Every time I embark on writing about the Bible for public consumption, I am reminded about the various interest groups that are hoping that I endorse their position or else... Atheists are hoping that I would endorse the view that the creation narrative is a myth or else I am anti-intellectual and anti-science. There are conservative Christians who would want me to endorse the believe that the Bible is literally, word-for-word, the word of God or else I am destined for the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15). Finally, there are the misguided or so-called liberal Christians who would prefer that I discredit the Bible as a moral guide or else I am hateful and not inclusive. The good thing is that I don't intend to appease anyone but my conscience and my God. That being the case, my perspective will offend some people; for that, I offer no apologies. I have no reason to apologize for what I know to be objective and true.
Why is the Bible divisive?
I am never concerned when people who ought to know nothing about the Bible demonstrate that they nothing about the Bible. I am always concerned when people who ought to know more seem to know so little. When Christians are uninformed or misinformed about the Bible, they create issues that divide Christians. This is unfortunate because these issues, in themselves, are not divisive; but biblical ignorance and fundamentalist indoctrination make objective discussions of the Bible extremely difficult. Atheists and other obscurantists use these issues as platforms from which to launch criticisms at the Bible. To present an informed perspective of the Bible is not an easy feat to accomplish because one has to navigate a minefield of misinformation and underlining false assumptions.
The Myth of the Creation Myth
A common misinformation that passes for criticism of the Bible, a view held by atheists and misguided believers, is the claim that biblical creation is a myth. The claim is often justified like this: other cultures have similar creation stories which are known to be myths; therefore, biblical creation, the creation story of the ancient Israelites, must also be a myth. The fundamental problem with this claim is that it is a logical fallacy – guilt by association. It is just like saying the following: There are many governments today that claim to be democratic when, in reality, they are known to be repressive and dictatorial. The American government claims to be democratic; therefore, it must be repressive and dictatorial. Because other claims of democracy are false does not make the American claim false also. Because other creation stories are myths does not make biblical creation a myth also. It is ironic that a claim that cannot pass the test of basic logic is embraced by those who boast of superior intellect.
Let's take this logical fallacy one step further. If we can demonstrate that biblical creation matches scientific claims in several points, will atheists then admit that biblical creation is scientific? If not, why not? There are, after all, remarkable similarities between the creation narrative and the claims of science in – not one, not two, not three, not four, but - at least five salient points. Here they are:
1. The early universe was shapeless and empty (Genesis 1:2). “Basically, scientists have ascertained that several billion years ago our Solar System was nothing but a cloud of cold dust particles swirling through empty space.”1
2. The earth appeared later in the development of the universe.
3. The early earth was mostly covered with water.4. Plants appeared on earth before animals.
5. Plants and animals appeared before humans.
In the creation chronology, humans were created last. In the evolutionary mythology, humans descended from animals in an on-going process; however, we have yet to see any creature evolve from humans. For some unknown reason, evolution has refused to go beyond the creation narrative. Strange. So for now, both the Bible and science have humans at the end. No other ancient creation story has such stunning similarities to the discoveries of modern science.The only reason why atheists would not admit that biblical creation is scientific is to maintain consistency in their hypocrisy about appeal to science and reason. I guess logical fallacy is valid only when it works to sustain atheistic nonsense.
As an honest Christian, I cannot accept the view that biblical creation is a myth. Not because I wish it were not a myth, but because it is not a myth. There are several limitations to a myth, none of which is applicable to biblical creation. Let's consider a few here. First of all, the explanatory power of a myth is culturally limited. The power of a myth is limited to the culture in which the myth originates. Secondly, every myth dies with its culture of origin. Chaldean, Sumerian, and Babylonian myths all died with the end of these civilizations. Third, a myth will not transcend its culture of origin unless its culture is dominant to or equal in influence with adjacent culture or cultures. The Greeks had their own myths and the Romans had theirs also. When these two influential cultures intersected in what became known as the Greco-Roman world, their myths became cross-cultural. The myths of these cultures had no influence beyond the Greco-Roman world. What was true of the Greeks and Romans concerning their myths, was also true for the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans.
