#24 Genesis Post 4

It seems we must back up even further!

Jace: "It is either literally true or it is not literally true, as a historical account."

This is where we are talking past one another, for we do not yet share a common  understanding of how words are used in general, nor the word "literal" in particular. Here's a great quote from N.T. Wright that explains it better than I can.

"The terms ‘literal’ and ‘metaphorical’ refer, properly, to the ways words refer to things, not to the things to which the words refer. For the latter task, the appropriate words might be ‘concrete’ and ‘abstract’. The phrase ‘Plato’s theory of forms’ literally refers to an abstract entity (in fact, a doubly abstract one). The phrase ‘the greasy spoon’ refers metaphorically, and perhaps also metonymically, to a concrete entity, namely the cheap restaurant down the road. The fact that the language is being used literally or metaphorically tells us nothing, in and of itself, about the sort of entities it is referring to." - N.T. Wright

It seems you were hearing me say that the words in Genesis 1 & 2 were at times refering to abstract things. What I was actually saying is that some of the words in Genesis 1 & 2 might be metaphorically refering to concrete things.

"Day" is an excellent example of this. A "day" is a 24 hour period measured by the time it takes the earth to rotate on its axis a single time while in orbit around the sun. If Moses' readers had a pre-scientific flat earth view, then for them, a "day" is the time span between sundown and sundown. Either of these methods of meausrement defining a "day" requires the earth to, in actuality, be orbiting the sun while rotating on its axis. Since the sun, in the Genesis account, did not exist until day 4, it seems very likely that the word "day", at least during days 1-3 (though I doubt an inconsistency), is referring to a "day" the way we would measure it concretely.

Further insight is gained when we see the way this Hebrew word translated "day" is used elsewhere.

3117
יׄום [yowm /yome/] n m. From an unused root meaning to be hot; TWOT 852; GK 3427 and 3428; 2274 occurrences; AV translates as "day" 2008 times, "time" 64 times, "chronicles + 1697" 37 times, "daily" 32 times, "ever" 17 times, "year" 14 times, "continually" 10 times, "when" 10 times, "as" 10 times, "while" eight times, "full 8 always" four times, "whole" four times, "alway" four times, and translated miscellaneously 44 times. 1 day, time, year. 1a day (as opposed to night). 1b day (24 hour period). 1b1 as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1. 1b2 as a division of time. 1b2a a working day, a day’s journey. 1c days, lifetime (pl.). 1d time, period (general). 1e year. 1f temporal references. 1f1 today. 1f2 yesterday. 1f3 tomorrow.

Day - 2088 times
Time - 64 times
Daily - 32 times
Ever - 17 times
Year - 14 times
Continually - 10 times
When - 10 times
As - 10 times
While - 8 times
etc.

Most often this Hebrew word is translated "day". But we see that this is not a rigid meaning. Hebrew vocabulary is much more fluid than that. So, I must look at the context to see whether or not this word should inflexibly be understood to refer to a concrete span of 24 hours measured by the rotation of the earth on its axis.

One clue that this might have a concrete referent is the use of the words "evening" and "morning" to describe the beginning and end of this period of time under consideration. But then I must decide how these words are being used. Since I see that "evening" and "morning" are used to, for the first four days of Creation, bookend periods of time during which the sun did not even exist, it is apparent from the text that neither "evening" nor "morning" can be used to force an interpretation that includes a concrete referent.

All this demonstrates is that the text does not clearly tell us the concrete span of time referred to by the word "day". The time spans might have been precisely 24 hours long. But the text does not demand that conclusion. Evangelical insistence that they do is usually due to a view of how words function very similar to the one quoted from you above. It's either all or nothing. This is not the reality of language.

But even if I were to concede that the time spans denoted by "day" are not concrete 24 hour periods, but rather a metaphorical way of describing a time span we do not know the concrete length of (evening and morning certainly pointing this direction), it would in no way follow from this logically that no concrete span of time did in fact occur (of admittedly unknown length).

So your statement that "it is either literally true or literally not true" fails to give adequate place for the complexities of the ways we use abstract words to describe both concrete realities, abstract realities, in both metaphorical and literal ways.