Help with the word "Days"

[grace24]

There is the NT Greek and OT Hebrew that uses both word "day". For example, 2 Peter 3:8 uses the word "day" referring to the coming of the Lord, and the Genesis account uses the word "day" associated with morning and evening through out all 6 days of creation except the 7 day.

Are there reasons to assume that the NT word "day" is more accurate than the OT since it is more modern? If the word "day" in Genesis is 24 hr period, how do we distinguish the difference between what is literal and what is not?

 

[jeffweeder]

If i was to write a story using the word day, you would know what i meant.

The author of Genesis actually defined this period as having an evening and a morning.....what do you think he is trying to convey by adding these extra details.?

If language is a vehicle of communicating then did he do a good job?

For in 6 days God worked, but on the seventh he rested. In the same way Israel also is to work 6 days and rest on the seventh. I doubt they were to rest once every 7 thousand years .

 

[philadiddle]

"Day" literally means "day". But it's not referring to a historical day. It's a framework for how we build a temple and it has meaning that goes so far beyond a literal reading that thinking of it as a historical day misses the point.

YouTube - N.T. Wright on Adam and Eve

 

[grace24]

If i was to write a story using the word day, you would know what i meant.

The author of Genesis actually defined this period as having an evening and a morning.....what do you think he is trying to convey by adding these extra details.?

Evening and morning is connect with a number so i would say they are ordinary day. Perhaps 24 hrs or less.

If language is a vehicle of communicating then did he do a good job?

I believe so.

For in 6 days God worked, but on the seventh he rested. In the same way Israel also is to work 6 days and rest on the seventh. I doubt they were to rest once every 7 thousand years .

That's too long for a rest. Doesn't make sense now. It would be reasonable to say they rest 1 day which is the sabbath - ordinary day.

 

[juvenissun]

There is the NT Greek and OT Hebrew that uses both word "day". For example, 2 Peter 3:8 uses the word "day" referring to the coming of the Lord, and the Genesis account uses the word "day" associated with morning and evening through out all 6 days of creation except the 7 day.

Are there reasons to assume that the NT word "day" is more accurate than the OT since it is more modern? If the word "day" in Genesis is 24 hr period, how do we distinguish the difference between what is literal and what is not?

First, scientifically or not, a "day" is NOT defined as 24 "hours".
The rest of the understanding goes from here.

 

[Willtor]

There is the NT Greek and OT Hebrew that uses both word "day". For example, 2 Peter 3:8 uses the word "day" referring to the coming of the Lord, and the Genesis account uses the word "day" associated with morning and evening through out all 6 days of creation except the 7 day.

Are there reasons to assume that the NT word "day" is more accurate than the OT since it is more modern? If the word "day" in Genesis is 24 hr period, how do we distinguish the difference between what is literal and what is not?

To respond to just the last question (how to distinguish between what is literal and what is not):

We study the text, the traditional interpretations, and we reason with the tools that we have available to us (literary, anthropological, otherwise scientific, etc.). Every biblical text demands this kind of care and responsibility for the sake of faithfulness. One of the consequences of widespread literacy is that we all, now, share in this responsibility of careful, reflective, and studious analysis.

 

[mark kennedy]

There is the NT Greek and OT Hebrew that uses both word "day". For example, 2 Peter 3:8 uses the word "day" referring to the coming of the Lord, and the Genesis account uses the word "day" associated with morning and evening through out all 6 days of creation except the 7 day.

Are there reasons to assume that the NT word "day" is more accurate than the OT since it is more modern? If the word "day" in Genesis is 24 hr period, how do we distinguish the difference between what is literal and what is not?

Looked it up more then once, it's not that hard to finally realize that 'day' in Genesis one means 'day'. That is the normal way it is used in the Old Testament and depending on the immediate context, it almost always means day. The passage you are using there means 'day' but it's comparing a 'day' to the mind of God in light of God's eternal nature.

This is not a difficult semantical challenge, the problem is that faith is absent in so many of the arguments against creationism.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[shernren]

Looked it up more then once, it's not that hard to finally realize that 'day' in Genesis one means 'day'. That is the normal way it is used in the Old Testament and depending on the immediate context, it almost always means day. The passage you are using there means 'day' but it's comparing a 'day' to the mind of God in light of God's eternal nature.

This is not a difficult semantical challenge, the problem is that faith is absent in so many of the arguments against creationism.

Grace and peace,
Mark

I mean, there's nothing difficult at all about there being a morning before the Sun is created and an evening before the Moon is created. Nothing controversial about it at all for nearly two thousand years.

I guess John Stott, Alister McGrath, Derek Kidner and C.S. Lewis just needed to have more faith in God.

 

[Willtor]

I mean, there's nothing difficult at all about there being a morning before the Sun is created and an evening before the Moon is created. Nothing controversial about it at all for nearly two thousand years.

