But to reason from your point of view, of the different meanings of the word “day” you've chosen what you've termed “a straightforward reading” of literal 24 hrs. though the use of “day” doesn't require that at all.
If those 7 days were 24 hrs., then the 7th. is long over by anyone’s reckoning and Paul's words must mean something else there in Hebrews 4:4,5 and elsewhere.
Now pointing to such may seem to you “exegetical contortions” but Paul wrote under God's inspiration and his words about that 7th. Genesis day do not fit a 24 hr. day long past and completed nor must they given the meaning of “day”.
How long do I think those days were? I don't know since 24 hr. days consist of evening to evening while that 7th. day is not spoken as ending and the other six went from evening to morning not evening to evening.
In none of my comments have I appealed to the ‘fallible science of old-agers’ (using words like that will have AARP tossing stones) because I don't think the Bible indicates how much time passed between “In the beginning..” and the start of that first day.
What is meant by long ages you'll have to define since I've not used that term in describing the creative day.
I hope that you didn't do that deliberately. The words are "the Evening and the Morning, meaning the portion of darkness and the portion of daylight.
==Well, the words of the apostle Paul are not just the words of mere mortals and his comments about that 7th. day of rest, shabath, is not without relevance to the Genesis account seeing that 7th. day is not said to end
Pauls words in no way alter the Genesis creation account. And the 7th day was the last day of a series. Each of the previous days in the series had a beginning and an end within the space of a normal earth day. It seems to me you are going to great lengths to read something into the Bible that simply isn’t there. What is plainly there is that God created the Universe and everything in it over the course of a time period that corresponds to seven earth days. If long-ages was the meaning God meant to convey, why did He use the word we use for day followed by a reference to a solar evening and morning?
==But to reason from your point of view, of the different meanings of the word “day” you’ve chosen what you’ve termed “a straightforward reading” of literal 24 hrs. though the use of “day” doesn’t require that at all.
The word day in the Bible carries a number of meanings, depending on the context. However, when the word day means something other than a normal earth day it is modified by other time indicators. No such expansive time modifying indicators appear in the Genesis account of Creation Week. In fact, God does just the opposite. He modifies the word day with cardinal and ordinal numbers, followed by evening and morning, to make it absolutely clear that we are not to confuse the time periods involved with expanded or indefinite periods of time.
==If those 7 days were 24 hrs., then the 7th. is long over by anyone’s reckoning and Paul’s words must mean something else there in Hebrews 4:4,5 and elsewhere.
The seventh day of creation is long over, and Paul’s words do mean something else than Hebrews 4:4,5.
==Now pointing to such may seem to you “exegetical contortions” but Paul wrote under God’s inspiration and his words about that 7th. Genesis day do not fit a 24 hr. day long past and completed nor must they given the meaning of “day”.
Nothing in what Paul says in Hebrews 4:4,5 changes the fact that God rested on the 7th day. If I told you that I worked for six days and set aside a specific day of rest from that work on the seventh, and then never worked another day in my life, it does not stand to reason that I am still resting from the six days in question. The seventh day of rest is specifically related to the previous six.