From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 12:12:57 EDT
Another factor to consider with regard to the Exodus passages is that
there is also a sabbath year, and seven sevens of years (literally, a
day of forty-nine years) is the time for the Jubilee. If the
commemoration of God's rest in the Sabbath must strictly correspond
to the duration of creation, then it must have simultaneously been
seven days, seven years, and forty-nine years as well as indefinite
periods of time corresponding to the time spent in the promised land
(a place of rest) and the ongoing opportunity to enter God's rest
(Hebrews 4).
The claims that I have seen for distinguishing features of literal
versus figurative days seem to have equal merit with the claims to
distinguish the vocabulary of the Elohist versus the Jahwist. They
seem to look for features of Genesis 1 and then claim that they
distinguish literal days. For example, some aspects of the wording
with regard to days appear to be unique to Genesis 1 (as far as I can
tell with an exhaustive concordance). To assert that these are
evidences of a literal day is circular argument. Other claims are
clearly inaccurate, such as the claim that ordinals (first, second,
etc.) plus day always indicates a literal day. This seems like a
rather peculiar rule, as figurative speech is usually less
constrained, rather than more constrained, than literal speech. This
rule is as silly as asserting that no one but Redactors knew about
synonyms. In fact, "on the third day" is an idiom for a brief period
of time, not strictly literal, most clearly in Hosea.
Another line of evidence that the distinction between literal and
figurative days is not clear comes from the wide range of guesses as
to the significance of days in apocalyptic passages.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted
Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at
Droitgate Spa
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