1. The Concept of Dates in the Bible
The Jewish concept of dates differs from what we generally recognize. Jews consider the start of a day to be when the sun sets, expressing a day as the period from sunset until sunset the next day. However, this doesn’t mean they call evening "morning" and morning "evening"; the standard for changing dates is different, while the general expression of a day remains the same.
As a result, in the Bible, time is expressed differently depending on whether the main readers are Jewish or not. In the Synoptic Gospels, which use the Jewish time system based on a sunset at around 6 PM, 3 o'clock means 9 PM or 9 AM, 6 o'clock means midnight or noon, and 12 o'clock means 6 AM or 6 PM. The Gospel of John is thought to use the Roman time system based on midnight, which is the system we commonly use today.
2. Son of ~
In the previous chapter 4, some might have wondered about the phrase "Joseph ben Jacob". However, there's no need to find it strange. This is precisely how Jewish names are expressed in Hebrew. Since Jews don't have surnames, they are called "son of someone" or "someone of somewhere".
In Peter's case, the Bible mentions "Simon son of John", which is simply a literal expression of his name. In Hebrew, his name would be Simon ben John. In Aramaic, "bar" is added before the name, resulting in expressions such as Simon Bar-Jona, Bartholomew, and Bartimaeus, all meaning "son of ~". That is, Bar-Jona means son of Jona (John), Bartholomew means son of Tholomew (Ptolemy), and Bartimaeus means son of Timaeus.
In the Old Testament, there are many cases of "someone son of someone", which is just writing that person's name. The name following "ben" or "bar" can be either the father's name or the family name. Similarly, in the movie Ben-Hur set during Jesus' time, the protagonist Judah Ben-Hur is named Judah son of Hur, where "Hur" is used as the family name.
Alternatively, names can be expressed by saying "someone from a certain village or city", as seen in examples like Jesus of Nazareth, Simon of Cyrene, and Mary Magdalene. This too was not unusual but a very common way of expression. Of course, there were also many cases where people were called just by their names without additional identifiers.
