-night week, with four days.
Anyone know more?--Pnb73 (talk) 09:46, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Other weeks used in a Gregorian Calendar Society

Many workers at the Port of Felixstowe work an eight day week, four days of 12 hours each on, and four days off. The port is a 24 hour operation so it appears this is a good idea. Interestingly this divides by 364 and the port only shuts on Christmas day (or during bad weather), although I'm not sure what happens during a leap year! Is anyone aware of anyone else diverting from the standard seven-day week? --Pnb73 (talk) 11:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Radley College?

Does it really matter what Radley College does? Many organisations run on non-standard calendars 189.188.165.190 (talk) 18:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

First sentence -- painfully misguided

A week is a time unit equal to seven days, used by the Jews at least since the time of Abraham[1], who probably lived between 2000 BCE and 1630 BCE[2].

OK, let us count the ways this makes no sense.

1) "used by the Jews at least since the time of Abraham" -- since Abraham is the earliest figure in the Old Testament whom one might reasonably call a Jew, the "at least" makes no sense.

2) Abraham to the best of my knowledge is not recorded in Genesis as using a calendar of any sort. The citation attached this statement refers to Moses, an entirely different figure.

3) Abraham is a legendary figure who may or may not have existed, and who is only referred to in the books of the bible, written hundreds or thousands of years after his supposed death. I don't want to start a fight on religion, but his historicity is certainly up for debate, and a citation of a 100-year-old encyclopedia from a religious institution based in part the Abraham narrative isn't really a reliable source.

Surely the ancient Jewish use of the seven-day week ought to be mentioned in the lede, as it is the ultimate origin of the West's seven-day week, but the first sentence as currently written is nonsense. Any suggestions on rewrites? --Jfruh (talk) 01:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

The only support for the claim that the seven-day week system has been used by the Jewish since BCE 2000 was that it was mentioned in the Christian bible. This is not a reliable source at all; unless one is willing to accept other farfetched claims in the book like someone dividing the ocean in half and so. Removed as deserved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.114.18.120 (talk) 17:29, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I am reverting both the edit introducing this information by Rdh288 and the partial reversion by 175.114.18.120 pending discussion. The seven-day week originated during the Jewish exile in Babylonia after 586 BCE, which both Colson in The Week (1926) and Zerubavel in The Seven Day Circle (1989) will support. At that time the Torah was committed to writing. The Babylonians did not have a continuously repeating seven-day week, although every seventh day of the lunar month was considered unlucky. See Seven-day week. — Joe Kress (talk) 22:54, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I admit that the bible quote included a typo where I wrote Abraham instead of Moses, and I should have used the Moses date instead of the Abraham date (I didn't catch it, probably because 2000 was probably more accurate for moses than 1200). And I didn't realize that Wikipedia somehow managed to date Exodus as recent as 500 BC. However, Why was the Chinese date removed? I had a reliable source, and there wasn't any Bible connection to be attacked. --Rdh288 (talk) 23:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Biblical Origin

There is no way you a serious discussion on the origins of the seven day week, can ignore the seven days of creation from the opening passage of the Bible. This seven day cycle is repeated numerous times in the Bible. As in "the seventh day should be a day of rest". You may love it or hate it, but the Bible can not be ignored! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.136.180 (talk) 16:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course a full discussion of the seven-day week must mention that Christians commonly explain it by reference to the Bible (and I suppose Muslims and Jews refer to similar writings). However, your additions were removed because they were not properly integrated into the article w.r.t. heading levels etc. When you feel something should be added to an article but are yourself unable to do so in a proper manner, requesting it in a post here on the talk page is a good idea.

Actually, I don't think this material is strictly required at this point; as it says at the top of the secion: "Main article: Seven-day week"! However, for now, I've edited your addition so that it fits in a little better.--Nø (talk) 17:30, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The Bible is as good, if not better source then any other "source" that is used by researchers and scholars for their arguments and theories.

The Bible stands on it's own, without the Christians, Jews and Muslims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.136.180 (talk) 22:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The statements about the Biblical origin of the Seven day week is factual. I respectfully ask that contributers NOT modify this entry. However they are invited to add additional scholarly opinions on this matter.

