The Days of Creation: Hours or Eons?

DICK FISCHER

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As the apparent end product in God's creation, we humans seem to have an innate curiosity about both natural and scriptural things. Should God's creative days in Genesis 1 be taken to mean periods of long time (eons) or periods of short time, to wit, 24 hours? This article presents the biblical evidence for applying a long term definition to that initial and seemingly eternal stumbling block of a word: "day" in the English, or "yom" in the Hebrew. In the Bible, as in life, it's simply a matter of timing.

From: PSCF 42 (March 1990): 15-22.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
And God said, `Let there be light;' and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1:3-5)

Thus begins the world's greatest book. I believe it's safe to say that these words have been read by more people on earth than any other recorded words in the history of man. They are not only profound and poignant, but problematic as well. 

If Moses was the author, as a consensus of evangelical Bible scholars believe, was it his intention to convey a day's period of time in this and succeeding passages in exactly the same measure as a man's day-24 hours? Or did he mean a day of God's time, which could contrast just as drastically from our simple measure as man in the flesh could be contrasted with God himself.

The entire first chapter of Genesis reveals the stages of God's creation. The first "day" begins when the sun ignites and the first dazzling light strikes the primitive planet Earth. On the second "day," the Lord divides the waters with vapor or mist in the air, and liquid covering the surface. Dry land and vegetation come about on the third "day." The sun, moon, and stars begin to function as time keepers on the fourth "day." "Day" five is devoted to creating the world's "fish" and "fowl" (sometimes translated "flying creatures," which could ¨include insects). Land animals come on the scene, and man makes his appearance on "day" six. The Lord rests on the seventh "day."

And now for the sixty-four thousand dollar question. How many ticks of the clock took place? If we were offered the opportunity to view a video tape replay of the entire creative sequence, how much time should we budget? If we only had a week's vacation, could we fit it all in? How much time are we talking about here?

The Hebrew word "yom" used in Genesis has the same meaning as "day" does in English. It can mean the daylight portion of a day, the entire 24-hour period, or a time of undesignated length. Here's a sample sentence incorporating these usages: "In my grandfather's day the days were colder even in the daytime." Which usage did Moses intend in the first few passages of Genesis? Better yet, which usage did God intend to convey through Moses?

Many have come to believe that interpreting those creative days as long periods is a relatively modern phenomenon, necessitated by the recent findings of science; i.e., knowledge of sedimentation rates, the discovery of dinosaur fossils, awareness of a vast and expanding universe, etc. But that is not the case. Many of the early church fathers took their clues from Scripture alone in the scarcity of natural evidence. Irenaeus, Origen, Basil, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, to name a few, argued that the days of creation were long periods of time.¹

There are some today, however, who are advocating that the creation days in Genesis were merely 24 hours in duration. Let's take a look at that argument. "The Biblical record itself makes it plain that the days of creation are literal days, not long indefinite ages," says Henry Morris in his book The Genesis Record. "If he (the writer of Genesis) wished to convey the idea of long geological ages, however, he could surely have done it far more clearly and effectively in other words than in those which he selected."

This is the rationale used by Morris:

As though in anticipation of future misunderstanding, God carefully defined His terms! The very first time He used the word "day" (Hebrew "yom"), He defined it as the "light," to distinguish it from the "darkness" called "night." Having separated the day and night, God had completed His first day's work. "The evening and the morning were the first day." This same formula is used at the conclusion of each of the six days; so it is obvious that the duration of each of the days, including the first, was the same. Furthermore, the "day" was the "light" time, when God did His work; the darkness was the "night" time when God did no work-nothing new took place between the "evening" and "morning" of each day.²

The Ryrie Study Bible follows the same line:

And there was evening and there was morning, one day.  Better, "day one." Later Jewish reckoning began the day with eventide (Lev 23:32). This may be the reason for the order here, or it may simply mean that one day-night cycle was completed. Since daytime closes at evening and the night ends with the morning, the phrase indicates that the first day and night had been completed. Evening and morning cannot be construed to mean an age, but only a day; everywhere in the Pentateuch the word "day," when used (as here) with a numerical adjective, means a solar day (now calibrated as 24 hours).³

Not every theologian or Bible scholar believes that the first Human Being was walking around on terra firma a mere 144 hours after the "Big Bang," or whatever spectacular event that took place and resulted in a molten ball which was to finally become planet Earth. But the keys to interpretation are not found by just comparing Scripture with the world's logic, which can be faulty, or with its knowledge, which is incomplete, but by comparing Scripture with Scripture itself.

