1. Question:
If a "Jewish Calendar Day" is from Sunset to Sunset, and if the 10th is Yom Kippur, then does Leviticus 23 create a contradiction by excluding the daytime portion of the 10th?
If the traditional/Rabbinical reckoning is valid, then wouldn't "from evening to evening"
, from the 9th to the 10th, only include: 9th Evening, 9th Morning/Day, 10th Evening.
Wouldn't the day of the 10th would be completely omitted?
In order to ensure the Yom Kippur Sabbath be kept, shouldn't Leviticus 23 have included the 11th, rather than the 9th if the traditional sunset to sunset reckoning is valid?
Shouldn't Leviticus 23 read something like:
From the 10th at Evening, until the 11th at Evening.
Instead of:
From the 9th at Evening, until the 10th at Evening.
2. The Text :
In Lev. 23:28-32, God commands to observe the 10th day as the Sabbath:
NASB, Leviticus 23:27 - “On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement;
Lev. 23:32, chabad.org It is a complete day of rest for you [שַׁבַּת שַׁבָּתוֹן], and you shall afflict yourselves.
But in the rest of the verse, it says:
On the ninth of the month in the evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe your rest day.
A plain reading of the text appears that the purpose of including the Evening of the 9th was to act as a fence for the earliest parts of the tenth, in the morning.
But, if a "Jewish Calendar Day" begins in the evening, (as the Babylonians) - then that explanation no longer makes sense.
In what ways can the contradiction be resolved? How has it been addressed historically?