Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 01-22-2009, 02:15 PM

Andrew, why have you written the seven day cycle amongst the Jews when the Babylonians were using it far earlier?

I am not referring to Cyrus!

http://www.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/ash/amps/iraq-navel/map.htm

Analyst · 01-22-2009, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by squiz

Funny that the British have such a problem with going metric, whereas the Australians went metric cold-turkey in the early 70s with few problems. I guess we're just not such rebels as the Poms. :Cheeky:

New Zealand did the same - few problems. Perhaps we're smarter than the Pommies.

semiopen · 01-23-2009, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Andrew, why have you written the seven day cycle amongst the Jews when the Babylonians were using it far earlier?

I am not referring to Cyrus!

http://www.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/ash/amps/iraq-navel/map.htm

There is the 2350 BCE date for the Assyrians, maybe empire of Ur on your link. I suspect the Isrelites weren't using a seven day week until much later, despite Abraham being from Ur.

I've seen other sources that suggest a much later date, such as the first exile or 6th century BCE which is consistent with Babylon.

I wasn't able to see the relationship of your link to the week.

Also Andrew's link wasn't clear to me either (so it's probably just me) although I found this thing on Amazon.

The Seven Day Circle: The History and Meaning of the Week (or via: amazon.co.uk)

The online excerpts suggest an Assyrian origin of 700 BCE, more or less explicitly saying that it is not of Israelite/Jewish origin.

Unfortunately it is selling for list price, which is a violation of my religious principles.

andrewcriddle · 01-24-2009, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Andrew, why have you written the seven day cycle amongst the Jews when the Babylonians were using it far earlier?

I am not referring to Cyrus!

http://www.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/ash/amps/iraq-navel/map.htm

The Babylonians IIUC did not use a continuous seven day cycle.

The continuous seven day cycle may ultimately go back to Babylonia in both its original forms. However our earliest solid evidence is the two apparently independent cycles I mentioned. The Jewish week being almost certainly older than the astrological week.

FWIW The names of the days in the English week derive from the astrological week not the Jewish week.

Andrew Criddle

ETA

Just to clarify; what I mean by a continuous seven day cycle is one where we perpetually repeat the seven day cycle without any intercalation. In the Babylonian system the seven day cycle had to be corrected at the end of each lunar month to keep it in line with the phases of the moon. The continuous seven day cycle ignores the lunar month.

semiopen · 01-24-2009, 06:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Andrew, why have you written the seven day cycle amongst the Jews when the Babylonians were using it far earlier?

I am not referring to Cyrus!

http://www.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/ash/amps/iraq-navel/map.htm

The Babylonians IIUC did not use a continuous seven day cycle.

The continuous seven day cycle may ultimately go back to Babylonia in both its original forms. However our earliest solid evidence is the two apparently independent cycles I mentioned. The Jewish week being almost certainly older than the astrological week.

FWIW The names of the days in the English week derive from the astrological week not the Jewish week.

Andrew Criddle

Andrew, sorry if I missed this in a previous posting but what is you opinion on the timeframe of the adoption of Jewish 7 week, and do you have any sources on this not previously mentioned.

Thanks

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2009, 06:25 AM

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/47575/Babylon

Quote:

one of the most famous cities of antiquity. It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium bc and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries bc, when it was at the height of its splendour. Its extensive ruins, on the Euphrates River about 55 miles (88 km) south of Baghdad, lie near the modern town of Al-Ḥillah, Iraq.
History

Though traces of prehistoric settlement exist, Babylon’s development as a major city was late by Mesopotamian standards; no mention of it existed before the 23rd century bc. After the fall of the 3rd dynasty of Ur, under which Babylon had been a provincial centre, it became the nucleus of a small kingdom established in 1894 bc by the Amorite king Sumuabum, whose successors consolidated its status. The sixth and best-known of the Amorite dynasts, Hammurabi (1792–50 bc), conquered the surrounding city-states and raised Babylon to the capital of a kingdom comprising all of southern Mesopotamia and part of Assyria (northern Iraq). Its political importance, together with its favourable location, made it henceforth the main commercial and administrative centre of Babylonia, while its wealth and prestige made it a target for foreign conquerors.
After a Hittite raid in 1595 bc, the city passed to the control of the Kassites (c. 1570), who established a dynasty lasting more than four centuries. Later in this period, Babylon became a literary and religious centre, the prestige of which was reflected in the elevation of Marduk, its chief god, to supremacy in Mesopotamia. In 1234 Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria subjugated Babylon, though subsequently the Kassite dynasty reasserted itself until 1158, when the city was sacked by the Elamites. Babylon’s acknowledged political supremacy is shown by the fact that the dynasty of Nebuchadrezzar I (1124–03), which endured for more than a century, made the city its capital, though the dynasty did not originate there....