Biblical creation emerged out of the culture of the Israelites. The Israelites were never a dominant culture in any sense of the world. In fact, at different stages in their history, they were under the control of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Greeks, and Romans. The last time the Israelites were an independent people was just before the Babylonian exile, almost 600 years before the birth of Christ. At the time of Christ, the Jews – the descendants of the Israelites – were under the control of the Romans. From about 600 BC, the Jews were never a free and independent people until 1948, a span of more than 2500 years. Yet, it is these powerless, oppressed, and persecuted people whose creation narrative has survived and replaced creation narratives of all the dominant powers it encountered. No myth has such a surviving power; and no cultural anthropologist can point to any other creation narrative that transcended its origins to gain universal appeal even when the culture of origin was decimated. Only third-rate scholars are jubilant in the logical fallacy that biblical creation is a myth because similar creation narratives have been shown to be so.
Finally, when a myth encounters a more logical explanatory power, that myth dies regardless of the power and influence of its culture of origin. When the myths of the Greco-Roman world encountered Christianity, these myths succumbed to Christianity because the latter had a more logical explanatory power. Some may wonder why science, with its great explanatory power, has not supplanted Christianity. There are many reasons why science has not and will never replace Christianity. First of all Christianity is not based on a myth; therefore, it cannot be supplanted by any alternate explanation, no matter how powerful. Second, all honest science historians will admit that modern science, with the scientific method, emerged out of Christianity. If science is a worldview, then it is a worldview that emerged out of a worldview. This is a huge problem.
No worldview that emerges out of another worldview can completely replace the worldview from which it emerged. Take Christianity as an example. It emerged from Judaism. Without the Jewish Scripture (the Old Testament), Christianity would not make any sense. Christ or Messiah would not make sense outside of the Jewish religious tradition. If science is a worldview, then it is a seriously defective worldview that can only explain the material world. Christianity deals with the natural and the supernatural worlds. A worldview that only deals with nature cannot replace a worldview that deals with more than nature. That is the fundamental deficiency of science as a worldview. It is extremely powerful in explaining the created, but totally silent about the Creator. Misguided scientists and other atheists will obfuscate the issues and created noises around the edges, but science will never replace Christianity.
The problem is not with science but with those who want to use science to prop up atheism, a very defective metaphysics. That is not what science is about and that is not what science was created for. Those Christians who gave rise to the scientific method developed it as a way of understanding God's creation. Francis Bacon, generally regarded as the father of the scientific method, wrote:
“God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book He wrote, namely Scripture. But He has written a second book called creation.”
“To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.”
What in Bacon's time was called philosophy is what we call science today. He saw theology and science as being complimentary and not mutually exclusive. It is for this exact reason that many of the earliest and greatest scientists – Boyle, Newton, Pascal, etc – have been people of faith. Even Charles Darwin, in the first edition of his Origin of Species, used Bacon's second quote above as evidence of his belief that theology and science were complimentary. The idea that religion is against science is the greatest absurdity promoted by atheists.
Bacon originated empiricism as an objective way of understanding God's creation. Bacon's empiricism gave rise to the scientific method, which gave rise to modern science, which gave rise to the industrial revolution, which has led to the conveniences of modern life. Modern science, established to compliment theology, has been overrun and distorted by atheists to be an anti-God enterprise. This abuse and misuse of science to buttress atheism has created a false war between science and religion. Many Americans, uninformed about the history of science, have bought into the false war between science and religion.
Atheists are desperate for this falsehood to be true for at least two reasons. First of all, the philosophical foundations of atheism lie in ruins. All of the philosophical arguments that have been put forward against the existence of God have been thoroughly debunked. Secondly, atheism is not a self-sustaining metaphysics. Where are the atheist schools, hospitals, orphanages, and charities that work to alleviate hunger, homelessness, and diseases? They are still in their precambrian stages of development. Atheists have nothing of value to offer society other than their individual versions of prosperity gospel. A few individuals produce third-rate critique of religion and are enriched from book sales and speeches. That's it. Atheism is like a parasite; it needs something else to sustain its existence. With atheism exposed as a philosophical farce, it has attached itself to “science” for dear life.
