Change in the days of the week.

I was walking in a bookstore with a friend one day, and he showed me a small book. Wrote by a Pastor. It explained each of the Ten Commandments, and it is good to discuss such a very interesting subject and its application in our time. However he showed me the 4th commandment. It made me wonder a little bit then. I saw the book again recently and read it again. He laid out many good arguments, and he has a point. But i want to know if it is true. It made me think... should we make our own schedule for our day of rest and worship? where did the calendar came from? who invented it? Is it accurate? what day is the first day and the seventh day? DID THE ORDER OF THE DAYS OF THE WEEK REALLY CHANGED?

I would just like to share with you some things I found out while doing a little research about this topic. These are articles I found in some websites (links are found after some paragraphs so you can check it also).
Hope this can help.. :)



Humans have measured time since, well, time immemorial. The most natural kind of year is marked by the coming and going of the seasons. Ancient people needed to know when to expect the cold winter season, and when to plant and harvest. By keeping calendars they could prepare for the future. Today we still define our year based on the seasons

The Lunar Calendar
Some of the earliest calendars used the moon to measure the passage of time. A year was twelve lunar months (moon-ths). Each lunar month was the time from one full moon to the next, about 29.5306 days. This made the lunar calendar year 354.3672 days long. This was not very accurate for keeping track of the seasons, since it is about 365.2422 days from the first day of spring (called the vernal equinox) to the next first day of spring. This meant the vernal equinox was almost 11 days earlier each year.

The Julian Calendar
Julius Caesar
In ancient Rome the lunar calendar was constantly being adjusted, adding days here and there to bring the seasons back into sync. Some corrupt politicians and officials even added days to the calendar to lengthen their stay in office, or for financial gain. Then in 45 B.C. Roman Emperor Julius Caesar decreed that a new calendar, called the Julian calendar, would be adopted. The astronomer Sosigenes designed the calendar to strictly follow the seasons, not the moon. Each year had 365 days, with an extra "leap" day added every 4 years. This made the length of a Julian year 365.25 days, not far from the actual value of 365.2422 days.

The Gregorian Calendar
Pope Gregory
But the average length of the Julian year was a bit too long, by some 11 minutes. Slowly the first day of spring shifted to earlier and earlier dates, at the rate of about eight days every thousand years. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII, advised by the astronomer Christopher Clavius, decreed that the date of the vernal equinox, which had crept forward to March 11, should revert to March 21, its date at the time of the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. It was at the Council of Nicaea that the church decided Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. By bringing the calendar back into sync, Easter would be celebrated closer to its original date.
The only way to make such a change was to skip ten days; and so in Catholic countries the day after October 4, 1582, was October 15, 1582. Many non-Catholic nations, however, did not go along with this jump. England and the British colonies held out until 1752 when September 2nd was followed by September 14th. Many citizens thought they were being cheated out of 11 days of life and in the resultant riots a number of people were killed!
The change brought the first day of spring back to March 21st, but it was necessary to prevent future date-jumping. So the new Gregorian calendar was shortened a tiny amount. A leap day was still added every four years, but with a special rule about century-end years: only century-end years divisible by 400 would be leap years. Therefore, the years 1800, 1900, and 2100 have no February 29th, but 2000 and 2400 do. This makes the average length of the Gregorian year 365.2424 days, less than half a minute off each year. This will produce an error of only one day every 3000 years.(http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/2000/news-newyear.asp)

Questions and Answers

Where did the days of the week got its name?

The ancients carefully observed the motions of the stars, moon, and sun. Because the paths of the planets across the sky were different from the orderly, unchanging procession of the stars, they were thought to have special powers and were named after mythological gods and goddesses: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter. These planets, along with the sun and moon, then lent their names to the days of the week.
The English names for the days of the week are derived from Anglo-Saxon, and some of the names of the gods and goddesses are different than the Greek and Roman. The god Tiw was the equivalent of Mars, Woden of Mercury, Thor of Jupiter, and Frigga of Venus. (http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/time/weekdays.html)

also check this link:
http://webexhibits.org/calendars/week-connotations.html


Has the 7-Day Week Cycle Ever Been Interrupted?
There is no record of the 7-day week cycle ever having been broken. Calendar changes and reform have never interrupted the 7-day cycles. It very likely that the week cycles have run uninterrupted at least since the days of Moses (c. 1400 B.C.E.), possibly even longer.
Some sources claim that the ancient Jews used a calendar in which an extra Sabbath was occasionally introduced. But this is probably not true.

Which Day is the Day of Rest?

For the Jews, the Sabbath (Saturday) is the day of rest and worship. On this day God rested after creating the world.

Most Christians have made Sunday their day of rest and worship, because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday.

Muslims use Friday as their day of rest and worship. The Qur'an calls Friday a holy day, the "king of days."

What Is the First Day of the Week?

The Bible clearly makes the Sabbath the last day of the week, but does not share how that corresponds to our 7 day week. Yet through extra-biblical sources it is possible to determine that the Sabbath at the time of Christ corresponds to our current 'Saturday.' Therefore it is common Jewish and Christian practice to regard Sunday as the first day of the week (as is also evident from the Portuguese names for the week days).

However, the fact that, for example, Russian uses the name "second" for Tuesday, indicates that some nations regard Monday as the first day.In international standard ISO-8601 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decreed that Monday shall be the first day of the week. (http://webexhibits.org/calendars/week.html)

"the early Church commemorated Christ's resurrection on Sunday, the first day of the week, because that was the day Christ arose" (Mark 16:9, see also Mark 16:2 and Luke 24:1). (http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1993/9312chap.asp)

When is Easter?

The calculation of Easter is complicated because it is linked to (an inaccurate version of) the Hebrew calendar. Jesus was crucified immediately before the Jewish Passover, which is a celebration of the Exodus from Egypt under Moses. Celebration of Passover started on the 15th day of the (spring) month of Nisan. Jewish months start when the moon is new, therefore the 15th day of the month must be immediately after a full moon. It was therefore decided to make Easter Sunday the first Sunday after the first full moon after vernal equinox. Or more precisely: Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the "official" full moon on or after the "official" vernal equinox. The official vernal equinox is always 21 March. The official full moon may differ from the real full moon by one or two days. (Note, however, that historically, some countries have used the real (astronomical) full moon instead of the official one when calculating Easter. This was the case, for example, of the German Protestant states, which used the astronomical full moon in the years 1700-1776. A similar practice was used in Sweden in the years 1740-1844 and in Denmark in the 1700s.) The full moon that precedes Easter is called the Paschal full moon.
(http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-christian-easter.html)


Exodus 20:8-11


(8) "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. (9) Six days you shall labor and do all your work, (10) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. (11) For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (New International Version)