Did God really create everything in six 24-hour days. Put another way, Is it seven days of creation or seven creation days? Is that wordplay? Or is there really a difference between days of creation and seven creation days? The two are not at all the same. And they make a huge difference in whether or not the so-called seven days of creation is a stumbling block to believing in God and the Bible.
Did God really create everything in six 24-hour days? is article #2 in the series: In The Beginning. Click button to view titles for the entire series
Those “days” can be so controversial.
In this day and age, with all that we’ve learned from science, can we still believe the Bible when it says God created the earth in six literal 24-hour days, and then rested on the seventh 24-hour day?
We got a bit into how rest fits in with the “seven days” in part 1 of this series: How does rest influence the seven days of creation?
In part 2, we’ll look ath what those “seven days” are. Yes, our Christian English (and other language( translations use the word day. But, is that really the correct, or the best, translation?
To examine the issue, we’ll look at the Christian Bible, since that’s what we (Christians) read. However, we must remember this is Hebrew scripture and that it was written in Hebrew. That’s of the utmost importance, because the inspired word of God is not our English (or other language) translations. It is the original Hebrew.
We must also remember that the words we read in Genesis are thousands of years old. They were told to people in a very different time. If God tried to give the people knowledge on par with what we “know” today, it would make no sense whatsoever to people in Old Testament times when Genesis was written.
Therefore, we must also remember what Jesus said when asked about the greatest commandment.
The Greatest Commandment – Matthew
22:34-40 pp — Mk 12:28-31
Mt 22:34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Mt 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Given that, we should/must use the brains God gave us to examine all the evidence from the language, culture, knowledge, customs, writing styles, etc. of the people back then and us today. We cannot ignore all those things and just assume everything is literal and completely explained.
We also have to use logic to examine the evidence and determine the reasonableness of conclusions we reach. We’ll see this as we go along.
We aren’t going to go into great detail about what happened on each of the seven “days” today. We’ll see enough to do the things above, and to reach at least a starting point, a hypothesis, on what “day” meant in the creation verses.
Then, as we go through each “day” in detail, we’ll see if the hypotheses hold true or not. Finally, when all the evidence is examined, we’ll check one more time to see if the hypotheses are still valid.
Of course, at any point along the way, we may have to rule out some options, and even change our working hypothesis of which option for “day” is valid.
The possible meanings of “day”
What is meant by day in the Genesis passage on the seven days of creation?
There are four different ways that scholars view the seven days of creation:
- seven literal 24-hour days
- a variation of the literal interpretation, but seven epochs, or long periods of time
- a literary interpretation, where it could be literal on nonliteral
- no definition, because it’s a myth, in an attempt to explain things we cannot understand
We will get more into these four options in a moment. But first, let’s get a quick high-level view of what the Bible says happened on each of the seven “days”.
What happened on each of the seven days of creation?
Day 1 of creation
Ge 1:3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Day 2 of creation
Ge 1:6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
Day 3 of creation
Ge 1:9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Ge 1:11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Day 4 of creation
Ge 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Day 5 of creation
Ge 1:20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
Day 6 of creation
Ge 1:24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Day 6 of creation
Ge 1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Ge 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Ge 1:29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Ge 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Day 7 of creation
Ge 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
Ge 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
What is a day?
OK – so that’s what happened in the seven days, at a very high level. But still, exactly what is a day?
Before we begin, we do need to address whether creation was six or seven days. The Bible shows God working for six days and resting on the seventh. Therefore, technically the acts of creation took place over six “days”. However, as we saw in part 1, rest is an important part of the creation process. For that reason, we’ll use seven days in this series, unless a quoted authority uses six. In that case, creation is either 144 hours or 168 hours for six and seven days respectively.
1. Is a day a literal 24-hour period of time?
It certainly could be. But then, how do we reconcile seven days, 168 ahours, with the following, from Google generative AI?
The age of the universe is estimated to be 13.787 billion years, plus or minus 0.020 billion years. This number is based on the best fit to Planck 2018 data.
The age of the universe was further refined by ESA’s Planck spacecraft to be 13.8 billion years old.
A new study says that the universe could be closer to 26.7 billion years old.
