Seven Day Creation Story

[GoingMyOwnWay]

I'm a little confused about the whole Creation story - Catholics believe that it didn't actually take seven days, that it really took billions of years. What do other Christians believe?

[swtswan]

It's so refreshing to hear so many different views/but yet the invariably the same conclusions. However I try not to judge anyone/church affiliation;etc., because it is not for me personally to judge someone based on what I may or may not know/observe in the ways they may or may not have been taught."For it is only GOD who is to be the judge of man." I try not to cause another to fall away in his/her faith; but lead them by example. I Love the input from so many perspectives here. Hope that helps you to see a little more clearly dear. I am probly among the least perfect of all here,but try my best to stay humble & search His guidance in all I do;And do His Will always.Love in Christ <+++>----;--;{(@

[Johan]

Hi,
This subject is one I've been reading a lot about. I've been following the discussions around evolution and creationism. There is a lot to say about these first chapters of Genesis. I'm convinced that these chapters are meant to be read literally (even non-believing specialists Hebrew confirm this). Moreover these things have been written down by Moses who spent a lot of time with God in the desert and had first hand information. In fact, there is a little book written by Don Batten and Jonathan Sarfati (published by Creation Ministries International) explaining 15 reasons to take Genesis as history. To give a few examples :
- a christian, as a follower of Christ, should follow His example in His attitude to the Old Testament Scriptures
- Jesus clearly regarded the account of Adam and Eve's creation as factual, as well as the Flood
- Genesis was written as history
- Hermeneutical principle : Scripture interprets Scripture : The rest of the Old Testament takes Genesis as history
- Hermeneutical principle : Scripture interprets Scripture : The New Testament takes Genesis 1-11 as history
- the history of Genesis is necessary to explain death and suffering
and so on ....
Then about evolution and all the compromise views between Genesis and evolution : these theories have lots of problems explaining recent scientific findings, while these findings are perfectly consistent with the creationist view.
In fact, evolution has three major problems:
1. there are no transitional organisms : if evolution was true, there should be thousands of these ; there are none !
2. there is no evolution mechanism that can account for adding information to the genes ; this is also crucial : evolution to more complex organisms in time need some way of adding new information. For example mutation cannot play this role as it is at best neutral or most of the time negative (it corrupts genetic information).
3. there was no time enough to let things evolve by themselves. Mathematicians have calculated that 5 billion years even is not enough to come to our current complexity just by coincidence.

There is still so much more to be said. Anyway, my conclusion is that the bible is true from begin to end and all other, human hypotheses cannot explain how our world came into existence.

Hope this have helped you a bit,

Johan.

[MaryAnn]

Thanks Johan, for sharing this insightful truth. Sounds right on to me. I love the clarity of simplicity.

Take care,
MaryAnn

[Absent Minded]

Personally I believe in the "Big Bang" theory.... I believe God said let it be and BANG it happend... just like he said it did.

[Rev Harold Siegfried]

On the subject no where in the Bible does it say how long a day is to God. a day to God could be a million years to us.It does say that God created the world in seven days again we dont know how long a day is to God. Also rember the Bible is an awsome thing that every reader who open his heart and mind to will receive Gods blessing. And not everyone will receive the same exact same message. God will guide you because he love us as long as we open our hearts to him. if we had all the answers we would already be with God so as long as you beleive in God.he will guide you to an understanding of what his words are Iam not saying that God didnt create the earth in seven days what iam saying is how long is seven days To God I have done a lot of studyiong on this since i was i small boy. but have yet to find that answer. I do beleive that God loves all of us and that through hime we will learn all that he wants us to learn.

Rev Harold Siegfried

[Absent Minded]

With all do respect Pastor, The Bible states the the evening and the mornig were the first day.

[Absent Minded]

Aside from that in an answer to your post to how long a day is we are told a thousuand years is as a day to our Heavenly Father.

[Johan]

Hi,
As stated above, I've been reading quite a lot about these discussions and here is what I would like to give to you and to anybody having questions about the Genesis story. I understand the doubts about the length of days as mentioned in these first chapters, but we need also to be very careful about reading things into the Bible (eisegesis), such as human and thus failable hypothesis. As a christian, we don't need millions of years to build our scientifically well-argumented hypothesis based on the Genesis account. In fact, the Genesis story is completely incompatible with the notion of days being long ages. Think for example about this : how could God have said after he finished his creation using millions of years of evolution that everything was 'very good' knowing that in the fossile record (so the fossile bones, the remains of former organisms, less complex(?)) preceding the first man, we find the traces of disease (cancers), suffering and death ? Moreover the various processes in our world are depending on each other to keep going. It's much more logical that God created all things in a very short time so as to have a fully functioning system capable of going on by itself. Also, as stated earlier, the Hebrew text is very clear ; there is no doubt about the exact meaning of the words and thus the timeline of creation week. That millions of years believe only started in the 19th century when some geologist was looking at the sediments beneath our feet (layers of hundreds of meters thick) and calculated back into time at the current speed of laying down layers of sediment. What he however forgot to think about, that was that catastrophes (such as the Flood as documented in the Bible) can perfectly account for these thick layers being layed down in less than a year ! Evolution and all compromise theories are a danger for our believe as it attacks the authority of the Bible. Because if we can doubt the first chapters and read whatever we like into these words, who will stop us from doing the same for all other chapters still to follow. And again, there is no reason to doubt. The Bible is perfectly and scientifically consistent. Hold on to what is written. God bless you and everyone looking for the truth,
Johan.

