Days of the week?

Question

Did people in Jesus' time have the standard Sunday, Monday, etc., days of the week?

Answer 1

Hi, if you asking whether the people of Palestine had a 7-day-week in the Roman era the answer would be - it depends.

If we are asking about the peoples who followed the Jewish religion and whose worship centered on the Temple in Jerusalem, the answer would be yes. The 5 books that constitute the Old Testament had taken their basic form
( http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/index.htm )
In the book of Genesis, God creates the world in 6 days and on the 7th rests, therefore the Hebrew weekly calendar already functioned on a 7-day schedule. However the "yearly" calendar was a lunar-based calendar (as the modern Jewish religious calendar remains,) and it was calculated and announced each year by temple functionaries. The days of the week were simply numerical (first day, second day, etc.)

if we are asking about the Romans in Roman Palestine, they would have followed the "new" reformed Julian calendar (ordered by Julius Caesar, hence its name,) with the present 12 months and most of their names ( January = Janus' month, July = Julius' month, September = 7th month, which it originally was until July and August= Augustus' month got added.) however the Roman week, decadi, functioned on a 10-system with 2 "market day" holidays (on which no public business could take place.) The way that the Julian solar 12 month calendar got mixed up with the 7-day sabbath week was with the emperor Constantine, who in adopting Christianity, declared his imperial calendar to have the seven-day week within the Roman calendar, and in 321 A.D. set Sunday as the first day of the week.

As for the names we use in English for our 7 day week, the original 7-day week was from the Babylonian calendar (7 is the largest prime that can divided evenly into 364- their calculation of the solar year.) Their days were named after the 7 visible planet, Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter Saturn, Sun (remember through most of history people were geo-centric and the Sun was a "planet" of our earth.) We, or rather our Anglo-Saxon forebearers, took the German versions of these names or their symbolic gods (Monday= moons day, etc.)

So the answer to your question is that the people that Jesus would have been talking and teaching to did have a seven day week, but they did not use the English names we have come to know. If you are interested in different calendars and the story of the one we use try this site:
http://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/index.htm

Answer 2

Yes, called by different names. Most of the Days of the week, in fact most of our Calender descended from the Romans. The Jew on the Other hand used a different Calender and week system Roman Was Morning and Evening. The Hebrew were Evening and morning. Other cultures had different calenders and week structures.

Answer 3

I have no idea. I'm thinking they did because they had to know which day was Sunday for resting. It's the same with counting. What kind of device did they use? I don't think they had a clock or a calendar.

Answer 4

No they did not, in the sense that they had actual names for the days of the week. The day that was important to keep track of was the 7th day, the Sabbath. Beyond that, they simply referred to the 1st day of the week, 2nd day of the week, etc.

The names we give to the days of the week today are based on the Days of the Week in ancient Rome and was based on the Planets and gods of the Roman Pantheon. Sun Day, Moon Day, Mars' Day, Mercury's Day, Jupiter's Day, Venus' Day, Saturn's Day.

The names we have in English come in part from that route, but mostly from the Norse/Germanic influence on the language. Sun Day, Moon Day, Tiu's Day, Woden's Day, Thor's Day, Frigga's Day, and Saturn's Day.

Answer 5

No, they were using the Julian calendar at the time. I can't find out whether the days were the same, but there were 377 or 378 days on the calendar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar

Answer 6

yes... the egyptians had a similar calendar we use today..

they measured the movement of a moon .. and knew that the seasons would come in certain times of teh year.. they measured 365 days...

but i think the greeks came up w./ the names of the day... and named them after planets

viernes - venus - friday
martes - mars - tuesday
meircoles - mercury - wednesday

Answer 7

yes

Answer 8

yes

Answer 9

yes they did