.
There are at least three different kinds of days introduced in the early
chapters of Genesis.
1» Creation days
2» Natural days
3» Epoch days
It's very important to keep those three kinds of days distinct and separate in
our thinking because they are as unalike as stones, gravel, and sand.
Epoch days are defined by events. For example Gen 2:4 where the entire
creation endeavor is described as one day.
Natural days are defined by solar motion, for example Gen 1:4-5, Gen 1:14.
Gen 1:16, and Gen 1:17-18 where a natural day is defined as when the sun
is up as opposed to down. The length of a natural day varies relative to
one's latitude and the season of the year.
Creation days are a bit of an enigma because there was no Sun to cause
physical evenings and mornings till creation's fourth day so we can safely
assume that the terms are merely index flags indicating the completion of
one of creation's six-step processes and the beginning of another; which is
okay for that but then how do we go about establishing the length of a
creation day?
Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies--
two different languages telling the same story. He believed that science and
religion complement each other --science answers questions that religion
doesn't bother to answer, and religion answers questions that science cannot
answer.
For example: theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking understood pretty well
how the cosmos works; but could never scientifically explain why it should
exist at all. Well; in my estimation, the only possible answer to the "why" is
found in intelligent design; which is a religious explanation rather than
scientific. Religion's "why" is satisfactory for most folks. No doubt most
scientists would prefer something a bit more empirical.
Anyway: I sincerely believe that science is our go-to guy for figuring out the
length of a creation day seeing as how the Bible gives us so little to work
with.
According to Gen 1:24-31, God created humans and all terra critters on the
sixth day; which has to include dinosaurs because on no other day but the
sixth did God create beasts
However; the sciences of geology and paleontology, in combination with
radiometric dating, strongly suggest that dinosaurs preceded humans by
several million years. So then, in my estimation, creation days should be
taken to represent eras. That's not an unreasonable estimation; for
example:
"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were
created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven." (Gen 2:4)
The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very
same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm in
Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour
calendar day; it justifies suggesting that each of the six days of creation
were longer than 24 hours apiece too. In other words: yowm is ambiguous
and not all that easy to interpret sometimes.
Anyway; this "day" thing has been a stone in the shoe for just about
everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days
of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so Bible students end up
stumped when trying to figure out how to cope with the 4.5 billion-year age
of the earth, and factor in the various natural eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic,
Mesozoic, Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction
events.
BTW: The era theory is only a second opinion, so to speak. There are other
theories out there to choose from; people aren't stuck with this one as if it's
the only possible explanation.
_