1. The Concept of Dates in the Bible
The Jewish understanding of dates differs from what we generally recognise. For Jews, a day begins at sunset, so a day is counted from one sunset to the next. However, this does not mean they refer to evening as ‘morning’ or morning as ‘evening’; rather, the standard for changing the date is different, while the usual way of referring to parts of the day remains the same.
As a result, in the Bible, time is expressed differently depending on whether the main audience is Jewish or not. In the Synoptic Gospels, which use the Jewish time system based on sunset at around 6 p.m., the third hour refers to 9 a.m. or 9 p.m., the sixth hour to midday or midnight, and the twelfth hour to 6 a.m. or 6 p.m. The Gospel of John is thought to use the Roman time system, which begins at midnight and is the system we commonly use today.
2. Son of ~
In the previous chapter, some may have wondered about the phrase ‘Joseph ben Jacob’. There is no need to find this strange, as this is exactly how Jewish names are expressed in Hebrew. Since Jews do not have surnames, they are referred to as ‘son of someone’ or ‘someone of somewhere’.
In Peter’s case, the Bible mentions ‘Simon son of John’, which is simply a literal rendering of his name. In Hebrew, his name would be Simon ben John. In Aramaic, ‘bar’ is used instead, resulting in names 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 instances of ‘someone son of someone’, which is simply a way of 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 film Ben-Hur, set during the time of Jesus, the protagonist Judah Ben-Hur is named Judah son of Hur, with ‘Hur’ serving as the family name.
Alternatively, names can be expressed by referring to one’s place of origin, such as Jesus of Nazareth, Simon of Cyrene, and Mary Magdalene. This, too, was not unusual but a very common form of expression. Of course, there were also many occasions when people were referred to simply by their given name, without any additional identifiers.
