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Genesis 1 - what is a day?

Phillip

Phillip

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In Genesis 1, there was the first day, second day all the way to the seventh day. I know the Bible talks about a day is like a thousand years to the Lord and a thousand years is like a day to the Lord.

Some concordances say those days in Genesis 1 are time periods. Some concordances say they are 24 hours. Personally, I have trouble with the 24 hour time period when the earth was without form and void. And then Verifyveritas76 mentioned that without sequences of certain parts of nature being factored in (pollination, etc), things wouldn’t have lasted very long.

Any thoughts on this?
 
One thing for certain, days one thru three could not have been a 24 hour time period. The sun and moon (greater light - lesser light) were not created till day 4. That would leave the earth with nothing to rotate around to create a 24 hour cycle.

One of the areas that is hard to understand is vegetation beginning to grow on day three. With no sun and moon, how did that happen? In the first part of Genesis 1 God commanded let there be light. I assume this is how the vegetation was able to begin growing since light is needed for vegetation growth. But since the sun and moon were created on day four, what light did God create on day one? It was a light from somewhere. My assumption is that this Day 1 light is how the vegetation grew.
 
The word for day is "Yom". This word can mean the light portion of a day, a 24-hour period, or an indefinite period of time - depending on the context. Context is critical.

Firstly, right at the start of Genesis 1, the word Yom is intentionally and clearly defined. "And God called the light Day, (yom) and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day (yom)." This verse defines the word "yom" as meaning the light portion of a day, and then uses it to say that this was the first "yom", and it had an evening and a morning. It is impossible to be any clearer than this. The first day, as described, is a normal day with an evening and morning.

Then, throughout the remainder of the passage, the exact same terminology is used "And the evening and the morning were the second day" etc. If the first day was a normal day, then the remainder of the days must be also, as they are described in the same way.

Every time in scripture where the word "Yom" is used in conjunction with a number (the first day), it means a normal day. Every time it is used in conjunction with the word "evening", it means a normal day. And, every time it is used in conjunction with the word "morning", it means a normal day. Please do try to find an example that proves me wrong! And here, to avoid any possibility of confusion, every single day is described with a number, the word evening, and the word morning. It is completely unambiguous, it is impossible to state this any more clearly and firmly.
 
Phillip said:
One thing for certain, days one thru three could not have been a 24 hour time period. The sun and moon (greater light - lesser light) were not created till day 4. That would leave the earth with nothing to rotate around to create a 24 hour cycle.
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You don't need the sun to have a day. You need light coming from a source, and you need the earth to be rotating. God created light, evening and morning, so we know it was behaving like this, making days and nights.

We also know that God Himself is often described as dwelling in light. It's no problem for him to provide light.

Then, on day 4, he created the sun as a permanent light source. I believe he did this intentionally, knowing that people would in future worship the sun, moon and stars. He created them later, to show that they were only created objects, and were not even essential for life - it is He Himself who is the true God, and the true source of life, who can even sustain plants without needing any of these.
 
The only reason the "day-age theory" exists is to try and shoehorn long ages into Genesis. These long ages only exist, in people's minds, because they believe science has shown the earth to be ancient. If the word of man (scientists) is taken as more authoritative than the word of God, then there are massive long ages to fit in somewhere. And the "day age" idea is the first way people try to do this. But it doesn't make any scientific sense (how do you have enormously long ages with plants but no pollinators? If there was only one evening and morning, was there a thousand year long daylight portion and a thousand year night? How did any plants survive that night?), nor does it make sense of the Hebrew.

Also, those long ages go hand in hand with evolutionary theory, so people are wanting to find room for not only long ages, but long ages of evolution. And evolution says that sea creatures came first, then plants, then land animals, then birds. A completely different order to Genesis. So the day-age thing just doesn't fit that.

So people who truly believe the earth is ancient tend to give up on this idea pretty fast and shift to one of two forms of the "Gap" theory, either inserting billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, or inserting the same billions of years between 2:3 and 2:4. That too doesn't work either scripturally or scientifically for a range of reasons I could go into, but that's not the question so I'll refrain for now.

As a scientist, I have no problem with the Creation account as recorded in Genesis. In fact, it makes a whole lot more sense of what we actually observe in the world than any evolutionary or theistic evolutionary (long ages) model. And I'll trust the unchangeable word of God over the ever-changing whims of human opinion any day.
 
The infallibility of the Word is not at issue here. I have an will always believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God. I would just like that one word to be clear to me. In Strongs the word is #3117 and it has 13 definitions. One being a 24 hour time period and one being just simply a time period along with other definitions. I would love to be able to say its 24 hours or its a time period, but I can see it both ways.
 
When a word has multiple definitions in Strongs, the question is not "how many of those definitions might apply", but rather "which is the one that does apply". In this case, given the context, the definition is extremely clear.

Also, consider the 10 Commandments:
Exodus 20:8-11 said:
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
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Here again it is very clear that literal days are being described, because we are told to follow God's pattern, which we cannot do if those days were indefinite periods of time.

