Midnight to Midnight vs Sunrise to Sundown

J

Juk

Where did the idea of midnight to midnight come from? I believe that sunrise to sundown is a much better system. You are awake when it is light outside, and when it is dark you go to sleep. This is also God's way of counting days, and I think that it is better than the midnight system in terms of practicality, and more useful when we don't have a clock, and there were no clocks back then, I think. Just some of my thoughts on the subject. What are yours? Which system do you think is better?
 
In Hebrew reckoning, day begins at sunrise, which approximates when people arise from sleep and start their activities. However, sunrise to sunset as a 'Day' would be impractical in a technological age. In the summer, a day would be longer than the night. In winter, the night would be longer than the day. At the poles, there would only be one day per year.

An hour, in traditional Hebrew reckoning is found by taking the day (whatever length it is at that time of year), and dividing that length by twelve. computerized timepieces could, of course be programmed to make the adjustment, but mechanical clocks would be extremely complex.

This wasn't much of a problem when most people looked at the position of the sun and estimated the hour, and the best time pieces had fairly large accuracy problems, but think of the problems running a train schedule, or a TV station, or anything else if things were that vague.
 
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Siloam said:
In Hebrew reckoning, day begins at sunrise, which approximates when people arise from sleep and start their activities. However, sunrise to sunset as a 'Day' would be impractical in a technological age. In the summer, a day would be longer than the night. In winter, the night would be longer than the day. At the poles, there would only be one day per year.

An hour, in traditional Hebrew reckoning is found by taking the day (whatever length it is at that time of year), and dividing that length by twelve. computerized timepieces could, of course be programmed to make the adjustment, but mechanical clocks would be extremely complex.

This wasn't much of a problem when most people looked at the position of the sun and estimated the hour, and the best time pieces had fairly large accuracy problems, but think of the problems running a train schedule, or a TV station, or anything else if things were that vague.
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Hmm... Thanks. I didn't think about all of that.
 
Some historical astronomers advocated starting the day at _about_ sunrise with adjustment for the time of year, not because they wanted to follow Old Testament tradition, but because having the day designation change in the middle of their night observations was inconvenient.
 
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Juk said:
Where did the idea of midnight to midnight come from? I believe that sunrise to sundown is a much better system. You are awake when it is light outside, and when it is dark you go to sleep. This is also God's way of counting days, and I think that it is better than the midnight system in terms of practicality, and more useful when we don't have a clock, and there were no clocks back then, I think. Just some of my thoughts on the subject. What are yours? Which system do you think is better?
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This is precisely why it's midnight to midnight, because God counts from sunset to sunset as one day. Rebellion. It's why, for even many Christians, they will miss the appointed times.
 
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Juk said:
Where did the idea of midnight to midnight come from? I believe that sunrise to sundown is a much better system. You are awake when it is light outside, and when it is dark you go to sleep. This is also God's way of counting days, and I think that it is better than the midnight system in terms of practicality, and more useful when we don't have a clock, and there were no clocks back then, I think. Just some of my thoughts on the subject. What are yours? Which system do you think is better?
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When were the sun dials and such brougth into being Juk?
 
Siloam said:
In Hebrew reckoning, day begins at sunrise, which approximates when people arise from sleep and start their activities.
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Hebrew days start at sunset - not sunrise. Technically - they reckon the start at "first star light" and ends the next day with the same.

This goes back to Genesis one "and there was evening and there was morning.

This can be a bit confusing if you decide to attend an orthodox Jewish synagogue - many of them start at a different time every week.
 
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Abdicate said:
This is precisely why it's midnight to midnight, because God counts from sunset to sunset as one day. Rebellion. It's why, for even many Christians, they will miss the appointed times.
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Never thought of that. Do you follow sunset to sunset?
 
JohnC said:
Hebrew days start at sunset - not sunrise. Technically - they reckon the start at "first star light" and ends the next day with the same.

This goes back to Genesis one "and there was evening and there was morning.

This can be a bit confusing if you decide to attend an orthodox Jewish synagogue - many of them start at a different time every week.
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Yes, that's right, my talking imprecisely can cause missunderstanding. In this case, by 'day' I meant daytime, meaning the period of a day when the sun is visible. Hours of daytime are counted from dawn.
 
Well, if we were doing sunset to sunset in Alaska, we would have a day in the summer that lasts about 240 hours, I don't think that'd work out too well for a lot of people's schedules :ROFLMAO:
 
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