~~Jack —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.140.41.175 (talk) 08:21, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I reverted the last addition. Unless you have a source that explicitly states that it is from the Bible that the whole world decided on 7 day weeks (including nations with no history of Christianity) you may not add that statement. It is an extreme POV and original research. I will continue to revert the matter until you add reliable sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:24, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The source is the Bible itself. and by the Billions of people who believe in it today and who have believed in it in the past.

It is up to people who are uncomfortable with any thing that originates from the Bible to prove otherwise.

To claim that a point of view is extreme is saying that you are uncomfortable with it nothing else.

Please give us a reason for the almost universal acceptance of the Seven day week if not from the Bible.

Please quote it. Having no other POV gives you no right to remove another's POV.

86.140.41.175 (talk) 08:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)jack

I don't have to come up with a reason. All I know is, your claim is POV and unsourced. Wikipedia rules, found in WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:V are exceedingly clear on this issue. In any event, you're asking me to "prove a negative," which is, of course, impossible. As a side note, I'm not at all uncomfortable with the Bible. I am, though, uncomfortable with saying, without a source, that the Bible is the source of everything in the world. In this case, a simple counter-example: why do China and Japan, which have no significant history of Christianity, use a seven day week? It is fine to include the Bible as one possible source; it is wrong to assert that it is the reason why the 7 day week is used nearly universally. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

"In this case, a simple counter-example: why do China and Japan, which have no significant history of Christianity, use a seven day week?"

The question is the answer.

Proof in the universality and truth of the Seven days of creation in the Bible.

I am waiting for another reason why we have a universal Seven day week. Please don't quote from obscure sources.

The Bible is an undisputed source. 81.154.136.125 (talk) 10:48, 14 October 2010 (UTC)Jack

Perhaps the Bible is an undisputed source for you; however, on Wikipedia, it doesn't meet the requirements of WP:RS, our requirements for reliable sources. In cases of Biblical issues, it can be considered a primary source, but it's definitely not the kind of source we need for this article. If you can find a reliable source, that is a academic journal, a historian, a sociological analysis, or other secondary source (you can learn more about the difference at WP:PRIMARY), then perhaps we could quote that source. You should probably post here first, though, as it will be good to have input from other editors.

As a side note, even if we accept the Bible as a source, it still doesn't prove what you want to say here. Obviously, nothing in the Bible itself says "The reason why the vast majority of 21st century people/countries use a 7 day week is because of the Bible", which is what you're trying to say. Actually, the Bible doesn't even say that Christians/Jews have to observe a 7 day week. All you have is one story (one of 2 completely different Biblical Creation stories, I'll point out--read more at Genesis Creation myth, paying close attention to the First and Second narrative descriptions) saying Creation happened in 7 days. Nothing in the Bible requires that followers of YHVH must organize their time on earth into 7 day units.

So, let me re-cap: I don't need to prove any other reason for a 7 day week (I have one, but it's irrelevant). What you have to do is find a source that meets the standards of WP:RS that verifies that the reason for the modern use of a 7 day week is because of the Bible. Find that source, and then we can figure out if/how to add it to the article. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

To totaly ignore the seven days of creation and the mention of the seventh day of rest about 50 times in the Bible, makes the Wikipedia entry on the Week, unscholarly and unreliable. Especially as most entries for this item are from obscure sources.

86.138.239.245 (talk)Jack —Preceding undated comment added 16:42, 17 October 2010 (UTC).

As I just mentioned (twice) in edit summaries, all you need to do is find a reliable source that states your claim, then add whatever that source says (paraphrased into your own words) in the article. I have left a sentence indicating the Bible as a likely source. Actually, I may change it later today, since a more accurate statement would be something about Jewish/Christian religious sources, since, of course, the Bible didn't exist when the practice of the 7 day week started. Again, Wikipedia requires reliable sources; it's actually a fairly simple requirement, and I'm sure if you check you can find one. Qwyrxian (talk) 22:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I have read WP:RS. It does not say that the Bible is NOT a reliable source.

It is unscholarly and unacademic to completely ignore an ancient source that discusses the Seven day week.

To say that the Bible says.... is 100% ok it is stating an academic fact.

Where does it say in WP:RS that the Bible isn't a reliable source?

