How long is one creative day according to the Bible?

Question

Please support your reasons with scriptures from the Bible.

Answer 1

Genesis 1:3-31 is not discussing the original creation of matter or of the heavenly bodies. It describes the preparation of the already existing earth for human habitation. This included creation of the basic kinds of vegetation, marine life, flying creatures, land animals, and the first human pair. All of this is said to have been done within a period of six “days.” However, the Hebrew word translated “day” has a variety of meanings, including ‘a long time; the time covering an extraordinary event.’ (Old Testament Word Studies, Grand Rapids, Mich.; 1978, W. Wilson, p. 109) The term used allows for the thought that each “day” could have been thousands of years in length.

This flexible use of the word “day” to express units of time of varying length is clearly evident in the Genesis account of creation. Therein is set forth a week of six creative days followed by a seventh day of rest. The week assigned for observance by the Jews under the Law covenant given them by God was a miniature copy of that creative week. (Ex 20:8-11) In the Scriptural record the account of each of the six creative days concludes with the statement: “And there came to be evening and there came to be morning” a first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth day. (Ge 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31) The seventh day, however, does not have this ending, indicating that this period, during which God has been resting from his creative works toward the earth, continued on. At Hebrews 4:1-10 the apostle Paul indicated that God’s rest day was still continuing in his generation, and that was more than 4,000 years after that seventh-day rest period began. This makes it evident that each creative day, or work period, was at least thousands of years in length. As A Religious Encyclopaedia (Vol. I, p. 613) observes: “The days of creation were creative days, stages in the process, but not days of twenty-four hours each.”—Edited by P. Schaff, 1894.
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Answer 2

its very clear in the context of Genesis chapter 1 verses 5,8,13,19,23,31 where they all state "evening and morning" a day. Everywhere in the Bible where evening and morning are together it always is a 24 hr day. People who isolate day from night when they appear together are changing the context.
These same passages also clearly state that after evening and morning there was "first day" then the "second day"" and so forth till the "seventh day" (a week) in Gen 2:1-3.

Genesis 1:14-16 states that God made the stars and describes the sun and moon being made also so that there could be "seasons, days, and years". There could not have been any length of time beyond a few days up until then because there were no stars and sun and moon to allow for seasons (3 months for each season) or years.

Exodus 20:8-11 clearly is talking about a 7 day week where the 6th day is a day of rest or the Sabbath and that the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them in "six days" of one week.

In John 11:9-10 Jesus speaking about "day and night" says that , "there are twelve hours in a day" which leaves 12 hours for the night.

Answer 3

Thanks for a wonderful question. I have pondered this for some time and just yesterday talked with our pastor about the same thing. She said no one knows as there was no time measurement back then.

But some refer to II Peter 3:8 which tells us, "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

The source link below provides many references to the Bible that talk about the length of a day.

There are in my mind three approaches to this question. First, it was like magic and happened in an instant or a blink of the eye. Second, The creative days are symbolic steps in the creation of the earth, but still something from nothing. Third, The creative days really took a million million years. I was recently at Red Rock in Colorado where the really red rock of the earth was pushed up to a forty five degree angle by the advancing Rocky Mountains. It was so spectacular, I remarked this must have been a million years ago. When we went into the building where the story of the area was told, we read that it was 100 million years ago. In relation to all this time, we must realize that man has lived on this earth for only the blink of an eye.

Answer 4

A day is the time it takes the Earth to spin on its axis, which is 24 hours. There is no possible room for subjectivity, nor any reason why a creative day should be any longer or shorter than any other day. That's just something people say to justify the fact that the Bible has been proven wrong about the age of the earth.

Answer 5

The truth is that we do not know. Gods time is not based on mans time. There is no specific scripture to tell us what Gods time really means. There are many scriptures that indicate God works on his own time. Use the site below to look up scripture in any Bible version available.
http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=what+a+day+means

Answer 6

24 God Hours,
or 1440 Jesus Minutes
or 90,400 Angelic Seconds
or roughly the entire history of the universe minus the last 4,000 to 200,000 years....Which might mean he is resting.

From the Book of Genesis...hehehe

By the by, Isn't in interesting that the Genesis view has creation take place in series of periods that are very similar to process of evolution anyway. A REAL GOD would have just snapped his fingers and BAMM...creation. I think the early Hebrew Writers saw evidence in the world of a process and penned it into Genesis.

Answer 7

A day is a day.
The Hebrew word for day used in genesis is a sun-up to sun-down "Day"
What does that mean? It was a day.

There is a lot of science to debate about this subject far too much to debate here. I think you need to look beyond the "day" and focus on the Creator.

Answer 8

Any Bible scholar will tell you that when a "day" is mentioned by talking about morning and evening, it always represents a true 24-hour day.

Answer 9

Because science and religion clash in the development of earth, life and the Universe, my guess is one of Gods' days ( who lives outside of time) must be about 100 million years

Answer 10

the Hebrew text uses the word day that meant day to them. Not ages or eons or whatever. they had other words for those. They meant and said day, a period from a sunset until the next sunset because they measured time by the moon.