How Long Were the Creation Days?

[anochria]

But, my point was that weekly Sabbaths weren't the only Sabbaths the Israelites observed because of the creation week. There were 7th year Sabbaths and 50th year Sabbaths:

Leviticus 25:1-13
1 The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. 3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. 6 Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, 7 as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.
The Year of Jubilee

8 " 'Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. 9 Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. 10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. 11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. 12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13 " 'In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.

All of these Sabbaths (1 week, 7 years, 49/50 years) are patterned off the "7-day creation week", so one cannot maintain a strong one-to-one correlation.

Just like the 8 days of the Feast of Tabernacles are symbolic of a much larger time period (40 years of wilderness wanderings), something smaller can be symbolic of something larger.

I brought up the sabbath years and years of jubilee (every 49 years) as examples of how even Sabbaths can be of varying lengths. In other words, 'Sabbath' is not a fixed length in Scripture, just as 'yom' doesn't have just one definition, but three interchangeable ones.

[AaronBDisney]

The quote Sean gave from Exodus 20 speaks about Sabbath DAYS. Your quote speaks of a sabbath YEAR. If God spoke of the seven years of creation - or the seven centuries of creation or the seven millinnea of creation that would be different, but he spoke of the seven....okay, well, actually six days of creation.

Sabbath just means the seventh. And they were told to rest on the seventh day specifically because it correlated perfectly with the creation days. The yearly sabbaths you listed made no reference to the creation week.

[anochria]

But there would be no Sabbaths at all without the pattern of the creation week.

If God spoke of the seven years of creation - or the seven centuries of creation or the seven millinnea of creation that would be different, but he spoke of the seven....okay, well, actually six days of creation.

But remember that in Hebrew yom can literally mean "a long or indefinite period of time". So, Exodus can be saying, "you will labor 6 days (24-hours periods) because God created the world in 6 days (epochs)". This doesn't seem strange to me.

aaronbdisney wrote:

If you are trying to convince me that the language of the Bible leaves room for an old earth interpretation, you are doing pretty good. If you are trying to convince me that the most natural understanding of Genesis 1 is that these days are not literal and that the sun (which was made millions of years prior) just appeared on day 4, then you're not doing so good.

It's hard for me to speak of what the "most natural understanding" would be becuase I grew up in an environment that interpreted these passages to me from a very early age (as I think many of us did). Besides, the most "natural" reading in the English is somewhat irrelevant. The real question is how would a Hebrew have understood these texts back in the day.

I imagine the original readers/ listeners of the Genesis story to not really care or insist on how long the days were. I think they recognized this format as standard fare for creation stories. However, I think that God, in His inspiration, bequeathed to the author a more scientifically accurate account than we might at first glance expect from a creation story.

I'm going to post some observations on the Best Evidence for an Old Earth thread regarding how nicely the events of the creation week match up with what the majority of scientists already consider to be the conditions and progression of the early earth. This is another reason I favor the old earth perspective.

[anochria]

Sean,
Sorry I missed your post somehow.

So the most compelling evidence is that in your opinion it is unlikely God would do it that way because it would take too long (more than a day)? So what you deem unlikely is your best evidence? Do you also consider it unlikely that God can raise the dead? Maybe that will not happen either.

Adam gets lonely? Why read this into the text except to make it seem absurd that he would get lonely "so soon"? There is no mention of Adam getting lonely.

This isn't the first time the word "compelling" has gotten me in trouble But my point was that biblically speaking, I find trying to fit the events of day 6 all into one 24 hour period to be a stretch.

While it is speculation, the inference of Adam's loneliness a is based off of the claim that when in Genesis 2:23 Adam says "This is now bone of my bones", the Hebrew more naturally reads "This at long last is bone of my bones" For an example: http://books.google.com/books?id=v7NjVI ... %22&f=false

I can't verify that, though. Can anyone here do so?

[Sean]

This isn't the first time the word "compelling" has gotten me in trouble But my point was that biblically speaking, I find trying to fit the events of day 6 all into one 24 hour period to be a stretch.

I can understand that. However, when considering things like this I wonder how God is able to work anything out. I mean, how is he going to raise the dead? How long will it take to recreate the earth? How was He able to work through the sinful and rebellious Jews to bring the Messiah along at just the right time and fulfill to prophecies about him? How did He get life on earth so balanced that even with all our modern technology, messing around with the environment, blowing stuff up and polluting we are still here! (Unless He just keeps intervening to keep us alive).

The whole of creation is a wonder to me, so the events of creation are just another one of those things. But at least all the events of day 6 could be imagined to have happened in 24 hours. Some things I can't even imagine how He does. That's the only reason I mention that I don't find what you said "compelling". While God does work through what appears to us to be "natural processes", it does not always mean He does so. The creation account seems anything but a "natural process".