86.152.173.187 (talk) 22:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)Jack

The Bible is a religious work, not a reliable source. You either did not read WP:RS or did not understand it. Reliable sources are those that have editorial oversight, and are published by reliable presses. The Bible is a collection of stories (some factual, some mythical, some metaphorical, etc.), by a large number of different authors, written over a period of at least several hundred years, in multiple different languages. The Bible can sometimes be cited in discussion about the Bible/Christianity itself, although even that is contentious, because its often difficult to decide which version and which interpretation to use--this is following the rules for primary sources. And maybe I'm not being clear. The statement you want to add to the article says, in short, "The reason why most countries in the 20th-21st use a 7 day week is because of the Bible." 'You need a source that says that exact thing.' Obviously, the Bible doesn't say anything about the 20th/21st century. Maybe you're just not understanding what I mean--I'm not saying that the Bible isn't the basis for the 7 day week--I'm saying you need a reliable source that says that the Bible is the basis of the 7 day week. The Bible itself never once says that. Sure, it mentions the Sabbath. Sure, it mentions 7 day cycles. But it doesn't say "21st century countries decided to follow a 7 day week because of the Bible." Do you understand what you must provide? Even if we said that the Bible is a reliable source, it doesn't even support the statement you're trying to add.

If you persist in adding unsourced statements to this article, I will be compelled to report you for edit warring. If you believe I am wrong, please go to WP:RSN and ask whether or not the Bible itself supports your claim that the use of the 7 day week is based on the Bible. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:58, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I moved the information around, brought over some citations from Seven-day week, and even kept in the Bible/Torah comment (although in modified form). I believe that this should meet your desires as well as meeting Wikipedia's policies on verifiability. Is the okay now? Qwyrxian (talk) 03:16, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you I object to you stripping out my comments in the "discussion pages" where I have asked valid questions. You quote from the entry on the "Seven day week" "The international standard of using a continuous cycle of seven-day weeks follows the ancient Jewish custom." Which means that the Seven day week follows the 7 days of creation. Because Jews follow the Bible.

I was NOT saying that everybody keeps a 7 day week becaus of the Bible. I was using the Bible as a reference to earliest mention of the 7 day week. Especially when you claim that the earliest record is "Babylonian Captivity" when according to the history of the Jews in the Bible "The Children of Israel kept the Sabbath" over a Thousand years earlier.

Arguments will continue. But you cant go wrong when you ONLY mention passages connected to this entry from the Bible. Leave people to make their own conclusions.

Why say "earliest Evidence" when this is strongly disputed. Just say there "is evidence"

"The Bible is a collection of stories by a large number of different authors" You are contradicting yourself. Because all these "people" support each other and confirm the validity of all the previous parts of the Bible.

So please lets not get into an argument about the truth of the Bible as this is not the place.

But if there is a connection from the entry to the Bible then that source should be allowed to be quoted "as is". The reader will then have a choice of how to connect it to the entry.

I hope that you will not edit this entry. Also that you will reinstate the "quotes" from the Bible so that scholars and academics will thank Wikipedia for providing unbiased resources and allowing them to draw their own conclusions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yes3232 (talk • contribs) 08:32, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I included a reliable source to support the claim that the first historical evidence of a 7 day week is from the 6th century BC. Do you have a reliable source that says otherwise? You say that info is disputed, do you have evidence of that dispute? I would be more than happy to add evidence that said claim is disputed (although, if it's really disputed heavily and there's lots of info, we'd want to just summarize it here and put the bulk of the info at Seven-day week). I think you're implying that the Bible itself is older than the 6th century BC; if that's your claim, I recommend you take the discussion to Torah or Bible, as that is not the current scholarly consensus.

The reason why quoting the Bible itself isn't appropriate here can be found in WP:PRIMARY. We only ever quote primary sources (which the Bible would be in this case) in circumstances where the interpretation is absolutely clear to all observers. I am claiming that your interpretation of the Bible is not absolutely clear. However, you'll notice that I linked to the page on the Genesis Creation story, and that page has lots of Biblical quotes on it.

