Day-Age Creationism

Day-Age Creationist arguments for long creation days

This group notes that God is not bound by time and that the term "day" in Genesis is used before the creation of the sun or the moon; consequently, "day" does not refer to an Earthly day, because such a day does not yet exist. This abstract use of "day" is found in other mythological and religious writings of the Middle East to denote the passage of cosmic benchmarks in addition to referring to earthly time marked by the sun or the moon.

Young-earth creationist arguments against OEC

Literal-day advocates agree that the Hebrew word for "day" (yôm) can mean long age or unspecified time, but they argue that this is only in special cases with a preposition. However, in the specific context of Genesis 1, the days are numbered and have "evening and morning", so they claim that they can mean only literal days. Literal day defenders also claim that their view is the only way that makes sense of the Sabbath command in Exodus 20:8–11. That is, young-earth creationists argue that it is a glaring exegetical fallacy to take a meaning from one context and apply it to a completely different one.

Further, Young Earth Creationists argue that their position is the only way to explain the Fall, which introduced death and suffering into the world.[1] They argue that all long-age views entail death before sin, which they regard as a severe theological error that contradicts the Bible. They also argue that the physical death must be included in this, since God cursed mankind with returning to the dust (Gen. 3:19). And Saint Paul contrasted the death of Adam with the resurrection of the dead of the Last Adam, Jesus, which OECs agree was physical, so by analogy, Adam's death must have been as well. Some Old Earth Creationists argue that only spiritual death was brought by the Fall, and others say that animals could have died prior, since the Pauline account was discussing human death only.

Day-Age defenses

Day-age creationism suggests that the very brief account of creation in Genesis was not intended as informative, but rather as a succinct summary of ancient knowledge in the Levant. Moreover, it implies that the Creation narrative is brief because it serves as an introduction linking the rise of the Judaic ethnos to the dawn of time. Thus, to ascribe any specific and definitive interpretation is beyond the scope and intent of the passages in Genesis and is by nature subjective and controversial. Moreover, to require that faith in God be contingent on any one interpretation of creation is to limit a believer's faith to earthly and not spiritual matters.

However, there are some major problems with day-age creationism, such as that God would have created plants an age before the sun, an impossiblity. This is sometimes countered with the explanation that the "light" from the first "day" was gradually introduced, as may be indicated by translator J. W. Watts: “And gradually light came into existence.” Another explanation is that the Sun was created on the first day, but the translucent layer of slight darkness (1:3) was not removed until the fourth day, rendering the Sun invisible but still with visible light during the first three days.

But opponents consider this interpretation that the sun merely "appeared" on Day 4 to be rather forced. They argue that the text says that the sun was "made" (Hebrew ‘asah) on Day 4, while the Hebrew uses another word for "appear" (ra'ah), as when the dry land "appeared" as the waters gathered in one place on Day 3 (Genesis 1:9).

Some scholars claim that according to contextual, linguistic and grammatical evidence, the most probably interpretation of "day" in this context is a "period of time of length equal to what we now call a day", and on this basis they reject Day-Age creationism.

That said, Day-Age Creationism does include a number of specific and interesting theories and speculation regarding divine creation of the universe which is ultimately unknown to man. These ideas revolve around the use of the word "day" in contexts before the existence of the sun, moon, and earthly time in the book of Genesis.

Hebrew time words, meaning of "day"

No language is very rich in words significant of definite periods of time; but in the early Hebrew they seem to have been very scanty. The day, week, month, year, and generation (this last usually implying the time from the birth of a man to that of his son, but possibly in Gen. 15:16, a century) are all that we find. These in their literal sense were evidently inadequate.

Day-Age advocates claim that there was no word at all in early Hebrew equivalent to our words "period" and "season." When such an idea was to be expressed, it was done by the use of the word "day," either in the singular, or more commonly in the plural. Their opponents assert that there were a number words that could have been used for long ages, if that's what the author had intended to communicate, e.g.[1]

"The vocabulary stock of biblical Hebrew words indicating ‘time’ is substantial. There are a total of 13 words which could have been chosen, and 11 of these words refer to a long period of time. At this point it will be sufficient to mention the words which make up the stock, and then select examples from that stock. The words that denote along time are: ‘et, which means ‘time’ in general; ‘ad is the word ‘forever’, and when it is used it occurs with prepositions; qedem sometimes is translated ‘of old’; nesah denotes ‘always’, ‘forever’; tamīd means ‘continually’ or ‘forever’; ōlam is often translated as ‘perpetual’, ‘of old’ or ‘forever’; dōr signifies ‘generation’; ‘orek when used with yōm is translated ‘length of days’; zeman denotes a ‘season’ or ‘time’; and mō’ed, which is also used for a ‘season’. There are also words in the vocabulary stock which denote a short period of time. One such word, which is used in biblical Hebrew, is rega’. This word is translated by the English words ‘instantly’ or ‘moment’. The other word, although not used in biblical Hebrew, is the word for ‘hour’. It seems likely that the classical Hebrew language had this word within its vocabulary stock, and it could have been used if desired. Together these words make up the semantic field for yōm. One can conclude that the Hebrew language had a good supply of words for ‘time’ of either a long or short duration."

Creation of luminaries

In the 14th and following verses, when the author is describing the formation of the heavenly luminaries, he is particular in mentioning that one part of their office was to "rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness." Hence it is sometimes inferred that he was mistaken in speaking of day and night at an earlier period. But such a mistake seems incredible. If then, under such circumstances, he uses the word "day" long before he comes to the formation of the sun, the natural inference is that he did so designedly — that it was his intention that his readers should understand that he was speaking of something very different from that natural day which is regulated by sunrise and sunset.

Young-earth creationists argue that the Reformers and Church Fathers had no problem with a day-night cycle before the sun. Modern creationists explain it by and that all that's required is a light source (created on Day 1) and a rotating earth.[1]

See also