I guess John Stott, Alister McGrath, Derek Kidner and C.S. Lewis just needed to have more faith in God.

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and N.T. Wright, and Pope John Paul II, and all of the ancient Fathers from the Alexandrian school... they could all learn a thing or two about not being so faithless from Mark.

 

[mark kennedy]

What remains important about this whole topic is that fact that God's glory is revealed in nature, that it is reflected in the things that are made. To deny this is to descend into unbelief and the childish mockery of secular skepticism.

The divine Artificer "discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe" (John Calvin)

To abandon the historical character of Scripture is to abandon Christian theism and a Biblical worldview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEL9eqiy8Hc&feature=related

This is the key theological problem with evolution

It is much easier to account for a real tree serving as a focal point of a moral test and thereby being called a tree of the knowledge of good and evil than it is to accommodate genealogy to a parable or a myth. This of course could be done if other factors demanded it. But no such factors exist. There is no sound reason why we should not interpret Genesis 3 as historical narrative and multiple reasons why we should not treat it as parable or myth. To treat it as history is to treat it as the Jews did, including Paul and Jesus. To treat it otherwise is usually motivated by some contemporary agenda that has nothing to do with Jewish history. Adam's Fall and Mine
​

I mean, there's nothing difficult at all about there being a morning before the Sun is created and an evening before the Moon is created. Nothing controversial about it at all for nearly two thousand years.

I guess John Stott, Alister McGrath, Derek Kidner and C.S. Lewis just needed to have more faith in God.

It doesn't say that the sun and moon were created later, the perspective is always from the earth. The light is introduced on the first day, there can be no 'day' while the earth is shrouded in darkness.

Where is the profession of faith or the affirmation that a literal interpretation is based on sound exegetical work?

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and N.T. Wright, and Pope John Paul II, and all of the ancient Fathers from the Alexandrian school... they could all learn a thing or two about not being so faithless from Mark.

TE is an antagonistic view of Scripture and Christian theism, the whole issue revolves around taking the Scriptures as they are written or rationalizing them away with secular skepticism.


Have a nice day
Mark

 

[Greg1234]

What remains important about this whole topic is that fact that God's glory is revealed in nature, that it is reflected in the things that are made. To deny this is to descend into unbelief and the childish mockery of secular skepticism.

The divine Artificer "discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe" (John Calvin)

To abandon the historical character of Scripture is to abandon Christian theism and a Biblical worldview:

YouTube - What is Reformed Theology? Part 1 of 3 (R.C. Sproul)



It doesn't say that the sun and moon were created later, the perspective is always from the earth. The light is introduced on the first day, there can be no 'day' while the earth is shrouded in darkness.

Where is the profession of faith or the affirmation that a literal interpretation is based on sound exegetical work?




TE is an antagonistic view of Scripture and Christian theism, the whole issue revolves around taking the Scriptures as they are written or rationalizing them away with secular skepticism.


Have a nice day
Mark

Well put. Its a claim to the interpretation of scripture. Anytime there is a metaphor, its like a cue to stick atheism in. But then again, you take away the icons, and you cannot distinguish a "TE" from an atheist.

 

[Mallon]

Yayyy... more attacks on the faith of evolutionary creationists. Surprise, surprise.

 

[shernren]

It doesn't say that the sun and moon were created later, the perspective is always from the earth. The light is introduced on the first day, there can be no 'day' while the earth is shrouded in darkness.

I'm afraid you're wrong, mark. I have never ridiculed your literal interpretation of Scripture, because you have never had a literal interpretation of Scripture.

After all, you just took Genesis 1:16 non-literally a paragraph ago.

Note that the specific expression the author of Genesis uses is "morning and evening". Not "light and darkness", not even "day and night", but "morning and evening", which presupposes a very specific relationship between the sun, the moon, and the rotating earth. So look. Either

you say that the sun and the moon were actually created before Day 1 (which means you're taking Genesis 1:16 non-literally), or

you say that there can be a morning and an evening without a sun and a moon (which means you are not using the common-sense meaning of the words "morning" and "evening"),

or you can plug your ears, close your Bible, and call everybody who disagrees with you a heretic.

I say he'll pick option number 3.

Ta-daaaaaa!

I guess there was nothing positive or theistic about Origen either. Couldn't possibly have been a Christian, that one, seeing as how he disagreed with mark kennedy.

 

[Assyrian]

You could learn a thing or two about having the courage of your convictions by addressing me directly

Who were you not addressing directly when you made your accusations of faith being absent?

This is not a difficult semantical challenge, the problem is that faith is absent in so many of the arguments against creationism.

What remains important about this whole topic is that fact that God's glory is revealed in nature, that it is reflected in the things that are made. To deny this is to descend into unbelief and the childish mockery of secular skepticism.