Since Moses used the word "yom" for a creative day, what was he talking about? For the answer to that question we need look no further than the Bible. Oh, we could peek at nature if we like. Just like reading a mystery novel, we could sneak to the last few pages and discover that the butler did it. We could then read the book knowing full well from the beginning who the culprit was bound to be in the end. And, I will acknowledge that the sheer abundance of scientific evidence which only permits one answer-an old earth-is a heavy persuader. But the Bible can be judged by the Bible itself. Indeed, what better measure?

Following the six days of creation and God's sanctification of the seventh day of rest, the story of Adam begins in Genesis 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." Here Moses used the word "day" as a coverall to apply to the previous six days of creation. But just how can one 24-hour day be equal to six 24-hour days? This is not a problem with time but with mathematics.

If a day of creation is reckoned as a time of indefinite length, then one large time of indefinite length could easily equal six smaller times of indefinite length. What happens when we slice a pie into six pieces? The word "pie" could apply to the whole or to each piece. To inappropriately apply a 24-hour period definition to the word "day" when that word has a variety of meanings, puts Scripture at odds with Scripture when it is completely unnecessary. Attempts to be literal with some ¨passages, while totally ignoring other key passages, makes the Bible appear to be contradictory when it isn't at all. 

Gleason Archer in his book Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties reaches that same conclusion, "...it is abundantly clear that `yom' in Genesis 2:4 cannot possibly be meant as a twenty-four hour day-unless perchance the Scripture contradicts itself!"⁴ In Hebrew, just as in English, the word "day" is frequently used for varying amounts of time. Here is a quick illustration:

A wife greets her husband at the door as he comes home from work eager for the supper she has prepared. "How was your day?" she asks.

"It was awful," he complains, "I had to work the whole day. I didn't even have time for lunch."

Ireneaus, Origen, Basil, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, 
to name a few, argued that the days of creation were long periods of time.

Now is there anyone who thinks this man labored nonstop for 24 hours? Of course not, he is talking about a work day. From the context, anyone would know that his "day" lasted only eight or nine hours. It's the context surrounding the word that determines meaning, not the word taken in isolation.

William Wilson's Old Testament Word Studies sums up the possible variations, "A day; it is frequently put for time in general, or for a long time; a whole period under consideration... Day is also put for a particular season or time when any extraordinary event happens..."⁵ The "days" of creation certainly do appear to be periods of extraordinary happenings which fit "a long time" definition better than a 24-hour definition.

What about Ryrie's argument that "everywhere in the Pentateuch the word `day,' when used (as here) with a numerical adjective, means a solar day (now calibrated as 24 hours)"? Dr. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. furnished the answer to that question as he replied to another author trying to use a similar line of reasoning:

It may be true that this is the only case in which the word day is used figuratively when preceded by any numeral, but the reason is that this is the only case in Scripture in which any indefinitely long periods of time are enumerated. The words "aion" in Greek and "olam" in Hebrew are literal words for "age," but we do not happen to have any case in which God has said "first age," "second age," "third age," etc. The attempt to make a grammatical rule to the effect that the numeral preceding the word day makes it literal, breaks down on the simple fact that this is the only case in all the Scriptures, and in all Hebrew language, I think, in which ages are enumerated one after the other. There is no such rule in anybody's Hebrew grammar anywhere. The author of this objection, or the one from whom he has attempted to quote, has simply put forth with a sound of authority a grammatical rule which does not exist.⁶

Let's examine another stumbling block which crops up when the attempt is made to define a day of creation in simplistic 24-hour terms.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years. (Genesis 1:14)
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. (Genesis 1:16)
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (Genesis 1:19)

On the first day God created light, yet the sun, moon and stars were not visible until the fourth day. How is this possible? Is something missing here? Not at all. 

This presents no problem to a concept of creation which takes 16 billion years to unfold. It would be billions of years after that starting event, commonly called the "Big Bang," which would not only have created light, but heat and noise as well, before the sun would form and finally switch on to become our energy and light source. Prior to that, the earth would be "formless and void" and darkness would prevail, as per Genesis 1:2.

