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was to be regarded as untouched by nature in any way. Accordingly, the day dedicated to
this god was to be regarded as part of a divine temporal pattern that transcends even na-
ture itself. That obviously involved DISSOCIATING THE WEEK FROM NATURE
AND ITS RHYTHMS. Only by being based on an entirely artificial mathematical rhythm
could the Sabbath observance BECOME TOTALLY INDEPENDENT OF THE LUNAR
OR ANY OTHER NATURAL CYCLE.

Zerubavel goes on to say that

A continuous seven-day cycle that runs throughout history paying no attention whatso-
ever to the moon and its phases is a distinctly JEWISH INVENTION. Moreover, the dis-
sociation of the seven-day week from nature has been one of the most significant contri-
butions of Judaism to civilization. Like the invention of the mechanical clock some 1,500
years later, it facilitates the establishment of what Lewis Mumford identified as "me-
chanical periodicity," thus essentially increasing the distance between human beings and
nature. Quasi [lunar] weeks and [continuous] weeks actually represent TWO FUNDA-
MENTALLY DISTINCT MODES OF TEMPORAL ORGANIZATION OF HUMAN
LIFE, the former involving partial adaptation to nature, and the latter stressing TOTAL
EMANCIPATION FROM IT. The invention of the continuous week was therefore one of
the most significant breakthroughs in human beings' attempts to BREAK AWAY from
being prisoners of nature [and from under God's law] and create a social world of their
own (The Seven Day Circle, p. 11).

The author further expounds, on page 8 of his book --

...the establishment of a seven-day week based on the regular observance of the Sabbath
IS A DISTINCTIVELY JEWISH CONTRIBUTION [?] TO CIVILIZATION...it is cru-
cial to remember that the ANCIENT DWELLERS OF MESOPOTAMIA themselves did
not have a real seven-day week [as we know it today]. While...the seven-day intervals en-
tailed in the regular observance of the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth
days of the lunar month...served as the model for the Jewish week, they themselves can-
not be considered weeks. Such intervals, which I shall call quasi-weeks, undoubtedly bear
a striking resemblance to the week and are often mistaken for it. Nevertheless, they are an
essentially different phenomenon.

One of the most distinctive features of the [present] week is the fact that it is entirely dis-
sociated from the lunar cycle. It is essentially defined as a precise multiple of the day,
quite independently of the lunar month. Quasi [lunar] weeks, on the other hand, are gen-
erally defined as rough approximations of fractions of the lunar month, and are appropri-
ately called "lunar weeks" by Francis H. Colson (ibid.).

Zerubavel concludes by saying that

...the indispensability of a CONTINUOUS week for the establishment of settled life with
a high level of social organization, [was] particularly significant since the RISE OF A
MARKET ECONOMY, which involved orderly contact on regular recurrent, periodic

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