Atheism was first attached to physics, proclaiming, without any supporting evidence, that the universe always existed. If the universe always existed and therefore never had a beginning, then it could not have been created. If there was no creation, then there is no Creator. Nice try. The Big Bang theory came along and blasted atheism and its nonsense out of physics. Atheists last stand is the theory of evolution. They are so terrified that the gimmicks of the theory would be exposed and atheism would be unceremoniously buried, that any attempt to question evolution is portrayed as a terrorist attack on “science”. Atheists desperately need to have this war between science and religion as a diversion from their kidnap and imprisonment of science. Truth be told, when science is used objectively, it can tell us a lot about the created and thus create awe about the Creator. Let's put this creation myth nonsense to rest.
Belief in creation is not a choice for Christians.
If being a Christian means accepting all the teachings of Christ, then as an honest Christian, I could not accept the view that biblical creation is a myth because Jesus spoke of the creation as a fact. It doesn't get any simpler than that. In Mark's account of Jesus's opposition to divorce, Jesus said the following:
Mark 10: (NKJV) 6 But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.
In this verse, Jesus does not only confirm creation but he confirmed a specific claim of the Genesis narrative:
The passage above is not the only time that Jesus referenced the creation. When he spoke about the Great Tribulation, a future time of enormous suffering for believers due to persecution, Jesus said:
Mark 13:19 - For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the creation which God created until this time, nor ever shall be.
Jesus confirmed that there was a creation; therefore, there is no reason for any Christian to believe otherwise. I can't comprehend why anyone would want to be called a Christian why rejecting an essential doctrine of Christianity that is firmly rooted in the teachings of Christ. Jesus does not offer us a cafeteria options of beliefs from which to pick and choose.
Some people shield their ignorance or dishonesty or both behind the veneer of science. No one who is truly informed about the Big Bang theory can honestly claim that science excludes the possibility of creation. Such a claim is possible only with prodigious dishonesty and arrogance to match. I cannot comprehend the magnitude of hypocrisy it takes for one to say, I don't believe in the creation and I don't believe in miracles, but I am a Christian. If Jesus says God created this world, who are you to disagree with Jesus and still claim to be his follower? It is arrogant to think that you can know better than Jesus and it is delusional to think that you can disagree with Jesus and still be a Christian.
Christianity seems to be the only religion infested with spiritual cowards. These are people who reject the fundamental doctrines of the faith, and yet claim to be Christians, only to wrap themselves in the mantle of Christianity in order to use the faith as a medium to promote their perverse ideas. Jesus called these kinds of religious pretenders, wolves in sheep's clothing (Matthew 7:15). There should be no intellectual barrier whatsoever to an honest Christian accepting the creation. What's about science? Doesn't science show that there is no God, therefore the biblical creation can't be true?
I have dealt with the scientific information relevant to creation in the blog on Bill Maher and the talking snake. It would be superfluous for me to repeat the same information here. What I would like to do here is to bring some commonsense to the discussion on creation and science. Another common misinformation in the public domain is the claim that science shows God does not exist. Let me demonstrate how absurd the claim is. We all know what a thermometer is and what it does: it measures heat content, and that's all it does. Suppose a group of scientists claim that a thermometer has determined apples don't exist. You will laugh at that claim and rightfully dismiss it as absolute nonsense because you know the capabilities of a thermometer; and it has nothing whatsoever with determining the existence or non-existence of objects. When it comes to creation, atheists have told us ad nauseam that creation should not be part of a science curriculum because creation is supernatural and science deals only with what is natural. If God is supernatural and science cannot deal with the supernatural, then how can science show that God does not exist?
So, don't discuss creation in science because science only deals with what is natural; but when it comes to God's existence, then science also deals with the supernatural because it can show you how a supernatural God does not exist. I have ceased to be shocked by the brazen hypocrisy of atheists. They claim this arrogant air of intellectual superiority because they supposedly act from the enlightened perspective of science and reason; then they posit logical fallacies and false claims as science. When it comes to the origin of the universe, the only branch of science that can comment is physics, the same discipline that gave us the Big Bang theory. Based on their knowledge of physics and not some atheist propaganda nonsense, here is what Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, undoubtedly the two most brilliant physicists of the last century, said:
Einstein:“I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thought, the rest are details.”
