🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ALDERSON.97Feb12232903@netcom15.netcom.com>,
Richard M. Alderson III <alderson@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <elnaE5InEp.Bys@netcom.com> elna@netcom.com
>(Esperanto League N America) writes:
>
>>I have often wondered how (& why) the Jewish seven-day cycle came to rule
>>time-reckoning all over. I presume that the Christian franchise widely
>>exported it... Didn't the ancient Romans use lunar months w/o any divvision 
>>of seven??
>
>The Romans had both a lunar month, with days counted up to the divisions
>(Kalends, Nones, Ides), and an *eight* day market cycle.  When the seven-day
>cycle came into vogue among adoptees of a Greek mystery religion based on a
>variant Jewish sect, it was not hard to move from the market cycle already in
>place.
>-- 

If by "a Greek mystery religion based on a variant Jewish sect" you mean
the Christians, you're way out of date: that model for understanding early
Christianity is at least two generations dead. More significantly, however,
though you are correct that the Romans originally had an eight-day week,
there was a shift to a seven day week underway in the Roman world before
Christianity came along: Christianity's Jewish background merely helped the
change along.
		Chris Forbes