[b-hebrew] Hebrew calender, years, months, weeks and days
James Read
J.Read-2 at sms.ed.ac.uk
Fri May 8 08:51:41 EDT 2009
I agree with your sentiments. Even though the day officially starts at
midnight I never really consider it to be the next day until morning
has come (i.e. the sun has risen; this usually happens long before I
wake up, though).
But I think that what he meant was that the period that begins in the
evening and ends in the morning is what we would call 'night' in
English. I don't think he was making any statements about when the day
begins.
James Christian Read
Quoting Jason Hare <jaihare at gmail.com>:
> Ben,
>
> It actually just makes sense to end a day at sundown. Midnight is
> artificial for a day's beginning and is only truly possible with the
> clock. Before people used regular clocks, all cultures began their day
> either at dawn or at sundown. These are the natural marks for the
> beginning of the new day. Anyone can look outside and see that the sun
> is setting and know that the work day has ended. Similarly, anyone
> would admit that dawn is a good time to start a new day, since it
> actually *is* the beginning of the day. Both of these is perfectly
> logical. It is the idea that somewhere in the dead of night the new
> day begins that strikes me as odd.
>
> Jason Hare
> Rehovot, Israel
>
> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Ben Crick <ben.crick at argonet.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Wed 6 May 2009 (00:12:50 +0100), j.read-2 at sms.ed.ac.uk wrote:
>>> Among the things I was always interested in understanding were things
>>> like
>>>
>>> 1) How do we know that Hebrews designated days from evening to
>>> evening? Do we have any written evidence of this other than
>>> interpretations of statements in Genesis 1?
>>
>> [probably off-topic for B-Hebrew]
>>
>> That is the way the Jews designate the Day change; why, I know not.
>> In Genesis 1 the Days of Creation are enumerated, "the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,...etc
>> Day". Each day is terminated with the statement "And the evening and the
>> morning were the first day, etc.". The term `eReB BoQeR evening/morning is
>> used elsewhere in Scripture to mean a "Day"; whereas surely an
>> "`eReB BoQeR"
>> is not a Day at all, but a Night! One would have thought that the command
>> Y:HiY 'oWR (Genesis 1:3) would correspond to Dawn, not to Dusk!
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