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A number of years ago, I read the beginning of Genesis, but made in my own mind a TINY change. The bible we read has been through several languages and translation changes so I thought to myself...
What if, instead of the word DAY, the bible read “PERIOD OF TIME”?
I have watched many TV shows on the origins of the Universe and our earth, and the physical events seem to closely follow science, or science seems to follow the physical event outlined in the bible. Light from darkness, parting the waters from the land, the beginning of life STARTING with animals and ENDING when “He created MAN in HIS own image”.
Every time I’ve reread those first passages, I mentally insert the phrase “PERIOD OF TIME”.
I am only one person, but I can see where SCIENCE upholds biblical events, and I can see where the bible upholds the theories of science. It depends on whether the proper read is “DAY” or the phrase “PERIOD OF TIME”.
ONLY my thoughts.

What if, instead of the word DAY, the bible read “PERIOD OF TIME”?

Anybody can subjectively change any word or phrase in the Bible in an attempt to alter its meaning.

But the "science" of translation is a fairly exacting one based on manuscripts that are sometimes thousands of years old. We have many, many more manuscipts of biblical text that of any other classical literature, say "Gallic Wars" or the works of Herodotus for example.

The words in the Bible are surprisingly accurate if using textual analysis because of the extreme care of scribes used throughout the centuries. Thus, especially if you want to be "scientific" you must not subsitute whatever you will for what is written there, especially if based on a whim.

Once had a priest tell me that a day (as in the bible) may not mean our 24 hour day... in the beginning all was dark. (no day) God said let there be light (still no day) then night and day were separated. (now we have day and night) but no indication of how much time was involved. The earth was covered in water and a “dome” separated the waters (could dome be continents?) The book seems to be poetry to explain creation....But it did happen in stages according to the bible..It was not just boom, everything at once. The last thing created was man...I have no problems with creation or the times it took to create everything. Only have evolution problems with one type of living creature turning into another kind...IE: slime into elephants...that takes more faith than I can muster..

“instead of the word DAY, the bible read “PERIOD OF TIME”?”

That is exactly what I was taught in school. (Catholic nuns) There are numerous translations of the bible, and they are very different. Changing that one word, makes a tremendous difference when reading the passages on creation.

Oddly enough, once reading the creation story with that in mind, it is greatly reinforcing to the idea that God did, in fact, create the world and everything in it. He did it in a way that is consistent with the scientific evidence of the process of evolution. The accuracy of the biblical account of creation is incredibly similar to the process that scientists have established occurred. Two thousand years ago, without even a telescope, the writers of the Bible knew what happened. It is simply amazing.

Sadly, there are many, many people that have chosen one of the many translations of the Bible, and based their faith on the meaning of one word. I always wonder why it makes so much difference to some people whether God created the world in exactly 7 days. To me, the fact that God created the world, no matter how he did it, is a truly awe inspiring thing. The truth in this creation, not the method, is what sustains my faith.

The order of creation doesn’t allow for much time to pass between the ‘days’ however much time you want to give them. The plants and trees were created on the third day and the sun and stars on the fourth.