Define literal vs non-literal.

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There are many occasions when reading through the threads here that I come across this sentence:
"Well that's obviously not to be taken literally - it was just a dream/song/interpretation that had at the time"

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When reading the bible, what are the rules around what is to be taken literally, and what is not?

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Are there any rules?

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Yes, there are rules of interpretation. These rules basically say to pay attention to the grammatical details in the original language, the literary context of the passage, and the historical and cultural context in which the passage was first written. Many books have been written on biblical hermeneutics (the study of biblical interpretation), and all Bible colleges and seminaries teach courses on hermeneutics.

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More evidence: Mark 13:19
19 For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the creation which God created until this time, nor ever shall be.

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Notice it states the beginning of creation. This tribulation occured on the sixth day. If Genesis refers to billions of years, it would be the END of creation. If it refers to 24 hour days, it most certainly is the beginning of creation.

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I have never understood how YECs can twist words like this with a straight face. Whether one views the Creation as 6 literal days or as 6 long periods, man was created on Day 6, and then God ceased from His work of creating. No matter how you cut it, man was created at the END of the creation period, not at the beginning.The phrase "the beginning of creation" in the NT is NOT trying to distinguish between beginning, middle, or end of the creation period. Rather, the phrase is trying to communicate that "it has always been this way." This is clear from the context of each passage.

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Romans 8:19-23 (English Standard Version)
19For the creation waits with eager longing for(A) the revealing of the sons of God. 20For the creation(B) was subjected to futility, not willingly, but(C) because of him who subjected it, in hope 21that(D) the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22For we know that(E) the whole creation(F) has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have(G) the firstfruits of the Spirit,(H) groan inwardly as(I) we wait eagerly for adoption as sons,(J) the redemption of our bodies.

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Obviously creation does not mean just those six days, but from the very beginning to now.

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According to your interpretation and argument, then, the creation was "subjected to futility" and in "bondage to corruption" from the very beginning, i.e. before Adam and Eve sinned, and before they were created. I don't think you'll find many YECs who want to interpret it this way!

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Pay attention!
The verse does not say there was evening to morning. It says there was evening and there was morning. I have a morning and an evening every day.

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The usage we are discussing is referring to what we currently call a 24 hour day.

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I can't believe you two are still squawking over this. You're not moving the discussion forward.

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In the context of the sentence it is referring to a 24 hour day. The story of A&E has no bearing on the usage in the creation verses.

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You aren't reading the verse literally and reading it non-literally doesn't mean you get to make a context and usage.

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But according to the story, the sun, moon, and stars do not appear until Day 4. And the text tells us WHY they appear: one of their purposes is to "be signs to indicate seasons and days and years" (Gen 1:14, NET). God saw a need for chronometers, so He created the sun, moon, and stars for this purpose. Until these chronometers appear, there is no sense in talking about length of time, since there is nothing by which to measure time. Thus I would argue from the text that the first three "days" are indefinite in length. They cannot be measured.

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The writer can only write what he knows. He knows there is an evening and a morning each day. The usage in the verse is consistent with a 24 hour day. Putting the cart before the horse doesn't change the meaning presented by the sentence.

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Agreed--the usage is consistent with a 24-hour day.

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Evening (`ereb) means night, sunset.

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Morning (boqer) means end of night, coming of daylight.

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The author is making it clear he is speaking of a normal 24 hour day. Where he thought the light was coming from, we don't know. It obviously isn't important to the overall story.

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But the length of the day is not the author's concern. Yes, these are "days" with "evenings" and "mornings," so in that sense they are like normal days. But there were no chronometers by which to measure the lengths of these days, and the author is clear that chronometers did not appear till day 4. One could reasonably argue from this that Days 4-6 must be 24-hour days. But to insist that Days 1-3 must also be 24 hours is to force too much into the text. If there were some way to know the length of Days 1-3, there would be no need for the sun, moon, and stars as chronometers on Day 4.I agree that the text does not address the question of where the light comes from.

