There's no conceivable leap of logic that'd enable you to interpret that verse as justifying counting by powers of ten.
Yet when you do all of the 'days' fit quite well into the Ge:1 version of the beginning. If 4BYA was the end of day 1 then 40BYA was the beginning of the process that resulted in things existing as they did at the 4B year mark. That still leaves the explosion at 14BYA mark there for the creation of the heaven. If our sun began to cast light 4BYA what was happening for the previous 10B years? Is our sun a first generation heavenly body or is it 2nd generation? Having it take 3.6B years just to go from the first day/night until water could be found in liquid and vapor form compared to the length of time for cattle to be reality, maybe 400,000 years for todays living animals.
You've just come up with an after the fact rationalization to make the numbers come out close to what modern science says they are.
But look how easy it was to do that, check out any other version and they introduce all sorts of magical math or language changes to make their version look halfway plausible, and it falls well short of that if you examine it closely.
If the powers of ten argument hadn't worked you'd just have come up with something else, same as theologians did when science began to show the earth could not possibly be as young as the Bible seemed to suggest.
How about the additions I have made to that since we last covered it. If there are 3 levels to 'heaven' then there is also '3 timezones'.
Using some info from Ge:1 we are told the first heaven is from the surface of the earth or liquid water and it extends upward to the height of the clouds of today. Back then it was the height birds could fly. Time in that zone was only established by the end of the 4th day (4,000,000 years ago) and at that time the rotational speed of the earth around itself and the relationship with the moon and sun created time as we know it today in out 24hour/day world. Time measure in the 2nd heaven is the Moon and past that and in that zone 1 day is considered to be 1,000 years of the time is the 1st zone. Adam was told by God he would die the same day he sinned, Adam died at 930 years so that was 70 years short of 1 day. Earth was under the law given in Re:21 because that is the law Angels have always been under. The 10 Commandments was when that law changed and it required the extermination of every 6 fingered giant around. That was the first task after the 40 years in the desert. That same period of telling time comes back for the 1,000 year reign and it is said to be equal to 1 day with God. Since the new earth includes the area the 2nd heaven covers we will explore this current universe during eternity which start on the 3rd day. The 2nd day is the Great White Throne and that takes place in the 3rd heaven, where 1 day will be 10,000 of our years.
Now take that data and apply it to Zec:14 and the yearly feasts that the Nations attend. Once the expansion is in progress the feast of the tabernacle would not be every 360 days but once every 360,000 years and last for 1/10 of that time. Angels that stay in the 3rd heaven would meet once every 36M years.
That's where the original argument that the days of creation did not really mean literal 24 hour days, but meant instead some unspecified longer period, came from.
The Bible could also be used to tell us how long we have before the sun does what the verse below describes in this world without god it works out to be about 3.6B years from today, give or take a few hours lol.
Isa:51:6:
Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
and look upon the earth beneath:
for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke,
and the earth shall wax old like a garment,
and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner:
but my salvation shall be for ever,
and my righteousness shall not be abolished.
Yes, you've certainly demonstrated that beyond any doubt, but the chances that you're right are as close to zero as makes no practical difference.
You base that on the false assumption that if there was some sort of 'logical way to understand the bible' you would have already figured it out yourself. Reading the preface of the 1611KJV leaves you with the impression that the translators who would have lived the work 24/7 for the whole time were quite impressed with the Scriptures and their 'tip' is there are no shortcuts better than just reading it all. (in our case all the end time prophecies is the core of the discussions)
What you're really doing is seeing patterns that aren't real, finding significance in coincidences, and retrofitting data to suit what you long ago decided must be true.
My 'pattern' follows the same path every time, here are two examples.
M't:26:55:
In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes,
Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me?
I sat daily with you teaching in the temple,
and ye laid no hold on me.
M't:26:56:
But all this was done,
that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.
Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
Zec:13:7:
Awake,
O sword,
against my shepherd,
and against the man that is my fellow,
saith the LORD of hosts:
smite the shepherd,
and the sheep shall be scattered:
and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
The 'little ones' are the Gentile Nations and Acts:10 was when they were'created' and the day the 7th trump sounds is the day the judgment comes down on them.
M't:25:31:
When the Son of man shall come in his glory,
and all the holy angels with him,
then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
M't:25:32:
And before him shall be gathered all nations:
and he shall separate them one from another,
as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
M't:25:33:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand,
but the goats on the left.
That fits together whether you like it or not, so does this next one.
M't:2:16:
Then Herod,
when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men,
was exceeding wroth,
and sent forth,
and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem,
and in all the coasts thereof,
from two years old and under,
according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.
M't:2:17:
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet,
saying,
M't:2:18:
In Rama was there a voice heard,
lamentation,
and weeping,
and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
and would not be comforted,
because they are not.
Jer:31:15:
Thus saith the LORD;
A voice was heard in Ramah,
lamentation,
and bitter weeping;
Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children,
because they were not.
Jer:31:16:
Thus saith the LORD;
Refrain thy voice from weeping,
and thine eyes from tears:
for thy work shall be rewarded,
saith the LORD;
and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
Jer:31:17:
And there is hope in thine end,
saith the LORD,
that thy children shall come again to their own border.
