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.