Are the Genesis Creation Days 24 Hours or Long Periods of Time? ā Program 1
By: Dr. Walter Kaiser Jr., Dr. Hugh Ross; ©2005 |
What are the different viewpoints about the age of the earth and when it was created? What does ācreatedā mean? Was it a one-time event, or a series of events over long periods of time? |
What Information Has God Given about When He Created?
Introduction
Today on The John Ankerberg Show, does the Bible teach that the Genesis creation days are six literal 24 hour days or six long periods of time? Inside the Christian Church this debate is raging. Some say that unless a Christian believes God created in six literal 24-hour days, they will not allow that person to be a member of their Church or assume a leadership position.
Outside of the Church, many non-Christians are certain that all Christians believe God created everything 6,000 years ago, including the universe, the Earth, plants and animals and Adam and Eve. They are shocked to find out that is not true today, nor has it been the case down through Church history.
Christians who read the first two chapters of Genesis and believe that Moses used the word day ā yom ā to mean a long period of time, are they distorting the biblical text, denying the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, and affirming some kind of evolution? What does the biblical text actually say?
My guests today are: Dr. Walter Kaiser, President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is thought by many to be one of the worldās most knowledgeable and esteemed evangelical authorities on the Old Testament and Hebrew language. My second guest is astrophysicist and astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Toronto and did post-doctoral research at Caltech on quasars.
We invite you to join us.
- Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome. Weāve got a great program for you today; two spectacular guests. Iām really glad youāve joined us.
- Today our topic is the biblical account of creation: What information has God given us about how and when He created? Thatās something you want to know, right? My guests are Dr. Walter Kaiser, President of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA. Also weāve got Dr. Hugh Ross. Heās an astrophysicist and astronomer. He has also recently been a part of a written debate, The Genesis Debate, between the Twenty-Four-Hour View, the Day-Age View, and the Framework View. Weāll be talking about that as we go along.
- But Dr. Kaiser, weāve asked our audience to give us questions, and I have a pastor who has written a question for you right off the bat. And he says, āWhen the Bible says, āIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,ā [Gen. 1:1] does this, then, allow for billions of years? Or does the word ācreatedā imply a once-for-all activity when it comes to the physical universe?
- Dr. Walter Kaiser: Thanks, John. It really does talk about an absolute beginning, and the text says, āIn the beginning.ā Itās very, very crucial that all who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture understand this is where it all started. And the rest of the phrase, āheavens and earth,ā really is the biblical word for āuniverse.ā Itās what we call hen dia dis: hen ā one; dia ā through; dis ā two. So we have one idea through two words; āuniverseā expressed by āheaven and earth.ā So, the whole shebang was from āin the beginning.ā And who did it? God. God created. The word bara is used forty-five times exclusively with God as the subject. No other. There are other words for āmakeā or āformā or things like that. But never does a human use the word bara, and never does it have any material used as agency along with it.
- So I think our commitment ought to be to an absolute beginning, and that it was initiated by God, and that it covers the whole universe. And then itās going to go on in verse 2 to talk about the earth. But like Genesis does, always takes the big subject first ā the universe. Now, meanwhile, back down on earth. And now weāre going to focus on the topic of earth.
- So, no matter how far you go back, itās āin the beginning,ā and thereās where Christians ought to put their foot down and say, āYep! In the beginning.ā And thatās the biblical date.
- Ankerberg: All right, before we go on, Hugh, from science, does that make sense that there was a beginning point?
- Dr. Hugh Ross: Yes, it does. And I think thereās a second biblical point you can make out of that: bara ā āto create something brand new that didnāt exist before.ā This is a transcendent creation act. Itās where God, by His creative, miraculous intervention, brings into existence, for the first time, matter, energy, and the space-time dimensions that are associated with matter and energy. Which leaves room for God to manipulate or manufacture or reshape through other miracles that matter, energy, space and time to prepare a wonderful place for us to live. And isnāt that the context of Genesis 1?
- Kaiser: Yes. Now thatās an important point, then, the whole idea that it is de nova, just sort of ābrand new,āā¦
- Ross: Right. Right.
- Kaiser: ā¦and God originating everything right from the very start.
- Ross: Thatās also distinctive to the Christian faith. I mean, you go into other religions, that is, you know, God or gods creating within space and time that always exists.
- Kaiser: Yeah.
- Ross: The Bible stands alone in saying there really is an actual beginning to space and time, God is responsible for it. And the wonderful thing about the advance of astrophysics, since 1970 weāve been able to prove that through Einsteinās theory of general relativity.