If a day of creation is reckoned as a time of indefinite length, 
then one large time of indefinite length could easily equal six 
smaller times of indefinite length.

One might think that in the young-earth creationist version six 24-hour days punctuated by intervals of daylight and darkness would be hard to come by since they say that the sun wasn't even created until the fourth day. But this is no deterrence if your mind is made up.

I quote Henry Morris:

The formula may be rendered literally: "And there was evening, then morning-day one," and so on. It is clear that, beginning with the first day and continuing thereafter, there was established a cyclical succession of days and nights-periods of light and periods of darkness.

Such a cyclical light-dark arrangement clearly means that the earth was now rotating on its axis and that there was a source of light on one side of the earth corresponding to the sun, even though the sun was not yet made (Genesis 1:16). It is equally clear that the length of such days could only have been that of a normal solar day.⁷

Clear? He's got to be kidding. And what does Morris mean by a "source of light on one side of the earth corresponding to the sun," but which wasn't the sun? Is this meant to be scientific? Does Morris wish us to think that God set up a kind of giant spotlight or an enormous laser beam to light up the earth for 72 hours while He was groping for the sun's light switch? Doesn't this cast the Creator and His creation in a somewhat artificial light?

Here's one prime example of perfectly credible Scripture becoming incredible through faulty interpretation coupled with misguided literalism. If these first days of creation are periods of time of indefinite length as many theologians maintain, and not 24-hour days as some would have us believe, then the sequence of events becomes much more reasonable.

When the Lord created the heavens and the earth, the earth condensed into a fiery molten ball. Water would be vaporized as steam that surrounded the superheated globe. Although the sun, moon, and stars were all in place and functional, the dense clouds would have obscured their view. 

To inappropriately apply a 24-hour period definiition to the word "day" 
when that word has a variety of meanings, puts Scripture at odds with 
Scripture when it is completely unnecessary.

We have no way of knowing when the sun became ignited, but certainly the sun's energy would have been called on to provide the necessary photosynthesis for vegetation which occurs on the previous or third day. Finally, the earth cooled down to where the water vapor contained in the atmosphere condensed, whereupon the sun, moon, and stars then shined through. 

Gleason Archer comments:

Genesis 1:14-19 reveals that in the fourth creative stage God parted the cloud cover enough for direct sunlight to fall on the earth and for accurate observation of the movements of the sun, moon, and stars to take place. Verse 16 should not be understood as indicating the creation of the heavenly bodies for the first time on the fourth creative day; rather it informs us that the sun, moon, and stars created on Day One as the source of light had been placed in their appointed places by God with a view to their eventually functioning as indicators of time ("signs, seasons, days, years") to terrestrial observers. The Hebrew verb "wayya'as" in v. 16 should better be rendered "Now [God] had made the two great luminaries, etc.," rather than as simple past tense, [God] made.⁸

Whereas the Hebrew verb used in previous and following passages of Genesis could best be translated "create," in this particular passage a different form of the verb was used which comes closer to meaning "made" or "had made." This makes good sense. The Lord created heaven and earth on day one, but on day four He caused the light from those heavenly bodies to be seen. How? He just parted the clouds.

If these first days of creation are periods of time of indefinite length 
as many theolgians maintain, and not 24-hour days as some would have us believe, then the sequence of events becomes much more reasonable.

Let me point out one significant problem that has been largely overlooked by Bible scholars. We, as mortals, cannot possibly envision the world as God must see it. For one, God is omniscient. Being unencumbered by the constraints of time, as we are, He knows the future. For another, God is omnipresent. As individual human beings, we are situated both in time and space. God has the unique characteristic or capability of being everywhere at once. He can be in Hong Kong, Honolulu, and Hackensack simultaneously.

When we humans speak of evening and morning we think of it as being synonymous with sunset and sunrise. That's because we, as human observers, are locked in time and space at one specific geographical location at any given time. Astronauts, when they are in orbit around the earth, are not so restricted. They see many "evenings" and "mornings" during a 24-hour day as they watch the sun disappear and reappear over the horizon with great rapidity.

We, as mortals, cannot possibly envision the world as God must see it. 
For one, God is omniscient.... For another, God is omnipresent.

