DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15#0285
272
ASTRONOMY AND THE JEWISH
FESTIVALS.
In the essay on the ' Origin of the Week,' I
have shown that so soon as a people began to
rise above the savage state, and to require some
means of measuring time-periods other than the
day and the year (if, indeed, the year ever was
even roughly measured until long after the month
and week had been used as time-measures),
they must have used the moon for this purpose,
and must soon after have been led to divide
time into periods of seven days. It is no mere
accident that all the nations of antiquity used
the week of seven days as a measure of time,
though some, later, employed the astronomically
more exact division of time into periods of five
and ten days. The moon naturally suggests by
her movements precisely this division of time into
periods of seven days, though a more careful study
of her motions suggests the division of the lunar
month into six periods of five days each, rather
ASTRONOMY AND THE JEWISH
FESTIVALS.
In the essay on the ' Origin of the Week,' I
have shown that so soon as a people began to
rise above the savage state, and to require some
means of measuring time-periods other than the
day and the year (if, indeed, the year ever was
even roughly measured until long after the month
and week had been used as time-measures),
they must have used the moon for this purpose,
and must soon after have been led to divide
time into periods of seven days. It is no mere
accident that all the nations of antiquity used
the week of seven days as a measure of time,
though some, later, employed the astronomically
more exact division of time into periods of five
and ten days. The moon naturally suggests by
her movements precisely this division of time into
periods of seven days, though a more careful study
of her motions suggests the division of the lunar
month into six periods of five days each, rather