For an Informed Love of God
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Acts 10:30
“Cornelius said, ‘Four days ago at this hour, I was praying at the ninth hour in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing.’”
The challenge here is that it was only three days earlier that Cornelius had his vision. So is this an error?
Solution 1
First of all, it seems highly unlikely that Luke, a trained physician, can’t count, or that he made a silly math error that would have been caught when proofreading. There must be an explanation. And there is.
The answer is the different way in which people count days. When I travel, my wife Robin will talk about how many days I will be gone. If I leave on a Saturday and return on the next Friday, how many days will I be gone? I say 7 days. Robin says 5 days; she doesn’t count the days she will see me, namely Saturday and Friday.
What’s happening in Acts 10:30 is that Cornelius is counting the day he saw the vision as one day. We tend not to do that.
Cornelius | Us | |
Vision | Day 1 | — |
Friends come to Caesarea | Day 2 | Day 1 |
Travel to Caesarea | Day 3 | Day 2 |
Meet with Cornelius | Day 4 | Day 3 |
So this is not an error but an alternate way of counting days.
Solution 2
The Greek does not actually say "four days." It says ἀπὸ τετάρτης ἡμέρας, from the fourth day. This refers to three days ago.