Define literal vs non-literal.

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There are many occasions when reading through the threads here that I come across this sentence:

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"Well that's obviously not to be taken literally - it was just a dream/song/interpretation that had at the time"

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When reading the bible, what are the rules around what is to be taken literally, and what is not?

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Are there any rules?

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Supposedly, but they seem to change depending on what one is protecting.I like the Rules of PARDES Interpretation.P'shat (pronounced peh-shaht' - meaning "simple") is what I would equate to a literal (adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression), but still allows for creative writing styles. I feel that preachers have no problem with "simple reading" until we get to the idea of unity. Unity tends to trump "simple reading". Literal is relative to doctrine.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

In response to the OP questions you stated in Message 11: It comes down to the meaning of the original word and the context of the passage.I don't see that you are doing that with the use of "yom" in the Genesis account.I agree that the word "yom" has many meanings and that these meanings are determined by how the word is used within the sentence.By stating that there was evening and there was morning the first day, the author is using the word "yom" to refer to what we call a 24 hour day.I would say your interpretation of a long period of time is not literal (adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression). Bible Literalism supposedly contains two schools. Letterism and a Historical Grammatical Method. The historical grammatical method is close to the method I prefer, which is P'shat.Your interpretation doesn't seem to fit into either school. The text doesn't say there was evening to morning the first day, it says there was evening and there was morning. I have only one morning and one evening per 24 hour period. I haven't found anything to say otherwise for the time of the priestly writer.I haven't figured out how you can talk of context to determine meaning and then ignore the use of a word within the sentence all together.Your context seems to be in relation to your doctrine, not the text itself.Determining literal and non-literal for the Bible should be the same as when we read any other book.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

So tying this merry-go-round back to the topic of literal interpretations vs non-literal interpretations, what do you consider your approach?Peg is rather eclectic in her interpretations. She changes methods to suit her belief or doctrine. You seem to do the same.Using the Historical Grammatical Method I mentioned in Message 34, we can tell that Adam's age is not to be taken as a real age. Humans don't live 960 years and to the best of my knowledge, science hasn't found remains that would counter that fact.Per the Documentary Hypothesis, the ages in Genesis 5 were added by the Redactor and weren't part of the original story.So just as we read any other mythical story or fairy tale, we understand the magical and exaggerations to be part of the tale and strive to understand the lesson presented by the story.Per Richard Elliott Friedman, the Priestly writer was writing their own version of the creation story with less obvious magic in it. It is still a story.What we tend to see in arguments on EvC is creative literalism. Passages are interpreted to fit doctrine, not to understand the text.Please try to keep your discussion within the realm of the topic and keep the discussion moving forward, not in circles.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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Can you please count these numbers and tell me how many numbers you see? (i've made it easy and numbered each of the hours for you)

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0. 6pm - beginning of evening/darkness
1. 7pm
2. 8pm
3. 9pm
4. 10pm
5. 11pm
6. 12am
7. 1am
8. 2am
9. 3am
10. 4am
11. 5am
12. 6am - morning - beginning of light

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notice its 12 and not 24? You are saying that 'evening to morning' always means 24 hours. As you can see, it doesnt mean 24 hours at all. It simply means the darkness to the light, which is actually only 12.

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this is why i keep repeating that the Yom is not a literal 24 hours in length. And i do not claim that the Yom is billions of years either....i keep saying that it is an 'unspecified' length of time. It could be billions of years, or it could be millions of years or it could be thousands of years or hundreds of years....its UNSPECIFIED. It could be any of those....it could be 24 hours...or it could not be 12 hours or it could be 500 hours.

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Pay attention!The verse does not say there was evening to morning. It says there was evening and there was morning. I have a morning and an evening every day.The usage we are discussing is referring to what we currently call a 24 hour day.I can't believe you two are still squawking over this. You're not moving the discussion forward.In the context of the sentence it is referring to a 24 hour day. The story of A&E has no bearing on the usage in the creation verses.You aren't reading the verse literally and reading it non-literally doesn't mean you get to make a context and usage.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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But according to the story, the sun, moon, and stars do not appear until Day 4. And the text tells us WHY they appear: one of their purposes is to "be signs to indicate seasons and days and years" (Gen 1:14, NET). God saw a need for chronometers, so He created the sun, moon, and stars for this purpose. Until these chronometers appear, there is no sense in talking about length of time, since there is nothing by which to measure time. Thus I would argue from the text that the first three "days" are indefinite in length. They cannot be measured.