Hawking: “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator.”
If you really want to know what science has to say about creation, let's begin with Einstein and Hawking. Comments by evolutionary biologists, neurobiologists, HBO comedians, and others are nothing but noise for the blissfully ignorant. If, however, it makes you happy to entertain the views of biologists and comedians, please do so by all means. As for me, I see no reason to doubt the creation. The Bible proclaims it, science points to it, and Jesus confirmed it. There is no room for doubt except for the person allergic to logic and commonsense. If science points to creation and biblical creation is the only narrative that is part of a coherent worldview upon which western civilization was built, then biblical creation deserves consideration in any discussion about the origin of the universe. Once we accept biblical creation, then we can quibble over the details, including the meaning of day in the creation narrative. We'll get to that, but first let's look at some issues.
Underlining assumptions about creation
There is a school of thought that expounds the view that the 6 days of biblical creation are 6 24-hour days. Some Christians dogmatically hold on to this view and most atheists wish it to be so, each group for its own reasons. There are other Christians who are not comfortable with the 6 24-hour day theory for their own reasons also. Let us consider some of the underlining assumptions that drive these various positions.
The Christian dogmatists believe that the Bible was literally dictated by God; therefore, the creation story should be taken literally, that is day means 24-hour day. Failure to do so would not only usurp the authority of the Bible but would also diminish its Divine origins. This is a well-meaning view with which I share much sympathy. One of the problems with the Divine dictation theory is that it is not supported by the Bible. From the first verse of the Bible (Genesis 1:1) to the last (Revelation 22:21), nowhere do we find within the pages of Scripture the justification for the literal dictation theory. To make a claim about the Bible that the Bible doesn't make for itself is to usurp the authority of the Bible and impose one's own view upon the Bible. No Christian is obligated to accept any teaching that is not explicitly or implicitly supported by the Bible. Other issues with the dictation theory can be explored here.
Atheists want the day in creation to be 24-hour day because they believe that would somehow prove the creation narrative is scientifically false. Calculating the earth's history from the time of Adam and Eve to the present would make the earth less than 10,000 years old, a very young earth compared to the 4.5 billion years calculated from the “scientific” evidence. This is why atheists and other critics of Christianity like to refer to all believers as young earth creationists. Is the earth really 4.5 billion years old? Not really according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS):
“So far scientists have not found a way to determine the exact age of the Earth directly from Earth rocks because Earth's oldest rocks have been recycled and destroyed by the process of plate tectonics. If there are any of Earth's primordial rocks left in their original state, they have not yet been found. Nevertheless, scientists have been able to determine the probable age of the Solar System and to calculate an age for the Earth by assuming that the Earth and the rest of the solid bodies in the Solar System formed at the same time and are, therefore, of the same age.” 2
The secret is out. No one knows the real age of the earth. The scientific community throws out 4.5 billion years to the general public and conveniently forgets to add that this is based on an unproven assumption. It is very premature to celebrate the scientific falsification of biblical creation when the former is based on an assumption. It is, however, quite interesting to see that some Christians and atheists want the same version of the creation story but for different reasons.
Finally, there are the misguided hypocrites, the so-called Christians who want to discredit the Bible as a moral guide. They figure that the best way to accomplish their goal is jump aboard the science train and claim that the creation story is a metaphor or a myth. Everything about the Bible is relegated to an ancient people and not applicable to the enlightened modern world. It's quite an effective way to eliminate the Bible as a source of moral guidance while pretending to be a Christian. This strategy, unfortunately, has not been thought out very well. When you take away Bible as a moral guide, you also take away God as the moral Lawgiver. The resulting moral relativism is worse the requirements of this ancient book.
