Roy,
After a two hour search, my conclusion is the same as yours. The seven day week was introduced to Abraham on his way out of Sumer/Babylon and then confirmed in writing to Moseh in the Towrah. While the world does not understand it, everyone outside of the Covenant has adopted a corruption of it.
I've read a dozen articles on the 7 day week, and they are all inconclusive. There is absolutely no early extant affirmation of a seven day week apart from the Towrah. But it seems that even with their love of 60, and thus 6, Sumer, may have shown an affinity for a 7 day week with, Geuda, a priest/king who was among the first to pronounce himself a god, ruling sometime around 2100 BCE. He is recorded establishing 7 temples for himself with accompanying festivals lasting 7 and 14 days. But it's just a footnote in his history and there is no record of these temples or festivals being used to establish a seven day week. In fact, apart from the Towrah, there is no extant reference to a seven day week, or even a six day week for seven hundred to 1000 years thereafter, and acceptance was spotty and inconsistent around the world.
The first reference to four seven day weeks within a lunar month may have been based upon the moon being a god and the 4 phases, new, first quarter, full, last quarter, each lasting just over 7 days. The poem addressing this is from a Babylonian/Assyrian creation account dating to the 7th century BCE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week The Harvard professor who provided a "free" translation of it, epitomizes knowing without understanding.
The seven day week did not become universal even in Rome until Constantine in 400CE. They used 8 days previously. China was even later to arrive at 7 days.
There is a fairly significant intersection between Sumer/Babylon and the shabat. It was a rest day for the gods on the 14th of the month. Each month started with the first day, now known as Sunday, so the 14th and 15th were always full moons. Enoch uses the Babylonian method, which is funny considering the fact that those who promote Enoch accuse those of us who rely instead on the Towrah of being Babylonian.
Every article I read was poorly written, poorly documented, often irrational, and highly opinionated. Some of this relates to the correlation between Gilgamesh and Noah, where the flood story in book 11 only dates back to the 7th century BCE, and yet we are told to believe that the 15th century BCE account in the Towrah was based upon the 7th century story of Gilgamesh. The four surviving Sumerian accounts which date to the 14th century BCE, do not include much of anything found in the standard 12 volume version published today, and in particular, exclude any reference to a flood. Therefore, it is inaccurate to suggest that the flood story recorded in the 7th century BCE was based upon the 14th century BCE account. Also, some versions have the flood narrated on a six day schedule, while others claim 7. I've read the 12 tablets known as the Standard Version, which dates to the 7th century BCE and is 70% complete, and it correlates less than .01% with the Towrah.
While the oldest citation we have from the Towrah dates to the 7th century BCE, beyond the affirmed science of creation and the flood, and of course the fulfilled prophecy, the internal depictions of places and people which have subsequently been shown valid by archaeology are too consistently accurate for it to have been written even as much as a couple of decades after the events it depicts - so it predates everything we have on a seven day week. It is not only the single source in antiquity to specifically establish a 6+1=7 day week, there would not be another written affirmation of a seven day week until after the Hebrew captivity in Babylon, when Babylon was under the influence of Daniel - and even then, it was the Persians, not Babylonians, who established a seven day week. It was later accepted by Greece as part of the Big Dipper having seven stars, or of the five visible planets plus the sun and moon. And the Romans got it from the Greeks, naming each day of the week after their gods, the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1939PA.....47..175CA more comprehensive review of what has been written and accepted over time is required to be emphatic, but what I read, based upon what we know, seems to affirm your conclusions.
Here are some of the articles I read.