[anochria]

This isn't the first time the word "compelling" has gotten me in trouble But my point was that biblically speaking, I find trying to fit the events of day 6 all into one 24 hour period to be a stretch.

I can understand that. However, when considering things like this I wonder how God is able to work anything out. I mean, how is he going to raise the dead? How long will it take to recreate the earth? How was He able to work through the sinful and rebellious Jews to bring the Messiah along at just the right time and fulfill to prophecies about him? How did He get life on earth so balanced that even with all our modern technology, messing around with the environment, blowing stuff up and polluting we are still here! (Unless He just keeps intervening to keep us alive).

Yes, but the text doesn't give us any indication that God miraculously sped time up that day so it could all fit into 24 hours. The way it reads it seems to naturally suppose more than a 24 hour period, imo.

While God does work through what appears to us to be "natural processes", it does not always mean He does so. The creation account seems anything but a "natural process".

I might have to disagree with you here, though it depends on what you mean by "natural process". I do think that whatever God does in the universe is a natural process- it's just that we don't understand everything (and never will) about the universe He created and it's interaction with the supernatural realm. In other words, I don't think miracles break any natural laws. But that's probably a subject for another thread.

[anochria]

Earlier, aaronbdisney wrote:

Plus....why did God make the plants? Wasn't it chiefly for animals and man to live on? Why did He do it so many thousands, if not millions, of years before He created Adam?

Well, first off, I don't see why millions of year is any different than 1 day to God, except that he chose to design a universe with our particular set of physics. And one reason we needs plants in existence millions of years before man is to lay down the vast coal and oil reserves we have on this planet which have enabled mankind to flourish.

Also, I think God enjoys the plants. They aren't just there for food for animals.

[AaronBDisney]

Earlier, aaronbdisney wrote:

Plus....why did God make the plants? Wasn't it chiefly for animals and man to live on? Why did He do it so many thousands, if not millions, of years before He created Adam?

Well, first off, I don't see why millions of year is any different than 1 day to God, except that he chose to design a universe with our particular set of physics. And one reason we needs plants in existence millions of years before man is to lay down the vast coal and oil reserves we have on this planet which have enabled mankind to flourish.

I have to strongly disagree with your assertion that the coal and oil reserves took millions of years to form. Imagine, if you will, a worldwide flood caused not only by rain but by the 'fountains of the great deep' bursting forth. This was water under the earth, as it shot onto the surface, many plates shifted around. Much dirt, gravel, sand, clay, etc. was sloshing around in enormous whirlpools. And in those things were vegetation.

The vegetation of the early earth was probably incredibly vast, considering the ocean holds the flood waters that used to be under the ground. Plus the multitude of evidence for worldwide tropical climates would allow for massive amounts of plantlife.

If all that stuff got buried deeply and quickly, under much pressure, coal can form rather quickly. They were able to form coal in a lab, under controlled conditions of course, in a matter of weeks.

There are petrified trees that run through 2 separate coal seams in many many many places throughout the world. That PROVES the two coal seams did NOT form millions of years apart, unless you would conclude that a dead tree stood around for millions of years waiting for coal to form around it.

Imagine all the animals and people that were buried and squashed into the oil we use today. The flood is the key to all these problems.

Again, I know his style is somewhat grating, but if you want to hear a decent theory that fits the Bible, go to http://www.drdino.com and go to his multimedia videos. Kent Hovind's Hovind Theory answers all these questions.

I do disagree that God wanted plants around cause he likes them so much. I think it's an understatement to say that their primary importance was sustaining human and animal life.

[Danny]

Hi Anochria,

In response to your original question, "Doesn’t an earth that old directly contradict the Biblical idea that everything was created in just six 24-hour periods?", my take on it is that what the Bible presents is ancient Hebrew cosmology which is very different from an actual scientific understanding of the earth, solar system, universe, etc. The Genesis creation story is a myth. By myth I mean a story which was intended to explain the world to a pre-scientific people. More importantly, the purpose of the creation myth was to help the ancient Hebrews understand their relationship to God and God's relationship to their world. It is not historical narrative or scientific treatise. Once one gets their head around that (not an easy task if one has been trained to take Genesis literally), issues such as the "days of creation" become irrelevant.

Here's an interesting article about ancient Hebrew cosmology: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm
Although it is somewhat geared towards those who (still) believe that the earth is flat (based on what the Bible says) much of it is also germane to this discussion.

-Danny

[anochria]

Danny,
I agree with you insofar as the Genesis account needs to be understood in it's mytholigical genre and that it is not intended to be a scientific treatise. Still, I think it's remarkably scientifically accurate- much more so than any of it's contemporary versions. I think this is just one more mark of it's inspiration.