WEBVTT - The Seven Day Week, Part 3 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Sbot to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:14.680 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.159 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.279 we're back with part three of our series about the 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.320 seven day week. If you haven't listened to the two 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.760 previous parts, you should probably go do that first. This 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.400 one will maybe make more sense if if you do that. 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:30.640 But hey, if you want to, you know, fly by 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.440 the proverbial seat of your pants, let's go for it. 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.440 Here we are in part three. Al right, well, you know, 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.839 to kick things off, I thought, as a potential fun aside, 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.360 I thought we might think about weeks on other planets. Um, 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.519 you know, because if we're if we're going to have 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.640 just a planet centric week based on solar days, so 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.840 one complete rotation of said planet, then this is about 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.120 how it all breaks down here on Earth, one week 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.920 is a hundred and sixty eight hours twenty four hour days. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.680 Seven of those make sense, simple math. Um. On Mercury, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.200 one week is one thousand, four hundred and eight hours, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.800 or about fifty eight Earth days. So on Mercury that 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.080 it is a hard core t g if mentality Like 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:15.880 by the time you get to the weekend, you are 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.560 ready to party exactly. And it's even worse on Venus. 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:21.839 I mean, we know Venus is as a hell world. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:27.440 On Venus, one week is forty thousand, twenty four hours, 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:32.679 or about one thousand, seven hundred and one earth days. Now, 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.080 the really weird thing about Venus would be that I 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.800 think it is the case that on Venus a day 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.160 is actually longer than a year, meaning that it takes 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:46.240 the planet Venus longer to rotate on its axis than 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.880 it does to go entirely around the Sun. Right, Yeah, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.400 so that would mean that a week on Venus is 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:58.280 actually more than seven years on Venus. Yeah, and again 0:01:58.280 --> 0:01:59.760 we're just taking the idea that you know we have 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:03.480 a older day here on Earth. Well, complete rotation is 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.880 a day on another planet, and therefore seven of those 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.919 would make a week on any given planet. All right, now, 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:10.880 you know we already touched on Earth. Head on out 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.480 to Mars. The red planet has twenty five hour days, 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:16.840 so it's not too far off. We're talking a hundred 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.120 and seventy five hour week. But then you go to 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.919 Jupiter here you have ten hour days, so we're talking 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:26.000 about a seventy hour week. Saturn eleven hour days, so 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.160 that's pretty easy to calculate seventy seven hour weeks um. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.840 And then by the time we get to uh Uranus 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.160 we're talking, we're looking at a seventeen hour days, so 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.519 that's a hundred nineteen hour weeks, and on Neptune sixteen 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.600 hour days, a hundred and twelve hour weeks. You know, 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.320 this should all I think, drive home, how you know, 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.239 nonsensical in many respects, the concept of a week or 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.000 even a day is when you move off of Earth. Uh. 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.720 For instance, just looking at Mars, the lack of a 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.799 quote leisurely orbiting moon, as the planetary society puts it, 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.520 means that you you don't really have Martian months for example. 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.079 Oh yeah, so the year on Mars doesn't really divide 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.839 into manageable time units like our months. Right, so when 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:11.720 we come to like determining like what time it is 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.440 on Mars, like that's that's ultimately a whole whole, whole 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.919 different topic unto itself. Scientists that had to devise, uh, 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:22.000 you know, different ways of thinking about time regarding another 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.480 planet um. And of course you can imagine how how 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.640 complicated this would become if you had ultimately had some 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.480 sort of colonial system in place on another world. Actually, 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.760 you know what, I just realized. I realized I was 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.280 thinking about the speed of the orbits of the moons 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:41.040 of Mars entirely in the wrong direction, right, because I 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.240 was thinking, Oh, yeah, I've forgotten how long it takes 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.960 some maybe maybe it takes some like months and months 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.400 on on Earth to go around Mars one time. But 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.920 no phobos orbits Mars like once every eight hours or something. Right, 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:59.680 It's it's just whizzing around, yeah, not very leisurely. So 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.760 it's do you know, I guess a reminder to just 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.200 you know, so so many so much of our contemplations 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.240 of time are based on again, as we discussed in 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:13.120 the first episode, the the observable World, the observable cosmos, 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:16.400 and you're not going to have the same a set 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:18.640 of stuff in place on other worlds, or it's going 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.000 to mean something different, such as how long it seems 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.120 to take the sun to rise and then to set. 