Featured Type of translation affect meanings , thus doctrine

A day does not necessitate that the sun must be the source of light.
A day consists entirely in the fact of the revolution of the earth on it's axis in relation to a light source a 24 hour period or as set forth in scripture - an evening and morning (the Jewish standard of day - where ours is a morning and evening). This is not metaphorical but literal.

Let me put it this way. Evening and morning define the parameters and are known and noted by setting and rising of light upon the earth. There are other words in the Hebrew that depict long periods of time and are used often. Here is it specific and the structure is not poetic nor apocalyptic, but narrative.

To me - It makes no sense to seek some other sense when common sense makes sense

 

Without the sun there would be no "setting or rising of light upon the Earth." There would only be constant starlight. Constellations would wheel around in the dark sky with no perceptible change in light intensity.


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I think you missed my point. Regardless of if it is the sun or another another source of light like the sun, what makes an evening and morning, is the 24 hr rotation of the earth on it's axis in relation to the stationary source of light, ie. the sun.

 

In creation days 1-3 there is no sun so how could there be a stationary source of light to know evening from morning?

Besides, the Bible says God created the sun to divide the night from the day, to create days and years, and to create seasons. Gen 1:14-16.

 

Gen 1:3 - let there be light and light was. This light determined evening and morning on the earth. It was stationary, because in the rotation of the earth it provided both illumination and darkness.

Did God, from this, make all the other 'lights' in the heavens, it doesn't say but this original light is not mentioned again after the distribution of 'lights' and the creating of the major and minor (sun and moon). However it cannot be moved away from that evening and morning are defined parameters set by the rotation of the earth in conjunction to a light source. This is the main reason it cannot be anything other than a 24 hour period, aside from the narrative view, and context, and consistency of it's contextual usage in relation to light and darkness.

 

No, because Gen 1:14-18 specifically say the sun and moon were created to divide night from day.

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;
15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.
16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,
18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

 

Yes, but this doesn't change the fact that light was already created before the sun, moon, and stars. It doesn't change the fact that evening and morning are based, not on the sun, but on the rotation of the earth on it's axis in relation to light source that causes illumination when the earth faces it and darkness as it turns away. This is a continued usage even to this day. It doesn't have a different meaning now vs. then. There is nothing in the text to show such but consistency of the usage throughout scripture when speaking of both or one or the other is the same through out.

 

What light source is the earth turning away from in creation days 1 through 3 that would divide night into day?

 

The one God created. He said let the be light and there was. The earth was formless and void first and in this much was created, can not the light in the heavens be so to? It says it was created and gave both evening and morning upon the earth and it was the first 'day'.

 

If you translate it as "beginning and end," you take the ambiguity out. A literal "evening and morning" allows the reader to interpret it as a literal statement or a metaphor (an interpretation I disagree with here). In other words, "beginning and end" is more explicit to me than "morning and evening." So "beginning and end" would be a functional equivalence rendering.

 

I don't see how. The Hebrew word for evening (ערב, 'ereb) occurs in 130 verses, always a literal evening as far as I can tell. (Haven't looked at every usage.) The word for morning (בּקר, bôqer) occurs in 189 verses, again as the literal "morning."

Can you give a usage where these words are metaphorical or symbolic?

 

The Daniel 8:26 reference is back to 8:14, where a vision of "300 days" (KJV), which is 'ereb bôqer, or "evenings & mornings." That is literal, so the 8:26 reference is literal also, not figurative.

Have to go. Back online on Monday. Have a great weekend.

 

I'm at MacDonald's right now, so I can answer briefly.

I disagree. As you say, it is plural, "mornings and evenings," so there were 2,300 mornings and 300 evenings in the prophecy. In translation, you can't change a plural to a singular willy-nilly. Interpreters may do that (though it is not valid to do so), but translators may not, not even with the dynamic/functional equivalence method (and I've read a bunch of Eugene Nida's books).

You're still talking about translation, right?