Days of Creation

[Aubrey Lewis]

I agree with it. We can't be 100% sure of the duration of a single day in the past; it could be like an hour in our world today, or it could be months, or it could even be seconds. It's more like a curious kind of mystery, so it didn't really bother me.

[Abandoned_Account]

This is something I bring up with a lot of people when discussing my qualms with religious texts. We have no sure fire way of knowing just how they measured time or if their version of a month or a year aligned with our own. Lots of things can be lost to time or through faulty translations. It doesn't make much sense for people to have supposedly lived for hundreds or even thousands of years without access to the medical resources and access to food and shelter that we have today, and yet the Bible claims that they did just that.

I know it doesn't make sense, but what if people in the Old Testament did live thousands of years and perhaps created the ideas and resources we have today. I have found that stories that are classified as Myth or Legends have an element of truth thanks to archeological discoveries.. Why would The Bible be any different?

Because we have yet to make an archeological discovery of a humanoid to have lived that long in an environment with primitive medicine/shelter/technology, increased disease, poorer hygiene, etc. Some legends are based off things in everyday life, but were often still incorrect or misinterpreted. For example: in ancient Greece people believed the cyclops existed as a real creature. In reality they had found elephant and mastodon skulls and held them upside-down, thinking the open front of the giant skull to be a large eye socket.

We need to think critically based off what we know to be true or the most likely when considering things like this.

[Wyland]

I don't agree with him. There were seven literal days as who is to limit God? He did it by the power of His word. Isaiah 45: 9, may provide some insights on our place in relation to God as our Creator.

[Thehorselover]

Much is lost in the Hebrew translation, but also much has been studied and I think if it wasn't days then someone would have pointed that out by now, of all the many Bible scholars out there; so it is most likely actual days.

[Jsovermyer]

There are lots of controversial issues with this topic. I think everyone should hold on to their belief about the way they understand the Bible with regards to creation.

Noone really knows how long it took. We can have our opinion, but must realize that differing opinions are just as valid. Who knows what is true?

[Jsovermyer]

This is something I bring up with a lot of people when discussing my qualms with religious texts. We have no sure fire way of knowing just how they measured time or if their version of a month or a year aligned with our own. Lots of things can be lost to time or through faulty translations. It doesn't make much sense for people to have supposedly lived for hundreds or even thousands of years without access to the medical resources and access to food and shelter that we have today, and yet the Bible claims that they did just that.

I know it doesn't make sense, but what if people in the Old Testament did live thousands of years and perhaps created the ideas and resources we have today. I have found that stories that are classified as Myth or Legends have an element of truth thanks to archeological discoveries.. Why would The Bible be any different?

Because we have yet to make an archeological discovery of a humanoid to have lived that long in an environment with primitive medicine/shelter/technology, increased disease, poorer hygiene, etc. Some legends are based off things in everyday life, but were often still incorrect or misinterpreted. For example: in ancient Greece people believed the cyclops existed as a real creature. In reality they had found elephant and mastodon skulls and held them upside-down, thinking the open front of the giant skull to be a large eye socket.

We need to think critically based off what we know to be true or the most likely when considering things like this.

That is very interesting about the cyclops. That makes a lot of sense. I have often wondered if some of the biblical stories where just myths.

[SuzanneM_81]

While God is allowed to mean anything He wants by the description given, if the Hebrew word ‘yom’ is consistently translated with how it is used in the rest of the Old Testament, it has to mean seven literal days. While there are places that ‘yom’ is used to mean a more general period of time, everywhere in the Old Testament where ‘yom’ is accompanied by the phrase evening and morning, or it is used with a number (first day, second day...) it means literal days.

[Wanja Hannah]

I agree with the author since God started creation before time was defined by man. It could be a day was a period of time.

[Joy Catap]

I think it's not literal days. Who knows? The capacity of our human mind is limited. I believe the earth's timeframe is different from the timeframe of heaven.

[T_stone]

I also don't think the 7 days are literal days. God's ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not ours.

[Wanjugush]

I also don't think it's literal days. The Bibles talks of "a day as a thousand years before God." It could mean seasons too.

[HeatherEi]

Great question! I know there is another passage in the Bible that says 1000 years is like a day and a day is like a 1000 years to God. I do not think it was a literal seven days; then again, I wasn't there!

[LyorBoone]

Whatever amount time it takes tire out God after six days must be much longer than the 24 hour period we are accustomed to in modern times. I tend to imagine lifetimes passing for each day mentioned.

[Prisallen]

I agree with his interpretation. I don't think we can know for sure how long a day is in God's eyes.

[skindrukas]

For me, it doesn't really matter how long those 7 days lasted. They could have even be not of the same length, I wouldn't care less. What matters more, I think, is the symbolic separation of things that were created in a row of some periods of time (days).