With dogmatists, obscurantists, hypocrites, and other agenda-driven agents actively promoting their views of the Bible, the landscape of biblical information becomes a minefield of misinformation. The objectivists, like myself, have to expose these other perspectives and their underlining assumptions before we can get to what the Bible really says. The problem, as I see it, is that a paragraph or two doesn't do justice to the other perspectives. So any criticism about me under representing the other perspectives will be deserved. It, however, does not diminish or in any way eliminate the fact that my limited representation is true. Now, let us go to the Bible and find out what it really has to say.
The first two verses of the Bible say:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And 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. (KJV)
In some Bible versions, the first verse has heavens and not heaven. In any case, this first verse is the summary of creation. It basically states that when the earth and everything that is not part of the earth began to exist, God brought them into existence. The second verse then describes what the earth was like before it assumed its current form: it was shapeless (without form) and empty (void). Actually, this description is not only true of the earth, the entire solar system was shapeless and empty at the earliest stages of creation.
Basically, scientists have ascertained that several billion years ago our Solar System was nothing but a cloud of cold dust particles swirling through empty space.3
It is very interesting to note how the biblical account of creation matches science in two very important ways. First of all, scientific claims about the early universe bear a very close match to what the Bible claimed centuries ago. Secondly, every scientific research paper today is written in a certain format. The paper begins with a summary of the research. The summary, called an abstract, is followed by the details. This is exactly the format of the creation narrative. First the summary is given, and then the details. If we were to invoke the logical fallacy of guilt by association, we could claim either that scientific papers are biblical or that the creation narrative is scientific because both are written in the same format. Such a claim, however, is totally unnecessary because we don't want to burden the Bible with the limitations of science. Now that we have the summary of creation, let's get to the details.
The meaning of day in creation
One point of debate in the creation narrative is the meaning of day. It is not difficult to see why. The first time the word day appears in the Bible, it appears twice in Genesis 1:5. I have consulted several versions of the Bible, including but not limited to 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV), King James Version (KJV), New International Version (NIV), New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), Revised Standard Version (RSV), and 21st Century King James Version (KJ21). In all of these versions,except the NIV, verse 5 follows roughly:
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (New King James Version - NKJV)
The keen observer would notice that the word day does not appear to be the same in both instances. The first day has a capital D and the second day does not have a capital D. Day and day are not the same. In the NIV, the first day is in quotes and the second day is not.
5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. (NIV)
One does not have to be skilled in the art of textual criticism to conclude, at the very least, that the two representations of day must be different in some way. I don't think if the two meant 24-hour day there would be any reason to present them differently. So right from the beginning, we have reason to suspect that day may not always mean 24 hours.
An extremely important first question to ask is this: Where do we get the idea that a day is 24 hours? Definitely not from the Bible. This information comes from science; therefore, let's understand what science means by day. Every planet has a spin, like the spin of a coin on a smooth surface. The time it takes a planet to complete one spin on its axis is called a day. It takes the earth about 24 hours (23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds to be exact) to complete one spin on its axis. That's why an earth day is 24 hours. If we were on another planet, our day would not be 24 hours. See the information that follows from NASA:
| Planet | Day Length |
| Mercury | 1,408 hours |
| Venus | 5,832 hours |
| Earth | 24 hours |
| Mars | 25 hours |
| Jupiter | 10 hours |
| Saturn | 11 hours |
| Uranus | 17 hours |
| Neptune | 16 hours |
If we were on Jupiter, a day would be 10 hours; and if we were on Venus, a day would be almost 6000 hours. In other words, the 24-hour day is not some universal time frame that is applicable to all of creation. It is a time frame that is specific only to the earth. So there should be no disagreement about this fact: If there is no earth, then there is no 24-hour day.
Now that we know that the 24-hour day is earth time, let's look at the first three days of creation. The Scripture passages for this exercise would be taken from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.
