Thoughts on the Days of Creation

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Throughout history many wise persons have thought about the creation of the universe, the origin of organic life, and the Creator's purpose. Interpretations of the days of creation in Genesis chapter 1 range from literal to allegorical. The science of Biblical Anthropology attempts to place the narrative in its earliest cultural context among the Nilotic Hebrew who dispersed widely before the time of Abraham (c. 2000 BC).

Young Earth Creationists interpret the sequence of days in Genesis 1 as 6 consecutive 24-hour days. They assume that Cain (Gen. 4) and Seth (Gen. 5) were among the few humans on earth no more than 10,000 years old. The YEC position requires one to ignore the vast material evidence of human existence on earth over millions of years. Those who do not ignore the evidence resort to the fallacy of inaccurate dating methods.

St. Augustine of Hippo believed that everything in the universe was created simultaneously by God. He is explicit that God did not create over the course of six consecutive 24-hour days. He writes, "The sacred writer was able to separate in the time of his narrative what God did not separate in time in His creative act." In his view, the six days of creation convey the logical order of and relationship of created things, rather than a passage of time. He wrote, "But in the beginning He created all things together and completed the whole in six days, when six times he brought the 'day' which he made before the things which He made, not in a succession of periods of time but in a plan made known according to causes."

St. Basil the Great, on the other hand, believed in six consecutive days of creation and presents the divine act in great detail in his Hexaemeron. It originated as a lecture series that he delivered over three days in 378 AD on the days of creation, moving line by line through Genesis 1:1–26. Basil did not insist on 24-hour days since the solar arc was not a factor until the fourth day (Gen. 1:14-19). 

Origen of Alexandria also noted that "days" did not exist before the sun and moon were formed, and he believed that the "days" described in Genesis 1 do not refer to a literal succession. Rather the sequence is a symbolic representation of God's creative process. Origen tended to interpret that Genesis 1 creation narrative allegorically.

St. John Chrysostom wrote, "The text says: "This is the book about the origins of heaven and earth when they were created, on the day God made heaven and earth, before any grass of the field appeared on the earth or any crop of the field sprouted. God, you see, had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no human being to till the soil; a spring used to flow out of the ground and water the whole face of the earth." [Gen 2:4] Notice again, I ask you, the insight of this remarkable author, or rather the teaching of the Holy Spirit. I mean, after narrating to us detail by detail all the items of creation and going through the works of the six days, the creation of human beings and the authority granted them over all visible things, now he sums them all up in the words, "This is the book about the origins of heaven and earth when they were created." It is worth enquiring at this point why it is he calls it the book of heaven and earth in view of the fact that the book contains many other things and teaches us about a greater number of matters about the virtue of good people, about God's loving kindness and the considerateness he demonstrated in regard both to the first formed human being and to the whole human race, and about a lot of other things it would be impossible to list right now. Don't be surprised, dearly beloved; after all, it is the custom with Holy Scripture not to describe every thing to us in detail in every case but rather to begin with a summary of related items and to leave further detail to be considered by rightminded listeners as they take in what is said.

So that you may learn this is the case, I will make it clear from the very verses just now read. What I refer to is this: notice Sacred Scripture taught us in detail in the preceding verses the creation of everything, but now, instead of mentioning them all, it says: "This is the book about the origins of heaven and earth when they were created, on the day God made heaven and earth," and so on. Do you see how it confines the whole account to heaven and earth, leaving us to get from them a sweeping view of all the other things? I mean, when it said heaven and earth, it included everything together in those words, both things on earth and things in heaven. So, just as in its account of created things it doesn't mention them all one by one but gives a summary of related items and makes no further attempt to describe them to us, so too it called the whole book the book about the origins of heaven and earth, even though it contains many other things, evidently leaving us to work out from the reference to these two that all visible things are of necessity contained in this book, both those in heaven and those on earth.

Professor John Walton believes that Genesis 1 draws on Babylonian cosmology in which the whole universe is God's cosmic 7-tiered temple.

Biblical Anthropology applies the tools of anthropology to the Genesis creation narratives and suggests that they come from the early Hebrew who lived in the Nile Valley (4200-1500 BC). The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship is Nekhen on the Nile. 

The Nilotic Hebrew understanding of the human condition and our need of God’s saving mercy is evident in the Genesis 1-3 narratives which have their closest parallels in African creation/origin stories. According to the early Nilotic Hebrew (4000-2000 BC), the first act of the Creator at the beginning was šw (Shu), meaning light. This is not the light of day. It is the eternal, uncreated light associated with the High God's son Y-shu (Yeshua), as proclaimed in John's Prologue.

The African themes such as "the beginning", the chaotic waters, the apical parents of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste, the defiling Serpent, are concisely woven together in the Genesis creation stories. These themes include the separation of the waters above from the waters below, the creation of male and female humans from the soil (humus), the Tree of Life, estrangement of humans from the Heavenly Father and his son, and the anticipated third day resurrection of the Eternal Son.

It must be evident that the creation stories are not where we encounter verifiable historical data. One may insist that creation happened over 6 consecutive 24-hour days, but Genesis does not provide empirical evidence for that argument. On the other hand, analysis of the kinship pattern of the early Hebrew rulers listed in Genesis 4 and 5 reveals that these are historical persons with an authentic marriage and ascendancy pattern. In other words, when speaking of history in Genesis we must begin with the historical persons of Adam, Eve and their descendants, some of whom are named in Genesis 4 (Cain's line) and 5 (Seth's line).

