Why start the week on sunday?
 

When I set up my user profile again there was this question if I wanted to start my week on Sunday or on Monday. If I understand things right the week starts on sundays in some countries, what is the reason for this? Isn't the the sunday the end of the week in the bible, something like "and on the last day he rested"?

Explain to me please...:confused:

wow. i've never really considered that, but i'll venture a guess. because one is to put god first in all things (if one beleives in such a manner), perhaps they put god's day as the first day of the week in deference to their maker. just a thought.

It is a religious thing, Nad is correct. :)

it is because God had finished building earth that day. and therefore was the First day of life.


its like.. if you build a computer on monday, you can use it that day you finished it. get it?

Personally I don't get it from a religous or NON-religous matter.

Religous:
As stated, God rested on the 7th day with is to be Sunday. I spose it COULD be Saturday (the seventh day). We're allowed to be wrong by a day right? :)

Non-Religous:
Well, No one hates Sunday, and no one LOVES Monday. Everyone HATE the beginning of the week, but again no one really hates Sunday, they just hate Monday. To evaluate this further, We call Saturday + Sunday the weekEND. Well if its the weekend, then why do start the week with it? (heh, I feel like George Carlin.)

Just some food for thought :)

maybe saturday and sunday are called weekends, because if you look at a piece of rope..

A---------------------------------B

"A" and "B" are ends of the rope... so as to the week.. saturday and sunday, are the ends of the week..

and also, im a religoius person, and i practice my religion often and study its scriptures. and God possibly didnt create life in 7 HUMAN days, probably in a matter of seconds, the only reason the bible states the 7 days, is so he can set a guideline for us to live our lives daily. so as , to set an example on how to use the hours of those days... something like that.

Monday seems the logical choice for now, as its the beginning of the "weekday" ...
Originally Sunday, then later Saturday were arbitrarily assigned as "week ends" a long time ago, and its stuck. why? well, its about as good as nameing any other days as weekends =)

God built the earth in 6 days and rested the Seventh, which we've named sunday. So what the hell did he do the 8th day? Did he work on the 14th day? I'm so Confused!
/sarcasm

I was thinking that Sat/Sun were called "Week Ends" which was later shortened to Weekend so when its used plural and say "next weekend" on a saturday the person doesn't think tomorrow :P Hey its possible!

ooo Wcykd (how do you say that? "Wissykaydid"? "Wickyaded")? I like the rope-ends analogy. And if you untwisted the strands what do you get? Fray-day. . .

I'm sorry, that was sooo bad. I apologize.

Because the calendar industry decided to put the Last day first,
as a sign of respect.

I start my week Monday night at midnight. My "Friday" is Saturday morning. I never know what day it is. For me, this is just a non issue. Confusion reigns supreme.

because it just does, but if you think of it, it really doesn't.

Work week starts saturdays, and many cultures start weeks on different days. Its all just a continuous circle, it don't matter.

but also there is a theory that they but sunday first because day comes before night

Sun-day before Moon-day (Monday)

Day before Night, yada yada yada .... study the ancient Celts, they're into all that stuff

I think Baricua2782's onto it, although it may be more as a sign of greater respect to the Sun than the Moon, as it had greater impact on their lives.

That said, having been to Scotland, I'm suprised they even knew the Sun existed ;)

If you're going to go by the religious thing, this is how it happened.

God made the Earth in 6 days and then rested on the 7th. Now the first day of Creation was Sunday and the last day, Saturday, was the day that He rested. This was why the Jews rested on Saturday (it was the day that God took off after doing His lil' project.........ya know, the whole universe).

The day of rest changed, however, when Jesus came around. We all just had Good Friday and Easter, right? Those are the reasons we now have our day of rest on Sunday. Christ died on Friday and then rose on Sunday. Just as He experienced His revieval on Sunday, it was thought that we should, too. What with our society holding its roots in Judeo-Chrisitainity, that is why we have Sunday as our day of rest.

Now, the debate still remains as to whether we should start the week with the day of rest or end it. Apparently, rest comes before work, so it's all good.

Because my work week reall does start on Sunday!

I did not realize that there were different conventions about this until I got my first Palm Pilot and had to choose. When we use shorthand for a date in the US we put the month first. In most of Europe, they use the date first. It can be a source of confusion. In some cultures they use a comma for a decimal and we use it to separate every three orders of magnitude. I guess software that is meant for worldwide release just has to be individualized with regards to these kind of things.

