It has been an extremely long time since any Young Earth Creationist (YEC) proponents have been around here. We have that opportunity now, so I'm going to move forward with this conversation.

It's possible to generate walls of text, but that makes for less interesting conversation. So I'm going to instead start from a series of short statements and see where the conversation goes from there. I also don't anticipate that this will be a long slog through the science of attempting to date the universe and the things within it. If you want to learn about that, start from the Wikipedia page and go from there.

I will summarize my view around one main theme: I reject a literalist reading of the Bible. I believe that YEC hinges entirely on the assumption that the right way to read the Bible is as literally as possible. I reject this position. This does not mean that I think nothing in the Bible is literally true. It just means that I don't impose a literalist interpretation upon it. The majority of the timeless theological truths contained in the Bible are not dependent upon holding a literalist interpretation.

It does not appear that either the orthodox Jewish nor orthodox Christian position is to read the Bible literally. Indeed, one of the perspectives of the Jewish reading of the Bible is the search for multiplicities of meaning. (The same passage can be interpreted in multiple ways to apply to multiple circumstances, and there is no inherent problem with this. Rather, it is the role of wisdom to understand which meaning applies to which situation. A literal reading would be far too restrictive to allow this type of flexible theology.)

But even within Christianity, the idea of a literal reading of the Bible is a relatively new theological phenomenon. It is more of a product of the Enlightenment/post-Enlightenment pursuit of a singular "truth" than it is a historically grounded perspective of the Bible. It wasn't until "truth" had this particular connotation that the Bible was really held broadly to this type of standard or speak about the universe in this way. (There are some people at other points in history that tried to read the Bible literally, but it was always one perspective among many and was never the dominant belief.)

Since this is not how the Bible has been historically read, I see no reason to impose this particular theological requirement on the Bible.

Hi, Aaron. Thank you for starting this thread. I look forward to what I hope will be a fruitful conversation.

First off, I'm sorry I haven't posted lately. I was temp-banned for something I wrote in the Politics Forum. (Still not positive what aspect of my post over there was found by the mod so offensive, but I suspect it was because I used the word that the King James Bible uses to identify people of a particular sexual preference.)

Sidebar for mod of this forum: Is it permissible in this forum to use the "s-word" that the KJV uses?

Enough of that; on to the purpose of this thread:

I think that Aaron hit and proverbial nail on the head when he indicated that the crux of the debate will be about whether or not a literalist interpretation of Scripture is justified, especially with regards to Genesis 1.

I'd like to make my position on this matter clear: In general, I believe in a literal reading of Scripture unless the context virtually demands a non-literal reading.

I should point out here that I could theoretically reject YEC and still maintain my literalist stance on interpretation if Aaron gives me a good argument of why a non-literal reading of Genesis 1 is clearly indicated.

That's about all for now. In my next post I will give some specific reasons on why I hold to a literalist interpretation of Scripture.

I've been very busy and tired the past few days, so today I'm pretty much only making short posts. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be up to providing a substantive defense of Biblical Literalism.

Have a blessed day y'all (as they say down South )!

This argumentation tilts me.

A *literal* reading of Genesis includes an old earth, because the semantic range of the word yom can mean long period of time. There is absolutely no reason to argue that the literal reading of Genesis implies young earth, none.

+1

There are indeed Old Earth Creationists who are also literalists. But given that Aaron is not a literalist, arguing with him over the meaning of yom wouldn't be pertinent.

You and I can have the yom discussion at some point if you'd like.

When the Bible was written, no one was thinking in a time frame of four billion years. Even a million would have been completely outside their experience.

Stretching yom to four billion is interpretation, not literalism.

Oh really?



Time



It is interesting to note that in 67 verses in the Old Testament, the word Yom is translated into the English word "time." For instance, in Genesis 4:3, it says "And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord." In this instance, Yom refers to a growing season, probably several months. Again, in Deuteronomy 10:10, it refers to a "time" equal to forty days. In I Kings 11:42, it says "And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years." In this case, Yom translated as the word "time" is equivalent to a 40 year period.

In Isaiah 30:8, it says "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever." In this case, Yom is equal to "forever." How long is forever? An infinite number of years...billions upon billions upon billons of years. If Yom can equal trillions of years here, then why not billions of years in Genesis?