Finally, I have, as far as I know, never even once edited your comments in this discussion. One time either I or someone else moved comments from the top of this page to the bottom, because new comments always go at the bottom. If you look back at the talk page's history, you should see that no one removed your comments. If I did so mistakenly I apologize. I'm not trying to silence you, only to acquaint you with how Wikipedia deals with sources and verifying information in articles. Qwyrxian (talk) 10:33, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone disputes that the seven days of Genesis correspond, at least at face value, to a week. However, many notable Christian authorities (e.g. the Church of Rome) do not assert the literal historicity of Genesis. There is a lot of material over at Book of Genesis about the sources of Genesis (Yahwist, Eloist, Priestly, etc), concluding that the text congealed in the 5th century BC. According to Jahwist#Genesis, the first creation story is from the Priestly source. Priestly source dates composition to 6th or early 5th century BC, and has origins in a time when religious ritual was very important. We do know that some other, non-Hebrew traditions used other lengths for a week (see Egyptian calendar). The Romans used an eight day week prior to the adoption of the Julian calendar at 45 BC (see Roman_calendar#Nundinal cyle, and switched to the 7-day week in the early Imperial Period. I think it'd be great to see the source cited by Roman calendar (Brind'Amour, 1983, p. 256–275) to see if there is better information there. It doesn't seem likely that Rome would have adopted the 7-day week explicitly for Judeo-Christian traditional reasons prior to Constantine. However, after Constantine, the Church of Rome certainly regulated the calendar in the West, and Pope Gregory obviously presumes the 7-day week in the bull Inter gravissimas which revised the calendar. The church adopted the Julian Calendar in its infancy because the center of church authority was Rome, and the Julian calendar was the civil calendar of Rome. The Christian liturgical week has its root in the Jewish liturgical week, with the Lord's Day coming after the Sabbath day (from the passion narratives). I think there is probably enough source material out there to trace the lineage of the seven day week through the various calendar reforms and hypothetically to the Priestly Source of Genesis. It can't be original research though. Someone has connected these dots; if someone wants to make this assertion here, it has to be well-sourced. --Mm35173 (talk) 18:08, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Chinese week confusion

I don't understand the sentence, "The law in the Han Dynasty (206 BC – AD 220) required officials of the empire to rest every 5 days, called "mu", while it was changed into 10 days in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618 – 907), called "huan" or xún (旬)."

Questions: 1. Was the Han week five days long? 2. Does "mu" mean "five-day week" or "day off"? 3. Was the required day off changed to once every ten days in the Tang Dynasty?

Wakablogger2 (talk) 19:43, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

According to the Japanese article [[1]], the 旬 was known in the Xia Dynasty.

According to the Japanese article [[2]], 假 is a day off once every five days that occurred from the Han to the Northern and Southern Dynasties. It also says there was a day off once every ten days in the Tang.

Can someone clarify this further? Wakablogger2 (talk) 19:55, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Confused by Celtic week

This article claims the Celts used an 8-day/9-night week. This can't possibly make sense, unless there's an extra day between every week. Moreover, there's no mention of this in the Celtic calendar article. Can someone clarify/correct this? 75.22.28.250 (talk) 15:50, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I fully agree, so I removed the whole section. I left a message on Talk:Celtic calendar to see if anyone there can provide us a one or two sentence summary and pick a relevant citation or two. I can try myself, but the week info there isn't specifically linked to a source. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Lunar phase

Week came from the Lunar phase. New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon and Last Quarter: There are nearly 7 days between them! Böri (talk) 11:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

That information would belong at Seven-day week, although you'll need a reliable source to verify it. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:02, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

reliable source: Time and the calendars (by W.M. O'Neil) Böri (talk) 13:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to take that over to Talk: Seven-day week; however, you'll have to deal with the fact that there are other reliable sources which disagree with that analysis, as far as I can see. It's possible that both explanation should be in the article. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:10, 9 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) 12:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

We need a page in O'Neil's book. — Joe Kress (talk) 01:22, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I have the Turkish version of that book. (and my book is in İzmir now... & I'm in Istanbul.) Is there an online version of that book? Böri (talk) 13:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Week defined

You may be surprised to learn that the week of seven days and 24 hours is based on astronomy. Which is why neither the revolutionary French, nor the early Bolsheviks, nor anyone else, have been able to change it.

The days of the week are based, as many know, on the Sun, Moon and five traditional planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. This ordering is modern, by the way. Sunday is the day of the Sun, Monday is the day of the Moon, Tuesday is the day of Mars, etc.

The 24 hour concept is based on this. Starting with sunrise on Sunday (or any other day you choose), the first hour is "ruled" by the planet which "rules" the day. In fact it is the planet that rules the first hour of the day that gives its name to the rest of the day.