Whether the earth is 13 billion, 26 billion, or some other huge number of years old isn’t the issue here. The “problem” is that however many billions of years old the earth is, according to science, it’s nowhere near 168 hours!
How do we reconcile that? For Christians, it really isn’t that hard.
The Bible portrays God as the Lord of both creation and the history of creation. This is so because all that exists owes its reality, integrity, and continuity to the mighty Word of God which founds and upholds it (Ps 33:9). Consequently, there is no created power which can compete with God; his power stands over all. The Latin term potentia means “power” and the prefix omni- means “all”; hence omnipotent means “all-powerful”.
As Christians, we should believe that God is all-powerful. If we don’t believe that, then exactly what do we believe about God? That’s a core piece of who God is.
For non-Christians, they may very well not believe God is all-powerful. They may not even care. Unless they’re investigating whether or not to believe in God, and come across this apparent discrepancy. In that case, being able to accept/believe God is all-powerful is important. And if this seven-day thing is an issue, then consider this. An all-powerful God is capable of creating the universe in seven literal days, and making it appear to be billions of years old.
If you find that hard to consider, beyond belief, totally out there in la la land, I have to ask a question. Have you seen any of the Star Trek movies? Specifically, have you seen The Wrath of Khan? That movie had a “Genesis Planet”. They sped up the process of getting life on a planet to appear in a time period that seemed to be even less than 7 days.
True – they messed up. Something was done that caused it to be unstable. But it did bring Spock back to life and they were able to extract him from the planet at just the right time to bring him back to the Enterprise.
I know – science fiction. But here’s the thing. If we can think about it, how can we insist that an all-powerful God couldn’t/didn’t do it?
By the way, it’s not necessary to believe this. There are other options when it comes to reconciling the seven-day /vs billions-of -years issue.
Before you just outright dismiss it though, consider what followed the extract above.
Philosophical theologians often debate whether “omnipotence” refers to God’s ability to do “all that is logically possible” (i.e., God can do anything he wills with the exception of actualizing a contradiction—for instance, creating a square circle) or his ability to do absolutely anything whatsoever (i.e., God’s power is not subject to the laws of logic). Such theologians also inquire into whether it is important to maintain that God could have acted differently from what he has actually chosen to do (i.e., the distinction between God’s “ordained” and “absolute” power).
In such matters, systematic theologians have often stressed the importance of submitting our understanding of God’s almighty power to how God has actually revealed himself to us. In other words, rather than underwriting an abstract understanding of God’s power based upon what we might presume to be appropriate for a divine being, Scripture directs us instead to reflect on how God has revealed himself in Christ: namely, as the Creator God who graciously enters into covenant with his creation (John 1:9–14; Rom 8:19–21; 2 Cor 5:19; Col 1:19–20). As Creator, God surely maintains sovereignty over his creation, and yet nevertheless he elects to deem that which “need not have been” as worthy of his love and care—even despite creaturely rebellion and at the great cost of the death of the incarnate Son (1 John 4:10). God’s power is therefore “omnipotence” unconditioned, as he is Creator, and yet also exercised solely in accord with his own divine will and nature, as revealed to us in Christ.
While reflection concerning what God can do or could have done serves to emphasize the gratuity of what he has actually done (cf. Rom 9:22–24), it is best not to speculate too deeply on the specifics, lest Christians be tempted to define God’s power according to their own intuitions and preferences. 1Stratis, J. (2018). God’s Omnipotence. In M. Ward, J. Parks, B. Ellis, & T. Hains (Eds.), Lexham Survey of Theology. Lexham Press.
Notice that last part: it is best not to speculate too deeply on the specifics, lest Christians be tempted to define God’s power according to their own intuitions and preferences.
Could God have created the universe in seven 24-hour days and made it look older? An all-powerful God certainly could. So the question becomes more an issue of do we truly believe God is all-powerful? Or do we believe science is right, the Bible is wrong, and therefore God is not all-powerful? I’ve got to tell you, that doesn’t seem like a good position for a Christian to hold.
If that’s true, then why doesn’t the Bible say so? Can you imagine God trying to explain to people who had no concept of science that He made everything in 168 hours but it’s actually billions of years old? We have to remember who the Bible was given to, including their level of understanding, or lack thereof, of things that we pretty much take for granted today.
