"The message here is, I think, obvious. The Bible is the literal truth only when it's convenient and doesn't conflict with overwhelming evidence. In my view, this invalidates the core of the anti-evolutionary movement in its entirety. If the Bible is open to interpretation from time to time, then it is open to interpretation at any time. If the Bible is occasionally poetic, then it is possibly poetic at any time -- even on the first page, even on the last page, even on every page."
He doesn't cite any source to substantiate his cartoon caricature of Biblical hermeneutics and scholarship. However, his his own rule of interpretation apparently requires one to ignore the context and type of the literature in question when necessary to maintain the pretense that the Bible doesn't make sense or is inaccurate in some scientific way. His logic is that because some of the Bible is poetic all of it can possibly be poetic, with the exception that Hebrew poetic literature should not be interpreted as poetry, and ordinary phenomenological language and idiomatic expressions ought always be interpreted anachronistically in a modern, "progressive" Western, hyper-literal sense where such interpretations are useful for discrediting the Bible. Thus:
means that "sunrise" and "sunset" are proof that the Bible is inaccurate scientifically.Psalms 19:4-6
yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.Ecclesiastes 1:5
The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
Mr. Elert has apparently never heard of phenomenological language:
Almanac
Key: T = Trace of precipitation; MM = data not available
June 18, 2009 Normal high: 86° Record high: 100° (1953) Normal low: 67° Record low: 52° (1961) Sunrise : 5:35 AM Moon Rise: 1:53 AM Sunset: 8:28 PM Moon Set: 4:09 PM Complete weather almanac Detailed History and Climate
Cordially,