And, duckduck is right that Saturday was the 7th day in the old testement. That is why it remains the Sabbath for Jewish people.

ahh, semantics...

Yes, the Jewish Sabbath was the 6th and final day of the week. The new week starts over on the day after Sabbath.

As stated, God rested on the 7th day and Jesus arose on Sunday (which the Bible refers to as "the first day of the week"). The early Christians (who were mostly of Jewish ancestry) began meeting together on Sunday to honor and remember Christ because the Sabbath was otherwise occupied with Jewish activities and rules, etc.

So the whole issue of Sunday being the "first" day simply means "the day after the Sabbath (which is also Saturday), when the new week begins".

But many people just think of Monday as the first day, because they also think of Sunday as being part of the "weekEND".

I like Sunday as the beginning because then it feels like you can ease into the new week. The first day is still a day off, but one which you can use to plan the rest of the week. Saturday, on the other hand, is the day off to enjoy the break from the previous week.

Ive no clue, it just *does*

I think the calendar we follow is originally Roman rather than Christian so I dont know thats its biblical, I dont really know... but I know that when my spreadsheets fuck up the date reverts to the "Julian" date sometimes.

You have to start the week on one day or another, and Sunday is just the day it is I guess.
_

Then again a lot of the days are named after much newer Gods (ie - Odin is "Mr Wednesday").. but maybe thats just in English... I guess in China they name the days after Chinese Gods, etc.

If they move Sunday, will the NFL follow? I need to know...

Does the bible actually name the days?

I thought it numbered them only in Genesis.

My week starts on a Monday because I'm NORMAL!

The official first day of the week, based on the Norse mythos (which later was adopted by the Romans and remolded slightly), as we now know and utilize them, always had Sunday as the first day of the week. It makes sense if you look at the logically in that the beginning of the week would be a celebration of the Sun, usually associated with beginnings, sunrises, etc.

Saturday, which was also known as the "Sabbath" or the "seventh day" for early Jews and Christians based on the teachings of the Torah, Qu'ran, and first millenia Christian Bible, was the universal religious day of rest for those that observed the laws of their Church, and the Bible story of creation.

Saturn's day was once referred to as Dies Saturni (the day of Saturn) in the Roman Catholic Empire that took hold in the majority of Europe. Alternatively, as it is more commonly known in Latin and Romantic languages, Saturday still, in a fair share of European countries, their language, and their influence (S. America, E. Asia) is in some confluence still referred to as the once-regarded Sabbath, or sabado (sabato, Σάββατο, etc.). Now, from the influence of what was the Roman Catholicism, there were some schisms and reforms to how the days of the week would be from hence forth allocated.

To keep it short, the Roman Catholic Church took it upon themselves to celebrate the day of Jesus's resurrection more fully; so, in that vein, the Church took the most prominent day of the week, Sunday (which is a celebration of the Sun that sustains us on Earth, and also as a play-on-words as the "Son of God") and incorporated it with the most prominent observation of the time, the day of rest known as the Sabbath. In essence, it was just a slight bump in the order and numeration of the days of the week; while the days remained unchanged in order, day #1 became day #7 (Sunday).

As for me, I still refer to Sunday as the first day of the week, Monday two, and onward. But from what was changed centuries ago by the Roman Catholic Empire regarding the progression of the days of the week, (and for that matter, the progression of months... September-December were always months #7-10 before new months July and August came into creation and significance) I "observe" the Sabbath as the midway point in between Saturday and Sunday. After all, in the Western world, most of us at least know that we can get both days of the weekend to rest, therefore what was once the singular seventh day of rest, is now a two-for-one deal.

I do know that in the Middle East still, the Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday and lasts until the twilight between Saturday/Sunday,
I provided this historical expalantion as a more topical reason as to was why Sunday and Monday, especially in North and South America, are confused sometimes and interchangeable as the recognized and "offical" first day of the week.

The Hebrews (i.e., the Jews referred to in the Bible) did have names for the other days of the week, but I don't know what they were off-hand.

But you're right. In the creation account in Genesis 1, there are no names assigned to the individual days, just numbers. The Old Testament eventually uses the word Sabbath for the seventh day, but not until the giving of the Law when God gave Moses all the rules and regulations for the Hebrew people.

The New Testament uses: "the first day of the week" (meaning the day after the Sabbath) but as stated elsewhere in the thread, the actual name of this day is a historical and extra-Biblical topic.