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So Jesus was not tempted for a literal 40 days and 40 nights. Noah wasn't in the ark for a literal 40 days. Moses wasn't on Mt. Sanai for a literal 40 days.

And Noah wasn't on the Ark for a literal 40 days and 40 nights? (Just to finish your question)

My answer is: we don't know. I have said that the phrase is an idiom. I don't think we can say for sure if every time the Bible uses this idiom that it is to be taken literally.

There is a difference between poetic language and literal accounts.

Indeed.

I don't think anyone would think the gospels were poetic and flambouyant in language. They were literal accounts.

But if your language used an idiom to express a certain period of time, even when writing "literally" you would use the idiom. It was the way things were written. This is hard for us to understand, but a writer wouldn't say to himself, "instead of saying he was gone for 32 days, I'll just say 40 days and 40 nights." Rather, he would just naturally express the time in this fashion. It's not an affectation, or a style of writing, it represents how they thought.

I believe Christ will reign on earth as King for a literal 1000 years. It is a prophecy. How accurate is a prophecy if it uses figurative language?

Just as accurate as if it didn't. The problem is not in the use of figurative, idiomatic language, it is in forcing more meaning in to the language than it was meant to convey.

How can you tell it is accurate if the time is indeterminate? it's indeterminate than it could happen at anytime and cease to be a prophecy. Can you show me one prophecy where a period of time is used and that period is NOT literal. I have challenged NATE and vmatt on this and they coudln't answer, so I would like to know if you have one. If you can show me one, than I will give the benefit the doubt based on presedence(sp?).

A whole awfule lot of folks like to make things out of Daniel and the 40 (?) weeks that he prophesies about. None of them consider the weeks to be normal everyday 7 day time periods. They instead reflect different epochs or periods of years or whatever.

I guess since they don't reflect literal weeks the prophesy is not true, eh?

"A whole awfule lot of folks like to make things out of Daniel and the 40 (?) weeks that he prophesies about. None of them consider the weeks to be normal everyday 7 day time periods. They instead reflect different epochs or periods of years or whatever.

I guess since they don't reflect literal weeks the prophesy is not true, eh?"

Those weeks are literal though. The debate is over what the weeks signify, and the general consensus is a period of 7 years. Taking that into account you get an extremely accurate prophecy of Christ, but what about the other prophecy in Daniel. The one that was fulfilled in Daniels lifetime. He had noted through studying the Scripture that the 70 prophecied years of Israel captivity was about to be concluded and he fervently prayed to the Lord concerning this. He obviously understood that the 70 years was literal. So I ask again can you show me one instance in Bible where prophecy concerning a period of time is not literal. Can you show me in the Bible where 40 days and 40 nights is used that is NOT literal?

JM