wobbly,
I'm curious about the insistence by those of a literalist bent that a day in genesis must equal 24 hours. I can't see the necessity of it for a few reasons, so please enlighten me, or point me to the thread that does.
Days cannot be millions of years:
Compromising Christians say that God did not create the universe in six literal days, but in six periods of time, representing the millions of years held by the evolutionists. First of all, one has to recognize that science cannot prove the age of the earth. There are many assumptions behind all of the dating methods of which most people are not aware. There is also much scientific evidence consistent with a belief in a young earth. But the Bible itself teaches quite clearly that the days in Genesis are ordinary, literal days (approximately 24 hours, Earth Standard Time).
The Hebrew word for day, yom, can mean an ordinary day or an indefinite period of time. It should be made clear that the word for day in Genesis can never mean a long period in the definite sense. It can mean something longer than a day, but only in the indefinite sense (e.g. in the day of the Lord). Exodus 20:11 tells us that God created the universe in six days and rested on one as a pattern for man. This is the reason God took as long as six days to make everything. He set the seven day week pattern for us, which we still use today. God did not say that He worked for six million years and rested for one million yeras, telling us to do the same! This is one of my favourite evidences against theistic evolution or old earth creationism. It makes even less sense to suggest that He worked for six indefinite periods of time.
So in summary, what have we learned here:
* With some knowledge of the Hebrew language, we can know for sure that day cannot mean "millions of years".
* God created in six days and rested on the seventh as a pattern for man to follow. If God created using millions of years -- Exodus 20:11 makes sense and also makes God out to be the biggest jackass in the universe for his stupidity. To me, this would basically deny the Bible's infallibity due to such a simple mistake.
There are also many other aspects at which we could look to show that the days must be ordinary days. For example, Adam was created on day six. He lived through day six, and day seven, and died when he was 930 years old. If each day were millions of years, there are big problems here too.
The word "day", when first used in Genesis, cannot be symbolic. A word cannot be used symbolically the first time it is used. It can only be used symbbolically when it first has a defined literal meaning. It is given this defined literal meaning in Genesis chapter 1, the frist time it is used.
The second reason for my curiousity is that Moses doesn't define his days in terms of a full day/night cycle but as daytime as opposed to nighttime ie day = light, dark = night (verse 5).
The words used for the "evening" and "morning" can only mean exactly that.
Lastly, in Genesis 1:14-19, concerning the fourth day of creation, the word "day" is used five times in relation to days, nights, seasons, and years. If the word "day" doesn't mean an ordinary day, it makes absolute nonsense of the way it is used in these passages, once again throwing doubt on it's divine authorship.
After describing each days work he then associates day with evening and morning, which once again doesn't suggest a full day/night cycle.
So what do people mean when they argue for a 24 hour day in Genesis?
When you go outside camping, for example, you will see the morning go, the sun stay in the sky for a little while, then it will start to set over the horizon (evening). A few hours later, it's morning again. This is an illustrated version of the Genesis days.
When God started creating things, He started in the morning. The sun rose signaled the beginning of God's work, and when the sun started to go down (evening) that resembled when God stopped His work. He once again started in the morning of the next day.
Reference: The Lie Evoltuion by Ken Ham.
glaudys,
Do you think it takes being a rocket scientist or an "educated" theologian to grasp the idea that the story is a story not to be read literally? ...
Children believe what they are told until they grow up enough to question it's validity, e.g. Santa and the Easter bunny.
Now, to your quote mentioned above:
Prove it, or provide some evidence that the Genesis account of our history is not meant to be read literally.
I tried to make the above challange stand out so that you won't miss it. You seem to easily make assertions like the above, so I am challanging you to provide evidence to back up your assertion. Prove your statement to be true rationally without any assumptions or other assertions.
Delta One.
