Day - Age Debate

The reason that this Day-Age debate has been around is because many Christians have yielded to the voice of science, in putting into question the age of the earth. If we are to set these influences aside, then we would not struggle to believe that the days in Genesis are literal. I’ll address this with a few points, just to add onto what

The Hebrew word for “day” as used in Genesis is transliterated as “yom.” This word can have various meanings, such as a period of time, such as “back in the day”; a specific event; or it can mean a literal 24-hour day. Context is the determining factor in each case.

In Gen 1:5 we read, “God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.” In this passage, we see that “yom” occurs in context with the word “night.” The significance comes by way of noting that night and yom are used 52 times outside of Gen 1, and each time it means an ordinary 24 hr day.

As pertaining to 2 Peter 3:8 “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

The construction used in this passage is called a “simile”, which is a figure of speech used to make a comparison. It is NOT intended to be taken as literal. Peter DID NOT say that a day IS a thousand years, but that it is “as/like” a thousand years. In this case, the entire intention was to make a point in reference to an event, specifically, the coming “Day of the Lord.”

We can see further validation that the Genesis days were literal in the form of the ten commandments, which comes by way of the forth commandment (Ex 20:8,11): “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day…”

We find the LORD, Himself, referencing the creation account as six literal days, as an example for Israel to follow. If the days were not literal, then it would be misleading for God to use them as a comparative example. Here in Genesis, each day is qualified by a number, which signifies the usage a literal day. If we cannot trust God’s word from the opening chapter of Genesis, then how could we trust anything else from Scripture?