Creationists: How do you reconcile the problem of the days in Genesis?

Question

It's stated very clearly what kind of time period is considered a day at the beginning of this story.

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Iet's leave the "one day = millions of years" old earth reconciliation alone for this one, that one has flaws of it's own.

For the young earth creationist this creates a very interesting problem. The earth is a sphere, and while half of it is in day, the other half is in night. Now think about the poles of the earth... the tilt of the earth exposes these parts of land to sunlight and darkness for extended periods of time. A day near the poles, according to the biblical definition, can last for a few months!

It's clear to the educated (and critical) reader of Genesis that the authors believed the earth to be a flat landmass covered at first completely with water around which the sun travels. The Biblical "day" in this scenario works fine.

But when you look at the reality of the situation it becomes a serious problem for the story... So how does one reconcile this difference?

Answer 1

I really, really wish the young-earthers had not hijacked the creationist position in the ongoing debate, although I think evolutionists like it that way, because it's so much easier to defeat.

Excellent question, in any case. A previous answerer stated that the Hebrew word for "day" in Genesis 1 can only mean 24 hours. This is most certainly not the case. It can be readily translated as "epoch," and was actually done so in several other biblical contexts. Their insistence on clinging to one particular doctrine of soteriology forces YECs to resort to bizarre, ridiculous theories to explain the observational evidence. I can't even begin to get into the details here.

Anyway, let's see what else they come up with...
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Answer 2

Interesting Question and I commend you for asking. This is how it works out.

You are right that the first days of creation were literal 24 hour days. If you study the Greek manuscripts, you will see that the word for day is "Yom", which means a 24 hour day.

And you are also right about something else too. On the first day of Creation, the world was covered by water, completely. It was not until the second or third day that the dry land appeared.

However, to answer your question about how the hours of daylight would differ, as they do now in different parts of the world, this is the answer to that.

What most people don't know is that when the world was originally created, (the first day), the world was not then tilted on its axis as it is now, which means that the days were completely different as well as the fact of having no seasons.

It was not until the flood of Noah's day, 1600 years later, that the earth tilted on its axis, and the season began, as well as the different amounts of daylight around the world as it is now.

Incidentally, the cause of the earth's tilting on its axis, was the flood itself.

Hope that helps some.

Dr. Larry A King
Professor of Religion, Emmanuel University School of Religion

Answer 3

if you remember he created light before he created the sun, moon and stars. it just used to flop around anywhere. to tidy light up he had the bright idea of actually sticking it to the sun. he then noticed there were some odd fragments left so he stuck the largest bit to the moon and the odd remnants he stapled to the stars. there were a couple of problems though, firstly he had put the sun and moon together and sprinkled the stars around them, the largest bit of light from the sun kept covering up the the stars and moon. and secondly the darkness would not stay in place, it kept sliding down and ending up as a pile of shadows on the floor. so god, not one to waste existing resources got the stars and used them to pin the darkness into place. he saw that it was good, so he decided to move the moon around there too, but before he had fixed it in its final position god was distracted by the though of putting a bubble-wrap tree in the garden of Eden. this is why the moon can still be seen at day sometimes, it was never finally stuck into the darkness and just wobbles around. haven't you heard of incredibly convoluted rationalisation, like god's mysterious ways, this amazing gift from god can be used to explain any logical fallacy in a wide range of religious texts. if you can keep a straight face.

Answer 4

You have to consider two things that happen in the Bible, sin and the flood, both changed the earth and what happen on it. So things might have been differant when God created it, but when sin entered the world and when the flood, flooded the world, all these events have completely changed the world. the contenants were togther until...the flood. There use to be a mist that went up over the garden, but...sin entered the world. There was a time when man was just vegatarian and man use to live until they were 900 years old. See what sin does and satan continus meddling into God's creation..the Nephilim...Genesis 6.

Answer 5

Sometimes, after I eat lots of drugs, I stay up all night but keep the blinds drawn. When I re-open the blinds, BAM!, it's night again!

Does this mean I am a God?

Answer 6

I don't need to spend time confiming what God did, the FACT proved by science, that this creation MUST have had a designer is something I already knew anyway. Imagine a volcano exploding and all the particles landed and made a huge city. Possible?

Answer 7

Day : Yom : 24 hour period.

Defining a day as darkness / light. Same way we do today, even if Eskimos might say it stayed light the whole day.

Critical reader ? Don't judge the bible, read it as a message from your creator.