The longest months

My wife and I were walking not long ago and I was lamenting that the time change was coming up.  We typically walk after work in the evenings and the looming fall time change meant we would be walking in the dark.  Following this train of thought I made the comment, "I don't mind the winter until Christmas or New Year's, but January and February are the longest months."  Shortly thereafter I began thinking about that comment--"January and February are the longest months"-- and how a comment like that might be interpreted and debated if it were found in the Bible.  Perhaps you can imagine...

The skeptics would read that and say, "See, the Bible is not historically accurate.  January is a long month, sure, but February is actually the shortest month of the year.  The Bible is not true!"

The fundamentalists would say, "January and February must have been the longest months of the year when the text was written.  At some point February must have been shortened because the text is without error!"

At some point hopefully somebody would chime in, "I think we should try to figure out what the author actually meant."  By this they would mean we shouldn't understand the text as word-for-word literal, rather we should seek to understand what the author literally meant when it was written.  And then hopefully someone would suggest the author actually meant January and February feel like the longest months of the year because of how bleak they tend to be.