• paddirn@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Granted, it’s just a fictional book we’re talking about, but it does start off with:

    And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. [Genesis 1:3-5 ESV]

    So, within the fiction of the book, there was some sort of other light created before the Sun, doesn’t really make sense that there would be words for day/night/morning before the Sun existed, but maybe there was a temporary light and that created day cycles, whatever. Nitpicking the bible about literal interpretations of things in Genesis seems almost pointless though. It’s stuff that’s easy to dance around and can be hand-waved away.

    The bible is probably supposed to be interpreted metaphorically in alot of parts, so pointing out semantic things like this is the equivalent of responding to a long political post with

    “You’re”

    As if pointing out a single grammatical flaw somehow destroys their entire argument. This was probably meant to be fluff, just someone speaking poetically about an event that nobody would ever know anything about anyways.

    • Batman@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Also there is a an antiquated meaning of day which just means a period of time.

      The Hebrew word yom translated into the English “day” can mean more than one thing. It can refer to the 24-hour period of time that it takes for the earth to rotate on its axis (e.g., “there are 24 hours in a day”). It can refer to the period of daylight between dawn and dusk (e.g., “it gets pretty hot during the day but it cools down a bit at night”). And it can refer to an unspecified period of time (e.g., “back in my grandfather’s day . . .”).

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      So, within the fiction of the book, there was some sort of other light created before the Sun

      Ah, the Silmarillion.

    • Sordid@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      just someone speaking poetically about an event that nobody would ever know anything about anyways

      Kinda makes me wonder whether he’d feel foolish about what he wrote if he were still alive today and had modern scientific knowledge.

    • ghterve@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      As if pointing out a single grammatical flaw somehow destroys their entire argument

      That’s not what that means. That means the person responding cared so little about what they had to say that they are completely ignoring it. It is an insult in the form of disrespect.

      • paddirn@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Go bæclinga hwonne tîma +nðh ðêah−hwæðere cwyldtîd Old Englisc spellung sêman incorrect, ðêah nêan cynerôf palster wiðæftan stund ðêah was ðone as “correct” Englisc. In ðone as tôweardnes, what is ðrêagan today lôgian w¯ære ungelîclic Englisc.

        • smeenz@lemmy.nz
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          3 months ago

          As far as I can tell, we’re not speaking in old English in this thread. Well, I suppose you are, but not in the original comment.

          With that argument, I could just as easily say you didn’t spell your words correctly in the original Greek, or Latin, or Etruscan.