Year



Four times in the Old Testament Yom is translated "year." In I Kings 1:1, "David was old and stricken in years..." In 2 Chronicles 21:19, "after the end of two years" and in the very next verse "Thirty and two years old." Finally, in Amos 4:4, "...and your tithes after three years." In each case, Yom represents years, not days.



Age



Eight times in the Old Testament Yom is translated "age." These range from sentences like "stricken in age," meaning old age (Genesis 18:11 and 24:1; Joshua 23:1 and 23:2), and other times it says "old age" (Genesis 21:2, Genesis 21:7). Genesis 47:28 refers to "the whole age of Jacob," therefore yom here refers to an entire lifetime. In Zechariah 8:4, it says old men and women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, "each with cane in hand because of his age."



Ago



One time Yom is translated "ago." 1 Samuel 9:20 says "As for the donkeys you lost three days ago, ..."



Always



Four times yom is translated as "always," in Deuteronomy 5:29, 6:24, 14:23, and in 2 Chronicles 18:7. Always here can be interpreted as a lifetime...for instance, we are to keep the commandments of the Lord always (Deut. 5:29).



Season



Three times yom is translated "season." In Genesis 40:4, "...and they continued a season in ward." Again, in Joshua 24:7, "dwelt in the wilderness a long season," and in 2 Chronicles 15:3, "...a long season Israel hath been...". In each case yom represents a multi-month period.



Chronicles



When used in conjunction with the word dâbâr, yom is translated "chronicles" (27 times).



Continually



When used in conjunction with kôwl, yom is translated as "continually" (11 times). Once, in Psalm 139:16, it is translated continuance (without the kôwl).



Ever



Ever is used to represent a long period of time, such as in Deuteronomy 19:9, "to walk ever in his ways." Nineteen times Yom is translated "ever." The old testament uses "for ever" instead of the word forever. In sixteen cases of use of the word ever, for is placed before it, indicating a infinite period of time. I will not list them all (consult Strong's Concordance for a full listing) but here is an example. In Psalm 23:6, it says "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." Here Yom is translated as the final word of this verse, ever. Thus, Yom in this verse, and 16 others, represents eternity.



Evermore



In one instance, when yom is used in conjunction with kôwl, Yom is translated "evermore." Deuteronomy 28:29, "...and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore;" thus representing either a lifetime or eternity.

http://www.oldearth.org/word_study_yom.htm

So people had a sense that time going forward does not stop. Fine. But in none of your examples was it retrospective. Time does not go endlessly backwards because there was a point of creation. Other than "evermore" type usage, all your examples are of human-scale time -- a year, a season, a life.

No one back then ever used yom to mean four billion years in the past. It is your interpretation that it could mean that.

You are wanting the Bible to say creation took an undefined period of immense time, yet it specifies six units, no? Six years, six lifetimes, those are human scale periods. None of your examples suggest anyone ever talked about the past containing six million or six billion years.

The most you have evidence for is that the Bible does not exclude a four billion year earth history. But there's no literal statement of creation that is remotely close.

What I'm saying is that it's reading something into the text that isn't there, to say that Genesis tells us the universe is ~4,000 years old.

I'm also saying that it's a false statement to say that a "literal" reading
of Genesis implies a 7 day creation.

And even not excluding 4 bil. is a huge stretch.

Look at the contextual clues. After six supposedly undefined time units of work the lord rested for one. Sounds an awful lot like a human-sized week. Reading it as anything else is an interpretive jump; nothing literal about it.

If you want to make the Bible fit the factual record, fine. But don't call it a literal reading.

First sentence, I agree. Second, I agree it's not fully literal to say it must be seven contemporary days, but I think that is the best guess at intent. Everybody is interpreting, that's my point.

The earliest writings that we have, recording their thoughts about the six "days" of creation, did not consider them literal 24 hour days.

Jewish writer Philo 13 bc -> ~45: "It is quite foolish to think that the world was created in six days... when Moses says he finished his work on the 6th day, we must understand him to be adducing not a quantity of days, but the perfect number, namely six" - Phil Judaeus of Alexandria, "De Opificio Mundi" trans, FH Colson Cambridge Univ Press, 1949.

