24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

In the bible we read that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh day.

Were these days 24 hour days or just a literary frame on which the creation account is draped ?
Were these 24 hour days or periods of unspecified amounts of time ?

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

I've heard it taught both ways. I have a problem with the unspecified period of time belief because of the following:


Gen 1:1-13

1 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.

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.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 And 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.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

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: and God saw that it was good.

11 And 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.

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.
KJV

This particular distinction of light and darkness transitioning the time periods makes me believe the 24 hour doctrine.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

How did God calculate time ? What is the way The Hebraic people reckoned time ?

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Good question. We know that God's ways are not our ways and God's time is not our time.

The problem with believing that the days talked about in Genesis 1 are literal 24 hour days is that there is so much scientific evidence to the contrary.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

What scientific evidence?? Carbon dating...which has proven to be totally inaccurate....

I would agree with God's ways are not our ways and His time is not our time, but we didn't set up the 24 hour day. That's not "our" time, it is God's time that He placed us in. So that doesn't seem like an argument that can hold any weight.

I am then brought back to other thoughts:

1. According to the Genesis 1 account of creation it says that God said and then saw...what makes us think that there are great time periods between those two events? If we take Jesus' ministry He too said and saw and in most every event it was immediately or within the same hour.

2. According to Rom 5:12 death entered the world through Adam's sin. If Paul was truly writing by unction of the Holy Spirit, then there would have been no death prior to that. According to science their was a lot of death...in fact most put the Dinosaurs pre-adam which would make Rom 5:12 wrong.

3. What would give us any idea that the time period that God used was different than the time period that God set up? We can use the scripture that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, but it does not say it in a definitive way. The scripture says "as a" in other words, God doesn't operate by a clock as we know it, but that being said doesn't deny the fact that there are 24 hours in a day it's just that God's perspective is beyond the time limitations we know.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Distance measurements.... Levels of Helium 3 isotope in our own Sun (which makes it a 2nd generation star).... And yes, several types of radiometric dating (NOT carbon dating since that is only accurate to about 50 thousand years and then in only specific instances). And this isn't eve taking into account dating that our own Earth provides using tectonics, geological and magnetic field fluctuations. For instance there are several large mass-extinction craters from asteroid impacts. When could these have taken place in a 6-7 thousand year period?

Simply put, ALL the evidence has to be twisted and crammed into a Young Earth/Young Universe model to make it "sorta" work -if standing on your head, looking in a mirror, while suffering from the flu.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

24 hour days. My view.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Do you think God created things that look way older than they are? (See Randy's post.)

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Soooo, if I understand you correctly you subscribe to the 24 hour / young earth model, right? :ursofunny

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

I do...but not necessarily "look way older" but created mature things. Example a tree. I don't think He created the earth with a bunch of seedlings laying around, I believe that He created adult trees.

while it is very obvious that Randy is well versed and understands scientific stuff I personally don't have confidence in their techniques, nor do I have confidence in their motives. Most scientists are atheists an have an agenda they are pursuing.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

I believe that God could create an adult tree -just as I believe that He created an adult human. Two of them in fact.
But neither the tree's, or the humans, would have any false "history" of age. For instance, the tree's would not have rings that indicated periods of drought, forest fires, beetle infestations, etc.... In this same way, God would not have created a planet with meteor craters from meteor's that never actually hit or geological strata that shows various things happening at different ages -things that never too place. Or a nebula from a supernova that exists without there ever having been a star to go boom.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Randy: Your post #6 was pretty much how I was going to respond to gloryseeker.

There is no contradiction between the Bible and science which is really only observing and explaining natural phenomena.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

I don't have all of the answers and the main thing to me is to believe in the biblical account of creation no matter what period of time these days were,but it is interesting and worth looking into.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

The writer of Genesis might have at least changed the order a bit, if he'd written it today. The sun may have come before the plants, e.g.! ;)

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

hmmm... I'd say 24 hour days, but the sun, or at least light, wasn't created til sometime that first day, so when did the first day start? :)

And I agree that there are 6000-7000 years of history since the fall of man, but there is no way to measure time before the fall of man. Man could have been walking in the garden for quite a while before the fall, even though the creation and the fall are only a couple chapters apart.

Which came first, the earth or the light? Gen 1:1 says that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," And then that the first day He created the light. But it would appear that there were already planets at this point. When was the earth created? The first day, God created light. So the earth may not have been created, but rather recreated in Genesis.

Either or both of the two theories wouldn't necessarily clash with science. I'm sure there are other possibilities as well. I do think that the earth and the universe are older than 6000 years.

I hope when we get to Heaven God lets us view events like creation, the Resurrection, and Pentecost!!!

