Questions in Genesis: On Days and Ages

On Days and Ages

            The time in which this creation event took place is an incredibly difficult thing to figure out.  First, “day” does not always equal a 24 hour time period.  If this were the case then the Bible would contradict itself because in Genesis 2:4 we are told “in the day God created the heavens and the earth”.  Indeed, it is difficult to argue this point with many Young Earth Creationists, because they will often be dogmatic that “day” must mean a 24 hour period of time in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and yet in Genesis 2:4 “day” refers to a period of time equal to the seven day account of Genesis 1:1-2:3.  This of course undercuts the certainty with which the days in Genesis 1:1-2:3 must be 24 hour periods of time.  Although, the better argument is that “day” means a 24 hour period of time in Genesis 1:1-2:3 because in each occurrence it is joined with evening and morning which clearly sets these uses of “day” apart from making reference to an indeterminate period of time.

            However, once one arrives at the position that the use of evening and morning require the “days” in Genesis 1:1-2:3 to be 24 hour periods of time, then one has to account for how there was morning and evening before there was a sun.  This is not a new observation.  Indeed, saint Augustine asked this same question some 1600 years ago.           The creation accounts in Genesis greatly puzzled Augustine and he wrestled with these accounts on and off throughout much of his life.  Augustine rightly noted that there is a problem thinking about the six days of creation as being six days as we would know them because it is not until the fourth day that the sun and the moon and the stars even existed.  You cannot have an evening and morning apart from the Sun.  This is quite clearly an important issue.  There cannot be a time know as evening or morning as we know them to be apart from the sun.  Indeed, Genesis 1:14 the sun, moon, and stars were given as signs to mark days and times.  This means that the creation account tells us that the sun, moon, and stars function is to mark days, times, and seasons.  Which means, that for the first three days the markers for days were not yet in existence and so could not mark the days as such. 

            The rejoinder to this that God made morning and evening with light and darkness apart from the Sun and the moon, is an argument that has no clear Scriptural evidence.  Quite simply, we are not told how anything like that happened only that light and darkness were separated and existed.  What we do have is an account that presents a rather strange way of marking the day; Evening and Morning.  The Jewish day is from sundown to sundown, that is evening to evening.  When we read through the Old Testament and the New Testament, we encounter the order of morning and evening to note the length of a day.  Yet, the system presented in Genesis for marking the day is evening and morning.  This is simply an odd way to count a day by any standards!  The only time we encounter evening and morning occurring together is when we read the accounts of burning the lamps in the tent of meeting during the night, and then the phrase is, “from evening until morning” (Exodus 27:21, Leviticus 24:3, etc…).  This means that in Genesis 1:1-2:3 we have a counting of days that we find nowhere else in the Bible.  Thus this anomalous use of “evening and morning” should give one pause when considering whether the event described was meant to be understood in the sense of a typical “day” as we would count it.

            Despite the problematic nature of describing “day” in Genesis 1:1-2:3 as a 24 hour period of time, there are two views which interpret “day” in this manner.  There are Old Earth Creationists who hold to the Gap Theory, and Young Earth Creationists.  The Gap Theory postulates that there is a gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  This view can be dated back to the 1600’s.  This is important, because it places this view prior to Darwin.  Thus the Gap Theory cannot properly be called a reaction to Darwinian Evolution.  The Gap Theory holds that indeterminable amount of time passed between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.  The textual argument for this views is often obscured in the English translations which say, “the earth was formless” whereas it is perfectly possible to translate the same phrase as “the world became formless”.  This is an argument for a recreation.  That there was a world that became “formless” and God remade the earth in six 24 hour periods of time.  This then accounts for the random fossils and the (even pre Darwin) lingering suspicion that the world was older than 8,000-9,000 years that a literalistic reading of the biblical narratives would present.

            Young Earth Creationism holds to the entirety of creation being made in six 24 hour periods of time.  There are no gaps.  There are no missing ages.  Each “day” is a 24 hour period of time in which all the things described in Genesis 1:1-2:3 were created in the order recorded there.  As this work is a critique of Young Earth Creationism the details of this view are discussed throughout this work and need not be repeated here.

            There are two primary views that hold to creation taking place within more than six 24 hour periods of time.  There is the Day Age view that holds that the word “day” does not refer to a 24 hour period of time and that entire ages (equating to untold millions of years) passed in the account of the 6 days in the Genesis 1:1-2:3 account.  This view finds no problem reconciling the different uses of “day” in the two creation narratives in Genesis as in both places “day” refers to an indefinite period of time in which an event took place.  Within the day age view there are two distinct groups.  There are Old Earth Creationists and Theistic Evolutionists.  The difference between these two groups is simple and profound.  The Old Earth Creationists hold to the means by which all things came into existence was through creation.  The Theistic Evolutions would hold that God used evolution as a tool to arrive at the finished product.  These are clearly divergent positions, yet both positions view the six “days” as indefinite periods of time.

            I am without a firm answer on this topic.  I do know that “day” as used in Genesis 1 does not require the interpretation of a 24 hour period of time.  In Genesis 1 the six days of creation were used to teach humanity about how to order their lives and that the Sabbath is a divine institution which God established by example at the beginning.

Harmonizing Genesis Creation account(s) with Plato

            The issue about how long creation took is the question I would like to address in this post.  To be blunt, it would be unsettling if God took six days to create everything.  How is God all powerful and yet creating this globe and the creatures herein took six days of work?  Indeed, it was this very problem that led some in the early church to posit that God created the world in one day following the statement in Genesis 2:4 "on the day."  If the act of creating the world took God six days, and then afterwards he rested, it gives the appearance that God is not exactly omnipotent. 

