My issue with all this lies in the question, Can a God you can’t communicate the real truth about creation actually be powerful enough raise a man from the grave after 3 days. Maybe I am just dense, but it seems to me that such an incompetent God would also be incompetent to fix a dead body after 3 days of rot. This is why the YECs are correct about this chain of logic, but grossly and dangerously wrong in selling their false science. But I feel the same about a position that merely agrees with the atheist criticism of the Bible, that it is utterly devoid of anything relating to the reality of this universe–which God supposedly created. If the creation account can’t be made to match reality, then can the resurrection be said to be firmly established when all we have to verify that event is the statements by maybe 12 or 13 people.who were not highly educated… (no we don’t have the statements of the 500 they didn’t write anything down)
Experiences are not a firm enough foundation upon which to base one’s metaphysical future. Humans have seen all sorts of vision throughout history, from spirit guides to the lords of the universe. With only experience, one can make any kind of argument one wishes to. and there are all kinds of experiences. One South American tribe believes this shows reality and what we live in is not reality. Remember, All of our perceptions of the external world are from firings of the nerves in our brains. What if such drugs, instead of giving a hallucination, actually enhance our perception?
“These specialists called ‘shamans’ by anthropologists, are recognized by the Jivaro as being of two types: bewitching shamans or curing shamans. Both kinds take a hallucinogenic drink, whose Jivaro name is natema, in order to enter the supernatural world. This brew, commonly called Yage, or Yaje, in Colombia, Ayahuasca (Inca 'vine of the dead) in Ecuador and Peru, and caapi in Brazil, is prepared from segments of a species of the vine Banisteriopsis, a genus belonging to the Malpighiaceae. The Jivaro boil it with the leaves of a similar vine, which probably is also a species of Banisteriopsis, to produce a tea that contains the powerful hallucinogenic alkaloids harmaline, harmine, d-tetrahydroharmine, and quite possibly dimethyl-tryptamine (DMT). These compouds have chemical structures and effects similar, but not identical, to LSD, mescaline of the peyote cactus, and psilosybin of the psychotropic Mexican mushroom.
When I first undertook research among the Jivaro in 1956-57, I did not fully appreciate the psychological impact of the Banisteriopsis drink upon the native view of reality, but in 1961 I had occasion to drink the hallucinogen in the course of field work with another Upper Amazon Basin tribe. For several hours after drinking the brew, I found myself, although awake, in a world literally beyond my wildest dreams. I met bird-headed people, as well as dragon-like creatures who explained that they were the true gods of this world. I enlisted the services of other spirit helpers in attempting to fly through the far reaches of the Galaxy. Transported into a trance where the supernatural seemed natural, I realized that anthropologists, including myself, had profoundly underestimated the importance of the drug in affecting native ideology.” Michael J. Harner, “The Sound of Rushing Water,” Natural History (June-July 1968), pp 28-33, in David Hicks, editor, Ritual & Belief, Boston: Ritual and Belief, p. 143
Can one really say this experience is invalid? One can only do this by having a priori decided that it is invalid. There is no way to verify or refute the claim that the bird heads and dragons are not the real rulers of this universe. Experience is useless.
The semantics of yom are irrelevant to whether the passage overall has an intended figurative meaning. I won’t re-argue that thesis here, but that is my (well-supported elsewhere) position.