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Why Are There Seven Days in a Week? Astrology | The Astrology Podcast | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Why Are There Seven Days in a Week? Astrology
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Core Theme
The seven-day week, a system universally adopted today, originated from ancient astrological practices that associated each day with one of the seven visible celestial bodies known at the time.
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Hey, my name is Chris Brennan and in
this video I'm going to talk about why
there are seven days in the week rather
than some other number like 10 or or
four or eight or what have you. So, this
question was posted recently in one of
the like historian subreddits on Reddit
and I ended up chiming in because uh
some of the answers were a little bit uh
not great. So this was my answer which
is that the reason why there's seven
days in a week is because the weekday
was partially patterned after the seven
traditional planets which are the seven
vis visible celestial bodies that were
known about in ancient times which are
the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury,
Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. And that's
actually the specific order of the days
of the week based on their planetary associations
associations
which is that you have Sunday which is
associated with the sun. You have Monday
which is associated with the moon, moon
day essentially. You have Mars which is
Tuesday. You have Mercury which is
Wednesday. You have Jupiter which is Thursday,
Thursday,
Venus which is Friday. And finally
Saturday which is associated with the
planet Saturn. So this is why there are
seven days in a week rather than some
other number like there could be 10 days
in the week, there could be 5 days in a
week or what have you. We have seven
days in a week because traditionally
there were seven planets uh including
the sun and moon. So the origins of this
system historically are kind of murky.
Uh because it emerges in the
Mediterranean world sometime after the
1st century BCE
uh when hellenistic astrology had
exploded in popularity in the Greco
Roman world around that time. And this
system of assigning the planets to the
days of the week is already mentioned by
the 2 century astrologer Vadius Valins.
So we know for sure that it probably
precedes him by at least a century or
two which is going to put it somewhere
in at least the first century CE if not
further back to the 1st century BC. And
that kind of makes sense within the
context of what we know about the
history of astrology because also uh
during the hellistic period around the
2n century B.CE CE in the 1st century BC
there were a lot of there was a lot of
systemizing going on and there were a
lot of different systems and schemes
just like this one that were being
created uh partially for the purposes of astrology.
astrology.
So while it may have originally
um originated in an astrological
context, it very quickly became widely
adopted in the west outside of
astrology. And certainly by the time of
the late Roman Empire and into the early
Middle Ages, it became common place as
just like the system that was used for
the days of the week and that there were
seven days in a in a week. um even if it
wasn't being used in an astrological
context at that point. Interestingly
though, astrologers often did still
still used it in an astrological context
for different astrological purposes or
even in some instances for magical
purposes where magical texts would
recommend um doing certain things on
certain days of the week. There was also
uh connected with this a system of
planetary hours which connected one of
the planets with different hours during
the course of the day. And interestingly
this complex system of planetary hours
is integral to understanding the
ordering and sequence of the days of the
week. So if people are interested at
some point I can do a separate video
about that to outline that system as
well. But it's a little bit more complex
than just the basic days of the week and
their planetary assignments.
So once this system was established um
initially based on the planets and it
became common place in the west from
there it started influencing other
astrological and cultural traditions
like for example um through Greek
translations into Sanskrit. It
influenced the Indian tradition at some
point. Um there was also translations of
Greek texts into Persian which then
influenced the Persian tradition. And
then the astrological texts that were
translated into Persian went on to
through the Silk Road to influence other
astrological traditions as far away as
China and Japan where elements of uh
horoscopic astrology and of these
systems of astrology all the way also
made their way to the far east.
So this is one of the more fascinating
instances then where you have something
that was originally functionally like an
astrological concept of associating
certain planets with certain days of the
week would go on to influence and become
commonplace across so many different
cultures and all across the world to the
point that it's still the standard
system that we use today in modern
times. even though most normal people
don't realize that it was originally
based on something astrological.
So in that way it may actually be one of
the most successful astrological
concepts that has gone on to influence
and permeate different cultures around
the world all the way into this day.
All right. So that's pretty much it and
that's all I wanted to say about that in
terms of how and why there came to be
seven days in the week and how the days
of the week were connected with the
planets. There's still research that is
ongoing where historians are trying to
piece together exactly where this system
came from and at what point it was
introduced and there's some debates
about that up until the present time.
But for the most part, I think the
timeline that I've given is relatively
accurate. And it will be interesting to
see um as future archaeological
discoveries come about in the coming
years if we get more clarification about
the origins of this system at some point
in the future. Uh but other than that, I
think that's it for this video. So,
thanks a lot for watching and I'll see
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