GENESIS RELOADED

PART FIVE: DOES A “DAY” ALWAYS MEAN A LITERAL DAY?

When it comes to the Creation story, Answers in Genesis says it does:

“Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation. The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.”  – AiG Statement of Faith

And in his article A young Earth; it’s not the issue! Kenneth Ham writes:

“Recently, one of our associates sat down with a highly respected world-class Hebrew scholar [Which scholar? Does he have a name?] and asked him this question: If you started with the Bible alone, without considering any outside influences whatsoever, could you ever come up with millions or billions of years of history for the Earth and universe? The answer from this scholar? Absolutely not! Let’s be honest. Take out your Bible and look through it. You can’t find any hint at all for millions or billions of years.”

And I agree. You can’t find any hint for millions or billions of years of history because the Bible is a record of human history, written for our benefit. A thorough study of the genealogy from Adam to Christ (see Luke 3:23-38) will reveal that there were about 4,000 years of recorded human history before Christ (BC). And about 2,000 years of history have elapsed since the time of Christ (AD), for a grand total of about 6,000 years. This is the Biblical record of human history ONLY. This is not necessarily indicative of how much time may or may not have elapsed since the very beginning of creation, relative to our limited earthly perspective, when God first said “Let there be light.” Question: Why should a book that was written for the benefit of mankind concern itself with ages past? It doesn’t. Genesis one gives us the record of creation, but doesn’t go much further than that.

A DAY = A THOUSAND YEARS?

“For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:4)

“But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (II Peter 3:8)

Since the vast majority of Christian theologians do not understand physics and concepts such as time dilation, they naturally insist upon a very literal interpretation of the Scriptures, and take most everything the Bible says at face value. Hence, they come to the conclusion that God created everything in six literal days, and that His creation is now approximately 6,000 years old. And since we have seen about 6,000 years of recorded history pass, the belief is that we are soon to witness the beginning of day 7, the Great Sabbath Day of rest. This will commence with the coming of our Lord, which will usher in the 1,000-year Millenium, the kingdom of God on earth. Chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation says six times that the Messianic Kingdom will last 1,000 years. If the 7th day of creation represents a coming 1,000 year period, do the first 6 days of creation also represent 6,000 years in God’s plan for this world and its peoples? Many of the Early Church Fathers believed so:

“What that means is, that He is going to bring the world to an end in six thousand years, since with Him one day means a thousand years.” – Epistle of Barnabas

“Six thousand years must needs be fulfilled that the Sabbath may come.” – Hippolytus

“For in so many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded… in six days created things were completed: it is evident that, therefore, they will come to an end after 6,000 years.” – Irenaeus

This idea of a six-day, six-thousand-year-plan for the ages was well known to the Jews of Christ’s day. Even 200 years before Christ, the Rabbi Elias wrote:

“The world endures six thousand years: two thousand before the law, two thousand under the law, and two thousand under Messiah.” Source: The Sacred Theory of the Earth, by Bishop Burnett [London: 1816], p. 408

COMMENT: It’s worth mentioning here that this Jewish Rabbi was expecting the coming of their Messiah after about 4,000 years, which is precisely when Jesus showed up claiming to be this Messiah. Hmmm …

But most did not share Rabbi Elias’ opinion. The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion (art. “Millennium,” Adama Books, 1986, p.263) reports that the tannaim (rabbis of Christ’s day) based their interpretation on Psalm 90:4 – “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” The tannaim said that, as there were six days of creation, the world would last for 6,000 years. The seventh “world day” would be 1,000 years of the Messiah (Sanhedrin 97a; Avodah Zarah Sa).

To further illustrate how widespread the concept of the Millennium beginning six thousand years after Adam’s creation was, many more writings by other early rabbis and church fathers could be examined: Rabbi Ketina, Lactantius, Victorinus, Justin Martyr, Methodius, etc. Though these men may not always be relied upon for Biblical truth, they certainly do attest to how popular this understanding was in the early centuries after Christ’s death. And this has been the respected opinion of Christian scholars throughout the centuries, up to our present day.