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Not sure about that...consider:

Genesis 5

1This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

2Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

3And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:

4And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:

5And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

I think you can put a time limit on Adam before he fell. He had only lived 130 from his creation to Seth. Cain and Able were before Seth so guessing it seems like 80-100 would have been max in the garden.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Seems like day-counting couldn't start until the fourth day. :hmmm

Gen 1:16 And 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.

. . .

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

I have a few espouse the idea that these days were actually the time it took Moses to receive and write these revelations down. I am not sure I agree with that, but the idea is out there. Granted, how long did it take Moses to receive the 10 Commandments? Seems to me that God could have given them in a minute or two.......

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

This would be of interest here.
http://judaism.about.com/od/jewishbi...ation_time.htm

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

A article for the 24 hour days view.
http://creation.com/how-long-were-the-days-of-genesis-1

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Another view.
http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/genesis.html

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

"In this page, we will consider the text of Genesis only and not rely upon any scientific information, about which we can not be absolutely sure of its accuracy." So, this is how he avoids the embarrassment of plants existing (for many years, in his view) without the sun in the sky? Can't be 100% sure that plants need sunlight, I guess.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

This article brings up the obvious issue with Day 6. Adam was created and made aware if his own existence, talked with God who told him to name all the animals (among many other things we can safely assume), then apparently became lonely -all in ONE day??

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Another one.
http://www.letusreason.org/Biblexp13.htm

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

A famous site for the 24 hour day view.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/arti...ed-in-six-days

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Ahhh yes, Answers in Genesis. They sound more and more like a Flat Earth society group every time I hear from them.

They bash all scientists and scientific research as "humanistic" and thus irrelevant UNLESS a sliver of evidence actually supports a piece of some twisted logic of theirs.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

The Ken Ham interview in Religulous was awesome! :lol

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

No. I believe a gap occurred between the first two verses of Genesis 1, since the FALL of Lucifer in Isaiah 14 has events associated with it that are also mentioned in Jeremiah 4 where we are told they occurred in the time before the world was void and without form.

Check out some thoughts I had about this: http://www.mikeblume.com/renovat1.htm

I believe the earth is millions of years old. But the days of "creation" were actually RENOVATION of a world MADE void and without form, and the renovation occurred 6,000 years ago.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

What's your explanation of Rom 5:12 and death entering?

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

I am going to do my best and not get wrapped up in this debate this time on this forum. Having said that, the word "day" has a much broader definition than the most common usage of the word "day" to indicate a 24 hour period of time.

Here is Stong's definition:
H3117
יום
yôm
yome
From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literally (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figuratively (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverbially): - age, + always, + chronicles, continually (-ance), daily, ([birth-], each, to) day, (now a, two) days (agone), + elder, X end, + evening, + (for) ever (-lasting, -more), X full, life, as (so) long as (. . . live), (even) now, + old, + outlived, + perpetually, presently, + remaineth, X required, season, X since, space, then, (process of) time, + as at other times, + in trouble, weather, (as) when, (a, the, within a) while (that), X whole (+ age), (full) year (-ly), + younger.

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

If, as many propose, the word "day" as it is used in Gen. 1 must be and demands it is a 24 hour day, then there appears to be a problem and perhaps even an impossibility.
Look at this verse and notice what was called "days" in chapter one, is now called "generations" (indicating it is no doubt just referring to a span or a period of time), now here comes the problem. The totality of the creative "days" have not only now been called "generations" but all the "days/generations" (7 of them) are now referred to as "THE DAY" (singular)making it all to have happened in a single 24 hour period of time.
It is just an era.

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

As far the evening and sunrise terms in chapter 1, merely refers to as one day/generation/era was fading away, a new day/generation/era was begining.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Wherefore, 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.

Two things.
One, it is speaking only of mankind here. And two, there is a thought that this is only talking about spiritual death. Somehow people have it in their heads that Sabre tooth tigers and crocs were vegetarians before the fall.
The fact is that mankind was INNOCENT before the Fall, but that sin already existed in the universe. It began when Satan and his angels rebelled. One can see where the Universe was created, for the sole purpose of providing a reason for Jesus to come and redeem not just man, but ultimately all of creation.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Considering the thought of only spiritual death, why is it that after this chapter introduces the need to deal with death that chapter 6 shows our baptism into Jesus Christ's death, which was very physical? Christ's physical death was involved in us dealing with the death Adam brought to he world.

And Physical death was not mentioned to Adam and Eve until after they sinned where it is mentioned amidst the penalties for their sin. Not that spiritual death did not occur, but both forms of death resulted from sin, as far as I can see it.

Just thought to remark about this point.

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

I believe it regarded mankind.

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What is the basis of your thought that would limit it when it doesn't limit itself by it's wording?

Re: 24 Hrs.Days Or Not ?
 

Kent Hovind would have a few bones to pick with most of these posts.

I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but so would the Apostolic brother (Arlo Moehlenpah) who teaches young earth and spent most of his life as a College Chemistry teacher.