Understanding the Biblical Creation account as literal versus non-literal.

[EarlyActs]

How did God separate “light from darkness” and have a “first day” prior to the creation of a sun and rotating earth? What do the concepts of day and night mean prior to an earth and sun?

Are we SURE that was intended to be 100% literal and was not making some other more important point than “Astronomy and Planetology for dummies”?

If a person cannot learn Hebrew (either by time needed or by aptitude with a R to L system), they should at least learn to work in a transliteration (sometimes called an interlinear) so that word choice can be observed.

This will avoid being trite and literal because of things that emerge about the heaven-firmament, the local lights, the type of light on Day 1, etc.

Day 1 was the arrival of starlight, and Sirius' light is the first candidate for this. If you were to stop all light movement in the universe, and then resume it, Sirius' light would show first, etc.

 

[Josheb]

If a person cannot learn Hebrew (either by time needed or by aptitude with a R to L system), they should at least learn to work in a transliteration (sometimes called an interlinear) so that word choice can be observed.

This will avoid being trite and literal because of things that emerge about the heaven-firmament, the local lights, the type of light on Day 1, etc. Day 1 was the arrival of starlight, and Sirius' light is the first candidate for this. If you were to stop all light movement in the universe, and then resume it, Sirius' light would show first, etc.

Am I to understand that to mean light from Sirius (which is 8 light-years away) reaches the earth before our sun (which is only 8 light-minutes away), or do you mean the other stars besides the sun?

Do you think the ancient Hebrews (those living during the exodus or earlier) understood that?

 

[EarlyActs]

If a person cannot learn Hebrew (either by time needed or by aptitude with a R to L system), they should at least learn to work in a transliteration (sometimes called an interlinear) so that word choice can be observed.

This will avoid being trite and literal because of things that emerge about the heaven-firmament, the local lights, the type of light on Day 1, etc.

Day 1 was the arrival of starlight, and Sirius' light is the first candidate for this. If you were to stop all light movement in the universe, and then resume it, Sirius' light would show first, etc.

Corr: to that last line: If were to stop it, then resume from each source in its location, Sirius'...