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The story isn't depicting a witnessed event. We also have to remember that the people knew of many stories. Since the person who complied the JE and Priestly writings cut and pasted, we have no idea what was left out if anything.God already separated the light from the darkness. What was making the light? The text doesn't say.In legends it is said that the sun and moon were equal at one point. The writer can only write what he knows. He knows there is an evening and a morning each day. The usage in the verse is consistent with a 24 hour day. Putting the cart before the horse doesn't change the meaning presented by the sentence.Evening (`ereb) means night, sunset.Morning (boqer) means end of night, coming of daylight.The author is making it clear he is speaking of a normal 24 hour day. Where he thought the light was coming from, we don't know. It obviously isn't important to the overall story.Whether the legend existed in some form at the time of the Priestly writer is unknown. Legends progressed orally and changed as the people changed, so the version written down can contain many changes. This version mentions the world to come which is a post exile concept, IMO.If we exclude the possibility that the author knew of the legend and had it in mind, then the author just didn't keep his writing consistent or the Redactor cut and pasted it in a way that made it inconsistent. We don't really know which.The usage in the sentence is clear. The author is speaking of a literal 24 hour day. It doesn't have the markings of a figurative usage. The inconsistencies of the story do not change the meaning in the sentence.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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But the length of the day is not the author's concern. Yes, these are "days" with "evenings" and "mornings," so in that sense they are like normal days. But there were no chronometers by which to measure the lengths of these days, and the author is clear that chronometers did not appear till day 4. One could reasonably argue from this that Days 4-6 must be 24-hour days. But to insist that Days 1-3 must also be 24 hours is to force too much into the text. If there were some way to know the length of Days 1-3, there would be no need for the sun, moon, and stars as chronometers on Day 4.

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It's not forcing anything on the text. To argue that it wasn't a 24 hour day is actually trying to force our current knowledge onto the text. His audience didn't have our knowledge as far as I know.It doesn't matter whether chronometers known to man were available on that supposed day in the story. The author is telling his audience it was a regular day. They had an evening and then they had a morning. A day.We can't change what the sentence is saying just because we know there couldn't have been light without the sun.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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So, here are two glaring problems if we're going to look at this from a literal standpoint.

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Your absurdities have nothing to do with literal vs non-literal interpretation. Your absurdities deal with accuracy of what the text is saying and that isn't what this thread is about. Please don't drag it that direction.It's irrelevant whether the writing meshes with what we know today. It wasn't written for us.The point is whether they were speaking literally or figuratively concerning some words.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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Maybe I am not understanding your objection. If not, can you please clarify?

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Yes, you don't understand my objection.From the OP: So how does what you're presenting tell us whether the word yom is used literally or figuratively?
How does it tell us whether yom is referring to a regular 24 hour day or a long period of time?

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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According to the Genesis text, there was no way to "indicate seasons and days and years" until Day 4. Hence it is wrong to argue any specific length of time for Days 1-3 from the text. It is wrong to argue that they were instantaneous, it is wrong to argue that they were 24 hours, it is wrong to argue that they were millions of years. The text leaves them indeterminate.

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Yes, according to the story, there were no visual indicators of seasons, days and years on that first day; but the person writing the story understood seasons, days, and years. He is telling his audience it was a regular day. He uses the same phrase before the chronometers and after the chronometers. It may have been devoid of the sun, moon, and stars the people were used to, but the author told his audience it was a regular day. They understood evening and morning. They understood the length of night and day. There is nothing in the text we have that told them that the time was longer or shorter (or unknown) than a day in their time.Remember, according to the Documentary Hypothesis, Genesis 1 is written by the Priestly writer (Composed c. 550-400 BCE). This is the same writer that supposedly wrote the Sabbath commandments. This creation story is the setup for the Sabbath law in the Priestly version of Exodus (20:11). Literal usage of the word yom would be sunrise to sunset or from sunset to sunset. There is nothing in the text to suggest a figurative use of the word "yom" in Genesis 1:5.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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Perhaps. My main point is that we should not stress the length of the Days, especially the first 3. Their length was not the concern of the author, and I believe the text leaves the length of the first three indeterminate. Modern attempts to define the length of the days distract us from the main message of the account.

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The author related the length of the first three days the same as the last ones. It was a regular day. You haven't shown that the words deem the meaning otherwise.