By childish mockery you mean shernren and willtor responding with humour to your insult?

 

[shernren]

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and N.T. Wright, and Pope John Paul II, and all of the ancient Fathers from the Alexandrian school... they could all learn a thing or two about not being so faithless from Mark.

Ooh, be careful about your penultimate reference. John Macarthur - the talking head in Mark's post - thinks the Pope is the Beast. He also has this to say about Catholic priests:

You know, the inmates -- I call them inmates -- of monasteries are unmarried men. It's just bizarre and abnormal. They say in the United States now -- I read today a statistic: Fifty percent of them are homosexual when they get there. The rest have no chance. These people are predators. Convents, too, promote an abnormal type of life; doing terrible things to these women who are there, who many are good-intentioned, as some priests are.
​

The full sermon is here.

Actually, mark, you should read the whole thing. It's a fine example of how to preach from the Bible, with a gem of Scriptural interpretation: "1st Corinthians 7 makes it very clear that singleness is not preferable to marriage", and contains some glowing praise of that Council of Trent which you so dearly love to quote on the doctrine of Adam.

 

[Willtor]

We finally get a thread on hermeneutics and you want to turn it into a diatribe on the atheism of theistic evolutionists:

What remains important about this whole topic is that fact that God's glory is revealed in nature, that it is reflected in the things that are made. To deny this is to descend into unbelief and the childish mockery of secular skepticism.

The divine Artificer "discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe" (John Calvin)

To abandon the historical character of Scripture is to abandon Christian theism and a Biblical worldview:

YouTube - The Doctrine of Absolute Inability - John MacArthur [5/5]

This is the key theological problem with evolution

It is much easier to account for a real tree serving as a focal point of a moral test and thereby being called a tree of the knowledge of good and evil than it is to accommodate genealogy to a parable or a myth. This of course could be done if other factors demanded it. But no such factors exist. There is no sound reason why we should not interpret Genesis 3 as historical narrative and multiple reasons why we should not treat it as parable or myth. To treat it as history is to treat it as the Jews did, including Paul and Jesus. To treat it otherwise is usually motivated by some contemporary agenda that has nothing to do with Jewish history. Adam's Fall and Mine
​

It doesn't say that the sun and moon were created later, the perspective is always from the earth. The light is introduced on the first day, there can be no 'day' while the earth is shrouded in darkness.

Where is the profession of faith or the affirmation that a literal interpretation is based on sound exegetical work?


TE is an antagonistic view of Scripture and Christian theism, the whole issue revolves around taking the Scriptures as they are written or rationalizing them away with secular skepticism.

Have a nice day
Mark

As regards direct quotes: You don't know that these people don't/didn't think that Genesis was literal? I picked fairly prominent people and groups for whom there is general consensus on their respective Genesis hermeneutics, deliberately. If I had picked people less well known for their interpretations of Genesis (e.g., Billy Graham*), I would have quoted. As it was, I didn't think it was necessary.

Do you really need quotes for these people or is this pedantry?

* - "I don't think that there's any conflict at all between science today and the Scriptures. I think that we have misinterpreted the Scriptures many times and we've tried to make the Scriptures say things they weren't meant to say, I think that we have made a mistake by thinking the Bible is a scientific book. The Bible is not a book of science. The Bible is a book of Redemption, and of course I accept the Creation story. I believe that God did create the universe. I believe that God created man, and whether it came by an evolutionary process and at a certain point He took this person or being and made him a living soul or not, does not change the fact that God did create man. ... whichever way God did it makes no difference as to what man is and man's relationship to God." Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, 1997. p. 72-74 (source)

 

[Assyrian]

There is the NT Greek and OT Hebrew that uses both word "day". For example, 2 Peter 3:8 uses the word "day" referring to the coming of the Lord, and the Genesis account uses the word "day" associated with morning and evening through out all 6 days of creation except the 7 day.

Are there reasons to assume that the NT word "day" is more accurate than the OT since it is more modern? If the word "day" in Genesis is 24 hr period, how do we distinguish the difference between what is literal and what is not?

I think Hebrew and Greek are pretty similar in their use of days. You have the literal use, either the hours of daylight, of the full 24 hour day, and you have a wide range of metaphorical uses. In the NT the Greek is used by people who were steeped in biblical Hebrew imagery

You had Jesus parable of the labourers in Matt 20 packed with references to the day's work in the vineyard along with morning evening and various hours of the day. There is John 11:9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." which isn't really about it being easier not to trip in daylight. Luke 13:32 And he said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." In the epistles we have Rom 13:12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. 1Thess 5:5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. The Day of the Lord in the OT seems to have been more than a single 24 hour day, but in 2Peter the Day of the Lord seems to stretch into the millennium and beyond 2Pet3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. It is the Lord's return that comes like a thief in the night, but Peter stretches the Day of the Lord to include the end of the universe. It is possible Peter is be using Jewish apocalyptic imagery here warning of about judgement to come and the overthrow of the world's powers, but what we can say is that the Day of the Lord is not speaking of a literal 24 hour day.

