Many Christians have serious questions about the days of Creation - were they literal days? And why would it matter anyway?
As you will see, it matters a great deal - this can literally mean whether or not Christ is God.
After all, we are told by scientists (falsely so called) that the earth is billions of years old, yet the scriptures are quite clear about the age of the earth: You know all those pages and pages of boring genealogies? Why are they there? It's so we know the time line of everything - including creation, and the age of the earth.
I won't get into the scientific debate behind the age of earth here, nor will I get into the history of the idea of an "old earth," other than to say it is a bankrupt philosophy from its roots. The idea of an old earth was invented soley to discredit the Biblical account of a global flood.
Instead, I'll focus on the scriptural context here, because there are a great many perfectly acceptable questions surrounding this - questions that I asked too, so I thought I'd share the answers here that I found. I'll gladly discuss the age of the earth scientifically over in the "Science and philosophy" forum, if someone wants to post a question.
James Ussher was the first to spell it out, adding up the genealogies throughout the scriptures and concluded that creation began 9 a.m., Sunday October 23, 4004 BC. It's been roughly 2,000 years since Christ, so that places the age of the earth at ~6,000 years old.
How long is a day?
First of all, the word used for the "days" of creation is Yome (strong's H3117). Whenever this word is used in association with day and night, it always means a literal day. Whenever it is used with a number (i.e., the "first day"), it is always a literal day. Whenever it is used with morning or evening, it is always a literal day.
So it's as if the Lord, looking ahead to the challenges to our faith we face today, and this great end times deception which was prophesied by the Apostle Peter (2 Peter 3:3-6), described the days of creation emphasizing that they were literal days:
Gen 1:3And 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.
Notice that it invokes evening and morning, a number, and light and darkness (day and night).
Exegetically speaking, there's no doubt these are literal days.
A day to the Lord is as a thousand years?
Of course, another verse in Peter comes to mind to many people:
2 Peter 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Of course, I too was taught all the same propaganda in school that everyone else here got, so I was told the earth was "billions and billions of years old." So it's only natural that people would try and work these old ages into the scriptures - however, not only does an old earth not solve the problems for evolution, it causes fatal problems for evolution. (Again, I won't get into that here)
But maybe the earth is older? Maybe the days of creation were thousand year days, and not literal days?
No; then you have a math problem: Adam was created on day 6, lived through day 7, yet died 930 years old! (Gen 5:3)
Futhermore, if you read the passage from Peter carefully, you'll notice it goes both ways: Why is it that we always want to make the days longer, not shorter? It's because of what we've been taught (programmed, propagandized with) here in the "enlightened" culture. Why were they not literal days, but 0.00058 second-long days?
Whadaboutagap?
Is there perhaps a gap between verses 2 and 3 in Genesis chapter 1? Jonathan Sarfati answered this nicely in "Refuting Compromise," by looking at the grammar of the Hebrew writing. Verses 1 and 3 are a wow-consecutive, (pronounced vov-consecutive), verse 2, in the middle, is a wow-conjunctive. In other words, verse 2 can be best described as a paranthetical statement. Let's rewrite the first three verses of Genesis:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (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.) And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
In other words, there is no gap between verse 2 and 3, verse 2 conjoins verse 1 and 3.
The miracles of Christ:
So the question arises: Do you believe in Christ, or do you believe Christ? (ouch, or amen?)
Jesus carried out many miracles that happened instantly, and he spoke them into existence. Why then is it that we have a tendency to believe these miraculous stories, yet we doubt the miracle of a literal, six-day creation? It was the exact same process - Christ (the Creator, John 1:3) spoke everything into existence during the days of Creation. When he visited earth 4,000 years later in the flesh, he spoke miracles into existence that even his enemies did not deny.
The only reason for suggesting an old earth
It cannot be overemphasized that the only reason the old earth was "invented" (and that's what it was - it wasn't "discovered" that the earth was old) was to discredit the history according to Moses. The idea of an old earth was only invented to explain away the evidence left behind by Noah's flood - evidence which is literally everywhere you turn. So by adhering to an old-earth paradigm, what you are really saying is that the biblical account is not correct, for the biblical account claims there was a global flood at the time of Noah.
What Would Jesus Believe?
If you discount the story of Noah, the ark, and the world-wide flood as allegory, then you discredit Christ and the Apostles. Christ and the Apostles were all young-earth creationists!
They believed in the story of Adam and Eve, the garden of Eden was a real place, the fall of man was a real event, and the consequences of sin were real consequences:
-Mark 10:6, Matthew 19:4, 1 Timothy 2:13
Jonah and the whale was a real story, involving a real person, a real whale, a real event:
-Matthew 12:40
Noah and the ark was a real story: Noah and his family were real people, the flood was a real event, the ark was a real boat, the animals were real:
-Matthew 24:37-39, Hebrews 11:7
There's no getting around it: If we evolved, or if the earth is millions or billions of years old, then Christ is not the Creator, Christ is not God, therefore Christ is merely a man. He may be a sincere man, but he is just a man. The Apostles also believed these stories to be fact.
If all of these men do not know the past, then why should we trust them for the future when they say "Ye must be born again?"
This is the crux of the matter, and it is these issues which caused people like Charles Templeton to convert to atheism.
Templeton was an evangelist who preached to packed-out stadiums of 30,000 people and had thousands come to know the saving grace of Christ through his ministry. Later on, Templeton was overcome by doubts hurled upon him by "scientists" who weren't there at the beginning, but authoritatively claimed that they "knew" the earth was billions of years old, and claimed to be able to "prove it." Templeton would not only become a very outspoken atheist, but he went on to write the book "Farewell to God: My reasons for abandoning the christian faith."
The interwoven Bible:
There is much more to this, the simple point being, that the moment you question any one part of scripture, you question all of it. It is all interwoven in a powerful way. Some quick examples:
Why was Christ crucified with a crown of thorns? Because he was bearing the consequences of our sins, and one of those consequences was thorns - as revealed in Genesis 3:18.
Why was John the Baptist specifically named John? Why was the angel Gabriel sent to name only two people: Jesus the Christ, and John? Because John is the same name as Noah, and baptism is an analogy to the flood of Noah, and the ark an analogy to Christ. When Christ was baptized by John, the Spirit of God descended on Him like a dove.
Nothing is left to chance - our God is a God of attention to detail: Why a dove? Again, it's an analogy to the flood: Noah released a dove from the ark, which did not return...until Christ was baptized.
All of scripture is interwoven, and it is a fascinating study in the word of God which again, because of space, I won't get into here.
One can now begin to see the relevance of scientific creation. You don't need to be a super-genius, nor understand the technical mumble-jumble. But even a simple understanding of the debates and argument is a powerful sword - especially in the hands of teenagers who are under the continual fire of the gattling guns of the enemy, trying to program them to question the word of God and believe "science, falsely so called."
:glow: After a few after thoughts I thought I'd add that I personally believe that man has lived on the earth in the flesh for about 14 thousand years. I think the days of creation stated in genesis are in fact thousand year periods (a day with the lord is a thousand years and so on). But I do believe if God intended the earth to be created in 7 literal days as we know them that he could easily have done that.
