I never said that Genesis 1 is trying to show millions of years??? The book of Genesis is clear. God created Adam and Eve. Genesis consists of genealogy record. Where are the millions of years in Genesis? Please explain this to me. How can you believe in a literal 24 hr day, and yet see millions of years in Genesis? 
I know you didn’t. I am explaining that I don’t believe it’s trying to show millions of years either.
Yes, all very clear. But it becomes less clear when we read it outside its socio-historical context. Most Christians are blissfully unaware of how the original Hebrew audience would have read it.
There aren’t any. I have already made this clear.
Please see my previous post, the one which says this.
See also the quotation from Anastasius of Sinai which I included. This image may also help.
Enough said, you are a picker and chooser. I find it interesting how theistic evolutionists used the original Hebrew argument in understanding genesis, but then conveniently stop short of using original Hebrew argument of Jesus being God. It’s an inconsistent argument you are using, my friend. God bless 
No I am not a picker and chooser. The word yom is being used here to refer to a 24 hour day, so that’s how I read it. It’s the YECs who are pickers and choosers; look at those images I uploaded showing how YECs butcher the text of Genesis 1 and the flood.
What original Hebrew argument of Jesus being God?
Butcher what? I don’t need to see your chart. When I read Genesis plainly. I don’t see millions of years. One who have to inject their own view. Furthermore if you knew nothing of evolution. You, yourself would have to admit that you could not see millions of years in the bible. Even theistic evolutionist have admitted as much
People such as yourself use the ancient Hebrew view of Genesis but then somehow discount the Hebrew people’s view of Jesus being God?
Using linguistic aesthetics to PROVE six days of creation for the whole Earth … when our eyes and minds tell us that the Earth is billions of years old doesn’t seem like much of a cognitive process…
Isn’t that equivalent to finding a wooden idol and concluding the idol MUST represent God?
EXACTLY!!! What does the bible say? (Proverbs) 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” A spiritually mature Christian would NEVER trust his or her mind and understanding without God’s word to guide it, my friend
And Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf.
You do have to see if if you want to know what I think YECs are butchering.
Neither do I, because it’s not there.
So what? I can’t see a round Earth in the Bible. I can see a flat Earth in the Bible. I can’t see the Earth orbiting the sun in the Bible. I can see the sun orbiting the Earth in the Bible.
I have absolutely no idea what you mean by “the Hebrew people’s view of Jesus being God”. I am not aware of any Hebrew people in Bible times who viewed Jesus as God.
But aren’t you trusting your mind when you trust that your understanding of God’s word is correct? It seems to me that anyone can throw the “leaning on your own understanding” flag.
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John Walton is a Biblical Scholar that holds that Yom refers to 24 hr days, including in Genesis. Still, he thinks this is compatible with evolution and an old earth. This is all just a side track. Even if Yom = 24hrs, the earth and the universe could be old.
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Hello.
I used to be a regular on this site, but haven’t posted anything in quite a long time, just for the reasons that I got busy doing other things … though I still enjoy reading the articles and discussion.
In regards to the word “Yom” and how it should be understood, here are some things that I think might move the conversation forward. Wookin, it sounds to be that your dichotomy is, “Either “yom” means a short period of time, i.e., a twenty-four hour day, OR it means a long period of time, like say an ‘epoch’ or 'era” …
However, there is much more dynamic questions we can ask about Genesis to further our understanding.
For instance, should the days in Genesis be understood as literal OR non-literal?
Are the days being described from God’s perspective of time OR from the perspective of a person receiving visions, and then describing what he saw?
Is Genesis meant to give us a scientific account of Origins (Ken Ham’s and Hugh Ross’s position) OR is it more inclined towards a purposeful / functional account of Origins, describing how it is we should run our lives, our place in the Universe, and so forth (Walton’s position, and others) …
All of these are questions we can ask that causes one to truly engage with the text and to broaden our understanding.
Speaking from my own personal experience, I was raised a YEC, and was just under the presumption that the text of Genesis was very black and white on the matter of the age of the earth … however that assumption of mine changed when I first started to read the Bible from cover to cover, and straight away from the first page things were not clear to me. I found myself re-reading the first chapter a couple of times … “How was there light before the creation of the sun? Why was the light called “Day” and the darkness called “Night”, when those things only pertain to the sun, which was created later … how was the sun created on Day 4, when the very definition of day hinges on the rotation of the heavenly spheres, e.g., the sun itself.” … these are all questions that swam in my head, and caused me to do some deep thinking, and become less dogmatic on the subject of age … and I found that I wasn’t alone in my concerns, and that there others whom were equally puzzled.
Here’s a quote …
“But, that our meaning may be ascertained by the facts themselves, let us examine the passages of Scripture. Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars— the first day even without a sky?” -Origen
Who is speaking here? A person trying to justify his faith with the claims of modern geology, modern astronomy? No. This is a a church father, who lived in the 2nd century AD, trying to understand the Bible, to the best of his ability, as well as the world around him, to the best of his ability … written thousands of years before the “scientific age”, we can see that the text of Genesis 1 wasn’t so easy to understand.
Augustine likewise, in his book The Literal Meaning of Genesis, also tended towards a non-literal understanding of the days of Genesis (note: the definition of “literal” isn’t the same as today as it was back then), for similar reasons that Origen did. He actually believed creation to be instantaneous, and the six days were literary conventions, of describing the creation.
One of the main things that caused a shift in my thinking of Genesis 1, was when we come to verse 14 where it says, “And God made two great lights … and let them (the lights) be for signs, and for seasons, and for DAYS, and years…”
In this, it’s describing the purposes of the sun and moon … to divide time. But how is it the first three “days” were measured then, if these celestial objects weren’t created until the fourth day? If the phrase “evening and morning” is a sure sign we are talking about “normal days” then how is it we have an evening and morning for the first three days (that had no sun) and for the second of set of three days (which had a sun) … we could argue, for instance, that the first three days were “non solar days” and the last three were “solar days” (though I personally think that would be a bit ad hoc, but nonetheless) … and even then we would be faced with the problem that ALL six days are described in the same way, with no hint that some are “non-solar” and others are “solar” …
My argument is thus: an OVERLY literal approach to the days of Genesis 1, being a consecutive 144 hours of creation, will INEVITABLY cause internal contradictions in the text. Holding on to these self-contradictions, will actually distort the meaning of the word “day”, which doesn’t mean “a twenty-four period” but rather more precisely “the time it takes for the sun to go around the earth” … since, according to the text, the sun was made on Day 4, we are left with internal inconsistencies. The solution would then be, to re-shape the way we think about the text. Maybe the order of creation isn’t strictly chronological (Lee Iron’s and Meredith Kline’s view, also known as “Framework Hypothesis” which argues for a topical understanding of creation) … maybe the days are talking about the visions the prophet had, about the creation event (which seems to be Burke’s view, unless I misunderstood him) …
There are many other ways to look at the text; some of which I would argue help to take away some of those internal contradictions.
Understanding Genesis 1, in my opinion, is not “as easy as 1-2-3”, as ancient biblical commentators like Augustine and Origen will attest too, having no prior bias towards the age of the earth, and yet still comings to different understandings of the same text, that are contrary to moderns YECs today.
Hope this helps …
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Yes it does. That’s what happens when people approach the text with the assumption that it’s speaking of 144 consecutive hours of creation. There’s no need to do this. Consequently, it’s entirely possible to read the yom here as a literal day without any contradiction. The problem lies not in the length of the day, but on what people think is happening during that day. As I have already explained, I do not believe that the text is saying God created everything in just six days.
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