The Basics

A day consists of 24 hours, divided into four sectors: Dawn, Day, Evening and Night

The two periods between Day and Night are actually both "Evenings" as both define the "evening out" (or balancing) of Day and Night and Night and Day. Therefore, Dawn is likewise an evening, as it "evens out" the period between Night and Day. Although it may not seem so at first, this fact is extremely significant.

In various ancient middle eastern cultures, Dawn was known as Sachar, and Sunset was known as Salome.

A day is the amount of time that the Earth takes to spin one time on its own axis. There are 365.25 days in a year. 

A year is the period of time that it takes for the Earth to perform its "wobble" through the seasons. This "wobble" is the variance from south to north and vice-versa. The Earth's periods of most extreme "wobble" are known as the Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice.

At the Winter Solstice, the Earth has tilted upward to its greatest extreme, causing the Sun to appear to rise and set at its furthest point south. The furthest point south that the Sun rises and sets is called the Tropic of Capricorn.

At the Summer Solstice, the Earth has tilted downward to its greatest extreme, causing the Sun to appear to rise and fall at its furthest point north. The furthest point north that the Sun rises and sets is called the Tropic of Leo.

The term Solstice literally means "Sun (Sol) Stands Still (Stice)", in reference to the fact that during the Solstices, in relation to the Earth's travels upward and downward, the Sun appears to stay motionless in the sky for three days. This "standing still" is a reference to its pseudo-travel south and north, not east to west. In reality it is the Earth that "stands still" for three days as its "wobble" (axial momentum) shifts from northward to southward at the Winter Solstice, and from southward to Northward at the Summer Solstice.

The concept of the Sun standing still has been superimposed onto traditions regarding the Solstices: the Winter Solstice takes place during the period known as the Halcyon Days, alternately, "Dead Winter" (Death implying Stasis - laying in state) and the Summer Solstice takes place during the "Dog Days of Summer". Note the allusions to dogs in references to both solstices, as its significance will be revealed shortly. 

In the periods directly between the two Solstices, the Equinoxes occur. The term "Equinox" literally means "Equal (Equi) Night (Nox)", and is a reference to the fact that at the Equinoxes, the periods of day and night are equal at the Equator due to the fact that during the Equinoxes, the Sun passes directly above the Equator because during this time the Earth's axial momentum reaches the longitudinal center of the planet in relation to the Sun.

The term Equinox is to the year, what the term Evening is to a 24-hour period. It is the time when in a yearly context (Equinox) and a daily context (Evening), the day and the night are evened out. These terms denote a period of neutrality between two opposing extremes: on one side darkness, winter, and night, and on the other, light, summer and day. Thus, there are two evenings in each day, just as there are two equinoxes in each solar year. In a deeper context, it could be said that there are likewise two equinoxes in each day, and two evenings in each solar year as dawn and evening are neither day nor night, just as the equinoxes are neither winter nor summer. For this reason, we likewise call the periods between day and night and night and day "Sun Rise" and "Sun Set".

The previous points are significant for several reasons. First, the passage Zechariah 14:7 refers to a perfect "day" (evening), which was neither day nor night, when it is said that at evening time it shall be light. Second, the Passage John 11:9 makes reference to a period of exactly twelve hours, which shows that the raising of Lazarus took place at around the Vernal Equinox. So which "Lazarus" did "Jesus" raise - John the Baptist or Zechariah? Oops - too much too soon...

Another significant point that must be realized, is that prior to one being born, one must first be conceived. In Christianity, Jesus was born on December 25th, the last day of the Winter Solstice, and John the Baptist was born on June 25th, the last day of the Summer Solstice. Again, in order to be born, one must first be conceived - in the case of humans, nine months prior to birth. Jesus's birth places his conception as taking place at the end of the Vernal Equinox, exactly six months after John the Baptist's conception. This not only places Jesus as being conceived exactly 31 years prior to his death, but likewise, to being conceived on the Jewish Passover.

John the Baptist's birth places his conception as having occurred at the end of the Autumn Equinox, and therefore at the summation of the High Holy Days of Judaism: Rosh Hashanah (the "Jewish New Year") and Yom Kippur (the "Day of Atonement"), over which his father Zechariah had just presided. This is extremely significant because such shows that Zechariah was the last Aaronic Kohen Gadol (High Priest) of the Age of Aries, and that John the Baptist was to be the first Aaronic Kohen Gadol (High Priest) of the Age of Pisces. This was why it was so significant that John be title-named Zechariah after his father, which, to the astonishment of the masses, Zechariah and Elizabeth refused to let happen. The reason for such is two-fold: first, in those days one was not simply born into the title-name of Zechariah, and secondly, the significance of the naming of John as such was that it denoted that he was to carry on the quest for freedom against the Romans that began with the Maccabees in the quest for freedom against the Greeks.

For a priest in 1st century AD Judea to name his son John was a dangerous thing to do: to the Herodians, the naming of one's son John would have been considered an outright provocation as it marked the person as a supporter / follower of the Hasmonean Maccabees, and by association, as a zealot. To compound this, for a High Priest to do such was tantamount to basically declaring war on the occupational powers-that-be. It would be similar to (albeit obviously far different from) someone in Israel today naming their child Adolph. Such is what led to Herod's attempted slaughter of the ''first-born'' sons of Israel.   

While most chronological-related events are placed into periods or multiples of twelve (12 hours AM, 12 hours PM, 12 months, 60 seconds, 60 minutes), not all chronological events occur within periods of twelve. One such example, is that in a solar year, there are sometimes 13 cycles of the Moon, each cycle taking a period of approximately 29.5 days. While most societies base their chronological time-keeping on the solar cycle and derivatives of such, some societies and systems of belief rely on a Solar-Lunar chronology. Traditional Judaism is one such system of belief.