Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Tony Costa" <tmcos AT hotmail.com>]

Dear Friends,

I was wondering if any of you have any comments on the dialogue below on the 
question of the Jewish reckoning of time. The question here is whether a 
part of a day was regarded as the whole day. Does anyone have any insight 
the Talmudic reference to the "onah"? Many thanks.

                                             Tony Costa, B.A.
                                             University of Toronto

> >YOU ARE CAUGHT UP IN A LITERAL
> >UNDERSTANDING OF THE 3 DAYS AND 3 NIGHTS.
>
> I think there is good evidence to take this literally because the Jewish
> system of counting days was based on these 12 hour spans (onah).  There
> was a "night span"  and a "day span".  The reference for this in the
> Yerushalmi Talmud is Sabbat 9:3.  In the Babylonian Talmud the reference
> is 86a - 87a.  Even in Genesis 1 it say that EVENING and MORNING were the
> first day.  A day was considered to have 2 parts.  The evening was
> followed by the night span (onah) the morning was followed by the day
> span (onah).
>
> >THE JEWS REGARDED A PART OF THE
> >DAY AS ITS WHOLE.
>
> What documentation is there for this?  In the Talmud it says that a part
> of an "onah" which is a 12 hour span either from 6am to 6pm or else 6pm
> to 6am can be regarded as a whole of it (meaning a whole SPAN).  From
> this statement I have seen people say that a part of a DAY was regarded
> as a WHOLE day (24 hours).  But in my understanding that is not the
> context.  It actually says "part of a span is equivalent to the whole of
> it".

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