How long did it take to create the earth?

RUSTHEMAN
How long did it take God to create the World?
7 days by the Bible, but is that actually 7 days like we see it? Or is it foolish of us to think God was on the 24 hour system when creating everything?
Thoughts?


PREACHER
In Genesis where the creation is described it is written that "the evening and the morning were the first day", second day and so forth. I have to believe this is referring to a 24hr. period of time. This also I think is where the Hebrews got there time system from. Their day begins at sundown, where ours starts at midnight.


BWSMITH
My opinion is, of course, that the universe was created in the Big Bang and everything evolved through natural processes.


THOMAS CASSIDY
What sayeth the scriptures?
Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,
Now the question is, do you believe the bible, or don't you?


DON
Actually, Dr. Cassidy, Mr. Smith has made it abundantly clear that he does not agree with the Scriptures on this matter; or, to be somewhat more fair toward Mr. Smith, that he doesn't believe in our literal interpretation of the word yom as a 24 hour day.


THOMAS CASSIDY
Which is why I quoted from Exodus instead of Genesis. The passage in Exodus is clearly relating the days of Creation to the day of rest for the Jews. It is absolutely ludicrous to think the 4th commandment means to "do no work for an indefinite period of time possibly encompassing several million years duration." The context is a perfect, inspired interpretation of what a "day" is in both Exodus and, due to the reference to Creation, in Genesis as well.
So, the original questions remains, do we believe the bible or not?


BWSMITH
Thomas wrote:
What sayeth the scriptures? Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is,

Actually, the Sabbath was given in remembrance of the rest that God gave Israel from slavery:
"Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."
Deut 5:15
It was the P writers that turned it into a cosmological observance.


Now the question is, do you believe the bible, or don't you?

Sure, I "believe the Bible", but the question is, how do we properly interpret what the Bible is really saying?


Thomas wrote:
Which is why I quoted from Exodus instead of Genesis. The passage in Exodus is clearly relating the days of Creation to the day of rest for the Jews.

And yet, this detail is absent from Deut 5:15.


So, the original questions remains, do we believe the bible or not?

Properly interpreted, yes. However, the reference in Deuteronomy tying the Sabbath to freedom from slavery is more likely the earlier of the two.
Israel would have recognized that the "sabbat" was the time that near-east cultures designated for the rest of the gods (Ishtar). It is through the power of God that Israel was saved from slavery in Egypt and thus through the grace of God that Israel is the one who rests from its labor on the sabbath, not God.


Don wrote:
Actually, Dr. Cassidy, Mr. Smith has made it abundantly clear that he does not agree with the Scriptures on this matter; or, to be somewhat more fair toward Mr. Smith, that he doesn't believe in our literal interpretation of the word yom as a 24 hour day.

Actually, that would make me an Old-Earth-Creationist, when I am actually a Theistic Evolutionist.

In the mind of the Priestly writer, "Yom" most certainly meant a literal, 24-hour-day. He also believed in a flat earth surrounded by water with a hard firmament in the sky with holes in it to let the rain through. Day and night were realms of time and independent of the presence of a sun. Plants were a property of the earth itself and therefore, they didn't need the "breath of life" (even though plants do breathe). The mythical Leviathan was also a real sea creature.

Generally speaking, Gen 1 is a prosaic, more doctrinally precise rewrite of Psalm 104 as polemic against the Enuma Elish. (Psalm 104, in turn, comes from the Hymn to the Aten, written by the monotheistic Pharoah Aken-Aten of Egypt (King Tut's dad).)

None of Gen 1-11 represents literal science or history. History (and thus God's formal revelation of Himself to man) begins with Abraham in Gen 12


GINA
What, nobody's brought up eight days yet? Well, I guess I just did. Any comments?


JERONIMO
It only took God six days to create the world. This is shown directly in God's Word. Gen. 1:3-5 says:
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

These verses show that the light was made the first day. This light isn't at all like the sun. It is a light that can't help plants grow. This is much more different then the sun.
Also Gen. 1:11-19 says:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the third day.
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that It was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

The first few verses tell that the grass and plants were created. There is no sun yet, so the plants won't be able to live long without it. If the days are not the same as today, then we would have no plants, because the sun, moon and stars were created the day AFTER the plants were. This can only mean that God didn't create the earth, or that it was a literal six day period. The seventh day God rested.


HAL EATON
To be honest, God didn't create light. He created a wide spectrum of electro-magnetic energy, a very small portion of which he patterned for all seeing creatures to utilize as light. (The Biblical authors were probably afraid of the dark; thus, they praised God for giving light.) Other portions of the spectrum were assigned by God to provide heat. Mankind has further developed segments of that God-created energy to use as electricity, as radio waves (AM and FM), as TV wavelengths (VHF--Very High Frequency--and UHF--Ultra High Frequency), as X-rays, Lasers, etc.