Of course, we have now seen over 6,000 years of human history come and go, and still no sign of our Lord’s return. Is this a problem? No. Jesus Himself said that no man would (or could) know the day or the hour of His return. And Peter reminds us:

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (II Peter 3:9)

Before moving on, one more important observation needs to be made:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16,17)

God told Adam that in the DAY he ate of the forbidden fruit, he would DIE. Yet Adam lived to be 930 years old (see Genesis 5:5)! How is this possible? Did God lie? Was He misinformed? Was He not able to accurately predict the future? Of course not! But since Adam did not die the very DAY (meaning a literal 24-hour day) he ate from this tree, Christian theologians have had to offer an alternative explanation. The “death” Adam died, most now say, was a spiritual death, a “separation from God.” But this is not how theologians have always explained this apparent discrepancy. Another way is just as Methodius and other early church commentators explained: since a day with God was a thousand years, then Adam had to die before the first 1,000-year day was completed – and he did [On Things Created, Chapter IX]. But should we really take these passages literally (one day = 1,000 years), like many theologians have claimed? Or do we have reason to question this type of thinking?

“Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees? Are your days like those of a mortal, or your years like those of a man…?” (Job 10:4,5 – NIV)

In the book of Job, God asks a rhetorical question to which no answer is needed. Of course not! God’s “days” are NOT like those of mortal men.

“Surely God is great, and we do not know him; the number of his years is unsearchable.” (Job 36:26 – NRSV)

“But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.” (Psalm 102:27)

WHAT SAITH THE SCRIPTURES?

Dr. Gerald Schroeder, an orthodox Jew, also agrees that the creation occurred in six consecutive twenty-four hour periods of time. And he leans heavily upon ancient commentaries like the Talmud and the Zohar (Kabbalah), which are as highly revered to the Jew as are the Gospels to the Christian, to verify this. And one of the main points he made during his presentation is the fact that the Hebrew word yome, from which we get the English word day, is always indicative of a literal 24-hour period of time. I will not argue the fact that in a most literal sense, the word yome does refer to a 24-hour day, and it is used this way in the Scriptures an overwhelming majority of the time. But sometimes, literal words are used as symbols to describe spiritual (or other) things, as we shall soon see. But first, let’s cite a couple of sources. New Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies (p.109) defines the word yome as follows:

“A day; it is frequently put for time in general, or for a long time; a whole period under consideration, as, in the day signifieth in the time when; in that day, at that time. Day is also put for a particular season or time when any extraordinary event happens, whether it be prosperous and joyful, or adverse and calamitous; which day is denominated either from the LORD who appoints it, or from those who suffer in it…”

And Strong’s Concordance says this (emphasis in CAPS are mine):

H#3117 yowm, yome; from an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or FIGURATIVE (a SPACE OF TIME defined by an associated term).

According to BOTH of these sources, the Hebrew word yome does NOT necessarily always imply the notion of a literal 24-hour period of time. And it didn’t take too long for me to find numerous examples from the Scriptures to verify this. Here are three:

• 1. “The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee.” (Psalm 20:1)

The New Living Translation, though not a technical word for word translation, more accurately expresses the thought here:

“In times of trouble, may the LORD respond to your cry…”

• 1. “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.” (Psalm 95:8)

In this example, the word ‘day’ is obviously symbolic of a period of time longer than 24 hours, for as we all know, the Moses-led refugees were in the wilderness 40 years.

• 1. “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider…” (Ecclesiastes 7:14)

In times of prosperity, and in times of adversity, is clearly the thought here.

In the King James Bible, yome is also represented by other words or phrases as well. The following list (from George V. Wigram’s Englishman’s Hebrew Concordance of the Old Testament) shows how yome has been translated by a word or phrase other than ‘day’ or ‘days.’ This should lay to rest any further controversy about whether or not this word is always indicative of a literal 24-hour day.

• • In age (Genesis 18:11; 24:1)
  • A time (Genesis 26:8)
  • In time (Genesis 30:33)
  • For ever (Genesis 43:9; 44:32)
  • From year to year (Exodus 13:10)
  • All the while that (Leviticus 14:46)
  • The space of (Leviticus 25:8)
  • A full year (Leviticus 25:29)
  • According to the time of (Leviticus 25:50)
  • As long as (Leviticus 26:34)
  • Now the time (was) the time of (Numbers 13:20)
  • And the space (Deuteronomy 2:14)
  • Always (Deuteronomy 6:24; 28:33)
  • Evermore (Deuteronomy 28:29)
  • Even now (Deuteronomy 31:21)

Even in the English language, the word day sometimes implies more than a literal 24-hour period of time. The following comes from Funk & Wagnalls New Practical Standard Desk Dictionary, Volume I:

6) A time or period; an age

A specified epoch; as, in Caesar’s day

EVENING AND MORNING

We have just shown from the Scriptures that the word day can very well indeed imply something other than a literal 24-hour day, as we know it. So in Genesis chapter one, does this mean is possible that the phrase “evening and morning” (from the Hebrew words EREV and BOKER) is describing something other than a literal sunset and sunrise? It is more than just possible, it is CERTAIN!