2. Is a day a variation of the literal interpretation, but seven epochs, or long periods of time?
Years ago I read about a Jewish belief that a day in the Genesis account of creation wasn’t a 24-hour day.
It’s time for Christians to acknowledge what Darwin REALLY did
What Darwin really did was prove the Bible was correct!
From creation days to created things, creatures, and people, the Bible is correct.
Recently, I also learned that what is known as a “Creation Day” is also considered to be a literal interpretation of the Bible.
We’ll get more into this in a moment, but first let’s finish off our list of possible meanings for the word day.
I don’t understand why that view isn’t adopted by Christians as well. Is it because we only read our English Bibles? That can’t be true, because many Bible scholars read the Hebrew and Greek texts. Is it because of tradition? That’s what we’ve always believed, so we have to keep believing it? That’s also hard to imagine, since thoughts have changed about the meaning/interpretation of many things. Just look at all the different Christian denominations, not to mention when Martin Luther broke with the Catholic church.
I don’t get it. As we’ll see when we go through the seven days, there are reasons to think the 24-hour day concept has issues.
3. Is a day a literary interpretation, where it could be literal on nonliteral
I have a hard time describing, and therefore accepting this one. In a literary sense, there isn’t any consistency even between the days as to what a day actually is. Given that the first six days, the days of creation work, include “And there was evening, and there was morning”, that’s just hard, for me, to accept.
4. Is a day something with no definition, because it’s a myth, in an attempt to explain things we cannot understand?
As a Christian, I really can’t accept this one. The word of God, the basis for understanding Him and the foundation upon which we build our faith, cannot be a myth. To me, that’s like building on quicksand.
What’s the basis for a “creation day”?
As mentioned above, a creation day is something other than a literal 24-hour day. It represents an unstated/unknown amount of time. For each “day” of creation, it was the amount of time needed to accomplish the tasks for that day.
Let’s take a look at that, with an excerpt from a scholar who did extensive study of both the Old and New Testaments.
As far as the opening chapter of Genesis is concerned, the battle lines are drawn between the interpretation of the Creation story and scientific knowledge about the origin of the earth and mankind. The revised form of Tertullian’s question—“What has Jerusalem to do with Athens?”—is “What has Gen. 1 to do with science?” and the answer to that ranges from “much indeed” to “nothing at all.” At one end are those who find a high degree of compatibility between science’s latest discoveries and assertions and a very literal interpretation of Gen. 1. At the other extreme are those who are convinced that any attempt to forge a marriage between the Creation story and, say, paleontology or the laws of thermodynamics partakes of the reductionistic spirit of a technological age.
As you probably figured out already, I see no reason to avoid trying to reconcile the Bible and science. The thing to remember, of course, is which of the two is our guide. It’s not science.
Given various statements in the Bible, I believe knowledge is from God. What we do with that knowledge determines if it’s put to good or bad use, but the knowledge itself is from God.
As Christians, we also believe the Bible is from God. We also believe, or should believe, that it’s true. However, we must also keep in mind that the inerrant word of God isn’t our English, French, Spanish, etc. translation. It’s the Hebrew or Greek from which our translations are done.
As a result, we should be seeing if science reconciles with the Bible, not the other way around.
If you’re a regular here, you know I also believe our view of God and the Bible is affected by whether or not we want the see God as He portrayed Himself, if we want to create Him in our image, or if we don’t want to believe in Him.
I also believe it’s important to look at things in context. Don’t pull out one word, one verse, or even one paragraph without looking at the overall context of the chapter of a book, book in the Bible, and even the entire Bible. Not doing that makes it way too easy to be affected by our personal biases and/or our desire to remake God in our image.
With all that in mind, let’s begin to look at the concept of a Creation Day.
The literal understanding of “day” in Gen. 1 teaches that God created and then populated his world in a 144-hour period (6 24-hour days). It does not, of course, document whether God worked the entire 24-hour period or just a portion thereof. It needs to be affirmed that in the Hebrew Bible the normal understanding of yôm is a day of the week. There are, to be sure, places where it may refer to an unmeasured period of time or to an era such as in the prophets’ phrase “in that day,” or to an unusually long period of time, even up to a millennium (Ps. 90:4). The burden of proof, however, is on those who do not attribute to yôm in Gen. 1 its normal and most common interpretation, especially when yôm is always described as being composed of an evening and a morning.
