Have you ever wondered why there are 60 minutes in an hour? We’re a decimal civilization, so why not 100 minutes? France actually tried using a decimal hour (along with some other irredeemably awful ideas that the French seem to have a knack for) from 1793 to 1805, but it never caught on, even under the constant threat of statist violence that we’ve come to expect from authoritarian/dirigiste regimes like Robespierre’s Reign of Terror.
We owe our thanks for the 60-minute hour to the Sumerians and Babylonians, whose civilizations used a sexagesimal (base-60) numbering system. In the days before calculators, a numbering system base with lots of factors greatly facilitated division and multiplication, and the number 60 has ten factors–2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30–in contrast to the number 10, which only has two factors–2 and 5. So the Babylonians used sexagesimal numbering for all their calculations and measurements, including those for time, until their empire was conquered by the Persians in 538 BC. The Persians made great use of base-60 numbering and also used the 360-day calendar, making adjustments periodically to align it with the 365.25-day solar year. This is similar to how the Hebrew lunar/solar calendar is adjusted seven times over a 19-year period to align it with the 365-day calendar.
By the 20th Century, there were so many different calendars referenced in the historical record, and each calendar had been adjusted or altered so many times, that when historians tried to construct a reasonably accurate picture of global history they had to team up with astronomers. All calendars are based on observations of the Sun and Moon (and some other stars/planets that are visible without a modern telescope), so historians and astronomers can wind back the motions of our solar system and, using historical information (e.g., “In the 12th year of the reign of Gluteus Maximus, when the Moon was aligned with Uranus ….”), can orient many historical events to our modern Gregorian Calendar, sometimes with astonishing precision.
For example, British/Irish author Sir Robert Anderson combined astronomical data with the historical record of Nehemiah, the royal Cup-Bearer to King Artaxerxes I of Persia, to determine that King Artaxerxes’ decree to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem was issued on 14 March 445 B.C. Though not a formally trained historian, Anderson had a keen analytical mind well honed through his career as a barrister and investigator with Scotland Yard. He published his thorough calculations and reasoning in “The Coming Prince.” Anderson’s dating of Artaxerxes’ decree is significant not just for its precision but also in its reference to the work of a Babylonian/Persian astronomer named Belteshazzar, who wrote some time between 530 and 540 B.C.: “From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.'”
Belteshazzar was culturally Babylonian/Persian but ethnically Hebrew and better known by his Jewish name: Daniel. “Anointed One” is a sobriquet for the Messiah, Who Daniel wrote would come 69 seven-year periods (483 years) after Artaxerxes’ decree. Because Daniel was then an astronomer in the Babylonian/Persian court, he used 360-day years, so this is equivalent to a period of 173,880 days. Taking 14 March 445 B.C. in the modern Gregorian calendar and winding the solar system forward 173,880 days, Anderson arrived at 6 April 32 A.D. Regardless of whether Anderson got it exactly right, it’s certain that the 1st-century Judeans, weary of Roman rule, had agreed on particular dates and had been diligently keeping a running count. This was after all an extremely important day on which they expected the Messiah to arrive in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9, and so emboldened crowds formed at the gates of Jerusalem, under the watchful eye of the Roman garrison and the religious authorities, to sing from Psalm 118, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (“Baruch haba b’Shem Adonai!”). Accounts of this event are recorded in all four Gospels (Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19, and John 12).
The bona fides of that donkey’s Rider were immediately disputed (and remain in dispute), primarily by those who expected (or rather hoped) all of the messianic prophecies to immediately transpire–especially the one where the Annoited One asserts real political authority–instead of in phases over many centuries. And it had not occurred to the religious authorities that they might first witness the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
(By the way, if you’re not keen on reading the Hebrew scriptures or dismiss them as kooky and marginal, you can hear many of these prophecies summarized in what’s arguably the greatest work of all Baroque music, “The Messiah,” by G. F. Handel.)
For members of an elite scholarly caste ostensibly dedicated to studying all aspects of the Tanakh (including the prophecies of Daniel), this oversight was no simple “honest mistake.” To know the exact day and hour but not the season is at the very least a serious misalignment of priorities, and 40 years after that misalignment (40 being a very significant number in Hebrew numerology), the Roman army destroyed the Second Temple and scattered Judeans so far abroad that Marco Polo found centuries-old synagogues in his exploration of China some 1,200 years later. Jesus (who was not only 100% Jewish but what we today would consider an ultra-orthodox practitioner of Mosaic Judaism), fittingly rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy and conceit, whereas we today might be more inclined to let it slide.
Ironically, we not only have devices for measuring time down to the femtosecond, but we can also explain and predict how time can be distorted by even slight variations in speed and gravity. Unlike the Babylonians, we can tell you at any given moment exactly what day, hour, and second it is, absolutely anywhere; we just can’t tell you the epoch. The 5-day weather forecast is full of information but frequently useless, exit polls don’t seem to mean anything anymore, and not even the best Las Vegas odds maker can tell you what tomorrow will bring.
Today is the day of salvation. Tomorrow? Only God knows.