When Does the Day Begin?
Surveys the unresolved dispute over whether the biblical day opens at sunset or at sunrise, following Genesis 1:5 through the rival readings of Rashbam and Ibn Ezra, the solar calendar of the Qumran covenanters, the rabbinic derivation of the Sabbath eve from the laws of Yom Kippur and Matzot, and scholarly attempts to date Israel's shift from solar to lunar reckoning.
Ancient, medieval, and modern commentators on the Bible disagree over the meaning of Genesis 1:5: . . . there was evening and there was morning, one day.
Green shows that the formula about evening and morning in the creation account never settled when a day actually starts. Rashbam took light to precede darkness, while Ibn Ezra, unable to find explicit scriptural warrant for beginning the Sabbath on Friday night, defended the received custom with arguments from logic and sharp ridicule of his opponents. Green then turns to Qumran, where a 364-day solar calendar underwrote a sunrise reckoning and drew rabbinic condemnation, and reviews how Talmon, Zeitlin and Morgenstern date the priestly changeover to lunar reckoning that fixed the day from evening to evening.
Yosef Green, DHL, is rabbi emeritus of Beit Knesset Moreshet Israel in Jerusalem.
Cite this article
Yosef Green. "When Does the Day Begin?." Jewish Bible Quarterly 36, no. 2 (April – June 2008): 82–87.
Yosef Green. "When Does the Day Begin?." Jewish Bible Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, 2008, pp. 82–87.