 

[crawfish]

Where is the profession of faith or the affirmation that a literal interpretation is based on sound exegetical work?

Yes, yes. We TE's are faithless cowards and you creationists are complete morons. Glad we got that settled again.

 

[Assyrian]

This is the key theological problem with evolution

It is much easier to account for a real tree serving as a focal point of a moral test and thereby being called a tree of the knowledge of good and evil than it is to accommodate genealogy to a parable or a myth. This of course could be done if other factors demanded it. But no such factors exist.
​

Interesting parallel Sproul sets up to compare the two interpretations. Pretty much a straw man argument for the figurative 'mythical' interpretation. He treat the tree of knowledge as if it were the strongest argument for a figurative interpretation, in fact he claims it is the only reason to interpret Genesis figuratively. Personally I don't have an issue with the tree of knowledge, it is basically a kosher law, and the tree does not have to mystically open people's eyes, it is disobeying God that gives us the personal experience and knowledge of good and evil. To me a fruit tree that gives everlasting life is a much more difficult proposition. It contradicts Jesus' distinction between food which perishes and food that will give everlasting life. It also contradicts the fact that it is only in Jesus that we can have everlasting life. The Tree of Life is wonderful as a symbol for the cross, but as a literal alternative source of everlasting life it is a theological disaster. You also have a talking snake that in the story is simply a very clever animal, and is described completely in terms of it being a literal snake, slithering on its stomach and licking the dust. But we find out at the end of the bible it wasn't an animal at all, it is really Satan. And you have a fulfilment of the promise of redemption that in the story involved the seed of the woman stepping on a snake's head, which did not involve Jesus stepping on a snake at all. All this tells me mankind's encounter with a talking snake was a metaphor, much more so than any issue with non kosher fruit tree.

Add to that issues like two completely different time lines of creation in the two creation accounts, and what throughout church history was the most important factor showing us the passage is not to be taken literally, the fact that science tells us the literal interpretation is wrong.

"In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to be observed, as Augustine teaches. The first is, to hold to the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it if it be proved with certainty to be false, lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing." - Thomas Aquinas, c.a. 1225 - 1274, Summa Theological (1273).
​

In contrast, are the genealogies the strongest evidence for a literal interpretation? It seem problematic when Paul advises us to avoid them. Sproul sees genealogies as very important to Jews, yet the only genealogy in the NT which mentions Adam comes from the non Jewish Luke who describes Jesus' genealogy back to Adam as what was 'supposed'. Such suppositions are hardly the basis to pin Creationism on.

There is no sound reason why we should not interpret Genesis 3 as historical narrative and multiple reasons why we should not treat it as parable or myth. To treat it as history is to treat it as the Jews did, including Paul and Jesus. To treat it otherwise is usually motivated by some contemporary agenda that has nothing to do with Jewish history. Adam's Fall and Mine

Jews of the time like Philo and Josephus treated the story of Adam and Eve as an allegory. Jesus never mentioned a historical Adam and Eve or six day creation, and used Genesis 1&2 as a lesson in marriage and divorce, not to teach creationism. Paul also used Adam and Eve as a figurative lesson in marriage, or even an allegory of Christ and the church, and interpreted Adam as a figure of Christ Rom 5:14 ...after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come.

 

[Verticordious]

Looked it up more then once, it's not that hard to finally realize that 'day' in Genesis one means 'day'. That is the normal way it is used in the Old Testament and depending on the immediate context, it almost always means day. The passage you are using there means 'day' but it's comparing a 'day' to the mind of God in light of God's eternal nature.

This is not a difficult semantical challenge, the problem is that faith is absent in so many of the arguments against creationism.

Grace and peace,
Mark

The Hebrew word 'erets' is used in the Bible over 2500 times, and the vast majority of the time it refers to a country or nation, or the people inhabiting a nation or country, yet most Young-Earth creationists seem to have a problem following their own rules of interpretation and believe in a global flood. In fact, most Young-Earth creationists seem to claim the a global flood is somehow the key to scientifically proving a young earth, yet by their own made up rules of interpretation the flood could not have been global.

Of course, interpreting words based upon their most common usage is complete literary nonsense. How a word is being used is determined by context, not how frequently a particular usage appears. If it was, then words could only have one meaning, and obviously they do not. Almost all words have more than one meaning, and many have dozens of different meanings. Belief in a young Earth has nothing to do with faith, at least not faith in God anyway.