Template talk:Jesus Passion chronology

Units of time

 * what are the numbers (1-25) along the bottom? StAnselm (talk) 17:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Units of 3 hours. Eight units equals one day. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Wow, that is not clear at all. That needs to be explained in the template. StAnselm (talk) 03:36, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, although I did explain this above: The timeline itself is divided in segments of 3 hours each, with t = 1 being midnight of Wednesday to Thursday (i.e. 6 hours into Yom Khamishi), and t = 26 being 9 a.m. on Sunday (i.e. 15 hours into Yom Rishon). If you know a better way of displaying it, I'm open to suggestions. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:07, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * @Metropolitan90 Thanks for calling an error to my attention at my talk page; I'll respond here so others can also read along. You're right that Yom Shabbat is incorrectly shown as a day of 18 hours rather than 24, as Yom Shishi is. I'll try to fix that.
 * The reason why I have chosen 3-hour units is for practical convenience: all times explicitly mentioned in the 4 canonical Gospels are divisible by 3. A great example is the Crucifixion darkness, which lasted for approximately 3 hours. Moreover, sunset in Jerusalem around the time of year of Jesus' reported crucifixion (the date of Passover (15 Nisan) is different every year, always in late March or early April) would have been around 6 a.m., and sundown at 6 p.m., also divisible by 3. The greatest difference of importance between the Gospels is that Mark 15:25 states Jesus was crucified at 9 o'clock in the morning, whereas John 19:14 states that Jesus was crucified after noon (12 o'clock) (Ehrman 1999), also a 3-hour difference. As days have 24 hours, this is also divisible by 3. Therefore, using 3-hour units of time makes for a relatively easy to construct and amend approximate timeline of events.
 * I emphasise this is approximate. None of the events will have lasted exactly three hours. All we know is the sequence of events and some indications of time. We are told that the Last Supper was eaten after sundown around on Thursday 6 p.m., so in the beginning of Yom Shishi. Therefore, Jesus and the disciples were at Gethsemane / a garden in Kidron at night (with some disciples inadvertently falling asleep), then the Arrest of Jesus happened some time later that night. And eventually the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus happened (at the house of either Caiaphas according to the Synoptics or at Annas according to John), which ended '(very) early in the morning' (Mark 15:1; John 18:28), after which Jesus was transferred to Pilate and the trial at Pilate's court began. A reasonable estimate is that '(very) early in the morning' (πρωΐ = "morning, dawn, sunrise") means just after sunrise around 6 a.m., and so the Sanhedrin trial and the simultaneous Denial of Peter must have happened some time before c. 6 a.m.. All Gospels except Matthew also report that people outside the court building stood by a fire (to warm themselves), indicating a need for warmth (and light) at night when it was still dark and cold outside. That roosters generally crow around sunrise (sometimes before, sometimes after) is another indirect approximate indication of time.
 * I'm sure more complicated graphs are capable of visualising it more accurately, but as all Wikimedia graphs have been broken for months now, I don't think that's a viable alternative in the short to medium term. Besides, the source material from the Gospels does not give us more detailed information than timespans measured in units divisible by three. That would have been handy, but unfortunately no Gospel says, 'And Peter denied the Lord a second time at 5:27 a.m (IST).' It could be that some of the Gospel authors had their reasons for using 3-hour units as an indirect symbolic reference to the Trinity, but that's just a guess; at other times, the narratives do not seem to be particularly concerned with indicating the exact passage of time. In any event (pun intended), if you know a better way of displaying it, I'm open to suggestions. NLeeuw (talk) 11:12, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Nederlandse: Thanks for making these edits. I have no issues as to the times of day of the events described, just how the timeline itself matches to (approximate) days and hours. The only change I would still recommend is an indication that point "1" refers to the midnight at the end of Wednesday/start of Thursday, which might otherwise be unclear. (Adding two more points at the start of the timeline to reflect Wednesday evening from 6 pm to midnight would also satisfy this point. But I understand that you might not want to do so since there are no events to report during that period, and for some Wikipedia users, the seven or eight events to be included the following day might wind up having to be squeezed into an even narrower space.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:43, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! I think I'll leave it as it is for now. NLeeuw (talk) 21:51, 10 November 2023 (UTC)