From God's perspective the earth is always half in daylight and half in darkness perennially, day after day from the moment He created it until the moment of its ultimate destruction. In one respect we might say that God never sees "evening" or "morning," or maybe we could say that He sees an infinite number of "evenings" and "mornings" every single day. But, what we can't do is trap God in Jerusalem or Jericho and think that He, like each of us, is limited to one sunrise and one sunset per 24-hour period, lest we get trapped like Henry Morris and think God can't work at night.

To a human observer, which didn't appear until day six, the term "morning" could be thought of as being synonomous with sunrise. As pertains to the lower "living creatures," which began to experience life on day five, the use of the words "evening" and "morning" might be taken to mean periods of light separated by periods of darkness. But from day one to day four, God's timing alone applied unmitigated by any human or animal observations. We have no reason, whatsoever, to draw any conclusions as to what time table was in effect.

Let's examine another problem area. The fall of Satan, and with him one third of the heavenly hosts (Revelation 12:3,4), had to occur before the advent of man, or else Adam wouldn't have been led into temptation and sin.

The whole story of Satan's fall has to be pieced together from the various books of the Bible. But we know from Ezekiel 28:14-15 that he was the "anointed cherub," was "on the holy mountain of God," and was "perfect in his ways" from the day he was created until "iniquity" was found in him. His heart was "lifted up" because of his "beauty." From Revelation 12:7-9, we learn that there was "war in heaven." Satan fought against "Michael and his angels" and was "cast out into the earth."

How long a period of time was involved between the creation of this "angel of light" until his pride overcame him and he was cast down to earth? Well, barring two creations, we would have to cram the entire saga into just five or six 24-hour time periods if we were to believe in young-earth creation theory. That's kind of like stuffing 140 million years of dinosaur history into a 30-second TV commercial.

Let's skip now to the sixth creative period. At the beginning of day six, the Lord created "cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth" (Genesis 1:24). Finally, Adam and then Eve are also created before the Lord rested on the seventh, or Sabbath, day.

Had that sixth day of creation been a 24-hour day it most assuredly would have been jam packed with activity. First, God made all the world's land animals. That's the easy part. Now, in Genesis 2:20, Adam has to name them all; that is, all "cattle, all the fowl of the air and every beast of the field." If that sounds like a large task for one day, ponder the following for a moment.

In the young-earth creationist's model, death does not occur in the world, even among the animals of the world, until Adam commits Original Sin.⁹ The species of animals that exist today comprise less than 1% of what has inhabited this planet since it began. Over 99% of all the species which once roamed the earth are now extinct.

If you can get a grip on the magnitude of what a naming problem would be like with the thousands of species which are in existence today, multiply those species one-hundred-fold and then lay it on Adam just a few moments after his first drawn breaths.

 So a 24-hour day is the one interpretation which is explicitly eliminated 
as a possibility. In the words of Augustine, they were "God-divided days," 
not "sun-divided days."

Why, it would be a sight to behold! Turtles and giant sloths would gallop by like cheetahs and gazelles. Adam would be chanting out names like a Tennessee auctioneer. Keep in mind, he'd also be cultivating the garden in his spare moments (Genesis 2:15). It's no wonder he would be looking for a helper (Genesis 2:20), but it would be sure easy to see why none was found in that first day's blur of activity. And as a perfect ending to a busy day, Adam had his rib removed and a wife presented to him (Genesis 2:21-22). Now that certainly would have kept his first few hours on earth interesting.

Gleason Archer narrates:

It must have required some years, or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populated the Garden of Eden.
Finally, after this assignment with all its absorbing interest had been completed, Adam felt a renewed sense of emptiness. Genesis 2:20 ends with the words `but for Adam no suitable helper was found.' After this long and unsatisfying experience as a lonely bachelor, God saw that Adam was emotionally prepared for a wife-`a suitable helper.' God, therefore, subjected him to a deep sleep, removed from his body the bone that was closest to his heart, and from that physical core of man fashioned the first woman. Finally God presented woman to Adam in all her fresh, unspoiled beauty, and Adam was ecstatic with joy.... It has become very apparent that Genesis 1 was never intended to teach that the sixth creative day, when Adam and Eve were both created, lasted a mere twenty-four hours. In view of the long interval of time between these two, it would seem to border on sheer irrationality to insist that all of Adam's experiences in Genesis 2:15-22 could have been crowded into the last hour or two of a literal twenty-four-hour day.¹⁰

