No problem Same apology extended to you, AstroAg. It's been too long.AstroAg17 said:
Sorry that I haven't been able to reply to this until now; it was a long week and a short weekend.
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I interpret the days as 24 hour periods because that is what the word day means when used as it is in genesis, as far as I know. I trust that those who translated the text preserved the message, of course. Maybe you could shed insight as to whether the original word had alternate definitions. One could bring up that a day to God is like a thousand years (or whatever the "conversion" was), but that would place one's view into the non-literal camp in my eyes.
For me, it seems clear from the text itself that days do not mean 24 hour periods. A couple points to support this:
1. The sun and the moon were not created until Day 4. This means that at the very least, the first three "days" have a different meaning from what one would normally understand.
2. The seventh day has no evening or morning, which would seem to mean something different from our normal understanding of day.
3. Genesis 2:4 reads, "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." Seems that day is not used as 24 hour period of time here either.
These three points, as a starting place, lead me to believe that day is probably not used to refer to a 24 hour period of time in the Genesis account.
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Yes, I mean literal as one would initially think. I mean it as taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory. That's the definition that I see for it, and that's how I mean it.
I would understand my interpretation of "day" above as a literal one because it is being used in what seemed to be a "normal sense" even though not seemingly referring to 24 hour periods of time. Words usually have a range of meaning and context helps understand the meaning for that portion of the text.
I think I understand what you're getting at and the point is well taken. Thanks for clarifying.Quote:
I object to your use of the word science in that context because I think it's unnecessary. I don't think it adds anything significant to your point, but I think that your use of it implies that it's okay for a passage to contradict (when interpreted literally) data that suggests very strongly that the events could not have happened as described. The data was collected scientifically, and it is explained by scientific theories, but there is nothing especially scientific about the situation itself. Either the events happened or they did not. It is meaningless to say that the events did not scientifically happen. They just didn't happen. I'm not saying this point as well as I'd like. I've never been a good writer. I digress.
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I agree completely, although I don't really know what a theological account is. That's probably more a product of my ignorance than an issue with phrasing.
Maybe not. I'll work to clarify that in future posts, but all that comes to mind is more vague phrases that would probably just muddy the waters.
Yeah, I'm talking about biblical scholarsQuote:
Well, there is a scholarly consensus that the six literal days of genesis did not happen. There really is no significant debate on that subject among the scientific community. No assertion is indisputable, but this one is compelling to the point that it's ubiquitous. I realize that you are probably referring to the theological community, but this goes back to whether science and religion get along. They do, as long as you take a non-literal interpretation.