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.239 So this, obviously, this leads to the next logical point 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.000 is that if you were to watch the video from 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.799 the Ring movies and therefore invoke the wrath of of 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:42.120 of of a strange VHS tape based ghost you would 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.120 of course have seven days left to live. Those seven 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.240 days would be best spent on an off world colony, 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.200 you know, preferably heading on over to uh to Venus. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.600 I think now, I think this came up when we're 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.000 actually talking about this earlier, and Rob, you and I 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.960 both forgot that. In the movie, they explain why it 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.480 takes seven days, because that's like, you know, how long 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.080 the creepy ghost girls in the well or whatever. But 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.640 but but Sem had to remind us, Seth had to 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.040 remind us. But we both forgot that. And you had 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.240 the most amazing theory about the origin of the seven 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.719 day curse period in the Ring, and it had to 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:22.040 do with our childhood memories of Blockbuster video. Yes, uh, 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.479 well I I I was thinking, okay, seven seven days? 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.200 Why seven days? Seven is is not an unlucky number 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.800 in Japanese culture. It seems like four would be more 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:34.880 fitting for that if we were going to go that route. 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:36.200 So what is it about seven? I was thinking, Well, 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.880 maybe it's the seven day rental period, right, and because 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.520 we know that that she likes working through VHS tapes, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.200 so maybe it has to do with the VHS rental cycle. 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.640 Of course, what this got me wondering about is how 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.040 come in the Ring movies nobody ever talks back on 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.279 the phone, you know, so you get the phone calls 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.120 like your cursed seven days. How come nobody ever just 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.240 like tries to negotiate. Well, you know, sometimes they have 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.960 to participate in a survey after the call for quality 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.720 assurance purposes. So there is that. In reality, I think 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.960 the Ring videotape would probably give rise to a subculture 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.680 of of what what would you call them? Like curse 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.239 baiting scam fighters, you know, like the people who played 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:18.039 pranks on the people who do the I R. S 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.680 scam phone calls, except they're scamming Samara. Yeah. Yeah. Though 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.360 it is interesting when you compare the two because when 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:29.640 in the fictional situation, we have an evil entity calling 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.120 you and wishing you harm and uh, it's it's very 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:33.719 much the same thing when you have somebody trying to 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.680 run some sort of a phone scam like it's it's 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.280 almost its quite unsettling like to to to be speaking 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.039 to somebody and realize this is someone who wishes to 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.320 do me great harm. You've won a free cruise, but 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.520 you first you need to send us some iTunes gift cards. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.120 that's sort of thing. But you know, this also makes 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.839 me think that, Okay, if we have a technological ghost here, 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.640 maybe two potentially well not not actually, but within within 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:03.520 this argument look to an artificial cycle of time and 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.480 using that as a way to to judge some other act. 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.160 It does make me think about like the back in 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.560 the old days of watching television, Um, there was a 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:15.600 set TV cycle and I'm not saying it would was 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.880 actually to the point where like a heavy, heavy TV 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.160 consumption would make you know what day of the week 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.360 it was based on what was on television. But it 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.280 was easy to sort of have that that line of 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.120 thinking in your head, you know, like you know what 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.440 what is supposed to come on on Mondays? You know 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.480 what what is the Monday night entertainment versus the Tuesday 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.000 night Uh, you know the movie of the week sort 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.720 of thing. Um, you could you could imagine yourself leaning 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.800 into that view of the cosmos, and in a sense, 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:42.840 it's kind of like ancient timekeeping. It's based on the 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.240 observable universe. Only your observable universe is what's on the 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.640 television screen. Is USA up all night? Yeah? You know 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:51.880 what day it is. Then now, as delightful as all 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:55.640 that that is, we do actually have more serious contemplations 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.360 regarding the seven day week to get to here. Oh right, 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.080 so I guess in this episode we're probably going to 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.400 talk some more about the history of the seven day week, 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.080 like where it comes from and how it has changed 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.160 over time. There is one paper I came across that 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:14.280 if you want a really really good, detailed, scholarly deep 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.720 dive on this issue, uh, I would recommend this is 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.840 actually not a paper, sorry, This is a book chapter 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:25.560 in a historical book by the academic publisher Bill called 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.640 Calendars in the Making The Origins of Calendars from the 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:33.560 Roman Empire to the Later Middle Ages, published in and 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.560 this chapter is called the seven day Week in the 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.640 Roman Empire Origins, Standardization and Diffusion. And this is by 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:45.800 Ilaria boltre Guini and Sasha Stern, and both of these 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.280 authors are scholars of Hebrew and Jewish studies at University 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.360 College London. This is a really good, really detailed chapter, 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.160 but it is sort of written for scholars, so it's 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.920 good if you want maximal detail on on the origins 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:03.120 of the Western seven day week. Uh. Given basically our 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.679 best picture of the evidence within the last year or so. 