Even if a 24-hour period could be construed by stretching the imagination for any one of the first six days of creation, it wouldn't work for the seventh. Here again, Scripture would have to contradict Scripture just to fit an unwarranted preconception. The New Testament refers to the Lord in His rest continuing from the end of creation on through both the Old and New Testaments:

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
For we which have believed do enter into rest, as He said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. (Hebrews 4:1,3)

According to Archer, "...that seventh day, that `Sabbath rest,' in a very definite sense has continued on right into the church age. If so, it would be quite impossible to line up the seventh-day Sabbath with the Seventh Day that concluded God's original work of creation!"¹¹

So, if the seventh day, the Lord's day of rest, is a long period of time encompassing thousands of years as conclusively demonstrated by Scripture, then consistency demands that the first six days be given similar treatment-that is, ages or eons, but positively not 24-hour time periods!

In Psalm 90:4, Moses puts it into sharp perspective, "For a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it passes by, Or as a watch in the night [three to four hours]." These words leave not one shred of doubt that God's timing and man's timing are not to be confused. Nor will any simple equation rectify the discrepancy. We just have neither the information nor the brain power to figure out what His time may be in relation to our time.

Just in case we missed it in Psalms, we get another chance in 2 Peter. After the Apostle Peter declares that false prophets and false teachers will come in the last days, he makes this prophetic warning in 2 Peter 3:5, "For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old ..."

And so, who says the earth and heavens are young? Those who are "willingly ignorant"! And just to drive the point home, the Apostle follows in 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." How much plainer can it be?

When authors who purport to be Bible scholars put forth an erroneous theory, 
which they claim is based on "inerrant" Scripture, it's biblical credibility that suffers.

Clearly, man's measurements are puny yardsticks indeed. How long is a day of God's creation? We're not told. But we are told how long it isn't! We are told specifically that His time and our time are dissimilar. So a 24-hour day is the one interpretation which is explicitly eliminated as a possibility. In the words of Augustine, they were "God-divided days," not "sun-divided days."

By way of summary let's reiterate some pertinent points:

1. The Hebrew word "yom" has a number of meanings which allow a time of long duration to be a perfectly good rendering of the word "day" without any stretching of the credibility of Scripture.

2. If the sun's appearance is not until the fourth day, it could not have been used as a means of measuring the length of the previous three days.

3. The sixth day of creation is just too loaded with events to be stuffed into 24 hours.

4. The seventh day continues on into the church age. 

5. We are expressly told, both in Old and New Testament, that God's time is not to be confused with man's time.

Why do some persist in maintaining an intransigent mindset? The days of creation, in a million years, couldn't be 24-hour days. For those who proclaim to know the Bible, they certainly have overlooked or ignored some pretty relevant modifying passages. Are these young-earth proponents simply interpretational lightweights, or is something else afoot?

I suspect the beginning impetus for the most recent surge in young-earth creationism stemmed from a preoccupation with the general theory of evolution and its atheistic overtones. Once the course was set, blinders were applied and there has been no listening to reason ever since. Young-earth creationists seem to have cast scientists into Satan's robes and will use whatever argument, spurious or otherwise, to vanquish the foe.

The case for evolution does have a principal requirement. Long periods of time are needed for species to slowly evolve from simple to more complex life forms. If millions of years are available, then some aspects of the theory of evolution could be viable. If the time required is denied, then gradual evolution becomes an impossibility and only sudden creation will work. Defeating evolution at any cost appears to have been the prime motivator of young-earth creationists, but now the helmsman has been swept overboard, vested interests have been established, and many creationists are caught up in perpetuating a wayward "ministry."

Initially the motives may have been pure, given the benefit of the doubt, but the tactics currently in use are deplorable. The Bible is made to appear to be in error while, in fact, it is these young-earth creationists themselves who do error through inaccurate interpretation compounded by their denial of a preponderance of carefully compiled scientific evidence which points in only one direction. When authors who purport to be Bible scholars put forth an erroneous theory which they claim is based on "inerrant" Scripture, it's biblical credibility that suffers. Biblical error is the conclusion! The lamentable effect is for the baby of Christianity to go right out the window with the bath water of creationism!