And on Nebuchadnezzar II, Belshazar, Cyrus...

And researching further the seven day week, but the lecturer I started the OP with was very clear she was talking about the original Babylon not the neo- Babylonians!

(and please, is it not accepted that Abraham is mythological?)

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2009, 06:38 AM

Quote:

She stated that the need to write down numbers probably led to the invention of writing,

Quote:

Jewish calendar » Origin and development

The origin of the Jewish calendar can no longer be accurately traced. Some scholars suggest that a solar year prevailed in ancient Israel, but no convincing proofs have been offered, and it is more likely that a lunisolar calendar similar to that of ancient Babylonia was used.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...ewish-calendar

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2009, 06:41 AM

And this term continuous is fascinating.

A resetting calendar - restarting from each new moon - also was used.

andrewcriddle · 01-24-2009, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

The Babylonians IIUC did not use a continuous seven day cycle.

The continuous seven day cycle may ultimately go back to Babylonia in both its original forms. However our earliest solid evidence is the two apparently independent cycles I mentioned. The Jewish week being almost certainly older than the astrological week.

FWIW The names of the days in the English week derive from the astrological week not the Jewish week.

Andrew Criddle

Andrew, sorry if I missed this in a previous posting but what is you opinion on the timeframe of the adoption of Jewish 7 week, and do you have any sources on this not previously mentioned.

Thanks

IIUC you are asking for an expansion of my statement

Quote:

The Jewish week being almost certainly older than the astrological week.

and I'll try and provide this. (I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you are asking for).

IMHO the continuous 7 day week is very ancient in Israel ie (very) late 2nd millennium BCE. However I don't think this can be proved in the present state of the evidence.

However, on normal dating of the Hebrew Bible, the origin of the Jewish 7 day week and the sabbath must be at least as old as the time of Ezra in the late Persian period (usually given a fifth century BCE date, sometimes an early fourth century BCE date.) When the Pentateuch had taken something like its present form. (I'm not really interested in discussing on this thread radical redatings of the Hebrew Bible.) This is, I emphasize, the latest possible date for the origin of the Jewish week and I would be surprised if it is not considerably older.

The astrological week, however, assumes hellenistic astrological/astronomical ideas and can hardly be earlier than the 2nd century BCE. Hence it is later than the Jewish week.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2009, 07:43 AM

Quote:

In the 19th century, biblical scholars moved the decisive division back to the period of the Babylonian Exile and the restoration of the Jews to the kingdom of Judah (6th–5th century bce). They asserted that after the first fall of Jerusalem (586 bce) the ancient “Israelitic” religion gave way to a new form of the “Jewish” faith, or Judaism, as formulated by the reformer Ezra (5th century bce) and his school. In Die Entstehung des Judentums (1896; “The Origin of Judaism”) the German historian Eduard Meyer argued that Judaism originated in the Persian period, or the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (5th century bce); indeed, he attributed an important role in shaping the emergent religion to Persian imperialism.
These theories, however, have been discarded by most scholars in the light of a more comprehensive knowledge of the ancient Middle East and the abandonment of a theory of gradual evolutionary development that was dominant at the beginning of the 20th century. Most Jews share a long-accepted notion that there never was a real break in continuity and that Mosaic-prophetic-priestly Judaism was continued, with only a few modifications, in the work of the Pharisaic and rabbinic sages well into the modern period. Even today the various Jewish groups—whether Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform—all claim direct spiritual descent from the Pharisees and the rabbinic sages. In fact, however, many developments have occurred within so-called normative or Rabbinic Judaism.
In any event, the history of Judaism can be divided into the following major periods: biblical Judaism (c. 20th–4th century bce), Hellenistic Judaism (4th century bce–2nd century ce), Rabbinic Judaism (2nd–18th century ce), and modern Judaism (c. 1750 to the present).

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...ewish-calendar

Author of above seems not to have read Bible Unearthed, and it is not a radical redating to note we are looking at indiginous tribes with funny rituals like not eating pork who had a couple of local warlords who only just hit the radar, who were exiled by the local empire and in exile created a back story of Abraham and Moses and David and Solomon.

It was Ezra wot dun it!

(Strange co-incidence that the conquerors were monotheistic and the classic Judaic rituals look so Persian....)

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01-22-2009, 02:15 PM	#31
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Andrew, why have you written the seven day cycle amongst the Jews when the Babylonians were using it far earlier? I am not referring to Cyrus! http://www.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/ash/amps/iraq-navel/map.htm

01-24-2009, 06:41 AM	#38
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	And this term continuous is fascinating. A resetting calendar - restarting from each new moon - also was used.

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