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:08.439 But I just thought I would mention a few things 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.120 from it that struck me as as interesting for the 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.319 lay person. Now, of course, they acknowledge the same thing 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.120 that we've mentioned several times now, which is that the 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:20.120 the deep origins of the seven day week are poorly 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.960 understood because we don't have a founding document really of 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.640 the seven day week says here is where the week begins, 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.000 and you know, and from here on out everybody will 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.480 use it for this, that and the other. Instead, we 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:36.000 have little tidbits of evidence from from literary sources here 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.760 and there in antiquity, and occasionally from uh from archaeological 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:43.720 of finds that give evidence of people using some kind 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.480 of seven day weekly schedule in the ancient Near East. 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.520 But they these pieces of evidence are fragmentary, and a 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:54.800 lot of times we don't know exactly what broader cultural 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:59.000 conclusions to draw from them. So, for example, we know 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:03.320 that I the first few centuries c e. In the 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:08.160 Roman Empire, people were at some level using seven day weeks, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.199 but we don't know exactly how far this practice goes back, 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.280 and what all of the exact inputs on it were. 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.400 Now in the previous episode we talked about, uh, this 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.880 weird scenario that has been noted by historians where there 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:26.600 were multiple different kinds of weeks in the first few 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.079 centuries the e of the Roman Empire, uh, that had 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.480 different numbers of days in them, which sounds terribly confusing. 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.680 But so, for example, you had this eight day week 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.000 that seemed related to commerce, so it's the eight day 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.360 market cycle. But then you also had these seven day 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.480 periods such as the seven day Roman astrological week, in 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.880 which the days were named after gods or planets. And 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.120 then also the seven day cycle of the Jewish Sabbath, 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:58.320 which was acknowledged, uh, certainly by Jews within the Roman Empire, 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.280 but also by by other groups. Well, yeah, so you 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.560 had these had divination and religion playing a role, but 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.120 you also had like the hard realities of commerce and 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:11.839 the economy. But even you know, but none of these 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:16.319 are are fixed, uh, you know, figures in a given world, 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.160 like these are things that will change over time and 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.719 do right. And so there is one point in this 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.960 book chapter where Boltugini and Stern actually disagree with something 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:29.400 that I think we got from one of our other sources, 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.959 which was the book The Seven Day Circle by Avatar Zerubavel, 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.640 which claimed that the the Jewish practice of observing a 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.079 seven day cycle with a with a day of rest 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:46.000 traced back to Mesopotamian practices. But the authors of this 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.240 paper actually say that despite what other authors have alleged, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.960 there's actually really no very good evidence tracing the seven 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:57.160 day week back to ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian practices. We 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.240 we ultimately don't know exactly where it comes from. Now this, 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.160 I wonder if this explained some of the hesitancy you 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:03.880 see to really nable us down in some of the 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:09.680 other sources, like for instance Fagin and aveni Um who 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.280 I acided in the first episode. Oh yeah, they were 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.679 more hesitant to to put a specific origin on it. Yeah. 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.760 So it seems like it's still very much a topic 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:23.120 of of of of studying consideration at least. But we do, 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:27.280 of course have literary evidence from the ancient world of 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.720 places where some kind of seven day weekly cycle or referenced. 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.760 Of course, the big one is uh is the Hebrew 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.520 Bible making reference to the Sabbath. So we see the 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.600 idea of a seven day week, the days leading up 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:43.600 to the Sabbath day in the Hebrew Bible. Though interestingly, uh, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.280 the authors of this of this book chapter claimed that 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.880 in the Hebrew Bible there are actually no events that 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.120 are said to occur on specific days of the week 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.640 in the Hebrew Bible itself. The dated events are dated 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.240 by other methods, such as by by month or by 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.120 year um. And this raises questions like they ask, Okay, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.280 so it's clear that at some point Jews were observing 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.120 a Sabbath day, but they say, for example, we don't 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:13.240 know in the early periods if Sabbath observance was synchronized 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:17.160 across different Jewish communities or did like local Jewish communities 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.240 all have their own Sabbath cycles. But once we get 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.280 closer in time to the Roman period, we do see 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.280 Jewish sources making specific reference to two things occurring on 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.560 certain days of the week uh, specifically on the Sabbath day. UH. So, 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.920 for example, they referenced the Book of First Maccabee's, which 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.280 is a text from the late second century b C. 