英国新闻听力 周日是否应和平时有所差别（在线收听）

I’ve always assumed that a week is made up of seven days because it’s based on the creation myth of the book of Genesis which describes God creating the world in that time. But apparently the seven day week goes back much further to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. Days, months and years were based on the movements of the moon and the sun, so it was then agreed to name each day after one of seven planets, thus creating the week. And it was common in ancient civilizations for one day out of the seven to be different, often used for rituals.

Today there’s a clear divide between people who want the seventh day to be different and others who want it to be the same. Plans to extend Sunday trading so that shops open for as long as any other day have just ground to a halt in Parliament.

For anyone under the age of 25, it must be hard to imagine life before Sunday opening. It was the world of Jimmy Porter, anti-hero of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, raging at the dullness of nothing to do. “How I hate Sundays”, he says. “Always the same ritual. Reading the papers, drinking tea, ironing.”

Since Sunday trading laws changed in 1994 and a relaxation in licensing laws, people can already shop, eat out and drink for most of the day – but for not quite as long as every other day. Some commentators have suggested that the opponents of extended Sunday trading are killjoys who think Sunday is sacred and should be devoted just to going to church, turning back the clock to the days of Jimmy Porter.

But to me this seems a misreading of what Sunday is about. Christianity made Sunday its Sabbath, rather than Saturday, kept by the Jews, but the new religion did adopt their Scriptures. And those Scriptures say the Sabbath should be different: a much-needed day of rest for the entire household, including its animals, its servants and the main family. The day commonly thought of as dedicated to God becomes the Lord’s Day by being a day for people. The difficulty now is that a day of rest often involves shopping and eating out. That means others have to work, which is why trade unions have voiced concern about extended Sunday opening.

The wisdom of ancient civilizations, expressed in books of Scripture like Exodus and Deuteronomy, is that we all need a different tempo to the rest of the week. The difficulty is that with greater freedom to do what we like, when we like, those crucial moments to pause, think, and yes, pray, are harder to find.

我一直认为一个星期是由七天组成的，因为这是基于《创世纪》所记录的，描述了上帝创造世界时的情景。但是很明显，一周七天的说法可以追溯到更加久远的美索不达米亚文明时期。日，月，年都是基于月亮和太阳的运动，所以按照七个行星中的一个为每一天命名，然后形成了一个星期。在古代文明中，七天中的一天有所不同是很常见的，通常用作宗教仪式。

希望第七天各有不同的人和希望七天都相同的人之间有着明确的分别。延长周日交易，这样商场在周日和其他每天一样正常营业的计划在议会遭遇搁浅。

对于任何25岁以下的人来说，肯定很难想象周日营业之前的生活。那是Jimmy Porter的世界，约翰·奥斯本的《愤怒的回顾》中的平凡的主角，因无事可做而愤怒。“我好讨厌周日啊，总是同样的惯例。看报纸，喝茶，熨烫衣服。”

自1994年周日贸易法改变，营业执照法放松以来，人们一天的大部分时间都可以购物，外出就餐和喝饮料——但是仍然不像其他的日子时间那么长。一些评论家认为，延长周日交易的反对者是大煞风景的人，认为周日是神圣的，应该虔诚地去教堂，将时钟拨回Jimmy Porter的时代。

但是对我来说，这是对周日的误解。基督教将周日作为安息日，而不是像犹太人那样将周六作为安息日。但是这个新的宗教并不接纳他们的圣经经文。那些经文说，安息日应该有所不同：那是整个家庭必须的休息日，包括他们的动物，仆人和所有家人。这一天通常被认为是对上帝的忠诚，因为“主日”是民众的。其困难在于一天的休息通常意味着外出购物和就餐。这就意味着其他人要工作，所以工会才对延长周日营业表示担忧。

许多经文中表达了古代文明的智慧，比如《出埃及记》和《申命记》，一周剩余的时间我们都需要不同的节奏。困难就是，要想有做自己喜欢的事，喜欢的时候做事的更大的自由，要找到关键的时刻来暂停，思考和祈祷的时间将更加困难。