Jewish Time and Roman Time

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all use Jewish time in their books. The hours in Jewish time are counted from sunrise to sunset. The daylight is divided into twelve hours, meaning that hours are longer in the summer than in the winter. The gospel of John is different. It was written in Ephesus, a Roman colony, and uses Roman time. We use Roman time today. Hours are counted from midnight for the morning and from noon for the afternoon. It seems that many translations do not realize that John uses Roman time, including those produced by evangelicals. For example, in John 19:14 the following translations render the "sixth hour" as "noon": the Christian Standard Bible, the Classic Amplified Bible, the Contemporary English Version, the Easy to Ready Version, the English Standard Version footnote, the God's Word translation, the Good News Translation, the International Standard Version, J.B.Phillips' translation, the Message, Moffatt's translation, Mounce's translation, the New American Bible, the 2020 edition of the New American Standard Bible in the footnote, the New Century Version, the New Catholic Bible, the NET Bible, the New English Bible, the 2011 edition of the New International Version, the New Living Translation, the New Revised Standard Version, the Revised English Bible, The Living Bible, and the Translator's Translation. With so many English translations saying that John is using Jewish time when noon is the sixth hour, how do we know that John is using Roman time? It is because these translations inject a contradiction in the text. This verse is talking about when Jesus was on trial before Pilate, but the other three gospels make it clear that Jesus was brought before Pilate shortly after sunrise (Matthew 27:1-2; Mark 15:1; Luke 22:66-23:1) and was on the cross by the third hour (that is, 9am; Mark 15:25). In the spring at Passover time the sun came up at 6am, which is the sixth hour in Roman time. Thus, the gospel of John agrees with the other gospels. That John is using Roman time can also be seen in John 1:39. There John the Baptizer's disciples stayed with Jesus from the tenth hour until the end of the day. John writes that they stayed "that day." If John were using Jewish time, they would have stayed from 4pm to 6pm, hardly "that day"; but if he is using Roman time, they stayed from 10am to 6pm, which can well be called staying "that day." There is no contradiction in the text when we realize that John is using Roman time. It is a shame that so many translators seem to be ignorant of this.

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Last updated on May 24, 2026
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