crocodile deathroll

I took the world book dictionary out to just enlighten you the definition of the word "day"
As you see it is not so simple and there are at least nine definitions here.
day:
1 the time between sunrise and sunset; Days are longer in summer than in winter. Even the fall of leaves in autumn may be postponed with an artificial increase in the length of day (Eric Ashby)
2 the light of day; daylight A cloudy day, a sunny day
3. a the 24 hours of day and night; the time its takes for the Earth to make one rotation on its axis: the day is increasing in length by about one- to two-thousandth of a second per century b. a day at a point or unit of time or on which something happens : The third day he shall rise again (Matthew 20:19
4. a certain day on which something happened set aside for a particular purpose or for celebration. Christmas Day, New Years Day.
5. hours of work; working day: an eight hour day
6. a time; the present day, in days of old
7. a period of life, activity power or influence:he has seen better days. Our little systems have their day (Tennyson)
8. a conflict; contest: Our basketball team won the day and thus the country championship too. The argument of the prosecution had carried the day, and the prosecutor leaned back on his chair with a sigh of satisfaction
9 a victory: The trumpets sound retreat, the day is ours (Shakespeare)

The Bible places strong emphasis on def 1 or 3, so if it says day that is the sought of day it means. So the Bible says day it really does mean a 24 hour Earth day

With firmament however it is a lot more straight forward
firmament
"the arch or vault of the heavens; sky": Knowledge, in Truth, is the great sun in the firmament
(Daniel Webster)

So it is a vault, and vault and firmament are use interchangeably in different versions of Bibles.
And I shall now define what denotes vault
vault
1.a.an arched masonry or concrete structure built so that the parts support each other, serving as a roof or covering over a space b. an arched roof or ceiling. c. something like an arched roof, especially the sky:[i] Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars
2. an underground cellar or store house
3. a place for storing valuable things and keeping them safe
4. an arched space under the floor of a church, crypt. b. a place for burial
5. a natural cavern or cave
6. Anatomy an arched structure especially the scull.

So the emphasis is on a semicircular "arch" and if you look at many an old bank vault, that is clearly evident.

It is clearly does not mean a "celestial sphere" or the "vast cosmos".
Just like day does not mean "era" or "epoch".

So the Bible describing the sky as a firmament is very much in keeping with a flat earth, because any such vault has a floor, and the floor we are speaking of here is a flat earth
Unless you are prepared to preach day means day because the Bible says day and not "era" or "epoch" firmament means firmament because the Bible says firmament and not "celestial sphere".
The trouble is although those fundamentalist young earth creationist can pull the wool over the eyes of 100 million Americans with the six day creation because the Bible says "day ". so it is literally day. I do not feel they would be so embracing of a flat earth because the Bible specifically says the sky is a firmament. If they are really sincere, the likes of Ken Ham will be preaching not only young earth creationism, but also flat earth creationism. But they are not sincere are they. They just want to pass their buckets around their gatherings so you can fill them up with your money and they just laugh all the way to the bank.
Their bank balances will surely drop if they started preaching such preposterous flat earth creationism, and the six day creation story even more preposterous than the flat earth. At least the earth is slightly fattened at the poles due the centrifugal force of its rotation. We could settle all those six day creationsts their so they can attempt to convert a few hungry polar bears (to be a little fatter at least) and there are a few rather "flattish" asteroids out there, if you would like to fly a few young earth creationists on them on a one way trip.

bjones

excreationist

crocodile deathroll:
Note that they are the meanings for the English word "day".... that doesn't mean that the Hebrew word (yom) is that versatile.
ilgwam, who is a "day-age" creationist from the <a href="http://www.iljboards.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=22" target="_blank">I Love Jesus boards</a>, wrote <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/co/JesusFreak/day.html" target="_blank">this</a> article about the days in Genesis. It is in response to a ChristianAnswers.net article. I still think that the Bible says that the earth was created in 6 literal days but I haven't read his site carefully enough yet.

Also, since the Bible wasn't written in English (the original O.T. was in Hebrew I think) it didn't say the word "vault"... instead it used a Hebrew word that can be translated as many things, including "vault", "firmanent" and "atmosphere". (Hebrew words can have a lot of different meanings)

[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

crocodile deathroll

So a lot of these Bibliolatrous fundies only think they are worshiping the Bible but are a really missing the plot and worshiping the Oxford English Dictionary.