Earliest Christian writers on the meaning of creation "days":
Justin Martyr ad 100-165 and Irenaeus ad 120-200 both drew support from Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 to suggest that the "days" could be epochs.
Clement of Alexandria ad 150-211 agreed with Philo, that "creation days communicated the order, but not time" - Clement of Alexandria, vol 2 Ante-Nicene Fathers, p.513
Origen ad 185-254 taught that the creation days were in no way 24 hour days - Origin "Against Celsus" Book VI, Chapt LXI, ante-nicene fathers 4:601

Again, none of these sources are using yom outside the experience and imagination of their contemporaries. Four billion years is a radical period of time. Was there any unit of time used then where six of them would add up to four billion, or even millions and millions?

But there's a bigger problem here. To the extent that you show the Bible was written vaguely enough that any length of creation is not ruled out, you destroy any possibility of a literal meaning. What does it mean to accept the Bible as literal truth of God when he speaks only in generalities or poetic metaphor? Both six day literalists and people such as yourself who say it might mean four billion years are using scripture to support your positions. It's absurd to say there is a single, clear meaning when even literalist creationists can be four billion years apart. And it is crazy to have to distinguish between six day literalists, and six means eons literalists.

Of course you are interpreting the Bible, not reciting an indisputable meaning.

Biblical literalism does not remove human interpretation from the process. It is a rhetorical claim of authority for your version -- an authority that is stated, not established.

You have clearly shown that yom has multiple meanings depending on the context. The context in Genesis is a seven unit period of time with the seventh being a day of rest. That's a week. I have to side with Ken Ham on what is the fairest translation of Genesis.

And why would God need to rest on the seventh day when he's already been working for 3.99999 billion years? Seems like he could go eternity without a break. Didn't he already go nine billion years creating the universe before even getting to earth? And why would it take him four billion years to create earth, when the entire rest of the stupendously huge universe took just nine? Trying to make the Bible correspond to modern scientific data will drive you batty.

That is so, so, . . . delicious. A proponent of literalism distancing himself from literalists.

What's delicious is you not understanding the basics of what the word
literal in this context even means.

Again. When a word has different meanings within it's semantic range, considering one meaning over another doesn't mean you aren't taking a passage literally. How difficult is that to comprehend?

BTW. I don't consider myself "a proponent of (Biblical) literalism" because so many people out there (looks like yourself included) don't even know what that concept entails.

Indeed. What does it mean? Maybe you should actually seek to understand the answer to that question instead of assuming that you already know it, and before you start constructing all sorts of arguments built around that faulty understanding.

Or you can just charge ahead blindly and joint team MB.

My point was that when statements are vague and flexible there cannot possibly be a literal, single meaning. If you disagree with that please explain.

It is true that if a statement is vague, then there may be multiple interpretations of that statement. However, it's also true that there can still be a singular intended meaning of the statement.

The fact that it may be difficult to parse a specific meaning does not mean that there isn't a literal truth intended by the statement. This is not particular to Christian literalism. It's a fact of language and communication.

Edit time expired, here's the post to read:

My point was that when statements are vague and flexible there cannot possibly be a literal, single meaning. If you disagree with that please explain.

Please do explain how you are using the word "literal."

With the phrase "I could eat a horse," there is a common consensus of what that means literally. The literal meaning does not have a "range" down to a 2 oz chocolate horse.

The phrase "It took six units of time to grow the pumpkin" has a literal meaning, but it gives absolutely no information about the length of time being alleged. It is vacuous. We have no way of determining if the author's claim comports with the natural growing season of squash. And that is the exercise, no? To determine if a patent interpretation of Genesis violates the four billion year age of the Earth.

A literal meaning, by common usage, has to be clear and immediately recognizable. If six yom can mean an immense length of time that no one back then would contemplate, then it is not being used literally. It is a very liberal interpretation.

Biblical literalism quickly devolves into word games. It is an oxymoron because you cannot escape interpretation because you aren't the mind of God. It is not even a logically valid discussion.

BTW, "abomination" is a far trickier concept than units of time, so you have no firm basis for concluding God has problem with gays. The range of literal meanings of the word easily includes teasing or joshing. If some kids name their snowman "Abominable," the literal meaning is that they are being cute. Once you allow multiple "literal" meanings the word stops being literal and becomes interpretation. So if six yom can mean four billion, you actually have a valid way to stop hating on the gays and offending respectable company. ("Hating" here has a range of meanings, that can include mild disapproval, or accepting them as people while recognizing that they are going to Hell, so I am not smearing you as a homophobe since the word "hate" is actually too vague to have actionable meaning.)