Yada
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1939PA.....47..175Chttp://www.calculator.net/time-calculator.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekhttp://www.storyofmathematics.com/sumerian.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimalhttp://edhelper.com/Read...omprehension_42_177.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgameshhttp://www.hermetic.ch/cal_stud/hlwc/why_seven.htm History
While the seven-day cycle may have deep historical origins in the Ancient Near East, the "planetary theory" of horoscopy is a development ofBabylonian astrology roughly around 500 BC, with the oldest extant horoscope dated to just before 400 BC.[9]
The seven-day week being approximately a quarter of a lunation has been proposed (e.g. by Friedrich Delitzsch) as the implicit, astronomical origin of the seven-day week,[10] and indeed the Babylonian calendar used intercalary days to synchronize the last week of a month with the new moon.[11]
The seven-day week seems to have been adopted (independently) by the Persian Empire, in Judaism and in Hellenistic astrology, and (viaGreek transmission) in Gupta India and Tang China.[12] The Babylonian system was received by the Greeks in the 4th century BC (notably via Eudoxus of Cnidus). But the designation of the seven days of the week to the seven planets does not seem to have any Babylonian precedent[13] and is rather an original innovation of Hellenistic astrology, probably first conceived in the 2nd century BC.[9] It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire by the 1st century AD, and ultimately replaced the older Roman system of the nundinal cycle during the 4th century.
Ancient Near East
The earliest evidence of an astrological significance of a seven-day period is connected to Gudea, priest-king of Lagash in Sumer during theGutian dynasty, who built a seven-room temple, which he dedicated with a seven-day festival. In the flood story of the Assyro-Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh the storm lasts for seven days, the dove is sent out after seven days, and the Noah-like character of Utnapishtim leaves the ark seven days after it reaches firm ground.[14]
It seems likely that the Hebrew seven-day week is based on the Babylonian tradition, although going through certain adaptations. George Aaron Barton speculated that the seven-day creation account of Genesis is connected to the Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish, which is recorded on seven tablets. [15]
Babylonians[year needed] celebrated a holy day every seven days, starting from the new moon, then the first visible crescent of the Moon, but adjusted the number of days of the final "week" in each month so that months would continue to commence on the new moon.[citation needed]
Counting from the new moon, the Babylonians celebrated the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th as "holy-days", also called "evil days" (meaning "unsuitable" for prohibited activities). On these days, officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to "make a wish", and at least the 28th was known as a "rest-day".[16] On each of them, offerings were made to a different god and goddess.
In a frequently-quoted suggestion going back to the early 20th century[by whom?][17] the Hebrew Sabbath is compared to the Sumerian sa-bat"mid-rest", a term for the full moon. The Sumerian term has been reconstructed as rendered Sapattum or Sabattum in Babylonian, possibly present in the lost fifth tablet of the Enûma Eliš, tentatively reconstructed [according to whom?] "[Sa]bbath shalt thou then encounter, mid[month]ly".[16]
Achaemenid period
The Zoroastrian calendar follows the Babylonian in relating the seventh and other days of the month to Ahura Mazda.[18] The forerunner of all modern Zoroastrian calendars is the system used to reckon dates in the Persian Empire, adopted from the Babylonian calendar by the 4th century BC.
Frank C. Senn in his book Christian Liturgy: Catholic and Evangelical points to data suggesting evidence of an early continuous use of a seven-day week; referring to the Jews during the Babylonian Captivity in the 6th century BC,[19] after the destruction of the Temple of Solomon. While the seven-day week in Judaism is tied to Creation account in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible (where God creates the heavens and the earth in six days and rests on the seventh; Genesis 1:1–2:3, in the Book of Exodus, the fourth of the Ten Commandments is to rest on the seventh day, Shabbat, which can be seen as implying a socially instituted seven-day week), it is not clear whether the Genesis narrative predates the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews in the 6th century BC. At least since the Second Temple periodunder Persian rule, Judaism relied on the seven-day cycle of recurring Sabbaths[20]
Tablets[citation needed] from the Achaemenid period indicate that the lunation of 29 or 30 days basically contained three seven-day weeks, and a final week of eight or nine days inclusive, breaking the continuous seven-day cycle.[16] The Babylonians additionally celebrated the 19th as a special "evil day", the "day of anger", because it was roughly the 49th day of the (preceding) month, completing a "week of weeks", also with sacrifices and prohibitions.[16]
Difficulties with Friedrich Delitzsch's origin theory connecting Hebrew Shabbat with the Babylonian lunar cycle[21] include reconciling the differences between an unbroken week and a lunar week, and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as Shabbat in any language.[22]
Hellenistic and Roman era
In Jewish sources by the time of the Septuagint, the term "Sabbath" (Greek Sabbaton) by synecdoche also came to refer to an entire seven-day week,[23] the interval between two weekly Sabbaths. Jesus's parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:12) describes the Pharisee as fasting "twice in the week" (Greek δὶς τοῦ σαββάτου dis tou sabbatou).