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 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 EREV and the BOKER were the FIRST DAY.” (v. 1,3-5)

“And God made the firmament, [and] called the firmament Heaven. And the EREV and the BOKER were the SECOND DAY.” (v. 7,8)

“And the earth brought forth grass, and the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that is was good. And the EREV and the BOKER were the THIRD DAY.” (v. 12,13)

“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 for years. And the EREV and the BOKER were the FOURTH DAY.” (v. 14,19)

As Dr. Schroeder mentioned during the video presentation (which Scripture has just confirmed), there was no visible sun or moon until DAY FOUR! And God tells us that the lights in the firmament were established to give mankind a way to measure time (v. 14). So logically speaking, EREV and BOKER must be speaking of something other than literal earth days. But despite the logic behind the argument I have just presented, fundamental Christian websites like AiG will still cling to their traditional, narrow-minded way of thinking. Why? The late cosmologist Carl Sagan said it best:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge – even to ourselves – that we’ve been so credulous (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise). Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage.”

Proverbs 16:18 says that “pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” In part three of this series we showed that doctrine must be built upon a sure foundation of Truth: the Rock of Christ. Orthodox Christian doctrine is NOT built upon the Rock – it is built upon the sand. It is NOT built upon Truth – it is built upon LIES! And the WHOLE HOUSE is about to come CRASHING DOWN!

Let’s take a brief look at another attempt by AiG to discredit Dr. Schroeder’s theory:

“Dr. Schroeder also states that the basic Hebrew root word for evening is chaos and the basic Hebrew root word for morning is order. He cites no Hebrew scholar supporting his view, which appears to many scholars to be without foundation.” Gerald Schroeder and his new variation on the day-age theory: Part 1

AiG claims here that Dr. Schroeder “cites no Hebrew scholar supporting his view.” Oh really? I have a transcript of the television programs in question, and though he does not mention a specific Hebrew scholar by name, he DOES mention his source: the Kabbalah. And a little research will clearly show that Nachmanides, one of the most highly revered Hebrew scholars who has ever lived, supports Schroeder’s viewpoint! [In reality, it is Schroeder who is supporting Nachmanides’ viewpoint, for he wrote of these things hundreds of years before.] By comparison, AiG reports that Schroeder’s viewpoint “appears to many scholars to be without foundation.” Many scholars? WHICH scholars? Does AiG provide a list of “many scholars” (or even ONE scholar) who support their viewpoint? No. Not one! Is it just me, or does anybody else see the hypocrisy? First they chide Dr. Schroeder for citing no Hebrew scholar in supporting his view (even though, in an indirect way, he did), and then they themselves cite no Hebrew scholar in support of theirs. Hmmm…. [NOTE: Dr. Schroeder does mention Nachmanides as his source, both in his book The Science of God, and in his online article The Age of the Universe.] Continuing with the AiG article:

“The Hebrew word for evening is (ereb); it appears to have no relation to the word most scholars [which scholars?] would expect for chaos (tohu). Similarly, the word for morning (boqer) has no discernible connection to the word we would expect for order (seder). Since Dr. Schroeder offers no details supporting his alleged Hebrew word relationships, readers should not take him seriously on this point.” – ibid.

Allow me to indulge myself by playing word substitution game here, using AiG’s logic:

“The Hebrew word for GRAVE is (SHEOL); it appears to have no relation to the word most scholars would expect for HELL (sorry, but there is no Hebrew word for hell). Since Christian theologians offer no details supporting their alleged Hebrew word relationships, people should not take them seriously on this point.”

Is there a discernible connection of the words evening and morning [erev and boker] with the concepts of chaos and order? Not by the letter (or a literal meaning) of these words, at least none that I could find (but I’m no Hebrew scholar, either). Regardless, if we desire to know what the Spirit is trying to teach us, then we must learn to look beyond the letter of the Word, to the Spirit behind the letter. Remember: the letter kills, but the Spirit brings life (II Corinthians 3:6)! And we have already proven from God’s Word that these passages cannot be speaking of literal evenings and literal mornings, as we understand them. “Evening and morning” is symbolic language here.

