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The Days of Creation
by John Shepard
August, 1999
Figurative understanding of Genesis 1
Proponents of the young earth creation model insist that the word day in the first chapter of Genesis when interpreted literally refers to a time period of 24 hours.
I will show that this understanding of the usage of the word day is not based on a literal interpretation at all, but is rather based on a figurative interpretation of the passage. Here is the passage.
Gen 1:5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.
The four Hebrew words and their Strong's designation:
There are two key points:
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Here are some different ways that the word day is used in the book of Genesis.
Gen 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
The word day here is not referring to a 24 hour day because it is excluding the 12 hours of nighttime. The cool of the day only occurs when the sun is up and after the hottest part of the day has passed.
Gen 1:5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.
Gen 1:16 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.
The highlighted word day in these two passages is not referring to a 24 hour day because it excludes the 12 hours of nighttime. The 24 hour day is here divided into a daytime part and a nighttime part. The daytime part is referred to using the word day.
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
It would be incorrect in this context to say that the word day is used to mean a 24 hour period. This passage does not mean to say that the judgment of Adam will necessarily happen within 24 hours from the moment he disobeys the command. It also does not mean to say that the judgment will happen before the 24 hour day ends, which according to Biblical usage would be in the morning at around 6 AM.
The intent of this passage is to demonstrate cause and effect. When Adam disobeys, as a result of his disobedience, judgment will swiftly follow. It could and probably did happen within the same 24 hour time period.
Gen 4:14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
The emphasis is on the urgency of the situation, not on the technicality of whether it happens within 24 hours.
Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
The word day in this passage is being used to refer to God's work of creating the world and everything in it without any particular consideration for how long it took. Certainly it was not a 24 hour time period.
Gen 2:3 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.
The word day in this passage clearly means a 24 hour day. Here the word day is in context with other days of the week rather than to the parts of a 24 hour day such as morning, evening, light, cool of the day, darkness and nighttime.
Gen 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.
Certainly this seventh day from this passage could be interpreted to be a 24 hour day, and by implication therefore, days one through six would also be 24 hour days. But the following passage from the book of Hebrews seems to indicate that this seventh day of rest is still in effect.
Heb 4:3, 4 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work."
The statement that God's work is finished corresponds to His seventh day of rest. This means that just as His work of creating is finished, so His seventh day of rest continues. As a result of this, the word day in Genesis 2:2 can't be used as evidence that days one through six were 24 hour days.
Here is the real question that must be answered. Is the word day in the following passage a 24 hour day or not?
Gen 1:8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.
There are problems with considering this as a 24 hour day. I will discuss this in the next section.
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Gen 1:8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.
It is tempting to assume that the word day in this passage is a 24 hour day. But we need to be cautious because as the examples in the previous section show, the only times the word day clearly and unambiguously means a 24 hour day are (1) when it is in the context of other days, or (2) when referring to a particular day of the week. Whenever the word day is being referred to in the context of parts of a day such as morning, evening, light, cool of the day, darkness and nighttime, a 24 hour day is not what is in mind.
The usual assumption is that the formula
...there was evening, and there was morning -- the XYZ day
can only mean that the days were 24 hour days, and at first sight this seems to be the logical conclusion. But there is something very peculiar about this formula which suggests that the common conclusion is not the correct one.
If this formula had instead been
...God did these things on day XYZ and it took a whole day and a whole night
then it would have been clear that the day was a 24 hour day.
If this formula had instead been
...there was daytime, and there was nighttime -- the XYZ day
then it probably would have been referring to a 24 hour day because the daytime and the nighttime are the two parts of the day which together make up a 24 hour day. However, even then, there would still be some uncertainty.
The formula
...there was evening, and there was morning -- the XYZ day
is simply not literal. This is a result of the use of the words evening and morning since evening and morning together do not make up a complete day; there is also midday, afternoon and nighttime. There is ambiguity in the phrase.
We should also notice that the words evening and morning in the order they are given correspond with the starting and ending points for that part of a 24 hour day called night. Let's look at the words evening and morning a bit further:
Evening
Morning
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...there was evening, and there was morning -- the XYZ day
Here are some possible ways in which this formula could be interpreted. I'm not going to address the creation models suggested by these.
Certainly we could interpret the phrase evening and morning to mean a 24 hour day. In fact, that is a perfectly acceptable way of interpreting it.
We could interpret the phrase evening and morning to mean nighttime since the evening and the morning define the boundaries of nighttime. We could then interpret the passage describing the creative works of God on a particular day as the daytime and then the nighttime would be a time during that day in which God sleeps by not intervening supernaturally. He would then begin His supernatural intervention again at the start of the next day, in the morning.
We could interpret the phrase evening and morning to mean that during the long time within a day-age of God's creation, the normal cycle of day and night continues uninterrupted as it does now.
The phrase evening and morning would correspond to the idea of beginning and ending. Each age of creation would have a beginning and ending.
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While the six days of creation certainly could be 24 hour days, the passages in Genesis do not require that this is the meaning and, in fact, the usage of words and the context would appear to strongly suggest that the days of creation were not 24 hour days.
In order to support the idea that the days of creation are 24 hour days we must interpret these passages figuratively rather that literally.
Young earth creation scientists would have us believe that their view is based on a literal interpretation of Genesis chapter one. However, as I have shown, their view is not literal at all but requires a figurative interpretation of the repeated formula in Genesis chapter one verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23 and 31.
Once we understand that we have to interpret portions of Genesis chapter one figuratively we must then seek to discover interpretations that are true to the text. But that is beyond the scope of this article.
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