Biblical writers knew what 24-hour days were, but those time segments were limited to one tiny planet, a satellite of the Sun, which was their name for one of the billions of stars which were of necessity created by God when he started the whole universe. Fortunately, God was not limited by the knowledge and experience of the early Biblical authors.

The anthropomorphic God--the one created by man using man's limited terminology, appreciation, concepts, and language--must be only a tiny compilation of what God is really capable of. Luckily, He is not limited by our descriptions of Him.

Arguments as to God's expertise in Creation which are limited to quoting verses from a supposedly inerrant scripture only scratch the surface of God's majesty; those scratches indelibly mar our resultant picture of God. My God turns out to be far greater in every dimension than the one pictured in supposedly scientifically correct Old Testament recordings.

I can hear it now: "Your mean you don't believe the Bible???"


CHRIS TEMPLE
To be honest, God didn't create light.

Well, to be honest – he did. Genesis 1:3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God created all things ex nihilo, out of nothing. There is nothing that exists which wasn’t created out of the mind of God, and there is nothing created which wasn’t created by Jesus Christ.

Col 1: 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.


Biblical writers knew what 24-hour days were, but those time segments were limited to one tiny planet, a satellite of the Sun, which was their name for one of the billions of stars which were of necessity created by God when he started the whole universe. Fortunately, God was not limited by the knowledge and experience of the early Biblical authors.

God is limited by nothing – nevertheless he has chosen to create, and create man in his own image on this “one tiny planet, a satellite of the Sun”. the earth is not the center of the universe, but it is the center of God’s eternal plan of redemption for the glory of his own name.


The anthropomorphic God--the one created by man using man's limited terminology, appreciation, concepts, and language--must be only a tiny compilation of what God is really capable of. Luckily, He is not limited by our descriptions of Him.

While it is true at times that the biblical writers wrote in anthropomorphisms so that God’s dealings with his creation would be more understandable to men, those anthropomorphisms are God-breathed into Scripture and are not “created by man”. God’s word is his special revelation to the believer, to instruct him in righteousness and redemption. And redemption is rooted in the biblical story of creation. The only “anthropomorphic God” that exists is the one created in the imagination of those who deny the One True God who reveals himself in Scripture.


Arguments as to God's expertise in Creation which are limited to quoting verses from a supposedly inerrant scripture only scratch the surface of God's majesty; those scratches indelibly mar our resultant picture of God. My God turns out to be far greater in every dimension than the one pictured in supposedly scientifically correct Old Testament recordings.

God’s word, the Bible is wholly inerrant, and reveals to us the plan of God’s redemption through Jesus Christ. while it is true that Scripture is all truth, it is also true that it does not contain all exhaustive truth. Rather it reveals the truth of God which he has ordained to give to us. However, all things necessary for understanding God’s character and purpose are revealed in the Scriptures, and there exists no other truth that contradicts Scripture.

It is always amusing when someone wants to “liberate” God from the Bible, claiming to defend God as bigger than the Scriptures. However, in attempting to do so, that person actually limits God by claiming him as “My God”, thereby confining him to the restraints of one finite man’s opinions of him. Rather, God has chosen to reveal himself to us through his Scriptures, and through the incarnate Jesus Christ in the Scriptures. God is all he has said he is: the Great I AM. There is no other.

Hebrews 1:1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,
2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.


GINA
Are you going with the theory that the electro-magnetic energy was created on the first day, and the sun and moon on the fourth day? How would you divide the first into morning and evening? Or is it simply referring to 24 hours divided by??


BWSMITH
Before you try to interpret "light" as physical photons, be sure to note the literary parallelism present in Gen 1 that serves as an aid to interpreting what the Priestly writer really meant.
Check out the following link from Bandstra's OT book:
Priestly Creation Story (http://www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/CH1/CH1_1A1.HTM)

Notice that the first three days are the creation of realms of the cosmos. Light and darkness (day 1) are realms of time, and the timekeeping lights are created on the fourth day to populate it. The heavenly waters and earthly waters are separated on day 2, and the birds and fish populate them on day 5. The dry land and its plants are created on day 3 and populated by animals and man on day 6.
Therefore, light should not be interpreted as a "thing" that is created, but a separated "realm", since it is listed in the first three days.
One can imagine from the point of view of the 6th c.BC that "day" is the time when the whole sky is filled with light (and the sun just happens to be in the center of the day) but it is not obvious that the light of day comes from the sun, but it comes from the entire sky. Hence, "day" is a realm of time and not a "thing" that was created.


GINA
Well, since God himself is light, I can see what you're saying.
I have an odd way of thinking, and I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, but I'll look up the link and see what I learn!