I always thought this one was pretty simple. Monday is the first day of the week, Sunday is the last. Monday you go to work, Sunday is the day of rest, the last day of the week-“end”, the Sabbath, at least in my predominately Christian surroundings. Of course there are variations around the world, differn’t strokes and all that, but here at home, right in the middle of the USA, I’m on solid ground… then The Lovely Wife tells me otherwise.
“Just look at a calendar”, she says. Sure enough, it runs Sunday through Saturday. She even tells me a kid at school got a quiz question wrong because he said Thursday was the 4th day of the week, not the 5th. This all seems pretty inconsequential, except that it runs counter to everything I thought I knew about something as simple as the days of the week. So of course I turn to Google.
WebExhibits has Calendars Through the Ages. Excellent, this will clear it all up.
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.
So I’ve got the Commie Bureaucrats and everyone else is against me. How does this happen? Are you all S-S people, or are there other M-S adherents out there? Leave a comment and tell me which you think is right.
oh c’mon! this was a perfect opportunity to talk about sabbath mode, patrick.
Dude, what on earth are you talking about?
And more importantly, validate me.
Saturday is the sabbath. Sunday is day 1. For my purposes, though, I like to think M-S is the week, but I know it is not. I accept this, and I live my life knowing my last day of the weekend is the first day of the week.
What about here at work? We live a Sat-Friday schedule here at Apple, according to how the scheduling and Time cards run. It blows your mind.
i tend to picture saturday & sunday together at the end of the week in my head…which may explain why i’m always unprepared, homework undone, when i realize monday is only a few short hours away.