Remember the competition to give the best answer why the Torah said 6 days ? Well, so far no winners.
Ford gave a good explanation of the Torah having many levels of explanation, and he did have a nice moshol to science whereby an earlier simpler meaning (e.g. Newtonian Physics) is replaced by a later more complex peshat (e.g Theory of Relativity) but that does not negate the simple meaning. However he didn't really have much to say on the symbolism of 6 days, execpt that it was to teach shabbos, which was no more than I said in my competition anouncement really.
ADDeRabbi had a well written post, covering the usual basics, torah as a moral message, breishis competing with ancient near east mythologies etc, plus some additional cool stuff, but didn't really address the 6 days either.
Other people quoted Rav Kook and Schroeder, which was hardly original. I don't think either of them are great. Schroeder uses too much science trying to make the text fit perfectly when it doesn't, and Rav Kook's answer is unconvincing. He says ancient man would not have been able to feel significant if he had known that the universe was vast or billions of years old. I don't see why. If man is the purpose of existence, then millions of years in the making, or millions of lifeless planets just add to the awe of his existence, and should make him feel more important, not less.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in the rules of the competition. I want a convincing explanation of 6 days. If you are just going to answer that its to teach shabbos, then you need to beef that up a bit. Fundamentalist understanding is that shabbos is after 6 days because the universe really was created in 6 days. Since this is now untrue, there needs to be a better reason for why 6 days. Was it really because the Sumerians had Sabattu every 7 days, so the Torah took this pagan ritual and gave it some religious symbolism ? Or does six signify something cosmic or kabalistic ? Six eras ? Why six eras ? And why use the word yom if its not strictly a yom ? And why does the phrase go 'vayehi erev vayehi boker yom echod (sheni, shlishi etc)' ? Shouldn't it say 'vayehi erev vayehi boker vayehi tzohorayim yom echod' ?