1st Day of Creation – Light
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
On the first day of creation, there was no earth. Remember: If there is no earth, then there is no 24-hour day. There are at least two things we can say about the first day of creation. First, creation was taking place but not on earth and not according to earth time because there was no earth; therefore, in the absence of the earth, there is no reason whatsoever for anyone to assume or insist that the first day of creation be 24 hours. Secondly, the very first time the word day appears in the Bible, it does not mean the 24-hour time frame. Only light was created on the first day of creation, And God called the light Day. This Day that was created on the first day of creation is what we called daylight. When we wake up in the morning and darkness is gone but the sun is not yet up, we are able to see outside because of daylight. This daylight does not last 24 hours.
FACT #1: We are only on the first day of creation and we already have two concepts of day, and neither is 24 hours. Daylight is not 24 hours and the first day of creation is not 24 hours because there is no earth.
Although the first day of creation had an evening and a morning, that doesn't necessarily make it a 24-hour earth day. Every planet has an evening and a morning. Jupiter has an evening and a morning and its day is only 10 hours. Venus has an evening and a morning and its day is an eye-popping 5,832 hours. If we were living on Venus, those who now insist on six 24-hour days of creation would insist that creation took place in six 5,832-hour days. And they would be wrong just as well since no planet existed on the first day of creation. Let's move on to the 2nd day of creation.
2nd Day of Creation - firmament
6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.”8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
On the second day of creation, there was still no earth. So we run into the same problem as on the first day: no earth, then no 24-hour day.
FACT #2: Remember: If there is no earth, then there is no 24-hour day. There is no earth on the second day of creation; therefore, the second day of creation can not be a 24-hour day.
3rd Day of Creation – Earth, seas, and plants
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: … 12 And 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. 13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
The earth does not appear in the creation narrative until the third day of creation.
Here is the fact we must confront based on what Scripture has revealed. There is no evidence whatsoever to make a determination, one way or the other, about the length of day of the first two days of creation. Even if we want to say that the third and subsequent days of creation are 24-hour days because we now have the earth, we run into the problem of contradiction when we attempt to apply the 24-hour time frame retroactively. Here is the dilemma: We cannot use the presence of the earth to justify 24-hour day and then claim 24-hour day when the earth is absent. The only way to avoid this kind of inconsistency is to let the length of day of all the days of creation remain indeterminate as the first two days of creation are.
FACT #3: The Bible does not specify the meaning of day. We must let it remain that way.
When dealing with Divine activities or acts of God, we must be humbled and honest enough to admit that there will be a certain element of mystery. God will only reveal what is sufficient and necessary for us to grasp His handiwork. Some details will be left out, enough to spark our awe and wonder of the mystery of God. When we impose on the Bible a claim that the Bible does not make, not only do we set ourselves up for ridicule. We do something even worse: we put ourselves in the place of God. Instead of listening to what God wants us to know, we tell God what He should be saying to us. That's a danger worse than heresy.
Since we are honest enough to admit that creation is Divine activity, we must also be willing to admit the possibility that it occurred in Divine time. What is Divine time? We really don't know either; but we know that it is vastly different from earth time. Moses in Psalm 90:4 and the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 3:8, both tell us that a thousand years in earth time are like an evening in God’s time. We know that Moses and Peter are being hyperbolic and not literal, the point being that Divine time is nothing like human time. Even if want to take it literally, then we have to ask: How much time is a morning, afternoon, or night in God's time? Literalism falls apart at this point.
Could the first day of creation by any chance be a 24-hour day? Yes, it could be a 24-hour day. It could also be a 10-hour day, a 100-hour day, or a day with any number of hours. There is just no way of making a determination one way or the other based on Scripture. That is the point. Anyone who insists that the creation day be a 24-hour day must admit that he or she is not being true to Scripture.