            To solve the riddle of two creation narratives and uphold the omnipotence of God, some in early church found an answer in Plato.  Plato understood that there were the “forms” which do not exist in physicality.  These forms are tiered, with the highest form being the form of “the good”.  Everything that exists corresponds in some way to its form which is the ultimate reality of that thing.  For example look at a chair.  What makes a chair a chair?  Plato would answer that a chair is a chair in so far as it physically expresses the form “chair.” 

            This brief and painfully simplified excursus on Plato is necessary because some Fathers found the conception of forms to make sense of the creation accounts and so harmonize them.  In Genesis 1:1-2:3 God created the forms and then in Genesis 2:4 he spoke the forms into physical existence.  This also got them around the problem of a six day creation followed by a rest which at face value is unworthy of the omnipotent creator who created and sustains the world through his Word.  This was one way of dealing with the variant creation narratives.

Questions in Genesis Part 1: Which Creation Account?

          Foreword: I have chosen to begin the blog with a series of articles that I had typed up entitled Questions in Genesis.  These articles were originally composed a few years ago as part of how I processed a visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

                    Questions in Genesis part 1: Which Creation Account?

        

The biblical narratives in the first few chapters of Genesis are taken by many to mean that the earth is only a few thousand years old and that all which exists was brought into existence in the span of six 24 hour periods of time.  More often than not this position is combined with the view that any other understandings of the text subvert the authority and veracity of the biblical text.  This essay will argue there are multiple readings of the creation accounts in Genesis that disagree with a six 24 hours periods of time creation and are in no way bowing to the pressure of society in doing so.

I cannot recollect the number of times that I have encountered the phrase "the biblical account of creation" or something like it.  This became particularly irksome to me as I meandered the halls of the Creation Museum.  I am naturally and often easily irked by things which I find to be dishonest and misleading.  Such is the case with this statement.  As one moves from the first verse of Genesis, one begins to read an account of God creating the earth and the heavens in 6 days and then resting on the seventh day.  This account in Genesis 1 is what Young Earth Creationists speak of when they use the phrases “the Biblical creation account” or “the Genesis creation account.”  The use of the phrase “the Genesis creation account” is disingenuous and begs the question. 

There is not only one creation account in Genesis.  There are actually two creation narratives in Genesis and they do not agree in the time or the ordering of creation.  This is problematic and was understood to be problematic in the early church as well.  In Genesis 1:1-2:3 there is one account and then Genesis 2:4-2:25 provides a second account.  In a way, I feel bad for the Genesis 2 account because it is often treated as though it does not provide a serious record of the creation account.  For example, when was the last time you heard the phrase, “the one day of creation” from a young earth creationist?  The six “literal” days of creation are spoken about at length, but never the one day of creation.  However, if we are going to take the biblical text seriously, we should give a careful examination to both accounts.  Below is a comparison of the two creation accounts of Genesis.

Genesis 1	Genesis 2
6 day creation, 1 day of rest	One day of creation
Order of creation Light and darkness created Waters separated, Heaven created Land and plants Lights in the heavens: Sun, moon, stars Aquatic creature and birds Lands creatures Humanity	Order of creation Dirt and mist already in existence Adam Plants Rivers Animals
Plants are given for food	Plants are given for food
God rests	Eve is made after none of the animals are found to be suitable helpers.
Creation is used to teach the importance of Sabbath keeping.	Creation is used to teach the importance of marriage.

The first thing that I mentioned is the difference in the time of the creation accounts.  The is quite important because the position of Young Earth Creationism is often based upon the understanding that “day” in Genesis 1 means “one 24 hour period of time” and yet in Chapter 2 we have the account of creation taking place in the space of one of these 24 hours periods of time.

The second thing to notice is that the order of creation is different.  Quite, and likely irreconcilably, different!  In Genesis one, humanity is made last.  In Genesis 2, Adam is made first.  The order of plants coming before animals remains the same as well as the giving of plants for food to humanity.  Yet, the place of humanity in creation is markedly different and sets these two accounts in opposition to each other regarding the ordering of creation.

Thirdly and quite importantly, there are theological/pedagogical purposes in both creation accounts.  The first account centers on the importance of Sabbath.  The second account centers on the importance of marriage.  The emphasis in the Genesis one account is on keeping the Sabbath.  This is how the account ends, with God blessing the seventh days and making it holy.  The reason creation is presented in a seven day period provides an example for how the Israelites ought to live their lives.  They were to work six days and rest on the seventh day following the example which God had set in his work of creation.

In the Genesis 2 account, the theological emphasis is one the very nature of marriage.  This is evident in the fact that Adam names all the creatures that God brings before him and yet none of these creatures was found to be a suitable helper for Adam.  Then, God creates a helper from Adam, a woman.  She is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.  And we are told in Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”  This statement just like the statement about resting on the Sabbath is a rather strange interlocution, unless the point of these creation accounts was more than simply providing a “scientifically accurate” account of the origin of all that exists.  This of course is the point that I wish to make: the creation accounts are presented in their forms for the purpose of instructing the readers that 1 God is the creator of all things, and 2 either A) Keep the Sabbath because God set the example for rest after creation, or B) treat your spouse as your own body and join yourself to your spouse above all other family members because that is God’s design for marriage.

The overarching theological points that the Genesis creation accounts make are very rarely viewed as the central issues regarding the first two chapters of Genesis.  I view this as an example of societal pressures discerning the meaning and significance of the text instead of allowing the text to present its focus on marriage and Sabbath.  Likewise, attempting to read the first two chapters of Genesis as a scientific explanation of life will run into the same problem.  These chapters outlining the creation narratives of this world were focused on presenting narrative of creation that served very practical purposes which were not focused on a scientific (especially as we would understand this word in a post enlightenment context) explanation of the world.