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:42.199 And this makes reference to something occurring on the Sabbath day. 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:44.960 They also make reference to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:48.280 are of course these fascinating documents from Jewish communities dating 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.839 back to the second to first centuries b c UH. 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.360 And they say that the Dead Sea scrolls in some 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:00.800 cases make reference to a calendrical system. Um. This was 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:02.720 kind of confusing, but I think the way I understand 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.559 it is they had a year that had a different 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:07.800 number of days than our year. I think it was 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.280 three hundred and sixty four days, which unlike our year 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.240 of three hundred and sixty five point to five days 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:19.720 or whatever. UH, that year would divide evenly into fifty 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.560 two weeks, so you get a whole number of weeks 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.520 within the year, and this would be for seven day 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.640 weeks based around the observance of the Sabbath. But then 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.200 they also point out that a a seven day Sabbath 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.720 week is mentioned and observed within the Greek Septuagent, which 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.880 is the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, in in 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.440 the Psalms. But one question would be, Okay, why the 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:47.720 sudden appearance of these references to things happening on uh 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.080 days of the week in Jewish literature from around the 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.080 second century b CE. What happened around there? So to 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.200 read from the authors, they write quote the second century 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.440 b c. Invention of the seven day week as a 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.520 time reckoning system, even if only theoretical or literary, may 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.640 well have been related to the revival and promotion of 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.560 the observance of the Sabbath, which is credited to the 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.640 Maccabeean rebels of the one sixties, but was surely also 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.320 shared and promoted by other Judean groups at the time, 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:21.160 such as the communities described in the Kumran literature, and 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.720 this would be the ones associated with the Dead Sea 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.800 scrolls uh and may have percolated further onto the diaspora 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.880 in Egypt, as the papyri above mentioned possibly suggest promotion 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.480 of Sabbath observance in this period may have elicited the 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.200 conceptualization of the week as a recurring sequence of seven 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.280 numbered days and as a fundamental structure of time reckoning 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.240 and calendars. Uh So, again, this is one thing where 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.440 we have to sort of speculate. We don't know for sure, 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.440 but the authors here are saying it's possible that we 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.160 see this sort of weak consciousness emerging in Jews of 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.520 the second century BC as part of a religious revival, 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.440 a sort of gathering of enthusiasm for observance of the 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.880 Sabbath as a as a religious practice that of but then, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.280 of course this could end up having other functions within 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.640 people's lives if you're observing uh, you know, a week 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.160 leading up to the Sabbath that could serve other scheduling 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.560 functions if practice for long enough. Though of course, they 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.720 acknowledge that we don't know exactly what role these week 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.640 days played in in people's day to day lives early on. Um. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:30.000 But another thing that's important to mention is that the 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.200 early Jewish uses of days of the week identified a 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.640 day not with a name, and certainly not with our names, 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:39.040 because of of course, our names of the days of 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.840 the week in English are derived largely from pagan and 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.520 astrological sources, which would have had no relevance to the 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.000 ancient Jews uh. And instead they identified days of the 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:52.480 week with numbers, so this would be something like three 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.120 in the Sabbath, so you would like sort of count 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.200 from the Sabbath day, but then from here. In the 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.640 subsequent centuries, this way reckoning days of the week appears 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.920 to show up in other types of literature, such as 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:09.160 Greek literature of the first century CE, but then again 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.080 mostly in Jewish or Jewish influence texts, for example, the 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.960 Books of the New Testament. These are books written in Greek, 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:20.600 but they're influenced by by Jewish religious ideas of course, 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.240 and also in the works of Josephus, these make references 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.080 to days of the week, and it's a seven day week. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.040 So for example, the author of the Gospel of Mark 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:32.920 uh that this is somebody who is writing in Greek 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.879 sometime in the first century CE is writing a story 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.639 of the life of Jesus. And the author of the 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.680 Gospel of Mark writes that the crucifixion of Jesus took 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:46.000 place on quote Preparation, which is the day before the Sabbath, 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.760 and writes that the resurrection was on the quote first 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.320 of the week. So I think I'm getting those right, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.359 But that would mean that the the author here is 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.600 saying that Jesus was crucified on a Friday, because it's 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.120 the day before the Sabbath, which is Saturday, and then 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.040 the resurrection took place on a Sunday, which was the 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.920 first day of the week after the Sabbath. So here 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.120 we've got this evidence for the the Sabbath cycle as 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.080 one of the main influences on the emergence of a 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.080 seven day week that that we inherited and used throughout 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.119 the world today. But another major influence seems to be 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:22.760 the Roman planetary week. This is something we see evidence 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:25.320 of in Rome and other parts of Italy, not just 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:27.960 the city of Rome, but Rome and the Italian peninsula. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:30.560 Uh and this is well attested by the end of 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:35.280 the first century CE. Now the Roman astrological week again, 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.160 this is having seven days that are named after the 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.719 planets or the gods associated with the planets in the 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.080 in the Roman system of astrology or astronomy. Because the 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.520 quote planets they could observe. Again, a couple of these 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.280 things are not actually planets, but they were the Sun, 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.520 the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. These are 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.240 the moving objects in the sky that you can see 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.919 without a telescope. And the way that the Roman astrol 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.520 logical week was different was that it was not structured 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.280 around a day of rest or a day of religious 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.679 observance the way that the Jewish week was. Instead, it 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:13.439 appears to have served a primarily astrological informative purpose, so 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.520 sort of letting people know which planets reigned over had 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.280 influence over which day of the cycle. Uh. And once again, 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.280 this would not have any basis in real astronomical observations 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.400 or patterns. It's not like there's anything physical you can 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.440 say that associates the Sun with Sundays or the moon 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.200 with Mondays. It's just that they just happened to pair 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:36.479 them up that way. I don't know, unless we discover 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.280 something really interesting that the Romans were on too, that 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.919 nobody's figured out since then. Well, I mean, if if 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.320 Monday really was aligned with with the moon, we would 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.400 surely see werewolf transformations on Mondays. And I've never heard 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.040 of that being a thing, so clearly it doesn't check out. No, 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.960 I'd say the vast majority of a wu's occur on 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.879 Fridays and Saturdays, unless one is a real uh work da, 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.919 I don't know. Maybe maybe you hollen when Monday comes along. 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.439 That's a good point, of course, you've been working all 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.679 weekend anyway, So I don't know. Sin news to the 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.200 Emperor that the that the city has been sacked by 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:15.720 verk beasts. But anyway, so their paper goes into great detail, 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:17.960 but just in a very quick summary, it seems we 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:22.560 see increasing numbers of references to use of a seven 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.240 day week of some kind throughout the Roman Empire in 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.520 the first couple of centuries CE, and again this would 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.960 be based on the Christian seven day week that is 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.200 derived from the Sabbath week, but then also using this 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.920 Roman astrological seven day week as a basis uh, sort 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.120 of the fading away of the significance of the eight 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.120 day market week. And then in UH in the fourth 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.400 century CE, you get some real moves such as by 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.720 a decree by Constantine that makes Sunday sort of the 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.679 official sacred day of the empire. Of course, Constantine was 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.600 the first Christian emperor of Rome. Uh. And so yeah, 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:03.760 you see a big push towards standardization of the use 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.240 of a seven day week, and it's in this relationship 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.400 to the Christian significance of Sunday as the Lord's Day 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.720 or the day of worship uh and UH. And this 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.440 being sort of standardized throughout the Roman Empire, especially in 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.600 the third and fourth centuries. And this is the point 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:21.840 where we can really start to say, Okay, here's the 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.760 week that we inherited, and we can situate it well 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.840 within history. So if your time machine has like Mondays, 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.840 Wednesdays and Tuesdays on and so forth. Uh, this might 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:33.800 be as far back as you can really go this 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:39.040 period with perfect accuracy. Also, you should probably reconsider the 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.520 interface for your time machine's depending on these these days. 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:52.600 I just want to go five thousand mondays back. Thank you, 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.639 thank you. Now. I mentioned in the first part of 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:57.880 this series that one of the sources I've been reading, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:02.199 uh for for history of the seven day week was 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.680 a U. C. Berkeley historian named David Hankin, who has 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.560 written a book called The Week, A History of the 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.160 Unnatural Rhythms that made us who we are. And so 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.240 there have been several articles out and interviews with Hanken 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:20.760