- Ankerberg: Letās stop right there because I remember back in the 70ās that Ted Koppel had some of the scientists on. They actually quoted Genesis 1. And the scientists quoted verse 1, and Ted Koppel went on and did verse 2. And Iām saying that that was pretty astounding. Now, they said it was the discovery of the century for the scientists. Why so? Because it does go back to Einstein. He had postulated that something ought to happen out of his mathematics; he didnāt even want to accept it himself. But they proved it via the sciences. What did they find?
- Ross: Well, from the 70ās right up to the present moment there has been these space-time theorems of general relativity. And what they basically state is that if the universe contains mass ā and I would suggest that skeptics find a bathroom scale; but the second condition: āDo the equations of general relativity reliably describe the dynamics of the universe?ā And the past five years, general relativity has vaulted to the most exhaustively-tested principle in physics; the best proven principle in physics. Both conditions are now beyond doubt. The conclusion of that theorem is that there must be this simultaneous beginning to matter, energy, space and time. More than that, thereās a corollary to the theorem: there must exist a causal agent that brings into existence space and time independent, beyond, or outside of space and time. You know, Stephen Hawking, one of the authors of the first space-time theorem of general relativity, boasted that we proved that time has a beginning. But the Bible said that thousands of years ago, that when God created, He created time. There is an actual beginning of time that coincides with the beginning of the universe.
- Ankerberg: Not only that, but scientists have gone back and theyāve actually started putting numbers to when they think time started.
- Ross: Right.
- Ankerberg: Whatās the accepted theory right now?
- Ross: Well, you can use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Two-Degree Deep Sky Survey, and the WMAP [Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe], which is the most accurate map of the radiation left over from the creation event. Those three methods give you a date at 13.7 billion years ago as to when the universe came into existence. Thatās also the only moment in cosmic history when human beings can actually look back and photograph or image the beginning of the universe. It takes light time to reach us from the beginning: 13.7 billion years is the first moment in cosmic history when human observers can actually witness or photo-image that point of beginning.
- Ankerberg: Which brings us to the second point, Dr. Kaiser, and all the folks say, āOkay, if the science tells us that, now weāve got to get to the next part, after God created, and that is, What is the meaning, the literal meaning, of the word day in Genesis 1 and 2?ā Because theyāre saying, āHey, we know what the word day means! I mean, thatās twenty-four hours.ā So Hugh is talking here 13.7 billion! Can we reconcile these two? And weāre talking about a literal interpretation of the Bible. Okay?
- Kaiser: Right.
- Ankerberg: Can we do that?
- Kaiser: Yes. I like what Hugh has said, but itās also wonderful that God put the cookies on the bottom shelf, too, for everyone so that they could say, āWell, that must have been āin the beginning,ā what youāre talking about.ā And it was. By the way, some of the Bibles will translate it, āWhen God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void. Then God said,ā verse 3. They put in a āwhen/thenā construction, because in the Babylonian stories itās supposed to be in a when/then construction.
- But actually you canāt do that with the Hebrew grammar here. Thatās a no-no, because it does not have a preposition in front of it; that is, a prepositional phrase of the sort that is wanted here for a when/then kind of construction. That does occur, say, like in Hosea 6:1, 2. Thatās exactly what they want there, and a dozen places in the Bible, but not this place. This one is very clear and it is an absolute beginning. And thatās why when we come to look at the rest of the text, even like the word day, weāve got to pay attention to the uses of the word in the text. We canāt put our definition on it.
- āLiteralā in the Bible is what the Bible meant, the person who stood in the counsel of God and heard God speak. So he has first rights to speak, then we can come along. And the word day there is used in three different ways: 1) day is daylight as opposed to nighttime, so itās twelve hours; 2) day is twenty-four hours at verse 5 for ādaytimeā; verse 14 is God put the greater light and the lesser light ā He didnāt say āsunā and āmoon.ā He didnāt want them to worship that ā greater light and lesser light; for days and for seasons and years, thatās twenty-four hours. Then in 2:4 he summarizes the whole thing: 3) āIn the day that the Lord God created the heaven and the earth.ā Thatās like āin the day of Abraham Lincoln,ā āin the day of the phonograph,ā in the day of whatever.
