On Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:17:50 -0500 "Stephen J. Krogh"
<panterragroup@mindspring.com> writes:
>
> Looking at the word-for-word translation of the Hebrew text, one
> finds this
> phraseology: “and was evening and was morning day Xth.” The NIV
> renders the
> time markers in this way: “And there was evening, and there was
> morning —
> the Xth day.” The word arrangement in both cases is a departure from
> the
> simple and ordinary. It creates ambiguity. If “day Xth” was intended
> as the
> noun compliment for the one evening and morning together, the
> linking verb
> should appear just once, in plural form (as the KJV renders it): And
> the
> evening and the morning were the Xth day.” We would expect the
> literal
> Hebrew to say, “and were evening and morning day Xth.” However, this
> is not
> the case. This syntactic ambiguity does not constitute a proof.
> However, it
> does at least suggest an indefinite period for each phase of the
> creation.
>
> Stephen J. Krogh, P.G.
> The PanTerra Group
> http://panterragroup.home.mindspring.com/
> ================================
>
Let's see: "It was evening. Then, after an age indefinitely long, it was
morning. This whole was day one." Why does this seem to me more like
eisegesis than exegesis? It certainly is a far simpler interpretation
than I indicated ;-}
I learned long ago that a person can come up with an excuse to continue
to believe anything. From within (assuming an honest commitment), all
these rationalizations appear to be reasons. Perhaps the most difficult
tasks human beings face is recognizing their own bias. C. S. Peirce
sagely noted that, when universal human fallibility is explained, all
will assent, "always making exceptions for themselves in this instance."
I put in the qualification because I have an ingenious friend who will
argue any side of a question and tie the ingenuous up in knots, just for
the fun of it.
Dave
P.S. Paul, thanks for the clarification on "became" v. "was" in Genesis
1:2. It expands the options exegetically, though the absence of
geological evidence for a break makes it hard to coordinate with
observational evidence.
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