S.C.Carlson

Yeah, the whole question is anachronistic and a waste of time. It uses conceptual categories that no one has shown were in existence.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

What? No Hebrew for "sun cycle"?

Darwin's Beagle

GakuseiDon & praxeus,

Thanks very much for the links. It is the information I need. You have saved me a lot of time.

Much appreciated,

Darwin's Beagle

spin

Doh.

spin

Your persistence at missing the topic is admirable.

Your comment about categories shows that you don't read the text, which shows you how the term is being used.

There is a notion of day time and night time, of sunrise and sunset. This of course can be applied to the period before the existence of the sun (created on the fourth day) because the writer is retrojecting his understanding of the term YWM back to that prior period.

At the same time, without this conventional notion of day embodied in the text, one cannot make literal sense of the seventh day rest.

Obviously, the conventional notion of "day" was in operation at the time of writing. Any other notion of "day" which has characteristically been retrojected by post-biblical commentators needs to be justified. (Once again we have a modern commentator, S.C.Carlson, assuming what needs to be shown before bringing it into the conversation, whereas the conventional significance of "day" is evident in the other language of the text. It's ironic that he talks of anachronism, which seems more to be his projection.)


spin

S.C.Carlson

If we're going to get into about who's reading the OP's text, I see no mention in your remarks about the OP's "24 hr. day." The anachronism is in assuming that a "twenty-hour day" is not a tautology. Your discussion about evenings, mornings, and days of rest is beside the point.

Stephen

luminous

I don't know if that's accurate. In Book 11 Chapter 6 of "The City of God", talking about the nature of time and specifically about the days of Creation in Genesis he says that "What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!" (source)

spin

I think perhaps the content of this last statement has been the most helpful of yours to date. When you talk about a "twenty-hour day" being a tautology, then I don't think we have a problem, and therefore in the context of a tautology this statement
is acceptible.

At the same time, there is a problem in the attempted change in the significance of YWM in Gen 1 which has been frequently put forward, which stimulates the necessity for the OP to specify through tautology that the base meaning of the term under discussion is what is carried in the text.

To the OP: the best approach to dealing with the redefinition of the term YWM, ie "day" is to require from their interlocutor evidence from the text (and not from modern science) as to the possibility of a different meaning of "day" than the usual meaning, which should be carried if there is no language issues that require you to think of another meaning for "day".


spin