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However, the Genesis 1 account contains a lot of symbolism and metaphor. There are some literary hints suggesting that the entire account of Gen 1 may be figurative or metaphorical. What is meant by "yom" being "literal" or "figurative" if the entire story is metaphorical?

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Please point out the metaphors and symbolism you feel impacts the meaning of yom in the sentences.As I said, it is a just-so-type-story. That doesn't mean a regular day isn't a regular day in the story.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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Obviously one has to take in to account certain laws of physics to know if that is even possible. That's one way to do it, and this far that is precisely what you and Peg have been discussing (referring to times where sunlight is present versus sunset and night, where no light is shining at all).

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No science is necessary. It doesn't even matter if the story is about a real event or a fictional event. The words for evening and morning are used in their normal sense as is the word for day. They aren't being used figuratively.Just don't let your discussion with Peg turn into an accuracy and inerrancy type discussion.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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the morning and evening being mentioned is not a literal morning and evening as we know it...this is because the YOM of genesis is not a literal 24 hours.

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During the evening things would be indistinct; but in the light (morning) they would become clearly discernible. So while the creative period was under construction, observers would not have clearly seen the end result until it was fully complete...this complete stage would be called the 'morning' becaiuse in the morning the light would shine on what has been accomplished for all to see.

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There is a similar expression found in Proverbs 4:18 that says the way of a righteous one is like a light getting brighter and brighter until the day is firmly established. Once the day or morning is established, that persons righteousness is fully seen.

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Its similar in Genesis. Until the day or morning, there is not enough light to see the outcome of the creative period...once that mornign light is shining, everything becomes visible.

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This is called creating your own story and has nothing to do with reading the text literally or non-literally.You're reading into the text (eisegesis) instead of deriving meaning from the text (exegesis).

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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as we are discussing what is literal and what is not, reading into the text of a 'non literal' verse is most definately a requirement. Otherwise how else would someone explain why they do view something as literal and something else as non literal???

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No, reading into the text is not a requirement, but your statement is revealing. There are rules to reading something literally or non-literally and in our day to day reading most people have no problem with it, but when reading the Bible apparently the brain is supposed to take a vacation.The apologetics have Eight Rules of Bible Interpretation. The rules are fine until they get to rules 7 and 8. Let's compare. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.This one's easy.Yom: From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb) -- age, + always, + chronicals, continually(-ance), daily, ((birth-), each, to) day, (now a, two) days (agone), + elder, X end, + evening, + (for) ever(-lasting, -more), X full, life, as (so) long as (... Live), (even) now, + old, + outlived, + perpetually, presently, + remaineth, X required, season, X since, space, then, (process of) time, + as at other times, + in trouble, weather, (as) when, (a, the, within a) while (that), X whole (+ age), (full) year(-ly), + younger. This one is also not a problem. The common usage of the word "yom" is for a 24 hour day. The words around yom (night, day, evening, morning) are consistent with a regular sunset to sunset day. Ancient Egypt: The Father Of Time
Sun Dial of Ahaz: Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down. (Isaiah 38:8)The Priestly writer was aware of a 24 hour day as was his audience. So they knew the length of a regular day. Since the common usage for the word "yom" is for a 24 hour day, the logical translation, barring clear indicators, should be for a 24 hour day.The context of the sentence, which mentions evening and morning, clearly tells us that "yom" should be translated as a 24 hour day. There are no indicators in the sentence to suggest otherwise. Now you like to try a use other verses to set a precedent for what you propose, but this rule does not negate the usage of a word within a specific sentence. The rules of language and grammar still prevail.These last two rules deal more with supporting doctrine, which is what you seem to be doing. They aren't really useful in determining whether a word is being use literally or non-literally. Proverbs 4:18 is a simile (An indirect relationship where one thing or idea is described as being similar to another. Similes usually contain the words like or as, but not always.). From the NetBible Notes: Proverbs 4:18 doesn't shine any light on the use of the word "yom" in Genesis 1:5. (Notice that "shine any light" is figurative and not a literal use of the words. This is because a written verse obviously can't project or hold a light source.)What religious doctrine needs yom in Genesis 1:5 to mean something longer than a normal day?If it's just a matter of trying to reconcile creation with science, then that is an improper way to determine whether something should be taken as literal or non-literal.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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4th. In Gen 2:4 moses called all the 6 days of creation 1 day. "this is the history of the heavens and earth in the DAY that God made them"

