Response to gotquestions.org - 24 Hour Creation Days
Question: “Does Genesis chapter 1 literally mean 24-hour days?”
Here is an excerpts from gotquestions.org’s answer that I agree with:
“We can determine how “yom” should be interpreted in Genesis 1:5-2:2 simply by examining the context in which we find the word used and then comparing it’s context with how we see its usage elsewhere throughout scripture.”
The context of the Genesis Days are from the perspective of God hovering over the deep.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. – Genesis 1:2
This appears to set the context of the entire Creation account, as the entire account unfolds, based on where God’s Spirit was in verse 1: over the deep and the in dark.
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Day 1 - removal of the dark, and God saw it
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Day 2 - made the deep distinct from the clouds
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Day 3 - made the deep distinct from the land, complete with vegetation, and God saw it.
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Day 4 - provided a means to mark the days with the sun, moon, and stars, and God saw it.
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Day 5 - made the sea creature and birds, and God saw it
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Day 6 - made the land animals and mankind, and God saw it
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Day 7 - God rested
Every indication is that God was present for the entire creation, until He went to rest. Therefore, being the only present being, it seems reasonable to conclude that the perspective of the Creation account is God’s.
Now, up until this point, I haven’t said anything that should contradict a 7 24-day creation, and the reason is because there is one thing that is absolutely true about that view: the perspective of the account is written to describe 7 literal days, not 7 abstract roughly-aligning eras. But, where scripture is not clear is in how long those days are!
I realize the scripture appears to be clear on the matter. Every day ends with wording similar to “and there was evening and morning, another day.” However, what is evening? What is morning? Evening is the setting of the sun, not a time of day. Morning is the rising of the sun, not a time of day. And the setting and rising of the sun are based completely on ones physical perspective on the earth. What was God’s perspective again?
Well, God’s perspective started above the deep and in the dark. As the earth developed, the darkness retreated, and land appeared. After the land appeared, God saw, from His position, vegetation grow on the land, then sea creatures abound in the sea, and then mammals on the land. It would seem that God’s position changed, or the earth’s position beneath Him did.
The earth rotates in space as it orbits the sun. For God to be hovering over the earth, He would need to pick a perspective based either on the earth’s rotation or based on it’s orbit. Hovering in a position that allows Him to rotate with the earth would keep Him over a single geographical position. He would be able to physically see the sea, then the land, then the sea, as the Creation account has Him doing. So, it would seem, the the earth was rotating beneath Him.
Hovering over the earth, letting it rotate beneath Him would allow God to see the entire thing. However, evening would never catch up to Him. He could stay in the “Day” so to speak for years if He chose, for millions of them if that suited His purpose. In fact, I propose that exactly what God did!
Then when did God experience the evening? Answer: when He wanted it to. IN fact, as discussed in the creation account of the Psalms, God ”makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind.” (Psalm 104:3b) Apparently, god hovering during His work, and rode the clouds into the evening and then on into the morning as it suited Him.
In conclusion, there is no scripture necessity to assign any particular length to the Days of Creation. They are defined by “evening” and “morning”, as experienced by the Spirit of God hovering the planet. The Days themselves, while occurring over consecutive eras and ages, turn out to be literal days of arbitrary length.