RE: Were the seven days of creation in Genesis seven twenty four hour periods? - Where do these notions originate?
Nice art. Also this is what ive always felt about the genesis story. And as we learn more about evolution it makes more and more sense. Given dinosaurs are early precursors to, and eventually evolved into, birds one could poetically describe the time of dinosaurs, before the rise of mammals, as the day of birds and fish. Then later more advanced creatures evolved and finally man shows up. If you flip the genders around and conceive that Eve was created first and Adam was a product of her the whole rib metaphor makes more sense given we start as female and then later become male. Or consider that each member of Adam and Eve's family wasnt a single individual but a certain breeding or genetic grouping it again makes more sense. The big bang could be described as "let there be light!" The formation of the planets could be "separating the waters from the waters" after all how would you describe such cosmic events to the ancients?
Im no longer Christian but I still feel one has to view scripture with a certain poetic and metaphoric lense.
The dinosaurs birds descend from were land animals. Genesis says land animals came after birds.
Correct, I will be discussing this in more detail in the follow up
I would be more interested to see your answer to my other post, which recounts the first few verses in Genesis where yom is defined. Light is separated from darkness, light is named day (yom) and darkness is named night. This is a literal day, is it not? It is said to have an evening and a morning as well.
and where is the afternoon... but we will get there