Creationists often say that the entire universe was created in six literal 24-hour days some 6,000 years ago. With teachings like this, they misrepresent the Bible, which says that God created the heavens and the earth “in the beginning”—at some unstated point before the more specific creative “days” began. Was all physical creation accomplished in just six days sometime within the past 6,000 to 10,000 years? The facts disagree with such a conclusion: (1)*Light from the Andromeda nebula can be seen on a clear night in the northern hemisphere. It takes about 2,000,000 years for that light to reach the earth, indicating that the universe must be at least millions of years old. (2)*End products of radioactive decay in rocks in the earth testify that some rock formations have been undisturbed for billions of years.
As to the actual length of each "creative" day, were they literally 24 hours long? Some claim that because Moses—the writer of Genesis—later referred to the day that followed the six creative days as a model for the weekly Sabbath, each of the creative days must be literally 24 hours long. (Exodus 20:11) Does the wording of Genesis support this conclusion?
No, it does not. 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 Hebrew word yohm, translated “day,” can mean different lengths of time. Among the meanings possible, William Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies includes the following: “A day; it is frequently put for time in general, or for a long time; a whole period under consideration .*.*. Day is also put for a particular season or time when any extraordinary event happens.”1 This last sentence appears to fit the creative “days,” for certainly they were periods when extraordinary events were described as happening. It also allows for periods much longer than 24 hours. Even in the English vernacular we often refer to "day" in various lengths and ways! For example, back in "my fathers day" has reference to decades ago! Farmers use the expression "harvest day".....not a 24 hour period, but possibly weeks or even a month!
According to Bible usage, a day is a measured period of time and can be a thousand years or many thousands of years and the Bible’s creative days allow for even millions of years of time each and since they were "work" days.....each creative day could have even been of various lengths, some shorter, some longer than others! Further, the earth was already in existence before the creative days began. (Genesis 1:1)
Significantly, the Genesis account shows that the expression “day” is used in a flexible sense. At Genesis 2:4, the entire period of six days described in the preceding chapter is spoken of as only one day. Logically, these were, not literal days of 24 hours, but long periods of time. Each of these epochs evidently lasted thousands, perhaps even millions of years. Since no humans were around to keep track of time, no one can know or even "assume" correctly how long each one was!
So, to conclude this segment of my post I leave you with THIS quote from molecular biologist Francis Collins on claims that the creative days were only 24 literal hours in length, “Creationism has done more harm to serious notions of belief than anything in modern history.”
