Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson AT mindspring.com>]

At 05:58 AM 8/29/00 +0200, Ian Hutchesson wrote:
>Going back to the text of Genesis 1, what is there in the particular text
>which suggests that the writer was dealing with anything other than a 24
>hour day?

It appears that use of the term "24 hour day" is in danger of improperly
importing modernistic conceptions of time into an ancient text.  I note
that, despite the poster's emphasis on the text, there is no mention of
an "hour" much less twenty four of them in Genesis 1.

Is there any evidence that the writers of the Hebrew Bible measured
days in terms of hours, rather than measuring hours in terms of a day
(i.e. as a fraction).  In fact, is there any evidence that they even
divided the day into 24 hours, rather into watches or the like? 

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson AT mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35