Here, even exegesis cannot help us. The Old Testament was first written in ancient Hebrew. That is a problem because very few people know ancient Hebrew. If you are like me, with little or no knowledge of ancient Hebrew, Strong's Concordance is an extremely helpful resource for Bible word study. It assigns a number to every word in the Bible and shows every instance where a word occurs in the Bible. In an online version of Strong's Concordance (http://biblehub.com/hebrew/3117.htm), the word day is assigned number 3117 and it is the Hebrew word, yōm. Although yōm is often translated as day in English translations of the Bible, the word has many more definitions than day. Yōm appears 2303 times in the Bible with definitions including but not limited to:
agealways
daylight
epoch
lifetime
period
season
time
year
An important exegetical approach is to study a word in context. We have already done that. There was no earth for the first two days of creation; therefore, day in that context could not mean 24-hour period. Furthermore, the Bible has several examples in which day is used figuratively to represent an undetermined time. Day of the Lord, Day of Atonement, and Judgment Day are phrases in which day is not 24-hour but an indeterminate period of time. When a word has so many meanings, while would anyone insist on only one meaning which cannot pass exegetical contextualization? There is really no justification for insisting that the six days of creation be 24-hour days. They could just as well be represented as age, epoch, time, or any one of the other iterations of yōm.
What is at stake here? What if creation took place in six ages, six periods, or six epochs, then what? For one thing, the age of the earth would remain indeterminate, denying atheists and other obscurantists one more misinformed critique of the Bible. In other words, the Bible would be neutral on whether the earth is young or old. More importantly, it eliminates one insignificant issue that creates division among Christians. I believe that all Christians ought to be dogmatic about belief in the general concept of Divine creation because, as I have already shown, Jesus affirmed it; however, I don't think it makes any difference to our salvation whether creation occurred in six epochs, six seconds, or six 24-hour days. It happened in Divine time and that should be good enough for us.
Theistic Progeria: The earth is both young and old.
There is a literal hermeneutical perspective that I find to be very instructive when it comes to the age of the earth. It is not some secret biblical knowledge that is available only to seminary graduates. You don’t need to know Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or Latin to understand it. Best of all, this view can be maintained with a literal reading of the Bible. My view is that all of creation is very old and very young at the same time. I call this view Theistic Progeria. Progeria comes from the Greek word meaning premature old. Progeria is a medical condition characterized by premature aging in its victims. The web site of the Progeria Research Foundation has the following :
Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (“Progeria”, or “HGPS”) is a rare, fatal genetic condition characterized by an appearance of accelerated aging in children. Its name is derived from the Greek and means “prematurely old.” ...Although they are born looking healthy, children with Progeria begin to display many characteristics of accelerated aging within the first two years of life. Progeria signs include growth failure, loss of body fat and hair, aged-looking skin, stiffness of joints, hip dislocation, generalized atherosclerosis, cardiovascular (heart) disease and stroke. The children have a remarkably similar appearance, despite differing ethnic backgrounds. Children with Progeria die of atherosclerosis (heart disease) at an average age of fourteen years.e.”4
The theory of Theistic Progeria stipulates that at the time of creation, God created everything already aged. This theory is confirmed by a literal reading of the creation story. When God created the plants, they were matured and producing seeds and fruits (Genesis 1:12). When God created animals, they were adult animals (Genesis 1: 21, 25). When God created humans, they were adult humans (Genesis 1: 27- 28). When Adam and Eve were 1-day old, they were already adults. Adam's age would have been contradicted by his adult features and his level of comprehension. All of the best endocrinologists, neurologists, physiologists, cardiologists, and other medical experts examining the one-day old Adam would conclude that he is not one-day old not only because he has the physical features of a much older human, all of his biological systems and organs would reflect adulthood. All scientific tests would falsify any claim that Adam is a one-day old human. Adam's physical features contradict his very young age. This is the same sort of contradiction we find in nature. Every scientific test would refute any claim that the earth is young. That’s Theistic Progeria. God fools man.
As strange as Theistic Progeria may sound, it is the only theory that is consistent with both the scientific evidence and a literal reading of the creation story. A literal reading of Genesis 1 informs us that God created plants, animals, and humans already aged. Logic would lead us to conclude that when God created the earth and other celestial bodies, they were also already aged. Is Theistic Progeria really consistent with the scientific evidence or is it just one of those so-called theological explanations that provide wiggle room for biblical claims? Let's find out.
Scientists tell us that the earth is at least 4.5 billion years old. We already know that this is not a fact but an assumption that the Earth and the rest of the solid bodies in the Solar System formed at the same time. There is no scientific evidence supporting this assumption and there is no evidence to the contrary either. So we are left to make many claims about the earth based on an unverified assumption. Could this assumption possibly be true by any chance?
