When to Start the Week?
February 8th, 2007 by Stephen
Most work calendars these days start a week on Monday, and shuffle Staurday and Sunday to the weekend. As pragmatic solution as this may be, I find it annoying in that it does not recognise that the first day of any week is Sunday.
The UK moved to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, which involved changes to the current day of the month, but the week days were left unaffected. Thursday, September 14th followed Wednesday, September 2nd in 1752.
It is therefore probably best to consider the week days as divorced from the calendar itself. They do not fit neatly into a 365.24 day year. They are a more granular measure of the passing of time, but not truly calendar markers.
So the question is, which day of the week comes first?
Businesses group Saturday and Sunday together on a calendar for convenience, because then you can group working week and weekend quite easily in two locations on a calendar, but they are strictly speaking incorrect to do so.
You see, the seven day week is of Persian/Chaldean and Judeo/Christian origin. In all these cultures, a seven day week was observed, and the week days were named for the seven visible heavenly bodies, starting with the most dominant: the Sun.
Thus we have (in English and Welsh, but other languages show the same pattern):
The day of the Sun (Dydd Sul - Sunday) The day of the Moon (Dydd Llun - Monday) The day of Mars (Dydd Mawrth) (Tuesday is named for the Norse God) The day of Mercury (Dydd Mercher) (Wodan is Norse) The day of Jupiter (Dydd Iau) (Thor is Norse) The day of Venus (Dydd Gwener) (Frida is Norse) The day of Saturn (Dydd Sadwrn - Saturday)
In the Biblical account of creation, it can be shown that each stanza of the creation hymn takes up the astrological significance of the gods associated with the days, and shows that the God who is one God created the realms considered to be the domains of these other gods. Thus the creation hymn can be seen as being in direct opposition to Chaldean (and later Babylonian) belief. The message of the hymn is that the almighty God is ruler high above all others.
In the first century AD, the seven day week was introduced in Rome, under the influence of Persian astrologers. When Rome became Christian, the Christian view of the seven days was conflated with the Persian influence, but both had the same common root.
Thus the week began on the day of the Sun, and ended on the day of Saturn (the day God rested). Saturday was the true week end.
However, the Resurrection took place on a Sunday morning, and in honour of this fact, the “Lord’s day” was taken to be Sunday. Christians thus began the practise of meeting together to worship on the Lord’s day - the first day of the week.
Thus the weekend as we now have it conflates the Jewish Sabbath (or a day off at the end of the week) with the Christian Lord’s day (or a day off at the start of the week).
Secularists want to regularise the whole thing and call both days the week end, but they might as well try and rename Monday to something less pagan, or choose a five day week instead of seven! The fact of the matter is that weeks start on Sunday - they always have. It is only the working week that starts on Monday.
However, if you want to arrange your calendar to start on the first day of the working week, then feel free to do so. As I have said - weeks do not strictly fit into the calendar in any case.