In light of more than adequate scriptural limitations coupled with voluminous scientific data which is totally one-sided, the burning question is: Why is young-earth creationism so readily accepted by many conservative Christians? I believe the answer is that while Bible expositors who subscribe to the young-earth hypothesis can be criticized for using flawed logic in this particular area, in other areas of Christian doctrine their theology is generally quite sound. This makes the poisoned pill easier to swallow for eager, well-intentioned evangelicals who are hungry for the Word and angered by the popularity of evolutionism.

The fallacy of young-earth creationism would be a lot easier to detect if it weren't encapsulated in what is otherwise rather commonly accepted hermeneutics. Ask any Major League pitcher and he will tell you it's the fast ball that sets up the curve.

If God's truth is "sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12), then perhaps a falsehood is deadlier than any double-pointed spear. One point wounds evangelicals, impeding their effectiveness as soul winners. The other pierces the hearts of unbelievers in their rejection of the message delivered by unreliable messengers. If evangelicals can't be trusted in a simple matter such as the age of the earth, which can be easily verified, then how can they be believed on the doctrine of vicarious atonement, for example, where the corroborative evidence is far less abundant. Therein lies the tragedy. The unbeliever may remain in unbelief because the Bible is presented in an unbelievable fashion right from the first chapter.

If evangelicals can't be trusted in a simple matter such as the age of the earth, 
which can be easily verified, then how can they be believed on the 
doctrine of vicarious atonement?

The more startling irony in all this is that while many young-earth creationists have resorted to science-bashing through what they call "creation science," working scientists in their search for truth, wherever it may lead, are finding in some instances that science is taking them straight to the Bible!

The materialistic Big Bang theory has fallen on hard times. Even though most physicists readily accept the sequence of events which followed, attempts to explain the cause and origin of that giant explosion is a whole new ball game. An exciting proposition from a Christian perspective is the "New Inflationary Theory" which posits that the universe originated from nothing, as in John 1:1.

One scientist, Dr. Robert Gange, reports in his book Origins and Destiny:

In the Big Bang theory, our hands were tied because we could not go back in time to the actual beginning. A small impenetrable interval of time, called a `Planck time' separated us from seeing the true beginning. But the New Inflationary Theory frees us from this limitation and gives us a picture of the universe from the moment it unfolded. Were we to condense its implications into one sentence, it would be this: The universe seems to have come into existence out of nothing. That's right; out of nothing.¹²

Now let's see, who can create something out of nothing? You guessed it-God can! That might make a good starting point for creationists to use in their fight against evolution, if there weren't so many caught up in trying to prove that the world is young. That's what can happen when we're so busy banging the drum we can't hear the call of the bugle. In the words of Martin Luther: "The Word must stand, for God cannot lie, and heaven and earth must come to ruins before the most insignificant letter or title of His Word, remains unfulfilled."

I believe any thoughtful person who carefully examined the scriptural evidence alone would conclude that a day of God's creation was not recorded in such a way that it should cause us to believe those could be 24-hour days. When the tremendous amount of scientific evidence is weighed in, which convincingly underscores the case for an ancient earth, then all argument should abruptly end. The days of creation were the periods of time God took to accomplish His creative deeds. Attempts at interpreting those days as 24-hour time periods violates God's Words in Scripture and His Works in Nature, not to mention man's good common sense.

©1990

NOTES

¹Ross, Hugh. Biblical Evidence for Long Creation Days (unpublished), p. 1.
²Morris, Henry M. The Genesis Record (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1976), pp. 54, 55.
³Ryrie, Charles C. The Ryrie Study Bible (Chicago: Moody Press, 1978), p. 7.
⁴Archer, Gleason L. Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), p. 63.
⁵Wilson, William. Old Testament Word Studies (McLean: Macdonald Publishing Co., 1978), p. 109.
⁶Pun, Pattle P.T. Evolution: Nature and Scripture in Conflict? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), p. 269.
⁷Morris, The Genesis Record, p. 65.
⁸Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 61.
⁹Morris, The Genesis Record, p. 79.
¹⁰Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 68.
¹¹Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 62.
¹²Gange, Robert A. Origins and Destiny (Waco: Word Books, 1986), p. 19.