Scientists have maintained that the earth and the moon receive meteorite dust constantly every year. If we conservatively estimate that the quantity of dust that falls on the moon and the earth each year is about one millionth of an inch (that’s about a microscopic speck of dust), it would take a million years for one inch of dust to accumulate on the surface of both bodies. Since the earth has wind, rain, and other weathering factors, we can expect that the meteorite dust would be washed away; but the moon has no weather. So in 4.5 billion years, if the moon were really that old, we would expect the moon surface to have accumulated 4,500 inches (375 feet) high of dust. That’s about the height of of 37-storey building.
That the moon surface, because it was supposed to be old, would have accumulated a mountain of dust was not a claim being made by creationists. Creationist claims don't concern NASA, but the moon dust accumulation was a concern for NASA for the first manned moon landing. Why? This claim was being made by credible scientists. Isaac Asimov, a pro-evolution physicist, wrote the following:
“Now it is already known, from a variety of evidence, that the moon (or at least the level lowlands) is covered with a layer of dust. No one, however, knows for sure how thick this dust may be. It strikes me that if this dust is the dust of falling micro-meteors, the thickness may be great. On the moon there are no oceans to swallow the dust, or winds to disturb it, or life forms to mess it up generally one way or another. The dust that forms must just lie there, and if the moon gets anything like the earth's supply, it could be dozens of feet thick. In fact, the dust that strikes craters quite probably rolls down hill and collects at the bottom, forming drifts" that could be fifty feet deep, or more. Why not? I get a picture, therefore, of the first spaceship, picking out a nice level place for landing purposes coming slowly downward tail-first ... and sinking majestically out of sight.”5
There were, of course, other scientists who did not believe the lunar surface would have so much dust. The opposing view was also being held by reputable scientists. Let’s put this confusion in perspective. Astronauts had not yet gone to the moon, so there were no moon rocks to analyze. Every claim about the age of the moon at this time was nothing more than speculation. NASA could not risk sending astronauts to the moon only to see them sink majestically out of sight into a dusty grave. During the cold war, this would not have been only a national tragedy; it would have also been a international embarrassment. How did NASA resolve this matter?
The space agency successfully sent 10 unmanned spacecrafts (3 Rangers and 7 Surveyors) to the moon. The Rangers were designed to crash-land and they all did; however, the information they provided were inconclusive; furthermore, NASA did not plan on crash-landing the astronauts on the moon. So the Surveyor spacecrafts were designed for soft landing. Their missions convinced NASA that the lunar surface was not covered deep in dust and that the astronauts, contrary to Asimov's view, would not disappear majestically out of sight into a dusty grave.
Scientists originally assumed that the moon was billions of years old; and based on that assumption, they expected to find a lot of dust on the lunar surface. Instead of over 350 feet of dust, they found only a few inches, not even quite a foot. If their discovery was contrary to their assumption, they should have modified their assumption to conform to the evidence. Imagine the consternation within the atheist community to learn that the moon is just a few million years old based on surface dust accumulation. A young moon equals a young earth is an equation too traumatic for the atheist-dominated science community; therefore, the evidence was ignored and the falsified assumption maintained. This is not science, but this is what results when atheistic perspective must be protected.
In the mean time, we must accept the fact that the current position of the science community, that the earth is old, is an assumption. The moon rocks may show the age of 4.5 billion years, but the dust accumulation on the lunar surface indicates a young moon. The only logical explanation that can account for this conflicting information is Theistic Progeria. No matter how one may look at scientific evidence, one thing is indisputable: no one really knows how old the earth is. An argument can be made for a young earth and for an old earth. This should be an issue for the atheists. For Christians, it shouldn't matter one way or other. The important this: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
1. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2014-12-earth.html#jCp
2. Information from the US Geological Survey found at https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html
3. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2014-12-earth.html#jCp
4. Progeria Research Foundation: http://www.progeriaresearch.org/about-progeria
5. Asimov, I., 1959. 14 million tons of dust per year. Science Digest, 45(1)