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It's not forcing anything on the text. To argue that it wasn't a 24 hour day is actually trying to force our current knowledge onto the text. His audience didn't have our knowledge as far as I know.
It doesn't matter whether chronometers known to man were available on that supposed day in the story. The author is telling his audience it was a regular day. They had an evening and then they had a morning. A day.

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We can't change what the sentence is saying just because we know there couldn't have been light without the sun.

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"Light without the sun" is irrelevant to my argument. Likewise with "our current knowledge." I have not raised either of these issues--my argument rests on the text alone. (Don't confuse me with Peg--my perspective is somewhat different.)According to the Genesis text, there was no way to "indicate seasons and days and years" until Day 4. Hence it is wrong to argue any specific length of time for Days 1-3 from the text. It is wrong to argue that they were instantaneous, it is wrong to argue that they were 24 hours, it is wrong to argue that they were millions of years. The text leaves them indeterminate.

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Your absurdities have nothing to do with literal vs non-literal interpretation. Your absurdities deal with accuracy of what the text is saying and that isn't what this thread is about. Please don't drag it that direction.
It's irrelevant whether the writing meshes with what we know today. It wasn't written for us.

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The point is whether they were speaking literally or figuratively concerning some words.

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If I understand what you're saying, I agree with your approach. We should first try to determine what the text says and then determine what this meant to the original writer. Did he intend it to be literal or figurative? What was he trying to communicate to his original audience?Our current knowledge of how the world works is irrelevant to answering these questions.

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Genesis 1:5 pretty clearly indicates that the day/night cycle was in place and that there were mornings and evenings. There seems to be no need of further markers to note the alternation of light and darkness or any reason to think that the time periods were any different than from now. The markers may provide more precision, but they do not change the actual time periods.

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By my understanding, to the Jews, moonrise denotes the start of the new day. Thus without the moon there is no way to know precisely when the next day starts. Likewise, the use of sundials was known, which represents a method of time-telling which would be impossible if there were merely a sunless alternation of light and dark (and even without a sundial the position of the sun in the sky is of use here).

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Thus it seems far more likely to me that Genesis 1:14 simply refers to markers to better enable measurement of time, rather than any fundamental change in the time period of a day. The day/night alternation is set up well before then and there is nothing to suggest any actual change in that period at all - certainly not from millions of years down to twenty-four hours !

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Perhaps. But with your reading, I see no compelling need for markers to "indicate seasons and days and years." These could be counted from the day/night cycles.

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Yes, according to the story, there were no visual indicators of seasons, days and years on that first day; but the person writing the story understood seasons, days, and years. He is telling his audience it was a regular day. He uses the same phrase before the chronometers and after the chronometers. It may have been devoid of the sun, moon, and stars the people were used to, but the author told his audience it was a regular day. They understood evening and morning. They understood the length of night and day. There is nothing in the text we have that told them that the time was longer or shorter (or unknown) than a day in their time.

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Perhaps. My main point is that we should not stress the length of the Days, especially the first 3. Their length was not the concern of the author, and I believe the text leaves the length of the first three indeterminate. Modern attempts to define the length of the days distract us from the main message of the account.

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Remember, according to the Documentary Hypothesis, Genesis 1 is written by the Priestly writer (Composed c. 550-400 BCE). This is the same writer that supposedly wrote the Sabbath commandments. This creation story is the setup for the Sabbath law in the Priestly version of Exodus (20:11).

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I wholeheartedly agree that the account is a setup for the Sabbath. (Note the number of words in Genesis 1:1, for example.)Just to let you know where I'm coming from: I see problems with an exilic date for Gen 1, and believe an earlier Mosaic authorship fits the account better. A detailed discussion of the pros and cons for each hypothesis would take us off-topic, so I suggest we just continue to speak from from our own respective positions, realizing that they are different.

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Literal usage of the word yom would be sunrise to sunset or from sunset to sunset.

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There is nothing in the text to suggest a figurative use of the word "yom" in Genesis 1:5.

