Whether we would like to admit it or not, in terms of having a global impact, no other book even comes close to the Bible.

Volumes have been written on the influence the Bible has had on the world.

And when I say the world, I mean the whole world, NOT just Western civilization. If there be any scorners or doubters, chew on this objective fact.

As of this writing, according to The Guinness Book of World Records, since 1815, the Bible has sold approximately 2.5 billion copies and has been translated into more than 2,200 languages or dialects.

Now I’m not saying that this is evidence of divine intervention pushing book sales anymore than God is behind the success of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” being the most viewed Youtube video on the planet.

However, what I am saying is that it is sure proof of the tremendous far-reaching impact the Bible has had on practically every sphere of human activity.

I would argue that minus the Bible.

…the birth of modern science would NOT have occurred.

…the story of Europe, the United States, Canada and other nations would be totally different.

And we would NOT have a 7-day week.

Since we are in Chapter One of Genesis, it is this one point in particular that I would like to focus on.

A 24-hour day is the duration of one rotation of the earth on its axis. A year is the duration of one orbital revolution of the earth around the sun. A month is the approximate interval between new moons. The seasons are marked by the equinoxes and solstices.

However.

There is NO astronomical basis for a 7-day week whatsoever!

So how did the 7-day week originate?

Secular scholars have tried to attribute the origin of the 7-day week to all kinds of reasons.

One common scholarly objection is that since the Sumerians and Babylonians used a 7-day week before the Hebrews, it could not have found its origin in God’s commandment from the Bible.

Another common objection is to attribute the origin of the week to the use of “market days?"

However, they also have to point out that the interval between market days was different in different nations, though rarely varying more than a day or so above or below seven days.

The problem with this explanation is that it still does not explain how the market days happened to cluster around every “seventh” day, instead of every fifteenth day or nineteenth day or something else.

Besides, there were various ancient nations whose weeks were quite unrelated to any marketing customs.

Why can’t any of these scholars ever consider the obvious explanation?

The seven-day week was established by God Himself, at the beginning.

© Richoka