Bible says it was six yom...days.
Genesis doesn’t say a thing about any conversion rate, as you suggest.
Everywhere the word yom is used in the OT, it simply means an ordinary day.
So it looks like “day” to me.
The day-age theory that you hint at is an attempt to reconcile non-creationistic theories with the Biblical account. As if to suggest; “Well I really want to believe the non-God theory about origins, but still hold onto my belief in God and the Bible. Rather double minded thinking, if someone were to ask me. But no one did, so I’ll just keep that line of reasoning where it stands.
However, please allow me to suggest another question...
If a person believes in God, a Creator, Redeemer, Savior, why is it so difficult to believe in the literal creation acoount? I mean if a person can belief God can raise a dead man to life and thorugh His atonement, save all who have faith in Him...then believing that this same Savior can create everything out of nothing...well, that’s easy to believe! Now believing He could forgive the sins of a serial killer who murdered someone I knew or loved...THAT is difficult for me to comprehend.
Pardon my rather introspective musing here.
But, I post it because you replied to me.
Err... what Old Testament are you using? Yom has many different uses in the Old Testament.
For example, in 67 verses in the Old Testament, the word Yom is translated into the English word "time." For instance, in Genesis 4:3, it says "And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord." In this instance, Yom refers to a growing season, probably several months. Again, in Deuteronomy 10:10, it refers to a "time" equal to forty days. In I Kings 11:42, it says "And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years." In this case, Yom translated as the word "time" is equivalent to a 40 year period. In Isaiah 30:8, it says "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever." In this case, Yom is equal to "forever." How long is forever? An infinite number of years...billions upon billions upon billons of years. If Yom can equal trillions of years here, then why not billions of years in Genesis?
Four times in the Old Testament Yom is translated "year." In I Kings 1:1, "David was old and stricken in years..." In 2 Chronicles 21:19, "after the end of two years" and in the very next verse "Thirty and two years old." Finally, in Amos 4:4, "...and your tithes after three years." In each case, Yom represents years, not days.
Eight times in the Old Testament Yom is translated "age." These range from sentences like "stricken in age," meaning old age (Genesis 18:11 and 24:1; Joshua 23:1 and 23:2), and other times it says "old age" (Genesis 21:2, Genesis 21:7). Genesis 47:28 refers to "the whole age of Jacob," therefore yom here refers to an entire lifetime. In Zechariah 8:4, it says old men and women will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, "each with cane in hand because of his age."
One time Yom is translated "ago." 1 Samuel 9:20 says "As for the donkeys you lost three days ago, ..."
Four times yom is translated as "always," in Deuteronomy 5:29, 6:24, 14:23, and in 2 Chronicles 18:7. Always here can be interpreted as a lifetime...for instance, we are to keep the commandments of the Lord always (Deut. 5:29).
Three times yom is translated "season." In Genesis 40:4, "...and they continued a season in ward." Again, in Joshua 24:7, "dwelt in the wilderness a long season," and in 2 Chronicles 15:3, "...a long season Israel hath been...". In each case yom represents a multi-month period.
I'm sorry, woollyone, but you're mistaken. Look at the various meanings of yom used in the Bible. Here is a list of 64 verses where the King James translators interpreted yom to mean a period of time.
It's also worth noting that most translations, strangely enough, mistakenly place the definite article in front of yom. In Hebrew, the definite article is the word ha while the indefinite article is implied when the definite article is absent.
Here is Genesis 1:19 from one of the literal translations that says "And there was evening, and there was morning -- a fourth day." There is a big linguistic difference between saying "a fourth day" and "the fourth day." Even the literal translations add words that are only implied in Hebrew, which is a very sparse language. A hyper-literal translation of Genesis 1:19 would read: "Evening, morning, a fourth day."
Thus, even if you insist upon yom meaning a 24-hour day, it doesn't necessarily mean that the days were sequential.
If you're going to point to the use of "evening" and "morning" to prove an absolute 24-hour day, note that they also have multiple meanings. See this link for evidence from the Bible supporting this fact. Here is a quotation:
If we use the more basic meanings of the words per the figure above, where evening is called 'ereb because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry and disordered and with the break of day it clears. Thus we have;
And the mixing and the breaking forth were the ____ time.Which has caused some to propose.
"And from chaos/disorder to order, the ____ time."Therefore the reader can possibly chose from any of the above, which ever seems to connect with them the most. Referring back to Fig 1 from Strong's, you will note that "age" is also a valid translation for yowm, but the authors have used "time" or "phase" since these are our preference.
Finally, the creation account is most likely written as poetry. That doesn't mean that it's not literally true, just that the literal truth is written in poetic form and needs to be interpreted as such. What some liberal scholars see as separate and conflicting accounts of creation in Genesis is actually a large block of poetry built on the Hebrew poetic style of repetition and parallism.
Reasonable people can disagree whether the creation account is poetic because, while it contains the basic elements of poetry, it doesn't contain some of the more complicated Hebrew poetic structures that are found elsewhere in the Bible. Based upon my (relatively meager) formal training and continued study of Hebrew, I see the creation account as poetry but I'm not going to stake that as a hill to die upon.
Please be open to the fact that yom has multiple meanings, even in the creation story. Psalms 19 says that "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." What God shows us through his creation (general revelation) is no less true than what he shows us through his special revelation (God's written word).
Once you get past what I consider to be a man-made literal 24-hour day tradition, you will find that there is no conflict between real science and the Bible, and a whole new universe is literally opened up to you.
May you enjoy all of God's peace, joy, and blessing, my brother in Christ. For in him, we are made as one.