1. The very concept and word "day" (Hebrew yowm) was created by God. It refers to a single light/dark cycle on earth - an ongoing 24-hour cycle that God established on the very first day.
2. Any time the word "day" is accompanied by a number or by evening/morning, it always refers to a literal day.
3. Any time the plural word "days" is used, it always refers to literal days.
4. God explicitly equated the six days in which He created our world with the six days the Israelites were to work before taking a day of rest.
Except it isn't. There were days before the sun and moon...
Yes. There were 3 days before the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. As I pointed out above, a "day" is a light/dark cycle on earth. On day 4 of creation, God created the sun to govern the day and the moon to govern the night. These are not the cause of the day and the night. Nor are they the cause of the light that God created to form the first day - 3 days before the existence of the sun, moon, and stars.
Gen 2:4's 'day' of creation refers to several of the creation days...
Yes. The Hebrew word "yowm" is used in the Bible exactly as the English word "day" is used by us. Its default meaning is a 24-hour light/dark cycle on earth (or the 12-hour daylight portion thereof). It is also used idiomatically to refer to a general period of time.
Gen 2:4 is the idiomatic use. Please reexamine all 4 points that I've listed above, and see if you can refute any of them. Thanks.
Psalm 90:4 also uses day to refer to something other than 24h periods...
Psalm 90:4... A thousand years in your sight are like a
day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.
Please define "day" in that verse.
...the length of the day was independent of the sun when the sun stood still in the sky in Joshua 10:13.
How so? The sun stood still in the sky, and that particular day lasted longer as a result of the sun's inaction. Also, according to Scientism, the sun didn't actually stand still that day. The earth stopped revolving/orbiting. Which is the truth?
"Day" does not necessarily mean 24 hours. And because of passages like Psalm 90:4 it is necessarily the case that "day" does not always refer to 24 hours.
Actually, the word "day" in Ps 90:4 refers to a literal 24-hour day. The point is that God is outside of time as we know it, and doesn't necessarily have to EXPERIENCE our 24-hour light/dark cycles as we do. A thousand years is 365,000 days. The point of Ps 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 is that God could experience a thousand of our years as if they were just one of our 24-hour days (365,000 times FASTER than we do)... or could experience just one of our 24-hour days as if it took a thousand years to pass (365,000 times SLOWER than we do). Neither verse changes the definition of our 24-hour light/dark cycles on earth.
Jocund, see if you can determine the various meanings of "day" in the following...
In the day of Noah, it rained day and night for forty days.
Which refers to an idiomatic general period of time? Which refers to literal 24-hour days? Which refers to the 12-hour daylight portion of a 24-hour day?