That’s interesting. However, is it all really true? Let’s take just the last part:
The burden of proof, however, is on those who do not attribute to yôm in Gen. 1 its normal and most common interpretation, especially when yôm is always described as being composed of an evening and a morning.
There’s a problem with that statement.
Do you remember what happened on the 4th day of creation/4th creation day? God created the sun and the moon. You know – the same sun that dictates our 24-hour day? We’ll get more into that when the 4th day comes. But for now, let’s see what that might mean for our 24-hour day definition for a day of creation.
So – if day and night as we know them weren’t defined until the “ 4th day” –
what does that mean for the earth being created in six days as we know them?
Not that it actually matters. Could God have done it in 6 days? Of course. Could He have done it in a time that amounts to 6 days for Him but is billions of years for us? Of course. Does it really matter? No.
What matters is whether or not we believe that God created the earth.
But for now, let’s continue with the excerpt.
The literal understanding of “day” in Gen. 1 teaches that God created and then populated his world in a 144-hour period (6 24-hour days). It does not, of course, document whether God worked the entire 24-hour period or just a portion thereof. It needs to be affirmed that in the Hebrew Bible the normal understanding of yôm is a day of the week. There are, to be sure, places where it may refer to an unmeasured period of time or to an era such as in the prophets’ phrase “in that day,” or to an unusually long period of time, even up to a millennium (Ps. 90:4). The burden of proof, however, is on those who do not attribute to yôm in Gen. 1 its normal and most common interpretation, especially when yôm is always described as being composed of an evening and a morning.
Two caveats are in order. First, the literal understanding of “day” is not necessarily a more spiritual and biblical interpretation, and therefore is not inherently preferable. Second, a conservative reading of Gen. 1 does not always produce a conservative conclusion. For instance, James Barr agrees with the most ardent creationist that the days of Gen. 1 are meant as literal 24-hour days. For Barr the crucial hermeneutical decision is not what the modern interpreter believes about “day,” but what whoever wrote Gen. 1 believed about “day.” And whoever wrote Gen. 1 believed he was talking about literal days. Now, over the last few centuries science has shown that it is absurd and preposterous to think that the universe was created in one week. What conclusion should one draw from this scientific finding? According to Barr, it shows clearly that Gen. 1 can only be interpreted as myth and legend. For Barr, this is the reason why so many conservative commentators shy away from a literal interpretation of Gen. 1 and replace it with a figurative interpretation. The inexorable end of a literalist reading of Gen. 1 is the admission into inerrant Scripture of the categories of myth and legend, that is, a mix that is mutually exclusive. It never occurs to Barr that there may be other reasons why a nonliteral interpretation may be advanced than to keep biblical inerrancy from being refuted. This point will be developed further below.
A variation of the literal understanding of “day” is to read it as designating epochs, and Ps. 90:4, so well known because of the hymn “O God Our Help in Ages Past,” is pushed into service at this point for substantiation. Thus thousands of years of history may be subsumed in any one of Gen. 1’s uses of “day.” The immediate advantage to this interpretation is that it is more reconcilable with science, or so it appears. Gen. 1 does not describe an instantaneous creation but one that happened in stages, possibly over aeons.
Let us apply this interpretation to the sixth day of creation, which deals with the creation of humanity. Every so often anthropologists announce the discovery, usually in Africa, of the remains of a human-like being that pushes the origins of mankind back millions of years. Yet the characters of the early chapters of Genesis are anything but Neanderthal. They engage in shepherding, farming, city building, music, working with metals, and ship building. These skills developed relatively late and are normally connected with the hominids of the Neolithic Revolution (i.e., 10,000–8000 B.C.). Reading the sixth day as the sixth epoch of creation opens the door to the possibility of some kind of pre-Adamic homo sapiens.
I’m curious. Why is this possibility of some kind of pre-Adamic homo sapiens a problem? Why does it seem to scare people? It really shouldn’t.
Do humans matter? Do you think you really matter?
