Genesis Revisited #4 – Meaning of Days

Doesn't Genesis One explicitly state seven 24-hour days?  Actually, no it does not.

Before people realized planets spin around an axis or obit a fusion reactor, they knew our earth and sun were in a relationship.  Each day consisted of light and darkness of unequal but predictable periods.  Predictability made days useful, so our ancestors divided them into hours for their convenience.  Men chose 24 units.  God did not dictate them.

The solar relationship posed a problem for early Christians.  Since days could not exist before the sun’s creation on the “4th day,” Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine, c. 400 AD) concluded the word “day” could not mean 24-hours.  He envisioned the Bible’s first chapter as a list of commands carried out instantly after the seventh day.  An instantaneous creation satisfied his cultures Greek based understanding of the universe.  Yet, he charged future theologians to not hold tightly to interpretation, even his.  Knowledge would change our understanding of nature.  The two must match if the text was inspired.

His interpretation lasted until the Reformation’s rejection of longstanding Roman Catholic dogma.  Protestantism returned to a 24-hour day interpretation.  However, Protestant groups disagreed on how creation played out.  Often Genesis 1:1 was an instantaneous creation.  Others questioned why there were days if heaven and earth were created instantly.  God’s glory became the light of Day 1 to some, but viewed as the creation of angels and their wars (light vs. dark) by others.  Adam and Eve were inserted into Day 6 and ate the fruit while God slept, or not.  Did God create animals instantly, or did He sculpt each from clay?  Were they young or full grown?  Did the mammals have belly buttons?  So many questions.  No definitive answers.

Then there is the word “day.”  The Hebrew usage of the word is similar to that of the Greek, Latin, and English, which generally defines “day” as a 24-hour period.  However, it does not always mean 24-hours.  It also means the hours of sunlight, thus less then 24-hours.  The phrases, “The day of harvest,” encompasses more then the last day of gleaning, and “In Abraham’s day,” entails an entire lifetime.  This simply means context determines length of the word “day” in each of these languages.

Consider the active verbs: create, hover, separate, made, gather, produce, increase, fill.  Each one paints a picture of work.  Work takes time.  Every part of Genesis One implies time.  God utilized time, watching or tweaking each particle, one at a time.

Psalm 90:4 says, “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” (NIV)  The writer bluntly states time is our concern, not God’s.  Many early Jewish and Christian writers believed the psalmist meant the creation “days” lasted a thousand years each.  They used “thousands” as the concept of a huge number.  Things have changed.  We can restate the psalmist’s sentiment in our vernacular: A billion years in your sight is like an hour that has just gone by, or a millisecond in the night.  Changing units does not change the meaning.  Time does not encumber God.

The Hebrew words translated “evening” and “morning” actually mean, “end” and “beginning.”  The translation enforces a tradition, not the gist of the words.  As the context of Genesis One is nature, we need to ask why the writer chose to segment creation into “days,” separated by an end and a beginning.  The answer to that question is poetic structure, which I will discuss in my next blog.  Amazingly, if not read as a list, this Bronze Age text matches standard science perfectly.

Several forms of ancient poetry deliberately hide clues to unlock meaning.  Genesis One repeats every detail except one, that of season.  Seasons have ends and beginnings just like that of days.  Seasons can last less then 24-hours or linger for years.  Therefore, poetically, the word “day” can be interpreted as a cosmic “season.”  Whatever time it took things to come into existence is how long that day/season lasted.

Seasons.  God reveals creation to us in bits and pieces.  Religious and scientific knowledge did not arrive overnight, and each have come and gone to come again.  The accumulation and rediscovery process spans the entire existence of humanity.  Every insight awakens new questions begging for answers.  That same process exists in Genesis One, where new things built upon previous events.

Let us be amazed at the vastness of time and the joy God expressed in creating our universe.

To be continued:

[Lessons from Creation’s Parables: Genesis and Standard Science, Sung as One, by Jo Helen Cox.]

Also in this series:

Genesis Revisited #1 – What to Worship

Genesis Revisited #2 – Beliefs Held

Genesis Revisited #3 – Who Is the Creator?

Genesis Revisited #5 – A Poetic Creation

Also see series:

Eden Revisited

Eden Revisited