Re: "Thiering Pesher"

On 2007-03-04, Marshall Price <d021317c@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Whiskers wrote:
On 2007-03-03, pchristainsen@xxxxxxxxx <pchristainsen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 3, 3:42 am, Marshall Price <d0213...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
The first objection is that since 42 hours is not evenly divisible by
24, thecalendar's day would be started in disagreement with the sun. At
the beginning of the 7th year, the sun would say it was 6 am while their
calendar said it was only midnight.
-- unquote --

That last sentence doesn't make any sense to me. How can a calendar say
what time it is?
...
Intuitively, I take Dr. Thiering as meaning their time scheme said it
was only midnight.

But they weren't taking about a 'time scheme'. Thiering invents that
notion out of thin air - perhaps (this is me being cynical) to make it
look to the ignorant and gullible as though she isn't the only person in
the history of calendars to have a calendar that has fractional days in
it, so that her idea doesn't look quite as preposterous as it actually is.

Have you ever seen a calendar that tells you the time of day? Or one that
sometimes changes the date at different times of day? (Hers does!).

I'm sure it was her way of expressing the calendar's drift that led to
my confusion.

The confusion is hers, introduced on purpose. She converts the annual
drift into hours and then claims that Pratt proposes inserting that number
of hours into the calendar; he makes no such suggestion, and his
description of what he really does propose is lucid, precise, and easy to
follow. She seems to ignore that description.

Her own proposed interpretation of the Enoch calendar, however, clearly
does require inserting 'half a day'. Bizarre and unnecessary. But her
discription of her proposals is anything but lucid and easy to follow;
puzzling from someone who claims to be a skilled linguist, when using her
own native language.

I'm also sure that clocks were common all over the Roman Empire, and
considering the evidently intense interest of the Essenes with both
astronomy and time-keeping, they always kept track of the time. Even
without considering Thiering Pesher, there are plenty of references in
the New Testament to the time of day.

Mechanical clocks were unknown until the 'late middle ages', and not
accurate enough to stand in for the heavens as time-keepers until the 17th
century (when pendulums and balance-springs came into use).

Simple devices using the flow of sand or water through a narrow opening
were the best they had; essentially, 'egg-timers' running for some fixed
period at which moment the observer whose duty it was to watch the device
would re-start it and give the agreed signal to indicate the passage of
that interval. If that person was awake and paying attention!

Water-clocks in the form of a leaky bowl slowly sinking might give an
audible 'thud' when they sank, which would be useful without reliable
artificial light to watch an 'egg-timer'. There were also candles with
marks scratched into their sides at regular distances, possibly with pins
arranged to drop into a tray when the flame burnt down to that point.
Incense-burners were also used in China to indicate periods of time; I
don't know of any in 'the west' until quite recently.

The sun and stars were far more reliable and accurate - indeed, the stars
defined 'time' until the 20th century - and would be preferred whenever
the sky was clear. I'd be surprised if the Temple in Jerusalem didn't
have architectural features designed purposely to aid observation of the
sun and stars for the purpose of defining the time of day or night and the
date. (Stairs, ramps, doors and windows, walls, towers, ... you can get
impressive accuracy with an instrument the size of a temple).

Yes there are mentions of the time of day in the Bible; but can you find
any mention of 'this was a day when the date changed at the sixth hour of
the day instead of at the first hour of the night' or 'the three and half
weeks were inserted that day' or anything along those lines? Such an
occasion would surely be remarkable enough to mention if it helped
identify when something else had happened or was planned or predicted.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
.

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