He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. (John 1:39)
Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. (John 4:6)
The time of day is revealed in much of the bible in certain instances. When the time is spoken about it seems to be an accurate time to them. I question how is it they know what time it is? I know they did not all have watches or clocks in this day and time. So how did they tell time during this time period? I thought that maybe they could tell by the daylight, and that they would estimate what time they thought it may be. Another possibility is that they could have had some type of equipment that is similar to the modern day clock. I imagine them using a sundial, but was this time before the sundial? As I researched further I found that, The Egyptians and the Babylonians were the first to make use of the sun to measure time. This was around 3500 BC. The sun dial was around during this time, but they were made of large pillars and where not easily transported. The first portable sundial came two thousand years later in 1500 BC in Egypt. So did they carry around these new and improved sun dials, or where there other useful ways to tell time?
The layout and breakdown of the day was another key that helped determine the hour or time of day. The Jewish day ran from sundown to sundown and was divided into eight “watches”, four of daylight and four of darkness. By New Testament times, they had begun to observe the Roman custom of twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night, but they did not count minutes or seconds. Yet, this caused further problems since the Romans counted their hours from twelve noon or twelve midnight, and the Jews counted from sunrise or sunset. The different views cause some confusion with whom or what was right when referring to the true time of day. Was anyone truly correct or was it an estimate?
In order to truly understand how the time was determined we must revert first to the days and years. The calendar was the most important way to determine the day and time. The calendar day is the basic unit of time in the Bible. This unit breaks down into finer units of time, watches and hours, and those sub-day units of time become important in Passion Week.Days are also combined to form larger units of time, called calendar time.Calendar time includes weeks, months, years, Sabbath and Jubilee year groups, as wellas 10 fold jubilees and millennia.To accurately measure time, in all of its various aspects requires a precise definition of the base unit for all time, the calendar day. The breakdown of the calendar contributes to the further breakdown of the time of day.
To sum it all up, the way that they told time was extremely complex. The first way was to determine the years, months, and days. They soon had an object known as the sun dial. The sun dial aided as an easier way to tell time by measuring the sun throughout the day. Time has traveled a long way since then. I am thankful for the clocks, watches, and phones that aid us today to determine the time.
The Bible As Literature 