So the plain meaning is very clear, and a detailed Hebrew study comes back to the same conclusion. There is a very strong burden of proof on anybody who would suggest that anything other than a 24-hour day is intended.
 
Phillip said:
Personally, I have trouble with the 24 hour time period when the earth was without form and void. And then Verifyveritas76 mentioned that without sequences of certain parts of nature being factored in (pollination, etc), things wouldn’t have lasted very long.
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Phillip said:
One thing for certain, days one thru three could not have been a 24 hour time period. The sun and moon (greater light - lesser light) were not created till day 4. That would leave the earth with nothing to rotate around to create a 24 hour cycle.

One of the areas that is hard to understand is vegetation beginning to grow on day three. With no sun and moon, how did that happen? In the first part of Genesis 1 God commanded let there be light. I assume this is how the vegetation was able to begin growing since light is needed for vegetation growth. But since the sun and moon were created on day four, what light did God create on day one? It was a light from somewhere. My assumption is that this Day 1 light is how the vegetation grew.
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The almighty God held everything together in his own power until the creation week was completed and the “system” could run on it’s own.
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
I totally agree, almost... He is still holding everything together, it isn’t running on its own :)
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I agree. I just didn’t go into that much detail. I was being lazy :(
 
In my humble opinion, like Calvinism and Arminianism, there’s enough support in the Bible for both Old and Young Earth points of view. And like I side with arminianism, I also side with Old Earth. I don’t fault people for picking the other side, it’s just that I personally see the burden of proof on the side I pick (of course) :-)

Personal note: I’ve known the RTB scientists for 30 years personally and can say they are not trying to get the Bible to fit the science. They are fairly good scientists too, they’ve been published in noteworthy journals unlike some of the scientific commentators on other sites without such background who have noting to lose reputationally in the religious or scientific communities if their point of view is wrong.

One thing I really like about RTB is that when they RTB do observe something in science that doesn’t seem to match the Bible I really like what they say which is, “We know the Bible is true and we know science is true: they both reflect the work of our Creator - if they don’t agree at this time it’s because there’s something we don’t understand about science yet or don’t understand about the Bible yet, but with time we will see they are an accurate record of what God has done - they are in accurate record of what God has done and who God is.” BTw, that’s my paraphrase of their position.

Couple more excerpts from their site:

https://www.reasons.org/explore/pub...jor-biblical-creation-texts-creation-accounts

https://www.reasons.org/explore/pub...rtb/2001/01/23/scriptures-related-to-creation

The biblical word for day, yom, has four different literal meanings: 1) the daylight portion of a day, 2) part of the daylight hours, 3) an ordinary day (now 24 hours), and 4) a longer but finite period of time (no other word in biblical Hebrew carries this meaning). Although many Christians argue that those days represent ordinary calendar days, the biblical text indicates they lasted much longer. Days 1-3 cannot be ordinary days as humanity defines them because the Sun does not become visible until the fourth day. On the sixth day, Adam tends the garden, names all the animals, undergoes divine surgery and marries Eve. These events seem too significant and long to happen in one ordinary day. The seventh day, in contrast to the first six, never closes with an evening and morning. In fact, Psalm 95 and Hebrews 4 indicate that we still live in the seventh day.

The Bible never declares an age for the Earth, but evidence derived from the text fits most comfortably with a date far older than a few thousand years. RTB holds the position that the six days of creation represent long time periods and that the creation accounts reconcile well with the scientific date for Earth’s formation 4.6 billion years ago.
 
JustAGuy said:
The Bible never declares an age for the Earth, but evidence derived from the text fits most comfortably with a date far older than a few thousand years. RTB holds the position that the six days of creation represent long time periods and that the creation accounts reconcile well with the scientific date for Earth’s formation 4.6 billion years ago.
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If Adam was created as a grownup instead of as a baby, why the insistence that the earth was created as a baby?
 
Remember back when we (the Church) had scriptures showing God’s love & attention was focused on Earth, and how that proved Earth was the center of creation thus the universe and Sun revolved around the Earth?

Well, now many of us know we were understanding those verses improperly.

Suggest we encourage scientists to research and discover all God has created and I’m confident both records (the Bible and Creation) will come into alignment as we understand and experience more of who God is day by day.

Just my $0.02
 
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steve said:
If Adam was created as a grownup instead of as a baby, why the insistence that the earth was created as a baby?
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I’m not insisting anything! Don’t think RTB is either? Scientists observe and report results. People who “insist” in the scientific world aren’t good scientists. Ignore them.

RTB has lots of videos (one below) on your question and they have a new book out titled “Who is Adam” which I have my high school kids reading.

 
JustAGuy said:
I’m not insisting anything! Don’t think RTB is either? Scientists observe and report results. People who “insist” in the scientific world aren’t good scientists. Ignore them.
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If you are not insisting, then please do not take it personally.
Many do, and you did not offer it as an alternative.
 
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