Horizon - Creation: The First Day

[Red Giant]

But it doesn't explain the rise - and subsequent fall - of early closing day.

Businessmen who had a day off would feel they were losing trade, unless everybody else were coerced to shut up shop at the same time.  Early closing day was just an extension of the same principle, to give the workers an extra half day off.

[Harrowby Hall]

The whole holy day thing, like the sacrificial rites, might have all been part of a food-hygiene scheme to discourage people from poisoning themselves.

Would this have been to produce a holy day on which people abstained from eating food (thereby avoiding food poisoning) or a holy day on which they ate everything (so that all potential poisonous food was used up)?

Fish-only on Friday or Sunday lunch with all the trimmings?

[Spud]

The main reason to have weeks is to know when market day is.  This cycle must be very ancient.  Holy days were tacked on later.

Why seven-day cycles for market day and not five, six or eight, though?

The Romans used 8.  Too often would be a waste of time.  I suppose, if the meat was slaughtered on market day, the next question would be, how long could you go on making curries and pretending they were edible.

The whole holy day thing, like the sacrificial rites, might have all been part of a food-hygiene scheme to discourage people from poisoning themselves.

So nothing to do with nature being designed to work and rest, then?

[jeremyp]

So nothing to do with nature being designed to work and rest, then?

By the Roman god of war?

[Spud]

So nothing to do with nature being designed to work and rest, then?

By the Roman god of war?

I was referring to this statement, "The whole holy day thing, like the sacrificial rites, might have all been part of a food-hygiene scheme to discourage people from poisoning themselves" rather than the Roman 8-day nundinal cycle.