Do humans matter? Do you think you really matter? Hopefully, you answered yes to both questions. If you did, here’s some affirmations that you’re correct. But if you didn’t, here’s some things to consider and hopefully change your answer!
If science is our guide to interpreting the Bible, yes we have a problem. Two problems, actually. And the biggest one is that our priorities are wrong. Remember, we need to use the Bible to view the accuracy of science. I mean, it’s not like scientists have never changed their minds about the laws of science or decided that what they thought they knew turned out to be wrong.
However, if the Bible is our guide to determining whether the claims of science make sense, then we’re not worried. We certainly aren’t shocked by the possibility of some kind of pre-Adamic homo sapiens. Why not? Well, because the Bible never said God didn’t create any kind of homo sapiens creatures before Adam. Rather, it tells us that there’s something special about Adam!
It is highly debatable whether the interpretation of Genesis’ days as metaphorical for geological ages can be sustained. For one thing, it allows the concerns of establishing concord with science (ever changing in its conclusions) to override an understanding of a Hebrew word based on its contextual usage. Furthermore, one would have to take extreme liberty with the phrase, “there was evening, and there was morning—the x day.” Lastly, how would one possibly take in stride scientifically a major stage in the creation process that has an epoch which brings about vegetation precede an epoch which brings about the sun and stars? 2Hamilton, V. P. (1990). The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17 (pp. 53–54). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Having said all that, here’s the problem. A Hebrew day. Here’s the definition of a “day” in the Hebrew culture:
Day
Most literally, a period of time delimited by the earth’s rotation around its axis, such as the period between two consecutive sunrises; also, the portion of that period in which the sun is visible, the other portion being called “night.” The word “day” occurs over 2,000 times in the OT, over 350 times in the NT. The Hebrew word for day is used in a variety of ways, not merely in the literal sense. The Hebrew day began in the evening and continued until the following evening, a reckoning presumably based on the Torah (cf. Gn 1:14, 19). That kind of literal solar (24-hour) day is known as a civil day. Among other ancient Near Eastern nations the civil day began at different times. Greek custom agreed with that of the Hebrews; the Babylonians started their day at sunrise; the Egyptian and Roman day stretched from one midnight to the next.3Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Day. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, p. 587). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Did you catch the part about The Hebrew word for day is used in a variety of ways, not merely in the literal sense.
Oops.
And what is one of those other ways of using the word for day?
Days of Creation
Many people believe that the days mentioned in the Genesis creation narrative were 24-hour periods. The phrase “there was evening, there was morning” is used to support that idea. That expression, however, is actually a Sumerian literary figure that pairs opposites together to describe totality. Thus “evening-morning” means a complete phase of time within the total creative cycle; it emphasizes the completeness or comprehensiveness of the process, not the specific period of time in which that process was accomplished. The totality of creation, phase by phase, may have been thus depicted without any necessary reference to a defined time period.
Since the Sumerian civil day included only the visible (12-hour) period, a legal day of other nations was actually a “double day” (24 hours). If the early Genesis material reflects Sumerian culture, the use of “evening-morning” would preclude current concepts of a civil day and point instead to a phase or general time period. 4Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Day. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, pp. 587–588). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Oops again.
Just to be sure we’re not stepping out of bounds with this, let’s look at two different sources to see usage/definitions for “yom”, the Hebrew word for day.
3117 יׄום, יׄום [yowm /yome/] n m. From an unused root meaning to be hot; TWOT 852; GK 3427 and 3428; 2274 occurrences; AV translates as “day” 2008 times, “time” 64 times, “chronicles + 1697” 37 times, “daily” 32 times, “ever” 17 times, “year” 14 times, “continually” 10 times, “when” 10 times, “as” 10 times, “while” eight times, “full 8 always” four times, “whole” four times, “alway” four times, and translated miscellaneously 44 times. 1 day, time, year. 1A day (as opposed to night). 1B day (24 hour period). 1B1 as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1. 1B2 as a division of time. 1B2A a working day, a day’s journey. 1C days, lifetime (pl.). 1D time, period (general). 1E year. 1F temporal references. 1F1 today. 1F2 yesterday. 1F3 tomorrow. 5Strong, J. (1995). In Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.
