The 360 Question

Why do we see years that equal 360 days in the Bible ( and not just in future prophecies of Daniel and Revelation ).

Why did early civilizations in Mesopotamia ( "the land between the rivers" ) and Egypt, divide a circle into 360 degrees?

Perhaps because the "circle" of the sky changed 360 times over the course of one year.

 

Or maybe the question should be, how come the "year" is now 365.2425 ( mean solar ) days long?

Has it always been this long?

 

Current length of each day is about 24 hours and 30 seconds.

In order for the year to have only 360 days, it would only require that the length of each day to be increased to 24.347 hours per day ( or about 20 minutes longer ). Another thing to "ponder" is that a 12 lunar cycle year is 354.37 days. So, if one increases the length of a "day" enough to make the year 5.2425 days "shorter" than it is today, what would it take to  also make the lunar "month" a little longer.

The current "average" lunar ( synodic ) month is 29.530589 days ( or 29 days 12.7 hours ). So, just a slight change in the forces that effect the rotation speed of the Earth and the orbit of the Moon, could have caused the 360 days ( 12 months x 30 days lunar cycle ) to increase to the current speeds and orbits. 

 

The book of Genesis shows a 360-day year. A detailed time frame for the year of the great flood is as follows:

 

Reference	Year	Noah's Age YY-MM-DD
Gen. 7:1-4	Noah told to enter Ark	600-02-10
7:11	Flood begins	600-02-17
7:17	Rain ends	600-03-27
8:3-4	Ark sets on Mount Ararat	600-07-17
8:5	Top of Mountain seen	600-10-01
8:6	Birds sent out	600-11-10
8:10	Dove sent out again	600-11-17
8:12	Dove sent out last time	600-11-24
8:13	Covering the Ark removed	601-01-01
8:14	Noah leaves Ark	601-02-27

The table shows that the flood year composed of 12 months of 30 days each or 360 days. The first five months of the Flood equaled exactly 150 days.

Isa 38:7 And this shall be the sign unto thee from Jehovah, that Jehovah will do this thing that he hath spoken:
Isa 38:8 behold, I will cause the shadow on the steps, which is gone down on the dial of Ahaz with the sun, to return backward ten steps. So the sun returned ten steps on the dial whereon it was gone down.

This "event" recorded in Isaiah happened at the time the world started using the 360 plus 5 days calendars. And in the book, "The Ancient 360 Day Year: What it was...And how it changed", by Dale Wong, an excellent case is made to support this change in the solar and lunar cycles.

I'll need to do a lot more research on this, before I am able to draw any hard conclusions of the significance of the 360 day year.