Confirmation that far back that resurrection from the grave is part of the deal with God. What it also does is define that death is the land of the enemy rather than it being any/all Gentile Nations for the Jews. I'm not convinced they all hold that view. Evangelicans are of the correct path just as far so it isn't a unique flaw in people.
It's clear from modern neuroscience that those are very common errors in perception and reasoning the human mind is very good at making, it has evolved to preferentially make certain kinds of errors because they have survival value.
Sooner or later if 'reasonable explanations' can be used (like the snow not water argument) then how many such incidents does it take before the books stands out as having too much accurate information for it's time? Even Vegas changes the odds as new information becomes available. Never with the Bible though .....
Is that rustle in the grass an antelope or a big predator? Far safer to go with the false positive, behave as if it's a lion when it's not, than go with the false negative, assume it's an antelope when it's really a lion.
The only thing in danger of being eaten is your ego.
In the former case you miss lunch, in the latter you die.
If the Scriptures are supposed to make you a bit wiser about who God is and what is going on (if He exists) why can you not put together even some of the 'easier puzzles'? That's not an insult but you would rather argue against an obvious valid point (that allows me to be sane and have a belief in the words in the Bible) than just say something like 'ok, but what does that affect in the rset of the story'. If the story can even be continued does that rule out it being that way by original design?
An oversimplified example perhaps, but the fact remains, we are far more likely to see patterns that aren't there than to miss one that is, we are heavily biased in favour of finding patterns and that's what you're doing, finding patterns that aren't really there and forcing all the data you have to fit them.
And if the biased view came after seeing some patterns then what? ( a pattern such as 'day of the lord' phrase being meant to include all the references as being applied to one single event rather than 24 separate events over a long period of time) That alone would have been impossible given the era the books were written in
There are better options. Like, the story's not true, it's a didactic myth, or it was cribbed from older traditions, which were similarly not true, or it's about an extensive but still local flood that would have appeared to the parochial people of the time as if *their* whole world was flooded.
From the time of the greatest ice the oceans have risen over 400ft, since most civilizations live near water there should be all sorts of flood stories. The rain water in the Bible would have cause the oceans to rise a whole 5 ft, hardly worth noting. Look at the era before the flood, some 1200 yeas passed from when the garden was in bloom and the Dead Sea being the way it is now. If you take the resurrection of that body of water into a fresh water body of water (Eze:47) does that give us the 'weather norm' for a period in the past and evaporation of moisture is how that whole area changed to dust and then mud in a flood.
Why is the fate of the 'sons of God' (Ge:6) never part of the discussion. Immortal being would not be bothered by water at all, they were 'put away into the Pit', Enoch propheciesed about it and Mosed referenced it as an historical event.
Jude:1:14:
And Enoch also,
the seventh from Adam,
prophesied of these,
saying, Behold,
the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
De:33:2:
And he said,
The LORD came from Sinai,
and rose up from Seir unto them;
he shined forth from mount Paran,
and he came with ten thousands of saints:
from his right hand went a fiery law for them.
All three of those could be true, and geology can even point to some events that might be the origin of such a folk memory, like the opening of the Bosporus and the Mediterranean flooding in to the Black Sea, or the opening of the Bab el Mandeb and the Indian Ocean flooding into the Red Sea.
There is also another theory that is still different. If the way of keeping time is based on the 1,000 years/day thing then the times give for the flood has to be adjusted. a 360 day years would be 360,000 years. Prophesied about 100 years before the event, 40 days of rain is 40,000 years for the ice to form to a depth of 1500 cubits on the high hills and mountain tops, 150,000 yeas after that the tops of the mountains could be seen and a full year later (360,000 years) things were 'back to normal',
What's certainly not true is that there was a global flood that drowned the whole planet at any time during the existence of humans on it, there would be clear and unmistakeable evidence of it all over the world.
Didn't we enter the age of belief without proof about the time Thomas had that finger issue with the glorified body of Jesus?
Unless you're going to invoke the miraculous of course, in which case evidence becomes irrelevant, you can just claim god cleaned up after it so as not to leave any evidence.
Did a pretty through job right, except for the book, how could He have missed that big piece of physical evidense
"I have no idea where to start. Always thought that Joseph was Jesus' dad, or the magician was."
Let's start with the topic and the audience, LG. Why speak of Messiah's parentage to Pharisees?
Before Christ, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles was Saul, a fire-breathing Pharisee. Here is how he described himself BC: "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless." (Philippians 3:5-6 NIV)
Pharisees prided themselves in their Hebrew inheritance, imagining that this afforded them special righteousness as physical descendants of the patriarchs, including David. Messiah's lineage was therefore a very important personal matter to them.
Anywhere works, the Bible is only so big so the options of what it means does have a limit.
That is why the story about the rich man and the beggar Lazarus has the rich man representing (doubting) Jews (about who Jesus was) The conversion of Saul was to show how easily a conversion is when directed by God. Can you imagine Saul getting the copy of the Gospel that has the lord's prayer in it and when Sal was reading it he was whispering the actual words and thet is how he was the one 'chosen'. That would seem to hold some logic compared to him being the end result of the roll of a dice.
