Was the earth created in 6 days or 6,000 or 6,000,000?

Question

...This question is directed to Christians...

Personally I believe in the literal 6 days, but I do notice many Christians on YA who believe it was 6 ages or 6,000 years or similar.

Could I ask those who think it was other than 6 days, why you believe this, where do you get this idea from, is there scripture to back your claim?

Again personally I believe God is all powerful and He would have no problem creating everything in 1 day if He chose to.

Serious answers please, not looking an argument just different opinions etc

**To IKB**

I am well aware that there is much to be learned from the creation story, though I don't think God created man to work, before the fall God provided everything they needed, it was only after the fall man had to work to survive.

I am not getting bogged down in anything, my Bible tells me to study the word of God to understand the word of God, to me that means all of the Word of God...

**To kitz**

I have read Genesis, I have already stated what I believe in my question, I am simply asking for those Christians who believe in something other than 6 days to explain why they believe this...

Answer 1

The Bible does not specify the length of each of the creative periods. Yet all six of them have ended, it being said with respect to the sixth day (as in the case of each of the preceding five days): “And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a sixth day.” (Ge 1:31) However, this statement is not made regarding the seventh day, on which God proceeded to rest, indicating that it continued. (Ge 2:1-3) Also, more than 4,000 years after the seventh day, or God’s rest day, commenced, Paul indicated that it was still in progress. At Hebrews 4:1-11 he referred to the earlier words of David (Ps 95:7, 8, 11) and to Genesis 2:2 and urged: “Let us therefore do our utmost to enter into that rest.” By the apostle’s time, the seventh day had been continuing for thousands of years and had not yet ended. The Thousand Year Reign of Jesus Christ, who is Scripturally identified as “Lord of the sabbath” (Mt 12:8), is evidently part of the great sabbath, God’s rest day. (Re 20:1-6) This would indicate the passing of thousands of years from the commencement of God’s rest day to its end. The week of days set forth at Genesis 1:3 to 2:3, the last of which is a sabbath, seems to parallel the week into which the Israelites divided their time, observing a sabbath on the seventh day thereof, in keeping with the divine will. (Ex 20:8-11) And, since the seventh day has been continuing for thousands of years, it may reasonably be concluded that each of the six creative periods, or days, was at least thousands of years in length.

That a day can be longer than 24 hours is indicated by Genesis 2:4, which speaks of all the creative periods as one “day.” Also indicative of this is Peter’s inspired observation that “one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.” (2Pe 3:8) Ascribing not just 24 hours but a longer period of time, thousands of years, to each of the creative days better harmonizes with the evidence found in the earth itself.

Hope this was what you were looking for. :)

Answer 2

Well the first thing that comes to mind is that NO ONE knew what a day was, much was measured by the moon, how many moons someone had lived, for example someone who had live as it says in the bible say to 504 years old, would in fact be only 42, so common sense tells me that although very possible that God did make the earth in 6 days, it's mans words that says so, it is also mans words that says he rested on the seventh, and it's also mans words that gave a name to each day, lets have faith i God, and leave books that have had man writing them alone

Love & Peace

Answer 3

How can we know that? God can do it however He wants. The important thing is that we don't get stuck on the language of the Bible rather than focus on the message God intends to pass on to us. Did God really rest on the 7th day? Was He tired? We can get bogged down in that.

There are many lessons to be learned from the creation story. For example, we can learn that God loved his creation and His intention was to have a friendship with humans. He created Adam and Eve Equally. He created humans to work (thus a rest day). He created humans to care for nature, not abuse it.

Answer 4

The Lord says " A thousand years is unto a day and a day is unto a thousand years", [with God]. So who knows the literal time frame other than God. We as humans live in time, God created time, therefore He lives outside of it.

Answer 5

Of course God could have created the earth in six literal days if he wanted to ... but looking at the evidence we can conclude that he didn't ...

The fact is that the Hebrew word translated “day” can mean various lengths of time, not just a 24-hour period.
For example, when summarizing God’s creative work, Moses refers to all six creative days as one day. (Genesis 2:4)
In addition, on the first creative day, “God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night.” (Genesis 1:5) Here, only a portion of a 24-hour period is defined by the term “day.” Certainly, there is no basis in Scripture for arbitrarily stating that each creative day was 24 hours long.

The wording of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 indicates that considerable lengths of time were involved.

Creations Appear Gradually -
Moses wrote his account in Hebrew, and he wrote it from the perspective of a person standing on the surface of the earth. These two facts, combined with the knowledge that the universe existed before the beginning of the creative periods, or “days,” help to defuse much of the controversy surrounding the creation account.
A careful consideration of the Genesis account reveals that events starting during one “day” continued into one or more of the following days. For example, before the first creative “day” started, light from the already existing sun was somehow prevented from reaching the earth’s surface, possibly by thick clouds. (Job 38:9) During the first “day,” this barrier began to clear, allowing diffused light to penetrate the atmosphere.

On the second “day,” the atmosphere evidently continued to clear, creating a space between the thick clouds above and the ocean below. On the fourth “day,” the atmosphere had gradually cleared to such an extent that the sun and the moon were made to appear “in the expanse of the heavens.” (Genesis 1:14-16) In other words, from the perspective of a person on earth, the sun and moon began to be discernible. These events happened gradually.

The Genesis account also relates that as the atmosphere continued to clear, flying creatures—including insects and membrane-winged creatures—started to appear on the fifth “day.” However, the Bible indicates that during the sixth “day,” God was still in the process of “forming from the ground every wild beast of the field and every flying creature of the heavens.”—Genesis 2:19.

Clearly, the Bible’s language makes room for the possibility of some major events during each “day,” or creative period, to have occurred gradually rather than instantly, perhaps some of them even lasting into the following creative “days.”

Both the fossil record and modern research support the idea that the fundamental categories of plants and animals have changed little over vast periods of time.

Genesis does not teach that the universe, including the earth and all living things on it, was created in a short period of time in the relatively recent past. Rather, the description in Genesis of the creation of the universe and the appearance of life on earth harmonizes with many recent scientific discoveries.

So the "days" in Genesis were periods of time rather than literal 24 hour days

I have some more detailed reasoning of my beliefs concerning this subject which is too much to post on here, if you'd like more info please don't hesitate to email me

:)

Answer 6

All I can say, J B, is I wish I'd of been there to see it all - what a spectacular event beyond words or concept, it must have been!
(Of course, 6 days!)

032207 1:44

Answer 7

The universe was created 14 billion years ago. The Earth was created about 4 billion years ago. Everything has evolved since then. "God" started the process and has had a hand in the process throughout existence.

Answer 8

Read Genesis ,it is clear it was a literal six days until the gap theory was introduced into the church by compromisers wanting to blend evolutionism with creationism.

Answer 9

IIRC, current estimates for the bulk of it - it's still continuing of course, what with meteors, dust, etc. - is 200,000 - 500,000 years, ending some 4.7 bya.

Answer 10

The universe is an incredibly hostile place, and we live on a tiny spec of rock floating aimlessly through it.

The notion of a human-centric creation is utterly absurd, and you're all mental. I await your thumbs-down ratings.