Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Hi Peter,

This might be getting out of bounds for this list, but that was my point 
exactly. Understanding the word "day" in the Creation story in any literal 
sense does not work. Once you have to invent "clouds that hid the sun", 
you're already adding elements that are not in the text. This is good 
midrash, but certainly not a literal understanding of the text.

Yigal

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
To: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>
Cc: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Yom in Biblical and Rabbinic Texts


> On 26/10/2005 11:57, Yigal Levin wrote:
>
> > ...
> >
> > In any case, a "creationist" would have to explain the first three "days", 
> > before the creation of the sun.
> This is a problem whether or not one believes in creation in a literal 
> period of six times 24 hours. On the first "day" God created light and 
> separated it from darkness, and the mention of "evening and morning" makes 
> it clear that he already started a regular sequence of light and dark 
> periods, called "day" and "night". But the sun was not created until 
> later. Whether this was two days or millions of years later is immaterial. 
> From verse 15 it is clear that the author knew that the sun was the source 
> of daylight; nevertheless, he wrote that there was daylight before the sun 
> was created. How can this apparent contradiction be resolved? It doesn't 
> make any difference to interpret "day" either literally or non-literally.
>
> One rather obvious suggestion is that the creation is viewed from a 
> viewpoint on earth. At first, perhaps, the earth was covered by clouds 
> (and geologists agree with this) so that the sun would not have been 
> visible, but there would still have been day and night. Only later, on the 
> third "day", the clouds cleared and the sun, moon and stars became 
> visible.
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/