Biblical Clock

When I was a child I wondered why the clock has numbers one to twelve. The design started to make sense to me when I learned that it takes 24 hours for the earth to complete "the day." It takes a period of darkness and another period of brightness to complete a "day", so the designer of the clock is good in dividing the period in half. Problem is that one 12-hour period is darkness and brightness, followed by another 12-hour period which is brightness and darkness. So, I thought that a 12-hour period asigned to brightness, and another 12-hour period asigned to darkness would make more sense since it synchronizes with the earth's movement. This timekeeping scheme would fit well in:

Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

The verse says the whole day spans from sundown to sundown. On the other hand, our conventional way of reckoning a day is from midnight to midnight. Our conventional way of timekeeping confused me when I first red:

Mark 15:25 And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

The first time I read this verses, I thought crucifixion happened at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Now I know "third hour" means 9 o'clock in the morning. The "sixth hour" means 12 noon and the "ninth hour" means 3:00 p.m. in:

Mark 15:23 And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

I used to wonder why the verse had to emphasize darkness from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. It should be dark naturally. When I realized that the Bible was talking about darkness between 12:00 noon and 3:00 p.m., I thought wow, that was really scary.

It is interesting to note that the Biblical clock is in sync with our biological clock. The human body produces more serotonin as soon as it sees the light of day, and produces melatonin after sunset to get ready for a good night sleep.