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I can't believe you just did that. That usage of yom is not referring to a 24 hour day. "In the day" is the start of the A&E story. This usage does refer to a period of time.Do you really not see the difference?Since the people who translated the various Bible version into English rendered them differently there is obviously something in the Hebrew that indicated the difference to them. Since I'm not versed in Hebrew, I found this article by G.F. Hasel that explains the difference very well. In Strong's we can see the difference in how yom is rendered in each verse. Genesis 1:5 (yovm)
Genesis 2:4 (beyovm)So there are indicators in Hebrew that determine if the words are to be understood literally or figuratively.You need to show us the indicators because you seem to have it backwards compared to the translations.

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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You just posted a whole list of the figurative uses of the word yom, then you revert back to "yom is a for a 24 hour day"

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Why would you do that if you already know the many and varied uses of this word?

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I didn't revert. Follow the process. The rule of definition gives all the definitions. The rule of usage, context, and historical background says we go with the most common meaning unless there are indicators that tell us otherwise.

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except that genesis doesnt say 'evening to evening' it says 'evening to morning' which is actually only 1/2 a day.....or 12 hours.

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It doesn't say evening to morning either. It says there was evening and there was morning. We've been over this, as have others. A regular day has an evening and a morning. When evening hits again, it's another day. The common usage of yom is a regular day.

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the problem here is that there is nothing in the text about how the sundial was interpreted...you are simply assuming that they counted it as 24hours. The writings of the hebrews shows how the day was divided up much differently and nowhere are hours mentioned.

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A sundial can only cover the hours of sunlight. It doesn't work in the dark. (Egyptians made a water clock for he dark hours.) I'm not assuming. Read the article. Even if you do want to continue playing the dense card, their days were sunset to sunset or sunrise to sunrise. IOW, a solar day. The common usage of yom refers to that time frame. I'm going to use solar day from now on since you have an issue with hours.Do you really think the Hebrews spent 500 years in Egypt and ignored their time keeping?
Do you really think the Hebrews spent over 50 years in exile in Egypt and Babylon and ignored their time keeping?Join reality please.

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Time is always mentioned in terms such as about the heat of the day "the breezy part of the day" at the start of the middle night watch the morning watch . All these indicated which division of the day it was... no hours were used not even in the account about the sundial of Ahaz.

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So what! We have early morning, late morning, afternoon, early afternoon, late afternoon, early evening, late evening, midnight, noon, 1st shift, second shift, third shift, high noon, night watch, etc. and I'm sure there are many more ways to refer to portions of the day without saying the word hour. The Bible was not written to explain their time measure to the people. Their audience was already aware of how time worked.When I say the word hour, I'm referring to a section of time in a solar day. In ancient times these sections weren't necessarily even. They changed with the seasons. You would know this if you bothered to read the links I provided. Wow, just like Egypt and Babylon!

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Even in the NT a day is not said to be 24hours long. Jesus said the day contains 12 hours. John 11:9 says There are twelve hours of daylight, are there not? These were counted from sunrise to sunset, or roughly from six in the morning to six in the evening. Thus, the third hour would be about nine in the morning. And the night was counted differently, they divided the night into four 'watches' instead of the three that they used formerly as per the OT. The four divisions were refered to as late in the day (sunset until about nine in the evening). The 2nd watch was the midnight watch(9pm-12midnight) and the cockcrowing (12midnight -3am). The last watch was early in the morning" which was dawn, or about six o’clock.

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So again this is evidence that the 'day' was only 12 hours, not 24 as we know it.

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Daylight yes, a solar day, no. Jesus was speaking of daytime. They had a word for night and one for day and one for "a night and a day". Why are you trying to use Greek to make a point about Genesis?The watches were divided for the guards. So if there were four watches the guards had roughly 3 hours (sections of time) each. Splitting the night into 4 sections and not 12 doesn't change the length of a solar day.Greek was a more precise language than Hebrew. This doesn't change how the word yom is used in Genesis 1:5. Yom is still referring to a solar day.

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for instance, we know the earth is not square, so when the bible writer speaks of the 4 corners of the earth, we know he is not speaking literaly....however if the earth really was square, then we could rightly take his words literally.

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Knowing that the planet is not square doesn't help in your example since the word translated as earth didn't refer to the planet. Not the PlanetSo what religious doctrine needs yom in Genesis 1:5 to mean something longer than a normal day?

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Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion