Between heaven & earth

The Book of Kohelet and the time between the years

Many people use the days leading up to New Year's Eve to pause, take stock and make resolutions. Forget it!(Bild: Dietmar Stiplovsek)

Many people use the time "between the years" to reflect and take stock. However, "Krone" science expert Christian Mähr doesn't think much of it - and recommends taking a look at the Old Testament.

Of course, we know what is meant by "between the years" - the period between Christmas and New Year. It is a strange formulation. Because it is actually as wrong as it can be: "between the years" is nothing at all. On the straight line that we generally think of as "time", the transition from one year to the next is a mere point, as in geometry - and not the more or less round dot that we press onto the paper with a pencil, but an "ideal" point without extension. There is no space, no room and no duration. So where does this strange expression come from? "Between the years" comes from an era when time itself was not something measured with today's accuracy, but had a different quality - namely when it was not so much a question of how long it lasted, but whether it was the right time.