The idea that a scriptural day begins in the morning (instead of the evening) is not some new fangled idea made up by modern Sabbath keepers. Dr. Samuele Bacchiocchi, a well known Sabbath scholar (and a sunset to sunset advocate) writes, "...NUMEROUS SCHOLARS have argued for the existence in Bible times of a SUNRISE METHOD OF DAY RECKONING...the evidence for the SUNRISE RECKONING IS SIGNIFICANT AND CANNOT BE IGNORED..."

The Encyclopedia Biblica states, "Among the ancients the day was reckoned in a great variety of ways...'From dawn to dark'...was the ancient and ordinary meaning of a day among the Israelites…

...The Israelites regarded the morning as the beginning of the day; in the evening the day declined 'or' went down,' and until the new day ('morning')...it was necessary to 'tarry all night' (cp Judg. 19:6-9)...Nu. 11:32 'all that day and all the night and all the next day'). Not till post-exilic times do we find traces of a new mode of reckoning which makes day begin at sunset and continue till the sunset following…”

In the mid 1800’s some Seventh Day Adventists argued that Biblical days begin at sunrise.

Sabbath keepers know Acts 20:7-12 very well. The standard Sabbath literature will say something like this: "Paul once preached on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7); this is generally understood to be a Saturday night since, according to Biblical reckoning, days began with the evening . . ." (The Bible Sabbath: Seventh Day or First Day?).

The ‘New International Biblical Commentary’ may now help us look at the above text from a different point of view." . . . they met on THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK. This is a JEWISH EXPRESSION, but it must still be asked whether LUKE was thinking in Jewish or ROMAN TERMS (my note: God's terms) in marking the days. By JEWISH reckoning this would have been a "Saturday" night (as we would call it), since the new day for THEM started at sunset, making Saturday night the beginning of the first day of the week. But because LUKE speaks of "SUNRISE" as "THE NEXT DAY" (cf.vv. 11 and 7) he APPEARS to be using ROMAN RECKONING (my note: God's reckoning), according to which midnight, and effectively SUNRISE, MARKED THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW DAY. . ." ". . . hence the meeting at night (SUNDAY NIGHT) . . ." (p. 347). LUKE considered the "MORROW" (v. 7) when PAUL departed as the "BREAK OF DAY" (v. 11 and not the evening as many commentators would say.

Regarding the verses in Acts chapter 20 mentioned above, William Prynne in his 17th century ‘Dissertation on the Lords Day Sabbath’ (1633, pp. 36-41), notices the objection drawn from the phrase, "ready to depart on the morrow,". The objection was that Paul's departure was not on the first day of the week but the next day which began in the morning as pointed out by the ‘New International Biblical Commentary’. Prynne indicates that if we keep in mind that the Biblical days of the week are reckoned from evening to evening, this text, in which, in the night, the morning is spoken of as the morrow, will show at once that another day of the week is not necessarily intended by the phrase in question. Obviously not everyone kept this in mind or accepted the idea that days were reckoned from evening to evening.

A 12th century writing by the medieval Jewish commentator Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (1100-1160 CE) explained the following concerning this verse (my note: Gen. 1:5): "It does Not say that it was Night time and it was Day time which made one day; but it says "it was Evening," which means that the period of the DAY TIME CAME TO AN END AND THE LIGHT DISAPPEARED. And when it says "it was Morning," it means that the period of the NIGHT TIME CAME TO AN END AND THE MORNING DAWNED. Then one whole day was completed."

The Jewish Encyclopedia under "Eve of Holidays" mentions Ibn Ezra's (12th century) poem on the Sabbath , "...in which he decries the custom of a certain sect which began the Sabbath and festivals with sunrise..."

The Karaite historian Al-QirqisanI (ca. 975 CE), the dissident Meswi al-Okbari (ca.850 CE) broke from traditional Rabbinical Judaism in an attempt to get back to the original religion and began the RECKONING OF THE DAY FROM SUNRISE.

"A highly ordered society (my note: the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls) as indicated by the scrolls, the Qumran covenanters had a council of twelve members (one for each tribe of Israel) and three priests. They required candidates to endure a three-year probationary period, held property in common, dressed in white, practiced table fellowship, and believed in predestination. These practices, as well as their utilization of a solar calendar (in contrast to the lunar calendar of the Pharisees and Sadducees), ensured their distinction from those they considered corrupt...The covenanters, the "sons of light," would accompany the angels in battle. Their enemies, the "sons of darkness," would eventually fall..." (The Oxford History of the Biblical World, p. 489). Many scholars agree that the calendar of the Qumran Covenanters was solar.

The leader of the early Dead Sea Scroll digs at Qumran was French scholar and archeologist Roland de Vaux. He was then named chief editor of these Judean desert texts. de Vaux writes, "In Israel, the DAY was for a LONG TIME RECKONED FROM MORNING to morning...and it was in fact in the Morning, with the CREATION OF LIGHT, that the world began..."

Clearly, the idea that days are reckoned from the morning instead of the evening is centuries old and for good reason:

In Genesis 1:5, God calls only the “light day”. Darkness is a completely different season and it is called “night” (Genesis 8:22, Psalm 22:2, 104:20). Genesis 1:16 tells us that God appointed only the sun ("greater light") to "rule the day". “But the seventh day (my note: light) is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God…” (Exodus 20:10). Therefore the 7th greater light (not the "night" or "darkness") is the Sabbath day.

For much more information and a list of the sources quoted above (exception: William Prynne’s writing noted above), please see “A Case for the 12 Hour Sabbath” at:

http://www.geocities.com/star_sraw/sabbathday.html