-
†. Gen 1:4b-5a . . and God separated the light from the darkness. God
called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
Day and Night simply label two distinct physical conditions-- the absence of
light, and/or the absence of darkness. Labeling those physical conditions
may seem like a superfluous detail, but when analyzing crucifixion week in
the New Testament, it's essential to keep those physical conditions separate
in regards to Christ's burial and resurrection if one is to have any hope of
deducing the correct chronology of Easter week.
†. Gen 1:5b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a first Day.
In accordance with a normal, strict chronological sequence; evening and
morning would indicate overnight; viz: a day of creation would take place
entirely in the dark; which fails to comply with the definitions of Day given at
Gen 1:4-5a and Gen 1:14-18.
Seeing as how it says evening and morning instead of evening "to" morning,
then we're not really looking at a chronological sequence but merely the
Am/Pm portions of daytime because evening and morning is all the same as
morning and evening.
In other words: morning represents the hours of daylight between sunup
and high noon, while evening represents the hours of daylight between high
noon and sunset; viz: afternoon.
Now, just exactly how long were the days of creation? Well; according to
Gen 1:24-31, God created humans and all land animals on the sixth day;
which has to include dinosaurs because on no other day did God create land
animals but the sixth.
Hard-core Bible thumpers insist the days of creation were 24-hour calendar
days in length; but scientific dating methods have easily proven that
dinosaurs preceded human life by several million years. So then, in my
estimation, the days of creation should be taken to represent epochs of
indeterminable length rather than 24-hour calendar days.
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.
So then, why can't Bible thumpers accept a six-epoch explanation? Because
they're hung up on the expression "evening and morning".
The interesting thing is: there were no physical evenings and mornings till
the fourth day when the sun was created and brought on line. So I suggest
that the expression "evening and morning" is simply a convenient way to
indicate the simultaneous wrap of one epoch and the beginning of another;
and even more important, evening and morning indicate periods of light
only, rather than periods of light and darkness together. In other words:
none of God's creative activity was done in the dark. I think that is very
significant.
Anyway; this "day" thing has been a chronic problem for just about
everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days
of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so we 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 eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic, Mesozoic,
Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction events.
Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies--
two different languages telling the same story. In other words: science and
religion compliment each other-- science answers questions that religion
doesn't answer, and religion answers questions that science cannot answer;
viz: science and religion are not enemies; no, to the contrary, science and
religion assist each other in their respective quests to get to the bottom of
some of the cosmos' greatest mysteries.
If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend watching History
Channel's two-season series titled: "How The Earth Was Made". The earth's
geological past, and its present, are just astounding. The series takes some
liberties here and there-- especially in its theories about the origin of the
blue planet's huge volume of water --but by and large, it's very informative;
and I believe quite useful to students of Genesis.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
†. Gen 1:4b-5a . . and God separated the light from the darkness. God
called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
Day and Night simply label two distinct physical conditions-- the absence of
light, and/or the absence of darkness. Labeling those physical conditions
may seem like a superfluous detail, but when analyzing crucifixion week in
the New Testament, it's essential to keep those physical conditions separate
in regards to Christ's burial and resurrection if one is to have any hope of
deducing the correct chronology of Easter week.
†. Gen 1:5b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a first Day.
In accordance with a normal, strict chronological sequence; evening and
morning would indicate overnight; viz: a day of creation would take place
entirely in the dark; which fails to comply with the definitions of Day given at
Gen 1:4-5a and Gen 1:14-18.
Seeing as how it says evening and morning instead of evening "to" morning,
then we're not really looking at a chronological sequence but merely the
Am/Pm portions of daytime because evening and morning is all the same as
morning and evening.
In other words: morning represents the hours of daylight between sunup
and high noon, while evening represents the hours of daylight between high
noon and sunset; viz: afternoon.
Now, just exactly how long were the days of creation? Well; according to
Gen 1:24-31, God created humans and all land animals on the sixth day;
which has to include dinosaurs because on no other day did God create land
animals but the sixth.
Hard-core Bible thumpers insist the days of creation were 24-hour calendar
days in length; but scientific dating methods have easily proven that
dinosaurs preceded human life by several million years. So then, in my
estimation, the days of creation should be taken to represent epochs of
indeterminable length rather than 24-hour calendar days.
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.
So then, why can't Bible thumpers accept a six-epoch explanation? Because
they're hung up on the expression "evening and morning".
The interesting thing is: there were no physical evenings and mornings till
the fourth day when the sun was created and brought on line. So I suggest
that the expression "evening and morning" is simply a convenient way to
indicate the simultaneous wrap of one epoch and the beginning of another;
and even more important, evening and morning indicate periods of light
only, rather than periods of light and darkness together. In other words:
none of God's creative activity was done in the dark. I think that is very
significant.
Anyway; this "day" thing has been a chronic problem for just about
everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days
of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so we 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 eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic, Mesozoic,
Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction events.
Galileo believed that science and religion are allies rather than enemies--
two different languages telling the same story. In other words: science and
religion compliment each other-- science answers questions that religion
doesn't answer, and religion answers questions that science cannot answer;
viz: science and religion are not enemies; no, to the contrary, science and
religion assist each other in their respective quests to get to the bottom of
some of the cosmos' greatest mysteries.
If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend watching History
Channel's two-season series titled: "How The Earth Was Made". The earth's
geological past, and its present, are just astounding. The series takes some
liberties here and there-- especially in its theories about the origin of the
blue planet's huge volume of water --but by and large, it's very informative;
and I believe quite useful to students of Genesis.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=