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However, the Genesis 1 account contains a lot of symbolism and metaphor. There are some literary hints suggesting that the entire account of Gen 1 may be figurative or metaphorical. What is meant by "yom" being "literal" or "figurative" if the entire story is metaphorical?

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My main point is that we should not stress the length of the Days, especially the first 3. Their length was not the concern of the author, and I believe the text leaves the length of the first three indeterminate.

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Why then does the author mention evening and morning for each corresponding day if it were unimportant?

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In the formula, the evening and morning mark the end of the day. They say nothing about the length of the day--they only say that each day had a beginning and an end.

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Perhaps. But with your reading, I see no compelling need for markers to "indicate seasons and days and years." These could be counted from the day/night cycles.

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Granted that they might be, but is it not the case that astronomical observations were used as seasonal markers in the ancient Middle East ?

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Yes, I believe this is true. But the light-bearers are also to indicate "days", implying that a "day" was ill-defined before Day 4.

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However, the Genesis 1 account contains a lot of symbolism and metaphor. There are some literary hints suggesting that the entire account of Gen 1 may be figurative or metaphorical. What is meant by "yom" being "literal" or "figurative" if the entire story is metaphorical?

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Please point out the metaphors and symbolism you feel impacts the meaning of yom in the sentences.
As I said, it is a just-so-type-story. That doesn't mean a regular day isn't a regular day in the story.

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Perhaps the author meant the story to be an extended metaphor, which he did not believe was literal. (Perhaps your "just-so-type-story" implies this?) In this case, would we describe the days as literal or figurative? I suppose you could say that they are literal in the story but that they are not literal history in the mind of the author. That's why I asked the question that I did.The literary structure of the account has been much discussed, especially by advocates of the Framework view. In verse 2, the earth is "formless and empty", i.e. it exists but has no "forms" and these missing forms are empty. So God takes the first three days to establish "forms" and the second three days to "fill" these "forms." Or this can be viewed as God establishing "realms" and "rulers", or "habitations" and "inhabitants". The parallels are clear and striking:Day 1: light --- Day 4: light-bearers
Day 2: sky and sea --- Day 5: birds and fish
Day 3a: dry land --- Day 6a: land animals
Day 3b: vegetation --- Day 6a: man (intended to live in a garden)This suggests that the order presented in Gen 1 is topical, not chronological. It further suggests that the "Days" may not be literal but may be a literary, metaphorical device used to present this topical arrangement.

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I have already told you, every single time evening/morning are used in scripture, it refers to a single 24 hour day.

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Anytime a number precedes YOM, it refers to a 24 hour day.

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Yes, you and others have made these false claims many times. Repeating falsehoods does not make them true.Zech 14:7 uses the identical construction to Genesis 1:5, "yom echad" ("one day" or "day one") but in context seems to be talking about an extended period, the day of the Lord. Note that it also speaks of the "evening" of this "day."

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I have also give you this: Mark 10:6 (NKJV)
6 But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’

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This only works if its a literal 24 hour day, not billions of years.

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No, as I have already explained, the way you try to read this verse is nonsensical and non-contextual.

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Again, EVENING and MORNING, every single time in scripture are used to denote a 24 hour day.

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Every time a number precedes YOM, it refers to a 24 hour day.

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Still false, no matter how many times you repeat it.

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Anytime a number precedes YOM, it refers to a 24 hour day.

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5 You will flee by my mountain valley, for it will extend to Azel. You will flee as you fled from the earthquake [a] in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
On that day there will be no light, no cold or frost. 7 It will be a unique day, without daytime or nighttimea day known to the LORD. When evening comes, there will be light.

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Not sure where you are going with this, it refers to a single day. I find it amazing you state flat out that I am lying, then admit it MAY be saying a long period of time. The context implies a day will arrive....not a long period of time.

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Try using a better translation, or working directly from the Hebrew. If you look a the rest of the chapter, you will see that this is speaking of the "Day of the Lord", not a single 24-hour day.For more information see this paper by Greg Neyman:
http://www.answersincreation.org/word_study_yom.htm