- So, we ought to be warned, the text itself uses the word in three different ways. And one more, John, and that is, in a Psalm written by Moses, Psalm 90, the same writer that wrote this material. He says āa day with the Lord is as a thousand years.ā Now, Iāve got to pay attention to that because when the same writer uses the word with that amount of what some would call āelasticity,ā then I had better pay attention to his meaning, because thatās what the literal meaning is: the one who stood in the counsel of God and heard the word from on high.
- Ankerberg: Alright weāre going to take a break and when we come back, weāre going to talk more about this and weāre going to take the questions of our audience where they say, āWhat about the use of āevening and morningā? I mean, how do you get that into a long period of time? I mean, isnāt that book-ending a day?ā And we want to talk about what the language means. Weāre going to come back and weāll talk about it in a moment.
BREAK
- Ankerberg: Alright weāre back. Weāre talking with Dr. Walter Kaiser and Dr. Hugh Ross about the biblical account of creation: what information has God given us about how and when He created?
- Walter, we were talking about Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And some folks have criticized the use of Genesis 2:4 as being an exception to a literal twenty-four-hour day. They object to Moses, apparently, using that. But this is how they put it, okay? They say, āā¦this ignores the completely different grammatical contextsā that we have in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. So theyāre saying Genesis 1, Genesis 2, the context is different: āā¦there is a singular, absolute noun ādayā in Genesis 1, but a singular, construct noun ādayā in Genesis 2:4. In Genesis 2:4⦠yom is prefixed by⦠be, thus, be yom ā this is often an idiomatic⦠expression for āwhen.āā āThe context of yom in Genesis 2:4 is totally different from Genesis 1, where there are no prepositionsā¦ā. And then they quote the NIV [New International Version], which they think correctly translates this passage, Genesis 2:4: āWhen the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.ā
- I donāt think they knew that you [Dr. Kaiser] were one of the folks that helped give information for the footnotes of the Study Bible for the NIV, and you were one of the experts mentioned in the index in the front as contributing concerning Exodus. So I assume that you can answer this question on the grammar for NIV. Whatās going on? Do we have different contexts that outlaw the exception of yom being āa long period of time,ā namely, the six created days? Genesis 1 is different from Genesis 2?
- Kaiser: Well, John, I hope I donāt disappoint you, but with all that build up, Iām dying to hear what I have to say! I think, no doubt about it, the translation āin the day thatā or āin the dayā is equal to āwhen.ā It can be translated either way. The point is, itās still the same yom. Weāve got, from all of the text in Genesis 1, we have the same kind of word, Hebrew word, used. Itās the identical word here. Whether it has the preposition in front of it, and itās in a construct or an absolute state, that only has to do with the syntax. But that doesnāt change the lexicography of the word itself. So the word stands.
- And furthermore, it goes on to put within the account that follows ā Genesis 2:4 ā it has the Sabbath day; one of the seven days is already located within it.
- So I think nice try, but it doesnāt pull away from the point. I think the point is still there; weāre still talking about the same ādayā and weāre still trying to establish how did the writer use that word day? And does it have a single meaning, that is, it must be like our twenty-four-hour day in every case? And if thatās so, why, then, do you have in 1:5, itās twelve hours; in 1:14, itās twenty-four; and now here, he takes āwhen,ā the whole time, and the when here refers to at least six of those days. Thatās still the point that still has to be made here.
- Ankerberg: Yeah, folks, when I asked Walter to come on the program, you need to recognize that, for his Ph.D. work, he was made to learn seven languages to compare with the Hebrew in the text so he could compare all the words backwards and forwards. I got to thinking about that. You know your Hebrew so well and you know these other languages so well, that if God wanted to, He could have whispered this revelation to you and you could have picked out the Hebrew words. Now, He didnāt, but the fact is, you have an idea why Mosesā¦
- Kaiser: You should be glad he didnāt, too!
- Ankerberg: Yeah. You have an idea why Moses chose these words. And thatās what I want to get to; because hereās another objection to saying that itās not just a straight twenty-four-hour day: the use of numbered series with the word yom in the Old Testament. Theyāll say that when the numbers are used in a series ā 1, 2, 3 ā in connection with the word yom in the Old Testament, they say, it always refers to twenty-four hour days. Therefore, the absence of any exception to this in the Old Testament is evidence that Genesis 1, must, it must, it must, be referring to twenty-four-hour days.
