(Barbarian admits to having studied ornithology)
But I'm not an ornithologist.
You'd have no way of knowing, since you don't know anything about it.
Barbarian, earlier:
Tell me about your degrees in ornithology or whatever you think qualifies you to talk about it.
I collect and catalog scientific facts and fiction...
... and can't tell the difference. It's possible, if you're willing to put in the time, to learn about things without formal study. But you clearly haven't done either. As soon as you were asking about my credentials, it became clear that you had none at all.
Barbarian observes:
I merely pointed out that Augustine, like most Christians, understood that Genesis was not a literal history.
If you'd like to learn what the early theologians thought about the issue, you might want to find a copy of Augustine's De Genesi ad Litteram.
In De Civitate Dei Augustine wrote that...
Genesis wasn't a literal history. As I told you. But since you're resisting actually reading it, here's a summary:
"Seven days by our reckoning, after the model of the days of creation, make up a week. By the passage of such weeks time rolls on, and in these weeks one day is constituted by the course of the sun from its rising to its setting; but we must bear in mind that these days indeed recall the days of creation, but without in any way being really similar to them" (ibid., 4:27).
"[A]t least we know that it [the Genesis creation day] is different from the ordinary day with which we are familiar" (ibid., 5:2).
"For in these days [of creation] the morning and evening are counted until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were is extremely difficult or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!" (The City of God 11:6 [A.D. 419]).
"We see that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting [of the sun] and no morning but by the rising of the sun, but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the darkness and called the light ‘day’ and the darkness ‘night’; but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was and yet must unhesitatingly believe it" (ibid., 11:7).
As you see, Augustine indeed was among the many Christian theologians who knew that the days of Genesis were not literal ones.
Surprise.
