On 20-Mar-01 Martin Dowie wrote:
> well, I can only spoke from a Church of Scotland (Christian,
> Presbyterian)
> background
> but "on the 7th day he rested", making Monday the first day. :-)

Exactly - but that day he rested was called sabbat(=saturday) :-) . The
early christians held additional meetings on the first day of the week
to celebrate the resurrection of christ (Matthew 28.1: (please excuse
the bad translation, I don�t have an english bible) "When the sabbat was
over and the first day of the week startet, Maria Magdalena and the
other Maria came to view the grave."). When the first non-jews became
christians, they were not obliged to hold the sabbat, and so sunday
became the common holy day of christians. The idea was too, that the
important thing from the genesis was having one day of rest every
week and not on which exact day it should be held.

Wilhelm