In the times of Jesus there were two methods of telling time, Roman time and Jewish time. The Jews divided the day in two parts of twelve hours each, for 6:00 p.m. in the evening to 6:00 a.m. in the morning, then from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. This formed a night-day of 24 hours that began with sunset. However they counted their hours from sunrise. For instance in the parable given by Jesus in Matthew 20, He tells of a man going out to hire workers at the 3rd, 6th, 9th and 11th hours. To us today, these times would be 9:00 a.m., noon, 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. because we use the Roman mode, which reckons from midnight to noon and noon to midnight.
Both of these ways of marking time are referred to in the Bible. However, in the New Testament only St. John followed the Roman mode of reckoning, the rest of the New Testament writers used the Jewish system. For example using Roman time, John 19:14, "It was about the sixth hour" means it was 6:00 a.m. However using the Jewish system in Acts 10:9, "About the sixth hour" meant it was noon.
To make matters more confusing, the Jews and the Romans divided the night into "watches." In the Old Testament there were the early, middle and late watches. However in New Testament times the Jews adopted the Roman practice of labeling the watches as the evening, midnight, cockcrowing and morning.
Furthermore the idea of dividing the day into 24 hours, an hour into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds seems to be traced back to the ancient Babylonian astrologers and astronomers. The reader can get further information from any regular encyclopedia.

Blessings in your study of God's Word!

Marvin Hunt

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Blessings!
Marvin Hunt

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