Monday, April 9, 2007

A Day Like Today?

Genesis 1:5 (ESV)
God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

In this verse we have the completion of the first "day" of creation. There is a controversy among interpreters of the Bible about whether or not these "days" are what they appear to be at first glance, which is of course, literal 24 hour days.

The idea that many modern interpreters are in favor of is that the "day" mentioned here and the rest of chapter one is not really a literal day, but an unspecified long period of time. Some of those same people will use some other references in the Bible which talk about a "day" in such a way. Perhaps the most famous of these is found in the New testament book of 2 Peter, chapter 3, verse 8.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The reason this kind of interpretation is attempted for Genesis is because of the supposed "scientific" evidence which "proves" that the earth could not have been created in only six days. I won't go into all the reasons why this is not true. If you want to investigate, I strongly suggest you go to either the website for the Institute for Creation Research or to Answers in Genesis (which I have a link to below).

I know that there are many well-meaning people who believe this way. However, the fact is their method of interpretation begins outside of the Scriptures and imposes a system from the world onto the Bible. I am choosing not to do that, but rather to let the Bible speak for itself. Therefore, I begin from the Bible and note first of all that the accounts in Genesis are historical in nature. God is telling us, through the human writer, just what He did when He created the "heavens and the earth," and after all, He was actually around at the time, and we humans weren't.

When I start with the Bible I find two points from the Bible that tell me these days are indeed literal, 24 hour time periods. First is the fact that each time the word "day" is used in this list of creation, it is used with a number value, i.e. "first day", "second day" and so on. The evidence from the Old Testament is that every time a number value is used with the Hebrew word for "day", it always means a literal, 24 hour day. There are hundreds and hundreds of these references in the Old Testament, and there is no biblical reason to treat the ones in Genesis 1 any different.

Second is the fact that in each case where the reference is made to a numbered day in chapter one, we also have the phrase, "There was evening and there was morning." An unspecified long period of time would not be described as an "evening" and a "morning."

It is clear to me, and I hope I have made it clear to you, that if we believe that God gave us a true account, the best interpretation is the simple one. We can take comfort in knowing that God is trustworthy here, and in everything He teaches us in His Word.

Your Joyfully Loquacious Believer,
LEE