How did we determine the number of days in a week or the conept of a week?

Question

People will say that a week is 7 days. I can see how we arrive at the length of time for one day, one month and one year but not the week. Either I missed something big or it's too late at night... please explain.

Answer 1

A year is easy ( time taken for earth to go around sun)

month ( time taken for moon to go around earth...moonth became month)

day...time takes for earth to spin around once

a week I belelive was just division of the moonth into 4..i think or is it the fortnight the only one without  a scientific basis....I forget now!!

Answer 2

Keebs is right, this does have to directly deal with religion.  We call it week end because it refers to the recreation theory of God creating the world in 7 days.  

We call it a Judeo-Christian calendar which is a mixture of Judaism and Christianity

All the days refer to celestrial objects in the sky and are given names based on roman mythology with the 7th day refering the day of recreation.  

Here is a list of the days and their referece, you can wiki each day individually and read about their history...

Monday  - Moon, "The Beginning" ( Old English Germanic Moon god Mona)

Tuesday - Mars "The Warrior" ( Old English Nordic god Tyr)

Wednesday - Mercury "The Messenger" (Old English Germanic god Woden)

Thursday - Jupiter "God of Lightning" (Old English god Thor or "Thunor")

Friday - Venus "God of Air" (Old English god Frigg)

Saturday - Saturn "God of Agriculture" (Roman God Saturn)

Sunday - Sun "Sun of Righteousness " (Germanic sun goddess Sunne)

Answer 3

That's a really good question. I'd assume it has something to do with old religious texts about God creating the earth in 6 days with Sunday being the 7th day for rest...

That's my only guess. But it sounds right yea?