The Length of the Days of Creation
During the Scopes Trial, Clarence Darrow, the defendant for John Scopes, kept asking William Bryan about the length of the days of creation. Although Mr. Bryan fought hard for the authority of the Scriptures, he didn’t understand the Biblical case for the literal days in Genesis One. As a result, Darrow made him out to look inconsistent.
Genesis One tells the wonderful story of creation:
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Many people have pointed out that the actual Hebrew word for day is yom -- and that it can mean a long period of time instead of just a 24-hour day. They want the creation account in the Bible to fit with the evolutionary timeline. But what’s wrong with this idea?
Look at how the word day (yom) is used in the creation account. The days are labeled as the first, second, third, and so on. Also, notice the words “evening” and “morning” each day. These words (first, evening, morning) are considered modifiers, and every time in Scripture that the word yom is used with modifiers it means a literal, 24-hour day.
Questions
- Some claim that Genesis is just a figurative story that was really meant to describe the process of evolution. But how do the events described in Genesis differ from evolutionary theory? Could they work together?
- There are people who say God was trying to describe the complex evolution of the universe, but knew it would be too hard for us to understand. So instead, He put it into the simple creation story we read in Genesis so we could understand the basic points of how He used evolution. If God is the best communicator of all time and He designed our brains, what is wrong with this idea?
- The Bible is to be understood by the common man throughout the generations. What does a straight-forward reading of Genesis state about the days of creation?
The Workweek
In Exodus 20:11 we also learn about the length of a day:
11For 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.
Questions
- What does this passage tell us about the days of creation?
- What would be wrong with this if the days of creation were actually long periods of time instead of real days?
- How would the “long periods” idea make this passage from Exodus meaningless?
Death Before Sin?
If we believe that the days of creation were long periods, what was happening during that time? It would mean that animals were living and dying millions of years before Adam and Eve were created. But that presents a problem:
12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: - Romans 5:12
Questions
- Who is responsible for bringing sin into the world?
- According to this passage, did death exist before sin?
- How does this rule out the idea that animals could’ve been living and dying for long periods of time before Adam and Eve rebelled?
- If we say that death existed before man rebelled, then death was part of God’s natural world, not a punishment for sin. What implications does that have when God finished His creation and called it “very good”?
- Christ died to someday restore things to sinless perfection. But if death existed before sin, what will eternity be like?
- If death is just natural, and not the result of sin, then what did Christ’s death accomplish?
- If these Scriptures had been presented at the Scopes Trial, what do you think might’ve happened?
End in Prayer
Thank the Lord for His account of creation, and that we can trust His word!
