4004 BC or...?

[Bezant]

When I was small, I was only *lightly* taught that the earth was only a few thousand years old. I don't recall anyone specifying the 4004 BC creation date of Bishop Ussher, but nevertheless the earth's age was in the thousands, not millions or billions. But each creation day was just that, one 24 hour day.

As I got older, I considered that as God exists outside of Time -

Quote:

2 Peter 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

- so a day for Him could be a thousand years, perhaps more. That would leave ample time for flora and fauna to multiply and spread across the world, at each step.

Then, of course, in high school and college bio classes, if you wanted an A you had to toe the party line of the billions of years, Jurassic Age, Neolithic Age, etc. But I still did not and cannot believe that humans evolved from animals. The demarcation line would be impossible.

And now I am reading some Christian literature that, while I believe it in other ways, insists that each creation day was just that, a 24 hr day.

What do others of faith think?  

[Silver Wingling]

In biblical Hebrew, 'Yom,' or day, can mean an 24 hour day, or it can mean an unspecified length of time, ie, 1,000 years, 10,000 years, etc. However, there are ways to tell how 'Yom' is being used. The word 'Yom' ALWAYS means a literal 24 hour day when -

•It's used with the words for evening and/or morning ('Erev' and 'Boker')
•It's given a number (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
•It's in a list

Same is true of Hebrew today. Seems pretty evident that it's 24 hours. Also, the flora and fauna didn't multiply. G-d didn't give the command to multiply until a few days later, and remember when Adam named all the animals? And they cam in pairs? It seems like there were only 2 of each of them at that point in time.  

[Bezant]

Oh...interesting. Then, could it be, that there was a 24-hr day of creation, and an unspecified time between that and the next Yom?

The animals did not appear in pairs: it does not mention that they did, until they were sent to Noah's Ark.


Genesis ch. 1:

Quote:

20 And God said: 'Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' 21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.' 23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. {P}

24 And God said: 'Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind.' And it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good