Subsequent hours are ruled by subsequent planets, given in order of speed, not distance from the Sun, in this order: Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. As this is a slice taken from the middle, it will do as well to give this sequence: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Which then leads back to Saturn and a new cycle.

Starting with Sun at sunrise on Sunday and working through the various possibilities, one discovers the week of 7 days and 24 hours per day, a total of 168 separate hours before the entire cycle repeats.

You will find more on this at Wiki's own article on Planetary Hours, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_hours , where we will discover, to our horror, that the week and its hours are based on evil astrology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.15.119.52 (talk) 16:20, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Six-day week, Argentinean astronomer's work

I am quoting the part where I'd like to draw attention:

[...] with society split into three groups working different weeks of four days followed by two rest-days [...]

— Wikipedia, Week#Six-day

This sentence seems wrong to me. I am fine with the "with society split into three groups" part, but the following part reads just weird. "working different weeks of four days" maybe should have been phrased as "working on different four days of the week, followed by two rest-days".

It probably tries to say the same thing, but I claim that the current version is not exactly to the point. Or is it the case that English takes the word "week" as "working days" as a secondary meaning to it? If so, then take this as a comment from an average person, confused while reading through the article. — manual signature: comment added by ThoAppelsin (talk • contribs) 17:00, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Ancient Near East section

I am sure it would be nice to document what we know about the origins of the seven-day week before the classical "Chaldean" (Neo-Babylonian) period. Unfortunately, it seems to be perfectly normal to write about ANE topics based on random web searches, giving such pointless specifications as "a broken tablet" or "the Babylonians", without any rhyme, reason or context. So we have a link to a pdf apparently drawn from Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (no date), which simply states, in a chatty conversation about the "enigmatic number seven", that "King Sargon I of Akkad (2335 to 2279 BC), decreed a seven-day week in his Empire." This is interesting and I would love to know more about it. First of all if it is true. .... It is at this point that a scholarly article would probably insert some kind of footnote to identify the source of this claim in Assyrologist literature. But we get nothing. This is not a "reference", and it is useless for our purposes. I would just blank it if this wouldn't mean I had to blank about 70% of our ANE coverage to be consistent. --dab (𒁳) 13:34, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

it turns out that the "broken tablet" is in fact the lost fifth tablet of the Enuma Elish. This is a bit like calling Aristotle's Comedy "a mislaid papyrus".

since this is cited to the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics without bothering to give any context, we have now no way of knowing whose reconstruction or idea this was and where the suggestion was published. --dab (𒁳) 18:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Dubious

First day of week information is wrong.

In cite_note-34 (http://www.pjh2.de/datetime/weeknumber/wnd.php?l=en), a lot of information is in "unknown state" or "wrong state", and is based on Operating Systems default configuration.

cite_note-35 (http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/weekinfo.htm) points to a dead page.

So this map is wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Day_of_Week_World_Map.svg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snifer1981 (talk • contribs) 18:36, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

I am chilean and I can assure that Chile doesn't start weeks on Sunday but on Monday, hence, this map is, at least, wrong on that. 186.104.67.55 (talk) 03:09, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Should we simply trust, reference and use data from CLDR to build the maps and tables in the section Week numbering? I’ve added the relevant part from the XML file to commons:File talk:Week Holidays World Map.svg. It has CL listed in <firstDay day="mon"> like the IP user above suggested. — Christoph Päper 06:38, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