- Kaiser: Well, John, thatās a very common objection you hear frequently, but there is no rule in the Hebrew grammar. I mean, you have to invent that rule for just this situation. The other thing is, yes, there does occur a case in which you have yom used along with an ordinal or even a cardinal number: one. One, itās the same word for both the cardinal and the ordinal. The difference between cardinal and ordinals is, between one, two, three, four, and first, second, third, fourth. So, Zechariah 14:7 has a yom echad. Itās āone day.ā And there itās talking, again, about the yom Yahweh, āthe day of the Lord,ā which is a future day covering all of the eschatological events. So I donāt think you can make that rule. I appreciate what theyāre trying to do, but I donāt think itāll work.
- Ankerberg: Letās jump to another one, guys, and a lot of folks will relate to this. Theyāll say, you know, āDoesnāt the text say that these days happen and theyāre bookended by the use of āevening and morningā?ā Now, you find it interesting that he starts with āeveningā and not āmorning.ā Tell us why.
- But let me just show you one of the objections. People will say, āWhenever yom is used with āevening and morning,ā it can mean only an ordinary day, never a long period of time.ā Now, what do you think?
- Kaiser: Well, āevening and morning.ā To start on the first one with āevening,ā is sort of interesting. Where did that first āeveningā come from? It must come from a day that wasnāt already. So thereās something wrong with it the way you start it. And then, āevening and morningā doesnāt make up a whole twenty-four hours. And anyway, we have three of these evening and mornings ā day one, day two, day three ā before, on the fourth day, God makes days. So, weāre in trouble here.
- And then, the seventh day is lasting all the way to the present. Hebrews 4 says that God rested from His creative work and He calls it, in Hebrews 4, a sabbatismos, āa Sabbath.ā Thatās the Greek word. Itās our word Sabbath, when God stopped and He put a conclusion. Another Greek word there is katapausis. He said, āStop.ā
- And there are three times in the biblical text God āstoppedā: at creation, marking between creation and providence; God stopped on the cross and said, āIt is finished. It is doneā; and then in the book of Revelation one more time God says, āIt is doneā and it marks the end between His work in providence and His work in history and all of eternity. Three great āstop daysā and this one is still going on: āSo let us enter,ā says Hebrews 4, āinto this rest.ā And the interesting thing is, there is no citation of āevening and morningā with the seventh day, also.
- So on at least four or five grounds I find to say that this is really [as] an argument for a twenty-four-hour day to be weak.
- Ross: Let me give you a fifth one. This is bad statistics. I hear in their books where theyāll say, āWell, 38 times we see āevening and morningā used outside of Genesis 1 always in reference to a twenty-four-hour day.ā But those sentences, when you look [them] up, the word day isnāt even in the text. Itāll mention āeveningā or āmorning,ā but you will not find the word day. And thereās only one place in those 38 references where you see āeveningā and āmorningā together. Itās Psalm 55:17 where King David says, āI will pray to the Lord God in evening and morning and noontime.ā So what we see here in Genesis 1 is unique. You donāt see āevening and morningā refer to a day except there in the Genesis chapter.
- Ankerberg: Walter, weāve got one minute left. Letās put a wrapper on this thing, a conclusion for the people. What have we told them and what does this mean? And Iād like you to frame it with the fact of, weāre talking a literal interpretation of the words of Scripture. Weāre not messing around. We havenāt pulled science in to get this. You got this out of the text of Scripture. Youāre trying to grapple with it. When he [Dr. Ross], from science, came to the belief there was a God and then he started reading the Bible and he thought, āThese words kind of bring me back to the God that I believe created the whole thing; these are special words.ā Okay? Some people accuse him of bringing science in first. But you didnāt start that way. You started with the text and youāre saying, āFrom the textā¦,ā what?
- Kaiser: āI believe in God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth,ā who started in an absolute beginning, āin the beginning,ā created the whole shebang ā the universe ā and created it out of nothing ā brand new ā and brought it into existence. He is the Creator of all things. And this text is saying thatās what we celebrate. We celebrate that He is the Maker of heaven and earth.
- Ankerberg: Alright, next week weāre going to continue with this discussion of āWhat does the word day mean?ā, because weāre not done with some of the objections. One of the biggest ones is Exodus 20:9, where we find that in the Ten Commandments there, youāre supposed to work for these six days and rest on the seventh. And it doesnāt sound like weāre supposed to rest for a billion years or work for a billion years each. And youāve got to help us out because thatās also the book that you were the advisor on for the NIV.
- Kaiser: Canāt wait to get into it!
- Ankerberg: So weāve got to hear that. Okay, join us next week.
[ā¦] Are the Genesis Creation Days 24 Hours or Long Periods of Time? ā Program 1 By: Dr. Walter Kaiser Jr., Dr. Hugh Ross [ā¦]