Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

Hi,

Quoting Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz>:

> James wrote,
>
> > 2) Recourse to similar cultures e.g. babylonian, sumerian and their  
> >  calendars
>
> Its worth noting that the Egyptians used a 10-day week so not all of
> Israel's neighbours used a seven day week. In fact, there's a lot of
> variation in the length of the ``week'' between cultures. Here's useful link
> but like all wikipedia stuff you need to double check it with other sources.
> That said, I have seen the the 13 day ``week'' of the Aztecs and Mayans
> discussed elsewhere.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week

Yep, thanks. I'd already read and referenced that article in earlier  
posts. I think wikipedia is getting pretty good, though. I read stuff  
from a wide variety of topics (sciences, maths, history etc) and it's  
high quality stuff with a lot of references. Many of the articles have  
already gone through rigorous peer review and have stabilised. I'd say  
it's the newer articles that you need to be most wary of.


> In the Hebrew text it seems the seven day week is enforced during Israel's
> time in between leaving Egypt and arriving in the promised land 40 years
> later.

Agreed. I made this very same observation in an earlier post. There  
doesn't seem to be anything that implies a 7 day week being celebrated  
pre slavery in Egypt. The whole point of the Sabbath is about  
celebrating freedom from slavery and the fact that you get a day off  
rather than working without let up and without a day off, ever.

> I don't recall any evidence to suggest we should understand a week to
> be anything other than 7 days.

Agreed. but that's not the question I was raising. I was raising the  
theory that the day after every new moon was reset to the first day of  
the week regardless of what day it would fall on were we to assume a  
set 7 day week with no reference to natural phenomena. If we take the  
first day after the new moon as the first day of the month then the  
hebrew month would have a sabbath every 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th day  
of every lunation just as the Babylonian calendars show us. With 28  
'weeks' and the new moon we have 29 days (many lunar months round down  
to 28 days) and that leaves a floating day that doesn't occur every  
month, day 30. But if we are to understand that every new moon is a  
sabbath (as parallel texts that list sabbaths, new moons and feasts  
together show us) then it becomes easy to reconcile the floating day  
because after the new moon a new month and new week start all over  
again.

For the average farmer this lunar calendar system would be easy to  
follow. New moon, half moon and full moon are all sabbath days. If in  
doubt of which day you're not supposed to be ploughing the fields on  
and should teaching the family about the escape from Egypt and the  
great prophet Moses then just look up into the evening sky and upon  
seeing the moon you will instantly know what day it is.

This is the theory I was intending to discuss/

James Christian

> Bill Rea Ph.D., ICT Services, University of Canterbury   \_
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