in 6×24 hours?

Originally posted on August 27, 2009 – by Andre Piet

From a visitor of this site I received the following email.

Hello André,

At first I had quite some difficulty with your view on the account of the creation of heaven and earth — brainwashed as I am by the traditional doctrine of creation — but I must admit that it sounds so logical and so in line with the written Word of God that I can hardly do anything else but acknowledge it. It does surprise me that probably very few people on this earth are aware of this view (…)

Kind regards,
x

From several sides I have heard similar reactions. At first it may perhaps seem strange that God told Adam about the creation in six days and brought “the book of the generation of heaven and earth” into being (Genesis one, that is). Why? Because we have never heard it that way before. And you know: what the farmer does not know, he does not eat. Thát is why in practice it is so difficult for many even to consider something different. The article ‘nine propositions about Genesis one’ sets out a number of arguments that stimulate the reader to let go of so-called ‘self-evident truths’ and to think ‘outside the box’. On purely biblical grounds a surprising, yet strictly literal reading of the first chapters of the Bible is proposed.

6×24 hours?

Over the last half year, especially due to controversy within the Evangelische Omroep, there has been much discussion about Genesis 1. To the public it was presented in such a way that a literal reading of Genesis 1 means that the world was created in 6×24 hours. That is misleading for two reasons. In the first place, the Bible does not know days of 24 hours at all. In fact, in Genesis 1 we read: “And God calls the LIGHT DAY, and the darkness He calls Night” (1). A day, according to the divine definition, is therefore half a day and thus (on average) twelve hours. As Jesus later also rhetorically stated: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (2).

done

Furthermore, we read in Exodus 20:11: in six days YHWH DID the heaven and the earth. Not ‘created’, as is usually incorrectly concluded. DID — that is what it says. It is the same verb that is also used in the preceding verses: “six days shall you DO all your work… but the seventh day… you shall not DO any work”. “Do” can refer to all kinds of activities, depending on the context. In Exodus 20:11 reference is made back to the first chapters of Genesis.

And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it He rested (lit. ceased) from all His work which God had created to make. THIS IS the book of the generation (LXX) of the heaven and the earth…
Genesis 2:3,4

in 6×12 hours!

God DID give an account and in six days brought “the book of the generation of heaven and earth” into being. Take note: not in 6×24 hours but “in six days”! During the nights NOTHING took place. Not because GOD slept, but because Adam rested! (3)

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footnotes:
(1) Genesis 1:5
(2) John 11:9
(3) Isaiah 40:28. The nightly rest, just like the rest of the seventh day, was intended “for man” (Mark 2:27).

Delen: