BYU Studies Quarterly
Article Title
One Day to a Cubit
Keywords
Book of Abraham, Facsimile 2, Kolob, time
Abstract
One of the more puzzling comments in the Book of Abraham comes from the explanation given in figure 1 of Facsimile 2, which speaks of “the measurement according to celestial time [of Kolob], which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit.” Latter-day Saint commentators on this passage have largely been at a loss to explain what this might mean. (A cubit, after all, is a unit for measuring length, not time.) Others have attempted to make sense of this by suggesting that “as one of Kolob’s days is a unit of celestial time, so the cubit is the unit of celestial measurement, by which the size of the worlds are measured when the foundations thereof are laid”; or that this describes the phenomenon of space-time; or that the text is “employing a symbolic multiplier of length parallel to the multiplier of time, whereby a day is a thousand years.”
Recommended Citation
Smoot, Stephen O.; Gee, John; Muhlestein, Kerry; and Thompson, John S.
(2022)
"One Day to a Cubit,"
BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 61:
Iss.
4, Article 44.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol61/iss4/44