OED defines Sunday as the first day of the week, and also defines a week as starting on Sunday. Certainly this was the normal understanding in the UK, though I suspect that for many people days 1 & 7 have coalesced with the reduction in church-going. Quoting an EU definition is a neologism. Monday is the first day of the working week, which makes sense for things like tyre codes. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:34, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Loads of webpages state that in UK, the first day of the week is Monday - many pages reference ISO 8601 (not EU) from 1975. E.g., [3].--Nø (talk) 18:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't remember an Act of Parliament for changing the days of the week. ISO (note - international, not UK) may introduce new-fangled ideas, but the first day of the week has been Sunday since "Adam was a lad". :-) Have a quick read of Genesis I and you'll see the traditional division dating from the mythical creation of the world. Seriously though, the Jewish Sabbath has been established for several thousand years and establishes the seventh day, so the following day has to be the first. The OED has references go back hundreds of years. If you want you could insert something along the lines of "the first day of the week is Sunday, but for commercial purposes the ISO has established Monday as day 1 in the ISO calendar". That aligns with the reference you give which states "For commercial purposes, i.e. accounting, planning and similar purposes for which a week number might be used, Monday has been found the most appropriate as the first day of the week." [my emphasis]. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:34, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Was there an act of parliament saying Sunday is the first day of the week? How come "weekends" include the first day of the week? Right, one can argue in many ways. But try googling, or checking paper calendars around you, on amazon.co.uk, or whatever. Instances with Sunday as first day seem to be predominantly American, not British.--Nø (talk) 07:53, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Not that long ago (19C) Saturday was a normal working day, Sunday was the rest day. You may be younger than me. When I was growing up Sunday was definitely a dead, boring day, unlike Saturday. On Saturdays things were open and you could play outdoors, Sunday you were in your best clothes and were meant to behave. In parts of Scotland the restrictions on Sunday observance were stricter and lasted longer - I can recall seeing a sign banning the use of a children's playground on Sunday in 1999, and many ferries didn't run then. There was Sunday, the working week, and the weekend/Saturday. Over the last 40 or 50 years 1 & 7 may have coallesced, but they certainly weren't the same originally. In answer to your specific first point, it was established since time immemorial. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:38, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Obviously Sunday traditionally is considered the first day of the week in most countries and religions that have their cultural foundations somewhere in the biblical traditions. I do miss the Hebrew naming of the days of the week in this article which surely is important in this context. To the best of my knowledge, the days of the week are simply denoted with their number in Hebrew ("first", "second" etc.).

That said, to the best of my knowledge, there has been a calendar reform somewhere in the 1970s. Before that time, most calendars in the western world began the week starting with a Sunday. After this reform, they began the week starting with a Monday.

In other words: Sunday as the first day of the week is the biblically based tradition which had been predominant in the western hemisphere for centuries. Monday as the first day of the week is a relatively new regulatory concoction based on political or economic decisions.

Maybe some research on this calendar reform can shed further light on this controversy. --93.212.230.88 (talk) 08:36, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm no expert on any of this and cannot point to any sources either, but I have a thought... The week of creation ends with a day of rest, which is (arguably) celebrating by ending the week on a day of rest. Now, is that day Saturday / the Jewish sabbath, or Sunday / the Christian church day? The situation may (or may not) be complicated by differences in when each day begins, at nightfall or at midnight. -- Am I on to something, or is this rubbish?--Nø (talk) 11:20, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Let's leave the question of what time the day begins aside for the moment because that doesn't really matter in this case (the day just begins a few hours earlier, at nightfall instead of at midnight) and may only further confuse things.

Your question is quite easy to answer. In the Bible (including the New Testament!) and in Judaism the Sabbath = 7th day = Saturday is the day of rest.

In early Christianity, the day of rest shifted toward the first day of the week = Sunday = "day of the Lord". There are a number of reasons for this development which I could probably find sources for but which are beside the point here; let it suffice that that's why most Christians (not all of them) celebrate Sunday as their day of rest.

The numbering of the days has never changed through this shift though; the Sunday was never considered the "7th" day in Christianity. --93.212.230.88 (talk) 11:46, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Not rubbish, but missing a couple of steps. Taking the points in reverse order; in Jewish tradition days start at nightfall. In Genesis 1 the formula "And the evening and the morning were the first day" is repeated for days 2 to 6 (and 7 in the next chapter). In general the complication is avoided by silently shifting the start 6 hours (on average) forward. Genesis 2:2—3 is the key to the origin of the Sabbath: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. / And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."

Moving rapidly forward some thousands of years, Mathew 28:1–28:2 has "In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. / And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.", so the Resurrection was on the first day of the week. Early on, Christians kept the first day of the week as their special holy day in celebration of the event. To this day, Jews keep Saturday (from Friday evening) as the Sabbath because God rested then whereas Christians keep Sunday since Jesus rose from the dead. In general Christians regard the New Covenant as superseding the Old, so the events of Easter modify Genesis. The biblical authority therefore is for Sunday being the first day of the week (Mathew 28:1). Hope that clears things up a bit, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:08, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Holidays of week?

There is an image described as "World map showing holidays of week in different countries". What are "holidays of week"? --Apoc2400 (talk) 16:21, 5 May 2017 (UTC)