 

Related reading: The Roots of the Gospel are in Africa; Theories about the Tree of Life; Adam Was a Red Man; Is Scientific Dating Reliable?; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Competition Between the Horites and the Sethites; The Historical Eve; Lamech Segment Analysis; Five Features of the Hebrew Social Structure

Days of Creation: Literal or Figurative?

Alice C. Linsley

Today I take up the second question asked by a reader of Just Genesis. The question is: "Do you believe in a literal 6-day creation?"

What I believe is not important. What matters is what the Scriptures say. Genesis 1 suggests that the seven consecutive days are to be taken as 24-hour days. However, Genesis 2 says that God created everything in a single day. In both creation stories the Hebrew word for day is yom. This word is used in the Bible to mean a 24-hour day or an unspecified duration of time.

The cycles of day and night depend on the rotation of the earth on its axis and its position relative to the sun. According to the creation account in Genesis 1, God created the sun on the fourth day. That means that the Hebrew yom must not be taken in every instance as a fixed period.

While Genesis is a reliable source of anthropological information about the beliefs of the early Hebrew, it is not a scientific text. It emerges from a worldview and must be understood in that context. In that context the number 6 is highly symbolic and the days of creation may not be 24-hour days, as St. Augustine recognized in his The Literal Meaning of Genesis translated and annotated by John Hammond Taylor, S.J. (Newman Press, New York, 1982, Volume I, Book 8, Chapter 2, pp. 35-36.)

St. Augustine begins his study of Genesis by laying down the following principle: “If anyone wishes to interpret in a literal sense everything written in this book, that is to understand it only according to the letter of the text, and in doing this he avoids blasphemy and explains everything in agreement with the Catholic faith, not only is he not to be discouraged, but he should be considered an outstanding interpreter worthy of great praise. But if there is no way of understanding a passage in a devout sense worthy of God without assuming that it has been set forth in figures and enigmas, we should remember that we have the authority of the apostles, who solved so many enigmas in the books of the Old Testament, and we should stay with the kind of interpretation which we have adopted with the help of Him who bids us ask, seek and knock. Thus, our purpose should be to explain all these figures of things according to the Catholic faith, whether the matter belongs to history or prophecy, without prejudice to a better and more exact treatment which we or others, whom the Lord is pleased to enlighten may subsequently undertake.”

St. Augustine held that we should be willing to reconsider our ideas about creation/reality as new information becomes available, but he never entertains the idea that new information might contradict biblical revelation. He is almost unique among the Church Fathers in interpreting the six days of creation in a figurative sense, but as an African he was aware of the figurative quality of sacred story telling among Africans.

St. Augustine explains: "The sacred writer was able to separate in the time of his narrative what God did not separate in time in His creative act." In his view, the six days of creation convey the logical order of and relationship of created things, rather than a passage of time. He wrote, "But in the beginning He created all things together and completed the whole in six days, when six times he brought the 'day' which he made before the things which He made, not in a succession of periods of time but in a plan made known according to causes."

Though most of the other Fathers don't agree with him, they always treat St. Augustine's view with great respect. They recognize that the Hebrew word yom is used elsewhere in the Bible to indicate an unspecified period of time.

The Question of Chronology

While Genesis 1 appears to be a chronological account, detailed study reveals that God was not always doing things that way. For St. Augustine this was so important that he included this in his Christian Instruction, explaining: “In the Scriptures some things are related in such a way that they seem to be following the order of time or occurring in chronological succession, when actually the narrative, without mentioning it, refers to previous events that had been left unmentioned. Unless we understand this distinction, we shall fall into error. For example, we find in Genesis: ‘And the Lord God planted a paradise of pleasure in the east; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.’ This last mentioned event would seem to have occurred after God had made the man and placed him in paradise. After both these facts have been mentioned briefly (that is, that God planted a paradise and there ‘placed man whom He had formed’), the narrative turns back by means of recapitulation and relates what had been planted and that God brought forth out of the ground all manner of trees fair to behold and pleasant to eat of.” (St. Augustine, Christian Instruction 2:36.52)

The Symbolism of the Numbers Six and Three

The number six is significant because it represents the material world. In Jewish mysticism (Kabalah) six pertains to the flesh, reproduction, and the land. Among the early Hebrew, the ruler's 2 firstborn sons by his 2 wives represent a kingdom received, territorial expansion, and alliances for mutual defense.

The number three represents a confederation or a unification. This is why we find 3 sons listed so often in Genesis. Consider these examples of 3-clan confederations:

Gen. 4 - Cain, Abel, Seth
Gen. 4 - Jubal, Jabal, Tubal
Gen. 7 - Ham, Shem, Japheth
Gen. 11 - Haran, Nahor, Abraham
Gen. 22 - Huz, Uz, Buz

The number 6 symbolizes man's dominion over the earth and the fruit of the union of man and wife. There were 6 urns at the wedding in Cana of Galilee where Jesus Christ turned water to wine. The Jews used water from those stone jars for ritual washing. Jesus used the 6 stone jars to bless the wedding party.

Nothing new is created after the 6th day. All of creation is complete and now awaits the 7th day which speaks of the eternal kingdom. The 7th refers to union, as in marriage. Genesis 1 says that God's creative work lasted for 6 days and that God rested from all His work on the 7th day. The number 7 is associated with God at rest (sabbath) and conveys completion or perfection of a relationship between Master and Servant, or between Creator and Creation, or between Husband and Bride. 

Related reading: Between Biblical Literalism and Biblical Illiteracy; An Anthropologist Looks at Genesis 1; The Themes of Genesis 1-3