The ancient Romans traditionally used the eight-day nundinal cycle, but after the Julian calendar had come into effect in 45 BC, the seven-day week came into use. For a while, the week and the nundinal cycle coexisted, but by the time the week was officially adopted byConstantine in AD 321, the nundinal cycle had fallen out of use. The association of the days of the week with the Sun, the Moon and the five planets visible to the naked eye dates to the Roman era (2nd century). [24]
The continuous seven-day cycle of the days of the week can be traced back to the reign of Augustus; the first identifiable date cited complete with day of the week is 6 February 60, identified as a "Sunday" (as viii idus Februarius dies solis "eighth day before the ides of February, day of the Sun") in a Pompeiian graffito. According to the currently-used Julian calendar, 6 February 60 was, however, a Wednesday. This is explained by the existence of two conventions of naming days of the weeks based on the planetary hours system: 6 February was a "Sunday" based on the sunset naming convention, and a "Wednesday" based on the sunrise naming convention.[25]
Adoption in Asia
The earliest known reference in Chinese writings to a seven-day week is attributed to Fan Ning, who lived in the late 4th century in the Jin Dynasty, while diffusions from the Manichaeans are documented with the writings of the Chinese Buddhist monk Yi Jing and the Ceylonese or Central Asian Buddhist monk Bu Kong of the 7th century (Tang Dynasty).
The Chinese variant of the planetary system was soon brought to Japan by the Japanese monk Kobo Daishi. Surviving diaries of the Japanese statesman Fujiwara Michinaga show the seven-day system in use in Heian Japan as early as 1007. In Japan, the seven-day system was kept in use for astrological purposes until its promotion to a full-fledged Western-style calendrical basis during the Meiji era.
The seven-day week was known in India by the 6th century, referenced in the Pañcasiddhāntikā.[citation needed]. Shashi (2000) mentions theGarga Samhita, which he places in the 1st century BC or AD, as a possible earlier reference to a seven-day week in India. He concludes "the above references furnish a terminus ad quem (viz. 1st century) The terminus a quo cannot be stated with certainty".[26][27]
Christian Europe
Further information: Holy Week and Easter Week
The seven-day weekly cycle has remained unbroken in Europe for almost two millennia, despite changes to the Coptic, Julian, and Gregoriancalendars, demonstrated by the date of Easter Sunday having been traced back through numerous computistic tables to an Ethiopic copy of an early Alexandrian table beginning with the Easter of AD 311.[28]
"The Roman context of the spread of Christianity meant that Rome contributed a lot to the structure and calendar of the new faith."[29]
A tradition of divinations arranged for the days of the week on which certain feast days occur develops in the Early Medieval period. There are many later variants of this, including the German Bauern-Praktik and the versions of Erra Pater published in 16th to 17th century England, mocked in Samuel Butler's Hudibras. South and East Slavic versions are known as koliadniki (from koliada, a loan of Latincalendae), with Bulgarian copies dating from the 13th century, and Serbian versions from the 14th century.[30] Medieval Christian traditions associated with the lucky or unlucky nature of certain days of the week survived into the modern period. This concerns primarily Friday, associated with the crucifixion of Jesus. Sunday, sometimes personified as Saint Anastasia, was itself an object of worship in Russia, a practice denounced in a sermon extant in copies going back to the 14th century.[31]
Sunday, in the ecclesiastical numbering system also counted as the feria prima or the first day of the week; yet, at the same time, figures as the "eighth day", and has occasionally been so called in Christian liturgy. [32]
Justin Martyr wrote: "the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and [yet] remains the first".[33]
A period of eight days, starting and ending on a Sunday, is called an octave, particularly in Roman Catholic liturgy. In German, the phrase in acht Tagen (literally "in eight days") means one week from today.