and
3427 I. יוֹם (yôm): n.masc.; ≡ Str 3117; TWOT 852—1. LN 67.163–67.200 day, i.e., a unit of time reckoned from sunset to the next sunset, including two or more segments (morning and evening) about 24 hours (Ge 1:5), cf. also 3429; 2. LN 67.163–67.200 day, i.e., the period of time which has light (Ge 1:5); 3. LN 67.142–67.162 time period, formally, day, i.e., an indefinite time period, ranging from relatively short to very long, years and beyond (Ex 2:23); 4. LN 14.36–14.52 daylight, i.e., the light of the sun as an extension of day as the time which has light (Jer 6:4); 5. LN 67.201–67.208 unit: הַ־ יוֹם (hǎ- yôm) today, i.e., the same day as the day of the discourse (Ge 4:14); 6. LN 67.78–67.117 unit: אַרְבַּע יוֹם וְ־ אַרְבַּע לַיְלָה (ʾǎr·bǎʿ yôm w- ʾǎr·bǎʿ lǎy·lā(h)) long time, formally, forty days and forty nights, i.e., a relatively long indefinite period of time (Ex 34:28), note: some sources do not take as an idiom; 7. LN 67.78–67.141 unit: יוֹם יוֹם (yôm yôm) day after day, i.e., a relatively long period of time (Ge 39:10); 8. LN 67.78–67.141 unit: אֹרֶךְ יוֹם (ʾō·rěḵ yôm) a long time (Dt 30:20; Ps 21:5; 91:16; Pr 3:2; Pr 3:16; La 5:20); 9. LN 67.95 unit: אֹרֶךְ יוֹם (ʾō·rěḵ yôm) forever (Ps 23:6; 93:5); 10. LN 23.129–23.141 unit: ךְּ־ יוֹם ־ךָ (k- yôm ḵā), דֹּבֶא ־ךָ (dō·ḇě(ʾ) ḵā) healthy life, formally, as your days, your strength, i.e., all one’s life he will have strength as a youth would (Dt 33:25+); 11. LN 67.142–67.162 unit: בְּ־ דְּמִי יוֹם (b- demî yôm) time of mid.-life, halfway point in life, i.e., a prime time of life (Isa 38:10+); 12. LN 23.109–23.128 unit: יוֹם זָעַךְ (yôm zā·ʿǎḵ) be near death, formally, days be extinguished, i.e., to have one’s life cut short (Job 17:1+), see also domain LN 14.63–14.73; 13. LN 67.163–67.200 unit: יוֹם (yôm) … זֶרַע (zě·rǎʿ) planting time, i.e., a time seed is placed in the ground (Ge 8:22); 14. LN 22.1–22.14 unit: יוֹם חֹשֶׁךְ (yôm ḥō·šěḵ) time of distress, formally, day of darkness (Job 15:23); 15. LN 67.78–67.141 unit: כֹּל הַ־ יוֹם (kōl hǎ- yôm) always, i.e., a duration of time, either continuous or points, but without limits (Dt 5:29; 1Ki 5:15[EB 1]); 16. LN 67.1–67.16 unit: כֹּל הַ־ יוֹם (kōl hǎ- yôm) regularly, i.e., a points of time connected to regular intervals (Job 1:5); 17. LN 51 unit: יוֹם (הַ־) כִּפֻּרִים (yôm (hǎ-) kip·pǔ·rîm) Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, i.e., a national festival day of rest and full atonement or expiation (Lev 23:27, 28; 25:9+); 18. LN 67.78–67.141 unit: לַיְלָה וְ־ יוֹם (lǎy·lā(h) w- yôm) continually, constantly, formally, night and day, i.e., a duration of time without limits (1Ki 8:29); 19. LN 67.142–67.162 unit: מִדָּה יוֹם (mid·dā(h) yôm) length of a life, formally, size of days, i.e., an indefinite unit of time referring to the rest of one’s life (Ps 39:5[EB 4]+); 20. LN 67.65–67.72 unit: יוֹם מוּסָד (yôm mû·sāḏ) beginning time, formally, day of laying a foundation stone, i.e., the beginning of a duration (2Ch 8:16+); 21. LN 9.1–9.23 unit: מָלֵא יוֹם (mā·lē(ʾ) yôm) very old, formally, full of days, i.e., a person late in the sunset years of life, one very aged as a class of persons either male or female (Jer 6:11); 22. LN 67.78–67.141 unit: קָצֵר יוֹם (qā·ṣēr yôm) short timed, i.e., pertaining to a relatively brief period of time (Job 14:1+), note: in context this is a lifetime-of-years length; 23. LN 22.15–22.20 unit: קָשֶׁה יוֹם (qā·šě(h) yôm) trouble, formally, hard of days, i.e., the experience of difficulty and hardship (Job 30:25+); 24. LN 14.1–14.3 unit: שֶׁלֶג הַ־ יוֹם (šě·lěḡ hǎ- yôm) snowy day, i.e., a day of cold, precipitous weather, forcing animals into burrows, pits, or cisterns (2Sa 23:20; 1Ch 11:22+); 25. LN 67.163–67.200 unit: זֶה יוֹם אוֹ זֶה שָׁנָה (zě(h) yôm ʾô zě(h) šā·nā(h)) over a year, i.e., pertaining to a time over one complete year (1Sa 29:3); 26. LN 67.142–67.162 unit: יוֹם שָׁנָה (yôm šā·nā(h)) lifetime, i.e., an undetermined period of time comprising a lifetime (Ecc 6:3); 27. LN 67.201–67.208 unit: יוֹם שֵׁנִי (yôm šē·nî) next day, i.e., the day after a prior referenced day (Jer 41:4); 28. LN 67.201–67.208 unit: יוֹם (yôm) … תּוֹכֵחָה (tô·ḵē·ḥā(h)) time of chastisement, formally, day of rebuke (2Ki 19:3; Isa 37:3; Hos 5:9+), note: further study may yield more domains 6Swanson, J. (1997). In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.