The word "literal" is used to claim that the intended meaning is clear and authoritative. I agree that the gap between intent and reception is a problem of language. But the whole point of claiming there is a literal meaning is to escape (seemingly) that problem. Literalists are saying that they are right because they take the Bible literally rather than interpreting. If they then say there are multiple literal meanings, they are using the word wrong.

Can you point to someone saying that "literal" means that the intended meaning is "clear and authoritative"?

I'm not really familiar with people making the argument that literalism implies the absence of interpretation. Can you show me some examples of this?

If someone really is making this argument, it would be true that they're using the word wrong. One sentence can have two distinct literal meanings depending on the context in which the phrase is found. Why? Because context carries meaning that words don't.

But again, I don't actually know anyone who makes that specific argument. I can be shown wrong on that observation.

I remember an old episode of the original Star Trek television show in which a creature of some sort leaves a printed message for Captain Kirk and friends that reads "No kill I." Kirk's buddies were trying to figure out if the creature was trying to say that it wouldn't kill Kirk and his comrades, or whether the creature was begging Kirk not to kill it. While from Kirk's perspective there was ambiguity, from the creature's perspective the message was crystal clear.

That a statement seems vague to the interpreter doesn't necessarily mean that there is no specific intended meaning. (Although it probably does mean that it will take some effort to figure out what the intended meaning is.)

As I suggested in an earlier post, theoretically two Christians could both be "literalists" and disagree on the meaning of yom in the context of Genesis 1.

In short, a literal meaning doesn't necessarily imply a perspicuous meaning.

+1

I know that Ken Ham is a literalist and I also believe that Hugh Ross is a literalist, yet Ham is a YEC while Ross is not.

Maybe this can help clear things up.

Why do people choose to be Biblical literalists? How is that approach useful?

If literalism is full of interpretation, how is that approach distinct from someone who says God is speaking in parables?

Asking me for examples of someone claiming literalism avoids interpretation is rather like demanding a quote that people are against pushing down old ladies. It is so well understood no one has to say it.

Of course two literalists will have a different interpretation. The whole stance is flawed. But the objective of the literalists is to know the mind of God. They think their approach is right (authoritative) or they would not do it. That's a curious thing do ask an example of.

Thanks for expanding my vocab perspicuously. But isn't the point of a literal reading to make things clearer? To make perspicuous that which is ambiguous?

The conversation is (slowly) getting there.

Can you point to some source that makes this claim about literalism?

Fundamentally, you're taking the Mightybooshian approach of declaring that X means Y, and there are people telling you that it doesn't. And unless you can find a clear source that the purpose of literalism is to make things clear and unambiguous (or authoritative or any other word you've used in this context), you're really just speculating off the top of your head on something you know little about.

I find it preposterous to suggest that a literal approach is not meant to clarify the voice of God. If it is for something else, please explain.

Literalism is always part of a discussion about the true meaning and accuracy of the Bible. Do I need a quote to show that discussion of syntax is a way to describe how languages express meaning? The underlying discussion here is whether Genesis contradicts scientific measures of Earth's age. We do that by seeking answers in Genesis. Determining meaning is the whole point of the exercise.

This parallel's the debate over whether the Bible was written by men as what they think God means, or whether He controlled the content, like when Gabriel whispered the Koran into Muhammad's ear. They are both strategies for arriving at the best meaning, no?

I believe that this is a false dichotomy. I am a literalist, and I also know that Jesus often spoke in parables. The literalist is not saying that the Bible is free from parables, metaphors, and even occasional hyperbole. When Jesus referred to himself as "the vine" literalists don't believe that He soon started sprouting leaves.

When I finally get around to writing my "opening argument" post ITT, I will discuss this in more detail. I will also detail why I believe the literalist approach is "useful." Stay tuned!

I don't know of anyone who is a literalist who believes that literalism avoids interpretation.

While I am open the possibility that the "whole stance is flawed", I don't believe that any flaw will be based on the fact that multiple interpretations are possible.

In general I believe that the literalist approach typically makes things clearer, but that doesn't completely remove the necessity of interpretation.