“In the beginning God finds the earth to be “formless (tohu) and empty; but through a series of creative acts, God imposes order upon the cosmos. The order is declared to be “good.” – Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (p. 136) Inter-Varsity Press, 1998

There have been other commentators who have alluded to the fact that the ancient Hebrew words erev and boker — evening and morning — also mean “mixture” (confusion) and “order.” St. John Chrysostom says, “He (Moses) clearly called the end of the day and end of the night one day, in order to set forth a certain order and sequence in the visible (world), and so there would be no confusion.”

“Created by God were the heavens and the earth. Yet the earth became a chaos [tohu] and vacant, and darkness was on the surface of the submerged chaos.” (Genesis 1:1,2 – Concordant Literal Old Testament)

Although not nearly as poetic as the King James, this is how a very literal rendering of this passage would read. Before God initiated His creation process, everything was, as the KJV puts it, “without form and void [empty].” In other words, His creation was first a collection of thoughts, a wonderful plan in the mind of Almighty God. But through a progression of six consecutive “days” He turns His thoughts into reality.

SO WHAT “DAY” IS IT?

“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.” (Genesis 2:4)

In this verse, the Hebrew word for DAY, once again, is yome. Does anyone really believe that God created ALL the generations of the heavens and the earth in a single earth day? Preposterous! God’s days are NOT like those of mortal men.

“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the DAY that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the DAY when they were created.” (Genesis 5:1,2)

Once again, we obviously have the word DAY being used to denote something other than a literal sunrise-to-sunset day, as we know it. So what are these passages saying? Did God really create generations (plural) in ONE DAY? Let’s once again quote AiG in their article Gerald Schroeder and a new variation on the “day-age” theory: Part 1:

“Moreover, Dr. Schroeder’s arbitrary numbers are not consistent with each other. He chooses to divide the 15 billion years by the degree of expansion of the universe, which he defines as a million million (1,000,000,000,000), and then multiplying that by 365 for the number of days in a year. He states that the answer is approximately 6, proving his theory. However, the actual answer is 5.475, meaning that we have not yet completed the sixth day. Therefore, according to his theory, animals and humans should not be around.”

Simply amazing! In their attempt to discredit Dr. Schroeder’s theory, they in reality added validity to it! Allow me to explain. The first century AD started around the time of the birth of Christ, and ended 100 AD. Similarly, day one of creation started at 0.0 (the beginning of time) and ended at 1.0 (the end of day one). Likewise, day two began at 1.0 and ended at 2.0, etc. So following this pattern, when would day six had to have begun? Correct – 5.0! Therefore, his figure of 5.475 puts us smack dab in the middle of DAY SIX! And according to Genesis 1:24-31, God made humans and animals on which day? Why of course – DAY SIX. [The word made (H6213) here is in the FUTURE TENSE, according to BOTH The Englishman’s Hebrew Concordance of the Old Testament, p. 989, and New Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, p. 263]. At no point in the history of planet earth has God ever ceased His activity of creating animals and human beings (more on this later). Hence, the statement that “animals and humans should not be around” is erroneous (to put it mildly).

“All creation is stamped with the seal of God in numerics. God has made man a creature of Time and therefore a creature of Number! It is consistent with the very nature and being of God that His Book, the Holy Bible, should be stamped with the seal of Bible numbers.” – Kevin J. Conner, Interpreting the Symbols and Types (p. 47), City Bible Publishing, 1992

Six is the number of man, for God created (and continues to create) man on DAY SIX (Genesis 1:26-31). So the issue that now needs to be addressed is this:

“Dr. Schroeder continues by saying that because we are in the “sixth day” of creation, the Sabbath Day, the seventh day of rest, has not yet occurred. However, Genesis 2:1–2 clearly states that God “ended his work”, “he rested”, and “he blessed it and sanctified it because in it he rested.” All of these statements are made in the past tense. How could this be if we are still in the sixth day as Dr. Schroeder claims?” – ibid.

According to The Englishman’s Hebrew Concordance of the Old Testament, as well New Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, all of these statements are, just as AiG claims, made in the past tense. And in the preceding verse (Genesis 2:2) we also read:

“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

According to New Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies the word here in Genesis 2:2 for “ended” (Strong’s H3615) means:

“To be completed, finished; to be over, past; to end, to make an end of. A full end, an utter end; perfection, end.”

John the Baptist said that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8), came to take away (or bring to an utter end) the sin of the world (John 1:29). Since Christ has not yet removed sin from this world, it stands to reason that this event is yet in our future. But God often speaks of these things as if they are already done, and indeed, from God’s perspective, they ARE done.