Just in case you didn’t read that entire list, I’m guessing you didn’t, here’s the last portion of it: note: further study may yield more domains. Yes – the list isn’t even complete.
I guess yom really isn’t always a 24-hour day.
This is definitely a problem for the six-day creation people.
However – it’s a great leap towards showing, as I have often done, that science is proving the Bible to be true. What we now have is a definition of a creation day that could be something like this –
-
- a particular period of time marked by distinctive features, events, etc.:
- the beginning of a distinctive period in the history of anything:
- a point of time distinguished by a particular event or state of affairs; a memorable date:
Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?
That – like it or not, is also the dictionary.com definition for the word “epoch”.
And “epoch” is a word often used by science to describe how the universe and the earth specifically, came to exist.
Conclusion – Is it seven days of creation or seven creation days?
So, what do you think? Is it seven days of creation, as in six days of creation and a day of rest? Or, is it seven creation days?
Either way, seven creation days works. The real question is how long is a creation day?
The reality is, considering all the evidence, from the Bible, the culture and language of the people when Genesis was written, from the science we “know” today, there’s no reason to consider a creation day to be however long it took God to do what He said He did on that creation day.
The thing to keep in mind, to always remember and consider, is that the Bible is our guide to judging the truth of science. Science is not our guide to determining the truth of the Bible. If God really is our hope, our salvation, our reason for being, why would it be any other way?
Even if ancient Christian tradition says the days of creation were 24 hours, why do we have to cling to that concept, knowing full well that the people who wrote and had what we call the Old Testament for their scripture for thousands of years before the birth of Christ, had different ideas about what a creation day was?
What’s next for In the beginning?
Now that we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way, let’s get on to The Beginning.
The Beginning
Ge 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Would it surprise you to find out that scholars don’t even agree on what that simple sentence means?
Find out in the next installment, In the Beginning God Created.
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Creation images from Bing/DALL-E
Footnotes
- 1Stratis, J. (2018). God’s Omnipotence. In M. Ward, J. Parks, B. Ellis, & T. Hains (Eds.), Lexham Survey of Theology. Lexham Press.
- 2Hamilton, V. P. (1990). The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17 (pp. 53–54). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
- 3Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Day. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, p. 587). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
- 4Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Day. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 1, pp. 587–588). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
- 5Strong, J. (1995). In Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.
- 6Swanson, J. (1997). In Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Logos Research Systems, Inc.