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"When Hebrew uses the phrase, "the evening and the morning," then it means a literal, 24-hour day."Except when it doesn't, of course. Who knows what the original writer meant? Is there a footnote somewhere in the bible that stipulates exactly what was meant by 'day'? For all we know the writer was an exceptionally poetical person who took the liberty of describing eons with the term 'day'. After all, the god he describes is so awesomely big in every respect that eons must be as days for him. Or something along those lines. I guess we will never know.

"When Hebrew wants to use the word "day" to refer to an indefinite period of time, it doesn't use the construction of "evening and morning." Instead, that's an indication of a literal day."There's an old riddle (I believe it's from greek mythology, but that's irrelevant here) that goes, loosely paraphrased:"What goes on four legs in the morning, on two during the day, and on three in the evening?"Imagine that translated to Hebrew.You're not going to tell me that Hebrew doesn't allow poetic license, are you?[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 08-12-2003]

John,Why are you quoting me out of context? I wasn't talking about Genesis. Or the Bible, for that matter. Rrhain stated rather vehemently that if Hebrew (the language I take that to mean, not the body of Hebrew words that make up the Hebrew bible) wants to express an indefinite period of time by way of the concept 'day', then the words 'evening' and 'morning' cannot be used. And I gave an example of a sentence that uses those words to indicate an indefinite period of time and asked him to imagine it to be translated into Hebrew. That's not an impossibility, is it? (If it is, then, frankly, Hebrew sucks.) My reference to poetic license merely queried the possibility to say something in Hebrew in a non-literal, symbolic way. And yes, that implies that things mentioned in the Hebrew bible could also be expressed in a non-literal, symbolic way, but I don't care. I simply pointed out a minor flaw in Rrhain's logic.But now that we ARE talking about Genesis, 'poetic license' doesn't necessarily mean you "end up with a situation where anything can mean anything." If someone wants his public to understand what he's talking about, his poetic license goes only so far. If he talks about concepts of time, he uses metaphors that can be understood as being about time. If his metaphors reminded people of refridgerators, they wouldn't do him much good, would they? I maintain that the argument of poetic license isn't a bad argument at all, vis-a-vis the meaning of what's said in Genesis.If you respond, please do it smilingly. I hate to be grumbled at.
(Put that in grammatically correct form, I dare you.)Cheers.

Rrhain,I didn't know "the evening and the morning" is an expression in Hebrew and I also didn't understand that you actually were talking about the (limited) body of Hebrew in the Hebrew bible, instead of the (broader) language Hebrew. Hence the misunderstanding: my interpretation of what you said was too liberal.So far, so good.But you end with:"[...] the metaphor used indicates a literal, 24-hour day. If the author wanted to indicate a time period longer than a day, then he would describe it as "the evening and the morning of the first day." When you phrase it that way, it indicates a literal, 24-hour day."No you have me all confused again.

John,When I said you quoted me out of context, I meant that you picked out one sentence of mine, leaving out the rest which indicated I was talking about language, not a specific text. O well, nevermind."If your sole purpose was to argue a theoretical possibility, I suppose there is no more to be said."
I second that.Remind me not to talk to you about language anymore. It gives me a tremendous headache. Well, I suppose there really was a smile on your face then.Cheers.

Ow! That's awful! I mean, you look so young and then... Does it hurt? O, wait a minute... Sorry, nevermind. I thought you said 'nuts'. Forget what I said.Seriously now, I thought as much. But, being a thick skulled foreigner, I could always be missing some subtle nuance in what you said. Thanks for clearing it up.
And take care of your nuts.!NOTS! Take care of your nots, sorry.(Damn!)[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 08-13-2003]