| Richard, I get the parallelism. What I don't get is why 1.) that parallelism would somehow imply that things didn't actually happen in that way, and 2.) why the parallel organization would take any validity away from the time references. I'll go ahead and grant you the ANE parallels as well. So what? Does the fact that something works as literature mean it can't possibly reflect the facts? Let's take another example. In the account of the plagues in Egypt, the polemic is a lot more obvious, because the Bible comes right out and says that God triumphed over the gods of the Egyptians. So does the Exodus narrative show that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is real and the fables of the Egyptians are vanity? Certainly it does: but the Exodus narrative shows that because it faithfully records the Exodus events.
I understand that you're saying that the Creation account has a literary, a theological, a polemical purpose; so does the book of Chronicles: so do the Gospels. Why would this mean that the days are not normal days?
By the way, on the fourth day, the lights are created to rule the divisions that have already been created between night and day. It doesn't sound like it's presenting a radical change: it's just appointing official light-bearers to maintain the status quo. |