An Overview of Day-Age's Errors (what does the word "day" mean in Genesis?)

ICR ^ | March 2009 | Larry Vardiman, Ph.D.

[GodGunsGuts]

An Overview of Day-Age's Errors

by Larry Vardiman, Ph.D.

Many Bible scholars today are buying into the day-age theory of origins. They seem to believe that their biblical views must conform to their mental image of how the world functions today and must be confirmed by members of the non-Christian world, whose minds are darkened (Ephesians 4:17-19).

The basis of the day-age interpretation of long ages rests on a flawed understanding of the use of the word yom in Genesis 1 and 2. Here, I will discuss briefly the theory's five main errors...

[GodGunsGuts]

Ping!

[freedumb2003]

Have a blessed day.

[dblshot]

“A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone”

From, O God Our Help in Ages Past

[DManA]

I like this view better:

http://www.geraldschroeder.com/age.html

[OneVike]

In a nutshell, the Hebrew word for day is Yom and whenever the word Yom is proceeded by a number it was always used to refer to as ONE DAY.

So anyone who attempts to say it meant an age are wrong. It is the same language used when God told Moses that they will keep the Sabbath Holy. For God created everything in six days, then took the 7th day off and He commanded the Israelites to do the same. He did not tell them to take an age of time but ONE DAY, the SEVENTH DAY OF THE WEEK.

[SuziQ]

God was not bound by normal processes during the creation events. In fact, creation was a miracle of the first magnitude. God spoke and the universe came into existence. God spoke and mature plants and animals were formed. God spoke and mankind was created. This argument is not worthy of dispute.

Sure it is, since no one was there at the time God created anything, except for man, and he didn't write it all down at the time.

Genesis was written so that man may understand what God did, in a way that they could understand it. I don't believe it is meant to be a literal history of God's creation, though some may interpret it that way.

Interpreting it as God creating life, and that life growing over a period of time isn't incompatible with one's belief that God, indeed, DID create the universe, and everything in it, as written in Genesis.

[Above My Pay Grade]

day means day

Now let’s move onto more complex questions like “What does ‘is’ mean?”

[GodGunsGuts]

LOL!

[GodGunsGuts]

Very well said!

[OneVike]

You must have a very, very ,small god if he cannot do what the science of men says is impossible.

my God on the other hand is able to create laws that we must be bound by. He is not bound by these laws because he created them.

You see, I have a very, very, very BIG GOD , and he can do anything, even create the world and all that exists in it in 6 days. Heck he even got done in time to rest on the 7th day.

[Natural Law]

This just looks like one mans opinion. Being accomplished and educated in one field does not mean one is necessarily accomplished and educated in other unrelated fields. I see nothing in Dr. Vardiman’s biography to imply that he has any special knowledge in ancient Hebrew or theology. Neither does he support or substantiate his assertions.

[DrewsMum]

Isn’t Genesis clear when it says that “the evening and the morning were the first DAY” ?

It’s really not rocket science ;0)

[Natural Law]

"Isn’t Genesis clear when it says...

Since the activities preceded man can you tell us who authored Genesis and when it was committed to writing and by whom? It would be useful to know the dialects employed and the cognates and nuances in use at the time before we can really determine the intent of the author. For example, look at how the original intent of the US Constitution has changed in a little over 200 years and it was an immediately written and well debated document at the time of its inception.

[OneVike]

It would be useful to know the dialects employed and the cognates and nuances in use at the time before we can really determine the intent of the author.

I agree with your explanation of how it does matter when who and how it was written. That being said it still stands that the time was and still is considered one day by the Hebrew language and dialect, just as it does in today's analogy of the meaning.

The Hebrew word for day as I said earlier is yom or יום. And throughout the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy it has always meant what it implies. When yom is proceeded by a number as it does in Genesis 1:5

first day orיום אחד

יום would be the number one, or first

It means the number of days specified. In this case it means one day, as in the first day. Only when a number is not proceeding the word yom יום. does it mean an age of time.

I am short on time or I would give you an even more extensive lesson in Hebrew.

[1forall]

Some believe Moses wrote Genesis. Some believe he wrote it when he was with God for 40 days and nights on Mt. Sinai.

God was there in the beginning and He remembers what He did on those 6 days. Could He have told Moses what to write or perhaps written it down Himself? I don’t see why not.

Language was most likely ancient Hebrew as that was the language of God’s chosen people and they kept the Book of the Law.

God’s intent, I believe, in writing Genesis was for us to read it, believe what He wrote, understand His love for us and His awesome power, repent of our sins and quit trying to run our own lives. Allow Him to direct our hearts and in so doing, demonstrate His love to others.

I believe this because to me that is the message of the entirety of the Bible and it is also the reason for the peace that I have in my own heart.

[BlueDragon]

In a nutshell, the Hebrew word for day is Yom and whenever the word Yom is proceeded by a number it was always used to refer to as ONE DAY.

Perhaps not. From the link provided in the 5^th reply on this thread...

 The creation of time.

Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. The verse says: "There is evening and morning, Day One." But the second day doesn't say "evening and morning, Day Two." Rather, it says "evening and morning, a second day." And the Torah continues with this pattern: "Evening and morning, a third day... a fourth day... a fifth day... the sixth day." Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not "first day," but "Day One" ("Yom Echad"). Many English translations that make the mistake of writing "a first day." That's because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! Because there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between "one" and "first." One is absolute; first is comparative.

I do not know if the author quoted [above] is entirely correct, but for now I am compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I say compelled, for in other portions of the author's writings he "breaks it down" word-for-word more thoroughly than the above snippet by itself demonstrates.

[OneVike]

Well, excuse me but the author needs to put down the pipe he's smoking because it's full of wacky weed and he is WRONG!

As I said I do not have time to give a full lesson in Hebrew but take the word from one who studied Hebrew and Greek, He is wrong!

[OneVike]

I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll use the space provided by FreeRepublic on my about page and work on a concise explanation of what it is I mean. If you still would rather believe the idiots who claim God’s word does not mean what it says, well then it matters not.

[oldmanreedy]

Man, what were those evoatheists thinking, trying to exclude this stuff from science classrooms.

Down with fossils in biology classes! Up with theological disputes over the meaning of ancient Hebrew words!