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Did anyone notice the complexity of measuring time in tis book? Apparently the concept of time was vague in the minds of those who wrote the scriptures and the people in their time. I had to read other accounts of time measurement to wrap my head around how Friedmann and Sheldon were dealing with it here. The "hour" in particular varied greatly in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic usage; it could be anything from an instant to an entire season!

We must understand that the issue of time is directly connected to geography and people. This does not imply that the writers of the Bible or scriptures are wrong; they only write in relation to their geography.

It is true that the concept of time and space varies depending on the geographical position of a place. Moreover, the universality of time is not uniform across the globe.

I think we have to understand that God created the 24 hour day for humans to measure time. This concept has changed over our history based on our knowledge of our world and our universe. When God describes a time, He gives us a word to help us understand something that only He truly understands. In eternity time, as we know it, doesn't exist.

rondanoh1 wrote: ↑11 Mar 2021, 13:10 I think we have to understand that God created the 24 hour day for humans to measure time. This concept has changed over our history based on our knowledge of our world and our universe. When God describes a time, He gives us a word to help us understand something that only He truly understands. In eternity time, as we know it, doesn't exist.

I'd say God allotted for 24 hours to be in a day, but he didn't necessarily measuring them that weigh. The Hour system of measurement is more a product of man to understand cycle of light and day. If we were motivated enough we could create a form of metric time where every metric minute would be 100 metric seconds. 100 of those in a metric hour, and so on but that would be some intense math. The allotted time at the point of a day's creation wouldn't change with our system, just our process for tracking time's passing.

Time is irrelevant in myth. These stories were created to appeal to uneducated people in an attempt to explain the unexplainable in a world where science was yet at the forefront of an individual's life. Although I was intrigued by the author's attempts to equate biblical time with actual time, I personally don't buy the argument. The Bible is filled with numbers that are used again and again to establish a length of time, not necessarily representing the actual time that passed. For example, rain for forty days and forty nights meant that the ark floated for a long time; forty days in the desert meant that Jesus retreated for a long time as an analogy to the forty days that Moses went up into the mountain. When dealing with the G-d concept, a single day would satisfy primitive notations of being able to create the world by a being so powerful.

The concept of time changes with the society and culture you belong to. What an hour has been set as (sixty minutes) in our society may well be meaningless or at least mistaken by those who have been brought up differently culturally and geographically speaking. Also, we have no way of knowing whether 'our' minute, hour, day, etc. meant the same when the Bible was written as it does now. I would, in fact, say the odds are against it because the cultures and times are so different. It also wasn't possible to measure time with the precision we do now. Perforce, their concept of time would seem 'vague' to us.

We often experience tome differently. Although we use clocks and watches to measure time "objectively," we often don't feel that time. We perceive a minute as a long time at times, and a day as finishing in a minute in others. Time seems to pass quickly at times, and slowly at others, so it seems to depend on other factors. Even we see people of the same age are often not the same, so they seem to have experienced time differently.

Time does not apply to God, since He created it and is not subject to time. Therefore, I guess that the periods referred to are those outside of this world and within another realm and they are the closest thing to what we would call a day or certain periods.

I agree time can be quite confusing in the book. Theoretically, we may be able to find a connection to the Bible and science in any timeline so long as there is a pattern since the beginning could be infinitely long.

I did not find that an issue at all. I think it would have been relatively hard for anyone to measure time in those historical periods. There were no clocks, all they used were light and darkness.

Time is something that's not absolute as famously said by Einstein. For someone sitting idly or going through a difficult time might feel that the time is passing slower but someone who is enjoying and is with their loved ones would feel it went by quickly. This could be the reason for the confusing time allotment in these scriptures. Difficult times seem to pass much slower than happier ones. Since there was no way of measuring the time it is quite difficult to understand the exact point of occurrence of the event. The important thing is not time but what we learn from these texts and what they are trying to tell.

Yes, I think you are right. Long ago we didn't have this 24 hour, 12 months a year regime. Whatever the author is using is time as the biblical people viewed it.

Time is a complex concept on its own. As Einstein said, time is relative to space, long ago no one had an instrument to measure time hence they only relate the message based on the standard time measurements.

That is a geography and history problem. I think that it is a bit complex for us, but the author represented it well.

Kelyn wrote: ↑13 Mar 2021, 00:14 The concept of time changes with the society and culture you belong to. What an hour has been set as (sixty minutes) in our society may well be meaningless or at least mistaken by those who have been brought up differently culturally and geographically speaking. Also, we have no way of knowing whether 'our' minute, hour, day, etc. meant the same when the Bible was written as it does now. I would, in fact, say the odds are against it because the cultures and times are so different. It also wasn't possible to measure time with the precision we do now. Perforce, their concept of time would seem 'vague' to us.

I agree with you that time is relative to culture. Remember, we used to use sun dials to tell time and that seems archaic now, but perhaps in another 3,000 years, a newer, better way of measuring time will be brought to light!