[MaryAnn]

The following article, showing how Satan works, and how subtle he is, is taken from the June-August Creation Magazine.

Have you ever wondered why there is so much suffering in the world, so much sickness, so much killing, so many wars? The Bible gives us the answer. It tells us that when God made Adam and Eve, they lived in a world where there was no suffering, no sickness and no death. Even the animals all ate plants and not each other. This included the dinosaurs. Then, as a test of Adam and Eve’s loyalty and love for Him, God allowed them to be tempted by Satan.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan wanted to get Eve to disobey God. Somehow he had to get her to eat some fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why? Because that was the one thing that God had told Adam not to do, on penalty of death. Satan had a very cunning plan to drag her down.

First of all he cast doubt on what God had said about not eating the fruit.
Then he denied that Eve would die if she did eat it.
Then he told Eve that the fruit was something really nice and that God was unfair in keeping her from enjoying it.
To experience this, Eve would have to ignore the penalty that God had warned them of, but Satan didn't let her think about that. How tricky! And it worked. Eve believed what Satan had said, instead of what God had said. She and Adam both ate the fruit that God had told them not to.

Now you might think it was a very small thing, just to eat a piece of fruit like that. Why should it involve such a huge penalty? No less than death! Well, what Adam and Eve did was rebellion against God. They wanted to decide what was good and what was evil for themselves. They wanted life without God. Instead of obeying God and being content with all the good things He had given them, they deliberately defied Him. They obeyed Satan rather than God.

Because God is perfectly holy and just, there had to be a penalty for rebellion, or sin, against Him. The penalty ('Curse') involved death, because that was what God had warned them would happen if they disobeyed Him. When God judged sin, He also withdrew some of His sustaining power in the world. This first sin, with its penalty, is called 'The Fall'. Because of sin, we now have a 'fallen' world with suffering, sickness, calamities and death. People are violent because that's what they choose to be.

God often deals with sin by allowing people to have what they want, but there are always consequences. Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and from then on they were cut off from God, the source of all goodness and light, and of life itself.

What the Fall means for us today
All of us are descended from Adam, who was the head of the human race. We have all been born with an anti-God nature from Adam. And Satan’s strategy today is still the same as it was in the Garden of Eden – he casts doubt on the Word of God, and denies its truth. Satan tempts us to disregard what it says, and wants us to think that there is no penalty for sin.

However, God has not forsaken us. Because He loves us, God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty for our sins by His death on the cross. Because the penalty has been paid, God can now forgive us for our sin (1 John 1:9), free us from guilt, and restore us to a right relationship with Himself. When Jesus rose from the dead, He showed that death had been conquered (1 Corinthians 15:20-26). All we have to ‘do’ is turn to God and ask Him to forgive our sin and to be our Saviour and our Lord.

The message of the Bible is that, although we are in a war with Satan, in Christ our victory has already been won! We have a choice: to sin and obey Satan, or to accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour and obey Him.

[Alan]

There are some cool things in the account of creation, one of which is that there was light and dark before there was a sun or moon, how can that be? Well He is God you know, the point should be taken as some have brought out that man does not understand everything and God does.
The issue of the time in creation has just taken a new twist, that twist is twofold the first part is that light has been stopped in the lab. It has been long believed that light’s speed is constant thus time is constant and so when we look back at creation the days are the same length as the days we have today. This brings the second point up and that is that the speed of light is slowing down, and you say that means what to me? The simple version is that when light was called into being it was moving at a higher velocity then our present light. Since time is tied to the speed of light, the time God calls a night and a day would appear as a much larger period to us in this time speed period, cool yea? That is just one example of the fact that there is no need to apologize for the things written in the Bible, if we do not get it then the reason we do not get it is because we do not get it not because the Bible is wrong.

[Carl]

I don't mean to get everybody stirred up again. As I promised, MaryAnn, I wanted to study the Bible about creation again. So of course I started in Genesis. Now, when I studied it I was thrown for a couple of loops and I hope you might be able to help. In Genesis 1:26-27 it says "And God said let us create man in our own likeness: and let them have dominon over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over everything that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." But them in Genesis 2:7 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Genesis 2:21-22 is how he created woman from one of Adams ribs.

Now my questions are: Who was God talking to in Gen. 1:26 when he said "And let US make man in OUR image after OUR likeness And let them have dominon..."? If God created man in Genesis 1:27 why did he REcreate man and woman in Gen.2:7 and Gen.2:21-22? If we take every thing at face value does this make us the second "race" (for lack of a better word.) that was created on earth? But if we don't take it at face value them the six day creation may be not be a literal six days. So, as you can see, I am in a state of conflicting but yet true descriptions of the first period of time on earth.


Your searching brother in faith
Carl

[LT]

Carl,

In regard to your questions:
1) The "us" in 1:26 is explainable when we understand the Trinity and that all three, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were involved in the creation process.
2) The Bible on several occasions utilizes the technique found in Genesis 1 and 2. Think of chapter one as the overview and in chapter 2 God zooms in and gives us a closer look at what took place regarding the creation of man and woman. It is not illustrating a second creation of man, nor is there any conflict, just the basic truth about God's creation.

Lord Bless,
LT