Now here’s where it gets very interesting. According to both of the above-mentioned sources, the word “rested” (from which we get the word Sabbath) is here (in Genesis 2:2) in the FUTURE TENSE! So why does God speak of the Sabbath Day of rest in verse 3 as if it is a past event, but in verse 2 He speaks of it as if it is yet future? I believe it is because our Creator wanted to reveal to us two different perspectives, a concept that AiG (and Christianity in general) does not comprehend. On the one hand, from God’s perspective, everything IS done – He has declared the end from the beginning. And it is only a matter of time before the rest of us (some sooner than others) “catch up” and join God in His great Sabbath Day of rest.

GOD IS STILL CREATING MAN IN HIS IMAGE!

As I was doing some online research for this piece, I came across the article Berdichev on Creation, by Lawrence Kushner. The following is an excerpt from that article:

“In his K’dushat Levi on Genesis 1:1, Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev notices a curious grammatical inconsistency between the opening verse of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created . . .” and the language of the Yotzer blessing, directly after the Bar’chu of the morning liturgy, “God . . . who makes light and creates darkness.” Why, he asks, is the Genesis version stated in the past tense (“created”) and the prayer-book in the present tense (“creates”)? The answer, he explains, is that there are two modes of religious consciousness that correspond to these two descriptions of Creation – past and present tense.

When we regard ourselves as separate from, independent of, other than, discrete from God, then God has already created the world and left. (The formal theological name for such a God is Deus abscondus!) But when we realize that we ourselves are manifestations of the Divine, that our awareness is dissolved into the Divine, that we are dimensions of God, then the process of creation is no longer a completed event but becomes continuous. Creation happens even at this very moment – right now, while you are reading these words. Indeed this is one of the central religious mysteries of all time.

If God made the world and left, then God is limited, bounded, and finite. God is, effectively, only part of being; there are things in the world that are not God. And such a God is, therefore, only one limited thing among other limited things (in Hebrew, yeish, “something”). On the other hand, if God is still and now the One who is continuously bringing being into being, then God is, indeed, the Holy One of All Being.”

So did God really create all of the generations of mankind in ONE DAY? Yes He did – on the SIXTH DAY! And we are still IN the sixth day. Therefore, from our viewpoint, God is still creating.  The process of creating man in God’s image had only begun with Adam and Eve, and will not be completed until the consummation (I Corinthians 15:22-28). The Concordant Literal Old Testament is in complete agreement with the Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev’s remarks, and their version of the Genesis account reads as though this process is an ongoing activity:

“And creating (present tense) is God humanity in His image. In the image of God He creates it. Male and female He creates them.” (Genesis 1:27)

“And He called (not his, but) THEIR name Adam (Genesis 5:2).” The Hebrew word for ADAM (Strong’s #H120) is used two different ways in the Scriptures. It can be indicative of a specific human being (the first man, Adam), or of the entire species of mankind. The Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Holman Bible Publishers, 2003) tells us on page 25 that:

Adam means man, and in many places the Hebrew word refers to mankind in general. Genesis 1:27, for example, says, “So God created man [adam] in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female [see also Genesis 5:2; 6:1]. Adam is also used of the first man, either with the article as “the man” (Genesis 2:15,16) or as the name “Adam” (Genesis 4:1,25; 5:3,4). Finally, the term can refer to a member of the human race, “a man” (e.g., Genesis 2:5, “there was no man to work the ground”).

I have often heard the assertion made by fundamental Christian teachers that Adam and Eve were the only ones who were “created” by God. The rest of us, they say, are “born.” Oh really? Do we have chapter and verse on that?

“Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One fashion us in the womb? (Job 31:15)

“Yet He is not partial to princes, nor dies He regard the rich more than the poor; for they are all the work of His hands.” (Job 34:19)

“Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? (Malachi 2:10)

Contrary to the beliefs of many, God is still in the creation business (at least from our perspective). And we should now be able to see that all of the apparent discrepancies in Genesis are neither misprints nor mistranslations. Our Creator is clever. He knew that at some point in our future, as our knowledge of His creation and His Word increased, we would discover these things. That’s why He hid these things in His Word and sealed His Book until the time of the end (Daniel 12).

“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Proverbs 25:2)

But now the seals are being loosed [see the article The Wrath of God]. The mysteries of His Word are now being revealed to those who have their faith grounded upon the sure Rock of Truth, and have an open mind, willing to learn. Are you willing?

PART SIX: THE NUMBER OF MAN